The Beasts Boxed Set

Chapter 3-1

Maxus

MaxusTake care of herself?

No. She. Was. Mine. The beast knew this fact the moment we’d caught her scent. Seeing her, hearing her voice, only confirmed what the beast already knew.

Mine!

Mine!I was acutely aware of her. The way she moved. The smell of the scented soap she must use on her skin. Her full lips and generous curves caused me to burn with the need to taste every inch of her. She was a female in her prime. Fully formed. Unafraid.

My c**k reacted to her presence as if she’d wrapped her mouth around the hard length and sucked me deep. The painful throbbing between my legs pulled my attention from the lacerations in my sides. They were not significant. They would heal soon enough.

I was injured but not enough to curtail my need to take my mate and f**k her senseless. Put the mating cuffs on her wrists and make her scream my name as I pumped my seed into her body.

“Are you going to help me or stare at me all night?” I challenged her, hoping it would erase the wary look from her green and gold eyes. Hazel, humans called the color. With her dark red hair, I found her to be beyond beautiful. Soft. Perfect. She was f*****g perfect, and she was mine. I had found her. Thank the gods. My mate.

“I’m a professional. I do not stare at my patients.”

“What if I want you to look at me?”

“Shut up and hold your arm up out of my way so I can stitch you up.” She climbed into the small vehicle and moved a stool into place so she could sit opposite me where I rested on an odd bed that sat atop a metal frame with wheels. The bed would be no good for f*****g. I would have to take my new mate somewhere else. Somewhere safe.

Somewhere private so I could shove her against the wall and make her come. Bury my tongue deep in her p***y. Taste her wet heat. Claim her. f**k her. Over. And over. And over…

“Do you want me to numb the cuts before I do this?” She wasn’t even looking at me. Instead she worked quickly and efficiently, opening her packets and gadgets. She put on a pair of stretchy gloves, then smeared a dark brown liquid over the first wound. She paused and looked up at me. “Well?”

“No need.” My Hive integrations were very effective at reducing pain. A warlord who did not feel the pain of his wounds in battle was a more efficient killer.

“I figured you’d say that.” She sighed and leaned in close enough that her warm breath heated my skin. She held a small white device in her hand. “I’m going to use staples. Less infection. I’ll try to make this quick. And I’ll give you some antibiotics to take for a few days.”

Her statements did not require a response. I waited for her touch. When her small fingers pressed on my flesh, working to close the wounds, I nearly groaned aloud. The short bite of what she called staples was nothing to the crackling awareness of her fingers on my skin.

The beast roared inside my head like a caged storm. I’d been struggling to control him from the moment those idiots had drawn their knives. My beast wanted more than blood. He demanded total and complete annihilation. Had I given the beast his way, Rico and Python John would have been torn in pieces and left on the floor of that cage.

As it was, I’d had to throw them over the fence and into the crowd to save their lives. They’d been injured, but they were alive.

The beast, however, was still enraged. Fighting to break free. Except now he had a new target. Her. A mate. His mate.

Years of training, of torture, of learning to battle my beast saved my female from being taken here. Now. The beast was out of control. I could not allow him to come out, not until she knew the truth and was already mine.

“What is your name?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “We don’t do names around here, Wolf.”

Wolf“My name is Maxus.”

“Shhh.” She glanced toward the front of the vehicle, and I noticed an older human male I had not seen before. He watched my interaction with the female with interest, almost as if he believed he was protecting her. “Don’t. I don’t want to know.”

The male in the front of the vehicle lifted one hand to reveal a small human weapon called a handgun. The projectile it emitted would do little more than irritate me, but any attack now, with my mate unclaimed and vulnerable, would send my beast into an uncontrollable rage.

I met the male’s gaze. “I would never harm a female.”

“You try anything and I’ll put one between your eyes.”

Indeed. I wondered if the elderly male was capable of such precision. His gaze did not waver, and I suspected he was. f**k. I was slipping. This female’s presence combined with my irritation with the human known as Snook had caused me to lose focus. The human could have attacked me unaware. I could not allow that to happen again. Not now that I had a female to protect.

The fact that the older male appeared to be protecting my mate saved his life.

“Calm down. No one is shooting anyone. I’m almost done.” She used her small gadget to sting me three more times before leaning back to inspect her work. “Okay. Put that arm down. I need to do the other side.”

I obeyed her instructions and chose to ignore the elderly human male. My mate appeared to trust him, which meant she did not consider him a threat.

The scent of sweet fruit and citrus drifted to me from her hair. I wondered if the scent was perfume, shampoo, or just her. Her dark red hair was pulled back into one of the pony’s tails—at least that was what I believed humans called it. The pony’s tail left her long neck exposed. I longed to lean over and kiss her skin. Nip at her. Taste her. I would then kiss along the soft angle of her jaw until I reached those plump lips.

She glanced up at me through the corner of her eye. “I can feel you staring.”

“You are beautiful beyond measure.”

The elderly man snorted. “Laying it on thick, boy.”

My mate’s neck turned pink. As did her cheek.

Fascinating. Was she aroused? Embarrassed? I needed to know everything about her.

“I speak the truth.” I stared down at my female. “You are beautiful.”

“I think that fight rattled your brains around inside that head of yours.”

“That fight was of little consequence. I am fully functional.”

She froze, the stinging of her staples stopped as well. “You call this fully functional?”

I shrugged, happy to stare into her eyes. “I have suffered much worse. These wounds matter not.”

“Jesus.” She shook her head and returned to her task, mumbling to herself. “Doesn’t matter. You’re crazy, you know that? All you fighters are the same. So macho. Nothing hurts. Yeah, right.” She placed the last staple with a bit of extra pressure, as if annoyed with me.

“Please, female, honor me with your name.”

She ran her fingers over my ribs. Checked the staples. She poured a clear liquid over small, white squares and used the wet pieces to wipe the remaining blood from my sides. “Vivian. My name is Vivian.”

“Thank you, Vivian.” My mate’s name was Vivian. “I vow to honor your gift.” Vivian. A unique name, as befitted this female.

She wiped her cold, wet, white square along my opposite side and shook her head. “You’re an odd cat. You know that?”

“I am not a feline.”

She chuckled. “Oh yeah, you’re a wolf.”

“I am Maxus.”

“No last name? Just Maxus?”

“Where I am from, I do not require more than one name to be known.”

“Not surprising.” Her slight smile had me gripping the edge of the metal bed frame to refrain from reaching for her. Had she given me a compliment? Judged me a worthy male?

I could not afford to make any mistakes with her. My beast was too close to the surface. I hung on to my sanity by sheer force of will. My mating fever was nearly beyond my control. If she refused me, if she denied me—worse, if she ran—the beast would take over and I would be lost to his madness. His primitive urges. His instinctive need to hunt, to kill, to f**k.

ranI would hurt her and many others before they managed to kill me. With my enhanced Hive implants, I could destroy cities. Kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of humans.

That could not be allowed to happen. And now that I’d found my mate, it would not. I just needed to claim her. Put the mating cuffs around my wrists—and hers. Dedicate my life to protecting and caring for her. She was the only thing that mattered now.

Vivian finished with her wet squares and patted my skin dry with a cloth. I watched, fascinated, as she placed a shiny strip of white fabric on top of my first wound and secured it with tape. When she had covered all my wounds, she pulled the gloves from her hands and tossed them into a red basket with the rest of the bloody mess. “That ought to do it. I’ll give you a staple remover. Wait at least a week to take them out.” She opened a cabinet and lifted a small bottle from one of the shelves. She held out the bottle. When I didn’t reach for it, she opened my hand, placed the bottle in my palm, and wrapped my fingers around the plastic. “Take these three times a day until they’re gone.”

“What are these?”

“Antibiotics. To prevent infection.”

I placed my free hand over hers to hold her close. I wasn’t ready to break contact. “There is no need.” My Hive integrations would attack any bacteria or virus that entered my system. I did not require this type of medical assistance. A ReGen pod would be nice, but I would make do with the ReGen wand I had hidden at my dwelling. I’d allowed her to tend me for one simple reason…I needed her touch.

“Yes, there is. You were in that filthy cage fighting with two filthy men. Take them.”

I couldn’t tell her the truth. Not yet. She appeared to be concerned for my health rather than terrified by my size. That was a start. “I will agree to take the antibiotics if you will accompany me to dinner.”

“No.”

“I wish to thank you for your care and kindness.”

“No. I don’t date fighters.”

“I no longer fight for Snook or anyone else. You were witness to my vow.”

She pulled her hand from beneath mine, and I nearly groaned at the loss of contact. I couldn’t wait long to make her mine. I needed to take her. f**k her. Claim her.

She worked to keep herself busy tidying up and putting her supplies away.