by Milana Jacks
“They don’t.”
“So it must look like an egg, then.”
I pictured him searching for the vegetable. “Not really. Eggplant is big, smooth, and purple. You can’t miss it.”
“So it looks like a tortured dick. Anyway, what’s it for?” he asked.
“I was gonna make you moussaka.”
“Say that again.”
“It’s Greek.”
“I don’t eat dick plants. Forget it. Make me a steak. I’ll get potatoes.”
“No, wait. Moussaka is delicious, and I have a great recipe from Grans. It has ground beef in it.”
“No eggplant.”
“I want you to try it. It comes in layers, and eggplant is one of them.”
“No problem. Layer the thing with potatoes. No eggplant. Wait a minute. Light salad dressing? I don’t think so.”
“Baked chips,” I said, firmly. “And pads with wings.” I waited for his horrified response. His boots stomped, and a minute later, a bag—potatoes, likely—hit the bottom of the cart. “Done. Let’s get pads.”
We moved around.
“You don’t mind getting pads?” I asked.
“Nope.”
Awww.
“You can’t be bleeding all over the furniture. I got you covered, baby.” We stopped. “Hold on, they got a whole aisle for this shit, and fifty of them got wings. Your peach gonna fly.” Jamie amused himself.
“Hi, there,” a woman said. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Could you get me Jazzies number three with wings?”
“Over here. Which package?”
“Thirty-six pack.”
“I’m sorry, we’re all out. Here are the smaller ones, or we have a large pack in another brand.” I was sure she pointed them out. Jamie took my hands and put packaged pads in them. “What’s the difference between these two?” I asked.
Silence resumed.
Jamie tapped his foot. “Today?”
“Um, um…”
If you didn’t know Jamie like I did, you’d be scared of him. The woman was probably terrified. Dressed in leathers, with his wolfy eyes and big teeth, Jamie was a menace. Not to mention he was the Alpha Beast of Beast City. At least he hadn’t “minded” her.
I opened my mouth to say either of the pads would do when Jamie said, “Mind. She asked what’s the difference, and you’re looking at me like I got answers. I don’t have a pussy. You do, and I bet it bleeds. Pads?”
“Um…”
“My peach hears fine, but if you um and hum, she can’t understand. I can’t understand. Fuck it. I got the pads. One of each brand.” Pads flew out of my hands. Boots shuffled away. “The fuck is wrong with…” He sniffed loudly. “Baby, there’s perfume on this thing.”
“Some women like—”
“No scented pads for you. Wings, no scent. A large pack.”
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The packs landed in the cart. “What else? Let’s see.” He read, “A medium-size pack. Got it. No panty liners. No underwear for you on off days. What’s next? Hound food. We’ll buy him pussy food. He chewed my boot, then hid under the bed like a pussy. Did you know that?”
“I’ll talk to him about the shoes.”
“How?”
“I have a way with animals.”
Jamie cupped my cheek, stroked it with his thumb, and I leaned into his palm. “Yeah, you do,” he said.
An announcement broke the spell, and we moved again.
“Whatcha staring at?” Jamie shouted. “Fuck off to the next aisle. Hurry up, baby, people are looking at you, and I’m gonna have you roast somebody.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re looking at you.”
“Why?”
“This city is yours. You’re grunting and stomping in the girly aisle. It makes people nervous.”
“You know what? I’m gonna put you in the cart,” he declared.
“The shopping cart?”
“Mm-hm.”
“It’s better if we don’t draw any more attention.”
“We’re not. I’m gonna put you in the cart and push you to the deli, where we’re gonna grab sandwiches and eat them at home.”
“And what should we eat tomorrow?”
“I’ll get someone to do this for us and deliver it to the door. Wouldn’t you like that better?”
I laughed when he plopped me down to sit inside the cart. He propelled us forward, cutting corners left and right with my hair flying all over my face. I gripped the sides of the cart and laughed.
Mid-run, Jamie said, “Baby, we gonna spin. Remember how we spin? Hang on.”
“No, we don’t have to do that.”
“Hang on.”
“Aaaaahhh!”
Jamie laughed and, a spin later, stopped at the deli. “Can I help you?” the woman asked.
Jamie read the entire menu for me.
Life dealt me a wild card, I thought. Jamie was my wild card.
Afterword
Hello! I want to take ten seconds and thank you for reading Blind Beast Mate. And extend my thanks to my beta reader AJ who’s read my books since 2014 (before I published) and my super awesome editor Linda and her team who clean up my words. I own all the typos found.
If you enjoyed Jamie and Rey’s story, please leave a word or two as a review on your favorite book site.
On the next page, sneak a peak at Wild Beast Mate. Dewlyn is fire, and Vice is oh so yummy.
Wild Beast Mate
***uncorrected proof pending release
Dewlyn
You’d think by this day and age, the beasts who took over the earth after the Great Nuclear War would bring us humans out-of-the-world advanced technology. Like they could come up with some sort of a universal key set for burglars, a shape-changing key that molded to every lock you jabbed it into so that I wouldn’t have to swipe hairpins from random women as I swooped from the sky. Just sayin’.
At midnight, inside the dark office space of a recently built high-rise in the city once called Louisville, I dreamed of a universal key set as I picked a tiny little lock with hairpins I’d gotten from Rey, my sister-in-law, before I ran away from Vice, my beast mate. Before I ran away from him the second time. The first time, after Vice had proclaimed me his mate and not just a pair he’d bought because of my red hair, petite body, and pixie face, I’d knocked him out in his sleep and run. I’d just wanted him to leave me alone. But he hadn’t.
The second time, he caught me when I tried to rescue Rey from drowning. Then he got smart and put me in a cage at night while he slept. But one morning, while Vice showered, my sister-in-law—bless her good heart—gave me her hairpins. I picked the cage’s lock, freeing myself, then took to the skies with her unused horrific pink bike. For a few days, I huddled inside the shelter I’d set up for me and other runaway pairs. Until we ran out of food, and, again, I needed to get out there and get some.
Luckily, my friend Patty, our house sister, got news from her boyfriend just as I set out to raid fridges and pantries in the Beast City. He’d heard of New City, a city on the rise, and located a storage place where the construction workers got their food supplies. That much food? So worth checking out, and so I traveled to New City.
At first, I scouted New City for a temporary home, and once I found one, I scouted the construction company’s building. Now I readied to rob the construction manager’s office of the key to the storage place. However temporary my stay might be, I welcomed the relocation into New City. Vice flew over the Beast City, relentless in his pursuit to bring me in and lock me up inside his house. So my mission out here in the middle of Nowhere, Kentucky, afforded me an opportunity to get away from his big hands.
The beige paint on the office walls, the leather furniture and polished metal desk, along with a new carpet decorating the office all stank with that telltale new smell. I pulled the hem of my T-shirt over my nose.
Beyond the wide window behind me, most of New City rested in quiet slumber. O
n the ground floor, four hundred and twenty feet below my feet, the security guards snored at their posts. Maybe not both of them, but I knew at least one snored away while the other tried to keep his eyes open, alert to the monotony of the empty building on a monitor before him.
Since escaping Vice, I’d observed many guards, detailed many buildings back in the Beast City. When I first left Vice, and without a roof over my head, I’d survived by scavenging the Dumpsters and sleeping inside empty homes. Then I found an abandoned basement right under a bakery and spent a few weeks hiding in there, coming up only long enough to hoard some food. One day, I met Patty, another runaway, who knew her shit around the kitchen. Together we founded the very first and only Shelter from the Beasts. The shelter hid paired woman who’d refused pairings, and we’ve since grown to eighteen women. And all those mouths needed to eat.
My stomach growled.
It might as well be a beast in its own right, I was so hungry. I jabbed the pin, trying to force the lock open. The pin snapped. I flicked the broken piece. I popped my knuckles and adjusted my backpack, then crouched, eye level with the desk drawer where I hoped I’d find the storage key. If the key wasn’t in the drawer, the next option was the safe inside the wall. If it was in there, I’d need to blow the safe door. When it exploded, the guards would figure out someone up here was robbin’ their asses, so I’d need to drug them before blowing shit up. I really hoped the manager hadn’t felt the need to hide the key.
I jabbed a pair of new hairpins inside the small lock, then fiddled with the metal until a click sounded in the silent room. Sweat accumulated on my forehead, and I dabbed it on my sleeve, then peeked inside the drawer. Winner winner chicken dinna! Literally. I haven’t had a chicken in like…months, ever since I’d escaped Vice for the first time.
The key was a rectangular plastic card half the size of my palm. It was smooth and transparent, but much thicker than the keys beasts used in the city. It looked outdated. I pocketed it, then peeked back inside the drawer. Oh, a protein bar! I unwrapped it. Sitting down cross-legged, I bit into the delicious morsel. Mmmm, orange flakes and nuts coated in chocolate.
The dust played above the carpet as my flashlight searched the room.
Shit. I swallowed and tilted my head, listening.
From the hallway, the security guard shouted, “Got a light alert for twenty-three zero five.”
What light? I looked around the room. Sure enough, a tiny night lamp shone dimly in the corner of the room. The motion sensors in the office had worked, and the lamp had lit up while I busied myself with the picks.
The door handle jerked.
I peeked over the desk and stuck my hand into my pocket.
The security guard, in a black uniform, fiddled with the lock. I took a few seconds to size him up, and unfortunately, the beast was fit, which meant he wouldn’t tire as quickly as an unfit beast. Time to go. I crawled across the office space to the adjacent suite’s polished, dark wooden door.
Above my head, the flashlight hit the door. “Got a guy in here!”
Before the building locked down, I opened the door, then turned. When the beast stepped inside, I got a short blowgun from my pocket and pressed it over my lips.
He advanced.
I blew.
Hit! Right in the neck.
The beast wouldn’t collapse, but the poisoned dart would slow him down. Adjusting my pack, I ran to the other office’s exit door, skipping the visitors’ chairs in my way.
The lights lit up the hallway.
The alarms blared through the building.
Feet pounded the carpeted floors. “Stop!”
Not a chance! I wasn’t getting caught again.
Small round lights above the metal doors signaled that the elevator was on the first floor, so I ran to the fire exit at the end of the hallway, the guard on my heels. Or was it both guards by now? I didn’t look back, only forward.
“Climbing up!” the guard shouted.
The alarms triggered the lockdown right after I opened the exit door.
Leaping three stairs at the time, heart pounding, I fisted my hands and worked my shoulders and legs twenty floors to the roof The beasts were big, bulky guys, so I sprinted. Quick on my feet, I got to the top and kicked the exit door. Locked. Shit.
I heaved breaths along with the guard, who panted as he climbed the stairs, the poison rushing through his bloodstream. From my other pocket, I got a tiny detonator and pasted it like a piece of gum on the door right above the lock. I stepped back, covered my ears. Three, two, one. Boom! Blew the lock. I’d have used that on the safe’s door.
I pushed past the door and stepped onto the roof. Heaving breaths, mouth gaping, I propped my hands on my knees and checked the area. Full-moon light graced the star-filled winter night skies. In the distance, a giant beast ship hovered over the city. The battle cruiser looked like it would touch the moon. Beneath the ship and inside the city on top of the hills, a few stray cars passed through the night. That small neighborhood was my destination.
“Nowhere to go, man,” the wounded guard said from the bottom of the last staircase.
I leapt onto the edge of the building and yanked off my hat. My long red braid bounced off the middle of my back. “What’s up, beasty mofo? I ain’t no guy.”
Vice
Thousands of feet above the city, in the surveillance room of my battle cruiser, I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned in as if I couldn’t clearly see the scene unfolding before me on the giant screen. My mate, Dewlyn, had escaped our home again. I’d chased after her, then ordered my males to sweep the city every single hour. They’d swept for weeks and come up with nothing. It was as if she’d crawled into a hole and hadn’t come up for air.
When the wait for her to surface got too long, I flew back to my battle cruiser, dropped the ship closer to Earth, and used the air traffic search sensors to sweep for small bikes such as the one Dewlyn had stolen from my brother’s mate. Thousands of small vehicles registered. I waited for one pink bike.
Patience paid off, and I got lucky. Yesterday, a small pink bike had popped up in New City. Dewlyn rode that thing like she rode everything else: hard and fast. And so here I was with my ship’s surveillance crew. My brother followed, his mate, Rey, in tow.
Next to me, the chair protested as my brother Jamie, the Alpha Beast, leaned closer to the screen too. His eyebrows drew down. “You took her hydro-skater, didn’t you?”
“Mm-hm,” I mumbled.
“And she doesn’t seem to have Rey’s bike with her.”
“Should’ve sold that damn thing when you had the chance.”
Jamie pierced me with one of his glares. If I hadn’t grown up with this asshole, I would’ve pissed myself. But I had grown up with him, and also our father, so I kept staring at the screen, ignoring the glare.
“If she doesn’t have transport,” he said, “what the fuck is she doing on the edge of the building?”
I shrugged. “The fuck if I know.”
“If this was Rey, I’d have gone mad already.”
“You are mad. There’s no need to go anywhere.” I watched the screen. The guard—finally!—caught up with her. He heaved breaths, one hand holding the side of his neck. When he saw her standing on the edge, his eyebrows shot up, and he showed her his empty hands. This beast was about five feet ten inches, with a shaved head and large hoop earrings. Medrix. I’d make him run laps for a week. Maybe then he’d build up some stamina. I popped my knuckles, wanting to break his face.
“All right, bitch, listen up,” he said. “Don’t be jumping on my watch. I can’t have it.” He motioned with his hand to the exit. “You can walk. Just don’t jump. It’s not worth it.”
Dewlyn pointed to the two-inch-wide black leather collar around her neck. My collar. The white inscription one could read from five hundred fucking miles away but Medrix had missed, read: Property of Vice, Tineyas Second.
Wide-eyed, Medrix swallowed. “A pair,” he said. “You’re V
ice’s pair. Do not fucking jump on my watch!”
“I won’t if you give him a message.”
Both Jamie and I approached the screen. I swiped a hand over it. “Zoom in,” I commanded.
Man, she was something. All of four feet eleven, with her long red braid swaying in the wind, smiling big brown eyes, dirty jeans, and a dirty white T-shirt over her pear-shaped, honed body, she was fire contained in a tiny, sexy box. I needed to open up that box, have it spill its secrets without burning us both. She didn’t make it easy on me, and I didn’t know why.
A glint in her eye warned me something wicked had just crossed her mind. A cold shiver ran through my body. Dewlyn pulled on the belts strapped around her thigh.
“What’s she doing?” Jamie asked.
I shrugged again.
She glanced down, to probably over six hundred feet below. A knot of fear formed in my throat.
“Tell Vice I want him to leave me alone,” she said. “Tell him I hate him.”
“Bullshit,” I argued with the screen.
Medrix advanced.
“Don’t come closer, or I’ll go over,” she said.
“She’s messing with him,” I whispered. Right?
Jamie snorted.
“Come back down,” Medrix said. “I swear I’ll let you walk out of here. You running from Vice? I won’t tell him you’re here. Just don’t jump.”
Under her feet, she kicked back the loose cement when her toes crossed the building’s edge. Below, a few lights twinkled, and to the right was an empty parking platform. Dewlyn smiled.
“Is she suicidal?” Jamie asked.
Maybe, but I’d never tell a living soul. “Nah. Adrenaline junkie. She’ll come back down when he quits begging.”