by Logan Fox
Claimed by the Beast
Dark Twisted Love Book Two
Logan Fox
Copyright © 2018 L. D. Fox
First Edition, License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only. All sexually active characters portrayed in this e-book are eighteen years of age or older. Please do not buy/read this e-book if strong sexual situations, multiple partners, violence, drugs, domestic discipline, and explicit language offend you.
Contents
Exclusive Content
1. A whole lot colder
2. Just a job
3. Meth or heroin
4. …and the devil makes three
5. End of the story
6. Pretty boy
7. Lo prometo, Papá
8. Flogging a dead horse
9. Bone & ivory
10. Sniper eyes
11. Lovestruck ice-queen
12. Slap me silly
13. What happens in Syria
14. Angel's place
15. Balancing the scales
16. Worst case scenario
17. Bunny
18. Last chance
19. The claiming
20. Somesuch nonsense
21. Soon
22. Falcon
23. Skull and roses
24. Welcome home, Princesa
25. The Capo Four Seasons
26. Break the toy
27. Hola
28. Meth rush
29. Someone had to do it
30. A pleasant dinner with good company
31. Mood:black
32. Uninvited
33. Fuck him
34. Getting to know her
35. Vicious and intoxicating
36. A fatherless child
37. A funeral
38. Talking business
39. How far Mexico?
40. Thrown
41. No one leaves
42. No negotiating
43. Plutonium
44. A murder of crows
45. No place for a lady
46. Paranoid drug dealers
47. Lady of the Night
48. Her pretty brown eyes
49. Kill him
50. La Flaca’s demon
51. Two and a half
52. Utterly fucked off
53. The Wolf
54. A horrendous price
55. Remember me?
56. Great duress
57. Three bloody teeth
58. The Elegance
59. Interesting relatives
60. Cora Fucking Swan
61. BFF #possibly
62. A crack in the abyss
63. One heavy debt
64. Shut up and listen
65. An exorcism
66. The puppet master
67. Some kind of cartel leader
68. Trapped in the castle
69. So fucking special
Epilogue
Also by Logan Fox
Thank You
About the Author
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For Juan
You are the sun and moon to me.
1
A whole lot colder
“So, this is how I die,” Cora said in a deadpan voice.
“Been through worse,” Finn said.
He glanced at her but his eyes swept immediately back to the road. The Jeep rattled alarmingly as he slowly accelerated up an incline. Snowflakes pattered against the windshield, gray and dirty against the purple backdrop of a premature twilight. The wind howled as it threw snow against the Jeep, as if trying to push them back down the mountain.
Before her comment, Cora had been deathly silent beside him the entire way up the mountain. She gripped the seat beneath her in white-knuckled hands, jaw tight and eyes wide.
Ahead, the pine trees thickened as if huddling for heat. The passage they created tunneled the storm, directing its fury straight into the Jeep’s grille.
Finn gave more gas, but the Jeep was struggling. It was an older model—it was near impossible to hot wire new cars these days without the right tools—and it hadn’t been kept in the best state of repair. He’d checked the tires though. The last thing he wanted was a blow out on the side of Black Peak mountain.
In this weather, they’d die of hypothermia.
Another thick volley of snow blocked his line of sight. Finn slowed reluctantly, but not enough so he would lose momentum. They were a few minutes from the cabin, but if they got stuck now…
“I thought this was supposed to be a safe house.”
“It is.” He gave a conceding shrug. “Once we get there, we’ll be pretty fucking safe.”
“’Cos no one will ever be able to track us through this,” Cora added, voice still devoid of emotion.
“Exactly.”
“So how will they find our bodies?”
He snorted. “You’d have preferred to stay out there where a rival cartel could find you?”
“At least I’d be warm.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering theatrically. Then again, the temperature inside the Jeep had dropped several degrees as they’d wound their way up the mountain, so maybe she wasn’t really putting on airs.
Finn’s lips wanted to quirk in a smile, but he smothered them into a thin line. This wasn’t the time for frivolity. Cora’s life—and his too—were at stake. They’d be safe at the cabin. Off grid. No eyes and ears—
Where no one can hear her yell when you fuck her again.
The voice came out of nowhere, billowing into substance like someone had whispered inside his head. Finn pushed away its insinuation. His mind had been a silent place since the farmhouse. Eerily silent, as if his psyche was holding its breath for something. The snow and the constant scent of Cora—that citrusy note he couldn’t identify— in the confined space of the Jeep seemed to have set it off.
“Can’t we put on the heat?” Cora asked.
“I need as much power as—”
The steering wheel ripped from his hands. A crash filled the cab like a living thing.
Cora screamed; it was a tight, breathless sound.
The Jeep twisted, sliding a few feet in the snow before the tires lodged. The engine ticked in the sudden quiet that surrounded them—not even the wind blustered in that moment.
“What—?” Cora cut off with a choke, and fumbled with the door handle.
“Stay inside!” Finn got out of the Jeep, the air squeezing him like a frozen fist as he squinted to see through the storm. The wind drove stinging snow into his face. He tugged off a glove and drew his Five-seveN from the small of his back, letting it dangle at his side as he sidled toward the front of the Jeep.
A dark shape lay a few feet from the Jeep’s hood.
Before he reached it, something heavy struck the side of the Jeep, right by Cora’s door.
He fell against the car, jaw clenching over a shout of surprise. The deer’s tail flashed white before it disappeared like a phantom in a swirl of angry snow.
More came then. Twice, deer crashed into the Jeep before veering around and disappearing into the trees. Finn crowded against the Jeep’s wheel arch, making himself as small as possible and praying Cora would stay inside. Seconds later, the herd was gone as if they’d never been.
Finn counted a few thundering heart beats before he risked a glance over the hood. Snow billowed around them, but no more deer seemed intent on crossing the narrow road.
He grappled with the Jeep’s door handle, struggling to find a grip with his sole glove, and ripped the door open.
“You okay?”
Cora sat huddled on the seat, hugging her legs to her chest, her head burrowed in her knees. She peeked out at him, face pale.
“They gone?” she whispered.
“Think so. Just stay put.” He closed his door and went around the front of Jeep, already knowing what he’d find.
The deer they’d collided with had already been dusted with snow. Finn bent down, scraping snow from its flank. Its hind leg jerked, catching his shin. He shot up with a quiet curse.
Still alive, but badly injured judging from the amount of steaming blood eating through the snow beneath it. “Shit.”
“It’s dead?”
He spun, glaring at Cora as she scrambled from the driver’s side of the Jeep. “I said stay inside.”
She ignored him and crouched beside the deer, wiping snow from its snout. It snorted air through its nostrils in a loud hiss. “Shh,” she whispered, stroking it when it tried to move its head out of her reach. “Finn…it’s dying.”
“I know.” He raised his Five-seveN, and then hesitated. “Move.”
She looked up, eyes going wide. Her mouth opened, and he almost thought she was going to protest. But she wasn’t an idiot—at least, not all the time. She had to realize the animal was in pain. She gave it a last stroke down its nose and then stood, hugging herself hard.
She turned her head when he shot the deer through its skull. The shot reverberated around them, strangely muffled by the falling snow.
“Get inside,” Finn said, crouching beside the animal as he tucked his gun into the small of his back and yanked his gloves back onto his hands.
The road was so narrow, it would be impossible to get the Jeep past the animal unless he dragged it aside.
“Let me help,” Cora said in a thick voice.
When he looked up at her, she avoided his gaze. Snow-dusted hanks of black hair stuck out from under her woolen cap. They seemed to make her thick, dark eyebrows and lashes that much darker. Moisture trapped in those lashes made her golden eyes glitter. She sniffed hard and grabbed the deer’s two front legs. Finn grabbed its hind legs and together they dragged it out of the way.
It left a swathe of too-bright blood in the snow.
Cora avoided the streak, but Finn trod through it as he headed back for the Jeep.
He held the door open for her as she clambered back inside, and then did a quick scan before climbing in behind her.
The Jeep rocked when he slammed the door closed. He touched the ignition wires together. The engine turned, but didn’t catch. Clenching his jaw, he tried again, willing his hands to stop shaking. It was near arctic outside, and they’d been on this road for almost an hour in the unrelenting snow.
The Jeep refused to start.
“Fuck.” Finn sat back, and ran his gloves down his face. “We’ll have to walk.”
“Is it far?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes.” He glanced outside at the snow. “Make that thirty.”
Cora nodded, took a deep breath, and then made a shooing gesture with her hands. “Well, let’s go. I’m freezing.”
“It’s gonna get a whole lot colder,” Finn said as he got out.
“Then we’d better walk fast.” She started up the road, stepping high to clear the foot of snow already packing the road.
They’d have to walk really fast—she wore her knee-high boots and a pair of jeans, but that wouldn’t be enough. They’d pilfered warm clothes, jackets, gloves, and caps from a home depot store before hot wiring the Jeep, but a person really needed thermal underwear up here to stay warm outside.
The wind howled at them as they began trudging through the snow. For a few feet, he left bloody footprints behind him until the snow made them disappear.
2
Just a job
Holy fucking shit, it was cold. Cora hugged herself as hard as she could, but it didn’t help. Her legs burned from exertion, but even they couldn’t produce enough heat to counteract the icy air or the snow hitting her numb face.
Her mouth was sour with bile—she’d almost puked back there when she’d looked at that line of red dragging behind the deer’s corpse. She desperately wanted to wash her hands, even though she’d been wearing gloves. There’d been a stink of blood and animal fur back there so strong, she’d almost been able to taste it in the air. She’d tried melting snow on her tongue as she walked, but it did nothing for the taste.
The pines were wooden soldiers, standing guarding on both sides of the narrow, unending road.
She paused, stomping her feet to try and urge warmth into her toes. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had frostbite in her feet—they’d lost all feeling several minutes ago.
“Come on,” Finn called out as he passed her. “No stopping.”
“How far?”
“Just keep going.” When she didn’t follow, he turned to her. Agitation brought red spots to his pale cheeks.
“I’m coming,” she muttered, trudging forward again.
A blast of snow struck her so hard that she tottered. Had her feet not been in a foot of sludgy snow, she might have fallen over. She wheeled her arms before she could catch her balance, and then started forward again after Finn.
Well, one thing was for certain—no one would ever be able to find her here.
The cabin reared from a nest of tall, resolute pines—a dark square partially embedded in snow, despite the steeply angled roof.
Finn searched around the door’s lintel and got down a set of keys hidden in a nook. He opened the door, yanking against it to try and sweep back the snow that had gathered on the stoop. It was tar black inside the cabin, but there was no snow or wind in there. She hurried inside, paused to stamp snow from her boots, and came up short in the middle of the living area.
A last gust of wind followed Finn, carrying snow inside before he could shut the door. The storm huffed and moaned outside, sounding more like the sporadic waves of a tumultuous ocean than wind and snow.
The room’s single window cut a cold, gray square onto the outside world.
Finn fumbled against the wall, and the cabin lit up.
She turned to take in the rag-tag furnishings, the log walls, the stone fireplace. The living room had an open-plan kitchen to one side.
Finn pointed to an archway. “There’s a room upstairs. Try find warm clothes.”
“Can I shower?”
“Water won’t be warm yet. Still have to turn on the geyser.”
She nodded, shivering hard as she made her way to the stairs. Behind her, Finn’s boots thumped on the wood floor. She found another switch, flipped it. Yellow light bloomed. There were no windows here, just a narrow flight of stairs walled with more wood. The stairs creaked when she made her way up them. A particularly hard gust slammed snow into the side of the cabin, sounding like sand. She shivered again and pushed open the first door she came to. Light pooled in from the hallway; a small bathroom—porcelain tub with shower head, toilet, basin.
The next door led to a bedroom with a double bed taking up most of the space, piled with blankets and two floppy pillows. A closet stood a
gainst the wall, one of the doors open an inch. She found the room’s light switch, washing the room in more yellow light.
There was a window in this room. She walked up to it, amazed at how even more cold emanated from the thick glass the closer she came. She glanced outside before turning to the closet to find clothes. There were several pairs of sweatpants, heaps of thermal underwear. Thick sweaters made from corded wool. She grabbed a pair of pants, socks, a long sleeve shirt, and a sweater from the cupboard, then went to put her Taurus on the nightstand. It was warm from where it had been nestled in the small of her back. Strange, how a person could get used to something as annoying as having a gun digging into their back.
Her jeans were around her knees when the stairs creaked.
Obviously, Finn would want some warm clothes, too. She pulled her jeans back up, grimacing at how cold they were, and went to the door. Finn’s head cleared the stairs, eyes already fixed on her.
