Claimed by the Beast - Part One (5 page)

Other trailer doors were opening and people
were coming out. In moments there were five of them, including
Hank, surrounding her. The redhead sniffed the air before saying,
“You made it.”

“I think she’s fine,” Hank said.

“What? Of course I’m fine,” Crystal
mumbled.

The oldest man in the group, complete with a
salt-and-pepper beard worthy of a family member of the
Duck
Dynasty
reality show, stepped up to her and reached out. He
cupped Crystal’s chin in his rough hands and lifted her face up to
meet his eyes. Crystal’s heart fluttered in her chest fast enough
to give a hummingbird a run for its money.

The redheaded woman leaned in again until
her face was only a few inches from Crystal’s. Crystal heard her
inhale loudly. She wanted to push her back or at least move away,
but she felt paralyzed by the old man’s gaze. His eyes were light
gray, reminding her of storm clouds that hadn’t gotten angry enough
yet to rain.

“She’s tainted,” the redheaded woman
claimed.

The bearded man let go of her chin and
grunted, “Were you hurt?” She could pick out a touch of a strange
accent that she’d never heard before.

“She was fine when I left her,” Hank
said.

The older man’s eyes flicked to Hank and
then back to her. “Either you were hurt, or you went back and got
hurt. Which is it?”

“I didn’t go back!” Crystal said. “I haven’t
been by that bridge since then. What was that thing, a rabid dog or
something?”

“Answer the question!” the redhead scolded
in a voice just shy of being a scream.

Crystal jerked and turned to glance at her
and then Hank. He offered an apologetic shrug. “Crystal, meet
Ember,” he said.

“I’m Guntar,” the old man offered. He
gestured at the platinum blond beside him. “This is Gwen, my
mate.”

Gwen offered her a smile. Her outfit was
similar to Ember’s, right down to the lack of shoes. The difference
was the silver necklace with a half-moon pendant on it she
wore.

“I’m Adrian,” the final man said. He wore
faded jeans and a Harley-Davidson t-shirt.

Crystal checked Adrian’s feet and saw he had
riding boots on, but they were barely tied. Was he in a rush to
meet her and didn’t bother tightening them?

“You’d better answer my question before
Ember gets too riled up,” Guntar reminded her.

Crystal tilted her head. Was it some kind of
Russian accent? Maybe German? She couldn’t figure it out. “I fell
and bruised my knee and shoulder,” she said.

“And your face,” Hank reminded her.

Crystal turned and saw Ember close enough to
kiss. The redhead sniffed as Crystal jerked her head back. “What’s
wrong with you?” she snapped.

Ember snarled, baring her teeth. Teeth that
looked uncomfortably sharp. “You should be more worried about
what’s wrong with you!”

“Hank, um, I think I’d like to go home
now.”

Ember laughed.

Guntar shook his head. “Tell me, child, were
you hurt by the Beast? Not from the fall, but the Beast itself.
Don’t lie to us—you’ll only be doing yourself a disservice.”

“You mean that thing? Um, I don’t know. I
fell down because it grabbed my shoe. Ripped it off my foot. Why,
what was it?”

“I need to see it,” Guntar said.

“My shoe? Or my foot?”

Guntar took in a deep breath and let it out.
His chest swelled until it was nearly as large as Hank’s. “Young
lady, this may seem strange and foolish to you, but I am not a
twisted old man with a foot fetish. Let. Me. See. Your. Foot!”

Crystal gulped and nodded. She knelt down
and untied her sneaker before standing up and kicking it off. She
pulled her sock off and stood on one leg. “Um, this is
awkward.”

Ember dropped to her hands and knees,
startling Crystal. She crawled a step forward and sniffed Crystal’s
raised foot.

“Okay, this went from awkward to weird,”
Crystal muttered.

Ember looked up at Guntar and nodded. She
climbed to her feet and flashed her teeth at Crystal. Was it a
twisted smile or did the redhead just snarl at her?

Guntar knelt down on one knee and took
Crystal’s foot in his hand. She yelped, surprised, and turned from
the bizarre woman to look down at the old man. He twisted her foot
gently but firmly, studying it. His fingers traced the faded scars
on her foot, tickling her. She fought the urge to jerk her foot
back and lost her balance.

Hank’s steady hands caught her and kept her
in place until Guntar set her foot down. He sighed and rose up.
“You were bitten.”

“Okay,” Crystal said. “What does that mean?
Do I need a rabies shot or something? My mom’s a nurse. I can just
go to the hospital.”

“Do not go to the hospital!” Guntar growled.
He offered her a thin smile and spoke in a calmer voice. “They
can’t help you.”

“Help me? Help me with what? What’s going
on?”

“You will die,” Ember hissed. “It’s only a
matter of time.”

Crystal gasped and spun to face Hank. Her
lips parted but no words came out.

“There are medicines,” Guntar said.

“Let her,” Ember snarled. “We should have
let the Beast have her. Then Caden would still be with us.”

Crystal looked at all of them. She hadn’t
met a Caden yet. There had been five bikes. She glanced at the
trailers and counted five of them. But Gwen had been riding behind
Guntar.

“Oh my God! You mean somebody died fighting
that—that thing?”

Ember bared her teeth and took a step
forward but Guntar barked her name and stopped her. She glared for
a moment and then backed up and bowed her head.

“What is going on?” Crystal whimpered. She
turned to Hank. “What the hell is going on? Am I in some kind of
trouble? Because dying sounds like a lot of trouble.”

Hank lifted his eyes from hers and looked at
Guntar. “She’s young and strong. I think she can fight it off.”

“What is it?” Crystal’s voice rose as she
started to panic. “You guys are all freaking me out! Hank, take me
home. I don’t want to—”

Guntar twisted her around and held her in
arms that felt like steel. “There are things in this world you
don’t understand,” he said in a menacing voice. “You’ve been
marked. The Beast tasted your flesh. He’ll want more and he won’t
wait.”

“Wait for what?” she whimpered.

“For you to die.”

“Oh God!”

Ember cackled from the side. “God has
nothing to do with this.”

“You hungry?” Hank asked after Ember’s snide
remark led to an uncomfortable silence.

“What?” Crystal spun to face him. “Hungry?
How can I be hungry after all of that?”

Hank shrugged. “You gotta eat.”

Gwen’s laugh was an earthy whisper that made
Crystal think of the wind blowing through a field. “He’s right, you
need to eat. To fight the…infection.”

“Infection?” Crystal asked. “Is that what
this is? Why can’t I get some antibiotics? My mom—”

“Your mother can’t help you,” Guntar said
again. “You’ve been bitten by a beast with a bloodline that is so
old, it comes from a time before time was recorded.”

“A time before time? What the hell is that
supposed to mean?”

“School girl,” Ember snapped, drawing her
attention.

Crystal’s head whipped around to look at the
smirking redhead. She opened her mouth and then closed it when
Ember unbuttoned her vest and let it slide down her shoulders.
Crystal’s widening eyes were drawn to her bare chest even as Ember
released the hidden clasp on her skirt and let it flutter to the
ground. Before she fell forward, Crystal noted she wore the same
undergarments below the belt as above them—none.

Her shock reached a new level when Ember
landed on her hands and…feet? Furry feet. With claws. Where she’d
fallen stood a sleek and dangerous-looking charcoal and dark red
wolf with her lip curled up to bare her teeth. It bore a striking
resemblance to Ember’s smirk.

“Oh hell,” Guntar growled. “Damn it,
Ember!”

Crystal stumbled back and fell into Hank.
She looked up at him, her lips parted, and saw the unnatural bright
blue color of his eyes. “Calm down,” he said.

Crystal screamed.

Crystal sat on the small couch in Hank’s
trailer with her arms crossed tight against her belly. They’d
tricked her. Drugged her with something, maybe. There was no way
she’d seen what she’d seen. It wasn’t possible. There was no way
that Ember could turn into a wolf and then run off into the
woods.

The door opened and Gwen stepped in with a
plate of steaming meat on it. She smiled at Crystal and stepped in
to offer her the plate. “You need to eat, sweetie,” Gwen said.

Crystal shook her head even as her stomach
rumbled. She could smell the roasted meat and it looked really
juicy, even if she was screaming at herself to not touch anything
these people gave her. Her hands trembled as she reached out and
accepted it.

“Hank, how about you give us some time to
talk?” Gwen asked the big man.

Hank looked at Crystal, one bold eyebrow
raised to seek her approval. Crystal heard her breath whistle in
her throat. Was she whimpering? She glanced around the small
trailer and nodded. It was almost too small for the three of them
to be in anyhow. Unless Gwen sat down next to her.

Hank climbed to his feet and offered her a
smile before he disappeared out the door.

Gwen took his seat and waited. Crystal put
the plate on the cushion beside her and stared back. “What?” she
asked the older woman.

“You should eat,” Gwen said. “I seasoned
yours with some herbs that will help.”

“Help? Help what? Screw my head up and make
me see more crazy stuff going on?”

Gwen shook her head. “Crystal, Ember’s
inappropriate behavior showed you what we are. Why would we drug
you?”

“What you are?” Crystal asked. She
swallowed, unwilling to accept that they could all do that. Her
eyes dropped to Gwen’s vest and skirt. They were similar enough to
Ember’s that she could do the same thing. She could rip them off
and pounce on her before Crystal could get off the couch. “Oh
God!”

“We’re not as bad as you think,” Gwen said.
“Even Ember. And by the way, she said she’s sorry for scaring you
like that.”

“She—she did?”

Gwen opened her mouth and hesitated. She
sighed. “No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t dream of doing that. But
we’re working on her.”

Crystal bit her lip to keep herself from
crying again. She glanced around, hoping for some escape. The
trailer was clean enough, but it was dark and it smelled musty.
There was a half-open door beside the couch that she’d spied a bed
in when she came in. A small kitchen with random pieces of junk in
the tiny sink was behind Gwen’s chair. Her house wasn’t the
greatest, but it beat Hank’s trailer by a long shot!

Crystal’s eyes went back to Gwen and found
her smiling at her. The smile made her stomach twist and
grumble.

“Please, Crystal, eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Crystal lied.

“Yes, you are.”

Crystal ignored the rebuke and stared at
her. “You’re like her, aren’t you?”

Gwen tilted her head. “Ember?”

“Yes.”

Gwen smiled. “I’m like you, too.”

“I’m not—”

Gwen held up a hand, stopping her. “We’re
women, and that means we’re difficult.”

“No, I’m not,” Crystal argued. “And that’s
not what I meant.”

“Oh?” Gwen asked with a lightness to her
tone. “What did you mean?”

“The thing where she—you know, she took off
her clothes and…”

Gwen nodded. “And she turned into a
wolf.”

“Oh my God,” Crystal breathed out in a
rush.

Gwen nodded at the plate of food. “You
should eat. Ember tracked that deer down so we’d have enough for
all of us.”

Crystal’s head jerked to the side as she
processed Gwen’s words. It didn’t look like the kind of meat she
was used to. It smelled different too, and that wasn’t just the
green and brown herbs sprinkled on it. Those had their own scents
that she could pick out.

“Holy crap,” Crystal whispered as she
realized what she was doing. “I can smell the, uh, the meat and
stuff.”

Gwen nodded.

“Ember, um, did this? She caught a
deer?”

“She’s our best tracker,” the blond woman
said. “We all can, but Ember has the best nose.”

Crystal stiffened. “She really was sniffing
me!”

“Yes.”

“What’s going to happen? Am I going to die?
Here, I mean?”

“I hope not,” Gwen said. “We’ve already lost
someone. We don’t want his death to be for nothing.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Gwen shrugged. “We saved you the other night
and you haven’t thanked us yet. It’s only because Henry is smitten
with you, and I’m trying to remind myself that you’re scared and
clueless, that we haven’t given up on you.”

“Thanked you? For saving me?” Crystal gulped
and remembered when she’d ridden home with the large man. “Um, I
thanked Hank.”

“So you should know we aren’t going to hurt
you.”

Crystal frowned. She couldn’t deny what Gwen
was telling her but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.
“Okay, um, thank you. But now what?”

“Now you should eat.”

“Enough with the damn eating!” Crystal
blurted. “I’m kind of freaked out here. Food’s not my number one
priority!”

“If you want to know more, you’ll have to
eat first.”

“Fine!” Crystal snapped and picked up the
plate. It had cooled but she could still feel the heat on the
bottom of the ceramic. She glanced up at Gwen when she realized
there was no fork or knife with it. Gwen nodded for her to go
ahead. Crystal sighed and picked up one of the thin strips of
cooked meat and bit into it.

The flavor exploded in her mouth, stinging
her tongue and overwhelming her senses for a moment. She tore it
off and chewed on the morsel, savoring the juice that she squeezed
out of it before she swallowed it down. She tore off another piece
and followed that with the third and final bite. After she
swallowed it, she saw two more strips remained. She devoured them
and licked the flavor off her fingers and lips before she
remembered Gwen was watching her.