Claimed by the Beast Bundle

by Dawn Michelle

  The beast’s snarl turned into a yipping howl in her ear. She felt herself jerked left and then right before she fell to the ground and had her breath blasted from her. When she tipped herself up on a hip and lifted herself up with her elbows, she saw Ember had her teeth sunk into the Beast’s right leg and Hank had his jaw wrapped on the back of the Beast’s neck.

  Crystal turned some more as her heart skipped a beat. She sat up, ignoring the ache in her butt as she scraped her gashed bottom across the ground. A flash of gray out of the corner of her mind made her turn. Another two wolves streaked out of the dark woods and leapt onto the beast.

  Crystal found herself grinning and rose up. She licked her lips and took a step towards the battle. The Beast rose up on his legs in spite of being covered in wolves. Fur and flesh hung from him and blood fell like rain from his wounds. Crystal stopped and stared, and then her eyes narrowed as she felt something twist in her belly. She snarled and curled her fingers into fists and took another step before a wolf with silver streaks leapt up onto the Beast and bit down on his snout.

  The wolf—Gwen, Crystal guessed by the silver fur—slid off the Beast but left his face torn and bleeding. He tottered and crashed to the ground on his back. The pack of wolves fell on him anew. Blood, dirt, and patches of fur filled the air as the Beast’s struggles grew weaker and weaker. After a few minutes, the only ones still moving were the wolves.

  Crystal straightened and watched the fight turn gory. Her brow furrowed, confused, and then she saw one of the wolves rip a bloody morsel from the Beast’s corpse and swallow it down. Her mouth dropped as she watched the feeding frenzy unfold.

  One of the wolves, a long-haired gray one, snapped and roared at the others. The other wolves backed away and looked up at him, each of them licking the blood from their chops or swallowing whatever gibbets of flesh were in their mouths. The wolf shifted, blurring and contorting before her eyes until a nude man rose up from the blood-strewn ground. He bent over and shoved his hand into the disemboweled monster’s chest. He pulled his blood-soaked arm out and held the Beast’s dripping heart in his hand. She gasped as she saw it still quivering.

  Guntar turned and walked towards her, mindless of his nudity. Crystal was equally ignorant; her eyes were on the gift he carried. He stopped in front of her and lifted it to her. She noticed the blood soaking his cheeks and beard, and then looked down at the heart of the monster. He nodded to it and raised it to her face. “Eat,” he said in a voice barely recognizable as human.

  The coppery smell of blood and tissue filled her nose. Her stomach twisted again and her mouth watered. She licked her lips and tasted something that made her tongue tingly. A rush of heat spread through her body. She glanced down and saw blood splatters on her skin and tattered clothes. She lifted her head up and saw the heart was closer still. She sniffed and filled her senses with the taste of the Beast’s flesh.

  She leaned forward and spread her lips. She felt the near searing heat of the heart and let the taste overwhelm her. What she knew rationally was a disgusting thing her body suddenly craved. She captured Guntar’s arm in her hands and sawed her teeth into the muscle. She ripped it away and chewed the strong tissue before swallowing. The act only increased her appetite. Crystal attacked the heart, tearing, chewing, and swallowing so fast her throat ached as it had to stretch to let the partially chewed meat pass through.

  When her senses returned, someone held her back while Guntar pulled his hand from her. He grinned, his teeth pink contrast to the red of his face. She blinked and looked down at the stains on her body. Her shirt was soaked and her hands were coated with the sticky substance. She gasped and felt her belly rumble. It was a happy and contented sigh. She blinked, horrified at what she’d done.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “What—”

  Guntar nodded to her and looked at the other naked people surrounding them. “We need to burn the remains.”

  “That’s it?” Crystal asked. “Just business as usual?”

  Adrian smirked. “Nothing is ever usual with a beast like this. They’re all different, and this one died because of you.”

  “Um, great,” Crystal said. She looked over at the remains and shuddered. “I just ate his fucking heart!”

  “Might help you,” Guntar said.

  “Or it might kill her,” Adrian said.

  Hank touched her arm, startling her. Crystal turned to see him holding her jeans and shoes. Crystal blushed and took them. “Thanks,” she mumbled and found herself unable to think of anything except how magnificent Hank’s body was. Magnificent and naked. And close enough to touch.

  Ember cleared her throat and stepped up. “Back off, Tiny. She’s still in heat.”

  “Tiny?” Crystal asked. She glanced down and saw that Hank was anything but small.

  “Because I’m so big,” Hank explained.

  Crystal glanced down again and said, “I’ll say.”

  “Okay, let’s get these two apart,” Gwen agreed. She stepped up and grabbed onto Crystal’s hand. “Put your clothes back on, dear. We’ve got to get you home.”

  Crystal frowned and realized she was still holding onto her pants. She bit her lip and nodded. “Hey!” She looked at Gwen and then Guntar. “If he’s dead, why am I still, um, like this?”

  “The poison doesn’t die with him,” Adrian said.

  “But, I thought—”

  “There’s no amount of thinking that will help. This is blood and magic,” he said. “Might be eating the Beast’s essence will give you strength to fight it. Or it might be that it will make it worse.”

  “Worse? You mean, like, kill me faster? Turn me into a slut?”

  Adrian shrugged and looked away.

  Crystal sighed. “So now what?”

  “Get dressed,” Gwen repeated. “We’ll get you home and get you cleaned up. We’ll watch you and figure it out from there.”

  Crystal nodded and balanced on one leg while she slipped her jeans back on. She glanced back and saw Hank staring at her butt and she jerked her head away. Her cheeks burned and then she realized that Hank was interested. She glanced back and saw him raise his gaze to hers. His cheeks flushed beneath the drying blood and she smiled.

  She would have him; it was only a matter of time. She didn’t understand how, but she knew that she’d staked her claim.

  ###

  **Part Two**

  Chapter 1

  “I can wash myself,” Crystal grumbled.

  Beth, her best friend, looked her dirty and bloody body over and raised an eyebrow. “I bet you can, but you look like you’ve been in a car accident and then run over by a riverboat.”

  Crystal offered a tired smile to her friend. “Motorcycle accident, at least. But I’m fine. I don’t know how I’m fine, but I am.”

  “Crys, your clothes are ruined and you’re covered in blood!”

  Crystal sighed and pulled her tattered shirt over her head. She let it fall to the floor and then gave her ruined jeans the nudge they needed to slip over her hips and join the shirt. She stepped out of them and moved to the shower to turn on the hot water. She turned back to Beth and saw her friend staring at her body a moment longer than she should have.

  Crystal glanced down at herself and understood why. She had dried blood stuck to her underwear and her skin. What Beth couldn’t see was that she wasn’t cut. Or at least she wasn’t anymore. She had been. She’d been scraped, torn, gouged, and even bitten. But between the time her friends had killed the Beast that hunted her and the ride back home, her body had put itself back together. It was impossible, but no more impossible than watching the five people turn into wolves before her very eyes and then shift back into humans.

  “I’m about to be very naked,” Crystal warned her.

  Beth crossed her arms in front of her. “You can’t scare me.”

  Crystal laughed. “Get out!”

  “No,” her friend insisted. “After what you went through, I’m not leaving you.”

 
; “Beth, I love you, but—” Crystal trailed off, not sure what exactly to tell her friend. She knew about the Beast, but she didn’t know that the bikers seemed to have adopted her into their pack. She almost snorted when she realized she’d used the word pack. It was fitting, what with them being werewolves.

  “Why are you shaking your head?” Beth asked.

  Crystal blushed and stopped. She hadn’t realized she was doing it. “Things are crazy,” she admitted. She sank down to the closed seat on the toilet and folded her arms across her belly. “My life is crazy. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

  “Me neither,” Beth admitted. “But I’m here for you.”

  Crystal offered her an appreciative smile and nodded. “You’re the best.”

  “Damn right I am,” Beth whispered.

  She laughed at her friend and stood up. She turned away from her and slipped her bloodstained bra off and let it fall to the floor on top of the other clothes. Moving fast and not looking or thinking about it, she pushed her boy shorts to the ground and stepped into the shower. She pulled the curtain shut behind her and moved into the hot water.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Beth called over the patter of the falling water. “All this worrying must be killing your appetite. How much weight have you lost?”

  Crystal closed her eyes and shrugged. Then she realized Beth couldn’t see her. “I don’t know. Seems like a few pounds every day.”

  “Don’t take this wrong, but you look amazing.”

  Crystal snorted. She had a long ways to go before she’d look amazing. She was tall and had broad shoulders. Unfortunately, too many microwaved dinners and trips to a drive-through helped make the rest of her body wide too. At least until this week. She didn’t think it was worrying that was helping her. If anything, her appetite had increased but she was still losing weight.

  After the water beat on her for several minutes, she dunked her head in and began soaking her hair. She picked the sticks and leaves out and watched the water pooling around her feet turn red. She moved her hands down to her neck and winced as she rubbed across her shoulder where the Beast had bitten her as it had tried to breed her.

  She shuddered at the memory. Breeding her had been his intention. She thought of it more as rape. In either case, he hadn’t been successful but it wasn’t for lack of trying. She wasn’t sore anymore from his misguided attempts to force himself into her but the memory still made her cringe.

  That was only part of the crazy night she’d had. Guntar giving her the Beast’s heart to eat—raw—was probably the crowning moment. Seeing Hank naked and wanting nothing so much as to jump his bones came in a close second, though.

  “Crys?”

  Crystal shook her dark thoughts away and reached up to push her wet hair off her face. “Yeah?”

  “Um, when were you going to tell me that Ember and Hank were werewolves?”

  Crystal’s breath caught in her throat. Had Ember told her? Or Hank? When? They’d both ridden back with Beth to Crystal’s house and sure, Hank had been naked beneath the spare blanket Beth kept stored in her trunk. But nobody said a thing about them being able to turn into wolves.

  “How, um—”

  “When that thing sent Hank’s bike flying and went for you, I saw Hank. He hadn’t even stopped sliding across the ground and his clothes went flying in pieces. Then this giant dog takes off after that, that thing.”

  “The Beast,” Crystal mumbled.

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. By the time I got my car stopped, my door was open and Ember’s clothes were on the seat and floor. She was gone and another dog—”

  “Wolf. They’re wolves, not dogs.”

  “Okay, wolf. Well, she ran to Hank and then, right before my eyes, she turned back into Ember! She told me to go get her friends at your place. Then Hank climbed to his feet—I mean paws—and she fell down and turned back into one again. Then they took off like bullets. I never seen something move so fast.”

  Crystal nodded and pulled the shower curtain back enough to poke her head out. “I didn’t want to scare you,” she said.

  “You failed,” Beth responded. She offered a smile. “I’m scared shitless. But you’re still my BFF, and I’m not turning my back on you.”

  “You’re not—you don’t think I’m some kind of freak?”

  “Not for a second.”

  Crystal bit her lip and blinked back the tears in her eyes.

  “Are you, um, are you like them? Isn’t that how it works, they bite you and you turn into one?”

  “I have no idea,” Crystal breathed. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know. None of them bit me, anyhow.”

  “I thought that beast bit you?”

  Crystal jerked and reached up to feel her tender shoulder. All her other cuts and bruises had healed—why wasn’t that one? It was like her foot when she’d been bitten the first time—it had taken a couple of days to heal. Still crazy fast, but the difference didn’t make sense. “He did, but he wasn’t like them. He was something else.”

  “Oh.” Beth paused for a long moment before she asked, “What was he?”

  Crystal shrugged. “I don’t know. They just said he was some kind of beast. I think Guntar said he had a bloodline that went back a really long time.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Crys?”

  “Huh?”

  “This kind of thing isn’t real. Are we dreaming?”

  Crystal let out a nervous laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve been praying for that all week?”

  Beth frowned. “Maybe it’s my dream?”

  “Wouldn’t you be the one getting chewed on and beat up then?” Crystal asked. “Or at least the one who has to fight to keep herself from screwing Hank?”

  Beth’s lips pursed and she looked away. “Okay. It’s real then. I don’t know how, but it’s real.”

  “At least we can count on one thing,” Crystal said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Stephanie is going to always be a bitch!”

  Beth laughed at the mention of the social elite girl who had made tormenting Crystal her personal mission their senior year.

  “Mind if I finish showering?”

  “Oh! Yeah, sorry. Don’t mean to leave you wet and naked.”

  Crystal smirked and pulled the curtain closed. As much as she loved and trusted Beth, being wet and naked sent her thoughts to Hank. The muscular biker was proving himself to be everything she’d ever dreamed about. Well, none of them looked very wealthy, but he made up for it with his good looks, killer body, and the way he treated her.

  Crystal’s thoughts were shattered as somebody pounded on the bathroom door. “Hurry up.” Ember’s voice drifted through. “We’ve got a lot of talking to do.”

  Crystal scowled and reached for the shampoo. As wonderful as the shower was, Ember was right. The Beast had poisoned her and she had to figure out what she had to do in order to survive. Especially now that he was dead. She smiled as another thought came to her. If nothing else, she had to at least find a way to get Hank alone before it was too late.

  Chapter 2

  Wearing yoga pants and a loose t-shirt, Crystal led the way back downstairs to the living room. The furniture was taken up by the bikers, forcing Crystal to stand in the entryway and earn a squawk from Beth as she bumped into her back.

  Gwen was sprawled on the couch and lying in Guntar’s lap. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was heavy enough it almost sounded like she was snoring. Adrian sat at the other end of the couch and looked at her with his intense gaze. He seemed oblivious of Gwen’s foot that was resting on his thigh.

  Ember was curled up in one of the two chairs in the room, with her legs tucked up beneath her and one arm propping her head up. Her eyes looked heavy, as though she were fighting sleep. The last chair in the room was occupied by Hank. He was big enough to make the recliner seem like a tea party chair even with how he was sprawled out in it. Crystal had to fight the urge to
laugh at the tight-fitting pink sweatpants he’d borrowed.

  Hank looked at her and smiled. He jerked and climbed to his feet. “Crystal! Please, sit.”

  Crystal felt her cheeks heat up and mumbled a thanks as she made her way over to the chair. She sunk in it and saw Beth staring wide-eyed from the open archway to the kitchen. Ember blinked as she glanced at Beth and then looked away. Hank stretched, his fingers almost brushing the eight-foot ceiling, and moved to the front door to peer out the window.

  “So, uh, what do you want to talk about?” Crystal ventured after several awkward seconds of enduring Adrian’s stare.

  “You must have questions,” Guntar said.

  “Uh, yeah!”

  He nodded. But Adrian was the first to speak. “The girl must go.”

  Crystal’s breath froze in her throat and then she realized he was talking about Beth, not her. She turned and saw Beth staring at the direct man with her lips parted.

  “She’s my friend. She already knows what’s going on.” Crystal came to her defense.

  Adrian’s lip twisted in a sneer. “I doubt it. We’re not even sure what’s going on.”

  Crystal stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “She’s not one of us,” he said. “She doesn’t have the blood. She can’t know our secrets.”

  “Adrian, she wouldn’t be the first norm,” Guntar said.

  Adrian clamped his lips shut for a moment and then tried again. “She’s too young. She’ll talk. What is she, sixteen?”

  “Hey!” Beth protested. “I’m seventeen, almost eighteen.”

  He shrugged. “Too young.”

  “I’m only eighteen,” Crystal pointed out. “What makes me different?”

  “You were chosen by the Beast.”

  Crystal clamped her mouth shut and glanced at Ember and Hank. Hank offered her a smile and a shrug. Ember looked to be almost asleep in the chair.