Emma

Tom slept on his side. I chewed on my lip, kept glancing at the door as if expecting someone to walk in when I knew no one ever went inside Tom’s hut, a private place tucked under the sanctuary. It was one of the older structures that had remained here after the Beast Father’s first visit, when he’d provided funds and alien tech for us so we could rebuild our community. Beast Father was the only reason we still kept breathing and enjoyed a relatively decent life down here. If he hadn’t come to us, we’d all have died. Though I wasn’t sure how to get him to visit with us now. We needed his help desperately.

A gun-looking thing that healed wounds glared at me from Tom’s open closet. I could load the gun with a medicine vial from the box that sat right next to it. But Tom reserved the last of the medicine for the breeders. I knew I shouldn’t touch it.

I pressed my lips to his temple. His skin burned, and my hand on his sheets came away wet. “Tom?”

He grunted.

“Tom, you’re not well. You need to get better.”

Nothing.

“Damn it, Tom.” I shouldn’t have cursed. I glanced up at the sky and excused myself. I’d been busy in the sanctuary, then with Tom since I’d left Amoris’s quarters. I’d given Tom tea, every herb I thought would make him better, but he kept deteriorating, and now he wasn’t even responsive. I feared the worse, feared he’d die if I left for work.

What do I do? I glanced back at the closet. I didn’t know what would happen without Tom. Clensey, the warrior commander, had already incinerated almost three dozen people in Sector Six. Healthy people died inside too. When Clensey had come around asking permission, Tom nodded his head, but I wasn’t even sure Tom understood the question. He was unwell. My protests fell on deaf ears. I was just a glorified janitor around here.

Clensey didn’t leave after he got the approval. He kept staring at me, undressing me with his eyes. I didn’t like the look. But then he spat on me and called me names. Even though Tom could barely sit up, he reprimanded Clensey for it.

I couldn’t imagine Community X without Tom. Another leader would rise, no doubt, but they wouldn’t be Tom, and they certainly wouldn’t treat me the way Tom had treated me. As if I were Reagan, the child he’d lost in that dreadful family trip to the carnival.

So, I got the medicine gun and loaded it with a vial. Then I knelt by his bed, pulled down his pants, and stuck him in the buttocks. The gun whooshed and emptied. Tom didn’t flinch. I slid back his pants and covered him, put the gun in the closet, and shut off the dim light in the room. He’d rest and recover by morning. He could yell at me for giving him medicine when he felt better. I’d already lost both my parents. I wasn’t about to lose Tom too.

On my way out, I passed through the sanctuary, making sure it was clean for Sunday mass. Oh my God, if Tom didn’t recover, who would speak during the mass? John? Not him, for sure. He seemed content cooped up in Amoris’s sector. Probably the only warrior who actually wanted that position.

Something green littered the floor. I bent and picked it up. A leaf from an oak tree. I sniffed. Wow. It still smelled fresh from Above. I put it in my pocket. Warriors must’ve come recently. Perhaps with supplies?

I walked outside and got in Tom’s canoe, then went about my Thursday morning. Amoris’s quarters next. I’d adjusted my schedule a little, but not too much. I hoped Amoris didn’t mind me coming in later than usual, and that we could simply forget about the spanking. I blushed as I paddled through the water. He could say all he liked, but his body told me he thought I was pretty. As pretty as the breeders. Maybe not his mate, but pretty enough to tempt him.

I presumed he might be upset, though. He seemed to enjoy routine. Get up, exercise, shower, then eat. He also counted and wrote down his exercise routines, had them all saved under his bed. Two years of notes. Lord Amoris was meticulous. Nah, he wouldn’t appreciate my rescheduling without prior notice, not that I cared about upsetting him anyway.

As I came closer and closer to my sector, laughter drifted through the community, violating the somber mood. It made me angry. People had died in Sector Six recently, and these fools laughed. I didn’t care if a clown came, laughter amid all the death and sickness wasn’t right.

I parked and marched across the path, then stopped. People were gathered outside the sector, and everyone stared up. They were expecting something. I looked up too at the open holes in the ceiling, which we called tubes.

“What’s going on?” I asked the person next to me, even though I didn’t know them. So many people had settled with us lately, I couldn’t keep track of them.

“The beast mate is found.”

Something horrible clawed at my chest. I put a hand over it, thinking it would rip open. My vision went blurry, and I blinked and blinked and through a fog of my shock saw several white tubes extend from the ceiling and stick in the ground. Ten seconds later, they retreated back up, leaving boxes upon boxes of supplies. Cheers exploded.

And shame made me choke up even more.

I couldn’t care less about the food.

I couldn’t care less if everyone here died.

Because a mate had been found, and I wasn’t her.

Pissed, I spun around and headed to see the beast. He’d spanked me, humiliated me, asked me a million and one questions, then figured to mate someone else. I just wanted to…to bang him over the head with something.

I burst inside Sector Zero just as Cole readied to leave. I passed John, who opened his mouth to say something, and knocked on the door. “If there is a breeder in there, I will pull all her hair out!”

I pointed at the door. “John, open it.”

The doors slid open, and I marched inside. “God, I am so…” I balled my hands into fists.

“Crazy about me?” Amoris peeked from behind the table. The thing was turned up, and he held duct tape in his hand. He ripped the tape with his teeth. “Second time I’ve had to do this. Have a seat.”

“Is it one of the breeders?”

“Hm?”

“The breeders!”

Amoris put the duct tape down. I was fuming. In my state of anger, I also recognized how unreasonable it was. He couldn’t help whom he mated, and the poor breeder couldn’t either. None of it mattered to me.

“No?” Amoris asked, weary. He should be weary!

I stomped my foot. “Well, who is she?”

Amoris looked confused, so I plunged on. “We got supplies. Boxes upon boxes of food and medicine. The sick will get better. God’s gifts dropped down from the sky because Amoris found a mate. Alleluia!”

“Yes.”

“So who is she?”

Amoris regarded me with sadness in his eyes. He said nothing.

It made my chest hollow, and I sat down to receive the news. “Well, is it true?”

“It’s true. Emma, but you’re my mate. Nobody regrets it more than me.”

“Why do you regret it?” Perhaps he expected a perfect fucking human specimen too. “You look disappointed.”

“It is what it is.”

“That’s…that’s not very nice.” My lip trembled. He liked tears, so he could have them. I didn’t cry as often as I should.

It didn’t matter. Amoris continued working on his table. I looked down at my supply basket and decided he could clean his own quarters today. Behind me, the door had locked, and I doubted anyone would disturb us. Should a beast mate be found, I was not allowed to disturb the couple so that they could mate. Would we have beast babies?

My dad had wanted grandkids. Once, when he got drunk, he told me so. I reminded him Tom wouldn’t allow it because of my genes. Daddy didn’t deny it, said he’d impregnated Mom, said it was a one-time thing, a fit of lust, and by the time they figured out Mom was pregnant with me, it was too late for Violet, our old doctor, to remove me from her belly. Tom allowed an exception and prayed I’d come out like my dad. Normal.

As God would have it, I came out red-haired, freckled, and with a slight hip dysplasia. They didn’t hate me per se, but they felt sorry for me. Still, if it weren’t for Tom, I wouldn’t be here, and Amoris’s mate wouldn’t have been born. I left for his bedroom, wondering if I hadn’t been born, would he have had another mate? The thought of another woman touching him made me mad again. Then I was mad I felt this strongly about him.

I lay down on the bed and faced the wall.

* * *

Amoris

They received supplies as soon as they found out I’d mated. From whom? Jamie? Tom could be blackmailing him. But that was unlikely. Jamie didn’t have the temper to allow for blackmail. If he knew I was trapped down here in hell, he’d tunnel through the ground to reach me.

Vice. Vice would negotiate with Tom. He’d advise Jamie to give Tom whatever he wanted until they could plan my rescue. Three years and counting. It wasn’t Jamie. Or Vice. So who gave them the supplies? Beast father. They believed, and even John believed, my father was on Earth. It was not so. I knew it in the same way I knew how to write in three human alphabets. My father wouldn’t dare come here. This left me with a rebel beast group, possibly the one who took me down and brought me here, a group of rich, outcast humans, or another alien species who hadn’t yet met either of my brothers.

There was only one person who knew more than most in this community. My mate. Who happened to be resting in my bedroom. Fix the table. Do not go into the bedroom. Was she naked? I looked down at my pants and pushed my dick with the heel of my hand. It didn’t stay down. It couldn’t. Emma was nearing her heat, the time of the month when she could take my seed. If she stayed with me, she’d go into heat sooner, and it was my duty to fill her womb.

So I had to restrain myself and let the heat pass. It would last only about a week, and then I was good to go. Until next month. I could do that. With a little self-discipline, I could do that.

I stood and rounded the table, bending and looking for any nook or a cranny I should be fixing only to give myself something to do. All nooks fixed, I put the duct tape in my pocket. From the corner of my eye, I spotted her supply basket. Cole had left it inside.

Emma was pissed at me. So pissed, she refused to work. Well, I couldn’t have an untidy room now, could I? I rummaged through the basket, looking for something, unsure what. Maybe a mop. A broom. Nothing. At the bottom, I found a rusty round metal disc twice the size of my palm. Hm. I got it out and ran a hand over the top. The screen lit up. Well, well, well. A vacuum cleaner from Tineya. I marched to the bedroom where I found my mate in a fetal position and facing the wall.

“Emma,” I said.

Nothing.

“Emma,” I commanded.

Nope.

“Answer me,” I ordered.

She lifted her middle finger.

“You’re upset,” I said.

“You should become a detective.”

Smartass. I bit back a response and plunged on. “I have something to show you. Can you turn around?”

“No.”

“You will stay staring at the wall for…eternity?”

“No, I will get up to pee and shower.”

“And eat?”

“That too.”

A smile tugged on my lips. “I sleep in that bed, you know.”

She scooted away and plastered her body to the wall. Was it an invitation? My dick thought so. I knew it was. Emma was eager to mate, had rushed in here thinking I was with someone else. It sure seemed as if she possessed a mating instinct, something human women couldn’t possibly have. Evidence showed humans didn’t mate as we did. They didn’t have urges; they had their feelings or twisted moral obligations binding them into fragile unions they called marriages but they didn’t have mating.

Emma was different, it seemed. Lucky me. I hadn’t known a single beast who didn’t pursue their mate with might. Not a single one had been forced to reject their mate. I had to be the first. Must’ve wronged the Beast Mother somewhere on my journey. I wondered if it was because I’d betrayed my father. I wondered if it were at all possible She had punished me for refusing his request to stay on Tineya. He’d asked me to take over, carry on his name. I refused. Jamie was the oldest. It was his place, not mine. Not to mention, Jamie was the strongest beast, unbeatable in a challenge, which was one of the reasons we gave Jamie the title of the Alpha Beast, Alpha of all the beasts, not just Alpha Jamie.

I nudged her hip.

“Don’t touch me.”

“If you turn around, I won’t have to.”

Emma lay on her back. “What is it?”

Her braid tickled my thigh, and I reached for it. She slapped my hand. So sweet and yet so determined to defy me. The more she defied me, the more I wanted to spank her. Did she want me to spank her? I groaned. This would not go well for me. I’d have to go inside the cube during her heat. There was no way I could resist Emma’s virgin pussy call.

“Yes?” she asked.

Right. Why was I here again? Ah. “What is this?” I lifted a circular disc.

“A vacuum for the floor.”

“Mm-hm. And where did you get this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Tom gave it to me. It only works in your quarters.”

“Okay, two things, babe. One, this vacuum is old, made on Tineya. Our cleaning staff used it back in the day. Two, these aren’t my quarters.”

“One, I don’t know anything about where it came from,” she lied. “Two, you live here, so these are your quarters.”

“You know where it came from. This is my cage.”

“Ha! A cage.” Emma sat up. “Would you like to trade places? I live in a two-by-two. We all live in two-by-twos. Except for you, Amoris, because you’re special. And spoiled. I bet you don’t even know how the thing in your hand works.”

I narrowed my eyes, then pressed some buttons on the thing, commanding it. “How did you figure out the Tineyan commands?”

“The vacuum came with a manual. In English.”

Oh dear Mother, how I wanted to spank her. “Really?”

“Not really. I figured it out. It has three buttons. It’s not that hard.”

I slid the thing off my lap. It clunked on the floor and began its business of vacuuming. I stayed on the bed, thinking. I hadn’t left my cage in over three years. They’d captured me, and I awoke in here. Took me a year to accept my situation, the one I couldn’t change. I’d die in this shithole. And this poor girl would die with me. How could she not understand why I didn’t want her in here? I wanted more for her, more than I could ever give.

“Emma, would you tell me about your two-by-two?”