Granted by the Beast

by Hamilton, Rebecca; Kressley, Conner;

  A horrible howling echoed from the woods behind us. Jack erupted back into screams, and though my entire body shook, I rushed to grab him. The monster was out there, but which one?

  God, I was actually taking all of this seriously.

  How could I not, with all I had seen tonight?

  Another howl. From the same monster or another one? Maybe it was from an ordinary run-of-the-mill non-monstrous wolf. Hey, a girl can hope.

  My mind raced to the worst possible scenario. What if Lulu was attacked on her way to the hospital? What if the monster who chased after me—the one Abram saved me from—had ripped into that ambulance in an effort to get a hold of her?

  She would be running through these woods right now, scared and in labor. Or would she not even be able to run, same as she hadn’t been able to get to her phone. Did the Discovery Channel say fear can stall labor? Or was that with animals?

  No, if something was after Lulu, labor or not, she would be trying to get back to her child. But what chance would she stand against a beast? She would be ripped apart, just like the rest. And it would be all my fault.

  I reached for my cell before I realized who I was intending to call.

  My mind shouldn’t have gone to him. I had just told him how awful he was and how I never wanted to see him again. But if Abram was here, he would fix this. He would run those meaty wonderful hands through my hair and tell me everything would be all right. And I would believe him. Just like, God help me, I believed him now.

  I set the phone back down and curled up in a ball on the couch with Jack, squeezing my eyes shut to try to keep the tears from falling.

  How had my life gotten to this point?

  Chapter 16

  It was halfway through a symphony of Jack’s screams that a knock sounded at the door.

  My body tensed, causing all my other thoughts to screech to a halt like Saturday night traffic in Queens.

  As if he sensed it, too, Jack’s high-pitched hijinks stopped as well, allowing the next knock to echo through an otherwise silent house.

  I inched toward the door, looking out of the corner of my eye for something that might be used as a weapon. As the third knock banged along the door, I settled for the first thing in the kitchen I could find—a cheese grater.

  Never one to put off the inevitable, I pulled the door open, holding the grater out in front of me like a magic talisman.

  “I appreciate it, but if I was going to present someone with a kitchen utensil, I think it would be the blender. Just feels more personal.”

  Dalton stood in the doorway, a sly smirk plastered across his otherwise adorable face.

  Okay, so the smirk was adorable, too.

  He was dressed in a police uniform: brown slacks and a matching shirt with a star shaped badge pinned to his chest. If I wasn’t so scared and embarrassed, I would have said it was hot. Because, you know, I was a red-blooded female and there was nothing—nothing—sexier than a guy in uniform.

  Well, unless you count a sexily aggressive nightclub owner who may or may not moonlight as a giant wolf-monster or psycho kidnapper. Somehow, though, I sensed the latter wasn’t the case, and I wasn’t sure if that was more alarming or less.

  Why is my life so weird?

  “Are you—” I started, then shook my head. “Is Lulu—”

  “Still in labor,” Dalton answered. “It’s gonna be an all-nighter. Lucky for you, I’m an all-night kind of guy.”

  A bolt of guilt ran up my chest. Dalton had been such a great friend to me. And, if I was being honest, he had been a great ‘more than a friend’ too. And how had I repaid that awesomeness? By bumping uglies with the first sexy guy who looked at me twice.

  His eyebrows rose. “Can I come in?”

  Well, that was awkward. Here I was just standing there staring at him in silence.

  “Sure,” I answered, because after all, it was his sister’s house, and who was I to say he couldn’t come in? “Have you called her husband?”

  “His phone’s going straight to voicemail. He must still be in the air.” Dalton moved past me and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  God, he still thought we were together.

  I should have flinched away from him. I hadn’t been the type of girl who deserved a kiss from a guy like Dalton, someone capable of making me feel so safe and loved. I was the kind of girl who threw all that away for someone who kept secrets from me, someone who spouted nonsense when questioned about those secrets. But, for all that, Abram made me feel alive in a way that Dalton hadn’t, in a way I feared Dalton never could.

  “How have you been?” he asked, moving through the foyer and scooping up Jack, who instantly perked up a thousand percent. “I missed you today at the diner.”

  “Right,” I answered, remembering the text I had sent him. I was going to break up with him, but then the world turned upside down. And here he was being so gracious about me standing him up, too.

  Break up with him now, dummy!

  I opened my mouth, but no words came. The moment felt all…wrong. My world was still spinning. I wasn’t sure where I (or anything else) was going to land.

  I should have broken up with him anyway, on the sole basis I didn’t deserve him. We weren’t officially together, but there was something between us. I was certain he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, and yet I had.

  I couldn’t even bring myself to defend my actions with the notion that we had never agreed to see each other exclusively. I’d never been one to see a problem with women dating as many men as they liked, but in this situation, the fact remained Dalton wasn’t aware of me seeing anyone else, and this would hurt him, and that was what made it wrong. The only right thing left to do was tell him.

  Yet my mouth still couldn’t form the words.

  “Sorry about dinner,” I said lamely. “Things came up.”

  “They usually do,” he answered, tousling Jack’s hair. “No worries. Though I did have to brave the diner crowd shooting me pitiful looks. And on my first day in uniform and all.”

  “Yeah, what’s that about?” I asked. “I thought detectives wore plain clothes.”

  Not that I was complaining.

  “It’s for the curfew.” He shrugged. ‘The town thought it would be more effective if the people on patrol looked like officers instead of—”

  “Studs?” I finished.

  A blush crept up his cheeks. Oh, no. I was doing it again, feeding into the relationship monster.

  “Sorry,” I muttered instinctively.

  Dalton’s eyebrows pulled together. “For what?”

  Kill me now. “I don’t know. I’m not feeling right tonight.”

  At least that was true. I felt wrong. All wrong. I shouldn’t be playing this game, and yet selfishly, I wanted Dalton to be here. Abram was either literally or figuratively a monster, and the reality was, if Abram wasn’t in my life, I would be with Dalton, no questions asked. But I didn’t deserve him after what I’d done.

  Dalton nodded as if it was no big deal. If only he knew…

  He looked at Jack, who was giggling now, but whose face was still streaked with tears and red blotches. “He’s been crying?”

  “Only every second since before I got here,” I answered, squinting at the way he seemed so at ease with Jack in his arms and trying to decode the secret.

  “Well, he’s better now.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  He smiled. “I have my talents.”

  “I have no doubt,” I answered. Now a blush crept up my cheeks.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked. “How about I put him to bed and throw on some spaghetti? How does that sound?”

  “Like you’ve been reading from my dream journal,” I answered, realizing how hungry I was.

  As he moved from Jack’s room to the kitchen, eyeing the place from top to bottom, I realized why he was actually here.

  “Lulu sent you to check up on me, didn’t she?” I asked, arms crossed.

  It all made sense. I
was here, as useless as a soaking wet parachute, and she sent her brother to make sure I wasn’t destroying her home and her kid.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” His smile faltered as he put the pasta on the stove. “I’m sure you’re doing a great job.”

  “Save it. She thinks I’m going to make a mess of things.”

  “I believe the word ‘sinkhole’ was used.” He grinned, his hand moving to rake through his hair. “But it’s not bad.”

  I arched my eyebrows.

  “Well it’s not that bad.” He chuckled.

  “Don’t laugh. This isn’t funny,” I said, surprised at how angry I was becoming. “We’re in a crisis, and my best friend doesn’t trust me!”

  “Well,” Dalton said, moving closer in a slow (and decidedly wary) manner. “First of all, it’s not a crisis. She’s in the hospital. You know, where pregnant women go when they go into labor.”

  I would have pointed out not all of them, according to Lulu, but I really didn’t know enough to argue. I frowned.

  “She’ll be fine,” Dalton said. “And if she’s a little bit concerned about your abilities in certain areas…” He cleared his throat. “And, for the record, I am not saying she is concerned. Mostly because she’d kill me if she knew I told you. It’d only be because she knows this type of thing isn’t really your bag.”

  Disregarding his retro usage of the word ‘bag’, I said, “That’s just a nice way of saying I don’t fit in with her anymore.”

  And there it was, the truth of what had been simmering between Lulu and I since I returned to New Haven.

  “Face it,” I continued, “if it had been Ester who found her, you wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “You’re right.” He shook his head. “If that stuck-up snob would have found my sister, I wouldn’t be having this conversation. But I wouldn’t be here, either.” He leaned in, kissing me on the cheek. “Because you are.” Dalton brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes and continued. “You’re amazing. You have to see that. God, knows everybody else does. It’s why Ester hates you. It’s why Lulu loves you so much. It’s why…”

  His hand lingered on my cheek as his voice trailed off. Heat ran through his fingers, tingled along my cheek. It was all around me, thick and warm, almost like—

  “Your pasta is burning,” I said, noticing the billowing smoke.

  “Not the impression I wanted to make.” He grinned, still looking into my eyes.

  Biting my lip, I answered, “You’re doing just fine.”

  Two phone calls to the hospital to check up on Lulu and an absolutely breathtaking (if a little overdone) pasta and eggplant dish later, Dalton and I were snuggling on the couch.

  It would have felt wrong if he hadn’t been so right. Sure, he wasn’t strong in the way Abram was. After all, Abram was massive. Abram was a thrilling, intimidating, and exhilarating thing. Like fire. But like fire, the thought of him consumed me. It devoured my mind until there was nothing left of me.

  But Dalton was strong, too, in a solid-like-stone sense-of-being type of way. You could build on stone. You could make a life on stone. Stone did not destroy all it touched. It didn’t leave you burned and broken, with nothing to show for your time and passion but ash scattered on the floor.

  With Dalton, there was no bull, no drama, no chained up girls, and no magical excuses or beastly traits. And he wanted me.

  But did I want him?

  I snuggled as close as I could, trying to come up with the answer. But it wasn’t long before I realized what I was actually doing was trying to convince my heart to want something it didn’t.

  I knew what was good for me. Any idiot could see that this man, so wonderful, so kind, was the right choice. But Abram was different. There was something about him that drew me in like a moth to flame. Questions and concerns aside, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would go to that flame again.

  I was cold without him—isn’t that how it is with fire? Whether or not it was foolish to do so, I would keep going back to him, just like all the other times I vowed never to see him again.

  Fact was, I trusted him. Conduits and beasts be damned. I believed every freaking word of it. How could I not? To deny it would be to deny things I had seen with my own eyes, experienced with my own body. No man, no matter how strong, could throw a woman like that.

  What I had told Abram before, about not ever wanting to see him again, was all bluster. If I’d meant that, I would have called the cops by now—would have alerted the one sitting right beside me. Sure, no one would believe any of that magic nonsense, but they would listen if I told them a missing girl was chained up in the woods.

  The only reason I hadn’t said something was because deep down I believed that girl was who Abram said she was. A witch in a woman’s clothing.

  God, I was just a much as a liar as he was. Perhaps worse. He had kept things from me, true, but anyone could see why. But me? I hid things, too, and I lied. Mostly to myself, but still. Maybe we deserved each other. I certainly didn’t deserve Dalton. That was for sure.

  Jimmy Fallon was halfway through a lip sync battle when I made my decision, or rather, accepted what I already knew.

  If I needed to move on from Abram—and I wasn’t sure I did—I wouldn’t be able to until I had answers. And there was only one place where those could be found.

  I would have to go back into those damn woods.

  Chapter 17

  I may have been in a rush to get answers, but I’d had enough nighttime treks into dangerous territory for one lifetime. I waited until the next morning, after Ester came to relieve me of my babysitting duties, to head back into the woods.

  The path was almost second nature to me now. Unlike the last few times I hiked into these woods, though, I was prepared, and as such, the heels I usually wore had been replaced with sneakers. Underneath were thick socks to cushion the impact of walking on my still sore and battered feet.

  And yes, the sneakers were still Coach, but who says a girl can’t rough it in style?

  As I neared the old house, my heart raced. I thought about turning around, considered writing the events of the last few days off as nothing more than a fevered dream, of going on about my life as usual. Whatever that even was anymore. But what was the use? I had tried that already. I had attempted to do the quiet thing with Dalton, and all it did was make me feel even more out of place.

  I needed this. I needed answers to my questions. Hell, I probably needed answers to questions I hadn’t even asked yet. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. My life was at risk, and if I didn’t find out how to fight back, anyone who even remotely resembled me would be in danger until I was found.

  And Abram. Sigh.

  I needed to make my peace with him as well. As much as I hated to admit it, in light of all that had happened, he and I had a connection. And it was more than physical. I found myself thinking about him all the time now. And that wasn’t okay. Not when there were still so many secrets between us.

  The house loomed into view more quickly than it had the last few times, as if it was coming out to meet me. The building looked somehow colder and more haunting during the day beneath the overcast sky. As if daylight couldn’t reach this place if it tried.

  The front door might as well have been a beckoning hand as it swung open of its own accord, and a lump rose in my throat. Did this house want me to come inside? Could houses want things?

  Well, maybe this house could.

  I fought back the urge to turn tail and run, and instead resolved to put on my big girl panties and get this over with. Either he would come off his lies and tell me the truth about what was going on, or he would hold firm to his ridiculous stories and prove how crazy he was.

  But I think what I feared most of all was possible outcome number three: that all the lunacy Abram told me about actually was the truth.

  I marched up to the open door with the same mixture of intensity and nervousness that a newbie model would display looking down
her first cat walk.

  As I crossed the threshold, the floorboards creaked under me. This was the third time I had entered this God-forsaken place, and with any luck, it would be the last.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” a voice groaned from beside me.

  I turned to the voice. Abram hunched over on the floor, his face unshaven and his shirt a mess of careless stains. There was a bottle in his left hand, and the look on his face spoke of equal parts defeat and disgust.

  “I’m nothing if not surprising,” I muttered, noticing how much he looked like he did that day I found him after The Castle had been ransacked. And where had that led us? I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat and tried to push the images from my mind. I’d come here for answers. Nothing more.

  “I didn’t say you surprised me,” Abram answered, taking a swig from the bottle. “I caught your scent when you were a half a mile out. I just said I didn’t expect to see you, not after that performance yesterday.”

  “It wasn’t a performance,” I said, leaning against the far wall.

  Something about seeing him like this, obviously broken, made me want to go to him. And I was afraid that if I moved even an inch, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.

  So I stayed plastered against the wall, as far away from him as the confines of this room would allow. “You said a lot of garbage yesterday, as if you actually expected me to believe it. How was I supposed to react?”

  “With a little grace,” he answered, taking another swig and actually belching as he lowered the bottle.

  “Grace personified, I see.”

  He waved me off and set the bottle aside. “And I told you those things because they were true.”

  “True?” I scoffed. “You expect me to believe that poor girl is a witch, or a Conduit, or whatever you called her! And that I’m one, too!”

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said, standing and wiping the moisture from his lips.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” I answered, and for just a moment, it was true. I was too upset to be scared. This man had lied to me. He had screwed with my mind, screwed with my heart. I had let him into me physically, mentally, and emotionally. And the truth was, I had no idea who he was. So no, I wasn’t afraid. I was angry, goddamn it. “I’m pissed, and I want answers.”