𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄 | 👽 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 ✓

Nine - Zeus

Khole and Erika left with Tati sandwiched between them. Zeus looked around the kitchen at Castian and Apollo. He didn't know if Brock had told them what he saw when he found him with Tati. Zeus knew Brock was no gossip and he wouldn't go about telling everyone, but he'd had nothing to worry about.

Neither Castian nor anyone else said anything, though Apollo had a rather smug look on his face. The youngest member of their crew was a bona fide horn dog. Yet, more recently, Zeus had noticed that Apollo seemed to be calmer. More centered within himself. Zeus wondered if it was possible Erika had something to do with that. Whenever the two had a free moment, they were together, but he hadn't noticed either of them acting differently.

The whole group knew when Brock was going into rut, and it was because he was mated to Khole. Zeus could feel it himself. His cock had been hard since he laid eyes on her. The hormone glands beneath his tongue and in his balls felt tender and swollen. Zeus had forgotten how territorial he felt around Mia at first. He was already experiencing it with Tati, and they'd known each other for less than a full hour. He wanted her all to himself, and he was jealous that Khole and Erika were with her upstairs.

Zeus had courted Mia the old-fashioned way. He brought her flowers and food; he wanted to show her he would make a good provider. That he would protect her no matter what and care for her every need. From the beginning, it was hard for him to concentrate on normal things he had to do. Like work, because he was thinking of her. Now he felt that way for Tati.

He wanted nothing more than to run up those stairs and sniff out her scent. Then take her back to his room where she belonged, but this was a lot. Tati might have been on Wolfeen a lot longer than Khole or Erika, but as far as her knowledge of their people, Tati was learning at the same rate as the other two hybrids.

There was so much Zeus wanted to talk to Tati about. There were things he needed to explain to her. But he couldn't charge up there like the first Wolfeen and claim her without talking to her first. What if this wasn't what she wanted?

Tati could have someone on Earth.

A growl ripped through his chest, sounding throughout the kitchen, causing Vexx to look up from the book in his hands.

"Everything alright, Z?"

Zeus shook his head. Everything was most definitely not alright.

"I'm going down to work." Zeus grumbled. Forcing his legs to work as he stomped down the stairs into the basement where the computer lab was set up.

The mere thought of some other man, human or Wolfeen putting his hands on his precious Angel made his baser instincts roil to the surface. Causing his claws to extend as he yanked his chair away from his desk and threw himself into it. Tati said she woke up in a cage in a bedroom, but that she had escaped.

She'd already been sold and the fact that she was being kept in a bedroom, of all places, said more than Zeus needed to know. She was sold to some sick bastard. A breeder or any of the other mega wealthy that lived on Wolfeen and he'd kept her in his bedroom.

Zeus didn't need Tati to say it. Her eyes told the story. He would know how she had gotten away and when he found the son of a bitch who bought her and thought he could use her? Zeus would rip his lungs out of his backside and use them for a fanny pack.

Zeus opened the program he was working on to find the hybrids. He stared at the code. Once in a while, his fingers would tap at a key, but he wasn't focused. Zeus didn't know how he'd worked when he met Mia, but the circumstances were different.

Zeus was a younger man, in his twenties, when they met and he was going through the Academy. The weight of the world didn't rest on his shoulders. He was young and stupid. Now, he was wiser, and he saw the danger that lurked for his mate around every corner.

They had no detail on where the Ghoul took the other hybrids from the ship that Erika was on. It was sheer dumb luck Apollo had stayed so close to the woman. Erika was inexperienced, but what she lacked, she made up for in courage and determination. That little mouse of a woman had fought right along with Apollo on that ship. The Ghoul scattered, collecting the rest of their livestock before teleporting from the bridge. They barred the door so the rest of the team and their backup couldn't enter until they were gone.

Now, those hybrids were out there somewhere in the galaxy.

Zeus felt like he would vomit every time the word livestock crossed his mind. But that's what these humans were to them. A commodity that was to be sold and traded. Nothing more.

It made him sick to his stomach, and it was the fate that awaited his Angel. The sparkling glitter of her green eyes spoke to him of some divine entity from deep in the galaxy. Which was why he called her Angel.

The name slipped from his lips as simply as if he were saying the name of the ones closest to him. Castian, Brock. But Tati, she was something altogether different to him.

Zeus sighed, closing his eyes to the computer screen. When footsteps sounded from the stairs behind him. He could smell Tati and Khole coming downstairs.

Fuck.

He was so preoccupied he forgot Samfred would need to take blood samples. Tati would feel the effects of their mating soon if she wasn't already.

It also didn't go unnoticed Brock's scent was all over Khole as she walked past him on her way to the back of the room.

Those two were insatiable. Zeus couldn't find it in himself to begrudge them any ounce of happiness they could find. Brock was never serious about dating before. The bull sized Wolfeen was a confirmed bachelor no matter how many women had tried to drop hints. Brock artfully did not pick them up.

Tati's sweet, honeyed scent wafted to his nostrils. The tendons in his knuckles tighten against the skin. Restraint was always his strong suit. He'd been tortured and never given up information, but with Tati. He felt like he was perched atop the razor's edge.