Healing My Seven Broken Beast Mates

The stench hit her first. It smelled like rotting meat left out in the sun, thick and wet, coating the inside of her nose and sliding down her throat. Jayla's stomach heaved violently. She doubled over, dry-heaving onto the cold stone floor, her body convulsing as it tried to expel the foulness.

One thought crystallized before anything else: she had been transmitted. Again.

Not to another modern city, not to a historical dynasty — the system had thrown her into a Beast World. She was certain. The smell alone told her. No human settlement, no matter how filthy, carried that particular cocktail of raw animal musk, damp stone, and festering flesh. She had read the mission dossiers on Beast World deployments. She had always been grateful she'd never drawn one.

Apparently, gratitude meant nothing to A. Winter.

She tried to push herself up, to get her bearings, but a blinding pain exploded at the base of her skull. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of her head. A strangled groan escaped her lips as her arms gave out, and she crashed back down onto the rough, damp rock.

"What the hell..." Her voice was a raw rasp, like sandpaper scraping against wood. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth.

Suddenly, a high-pitched whine pierced through the fog in her brain. It sounded like a modem dialing up, shrill and insistent, drilling directly into her synapses. Jayla squeezed her eyes shut, her hands flying up to press hard against her temples, as if she could physically push the sound out.

"Operative Lewis." The mechanical voice of A. Winter was devoid of any emotion, cold and sharp as a scalpel. "Intercontinental Beast World transmission confirmed. Forced deployment initiated. Welcome to Scenario: Cursed Mates Who Want Me Dead."

"Bullshit!" Jayla roared in her mind, the pain fueling her rage. "My retirement was approved! I was on the beach!"

"Request denied," A. Winter cut her off flatly. "Protocol locked. Mission parameters uploading."

A tidal wave of data slammed into her consciousness. Not just mission objectives — world parameters. Beast World. A continent where humanoid species carrying the blood of ancient animals had evolved alongside humans: Merfolk with iridescent tails, Wolf-kin with amber eyes that glowed in the dark, Eagle-men whose wingspans could blot out the sun. A world governed by primal law, where strength was currency and the Mark of a mate was both sacred bond and iron chain. Images, sounds, and sensations — none of them hers — flooded her brain. Jayla's body went rigid, her back spasming, twitching on the stone floor as the mental assault raged. Her fingers curled into tight fists, nails digging into her own palms, drawing crescent moons of blood.

She tried to fight back. She reached for the familiar hum of Aether in her core, the energy that had saved her life a hundred times over. She tried to summon a spark, a shield, anything.

Nothing happened. The channels were blocked, sealed shut by invisible inhibitors. Her fingertips didn't even flicker.

A jolt of genuine panic shot through her. She was powerless. A Tier-S operative without her Aether was like a shark without teeth — and she had just been dropped into a Beast World cave, in a body that wasn't hers, with no powers, no intel, and no exit.

"Complete the Progenitus Optimization mission, or face immediate soul erasure," A. Winter warned, the voice fading into the back of her skull like a receding tide. Then, silence.

Jayla slammed her fist against the ground. The sharp crack of bone against stone echoed in the darkness. "Get back here!" she screamed.

But the system was gone. And the energy required for that outburst drained the last dregs of her strength. The blood loss from the head wound, the shock of the data dump, the sheer physical exhaustion — it all crashed down on her at once. Black spots danced across her vision, multiplying until they swallowed the dim light. Her limbs felt like lead. The darkness pulled her under again.

She didn't know how long she was out. Minutes? Hours?

A rough, cold sensation dragged across her cheek. It felt like dry leather, scraping against her skin. She recognized it instinctively from the world parameters still settling in her mind — the rasp of an animal hide, treated the primitive way, without chemicals or machinery. Beast World craftsmanship. Her nerve endings fired, jolting her brain back online.

Jayla's eyelids fluttered. Her operative instincts kicked in before her conscious mind could catch up. She tried to roll into a defensive crouch, to put her back against a wall.

Her body betrayed her. She only managed to turn her head, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

A drop of icy water fell from the cavern ceiling, landing dead center on her forehead. The cold shock snapped her eyes open.

Her vision was blurry at first, the darkness of the cave pressing in. Then, she saw them. A pair of eyes, glowing with a faint, chilling blue light, staring at her from the shadows.

Beast-kin eyes. Every muscle in Jayla's body tensed. She felt like a gazelle that had just spotted a predator in the tall grass.

The owner of those eyes moved closer. The weak moonlight filtering into the cave entrance illuminated a face that was pale and streaked with dirt. He was clearly not fully human — the bioluminescent glow of his irises, the unnatural stillness with which he held himself despite his obvious agony, marked him as one of the Beast World's aquatic kin. He was gaunt, his cheekbones jutting out sharply. His features might have been handsome once, but now they were twisted by an agony so profound it bordered on madness.

It was Jordi Butler.

He reached out a hand. His fingers were bony, the skin stretched tight over the knuckles. He grabbed her chin, his grip punishing. It felt like he was trying to crush her jawbone into powder.

Jayla winced, trying to bat his hand away. But he was stronger than he looked — Beast-kin strength, even in this broken state, outstripped a human's by a significant margin. His other hand slammed down on her shoulder, pinning her to the ground. She couldn't move.

"You're still alive, you monster..." Jordi's voice was a low, venomous hiss. It dripped with hatred and the metallic tang of blood.

His eyes were wide, the blue irises burning with a disgust so intense it made Jayla's stomach clench. He looked at her the way one might look at a rotting piece of garbage.

But Jayla was an expert at reading people. Beneath the hatred, beneath the disgust, she saw something else. His hand was trembling. His entire body was shaking. It wasn't just rage; it was terror. A deep, bone-marrow-deep fear of her.

"Let... go..." she managed to croak, her throat burning.

Jordi reacted as if he had touched a live wire. He snatched his hand back, his whole body jerking away from her. He started wiping his fingers frantically on the tattered animal skin draped over his chest — standard Beast World clothing, Jayla registered distantly, stitched hide and sinew, nothing more — scrubbing at his skin as if he had been contaminated by a deadly virus.

He stood over her, his lip curling in a sneer. He spat on the ground near her face, the glob of saliva landing inches from her cheek.

Without another word, Jordi turned his back on her. He walked away, his footsteps heavy and uneven, dragging himself deeper into the suffocating darkness of the cave.