by Milana Jacks
“I feel you glaring at me,” she said, “and I want you to know Jamie is cute too.”
“Hear that? I’m a fucking peach.”
“Yeah, fell-off-the-apple-tree kind of a peach.”
Rey stepped forward.
Jamie followed. “Where’re you going?”
“To make a sale,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
“Quit caging me! I can walk down the driveway.”
With that, Rey wobbled down the driveway.
I raised an eyebrow. “Caging?”
“I may’ve suggested it.”
“Very cute.”
“So,” Jamie continued while watching Rey, “me and you got a problem.” Jamie spoke of the dominance problem. When our father’s three dominant sons started challenging his rules, he pitted Jamie and me against each other. We took the bait, but Goner stepped in and showed us another way, showed us how to work off our beasts. We trained longer and harder. More than once we got placed in the middle of Tineyan forests, which forced us to work with each other. This training went on until Jamie got into an argument with our father. Jamie and Father couldn’t coexist, and Jamie didn’t want to have to kill him, for Mom’s sake.
Jamie, the oldest, boarded a ship, and we left for Earth with him. Since we had humans to worry about, we forgot our dominance issue for years, but after Goner died, and I found Dewlyn, it surfaced again. New City, designed for me and my mate, would help overcome this problem. But I didn’t think the city apart was necessary, and I didn’t want the burden of leadership. I could control myself if only he’d stop picking on her. “We don’t need another city. We need to stay together. Don’t be like Father. You hate him for making us leave.”
“No choice. And besides, Dewlyn is…a wild card.”
I controlled my temper in all things except when it came to my mate. My brother meddled in my business with Dewlyn. “She is mine.”
“I’m looking out for you. And her. She took the key. She’s working with someone. If she’s working with Men of Earth, we need to know.”
Anger flared, probably showed in my eyes, and my blood boiled. Instantly, my muscles filled in and fur replaced my hair and the skin on the back of my neck. I spoke through my battle-formed teeth, “Dewlyn is my mate. I will handle her and anything involving her. You will stand down.”
Jamie peeled his gaze away from Rey and locked it with mine. “You are my brother, and I fucking love you. If she threatens you, your well-being or her well-being, I will put her in a room with padded walls until she comes to accept that she belongs with you, because what happened to Benji with Rey’s sister…” Jamie cleared his throat. “I put a bullet in his head, then had to call his parents and arrange a pickup. I won’t be doing that shit no more, so you do what you gotta do, and if she runs off again, I’m gonna knock you out, cage you, and then I’m going after her without you.”
“Try it.”
“Fix the shit, Vice. Find out what’s the matter with her. She used to look at you like you were a god. Find out what happened to her inside the community. Something happened.”
I tilted my head. “Why you say that?”
“You know Rey didn’t have an accident. You know her uncle hurt her.” I nodded, and he continued. “But I can’t go around saying my mate was probably raped. She asked me not to, so I didn’t. Nobody knows. They hurt the girls in Community Seven, so I shut it down.”
My fists clenched, and I looked up at the sky, closed my eyes, and tried to settle my mind when all I could think about was going to her dad and ripping out his throat. Back in Tineya, the dominant of the family sheltered unmated females until they mated. Once mated, the mate sheltered them. Without saying it, Jamie had said he thought Dewlyn had suffered the same fate as Rey had between the time I bought her and the time I picked her up.
This meant her father had lied and hadn’t sheltered her as he should’ve. But fuck, that community had the best reputation. They worshiped their god. They were…nice people. Still, it would explain why Dewlyn felt safest out there on her own. She might resent me for buying her, and she felt I couldn’t shelter her.
Wrong. I could and I would shelter her and our babies. But first, she needed to give me answers and a chance, trust me with her body and mind. “If they touched her, they will pay,” I mumbled and started walking back inside.
Rey’s hound barked.
Something fast and red zipped past the side of the house.
Fuck. Me.
I gunned after her.
Chapter Seven
Dewlyn
I beat feet with fury, no longer that girl who tripped over herself when she looked back. Hair flying around me, I raced across the street, leapt over the neighbor’s roses, the little stone frogs in her garden, and the frantic poodle in my way. Then, I hopped on the poodle’s house and swung my body across the fence. I had to get out of this neighborhood and into the busy City Park.
Vice ran faster than me. I needed wheels. Frantically, I searched the street.
There! Down the street. A red, four-wheel, all-terrain vehicle was parked haphazardly next to the space car on the driveway. Keys in the ignition. Thank you, baby Jesus. I sprinted, hopped on the ATV seat with a thump, and threw it in reverse.
I looked behind me.
Barefoot and shirtless, Vice rounded the corner, murder in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be in a rush. Instead, he strolled down the middle of the street. “Don’t do it!” he bellowed loud enough for people to pour out of the houses. “I will chase you to the end of the world!”
I revved the engine.
His gaze drifted down to the reverse brake lights, then back to me.
“I’ll do it!” I said.
Now closer, still strolling down the street, Vice hit his chest. “Oh yeah?”
He dared me to run him over? Truth or dare? Always dare.
He spread his arms, and his lips stretched into a smile, though the pale red of his eyes told me I might’ve just finally driven him crazy. He jumped in place, cracked his neck.
He was daring me.
I reversed off the driveway, leaving the stunned ATV owner and his family at their front door. With Vice in his kill mode and my collar with his name around my neck, nobody intervened. ATV in the middle of the street, Vice about seventy feet away, I released the brake and went reverse full throttle at him.
He advanced on me, then jumped.
I steered right and shifted to Drive.
Vice’s claws scraped the back bumper.
I gunned the ATV across the back fields, entered the City Park, drove over the grass, zigzagged between the tree trunks, trying to shake him off my tail.
But I couldn’t. Damn. He sprinted, then leapt. I hit the brake. He overshot me. I turned a sharp right just as he leapt again and his ass hit the seat behind me. His leg swung up and over my right one. I steered, turning in a circle. His long leg slid to the grass, his feet hitting the ground while he held on. “Watch the tree!”
I turned the gas handle to the max.
Just before I hit the tree, I steered to the left. “Ahhhh!”
Vice’s legs far too long for the small ATV, caught the tree trunk, and his body flew off. He didn’t stay down. Damn it! I couldn’t shake him off. The only way to leave the park right now was over the fence. I revved the engine, gunned the ATV. The small ATV had little room to roam between the trunks, but I managed, bumping and crashing, hitting trunks with the tires, almost falling off twice, but I broke through the edge of the park and stopped at the last tree right before the fence.
Leaving the ATV, I scrambled up the trunk. Palms scratched, blood welling from the wounds I ignored, I hooked my legs over the first thick branch and strained, pulling myself up. Two more to go. I pushed my body while my muscles tingled, threatening to give out.
Somewhere around the middle of the tree, I found a thick branch. I balanced, bounced, testing it for strength. It was strong and thick and would ho
ld my weight. Good to go. Hands outstretched to the sides, I walked along the length, closing in on the upper end of the fence.
Under me, twigs cracked.
Vice was here.
I jumped.
My body slammed against the fence, and I gripped the rusted iron spikes on the top. I pulled myself up, spent muscles quivering.
I looked down.
Determined, Vice climbed. I focused on holding the iron and pulling against the strain. When his grunts got closer, I kicked out with my left foot and caught what I hoped was his head. I kicked again and again.
“Get your ass down here right now.”
“Forget about me, Vice. I’m never gonna be a good little wife for you, I’m not gonna have babies, and I sure as fuck can’t cook. I hate cleaning. I hate closed spaces. I want to live in the fucking sky.” Right foot on top of the fence, I pulled myself up with a grunt. Stomach against the spikes, I looked down. Vice was halfway up the fence and progressing fast, not even using his legs to help him climb. Damn, he was strong. Left arm, right arm, he was next to me in a blink, his fist wrapped around my bicep.
He yanked me back down.
My lower body, like deadweight, fell. My knees scraped against the fence, but I hung on. Knuckles white, I held on to the iron as if it were my lifeline. Nobody would find the key; nobody would eat. If I went back to Vice, I’d stay there with a man who loved me. I too was tired of running. But he’d left me when I told him not to leave me. I strained, pulling my body back up.
One hand came over my hip.
I back-headed him.
Crack.
Maybe I’d broken his nose, but I couldn’t think about that now. The rusted iron bars scraped my palm, and I screamed when I pulled upward.
My right hand gave out.
Left hand on the fence, I tried to get the right one back up. Vice gripped my right wrist and curled my hand at the small of my back.
“You think it’s the red hair or it’s just this one?” came from below. Through the jungle of leaves, I saw two beasts standing on each side of a tree. Mayhem waved. “I wager my best knife on you, girl,” he said.
Jamie wasn’t as entertained. He balanced on his heels, his silver eyes trained on his brother.
“Dewlyn, baby, you’ll break something if you fall,” Vice said. “Let go.”
Hand folded against the small of my back, I extended my middle finger.
He swiped his face against my shoulder to clean the blood from his nose.
“Errr, Alpha,” Mayhem said to Jamie, “this one’s gonna hurt herself running.”
“No shit, genius,” Vice mumbled, then swung around me, trapping me between the fence and his body. “You gotta come down,” he said at my ear.
“Oh, now you wanna save me, Romeo?” I swung my head back and missed his nose. My bicep shook, my left hand calling a time out. Vice pressed against me, closing the cage.
“I’m done with this drama,” Jamie said in a voice that bore no argument. “Get her. The entire city is starting to walk down here. You two look ridiculous.”
“Listen to me.” Vice’s hand came over my left one on the fence and held me in place. “Give me another chance. We can’t go on like this.”
“Leave me alone like you left me at the community. If you did it then, you can do it now. Ahhhhh!” I thrashed against his front, my face scraping the fence. With my legs, I pushed away from the fence, my back against him.
Twisting, I bit his shoulder.
He let go of the fence.
We fell, his hands around me, and his right side hit the grass.
Thump!
My teeth rattled, but I didn’t relent. I kicked, hands gripping the wet grass. I tried to get hold of something to lift up. My nails dug into the dirt, stars played over my eyes, the shelter seeming miles away, not right under the bakery two blocks from the Park. Through a blur, a syringe appeared before my eyes. Vice flipped me, my back flat on the ground. He held my hands above my head in one of his.
Alpha Beast crouched next to us. He was unperturbed, watched me, calm and cool, before he ripped off the needle cap with his teeth.
Another needle.
Yeah, put me down like a dog.
Silver eyes bore down on me. I looked from Jamie back to Vice. Blood trailed down from his nose over his mouth onto his chest. “I’m sorry about your nose,” I said.
“It’ll heal.”
I smiled a sad smile. A tear escaped my eye. “You were my Prince Charming,” I told Vice. “You were supposed to swoop down on your iron horse and take me with you and away from poverty, where I could buy a pair of jeans and a new skater. You weren’t supposed to leave me there for another month, because by the time you came back, I was a woman without the woman parts. If you took me with you, they wouldn’t have had the time to remove my parts. I’d have given you all the beast babies you wanted. But I can’t, and it’s your fault. Who buys something and then leaves it? You buy shit and take it home with you. Right then and there. You take it.”
Vice
My breath caught at her revelation. I stumbled, then sat on the grass next to her. My chest felt hollow, as if my world broke. I opened my mouth, tried saying something, anything, but nothing came out. People gathered around us, not too close, yet close enough. They whispered, pointed fingers, and I tuned them out.
Silence wrapped around my mind as I tried to process what she’d told me. They removed her parts? Images of a helpless Dewlyn came. I gritted my teeth. Dewlyn struggling to get away just like she did with me. People’s hands on her, forcing her to do shit she didn’t want to do. Dewlyn crying for help when nobody was there to help her. I could’ve been there. I should’ve been there.
Jamie broke the silence first. “Did she just say what I think she said?”
Dewlyn stared at the sky above us and whispered, “The morning after my surgery, my mom explained that the pairs from our community did not breed beast babies. It’s like the Bible over there, something we do but don’t speak of. We’re conditioned; we serve God, the creator of men. But, you see, I refused the nasty tea, refused their values, the driving force of their existence, so they took the driving force of mine.”
Jamie spun and threw the syringe. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Anytime, brother, we’re a go.”
Jamie spoke some more, but I couldn’t hear him past the buzzing in my ears. The world sort of closed in on me, my chest constricted, and I struggled to breathe. Maybe my heart was breaking, I wouldn’t know, but I did know the day I left her, this was how she must’ve felt. Heartbroken. What a mate I turned out to be. They…they butchered her so she couldn’t give me babies, so she couldn’t breed with me. What kind of people did that? Humans. Humans did that. There was no end to their evil. We’d never give them this planet back. Never.
“Rey can’t see, but you are blind,” Dewlyn told Jamie, and I exhaled a breath I held. “Communities fuck you in the ass. All of you. The girls who get paired, then hate the mates run away. Some of them are conditioned from birth. Some of them are forced to leave men they love for beasts they don’t even know. Some of them are so desperate to stay at home, they end their lives. I tried to give pairs choices, because choice is not a privilege. It’s a right. I found a shelter. You know, like a house where we could do whatever we wanted. No parents to sell us, no mates who wanted to breed us. They depend on me, but you kept my ass here, and now people are hungry. I stole your key, Alpha Beast. Kiss my ass. I won’t tell you where I put it.”
Jamie stared down at her as if seeing her for the time. Then he and Mayhem left us.
I remembered the day. I remembered she begged me to take her with me, and I didn’t. At the sight of her, her potty mouth, her spirit, I’d formed an opinion that my mate was a little firecracker, a misguided youngster, who needed a bit of direction on how to deal with her new role in life, which was to be my pair. Her father promised to guide her. And he’d done just that.
When I’d picked her up, in body if not in mi
nd she’d aged a decade. At first, I thought it was a good thing, but soon realized Dewlyn had fallen into some kind of depression. I tried to shake her out of it by being honest and telling her we were mates. It did the opposite. And now I learned why. She wondered how a mate could leave a mate behind.
I swept the crowds with my gaze. Some cowered, turning around and going about their business. The braver ones stayed. “All right. We’re gonna take this inside the house.”
When I picked her up in my arms, she didn’t protest. It hurt more than my broken nose.
I walked quickly, her head bouncing off my shoulder. “Everything that’s happened before this moment is over. Say that it’s over.”
When she didn’t answer, I squeezed her tight, demanding she did. “It’s over,” she said.
“That’s my good girl.”
I didn’t know how I’d fix us.
Chapter Eight
Vice
In our bathroom, Dewlyn threw up, then sat on the floor, pulled up her knees, and rested her chin on them. Her hair was matted, her body was scratched, and she looked broken. I flushed the toilet and allowed her time to cry on the cold tile of our bathroom floor while I fixed my nose and wiped the blood off my face. I knew she wouldn’t let me touch her, so I didn’t even try cleaning her up, but focused on figuring out what to do with her.
She’d found a shelter for others, helped them out, and yet when she cried for help, nobody came to her rescue. I should’ve been there. I wanted her forgiveness, but I couldn’t ask for it.
Dewlyn was my wild fire. Strong, capable, and daring, but also a fragile human. As I looked her over, I realized I needed her out of this state of mind. I wasn’t an ignorant idiot. I’d read every history book I could find, and I knew the human mind could break even when the body seemed perfectly fine.