Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “We grew up together, Abigail and me. Our parents let us play together as children. When we were older, our friendship grew into love. Her parents didn’t approve of my low station, but we were married in the fall of 1860.” He paused, his jaw slack for a moment as if he were remembering fond moments they shared.

  “But, then the war came, and Georgia seceded from the Union. I went to fight like all the other men my age. It was expected. You know how I was injured at Antietam and Dustin changed me to save my life.”

  His eyelids dropped slowly and silence—ringing and suffocating—filled the house before he shattered it with more misery. “I envy you,” he said softly.

  Katey was caught off guard by such an admittance. “What do you mean by that?”

  “When you woke up from your change, you were coherent. You still had your humanity intact. You could speak human words and understand them when they were spoken to you. When I woke up a few days after Dustin changed me, I could do none of those things.”

  Ben’s eyelids cracked open fractionally, but Katey could see the glittering gold of his wolf eyes staring vacantly. “I was a monster. All I wanted to do was kill everything in sight, rip it to shreds and run far away. I had an insatiable hunger for raw flesh right from the beginning. You see, when Dustin changed me, my human life was nothing but a dying ember in the dark. I was almost dead. When I became a loup-garou, the beast within me took over and dominated what was left of my soul. I didn’t change outwardly, but on the inside, there was little left of the man I was.”

  The immense suffering in his eyes was enough to tempt Katey into embracing him, hoping it would make the broken piece of his past come together again. She knew it was useless. The damage had been done long ago. Yet, he was sitting there with her, civilized and tamed somehow. Something must have happened to help him recover what he’d lost.

  “It took days of stuffing squirrel meat down my throat before Dustin trusted me enough to untie me. To the best of his ability, he taught me how to control my senses and new abilities. I hated him for what he made me into. I begged him to let me go see Abigail, to tell her that I was alive – for the most part. He refused, saying I wasn’t ready to face another human. It wasn’t until later that I found out my eyes were not what they used to be.”

  He looked up at her, showing her the yellow eyes of a wolf. “It takes a lot of control for me to keep my eyes a normal, human color now. Back then, I couldn’t make them any different. The wolf had conquered too much of me, and any human who saw me would have known I was a monster.”

  Ben blinked long and when he looked at her again, his eyes were an amber color once more. “After training for a year, I was still no better. All I wanted was to see Abigail, and the fact that I couldn’t be with her, that she thought I had died, tore me apart... I ventured close to a Confederate camp and found a silver coin. I took it and swallowed it, hoping it would put an end to my suffering.”

  Katey let out a tiny sound of distress. She knew how silver felt when it touched her skin. The metal burned like a hot iron. Katey imagined ingesting silver itself, having it travel down the soft tissue of one’s esophagus, must have been excruciating.

  “I also thought it wasn’t fair my comrades were fighting and dying for our right to independence from the Union while I was sitting on the sidelines. Dustin found out what I had done and managed to dislodge the coin with the help of a couple of Confederate women at their derelict mansion. One of the women was Logan’s grandmother.” He paused and gave her a knowing look. “I won’t have to tell you what happened there.”

  Katey pressed her lips together to keep herself from smiling. Yes, she knew what happened. “After that, though?”

  Ben shifted in his chair and sighed. “We left there, and some days later we came upon a homestead being raided by Yankees. We stepped in to help, but it made me think about my own home and Abigail. I told Dustin I needed to leave and find out if they were okay. Some nasty words were exchanged, and we parted ways. He’d had enough of my uncontrollable behavior, and I’d had enough of his dominance.” He huffed with laughter. “Looking back now, it was a silly thing to do. It might have saved us all some trouble if we had just stayed together.

  “Anyway, I found my way home.” Ben swallowed hard and dropped his gaze to the tabletop. “I found my mother in the kitchen, half-starved and insane with loneliness. The house on the hill was burned to the ground, and the fields were the same. The war had found its way to Georgia. Because she was so out of it, I was able to gather that my brother had been killed at Gettysburg and my father had enlisted in a war he had no business fighting as an old man.”

  Ben’s eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. “When she had a moment of clarity, she realized who she was talking to and began to scream. She called me a demon, and I ran from the house.”

  Katey bit at her thumbnail, wishing this was the end of the story, but she knew there was still much more tragedy to come. Perhaps he had a right to envy her, more than just the favorable conditions of her change. She had the support of a pack, the acceptance of the guys and so many others.

  In all reality, Ben had it tough. She didn’t want to think about how alone he must have felt; how discouraged and hopeless enough to want to end it all. She had traveled down that road before, but for a different reason.

  The fact that Ben was still alive to this day amazed her. There was plenty of heartache and sorrow throbbing in his chest, but just as much – if not more – bravery and strength. She had never admired him more.

  “I wanted to see Abigail, but I knew I couldn’t face her the way I was. It might have been too much of a shock to see me alive at all. I managed to track her down to the house of a friend far away from the fighting and rampage of Sherman’s army. I watched her one night through a window. I will never forget the way she looked, dressed in all black and knitting a pair of tiny socks.”

  “Ben,” she gasped. “You had children?”

  He looked at her, his eyes glazed over with pain. “I did. A son. Though, I had no idea. He was conceived during Christmas leave and born right around the time she received the letter that I had been killed in action. That night, I saw my son playing on the floor by the fire, carefree and happy. I’ve never told anyone about that.”

  Kate’s throat closed up with tears. “Thank you,” she managed to say. She understood the great honor it was to be blessed with such privileged information.

  Ben looked away again. “I couldn’t barge into their lives. I knew if I loved them, I would have to leave them. All soldiers write a farewell letter to their folks in case they die in battle. I had mine already written and slipped it under the front door. I didn’t set foot on Georgia soil for over half a century after that.”

  “What did you do then?” Katey asked, knowing that wasn’t the end. “Logan told me Darren and Dustin found you in the North Dakota mountains. That was nearly sixty years later. You had to have been doing something all that time.”

  Ben nodded. “I was doing something all right… Nothing. I traveled out west and spent my days scavenging on buffalo carcasses and dodging civilization as much as possible. I was doing just fine until I got involved in some loups-garous outlaw feud.”

  Katey held out her hand to stop him. “You’re going to have to give me more details about that one,” she said hurriedly.

  Ben cracked a smile for the first time since before he began, but it was fleeting. “In a nutshell, there are some loups-garous out there that have very twisted views of justice. A sheriff was dead determined to exterminate any rogue loups-garous who didn’t belong in a pack, thinking they were dangerous because they weren’t held in check by an alpha. An outlaw believed loups-garous should make humans their slaves and considered them to be inferior creatures.” By the contempt in his voice, Katey knew Ben was not interested in either of these men’s ideologies.

  “I made the mistake of trying to help a young woman hunt down her family’s murderer. Along the way, I was captured by that she
riff, and he would have killed me if she hadn’t released me from the silver mine they were holding me in.”

  Katey winced at the idea of being trapped in a place abounding with the one thing loups-garous were not immune to.

  “I escaped and met with the outlaw. He was the one who murdered the girl’s family, but he spun a tale about her father threatening to rat out the outlaws to the sheriff. They couldn’t risk being discovered, so they killed him and all of his family except for the girl. The outlaw told me they would be riding out to take care of the sheriff and I joined him, still sore from the humiliation he put me through.”

  Ben sighed, “But, it turned out the outlaws were not as righteous as I first thought. They wiped out an entire Indian village to lure the sheriff into the open. I helped some escape and then tried to team up with the sheriff to bring down the outlaws. It was a very confusing time with mixed alliances.

  “In the end, I found myself on the sidelines of the conflict and watched everyone kill each other in an old-fashioned western shootout. I’d had enough of society—loups-garous or otherwise—and ran north without stopping. I found an abandoned cabin and lived as a hermit for years before Dustin and Darren showed up on my doorstep. I had too many bad experiences with other loups-garous and wanted no part of joining this pack.”

  “How did they manage to convince you?” Katey asked.

  A gratified look washed over Ben’s face. “Darren promised he could teach me how to make my eyes normal again.”

  She couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at his response, but it told volumes about how Ben would have set aside his prejudgments just to feel a little human again.

  “I made another condition, though. I wanted to see if Abigail was still alive. She would have been an old woman by then, but I had to know if she was okay, if she had lived a happy life after I left. Darren took me back to Georgia, and I found her in a nursing home. We snuck past the orderlies, and I got to see my Abigail one last time. Her mind was slipping away, but she had never been more beautiful. I saw pictures of our son and grandchildren on her vanity. They were beautiful too.”

  Ben beamed. “I was blessed with a few moments with my wife and spoke to her as if we were teenagers again. I flirted shamelessly, and her pale cheeks blushed.” His smile weakened. “Toward the end, she apologized for remarrying. I could never blame her for that. She confessed that she did live a full and happy life. Her only regret was that I wasn’t there to share it with her. Abigail thought I was going to take her away to heaven, but I couldn’t.”

  Katey crossed her arms over the table top and tried not to cry.

  “She gave me the wedding ring I gave her in 1860.” Ben shifted and pulled a tiny golden ring from the pocket of his jeans and offered it to her. “I never leave the house without it.”

  He placed the ring in her palm and Katey could almost feel the weight of more than a century of love and loss. It was beautiful in its simplicity, even with the few scratches in the surface. She smiled and brushed away a tear that managed to escape before giving the ring back to Ben.

  “I let Darren and Dustin train me for a couple of decades before I joined the army.” He tucked the ring away in his jeans again. “I wanted to make up for lost time while I was on the benches during the Civil War. I stormed the beaches on D-Day and waded through the jungles of Vietnam. My loup-garou abilities were put to good use fighting for the freedom of others, but I still didn’t feel free inside.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked and sniffled to clear herself before she embarked on discovering another piece of Ben’s puzzle.

  He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if I could accurately describe it,” he said. “I suppose I still felt like a part of my humanity was missing. Joining the army didn’t help. I did terrible things and saw worse.” Ben went quiet, a profound expression almost too arcane for Katey to comprehend developing in his eyes.

  “My last battle was in Vietnam. A fellow loup-garou in my regiment and I had been captured by the enemy, who also happened to be loup-garou. I remember being so surprised there were loups-garous so far east. They led us into one of their underground bunkers. They fed us and took care of us for a few hours. My comrade formed a quick attachment to the community, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to. I was a soldier, and they were my enemy.

  “The bunker was raided by our men, and we escaped. My friend refused to fire on the loups-garous who aided us.” Ben gritted his teeth. “But I had a stash of silver bullets in my bag, and I shot down a few. I remember feeling the last shred of my humanity slip away. I had never killed my own kind, even though I was prepared for it, and I never want to again. My friend and I went AWOL that night. He used his connections in Europe, and I took advantage of Darren’s good reputation to do the same. I vowed never to fight again if I could help it.

  “It’s been a struggle since then to make sure the beast doesn’t take control like that. So, you see, I know a few things about heartache. I also know you and Logan will survive the next few days, or the weeks to come if you don’t see each other. I survived over a year without seeing my wife, and you are so much stronger than I.”

  Katey wasn’t sure how to feel about his confession. War was a terrible thing and the scars soldiers keep decades after the fighting stopped was enough for her to abhor the whole thing. Perhaps it was her destiny that made her believe so, but she couldn’t judge Ben for what he had done under orders. He was not the same man, that was evident.

  As for his admission about heartache, it was plain in the defeat in his words and shame written on his face for the deeds and mistakes he had made. Ben had suffered so much, seen so many horrors, and lived through too much agony to even begin to grasp. His faith in her fortitude to carry on without Logan close by gave her a little strength.

  Ben passed a hand over his forehead, and he looked down at his sandwich as if he suddenly remembered it was still there. He didn’t pick it up right away. Instead, he took a swig of water and turned to Katey. “Was that sufficient for story time?”

  Hardly understanding why, Katey stood and wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck. She understood how hard it was for Ben to talk about his life with someone else. All she could hope was that by talking about it, Ben was healing a little more on the inside. It wasn’t just a gesture of sympathy, but of compassion and understanding.

  Ben hugged her in return, and a mutual feeling of solidarity passed between them. They had never been this close, not even a little. To finally bond with the one member of the pack who had stayed so distant made Katey’s wolf content. “Thank you,” she whispered before pulling away.

  Katey could have sworn she saw Ben’s eyes go misty for a moment. He smiled and gave her an assuring nod before he began to eat.

  Chapter Four

  Katey stood in front of her bedroom window, staring out toward the driveway. Her eyes flitted across their property line, her senses straining beyond the pane of glass as her stomach churned. Ben made the mistake of letting her listen in on Darren’s last phone call earlier that morning. The boys were coming home after being away for three days, and Katey could hardly wait.

  The gut-wrenching situation and lack of sleep made her irritable, but not speaking one word to Logan since he left earlier in the week had made her into a raving mad woman. It was a wonder she had the clarity of mind to speak civilly to Ben at all. Exhaustion and anticipation consumed her, and she didn’t know whether to pace the floor or collapse in bed with the knowledge that Logan would be home soon.

  How soon they would be back was unknown. They had to wrap things up with the evacuation and conference with Jacob before heading back to the house. The few hours since that phone call had seemed like days, but Katey stayed vigilant, watching the only road in or out of their property.

  She could almost hear woodland critters scurrying through the bushes outside and counted how long it took for Ben to turn a page in the book he was reading downstairs.

  On t
he second day of their isolation, Katey had devoured every novel in the house and spent nearly twenty dollars on new eBooks to read to pass the time. There was little else she could do anymore, and movies did little to keep the loneliness at bay. Ben tried to distract her with games and conversation, which helped to a certain extent.

  Each time she thought she heard a car engine, her heart skipped and eyes focused on the break in the trees where she expected Dustin’s red pickup truck to come barreling through. She stared until her eyes watered, but Katey convinced herself it must have been a car from the highway miles away.

  She sighed, and a subtle pang of hunger brought her thoughts to the present. It must have been close to lunch time. Eating would have killed some time, but with her jittery nerves, it might have been pointless to eat. It would all come back up soon enough. Plus, she might miss seeing them come home if she were too busy eating or puking.

  Katey now knew how a dog must have felt while it waited for its owner to come home from work. Dogs could not judge time, and as far as Katey was concerned, she could relate. Seconds were minutes, minutes were hours, days seemed like weeks or lifetimes. Logan’s face was still fresh in her mind, branded there by the love they shared, but she wondered how long it would take for her to forget the sound of his voice or how his kisses felt against her lips. Could loups-garous forget things like that?

  She leaned her forehead against the chilled window and her hot breath plumed over the surface. When she took her next breath, her ears picked up the sound of a roaring vehicle again. This time, it seemed closer, and she could hear the popping sound of the exhaust pipe she immediately recognized.

  Katey straightened and braced herself on the windowsill, her nose less than an inch from the glass as she waited. From the shadows of the path through the trees, she saw the grill of the truck, then the hood and the front windshield. She could see Darren and Dustin sitting in the front seats. Beyond the cab, Katey glimpse the quick movement of Logan dismounting from the bed of the truck.