Read the opening below to get a real feel for the characters, voice, and pacing before choosing an edition.
Bargain with a Beast
by Grace Goodwin
Chapter 6 (excerpt)
Adrian, Warlord Max’s Estate
The soft knock on the bedroom door had to be my mother. Stefani was already here, sitting on the oversized—Atlan sized—lounge that was puffy, soft, and large enough to hold four or five average humans.
“Come in.” I stood before a large mirror. I didn’t think it was an actual mirror, more like an advanced screen of some kind. It turned off when I wasn’t looking, the floor to ceiling frame becoming a lovely piece of abstract art. I guess art was art, no matter what planet you were on.
“Girls, how are you?” Indeed, it was our mother. Alone. Which was rare these days. Guess that was to be expected when she was head-over-heels in love with Max. They were good together. Really, really good.
“This gown is amazing, Mom.” Stefani waved her hand down over her torso to indicate the dark green gown she wore. This one was much fancier than the simple dresses we’d worn to the medical facility—make that prison—earlier. Same basic style, but these evening gowns had sparkling gold strands woven through the fabric in fascinating geometric designs. The patterns actually fooled the eye into thinking the lines were moving. It was totally amazing. I would have been excited about our attire—my gown was similar, but the base fabric was the color of yummy dark chocolate—except for the fact that I had on mating cuffs and no mate in sight.
Thank god the Atlans had updated their technology when it came to the cuffs. Apparently, the pain response programmed into the cuffs if a woman was separated from her beast was too strong for the human nervous system. So, they’d adapted the cuffs to make it possible to lessen the effect or turn it completely off.
I’d chosen ‘off’ after the first zap had dropped me to my knees. My forearms still ached from the jolt I’d received when Max picked me up and carried me out of Kovo’s cell like I was a misbehaving toddler.
I’d expected a lecture on the way home. I’d received worried looks from both Mom and Stefani, and stony silence from Max.
Of course, he was the Atlan. The big, famous warlord. He was the one who was going to have to help me with this mess. Help me save Kovo.
Right? He was going to help me?
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
I turned away from the mirror, the dress and the fancy hairdo mom’s attendant had insisted on unable to hold my interest. Stefani’s hands were in her lap, locked together, her knuckles white. She looked gorgeous. Anxious. She didn’t speak. Which was fine. This was my mess. My mate. My fight.
“How are we going to get Kovo out of there? They can’t execute him now, right? He has me, a mate. He won’t go crazy. They’ll let him go? Do a retrial? Appeal? Something?”
Mom cleared her throat. That was never a good sign. “No. He is not there because he has mating fever. He is there because he committed murder.”
“Who? Who did he kill? Because if it was some jerk, or drug lord, or criminal that deserved it, they should reconsider.”
“You know that’s not the way the law works, sis. At least not back home. Murder is murder.” Stefani kept her voice low, almost a whisper.
I turned to my mother. “No one has told me anything. Not you. Not Max. Not any of the people who work in your house. Not that Doctor Helion creep. If Kovo’s going to die, I have the right to know the details about what he supposedly did.”
“Supposedly?” my sister asked.
I glared at Stefani. Sometimes it was uncanny, staring into a face exactly like my own. Sometimes, like now, I just wanted her to shut the hell up. “Yes. Innocent until proven guilty—”
“Which he has been.” My mother took a seat next to Stefani as I walked back and forth, so agitated I felt like I had bugs crawling around between my skin and my dress.
“Guilty of what, Mom? They said he killed someone? Okay. That’s what soldiers do. I just don’t think he committed a cold blooded murder. That is a totally different crime. My gut is telling me something isn’t right. Someone is lying. And even if Kovo did murder someone, I am one hundred percent sure they deserved it.”
“That doesn’t make sense, honey. There is no way you can know that.”
I didn’t dare look at my mom, didn’t want to glare at her or give her the evil eye. She didn’t deserve to feel the brunt of the rage I was feeling on Kovo’s behalf. “Like there was no way I could have known he was my mate? That his beast would not only accept me, but want me so much he refused to transform back into his normal, Atlan self?”
“He did what?” My mom sounded shocked. “Is that why he was in his beast form when we all arrived?”
“Yes. The beast told me Kovo refused to claim me, even though he knew I was his.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” My mom, the queen of this proverbial castle, stood and began to pace as well. Her gown was a shimmering wall of black that reflected rainbows of colors when she moved, like a dark opal. She was covered in expensive jewels and her mating cuffs had been upgraded as well. They were beautiful, obviously expensive, and one could easily argue they belonged on display like an ornate set of crown jewels.
I looked down at the plain, pewter looking cuffs on my own wrists and sighed. As a representation of the differences in our situations, nothing could have been more perfect.
Stefani shrugged. “Well, Mom, Max was so in love with you he hid the fact that he was an alien. He never let his beast meet you at all. You told me he was willing to live like that for the rest of his life, if it meant he could keep you.”
“That was different.”
“How?” I demanded. “How is that different, Mom? I have no idea how these guys go from man to beast and back again at will, but seems to me there is some kind of power struggle that goes on inside them. That’s why they get locked up if their mating fever gets too bad. Their beast becomes more powerful, impossible to control.”
“And turns into a raging killer.” That was my sister. Pointing out the obvious. As usual.
“Not funny, Stef,” I said.
“Doing my part for the stand-up comedy scene on Atlan.”
“Well, don’t quit your day job.”
“Don’t have one, so I’m good.”
Usually charming but right now totally irritating. This was serious. “Just because Max figured out how to send money home and pay for school doesn’t mean—”
“Enough.” Damn that ‘mom voice’. Heard it since birth. My entire being reacted just like I had when I was three—straighten up and shut up. Vivian Davis had raised us alone in one of the worst neighborhoods in Miami. She didn’t take bullshit from anyone. Especially not her daughters.
Tears threatened and I stopped walking, stopped moving. What the hell was I going to do? “I don’t know what to do, Mom. I love him.”
“You’ve known him for four hours.” My sister raised her eyebrows. “The sex must have been amazing.”
“Shut up, Stef.”
“Girls,” Mom said through clenched teeth. Unfortunately, my sister wasn’t finished.
“Listen to reason, Adrian. How do you know he really cares about you at all? That you weren’t just a sweet piece of ass offered to him at the last minute? Like his last meal?” She stood up to tilt her hip to one side so she could flop her arms around as she spoke. “Oh, sure. Uh, yeah, I’ll have a filet mignon, rare, your most expensive wine, and, wait, one more thing. I’ll take that nineteen-year-old hottie to sleep with, too.”
“You’re a bitch,” I mumbled.
“I’m not. I’m your twin. No one else has your back like I do. And I don’t like this situation. You played your twin card. Fine. I helped you get in there. Honestly, I figured he would either ignore you or tell you to get out.”
“You didn’t believe me when I said he was mine.”
“Sorry. No. I didn’t.” At least Stefani seemed contrite about that. She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “No one has ever heard of such a thing. It’s weird. You acted like you were the beast, not him.”
“I feel like one right now, let me tell you.”
“If I’d known you would actually turn out to be his mate, I never would have helped you. Twin card or not.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s locked up, waiting to die in the Atlan version of death row. You just told us you are in love with him. How could you be? I don’t know, but whatever. It’s worse for you if you are in love with him.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Because now, when they kill him, it’s going to hurt you, too. Hot sex? Sure. He seemed like he was in control when you went in there. I never would have helped if I knew it was going to break your heart.”
“They aren’t going to kill him.”
“Yes, honey, they are.” Her mean mom voice was gone, replaced with soothing—I know it hurts but it will be better soon—tones. “His execution is to take place in less than an hour. Max received word a few minutes ago. That’s why I came up here. I didn’t want you to be alone when you heard.”
“What?!”
“Calm down.”
“I will not calm down!” I lifted the hem of the dress with which I’d planned to wow the biggest and most powerful politicians on Atlan and made haste toward the door. I had planned to spend the evening begging for Kovo’s life. For help. For a stay of execution. New investigation. The list was long and nearly endless.
I had time for none of it if he was going to be dead in an hour.
“Adrian—” My mother followed behind me, Stefani behind her. We looked like sparkling ducklings all in a row.
I flung the door open and stormed past the two guards stationed outside. We were on Atlan, in Max’s home, and he was still paranoid about our safety. For a moment I felt badly about the amount of worry I must have caused him when he found out I was in Kovo’s cell. My remorse was quickly replaced with determination.
Damn it, Kovo was mine. My mate. Somehow, by some unexplainable miracle, I had known he was mine. That he wouldn’t hurt me. That he needed me to save his life.
“Where is Max? Where is he? I need to talk to him right now. He has to help me. He has to.” I would not cry. No. Would not. No panicking allowed either. None. I was the mate of an Atlan warlord. I had the mating cuffs to prove it. I wasn’t a child. Not anymore.
My mother had to run to catch up, but she had always kept herself in shape so she could do her job back on Earth. Paramedics had to deal with car wrecks and unconscious bodies and all kinds of chaos. Mom could run if she needed to, and I wasn’t all that fast.
She grabbed my elbow and pulled me to a stop. I swung around to face her.
“What? Where is he?”
“He’s in his comm room.”
“Comm room? Why? I thought he had that room built special so you could call us back on Earth.”
“He did. And it cost a fortune.”
Stefani finally caught up to us, not a hair out of place. No running for her. “Is he calling someone on Earth?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. He is.”
“Why? Who is he calling?” I asked. My mate was in a running countdown toward death and Max decided to call another planet? And not just any planet, but Earth? What the heck were a bunch of humans going to do about an Atlan they knew nothing about?
“If you will follow me, ladies?” My mother walked as she talked, Stefani and I falling into step slightly behind her. “Doctor Helion is here.”
“That asshole? What is he doing here?”
“Adrian, mind your tongue and your manners.” Once a mother, always a mother. Well, at least our mother had her rules for operating in society. But this wasn’t public, this was just us. I tried a different tactic.
“Kovo’s beast threatened to kill him. I don’t trust him.”
“I understand. But Max does. And I trust Max.”
Of course she did. She was his mate. And, to be fair, Max was amazing. “That’s not enough to make me like Helion.”
Next to me, Stefani shivered. “He’s ice cold. I’m telling you. Just standing next to him gave me the chills.”
I huffed. “Talk about a killer.”
“Ladies! Enough.” Mom brought us to a stop in front of the closed door to Max’s comm room. The door was thick. I couldn’t hear a peep from anyone inside.
“Mom, just tell us what is going on.” Stefani paused dramatically, eyebrows arched, and looked at me. “Twin, you keep quiet until she’s done.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing. I was too anxious to argue. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Every second we wasted in this house, Kovo was closer to gone forever.
Mom stepped in front of the control panel that would open the door and looked at us in turn. “Doctor Helion is here because he has a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” I asked.
“Quiet, remember?” Stefani asked. I didn’t even look at her, my full attention on my mother.
The door opened before I had an answer. Standing there was my stepfather, Max. Behind him, sitting at the comm station was the Prillon I’d met at the prison earlier. And on the large screen on the wall? A pretty woman I recognized very well.
“Warden Egara?” I swept past my mother and stepped around Max’s oversized bulk, so accustomed to his size that I barely noticed. “What are you doing here?”
Well, not here-here, but she was here. Huge face, dark brown hair, haunted gray eyes. She was young and beautiful but her eyes were old. Maybe she was one of those ‘old souls’ the psychics and Tarot card readers on Earth liked to talk about. Put on a hokey television show about paranormal phenomenon, and I was all in.
“Adrian. Stefani. I hear you have had an eventful visit.”
