Beast (MC Fables #1)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

B ELLE

I’m sound asleep when the hand slides over my chin and clamps down on my mouth. My eyes flick open, and I see a pair of cold, dark eyes looking down at me.

Gaston.

“Wakey wakey, princess.”

My cry is strangled in the back of my throat as Gaston presses down harder on my mouth. He presses a finger across his thin, cruel lips to hush me.

“It will only make things worse for you,” he says.

Fear tunnels through me, but I manage to control my emotions. Men like Gaston want control, but I’ve learned if you let them think they have it, you can take it from them before they ever notice.

He feels me relax and flashes me a chilling smile.

“Good girl. Now, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen, and you’re going to listen to me real good. We’re going out to the kitchen and you’re going to do exactly what I say, or I am going to make sure whatever I decide to do with you really hurts , do you understand me?” I nod against his hand. “Good. Now I am going to remove my hand, but if you scream or call for help, I promise you, Belle, I will hurt you.”

The moment his hand leaves my lips I sit up and gasp for breath. But the respite is short lived because Gaston hauls me to my feet with a harsh yank.

Pausing, his eyes sweep over my panties and tank top with lascivious joy. It’s cold and my nipples are tight pebbles beneath the flimsy fabric. Feeling his gaze on them, I quickly wrap my arms around my chest. But he just scoffs and shoves me across my bedroom and through the doorway toward the little kitchen where two thugs have my uncle tied to a chair.

“Uncle Maurice…” I cry.

He’s been badly beaten and bruised. Blood drips from his nose and mouth, and one eye has already swollen shut. But he still downplays the situation.

“It’s okay, child. Like I said earlier, it’s just a misunderstanding. I’ll sort this all out and?—”

Gaston’s fist strikes him across the mouth, silencing him, and the second hits him in the temple, knocking him unconscious. My uncle’s chin drops to his chest.

“No!” I cry out, ignoring Gaston’s warning to be quiet as I rush over to my uncle. I crouch at his feet. He’s out cold.

Outside, a crack of lightning lights up the night and then dies on the rumble of thunder.

I stand and swing around to face Gaston. “You animal. He’s just a defenseless old man…why did you do that to him?”

Across the room, Gaston smiles evilly. “You ask why? I ask why not? ” He makes a point of slowly unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt and pushing his sleeves up his pale forearms as he walks toward me. He’s like a predator stalking his prey.

When he reaches me, I slap him across the face and his head snaps to the side. Righting himself, he gives me a dark look and then punches me in the jaw, sending me to the floor. But he doesn’t leave me there. Instead, he reaches down and hauls me to my feet and sends his fist into my stomach, exploding the air from my body and sending a violent pain throughout my abdomen.

Seeing stars, I fall to the floor again and gasp for breath.

“Tonight is not your night, Belle,” Gaston says, undoing his belt buckle. He nods to the two thugs who pull me to my feet. I flinch when he steps toward me, certain he is about to hit me again. But he doesn’t punch, he grabs, and his fingers tighten around my chin as he holds my face close to his. “See, I’ve got plans for you and me. And I’m afraid it’s going to be a lot less enjoyable for you than it is for me.” He releases his grip on my jaw and pulls his belt through the loops of his dress pants and snaps it between his hands.

The thugs shove me toward him, and he grabs me and forces me over the kitchen table. I fight him with everything I have, but he just laughs. “That’s it baby, fight me. It will make this so much sweeter.”

He bends me over the kitchen table and presses my face to the tabletop.

Puts his hands on my hips.

I tell him I will kill him for putting his hands on me.

He laughs, and it’s cold and evil.

He reaches for his zipper, and my heart roars in my chest.

He’s going to rape me.

But out of nowhere, a wild roar stops him. The kitchen window explodes as a giant male form crashes through it, sending glass through the room like an exploding confetti ball.

Beast .

Gaston yanks me upward and spins me around, as the giant takes out the two thugs with ease. I see the flash of a blade, the men drop, and then the Beast stalks toward us.

Gaston throws me at him, and I hit the wall of muscle with a thud and fall to the floor, completely winded. It’s too much for my body and a crawling darkness creeps into my head. But it doesn’t claim me right away. Before I see myself slipping beneath the black sea of nothingness, I watch the Beast lift Gaston up by the throat and repeatedly smash his face into the brick wall until he is a limp and bloody mess.

Beast drops him to the floor and crouches over him. “Consider this me starting something.”

As the last of my breath leaves me, the darkness finally takes me.