Amoris

Two hundred twenty-one, two hundred twenty-two, I counted my push-ups, every second glancing at the digital clock. Three thirty. Emma had left forever ago, it seemed. She hadn’t returned for lunch, and I thought she would have. She liked the food they’d delivered here. Panic arose, breath catching in my throat, and I swallowed it down even though the fear choked me. I pumped my arms faster, letting my forehead hit the steel floor. The pain rattled my jaw and reminded me Emma would not return. In my quest for reasons for my being here and wanting our mating, I’d shunned the only thing that mattered in my life. My mate.

I shunned her, made her feel unwanted and unworthy, when I should’ve made her feel as if she were the center of my world. Worthless boy. My father had been right, of course, as he often was. Fucking worthless boy, wasting away the air. Worthless but handsome. He’d hoped I’d give him a beautiful female grandbaby who would mate a powerful beast and solidify his power.

The outer door swished open, and I paused, listening. The inner door opened, and Emma stumbled inside. I stood and wiped the sweat from my face and chest, then walked to her. I brought her to me so she could put her head on my chest and feel the heart that beat only for her. “I worried you wouldn’t come back.”

Emma didn’t answer. I kissed the top of her head.

Then I smelled crimson. The tangy scent of it burned my nose. Potent. I pulled away from her and sneezed, then looked her up and down, panic constricting my airways. Blood on her dress. I blinked, unsure what I was seeing. A whine escaped my chest. I lifted my shirt, her makeshift dress. Blood smeared her belly, right above her mound. I put my hand over it and felt a swelling. “John!” I shouted.

Nothing.

“John!”

“Mother, fucking strike me with a blessing.”

“Your father called,” Emma said.

“What?” I tugged at the shirt, and she put her hands up so I could remove it. I put the shirt over the wound. “John! Open up, or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“He said he wanted me. He ordered Tom to kill you. Tom agreed. Can you believe it? He agreed.”

I touched her face, noticing the change in her body temperature. Emma was boiling. I frowned. She should be cold when bleeding, no? “You’re gonna be okay, baby. You’re gonna be okay.” I kissed her, and she closed her eyes, and I took a moment and prayed for a miracle. For the first time in forever, I truly prayed. I asked for forgiveness and mercy. I asked the Beast Mother to show me the way. I asked Her to save my mate and take me instead.

The doors slid open, and I picked up Emma in my arms. “John!” I hollered at the same time as he showed up at the entrance, covered in blood.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” I asked.

At the sight of Emma, John bared his teeth. “You son of a bitch.” He aimed a shotgun at me. “Drop the girl, motherfucker. Got my gun loaded with my special bullet. Been with me through some bad times. It’s gonna finally find a home, in your fucking head. Drop the girl.”

“It’s not what it looks like. I didn’t touch her.”

“But here she is, hurt and unconscious.”

Emma lifted her hand, perhaps trying to tell him she was conscious, but it fell back and dangled as if she found it too heavy to lift.

“You’ve lost your mind and hurt your mate. Did you force yourself on her? Motherfucker, I won’t hesitate. Caged beasts lose their minds. Your Alpha executes them. So I got my green light. Drop the girl so when I put you of your misery, I can take her up to your brothers.”

“My brothers?”

“Drop the girl!”

I growled and assumed my battle form in record time. “Emma is mine!”

John fired.

A blur came at him, hit his body, and John flew out of sight. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and zipped by my head. I leapt outside the cage and dropped to the floor, Emma under me. I glanced up and right.

John lay splayed on the floor. He groaned, one hand holding his back, the other his gun. Next to him stood Felicia of Wiedeg. She bent, and her long braid fell over her shoulder.

“Baby?” John said to her.

“Hm?”

“A warning would have sufficed.”

“I’m sorry.”

John kissed her on the mouth. “We got problems.”

“We always do.” Felicia walked to me, bent one knee, and dropped to the floor. “Lord Amoris. It’s a pleasure to serve you again.”

I gathered up my mate and scooted away until my back hit the wall. “My mate is bleeding.”

Felicia paled, her green eyes widening. “May I see?”

Still in my battle form, I growled. Felicia dropped her gaze to the floor and crawled to me, making her submission clear. But I couldn’t force myself to change back, not when I knew my mate could die in my arms. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t seal the wound. I couldn’t make it stop bleeding.

Emma was unnaturally quiet, hanging on to me as if hanging on for her life. It killed me that I couldn’t do anything to help her. Or maybe I could. “John.”

“Yup,” he said from the monitors. I hadn’t even noticed he’d gotten up and walked past us to the other side of the room.

“I would never hurt my mate.”

“One never knows.”

“John,” Felicia said, a note of warning in her tone.

“I don’t believe him, baby. He’s been caged for too long.”

“Call Tom in here,” I told John. “Tell him my mate needs help.” It pained me to have to resort to calling that evil man for help. But she’d told me he cared about her, and with them wanting to find my mate, maybe they valued her life more than mine.

“Tom’s dead,” Emma whispered.

Both Felicia and I heard her. John kept monitoring the situation outside. I still didn’t know, nor did I care what was happening out there. Tom needed to come at once.

“I’m sorry. What?” I asked her, regretting she had to talk again, but I had to be sure of what I heard.

Emma licked her lips, rubbed her cheek against the rough fur on my shoulder. “Tom is dead.”

Felicia and I locked eyes. She shook her head, telling me she hadn’t done it. I glanced at John, then back at her.

She shook her head again, telling me John hadn’t killed him either.

I opened my mouth to ask Emma how Tom had died or even when, but John cursed. He ran his fingers over the monitors. Blinking red lights replaced the hologram sky on the cage’s ceiling. Alarms blared and rang in my sensitive ears. Felicia covered hers. John ran to the door and opened it. The blond kid, Cole, rushed inside. He was also covered in blood, and he carried a machete.

“Jesus, kiddo,” John said, yanking the weapon out of Cole’s hands. “Where did you get that thing?”

“From the kitchen.” Cole’s eyes found us and widened. “Emma?” He ran to us and dropped to his knees. His tears came instantly, spilling out of his big blue eyes and running down his cheeks. “Emma?” He tried to talk to her, but Emma didn’t take her eyes off me.

“You’re such a big monster,” she whispered.

“Oh baby, don’t talk.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t believe you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, don’t say that.”

Felicia put a hand on my shoulder. “Something’s wrong out there.”

“They’re fighting over supplies,” Cole said. “The people from Above said they didn’t get enough and the people from Com X wouldn’t give them their share. Shit hit the fan. Tom got called and never showed up.”

“Riots,” Emma said. “Sectors are fighting over supplies. Tom keeps the peace.”

“But he’s dead, right?” Felicia asked her.

“Yes.”

“I’m locking down this sector,” John said. “If I can find the commands.”

Cole dropped his backpack and pulled out a medicine gun and three boxes. He spilled the contents on the floor. Antibiotics, pain meds, cough meds, and a bunch of liquid shots. All in Tineyan. The boy’s hands shook as he picked up one plastic capsule. “I have no idea what any of this is, but worth taking, I figured.”

“You did great, kid,” I said.

He beamed at me. I knew all too well how praise worked on young minds. A few kind words lifted their spirits. My brother Jamie used to praise me. My dad? I snorted at the thought.

Felicia checked the meds and smiled up at me before snapping open one vial. She poured a cleaning solution over Emma’s belly. It washed away the blood, leaving only bruised swelling. I frowned and retreated from my battle form, feeling better now that I realized this blood wasn’t Emma’s. I sniffed something else. My dick grew erect immediately, and I knew what that was. Emma’s heat. It bloomed all around me, her scent drowning my senses.

Felicia wrinkled her nose. “Oh boy.”

Emma pressed her thighs together. Her nails scraped my skin. “I need you,” she said.

Something wet touched my forearm. Not knowing what made the bump on her belly, I looked to see if she bled. No blood. Liquid heat. Emma leaked liquid heat. I bent my head, trying to compose myself so I wouldn’t throw her on the floor and violate her. I gritted my teeth and wished for Felicia to put me out. Emma took it as a cue and dropped kisses on my neck. Then she bit down. A growl ripped out of my chest. “Cole,” I said.

“Yes, Lord Amoris.”

“Go inside and get one of my shirts for Emma.”

“I have something better,” he said and dug into his bag. He produced a black dress. “Sienna’s dress.”

John walked up and snatched the dress from kid’s hands. “Where did you get this?”

“Marker fourteen. I buried her spare backpack there when Torrent put her in the cage. I came with the backpack.”

John glanced at Felicia. “He put my kid in a cage.”

She made a sour face. “Sienna is happy now. Remember?”

“It slipped my mind,” John said.

“The clothes,” I barked.

Felicia helped me put the dress on Emma, and I held her again not willing to part from her when I should hand her over to a beast bitch who knew how to handle this kind of heightened heat. Once she dressed her, I got up, Emma still in my arms.

For the first time since capture, I walked around my cage instead of inside my cage. “I gotta get out of here, and take Emma to Lers. Is he still alive?”

“Old but kickin’,” Felicia said.

I grunted. “Felicia, I presume John is your mate.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I presume Jamie sent you.”

“Negative,” John said. “Jamie sent me after Tom. Felicia walked down here on her own.”

John didn’t seem happy about Felicia’s decision. I didn’t blame him.

“Jamie has no idea I’m alive,” I said.

“No idea,” Felicia confirmed. “John was supposed to deliver Tom.”

“Yup,” John said and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Pieces fell into place, and I realized who you were.”

“And you still almost shot me.”

John shrugged. “I thought you’d hurt the girl. Keep that in mind.”

The cage was built solid. I kicked the steel, then pounded my fist against the exit door and the wall next to it. Not hollow. Solid steel. “I need to know where I am, what’s around me, and how far is Beast City.”

Felicia informed me they kept me in Community X, an underground bunker in a city called Retreat, Texas, a long way from Beast City. John worked alone, so no backup was coming besides a skeleton-crew beast patrol that kept away from this place so as not to scare the humans away.

“How did you get down here?” I glanced at Felicia while I walked around, trying to take advantage of the unrest and find my way out of here. I couldn’t put Emma’s life at risk and walk out with her in my arms. If I were alone, it would be different. I would simply open the door, assume my battle form, and consume everyone in my path to freedom. Or die trying.

“Great question,” John said. “I’d like to know that too, since I precisely remember telling you not to come after me. And I also remember you saying, Yes, Mate, several times.”

Felicia winked at him. “You’re so sexy.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “I came down in a box. It’s a long story, but suffice to say I recognized the scent of one beast. Nie’s beast. We had a particularly disturbing past, so I followed the scent inside a house, where I killed him and sealed myself into one of the boxes ready for shipping. More of Nie’s beasts came, carried me, and dropped me right inside the infamous Community X. I did all this because my mate is here, and when I saw Nie’s males closing in, I didn’t know what to think. Better to do than to sit back and regret I’d done nothing. I had to get in here.” She paused. “Saw Emma in the hallway. Bumped into her, in fact. Beast Mother must’ve sent me here.”

“Right,” John said. “Always the Father or the Mother. Christ help us all.”

“Allah,” Cole said.

Everyone looked at the kid. He shrugged.

“John, how far underground are we now?”

“This sector is lower than the others. A coupla hundred feet.”

“Three hundred feet,” Emma said.

“Baby, don’t talk. Rest.”

She licked her dry lips and moved her hair away from her face. “Amoris, I’m gonna rest forever if I don’t talk.”

“What do you mean?” I sat on the desk.

“I know how to leave.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. I’ve lived here all my life. I remember when they dropped your cage.”

I tilted my head. “Dropped?”

“Mm-hm.” She pointed up. “From the sky, and it plopped into a hole right here.”

Weird. “Okay and how do we climb out?”

“We fly the ship.”

I put my palm over her forehead and checked her for fever. Emma still burned. She might be delusional. “What ship?”

“This one.” She waved her hand about us. “The one they dropped in here.”

Delusions had started. My mate would die in my arms. “Oh Mother, please, don’t take her from me.”

“Amoris?” Felicia asked from inside my cage, then walked out, holding the vacuum cleaner. “How is it that this thing works here?”

“Nie’s tech.”

“Holy pussy.” She rushed to John’s monitors, nearly knocking him on his ass again. Her fingers flew over the virtual keyboard on the desk. A hologram popped up. “Yes! She’s right. It’s an old ship.” She frowned. “Wait a minute. It looks familiar.”

I spun around. The hologram showed a blueprint of my cage built inside a round structure. Apart from the cage, indeed, it looked familiar. Behind us, right where we gathered, was the control room. Hm. I commanded a retinal scan. The blue laser scanned my eyes and cleared me for access. The wall behind us cracked. “Clear out!”

We moved to the opposite side to watch the wall crash. Dust rose, and I squinted to clear my vision. The control room appeared before me. “Isn’t this…” Felicia started.

“Ferry.” My fucking ship, the one I’d used to ferry thousands of beasts back to Earth. I’d retired her in our junkyard and forgotten about her. Only my father would find it appropriate to cage me inside the ship that had saved the people he’d wanted to execute. Every time I’d visited Tineya, my mom had begged me to stay. I still remembered the night before I was supposed to load Keimia, Torrent’s sister, on the cargo plane I’d hidden offshore. Father had asked me if I was the one who’d supplied beasts to Jamie, who’d flown them across the galaxy. I’d denied it. What had stung the most was that he believed me.

I’d always been the playboy, never interested in politics or anything that didn’t please me. It stung that he believed that was all I ever would be, a worthless boy. But he was right. In the end, Father was right. This was all I ever would be. The third son who couldn’t find his place anywhere else but between some woman’s thighs.

Except now it wasn’t any woman. Now it was my mate whose thighs I wanted to lick. In my arms, Emma nearly purred as my dick hardened again. I bent my head to whisper in her ear. “Soon you’ll need all that pussy juice when my dick makes its way inside you. ’cause I’m taking you home.”

* * *

Ferry was a small cargo ship. The control room supported minimal crew space. One chair for the captain in the middle and three other chairs for the crew. Usually I flew with another pilot, someone crazy enough to dare a life sentence on Tineya.

I commanded the lights. Red emergency lights flickered, barely lighting the way. Dust crawled up my nostrils, and my eyes watered. I rubbed my nose, then caught my reflection on the large blank screen. I looked like something out of old Earth horror movies. A psycho? Mm-hm.

Thinking I’d lived caged inside my own ship for three fucking years made me want to tear my father’s throat out. “Let’s move.” I strode across the control room and dropped Emma in the captain’s chair. She looked tiny in it, and I missed the feel of her body already. I strapped her in the best I could.

She curled up and got comfortable favoring her right side. “My lord,” she said, her head resting on the armrest. I didn’t think she could hold it up on her own.

Don’t take her from me.

“My lord,” she repeated.

“Hm?”

“You gotta pilot the ship.”

“Right.” I stood there, paralyzed with fear.

“Maybe today?” She managed a smile.

“Right.”

“Boy, get your fucking ass in the chair and let’s move out.” John knelt beside Emma. Could he smell her heat? My teeth descended, and I growled low in my throat. John was mated. John was mated. If I kept repeating that, I wouldn’t rip into him.

Felicia put a hand on my shoulder. I nodded and spun around, then sat in the pilot’s chair, pulling up the hologram panel. “Felicia, you took Flying 101, right?”

“Nope.”

Fuck. “Okay, then. Take a seat. I could use a navigator.”

“I’m a sailor.”

“We’ll fly over the sea.”

She gulped. I fired up Ferry. Her old engine purred. “That a girl. Wake up the dead.” Ferry got retired because of her ancient engine. Stealth ships replaced her, kind of like the one Vice had won in the blood games. I sure wished for some stealth now. The last thing I needed was Men of Earth damaging Ferry’s frame, then barging in here.

Felicia found her way to the navigation panel and opened up a map. She punched in the codes for Beast City. “Gonna land this bitch on the sea. Can we?”

“We can.”

She rubbed her hands. “Okay, how?”

“Figure it out.” I swiped a hand, and the metal blocking the open screen before us slid away. It showed ground, some squirming worms, bugs escaping into tiny holes. So now I had to lift the ship three hundred feet in the air without bumping the frame against the hole’s walls and damaging my ride. I hadn’t piloted my own ship in…in fucking forever, it seemed. Troy would be a good male for this job. Too bad Troy wasn’t here. But my mate was here and depended on me to get her to med bay.

I cracked my neck and took over the manual controls. Ferry lifted off and hit the ground from the back. I glanced behind me to check my mate. Her head plopped forward, her eyes closed.

John still crouched next to her. “Carry on.”

Cole appeared on my right and sat down, eyes the size of melons.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said and ran a finger over the accelerator while balancing the ship’s path with my other hand. Slow and steady. Iron groaned. Ferry scraped the wall again. Felicia and I grimaced at the loud noise. Okay, so an inch or two to the left. There we go. Slow and steady. “Where are we?”

“Thirty feet.”

“Two hundred and seventy more to go.”

“I’d hurry up if I were you,” John pitched in.

“Another word from you, ol’ man, and I’m gonna throw you out.” But he was right, of course. At this pace, we’d be stuck here for an hour. “Felicia, can you show me the upward trajectory?”

“Trying.” She pulled up the scans and showed me the hole. Too dark. I couldn’t see around me, and we couldn’t pull up the dimensional scan that would tell me exactly where the ship was located inside this hole. But I knew that Community X hid below a town.

“Lock in on the town,” I told her.

“What are you gonna do?” Felicia asked.

“We’re gonna shoot straight up.”

I put the brakes on Ferry while her thrusters worked. Heat warnings flashed, but I ignored them. Five, four… “Strap in, everyone!” On zero, I let go of the brakes. Ferry shot up as if released from a bowstring. Cole screamed, my ears popped, Felicia hung on to her seat belts and closed her eyes. Pressure in my lungs built and built, nearly ripping my chest open.

The sun blinded me. I threw a forearm over my eyes and peeked underneath. I saw a gaping hole in the ground, and next to it, fields of dirt and sand, a few houses scattered on the left. The residents of Retreat, Texas, ran around like ants. I recognized Men of Earth with their shaved heads and long robes. Some tried to shoot down Ferry with arrows, while others spread out.

Someone clapped, and I glanced back. Emma hadn’t moved. Back at my controls with daylight hitting my eyes hard, my vision blurred. I pulled up Ferry’s artillery, surprised to see it hadn’t been loaded off. “Torpedo engagement confirmed. Dropping in ten, nine…”

John came to stand next to me. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I’ve already thought about it.”

“There’re women and children down there.”

“There’re women and children on this ship too. Nobody would spare them. Tom has suffocated hundreds of his own people.”

“If he surrendered to Alpha Beast, his people would have lived. Don’t do it, Amoris.”

Felicia put a hand over my twitchy finger. All I had to do was touch the screen. I wanted Community X to burn. “Mayhem’s hunters are coming,” Felicia said and pointed.

I wiped the tears light had brought out from my eyes and tried to make out the beasts. It took me a bit to spot them; hunters were notorious for their stealth. About half a mile away, painted beast bodies crawled the ground.

“Mayhem’s hunters aren’t loyal to Jamie,” I said.

“They are now. John’s right. We can’t blow the place.”

“We should,” Emma whispered. “We should. Let it burn in hell.”

I scrubbed my face.

Five, four, three, two, and I deleted the command. Ferry closed the torpedo doors. John squeezed my shoulder.

I hoped I wouldn’t regret this. We hovered above, watching.

Below, a group of hunters chased Men of Earth while another group rushed the community exit doors separating civilians from Men of Earth. Jamie would show them no mercy. By the time land vehicles approached from the north and loaded up the women and children, the dust had settled.

“To Beast City!” Cole said and thrust his fists in the air. “Yay!”

To Beast City.