Taken By The Beast

The other woman was blonde.The tramp, my now ex-fiancée, had pressed against the shower wall, was blonde. Henry told me he hated when women dyed their hair blonde. That it was trashy and underwhelming. It was the reason I stopped getting highlights.Because he loved my naturally dark locks.I couldn’t get the look the blonde wore on her face when I pulled back the shower curtain and saw her staring at me over his scrawny deltoid, out of my mind. Her freshly manicured fingernails pressed into his skin, and her long slender legs wrapped around his waist.She stopped her fake moaning, but he didn’t notice. I didn’t expect he would. Not that I would know, because I had planned to wait until we married.Good thing we didn’t make it that far.Didn’t look worth it to me.When he finally pulled himself from his premature thrusts and saw over his shoulder, I was long gone. Only hearing his calls when I opened the door to our apartment and rushed down the steps.It took me three weeks of stayi

Play dead. It was my first initial thought. We'd learned it at a young age in school. A predator—in this case, a devilishly handsome man-beast—will lose interest if the prey is already dead.And I was definitely the prey in this situation. As if finding my fiancée in the shower with another woman, going on an impromptu trip to southern Louisiana, and getting lost hadn't been enough. I'd been tracked, and for a very brief moment, I thought saved by a stranger, now I was being held captive in this gigantic castle with the beast and his brother.Then there was the cook that was too scared to make eye contact with anyone. Sounded very Disney-ish to me, but this was real life, and the gothic mansion was in the middle of the bayou.Surrounded by alligators, and slime. Things a person didn't run out into in the middle of the night in an attempt at escaping. Perhaps I'd find something worse in the swampy bayou close by, but on the other hand, what was worse than a wolfish beast with glowing y

Zander waltzed out of the room as if he owned the entire world. My blood began to boil at the mere thought of ... doing anything with him. Being this ludicrous Luna person, or him having this claim over me.It was outlandish and psychotic.I had to get the hell out of here ... like yesterday. Once the door slammed behind him, I turned toward Vivian. "You have to help me get out of here. Please."Vivian's brown gaze lowered to her plate, while she nervously tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Please, just eat your food, Ms."Swallowing, I knew I needed to find a reason for her to leave. A reason for her to help me. It was obvious she was scared to death. She was timid. What had he done to her? Scooting my chair closer to her, I reached over and grabbed her hand. "Vivian. I don't belong here. You don't belong here. You have to help me escape, please. Will I not make it out of the woods if I leave? Do you know where a phone is that I can use? Or a way I can get to my truck?

Sitting across from the pompous ass at lunch felt like middle school all over again. When the popular girl had it out for me, and stared daggers at me the entire hour. Except, this was a man. A man that thought he could intimidate me. Scare me into minding his rules. Scare me into submitting to him ... like a dog. Well, I wasn't going. I couldn't just disappear from my life. My family. My career. The amount of irrational things that came out of this man's mouth astonished me. The worst part was the way those crude words slid against my skin like silk. It had to be some kind of hex over this place. I'd been in a mundane relationship with Henry for years. I knew deep down something was missing, and I'd encouraged him to be more dominate. But he only laughed. Like it was a joke. Though I knew from the look in Zander's eyes that none of what he said was a joke. I felt it deep inside my stomach. It ate at me like an airborne virus. The lure of his words were heavy with promise, and i

Once my door was shut to my room, I launched myself at my bed, and screamed into the mattress. My escape plan had gone to Hell quicker than I imagined it would. The worst scenario I had conjured up was getting lost in the woods, and surviving off the land. How sadly I'd been wrong. An alligator hadn't been on my radar, but that was probably why I sucked so badly at escaping. I turned around, and stared up at the high-vaulted ceiling. At least, I did have some giant beast to come to my rescue. Oddly enough, that wasn't the strangest part of the evening. It was the random boy I saw watching us from behind one of the cypress trees. The war paint, the lack of a shirt, the smile ... it gave me the worst feeling. Then there was Zander's reaction to it, oh yeah, after her tore an alligator into pieces. None of it made sense. Did they not realize they had neighbors? Zander was so pompous he probably didn't realize there was anyone close by. He lived in his own little bubble, and it rubbe