Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland novel Chapter 63

Chapter 63 A Box of Blackstones

Chapter 63 A Box of Blackstones

• 10 Frae Come

Mabel muttered to herself, “Couldn’t even keep still after getting hurt. Look at you, planted right, in the dirt,”

Feeling someone had rescued him, Tristan gave his head a shake and tried to make out who his savior was.

When he managed to lift his head, he found himself staring up at an unfamiliar face.

Puzzled, he gazed up at Mabel as she cradled him.

“You are…?”

Hearing his voice, Mabel looked down, and the two of them blinked wide-eyed at each other.

Tristan sensed something was off and gave a polite cough. “Thank you for digging me out of the dirt.”

Mabel hadn’t expected those words to come out of his mouth.

Was this guy actually polite? Or was he putting on an act?

Mabel studied the dark bruise stretching across Tristan’s head.

“What’s your name?”

Tristan thought for a moment, then gave up. “I don’t remember.”

Oh boy. Gillian had played with this little brain until it broke.

Up on the second floor, Gillian was just waking up.

Her first instinct was to send her psionic power into her lower abdomen.

Everything was fine.

Two clusters of life-force sat steady inside her womb.

Over the past three days they had grown noticeably firmer.

In a few more days, they should be fully secure.

Gillian felt her wrist hanging empty. Her wrist terminal had been left on the most visible spot of the nightstand.

Beside it sat an unfamiliar metal box, with two bio-armor studs resting quietly on top.

It looked like something Merrick had left behind.

Gillian slowly sat up, her clear eyes still only half open.

The thin blanket slid quietly off her shoulders and settled around her waist.

003

O

1/4

10:55 Wed, Jun 3 M.

Chapter 63 A Box of Blackstones

• 20 Free Cams

Soft brown waves draped lazily across the hollow of her collarbones, and her skin held a glow finer than pearl.

She glanced around the room, but Merrick was nowhere in sight.

The sky outside hadn’t lightened yet, but Gillian had no interest in falling back asleep.

Gillian reached for her wrist terminal and slipped it on.

Thinking back on the tangle of last night, Gillian found she carried no guilt over it.

When the heat had peaked and she had refused him, fighting back with everything she had, he had coaxed her softly through it.

“Elara and I are nothing more than commander and cleric, no feelings tangled up in any of it. Gillian. I’m yours and only yours. If I’m lying to you, may I drop dead without a grave to my name.”

“Then Tristan said you have a girlfriend. So you want both of us?”

Gillian raked her nails down his back.

“If you actually had someone you loved, you could’ve picked anyone else. Out of your hundred thousand soldiers, plenty of ’em are pretty hot. Lucian’s impressive, Number Two’s a riot, Number Three has that whole quiet style, Sylas has the abstinent thing going… mmph.”

She had regretted it the second it left her mouth. Why did she always have to push him just for the rush of a single jab?

Merrick was a wild animal, plain and simple.

He had reacted like a man gone feral, biting at her lips, refusing to let her get another word out.

Merrick had no shame and no exhaustion in him.

Gillian threw the blanket aside and swung her legs to the floor, only for her feet to land on what felt like a cloud.

Her thoughts drifted to the night before and the strange way her body had reacted in the bathroom.

Her hand pressed itself over her heart without her thinking about it.

Whatever trick Merrick had pulled, the dark beast-shadow in her primal core had actually moved.

Did that mean he could control her anytime, anywhere, and drag her under at his whim?

Or was this just the price of a core bond?

Gillian picked up the metal stud.

She pressed it to her chest, and a white medical uniform formed over her in an instant.

2/4

10:55 Wed,

Chapter 63 A Box of Blackstones

• 20 Free Cams

Compared to the standard-issue cloth uniforms the 9th Legion handed out, the cut was nearly identical

bio-armor fit closer to the skin, breathed cooler, resisted stains better, and offered some real defense

It also spared a medic from the worst-case scenario-a uniform soaked through with blood until it stiffened into a hard crust.

Gillian opened the metal box with a soft click.

She stared silently at what lay inside.

Inside was a full case of finger-thick blackstone bars, stacked in neat rows.

Her wrist terminal scanned the contents and tallied up three hundred bars.

A whole box of blackstone like this added up to thirty million coins.

Taking in the wrecked bedroom around her, Gillian’s expression darkened.

Drop off a box of blackstone, sleep with her, then disappear?

Fine. The box of blackstone could count as her compensation, then.

Gillian briskly tucked the whole box into her wrist-terminal storage. Anything that landed in there had no chance of getting back out.

She pinched a single bar and drew out the psionic energy inside it, letting it scrub the exhaustion from her body. The strength in her primal core ticked slowly upward, edging toward level four.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify