Claiming Her Beasts Book One

by Dia Cole

  We have to protect him.

  Eden’s next shot took off the top of Jerry’s skull.

  He went down and stayed down.

  Mrs. Munoz and her kids stumbled over the recliner.

  Eden stepped forward, but then lowered her gun.

  “Eden, shoot!”

  “I can’t. They’re kids,” she cried.

  “They’re monsters.”

  Her hands shook. The gun wavered in the air.

  Crap. “Get back.” I pushed her behind me and unloaded into our neighbor and her ten- and thirteen-year-old boys. The kids were faster and harder to hit than the adults. I emptied the handgun before they finally hit the floor.

  I threw down Nero’s empty gun and drew Duncan’s revolver.

  “I’m out of ammo. What do we do?” Eden screamed.

  “Take this, protect Reed.” I gave her my knife and pushed her toward the hallway.

  I continued firing on the zombies, but as soon as one collapsed, another creature seemed to take its place.

  The living room soon filled with them. Some had black veins mottling their faces and skin. Others had horrific wounds to their necks and torsos. All of them clicked their teeth excitedly as their frosted gazes fixed on us.

  I stumbled back toward Eden and Reed. How can we possibly survive this?

  We could barricade ourselves into one of the rooms, but how long before the zombies broke through? Minutes? Seconds?

  The sound of rapid gunfire made me jump.

  “Machine guns,” Eden gasped, a startled expression on her face.

  While my mind struggled to process what that might mean, the front door crashed open.

  A dark-haired giant wearing military fatigues and a tactical vest covered in knives stormed into the house. He turned to face the zombies and, in movements so quick they barely registered, threw a succession of knives at the creatures.

  Every single one fell to the floor, a knife embedded in their forehead.

  “Wow,” Eden said under her breath as she watched him retrieve his knives from the corpses.

  Wow is right.

  Not only did he have perfect, deadly aim, the man was gorgeous. His bulging muscles, chiseled cheekbones, and full lips made my heart pound harder. I nearly swooned when he turned his attention to us huddled in the hallway. “Are you okay?”

  Eden and I nodded in unison.

  “Have any of you been bitten?”

  We shook our heads.

  A tall, muscular, dark-skinned woman also decked out in camo prowled into the house. She pointed her assault rifle at the bodies on the floor. Seemingly satisfied there was no threat, she turned to the man. “Sarge, I’ve eliminated the infected outside the house, but more will come.”

  With a grunt, he looked down at her. “The list?”

  The female soldier reached into her pocket and handed him a piece of paper.

  He looked at it for a second, then pinned us with his black gaze. “Is Eden Walker or H. Lee Walker here?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice coming out as a squeak. I cleared my throat. “I’m Lee and this is my sister Eden.”

  “Good.” He folded the paper and handed it back to the woman. “I’m Sergeant Dominic Rosario with the U.S. Army, and this is Corporal Darcy Ross. We’re evacuating civilians from the Valley. Come with us.”

  Hope pulsed to life inside me. We’re being rescued.

  I pointed at Reed. “Our roommate is with us too. He’s hurt, but he hasn’t been bitten.”

  The sergeant’s expression tightened. “He’s not on the list. He stays.”

  I reared back. “No. He comes with us.”

  “My orders are clear, Ms. Walker. Only those on the list come with us.”

  I met the sergeant’s scowl with one of my own. “Screw your list. Either Reed comes with us, or we stay.”

  We’ll take Uncle Duncan’s truck and get the hell out of town.

  Darcy let out a huff of air. “Ungrateful civvies. We should leave ‘em, Sarge.”

  The sergeant took a step closer to me. “If you don’t come with me right now, you’ll be dead within twenty-four hours.”

  Cobbling together my last bit of strength, I lifted the revolver to show him I was armed. He didn’t need to know I was out of ammo. “I might surprise you.”

  His gaze swept over me. His lips quirked up. “I think you might.”

  I straightened my spine, not liking the way my body warmed under his gaze. “Reed is coming with us.”

  He sighed and motioned us toward the door. “Fine. We’re burning daylight.”

  “I’ll get, Goldilocks,” the female soldier said, throwing Reed over her shoulder and marching out the door.

  My jaw dropped. It’d taken all my sister’s and my strength to drag Reed inside and Darcy had deadlifted him with one arm.

  “Be careful. He has a head injury,” Eden called out, running after the super soldier.

  Super soldiers. Zombie hordes. Gangsters. It was too much. Feeling dizzy, I stumbled over a corpse.

  Moving in a blur, the sergeant caught me and hauled me against his chest. “Are you always this much trouble, Ms. Walker?”

  The heat of his skin sent tiny electric shocks down my body. Gasping for breath, I gazed into his dark eyes. Something indefinable passed between us and, for a moment, I was hit with the strangest feeling that I belonged to this man.

  I immediately rejected the ridiculous idea. I’d never belong to any man. Not Javier. Not Reed. And certainly not this guy.

  Lifting my chin, I countered, “Are you always this much of a pain in the ass, Sergeant Rosario?”

  The sergeant stared at me as if I’d whacked him with a two-by-four. Then he let out a deep rumbling laugh and carried me outside.

  20

  Hunter

  Reaching the city limits, I cloaked myself and began the hunt for my former master. I tried to ignore the static crackling inside my ears. It was an ever-present reminder that Jen was gone. Our bond was broken and the chaos that wrought on my mind and body threatened to overwhelm me.

  To keep from losing it, I focused on how I was going to kill Dom. I’d creep up to him while he was unaware and whisper my brothers’ names into his ear. He’d spin around, and I’d show no mercy as I ripped off every one of his limbs. When he was a shrieking stump on the ground, I’d devour him alive.

  My dark plans faded as I made it deeper into the city. Everywhere I looked humans were being attacked. Their screams rang in my ears and the smell of their blood singed my nostrils. Mobs of dead ambushed them in the blood-soaked streets—ripping them from cars or crashing through building windows to get them. After all the pain humans had inflicted on me throughout my life, I thought I’d be unmoved by their slaughter. I’d thought wrong.

  Dom’s scent led me to an all too familiar street. The knot in my stomach tightened as I surveyed my mate’s neighborhood. It was unrecognizable from the night before. Fences were trampled, windows were shattered, and flies swarmed several male carcasses lying in the street.

  It would have taken an enormous horde to do this kind of damage. An unfamiliar emotion gripped me. What if Lee didn’t survive?

  Forcing back panic, I ran faster. The first thing I saw as I rounded the turn to Lee’s house were dozens of corpses covering nearly every inch of her yard and driveway. I took a deep inhale, relieved as fuck to find my mate’s scent emanating from inside her house and not from the piles of dead.

  My relief grew as I spied an armored transport vehicle idling next to the sidewalk.

  Dom’s here.

  The acrid scent of gunpowder and the slew of brass casings scattered between corpses told me he wasn’t alone. Dom only used guns as a last resort.

  Just as I was trying to determine who he was traveling with, a familiar female soldier emerged from Lee’s house. Darcy, a close friend of Jen’s, was carrying Reed’s unconscious body over her shoulder.

  “Be careful. He could have a concussion,” Lee’s younger sister cried a
s she hopped behind Darcy in a striped jumpsuit and shackles.

  Seeing Lee’s loved ones relatively unharmed gave me hope. I charged toward the smashed in door and nearly collided with Dom carrying Lee out of the house.

  After registering that my mate was alive, I jumped out of their path.

  Dom stopped. Then with some kind of uncanny awareness, stared in my direction.

  The granite-faced bastard looked a little leaner and meaner than the last time I’d seen him. But prison would do that to a male. Based on his clean tactical uniform, he hadn't seen much action.

  Lee, on the other hand, looked as if she’d gone through hell and back. “Where are you taking us, Sergeant?” she asked, pushing a clump of blood-soaked hair out of her face.

  Alarm arrowed through me as I sniffed the air around her. Thankfully, I detected no injury. The blood belonged to others.

  “To our RP,” Dom responded.

  Lee angled her head to look up at him. “What?”

  “It’s short for rally point. A Chinook will meet us there.”

  “A Chinook?” she echoed.

  “A transport helicopter,” he explained.

  She crinkled her nose adorably. “Can you talk without the military lingo?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he quipped.

  I stared at Dom in shock. Did the bastard just smile? I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him express happiness, and they’d all been after he took out a target with a particularly good knife throw.

  Lee tried to squirm out of his hold. “I can walk.”

  Dom tightened his arms around her. “You weren’t doing a great job back there.”

  What the fuck? Dom never coddled anyone… ever.

  “Well, excuse me.” Lee lifted her chin. “I’ve just faced off with a bunch of gang members who killed my uncle…” She swallowed hard. “… and then had to deal with my zombie neighbors.”

  The brittleness of her voice gutted me. I should have been here to protect her.

  Dom’s gaze softened. “Sounds like you’ve had a morning.”

  I’d never seen him look at anyone with that kind of warmth. Not me. Not his soldiers. Not even his wife.

  The reminder of Jen’s fate made my throat ache.

  Lee glanced over Dom’s shoulder at the driveway. “Can I bring my uncle’s body back with us?”

  “No.”

  “But I need to bury him.”

  “That won’t be possible.” Dom’s expression turned to stone.

  She wasted her breath arguing with him while he brought her to the transport vehicle and set her down next to her sister and Reed.

  “Hostiles inbound,” Darcy shouted, bringing my attention and Dom’s to the lurching figures at the end of the street.

  “Let’s move out,” Dom ordered.

  As I stared at the back of his close-cropped hair, I debated my next move. Jen was dead, and I’d successfully completed her last order. That made me free. Free to search for my brother. Free to take my mate somewhere safe where we could start a life together. Free to avenge the genocide of my family.

  Yeah, let’s start with that. A simmering rage churned inside me as I slowly crept up behind Dom.

  He paused in the middle of opening the vehicle door and spun around. “Enough with your games, Hunter. Where’s Sergeant Brooks?”

  I made myself visible. “Dead. Like you’re about to be.” With a snarl, I extended my claws and raised them over his head.

  Dom spun around.

  The moment I met his icy black gaze, unwanted memories slammed into me. Years of training missions, covert operations, and battles we’d fought together flashed in my mind. We’d been the deadliest handler-beast team in military history. Over the years, our working relationship had developed into mutual respect, then friendship, if such a thing was even possible between our kind. It’s what made his betrayal that sweltering morning three years ago even more gut-wrenching.

  Like a flash, he yanked up his sleeve and tapped the device grafted onto his forearm. “Activate handler pairing.”

  The connection snapped between us so quickly there was no time to react. Unlike my link to Jen, which had been thin and narrow, this bond was vast and all-encompassing. It felt as if titanium steel cables, forged in blood and war, now anchored me to him.

  I howled in fury, trying to fight the recalibration of my body and mind. But it was impossible. In a flash of clarity, I realized I hadn’t been left unmonitored earlier because of any scanner upgrades. It’d been because they were preparing to re-pair me to Dom. Fuck. Jen knew. This must’ve been the reason for her guilt back in the desert.

  Dom’s emotions rushed through our new bond. I felt his regret and his ironclad determination.

  But our bond went both ways, and I allowed him to feel my rage and hatred. “I will kill you,” I promised.

  A burst of agonizing pain drove me to my knees. I clutched my head in my hands, remembering too late my programming would automatically punish any aggression toward a handler.

  Something that felt a lot like shame rippled through our bond. Dom offered me his hand.

  Refusing to take it, I pushed myself to standing.

  “You follow my orders now,” he said, looking up at me.

  I wanted more than anything to shift and slash that grim smugness off his face, but my programming forced me to bow my head to my new master. “I follow your orders.”

  “Tell me what happened to Sergeant Brooks?” Dom demanded. I felt a flicker of something that might have been sadness coming from him.

  “Sarge, the infected are almost on us,” Darcy shouted from inside the vehicle.

  Dom held up one finger.

  “Is that Hunter?” she asked, peering out. “Is Jen here?”

  Ignoring her, Dom repeated his question to me.

  “Alpha Diaz of the Calaveras faction executed her at the urging of Dr. Hurran.”

  Dom clenched his fists, anger and pain seeping through our bond.

  Maybe he’d cared for Jen after all.

  “Why didn’t you protect her?” Dom’s tone wasn’t accusatory, but it still stung.

  “She didn’t allow me to. She ordered me straight to you.”

  The rattling moans of the infected grew louder.

  Dom straightened his shoulders. “I want a full report when we get back to base. Now make yourself invisible and clear our path to the school.” Without waiting for a response, he jumped into the driver’s seat and pulled the transport vehicle out into the street.

  Bitterness filled me as I cloaked myself and followed his orders. I’d come so fucking close to having my freedom and everything I’d ever wanted, only to lose it all.

  By the time Dom parked the transport vehicle inside the gates of a private school several miles away, I was drenched in blood. I’d taken out my rage on any infected who had the misfortune of stumbling close to the vehicle, and it showed.

  As I tried to wipe my face clean with my hand, Dom jumped out. “Wait next to the truck and don’t interact with anyone, Hunter.”

  “Woof,” I said automatically.

  His lips twitched at my inside joke, but I felt hollow. Back when we were a team, I’d acted like a dog when I felt he was treating me like one. It normally resulted in him taking his commands down a notch. Not today.

  Turning away from me, he stalked across the courtyard to speak with soldiers who were helping civilians off a bus.

  Their conversation was lost on me the moment my mate climbed out of the transport vehicle.

  Even wearing a shell-shocked expression and covered in blood she was stunning.

  I physically ached with the need to touch her, but I settled for watching her shout at Darcy. “What are you doing? Don’t you dare drop him.”

  My mate was such a bossy thing. I loved it.

  “Shut your pie hole,” Darcy replied, unceremoniously dumping Reed on the ground.

  Lee cursed out Darcy while her sister jumped out of the truck a
nd checked on Reed.

  The cocksucker didn’t look any worse for wear. In fact, between the two of us, he’d made out with the better deal.

  My envy for the unconscious human grew as I watched Lee and Eden drag him toward the long line of men, women, and children waiting to enter the school. It took twenty minutes for them to make it inside, where I finally lost sight of them.

  Dom seemed to have forgotten me. His attention bounced between his radio and the incoming and outgoing transport vehicles. Occasionally, he barked orders at the soldiers, most of which seemed to be Titans like himself. All of them seemed to be in a race against time.

  To make space for the growing crowd of civilians, Darcy moved the transport vehicle around to the side of the school. I had no choice but to walk next to the vehicle and wait while she parked it. She seemed unaware of my presence as she stalked back toward the front gates.

  I wearily slumped against one of the back tires and faced my next dilemma. Dom had ordered me to cloak myself, however, it wasn’t physically possible for me to hold that state for much longer. Once I became visible, my chip would automatically punish me for not following orders. In the old days, I would have brought this to Dom’s attention, but now I’d rather let the pain kill me than ask for his mercy.

  As I braced myself for the oncoming agony, my mind turned to my mate. I needed to see that she was okay. Throwing caution to the wind, I closed my eyes and pushed my consciousness out of my body.

  Rising as an incorporeal mist, I flew around the school building where Dom stood with a radio pressed to his ear. “What do you mean evac isn’t coming?” he shouted.

  Although I couldn’t feel his emotions in this disembodied state, seeing his mounting frustration filled me with grim satisfaction. It seemed we’d be at the school longer than he’d expected. Maybe much longer.

  Mulling over the possible implications, I flew through the brick walls of the school. Then I traveled down a crowded hallway, past classrooms, and through a set of double doors that led to a gymnasium teeming with humans. Some huddled together on bleachers in the back, some sat on whatever belongings they’d brought with them, and some argued with the unfortunate soldiers trying to keep order.