My Beasts And Me (The Beast And Me Book 7) Read online

  My Beasts and Me

  The Beast and Me VII

  D.S. Wrights

  Copyright © 2017 D.S. Wrights

  All rights reserved.

  This is still for Padyn.

  Gill, you rock!

  Thank you, Annie, and Avril!

  A big, fat thank you to Ella & Amanda!

  Day 387

  It’s been a year and three weeks since I had first been taken and so much has changed since then. Now, I’m nine months pregnant but far from overdue. I’ve just recently developed a tummy. So, I guess I look like I’m six months along. I don’t feel tired, or weary, or bloated, or have any of the discomforts I’ve read about. It’s rather the opposite. My senses are heightened, almost as if I am in beast form, though I’m not. But the line between human and beast is thin as paper now. That’s the difference.

  My beast is ready to jump into action at the slightest disturbance, at the most minimal potential threat. That’s what really is straining, really wearing me down. Because I am being potentially threatened every single second I am within the walls of the compound, within the walls of the fortress.

  I’m back to square one.

  This is my newest diary. But I have the feeling that it’s going to be my last one. You probably wonder, why I am thinking this, Peter. It’s because this doesn’t have a use for me anymore. Writing my life down. I’m past that.

  That’s another thing that is different. I don’t need this anymore, because I am aware of my situation.

  Do you really think that I am going to be that naïve this time? Writing all my thoughts and worries down, and, more importantly, my plans?

  I know you are expecting me to write every day, like I did before. And I might. If you want me to write, I will write. If you want me to strip myself naked in front of you, I will do that, too. But you will never know which of these words are actually me, the real me, the one you got to see the very first time, when you tried to snake and slither into my heart. That’s not going to happen this time. And I am not that naïve to believe that you are going to try to do that again. Or is that what you are opting for?

  I’m not sure how you are going to handle having me back, and I don’t really care. I don’t really care what you are planning, truly.

  Just remember, Rook. You didn’t catch me. You didn’t find me. I came to you. I offered myself. Because I know, you might be a trickster, a mastermind, a villain, but unlike your pathetic, disgusting brother, you actually are capable of emotion. You’re not that good at acting. I know you really cared for me. I know you really wanted me to fall for you, care for you. That pain you felt when I rejected you, that wasn’t an act. That was real.

  Just as the emotions on your face when you got out of that car in front of the diner a few miles away from the spot where you took my beasts from me. The disbelief that I was really there, waiting for you, and the realization that I, me, the woman that outsmarted your genius brother, was surrendering myself to you.

  All for them. Nothing for you.

  Of course, you brought your henchmen. No surprise there. And, as you now know, I didn’t only expect it, I had hoped for it. Apart from that, I had already been at that diner even before I sent the phone to the address where we kidnapped Jay.

  I still have a hard time believing that you didn’t expect me to go into that meeting prepared. Did you really believe every word I said? Did you really buy my act? That I was desperate? That I felt overwhelmed? That I felt incapable of going on alone? That I couldn’t imagine bringing a beast child into this world alone? Without a father?

  You really did buy that. After all that has happened, you still underestimate me. I know your weaknesses and I exploited them. I have risked trying to heal you from either one of them. And if you still yearn for me to love you, even after reading this, you will know that me taking advantage of you is your own fault.

  So, when you stood there, next to that sleek, black sedan, your face mirroring that truckload of emotion you felt when you saw me leaving that diner as if you were just someone to pick me up, I felt calm. And you knew it. And when you saw that tiny smile emerge on my lips, when my foot touched the ground, you knew that you had made a mistake not honoring your agreement of coming alone.

  The moment my second foot touched the ground, all the blinds of the diner were shut. You know I asked them to do close them, and I gave them some of your money to show them that I was being serious. I didn’t want them to see what was going to happen after I left the lowest step of the stairs.

  Of course, I knew you wouldn’t hold up your end of your bargain. You just had to bring your men with you to show me that you wouldn’t be forced into a position you didn’t like. You needed to prove to yourself you wouldn’t let anyone – let alone me – maneuver your back against a wall. I knew that.

  The expression on your face, when you realized that I was well aware of that, that I had even hoped for it, was just priceless. Even more so, when I noticed that none of your henchmen were beasts. None of them.

  I wonder why? Were you scared that they would turn on you at the mere sight of me? You were, weren’t you? After all, I managed to break through the false memories you planted into Jay. After all, your most rebellious beast, Daniel, was loyal to me, so loyal that he even sacrificed himself for me. So, of course, you couldn’t take the risk that I would turn your own beasts against you.

  And, that’s another reason you wanted me. We didn’t talk about it, but we both know that Jay isn’t the alpha you had hoped for. You need a strong leader, someone your beasts follow blindly. You thought Jay would be enough, because he was their commanding officer. But you also knew that through me you could control him. You didn’t think of the possibility that turning him into a beast would eventually break him. Break him to such an extent that even I would not be able to mend his soul.

  Brainwashing him was a good idea, but you should have done that before bringing me in. I wonder why you waited to do that for so long? Maybe because you knew that the beast would be able to fight against it?

  You should have brought beasts. I really don’t need to remind you, do I? You knew the second those blinds were shut that I would make you pay for breaking our deal. And, hell, did I enjoy that. It’s such an irony – and I love irony so much – that you know I wouldn’t have hurt your beasts, at least not to an extent that was beyond healing, but your soldiers? Not so much.

  How could you believe that I would be afraid of their rifles? Even when they were stun guns? You wouldn’t risk hurting the first naturally created beast. You wouldn’t risk hurting my child. Hurting me? Not a problem, after all, I am dangerous, am I not? At least you know now, since you have witnessed it with your own eyes.

  Didn’t you believe the recording of me? Did you forget about that? Or did you really underestimate me that much?

  They could have carried real guns for all I care. None of them were a match for me. Neither were you. Neither are you. Remember, I saw that expression on your face. I know you still want me. Now maybe more than ever.

  As the dust settled around my shoes, your men jumped into action and I stayed where I was, taking you captive with my stare. I allowed the four soldiers, all dressed in black, to close in on me. Another mistake, ordering them to try and cuff me. I even lifted my wrists, palms up, as one of them barked at me to do so.

  You only watched my smile turn into a grin, and I could see the shock of realization rolling down your spine like a landslide of snow. And I could watch how your mind formed the order for them to stop and retreat. You never got the chance to actually speak it.

  I still stared at you. I stared at you while I burst into action and gr
abbed the nearest rifle to my left and pulled on it, forcing the man to stumble in front of me, using his momentum to bring up my left hand and break his neck. I spun around my own axis, turning around my left shoulder and jumped over my first kill by bringing up my legs stretched out behind me – a move I stole from a ballerina I watched on TV. I landed next to the second soldier on the left, while his comrade’s body was slumping to the ground. Again, I grabbed the rifle and yanked it forward, using the momentum once more to break the soldier’s neck. It was only then that I warped into my beast form, to increase my speed even more, since the other two soldiers were out of my imminent reach. Unlucky for them that their deaths would be less clean.

  Needless to repeat myself. You know it’s your fault.

  Dan taught me to use the weight of my opponents for my own benefit, because I’m lighter and weaker. But I am also that much faster.

  I was still warping as I leaped forward, pushing myself away from the dying body, and brought up my right hand, to pull it down, claws out, tearing through fabric and flesh of my third opponent. I missed his artery, but rendered him incapable of attacking me, temporarily, as his instincts forced him to drop his weapon and press his hands to his injuries. It was enough time for me to tend to the fourth soldier, who was still aiming his stun rifle at where I stood just a few heartbeats ago. He didn’t see me coming, just like his now dead comrades.

  This time, I used my own momentum and turned.

  While my right clawed hand was down, I brought up my left and pulled it across the fourth soldier’s face. He reacted the same way as the man before him, giving me enough time to complete the turn around my axis and bring around my left hand and claw it into the right side of the third man’s face. Stuck in his flesh, I forced him up and clawed out his throat with my right. Pulling my left hand from my third kill, I sunk it into the lower right side of the fourth man, forcing him to arch his back in pain, which gave me the opportunity to slash his throat.

  After that, I looked you straight in the eyes again.

  Four kills in two seconds. New record.

  Of course, you wouldn’t show how you felt about me killing four of your men in what felt like two heartbeats. The only apparent reaction of yours was bringing up your hand to call back the others. That exact movement you surely had wanted to make four seconds earlier.

  But I know you now, Peter. Ever since realization hit me that you are Rook, everything made sense to me. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. It’s like you knew right away when your brother brought me in that I would be the latter, didn’t you?

  I know you didn’t. I know that you saw just the same in me as did everyone else, as I did myself. A timid, shy, and insecure young woman, not knowing her purpose in the world, yearning for love.

  So, when I first met Jay, I thought that he was exactly that. I believed that he was my purpose, that I was the one meant to save him and that his love would eventually make me whole. You never stood a chance.

  I think you knew. I believe that deep down you knew that you would never be able to give me that sense of purpose, of belonging that Jay did more than a year ago. But you still needed to try. Do you know why?

  I know why.

  Because, deep down, you were just as broken, forlorn, and rejected as I was. You were stumbling through the world, blinded, searching for a light to guide you home. But I wasn’t that light and I wasn’t that home, either.

  Maybe it was Valerie, but I guess you will never find out now.

  So, when you stood there, staring back at me, your face blank and devoid of all emotion, I looked where you are incapable of hiding what you are feeling: Your eyes, your posture, those tiny movements of your body.

  I know you were shocked. Who wouldn’t be? Everyone who had seen what I just had done would have been nothing less than terrified. But you were also angry and surprised. Uncomfortably surprised. Angry, because you should have known what I would do, when you would try to turn this surrender into a capture, and uncomfortably surprised, because I had been faster than on the tapes. Faster, and even more lethal.

  Do I really have to confirm your assumption that even though you took my beasts I continued practicing martial arts? I did even more than that. And I’m not talking Tai Chi. But, you will have enough time to figure that out yourself watching my live feed, which you surely have on your phone, haven’t you? I won’t hide anything from you, but I don’t need to tell you either.

  You know, there is one big difference between Jay and me, and I only realized that after he had betrayed me. He is led by his emotions, by his moral compass. He battles with his emotions before he even gets a chance to decide. And his emotions are so overwhelming that they influence his judgement in a way that he decides wrongly.

  I’m not like that. Your brother was not like that. But you are. You are like Jay. Yes, you are capable of planning meticulously, but you still want everyone to like you, no, to look up to you. You want to be admired. You want people to applaud you. Your brother just wanted everyone to see that he was right. I don’t need anything like that. I don’t care anymore if you like me. I don’t care if you love me. I don’t care if you want me to love you. I don’t care.

  But I demand your respect. You can find your own justification for it, but I deserve your respect. Whether I deserve it because in the end it was you who brought me into this situation, because you are the reason why I am here right now, turned into a beast and pregnant with one, or because I turned myself in, keeping up my end of the bargain, or because I would have been able to kill you right then and there, but I deserve your respect.

  You know, I could have just continued like that; killing your men. You have seen with your own eyes how fast I am, and I know that you are wondering if I might be even faster than that. I guess you will have to try and find out.

  But, like we agreed on the phone, you will treat me like a guest, like someone you want to help. I won’t be your prisoner, I won’t be your subject, or your guinea pig, and neither will my son.

  I told you that I need a safe environment with the help that I need because I have no experience whatsoever in giving birth or taking care of a child, let alone a beast one. You promised me that you would help me, and I agreed that in exchange for your help and protection, I would allow you to take blood samples, document my pregnancy, and conduct examinations.

  I can be a compliant guest, or I can be a protective and fierce mother beast. It’s your choice.

  I’ve proven to you how lethal I can be, and you cannot use any weapons, tranquilizers, or violence on me without endangering what is invaluable to the both of us: my child.

  When I stood there, my hands bathed in blood, four of your soldiers either dead or dying at my feet, you knew you had made a big mistake. You violated my trust the first chance you got. And although you ordered the remaining eight to stop dead in their tracks, you couldn’t possibly know what I would do next. And I said nothing. I allowed that pretty little head of yours to come up with all the next steps I could possibly take. But I could read in your eyes and see the way you stood there looking at me, that you knew I wouldn’t run. I would stay and fight.

  And that was why I grinned at you, saying nothing. You knew at that exact moment that if you continued to try and turn this into you capturing me, you would be my next target and my next kill. But that wasn’t the fact giving me satisfaction, it was you being rattled. I had sounded so desperate, so helpless, so weak when I called you, and now I was the opposite. Now it was your call to either keep the deal with unpredictable me or to turn away and leave.

  You made the first really good choice since I’ve known you. You called off your goons and had them retreat, but I still wouldn’t move or speak. I waited for you to make another good decision.

  As I’ve told you. I demand your respect.

  I didn’t make it easy for you, as I just continued to stand there waiting for you to realize what I was expecting of you after betraying me. It was such a pleasure to wa
tch you trying to figure out what that was. But you proved to me how intelligent you really are when you opened that treacherous mouth of yours and said: “I apologize.” And you didn’t insult me with any explanation or argument. “You know I had to try. You made your point. Would you please allow me to take you to your new home?”

  Listening to these words, knowing that I forced you to speak them was, admittedly, not pleasurable at all. Because you found the perfect words, almost as if you plucked them from my mind. Don’t think just because I showed you to not underestimate me, I would make that mistake with you.

  “Thanks,” what was I gave back and stepped over the corpses I created without looking at them.

  Don’t think just because I am able to kill within the blink of an eye that I don’t feel remorse. I am still capable of emotions, I just don’t feel sorry for the men that work for you. I’m not sorry for people who willingly serve a man who experiments on human life for a living.

  You pulled out a water bottle from your sedan when I slowly, cautiously moved towards you, warping back into my human form as I let out a long breath to calm myself. Seeing the bottle, I instantly knew the water it contained was meant to clean my hands, and I appreciated that. Nothing is more awkward than sitting in the backseat of a car with your hands all bloody. You even ordered one of your guys to get me a towel, but you probably didn’t want me to ruin the leather seats of your car.

  Maybe it was awkward for you to sit next to me in the backseat of your sedan.

  God knows I would have preferred to sit anywhere else but next to you, but then again like that you were constantly reminded of your mistake, and I felt like I could listen to your brain reassessing what you would do now.

  I honestly expected you to call the fortress and give me a new room, but apparently, you had planned to give me a nice one, or you were prepared for either outcome. But I won’t overthink this. Facts are more important. And the fact is that I have a decent room with a TV in my wall to act as a window, with walls that have a nice shade of gray and not this clinical white. I have a wood floor and a bed with a wood frame, a wooden closet, nightstand, and dresser. I have my books back. I appreciate that you even thought of giving me different colored sheets. I like purple.