Chapter 17: King

"What's happening?" Marinah asks.

"Don't move at all," Beck tells her.

Pain explodes at their voices and Beast gains another inch of my control. With unwavering concentration, I force my bones to reknit, the K-5 to recede, and my eyesight to readjust. Minute by minute the pain lessens and my human side gains ground. Beast gives a last internal grumble and pulls back. My teenage struggles with Beast were never this difficult.

After what seems like an eternity, I'm able to draw oxygen into my lungs and think clearly.

"See her back to her room," I grind out as soon as I can speak with some semblance of control.

Beck hurriedly steps out of my path as I head for the door. I don't look back, needing to place as much distance between myself and the woman as possible. Why the hell does she challenge Beast? Something about Marinah is dangerous and the animal knows it.

I head to the larger gym used by the men. I'm not there to exercise, I'm there to destroy. Two warriors are working out and they flee as quickly as Boot did. I grab five-hundred pounds of barbells and heft them across the room. The stand they rested on is next, followed by the treadmill. When I've tossed everything I can find, I attack the barbell bar again and bend it almost in half. I have no idea how long my rampage lasts, but it's Beck's voice that finally brings my sanity back.

"You're losing control, King. Maybe you need a break."

"Screw you," I say between gasps for breath. Exhausted, I walk to the wall, turn, and slide down until I land on my butt. I rub the scar on my cheek while melatonin floods my brain in reaction to more K-5 subsiding. Within a few minutes, I can evenly draw air into my lungs and human, post-shift laziness takes over. Finally, something easy to fight. I don't have time for sleep right now.

Beck steps slowly in my direction. "How bad is it?" he asks. What he means is should he call Axel. When teens or newly mated warriors have trouble, they can't readily handle, we have a drug that knocks them out. Axel is the only one with access to our supply and he and I are the only two who know its chemical makeup, though we have the ingredient list hidden safely away in case something happened to both of us. The drug knocks us out for hours. The problem is it doesn't help in the long run. We must each learn to control our beast. The lessons from our ancestors are not easily forgotten. We fought on the home planet until we wiped out most of our population, which was in the millions. Only a long journey for the lucky few saved our kind and in turn we learned to control ourselves. Mostly.

"You need to return her to her people."

I raise my hand because just his words give Beast permission to grumble inside me. "She can't go back," I say evenly. "There's something wrong with her and Beast knows it. What vibes do you get when she's around?" I ask because Beck is grumpy, but he has excellent control of his monster, and when he stops grumbling long enough, his council is usually the best.

Beck stares across the room. "Fear usually, but just now anger minus the fear." He takes a seat on the floor beside me so Beast won't feel threatened. We've done this hundreds of times with the younger warriors.

I place my legs in front of me, bending my knees slightly, willing myself to stay calm. "Something isn't right. We need time to discover what is going on. Beast wants her dead. It wouldn't be as strange if it stopped there. He acts jealous when anyone else is around her and he in turn wants that person dead. It's not mating, but I don't know what the hell it is."

Beck breathes steadily allowing me to match my breaths to his as we slow our heartrates even more. "Has this happened before?" he asks after a few minutes.

"No and it shouldn't be happening now."

"Then kill her."

He says it so simply even though it's not what he wants. Beck cared about Marinah's father and mourned his death. He wants to protect her and that sets Beast off again. I guess Beast needs the pleasure of killing Marinah all for himself.

I glance at Beck and he's looking down at something interesting on the floor. I let out a long, slow breath and then another feeling my control slide back into place. "We need to make a deal with the humans. Killing her won't make that easier."

Beck rubs the scruff on his jaw, a sure sign he's thinking too much. "Do you think Beast wants to kill her because she's spying on us?" he asks.

I snort. "She admitted it to me without any thought to the consequences. She seems sincere and my human side believes her. It's Beast who senses something else. Maybe the Federation has bigger plans and she's using the spy thing to keep us looking in another direction."

"Hmm," Beck says. "We knew before she came that the government would ask her to gather as much intel as possible. If we allow the hounds to kill the humans left in the U.S. and don't intervene, it could easily solve one of our major problems."

"We've been through this," I reply in frustration while rubbing my temple to relieve the strain. "The hellhounds won't stop at humans. The bottom line is they won't stop at all and if we can't find a way to work with the Federation, our species will be next. We don't have a spaceship to get us out of here like our ancestors did. The metal alloys are not found on this planet and chances are good we'll never have a strong enough rocket." I grumble the next statement under my breath. "We fight beside our enemy or we die."

"We fight," Beck repeats. He glances up for a split second but long enough to say, "Try not to kill her."