Beast's Beauty: A Xeno Sapiens Novel (Genetically Altered Humans Book 4) Read online

  “Do they seriously feel that strongly about her?” Sunny asked.

  “Strangely, yes. Yet they’ve admitted they’ve never met her. We’re flabbergasted by the defense and admission.” Jason’s hands tightened on the steering joystick. “I think that’s one reason why the council is more on the guilty side. They’re trying to balance the twins’ out.”

  “This is a mess,” Sunny said.

  “I know,” Jason said. “But like Lily keeps saying, it’ll work itself out. And to her credit, the tidbit about your strength being tied to your hair hasn’t been leaked to any of the underground feeds.”

  “It is a bit of a ludicrous story,” Sunny said.

  “Not really. It’s based on superstition. A real, live biblical story from one of their religions called Samson and Delilah. He loved Delilah and trusted her with the secret to his strength. She betrayed him while he slept, cutting off his hair. So when people hear it, they’ll remember the tale and will believe it to be true. Especially if Heather would have mentioned that Xeno Sapiens have powers. She’s been around Sunny and knows of hers. She also would have mentioned that Beast’s skin color changed from it. But again, nothing has been leaked, so there’s some hope for her.”

  “Does Amanda think your color will come back?”

  “She’s not worried about it,” Beast said, kissing the top of her head. “She says it could go or stay…or it can even fluctuate back and forth with emotion. It’s only pigment. She describes it as being no different than a pale person flushing with color. Mine has simply washed away.”

  “Well, I think you look purrty,” Jason drawled.

  “Thanks, sexy.” Beast grinned. “Wish you were sitting next to me instead of Sunny.”

  Sunny snorted laughter. “I’ll always sit between you two now.”

  It was fifteen minutes later before Sunny and Beast crawled into bed. As they cuddled together in the dark, she spoke again. She just was unable to let the issue go.

  “Do you think she volunteered for Jett and Brax because she thought they were reclusive and wouldn’t be missed if they went missing?” Sunny asked.

  Beast shrugged. “It’s a possibility. That’s the idea the others are tossing around. That perhaps she’s in on the scam with the people she’s sending money to.”

  “Does anyone else think that Heather’s a victim?”

  “No. But they don’t really know her. She keeps to herself mostly.”

  “You and I know her. All of the evidence points to her being blackmailed.”

  “Not necessarily. She could be in on the scheme to keep her gramma locked up so when a Xeno Sapien goes missing, she could say she had no choice. Gramma will back up the story. But half the gang gets away, and eventually, she goes off to follow them, and gramma will be stunned to find out that Heather was even involved.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  He shrugged. “She’d get a portion of the money from the capture of the Xeno Sapien.”

  “I really don’t think she’s got that in her.”

  “I don’t either, honestly.” He sighed. “And if the others knew her, they’d probably think otherwise. But still, it’s probably good that they’re suspicious. It is what keeps us safe.”

  “I know. I just wish we could find some proof. I hate what finding her guilty would do to Jett and Brax. Did you know they communicate with her?”

  “Yes,” Beast sighed. “I’ll try my damndest to find something to exonerate her, babe. Come here.”

  He held her in his arms, rubbing her back lightly to help her fall asleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Exoneration looked bleak the next morning. Beast left Sunny in Systems with Robyn and Amanda, Tempest, Sam, and Lily. They would be able to monitor the situation from there—the communications between the Esson Four team and Jason’s team.

  Unbeknownst to any of them, Heather had ordered a car to take her to meet the two males who had just taken money from her the night before. She’d received the notification alert that she had an additional hundred credits from Sunny’s tip. Everyone else assumed there would be no reason to meet with strangers if the two men were simply blackmailing her and had received her money. After all, they wouldn’t know she received an additional amount. So the security task force was surprised when she ordered a car, and the human members decided to follow her, thinking she wanted to get the rest of the money to the two males. In their eyes, it made her seem as if she was in cahoots with the kidnappers and knew she’d get a portion of the money in the long run.

  The invisi-car—consisting of the Esson Four group—rolled to a stop in front of the house Beast had followed them to last night.

  Renegade hit the button for the security team. “Jason. You got a visual on Heather?”

  Through the speaker on the invisible car, they heard Jason’s reply. “Yeah. She looks scared. She’s meeting a guy. Brown hair but when the light shines on it, it’s got some red. Think he’s the relative?”

  “He has to be. Robyn said red hair is too uncommon.”

  “I may be able to get some DNA. This fool tossed a bottle out of his truck. When they all leave, I’ll grab it for Robyn to test.”

  “Excellent. Let us know when they leave her place. We’re pulling up at theirs.”

  “Will do. Jason out.”

  Renegade looked at Steele, who shrugged at the strange human codes.

  “Um…Renegade is out, too.”

  From the backseat, Beast and Pax giggled at his awkwardness. Renegade scowled at them.

  “I told you we should have split those two up,” Renegade grumbled to Steele, who sat in the front with him.”

  “Well that would mean either you or I had to ride with one of them, and you didn’t want to do that.”

  “It’s too early in the morning for this.” Despite his grumbles, a small smile tilted the corner of his mouth. Beast knew that Renegade felt the same way they all did. Like four brothers, together again. For the longest time, it was only the four of them in existence in the labs. Robyn and Amanda had kept them together as much as they could, and they had developed a closeness, a bond which Robyn had said was similar to siblings.

  They exited the vehicle, which was parked on the side of the house. Steele pulled up a couple of weeds from the yard, inserting them into the car handles of the car to mark the spot of where they’d return.

  “Two in the front, two in the back,” he whispered, pointing toward a small trail that cut through the weeds heading behind the house. Beast and Pax took the small path, while Renegade and Steele headed toward the front.

  The yard was even further overgrown with weeds. A rickety wooden porch encased the back door, and it creaked under their weight. The door was locked but the doorknob was barely hanging on. Pax wiggled it, and then pulled out a screwdriver from his bag. It came off easily and he grinned, tossing it to the weeds outside.

  “We could really shake things up and release some of your other selves,” Beast whispered. They’d discovered that Pax had multiples of himself, each containing a shard of his personality. Unfortunately, he couldn’t always control when they returned to his original state.

  Pax grinned. “Yeah, but six more people in the car is gonna get tight. Do you really want one of me sitting on your lap to get back home?” He winced. “Each time, they wish to remain on the outside and own their own existence.”

  Beast grunted in reply.

  The house was pitch-black inside. The kitchen was old and dirty, smelling like garbage and stale food. Once they were through the kitchen, they were into the living room, where they met with Renegade and Steele.

  “Help! Please, somebody, help.” The female voice was faint and whispered so weakly, Beast barely heard it. With a look, the four Xeno Sapiens turned on their flashlights and began searching the rooms.

  “I think we’ve discovered the identity of the third person,” Renegade whispered into his communicator to reach Jason’s team.

  Beast found her in the back of
the hallway, locked in a closet. She fell out when he opened the door, seated on the floor where she’d leaned up against it. He crouched down. She was tiny, no more than a scant five feet. Her hair was white and brushed back regally from her face. Her face was a beautifully elegant mass of wrinkles, each line showing wisdom, love, and experience. A few gathered around the corners of her lips, where smiling often had engraved them permanently.

  “Hey, there,” Beast said softly. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Elsa Marlow. I’ve been locked up while those degenerates”—she coughed— “blackmail my granddaughter.” She hung her head shamefully. “The way they did to me for years.”

  Steele’s wrist comm beeped, and he leaned back to take the communication.

  “Are you injured?” Beast asked.

  “Nothing’s broken.” She coughed again. “But I’m sick. They haven’t fed me, and I’ve only had a bottle of water in two days.”

  “We’re going to get you to a safe place where we have doctors,” Beast said. “And we’re going to get these guys who did this to you.”

  “I don’t know where the others went,” Elsa said, her eyelids quivering as she struggled to hold them open. “This time, I’ve only seen two of them. In other years, I’ve dealt with far more of them. They’re my granddaughter’s relatives though she’s never met them.”

  “We’re out of time,” Steele said abruptly. “The other two men are headed back. Pax, fling the back door open like Ms. Marlow escaped. Beast, bring her to the car. We’ll get you some water and take you straight to Xenia where our doctors will fix you right up,” he soothed. “You’ll be right as rain, as my…wife says.”

  The old woman smiled before she passed out. She didn’t appear strong enough to survive the ride back to the city.

  * * * * *

  After delivering the old woman to the waiting doctors in medbay, Beast and Jason were eager to get home to their mates. They shared a cart, traveling around the wooded area to get to the cabins. Once the cart parked, he hopped out and waved at Jason, knowing he was just as eager to get inside to Lily as Beast was to get to Sunny.

  As soon as he came into the front door, Sunny sprang out of the bedroom.

  “Beast?” She threw herself at him, her head barely reaching his chest.

  “Hey, what’s that about?” he asked, stroking her silky hair.

  “I was so worried about you!”

  “Why?” He tilted her head up. “I was just rescuing little old ladies.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, beautiful. I was.”

  “But the two humans were about to return. There were two of them against you four. I don’t understand why you didn’t capture them.”

  “Our priority was Elsa Marlow. She looks bad, Sunny. I thought she’d take her last breath in my arms while we raced back to Xenia.”

  “Will she be okay now?”

  “We still don’t know.”

  “And no one was available to see if Heather returned with the two men?”

  “No, she didn’t. That looks good on her side. A human team will take the invisi-car and continue to monitor her for the next few days until she returns to Xenia on Tuesday. We hope they’ll find something. I’m still clinging to the belief that if she was guilty, she’d have returned with those two to their establishment.”

  “With the grandmother gone, I wonder how they’ll blackmail her?”

  “She won’t know her grandmother is gone. I’m sure those two will force her to make her move this week, thinking Elsa might turn up in a hospital and will contact Heather to let her know she’s escaped.”

  Sunny squeezed him tight. “I worry whenever you head out of the gates. I know it’s silly. You’re in an invisible car. You have the security team with you. Hell, you had the whole Esson Four group. I’m just a worry wart. But I love you so much, and I wasted so much time not being with you…”

  “Hey, it all worked out.” He stooped, picking her up. “And now you’ll have me forever.”

  “Forever,” she echoed, as he carried her back to bed. “Tell me everything,” she insisted. “Every single detail.”

  “Turns out the voice we heard calling weakly was an old woman we found locked in a closet. Renegade thought it might be a trick, perhaps one of those voice-activated devices. But it wasn’t. We assumed before she even told us her identity that she was Heather’s grandmother. She says she was originally from Alpha One and a schoolteacher, but her husband had died early in their marriage. She had one child. Her daughter met a man when she was little more than a teen, and she did everything she could to keep them separate. Her girl turned up pregnant, and he dumped her, only to show up again once Heather was born. He stole them away one day and next thing Elsa knows, she’s getting a call from the authorities. Her daughter had died of a drug overdose, and Heather was in foster care. There was no one to care for her. She had no idea what happened to Heather’s father, but she was sure he was the one who enabled her daughter to get hooked on drugs, perhaps even by force. Elsa retired from teaching and raised Heather. When Heather was a small child, the father returned. He had a crew of family members with him, including this Mark and Mike who are brothers and some distant cousins to him. He began to blackmail Elsa, threatening to take his biological daughter. Elsa gave him money for years, living like a pauper, in order to keep his daughter. One day, he stopped coming, but the kin didn’t. Robyn has traced that he and Mark were in a prison, but the demands for money didn’t stop. Elsa took tutoring jobs and tried to get Heather as far away as possible, getting her an education from a school on Alpha One. She stopped paying them when Heather was safely away. When Heather graduated, she insisted on coming back to help care for Elsa. She’d gotten a job here suddenly, but Elsa was wary. Elsa thought Mike had found Heather, since she had returned to Earth-Ground, and was blackmailing her, trying to convince her to become their link into Xenia. She finally agreed to their demands when Elsa was kidnapped. Elsa says during her time in captivity, she found out that Heather’s father had died in the same prison Mark was in, and Mark had been in contact with his brother Mike. It was Mike’s original plan to seduce you, and lure you from Xenia to make money as their captive. They were going to keep you in a cage where people would pay to see a real live Xeno Sapien up close. Eventually, they hoped males would want to spend one on one time with you, and they’d prostitute you. They also wondered, like everyone else, if you were made of gold.”

  “We thought it was finished with Mike, but we weren’t even close.”

  “No. And he got the idea to entice you with children because that was how they’d manipulated Elsa for years. They squeezed her for every dime she had.”

  “So Heather just wanted to protect her grandmother, but now she’s soon to be locked up. I think it’s sadder than ever.”

  “It is sad, but look at the danger she would have put you in. She may still try, depending on what they’ll put her up to this week.”

  “Yet she was trying the best she could. She refused to trick me, trying her hardest to get you under her wiles. Knowing you could take care of yourself if she presented you to the brothers. I honestly believe that’s her plan.”

  “I know,” he soothed, rubbing her back. “Still, she broke laws, and she’s on Xenia where she’ll stand trial. All we can do is speak up on her behalf.”

  “I can’t stand it, Beast. I was so jealous of her when she was so desperate to keep her grandmother alive. All she wanted to do was snag the strongest Xeno Sapien so I wouldn’t get hurt again, and I attacked her.”

  “Sunny, I know your protective heart bleeds for her. But this is the best way. Standing trial means she has a chance at losing her Earth citizenship. And then she can never leave Xenia. Isn’t it for the best that she remain a captive here than a captive on Earth-Ground?”

  Sunny cuddled into his strength. She nodded, feeling safe and protected. Had Heather ever felt the same way?

  “What about Jett and Brax?” she whispered. />
  He sighed. “They’ve been told about her treachery. They’ve accepted it. Everyone seems to think we should, too.”

  “I’m glad you and I are on the same team,” Sunny said. “That we see eye to eye.”

  “It’s because of our love,” Beast said.

  “I love being paired with you,” Sunny whispered. “I love that everyone knows we belong together.”

  “I love that you finally know it.” Beast grinned at her. Then his smile dropped as his gaze roved down her body.

  “Let me show you how to forget everything but how you and I fit together,” he said.

  “I need something different this time,” she said, taking a chance on him.

  “What?” He seemed a tiny bit wary.

  “Let me show you,” she said, pushing him back and draping a thigh across his waist. She sat over him, and shimmied from her top. Her breasts fell out, all golden skin and taut nipples. Beast reached up and cupped both of them, his calloused thumbs making her shiver as they rubbed across the tips.

  “Goddess, you’re beautiful,” he rumbled. “Come here and let me taste these.”

  “Nuh, uh,” she teased. “I told you I want something different. I want you to lie still while I take what I need.”

  In about two seconds flat, she got them both naked, flinging garments across the room. When her beautiful Beast lay spread-eagled on the bed, cock pointing toward the ceiling, she ran a finger over his muscled chest, noticing his skin slowly darken.

  There it was; that was the key. He wasn’t yet ebony and gold, but he was definitely a deeper chocolate with gold.

  Her lips replaced her finger, kissing a trail down the warm flesh.

  “Sunny, what are—“

  “Hush,” she chided and then sank her wet mouth over the tip of his cock.

  A strange noise came from his throat, a sort of strangled gasp. She sucked for a minute on the head and then took more of him into her mouth, watching his color change more and more, growing deeper and slicker.

  He groaned as she laved his cock, cupping his heavy balls in her hand, working them softly.