by Milana Jacks
“It feels worse.”
“What do you go by?” he asked.
A trick question. I should say my full name, as was our custom. I contemplated what to do. My mate hadn’t recognized me. Besides looking like shit with overgrown hair and filth all over me, I had a leg I knew would never mend itself and a name I hadn’t given her on the day I met her. She wouldn’t know me by name, and by now, my Alpha thought me dead and would’ve given me my remembrance name as per our customs. When a beast died, those closest to him gave him a name they associated with his life. I wondered what Jamie had named me.
Torrent ceased to exist that day at Dewlyn’s community. “Name’s Torrent.” I left out my father’s name and most definitely his title. My father, the High Priest of Tineya, had “helped” many hunters join our Beast Mother in what humans would call heaven. He might have judged even this beast’s father, so I kept my family name out of the equation.
Besides, when Men of Earth, a much weaker enemy, captured me alive, I had shamed my family. Though I had attempted to carry out the tenets of my own faith and end my life, the enemy had kept me either hungry and weak or drugged and unconscious. They tortured me for information, which I never provided.
“Just Torrent,” Zarik said. It wasn’t a question, though he knew I should’ve introduced myself using our customs with a full name, rank, and title. He didn’t seem to give a shit. This suited me fine.
“Are you in charge of this place?” I asked.
“I am. But Hasel thinks she is.” He chuckled. “She’s old enough to boss us youngsters around.”
“Mayhem’s not here?”
“He’s in New City, with his mate.”
“Congratulations. You will have heirs.”
“Hear.” Zarik glanced at my leg again, then sat on the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.
I chuckled. “They fucked me up good.”
“Humans?”
“Mm-hm.”
“They’re weak.”
“I thought that too.”
“They’re still weak. You must’ve been poisoned.” He took out a spearhead and unsheathed it. “Found these in the community, coated with poison. No scent.”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded. “Their weapon of choice.”
“At least you’re alive.”
I’d never forget the day we went after Dewlyn’s parents and had landed in what appeared to be a quiet community. Vice and Jamie had walked inside the sanctuary, and I’d kept watch. Mud stuck to my boots as I approached the wall to survey the community. They got me with an arrow in my neck. The poison spread through my body. It wasn’t painful, pleasant instead, made me want to sleep. Listless, I’d stumbled toward the sanctuary, hearing footsteps behind me.
After Jamie and Vice fell into a well, Men of Earth had lifted me from the marble floors of the Community Three sanctuary and loaded me into a truck with Felicia, our beast female. During our time in the back of the truck, I’d tried to comfort her with words because I couldn’t fight for her freedom with my body.
But that wasn’t how I lost my leg.
They knew they couldn’t keep me down for long. After I regained consciousness, they shattered my right kneecap. The pair of us, Felicia and I, rode in the back of the truck in the dark, with no food or water. And there was nothing I could do about it.
We traveled for a while and got unloaded. Lived underground for months. That was where the evil happened, the time during which everything went to shit. I couldn’t think about that now or I’d pass out.
I escaped when they loaded us back into the truck, presumably heading for our final destination. They’d made a piss stop. Right before one of our captors got back into the driver’s seat, Felicia distracted the guy by banging on the walls. It worked. The driver opened the back door and yelled at her, then forgot to latch the back of the truck. As soon as the truck picked up speed, we crawled to the door. If we both escaped, I’d be a burden for her since I couldn’t walk. I wouldn’t have it. I told Felicia to jump. She told me I wasn’t the boss of her, then opened the door. She’d looked at me and said, “You are mated.”
“How do you know?”
“I went into heat. You ignored me. Besides, I’m tagged.” She pointed to the back of her neck. “They tagged me like a fucking dog. They can track me. But you’re still free.” She kicked me out of the truck.
Now, Zarik watched me expectantly. I knew he wanted to hear how I got to be where I was. Instead of telling Zarik my shameful story, I said, “Got lucky. They weren’t paying attention, and I escaped.”
His brows furrowed. I didn’t elaborate.
The door opened and admitted Hasel, a clean white towel obscuring something in her hand. Sienna walked in behind her and closed the door. My whole body tensed. I kept expecting her to recognize me, but she didn’t even look interested. Instead, she dug into the first aid kits. Was she gonna mend me? Clean me up? It was customary for the female to tend to the warrior, but I was no warrior. Not anymore.
Hasel approached and put her aged hand on my chest. “You’re hot.”
I winked at her. “I know.”
She slapped my chest. “I have a boy your age. Don’t go flirting with me. You’ve got a raging fever.” She sat next to Zarik on the bed. Her face dropped, and her black eyes paled, a gray color now. A female ready to deliver bad news. I braced for it. “I ain’t nothin’ but a cook who’s lived long and hard enough to know a thing or two about wounds. You have a warrior spirit, and you will need it.” She lifted the towel. Under it was a saw.
“Oh God,” Sienna whispered.
I swallowed hard, and Hasel sniffed. They smelled my fear.
“If I don’t saw it off,” she continued, “you’ll expend all your energy on mending it, and there’s no mending to be done.”
“I hoped it wasn’t so bad.”
“Have you even looked at it?”
“No.”
“Look at it.”
I sighed and managed to lift onto my elbows. From the knee down, my leg was flat. The only thing holding the bones and muscle inside was the bruised blue skin. “It’s dead already,” I said.
“Do you want a horse bit?” Sienna asked me, her voice flat, her demeanor calm. She moved to stand on my right. Her blue eyes, although expressive, didn’t hold sympathy, but she was pale and didn’t look well. She’d faint.
“Leave,” I told her.
She shrugged and turned for the door. “Suit yourself.”
“The girl stays. Take the bit if you need to,” Hasel said.
“The girl leaves,” I countered.
“This is my house,” Hasel said.
“This is my…” Nothing. And everything. Sienna didn’t know I was anything other than the shell of a male on the floor about to get his limb severed. Still, if she didn’t want to be here, she wouldn’t be here. “Get out!” I bared my teeth and snapped at Sienna’s ankle.
Hasel shouted.
Zarik kicked me in the jaw. The force of the impact rattled my head, and the last thing I saw before checking out was Sienna’s skirts fluttering as she fled the room.
Soft pillows under my head and a soft bed under my body, I awoke with a sense of relief. At least both my eyes opened, no sand scraping my eyeballs. At least I wasn’t sleeping in the middle of the desert anymore. At least I’d survived. At least my mate was near. I tried to think of several more positive things I should be grateful for. My leg jerked. A reflex, I supposed. I looked down at the empty space below my right knee. Men of Earth had picked my strongest leg. Crushed it. It had healed. They crushed it again, finding it amusing that my body regenerated at a much faster rate than a human’s.
An amputee beast. A useless warrior. What the fuck was I supposed to do with my life? Become the High Priest of Earth, Jamie’s voice echoed in my head. My father and his father before him were Tineya’s priests. They served Tineya’s Alpha, counseled him, and cared for the spirit of our people. They hadn’t led any conquests. After I’d seen my fa
ther condemn a beast to death for not believing Alpha Nie was Zivot Maka’s descendant, I followed Goner into outer space.
He’d told me Earth, although primitive and ravaged by her natives, would recover and become the most beautiful planet in the universe. He’d said we would need every beast we could summon to defend Earth from other species in case they wanted to come. When I landed, I found one city and the rest of the country deserted. Compared to Tineya, it was a shock. Everything flourished in abundance on Tineya, whereas here, the only thing I found in abundance was alcohol. The humans drowned their sorrows.
A soft blue linen covered my body. I threw it to the side. An empty space from below my knee stared back at me. The nub was covered in gauze, and plastic covered the bed so I wouldn’t bleed all over the sheets. I exhaled a breath and scrubbed my face. My hands still came away filthy. I needed a bath. And a beer. An ice-cold one. Humans brewed good ale.
I sat up, and my one good foot touched the cement floor. I stood on it, wobbled, and sat back down. Growling, I stood again, arms outstretched, trying to balance myself. I leaned, leaned, and then found my balance. An empty iron bath sat in the corner. Under the window there was a small table with two chairs. Right next to it was another door, presumably leading into the bathroom. I could try to make it across the room to the bathroom. Or I could make it to the table, then from there a few steps to the bathroom. No big quest.
I hopped, lost my balance, but at the last moment, right before I ate shit on the cement, I caught the edge of the table. Relieved, I rested my weight on it. The table wobbled, screeched, and crashed under me. By some miracle, I managed to stay upright. “Fuck me.” Leaning on the window, I hopped to the small door, opened it, already pulling my dick out of my pants. I aimed. Wait a second. A damn closet. Pots, pans, first aid kits, towels, and something made of leather lay on the shelves. Turning, I slammed the door shut.
The late winter breeze blew the off-white curtains covering the window. I parted them, opened the window, and relieved myself on the lawn. There wasn’t much of a lawn, certainly not the California grass we had back in the compound in Beast City. This was sand, sand, and sand until you reached the concrete wall. Beyond the wall? More sand.
Closing the window, I spun around, ready for a voyage back to the bed.
It was all of five steps away.
It was five miles away.
I’d need a stick to act like a leg until I got up to the ship, where I hoped the med unit could fix it. I didn’t know if they’d ever had to fix a leg. I’d never even seen an incomplete beast before, probably because there had never lived a more incomplete beast. A beast with more regrets. I ought to just end it right now.
Looking around, I found nothing, and hadn’t seen any rope in the closet either. I leaned against the wall and slid down, banging the nub on the cement floor. Pain shot up from the heel I no longer had to the toes I no longer had, and all the way to my gut. I bent and held the nub, grinding my teeth.
The door opened.
With a growl, I snapped my head up.
My mate stood at the door, a tray of food in her hands. She wore a pale blue dress three sizes too big for her. It matched her eyes. Maybe I should let her feed me first, look for ways to end my life after. “Come in,” I said, and she closed the door behind her.
Gaze on the broken table, she said, “Didn’t like the furniture?”
“I’m redecorating.”
Her lips turned up, and she put the tray at the foot of the bed, then crossed the room and crouched next to me. With no resistance on my part, she threw my hand over her back, propped her shoulder under my armpit and attempted to lift me up. A pretty shade of red colored her face, and her cheeks puffed out.
I’d always known I didn’t deserve her, but in this moment when I watched her straining as she tried to lift me up, I realized I shouldn’t exist. For her sake, I should end it. She’d remember me as a stranger, not the male who’d killed her father and kidnapped her, thereby changing her life forever.
She snapped her head my way. “You think you can get off your ass and help me out?”
With her sweet face turned to me, I stared. Her pretty eyes, the color of the clear Daveko Sea, narrowed. “Did you hear what I said?” she asked.
I nodded.
“You’re gawking at me.”
Caught, but I didn’t deny it. “There’s a lot to gawk at.”
“Maybe you can stare after you get up. I need to feed you, then move on about my day.”
Right. “I can walk,” I said. “I was resting here for a minute.”
“Wobble,” she said.
“Hm?”
“You can’t walk. You can wobble.”
“A duck wobbles. I’m a beast, baby, I prowl.”
“A drake.” At my blank expression, she continued. “Duck is a female. Drake is a male.”
“Let’s settle on hopping.”
Sienna nodded. “Very well. Let’s hop. I’ll race you.”
“One leg only.” I propped myself against the wall and managed to stand upright. She followed and lifted her skirt, one knee bent, and I got a glimpse of her fair skin. My palms itched to touch her smooth thighs. I wondered if she wore panties. Fuckin’ A. I needed a lobotomy.
“You’re gawking again.”
“Guilty.” I winked at her.
“One-legged hop,” she said. “I should warn you, I’m a champion hopper.”
I chuckled. “On three. One, two… Hey!” I hopped after her, reached the bed last, and threw myself on the mattress. It creaked, and we bounced until settling back down. We lay facedown on the bed, our faces inches apart. Sienna blinked her long eyelashes. She was so pretty. I reached to swipe a stray hair away from her nose. Sienna flinched and sat up.
I followed. When I got comfortable enough with my back propped against the wall, I pointed a finger. “Cheat.”
Sienna shrugged. “Sucker. Wanna eat?”
Flirting used to come easy to me. Some women had called me a bad boy. I didn’t know about the boy part, but bad I’d earned. I smirked. “Is sweet pussy on the menu?”
Her eyes widened, and she gulped. “Sweet potato puree and—”
I lifted my hand, and she clamped her lips shut. What a dick. I wanted to slap myself. She ought to slap me. The old me, the male who didn’t exist anymore, would’ve thrown anything at his mate to make her want him. Sienna gulped and gulped as if something large had gotten stuck in her throat. “I apologize,” I said. “Among many things, I’ve also lost my mind.”
Again, she shrugged. “It happens. Stew?”
“Leave it here.”
“I’m supposed to feed you.”
“Hasel told you that?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re free to go. I still got my arms.”
She scrunched up her nose. “She won’t let me have supper if I don’t feed you.”
“I’ll tell you what. You can eat mine. I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to do.”
Sienna shook her head. “Maybe I can stay while you eat.”
I nodded and got my spoon. No knives on the tray. Not even the blunt ones to spread butter over the bread. I’d live another day.
Chapter Five
Sienna
I’d hated the beasts. Now I hated them even more. Not only did they eat people, they ate domestic animals. I hadn’t known that before. This one asked for a pussy cat. Mentally, I placed him on my shit list. He ate pussy cats, and when I imagined him chasing after my cat, Bowser, it made me nauseous. Two cats lingered on the property. They’d never leave their home, and they came out after the community raid. Even though they weren’t mine, I fed them, and I wanted to clear something up for the new guy. “I don’t know what kind of pussy you ate before you came, but pussy is off-limits around here.”
His hand shook as he brought the food to his mouth, then he dropped the spoon. Puree splashed on his chest. I threw a napkin at him, and he cleaned himself, then looked up.
I squared my shoulders. “Why, yes, Mr. Badass, pussies are off-limits. If I see you hopping after them, I will…I will trip you.”
He blinked.
Well, never mind him. “I have two pussies. They are cute, they purr, and you can’t eat them.”
“This is interesting. I did not know there could be two.”
“We can have twenty if we want. There’re stray cats everywhere. We take them in, and boom. Twenty cats.”
The beast’s eyes lifted at the corners, and his masculine laughter filled the room.
I smiled too. “What?”
He chuckled and picked up the spoon again. “Sienna, I will not eat either of your pussies.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, then give me the spoon. You’re making a mess. You may live to tell other beasts about my cats.”
Something passed over his eyes. Something dark and sad. “You think?”
“Think what?” I scooped out puree, then extended my hand with the hope he wouldn’t take a chunk out of it.
“You think I should live?”
I shrugged. “If you want. Hold on.” I tucked a pillow under his back and covered him with a sheet, glad Hasel had wrapped his middle in white cloth and he wasn’t stark naked.
The beast didn’t speak while I fed him. He ate everything, probably could’ve eaten more. Hasel had told me that if he refused food, she’d force-feed him. She’d said unpaired males in his situation often tried starving themselves and were less likely to make it through the depression caused by the severed limb. As far as she knew, this beast was unpaired. If he was paired, she’d said, he’d ask about his pair before doing anything else.
As I tidied up around him, I smelled sun and dirt, not body odor. I wasn’t sure if beasts had body odor. I should probably offer to help him bathe. I had bathed Zarik, so another beast shouldn’t be a big deal. Except, for some reason, something fluttered in my gut as I thought of seeing this beast naked. I dreaded bathing him. I’d leave him dirty. He didn’t seem to mind. I’d tell Hasel he’d refused.