Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
B ELLE
Hours pass before Beast reappears, and by now my anger has long surpassed my fear and grief, and I am ready to kill the man who saved me.
When the door opens and his big body fills the doorway, I give him my best right hook and land my knuckles into the sharp contour of his jaw.
Pain ricochets across my bones and shoots up my arm.
Goddammit!
I step back, clutching my fist. It feels broken.
Beast simply raises an eyebrow at me. “Got that out of your system?”
I shake my hand to release the glowing pain in my knuckles.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I demand.
He walks deeper into the room and turns around to face me.
“I’m the guy who pulled you out of Gaston’s hands and saved your ass from the unthinkable things he was going to do to you.”
Dread spreads through my chest at the memory of Gaston’s hands on me. I swallow, my throat thick with fear as I recall the vile scent of his body as he pushed me over the table.
But I shove the memory away.
Uncle Maurice needs me to stay strong and focused if I’m to get us out of this mess.
“Where is my uncle?” I demand. “What have you done with him?”
“He is safe.”
Relief rushes through me. “He is?”
Beast could be lying.
Although, I get the feeling he isn’t.
I mean, I don’t know this guy from a bar of soap but there’s something in his gruff demeanor that makes me believe him.
“Yes,” Beast says.
“Will you take me to him?”
“In due course.”
“When?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
I cross my arms and glare at him. “Of course I do, asshole. Wouldn’t you in my situation?”
He glares back at me and then grunts.
Did he just agree with me?
I want to yell and demand more information, but I have a feeling it will be a waste of my energy. Beast isn’t going to give me anything if he knows I really want it. He’ll use that kind of information as a card up his sleeve. Something to barter for my submission, no doubt.
“I’ve had time to think,” he says.
“How keeping me a prisoner is a felony that comes with lengthy jail time?”
He ignores me. “About what I am going to do with you.”
“Does it involve showing me the front door and sending me on my merry way?”
He ignores me. “You have a debt to repay and I have decided on a repayment.”
“What debt?”
“Your uncle borrowed money from this club."
I let my arms fall to my side and take a giant step away from him. “You’re lying.”
With a grunt, he removes a folded letter from the breast pocket of his leather cut and hands it to me. “He borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars.”
I hold the contract with a shaky hand and the letters swirl across the paper as nausea sweeps through me. Twenty-five thousand dollars.
“This can’t be,” I whisper.
“He signed it.”
Beast isn’t lying. At the bottom of the page is my uncle’s distinctive signature.
Twenty-five thousand dollars… This can’t be happening.
I knew Uncle Maurice’s gambling had gotten bad. But I had no idea he had borrowed money to feed his addiction.
I suddenly feel dizzy. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Beast doesn’t move. Doesn’t show any compassion. Instead, he charges forward with laying down the law.
His law.
“You will be my wife.” He says it so matter-of-factly at first I think I misheard him.
“Excuse me?”
“You will be my wife.”
His words sink in, and my mouth drops open.
“I will not,” I finally snap.
But he ignores me.
“You will be my wife. In return, the debt will be repaid and you will want for nothing. You can spend your days how you please. But at night, you will return to my room and sleep there.” His dark eyes find mine. “With me.”
I stare at him. Absolutely dumbfounded.
“Are you insane?” I feel like I’m stuck in a weird dream and any minute I’m going to wake up in my bed back at the little house on Le Prince Street and realize I’m late for work. “You must be crazy if you think I’ll do any of that. You’re barking up the wrong tree, mister. I’m not doing shit around here. I won’t marry you. And I most certainly won’t be sleeping next to you. What is this, the middle ages? I know we’re in a castle and everything is all very medievalish, but this is the twenty-first century, and I am not doing one more thing until I know where my uncle is, got it?”
I cross my arms to drive home the point.
Beast barely contains his patience. His big hands flex open and closed at his sides, like he’s just restraining himself from locking those big fingers around my throat and throttling me. Or at the very least, smothering his palm across my face so I stop talking.
A shiver trickles down my spine. This man could crush me like a pea with one swing of his fist.
“Look around you, does it look like you have a choice?” He leans closer. “You have nowhere to run, little one.”
I glance around. He’s right. My options are very limited. But it doesn’t mean I won’t try to fight my way out of this. My feet move without me even thinking about trying to escape. One minute I’m standing there, the next I’m running for the door
Unfortunately, Beast reaches it before me and with a growl, he lifts me up and throws me over his shoulder and stomps out of the room. His boots are heavy against the stone floor as he carries me down a long hallway and across a vast cobblestone foyer leading to a winding stone staircase.
“Put me down!” My voice echoes through the cavernous chambers leading off the foyer. “Put me down now !”
But Beast ignores me and keeps stomping up the stairs.
“Goddamn you!” I yell. “Somebody help me… please .”
But there is nobody around to help me. Or if there is, they’re not brave enough to stop this from happening.
At the top of the sweeping staircase, he turns right and walks a few more yards before he stops in front of a large wooden door. He opens it and steps us inside, before kicking the door closed behind him.
He puts me down, and my instincts take over. I kick him in the shin but he barely reacts. So I shove him in the chest and start beating him with my fists. Almost effortlessly, he holds me at arm’s length until I calm down.
“You need to understand what is happening,” he says, his voice deep and low. “Your uncle owes me and my club a great deal of money.”
I attempt to make another break for it. But he’s too quick for me and catches me around the waist. His arm is impossibly strong and thick with muscle, his body a solid wall against me. I am no match for his strength. He lifts me up and hauls me across the room toward the bed.
“Fighting me will only make this worse…for you.”
I kick and I scream, but he effortlessly controls me as if I am nothing more than a tiny mouse.
“Not to mention an exhausting exercise for the both of us,” he growls.
He throws me onto the ginormous four-post bed, his muscular body covering mine as he ties my wrists to the bedhead with the golden rope from the curtains. My pulse rages in my neck. The heat in his eyes sears my skin like a burning, hot caress.
“Let me go, you psychopath.” I grit my teeth and tug on the ties binding me. “Untie me or I swear to God?—"
“Or what?” He hovers above me, pushed up on his big arms, his long hair caressing my skin as he stares down at me. His gaze skims over the small rose tattoo on the inside of my wrist and amusement tugs at his full lips. “Tell me, little one, what terrible fate awaits me?”
My heart pounding, I look up at him. “What are you going to do to me?”
When he doesn’t answer, my anger bubbles to the surface.
“Answer me, you son of a bitch. What the fuck are you going to do to me?”
“You talk a lot.”
I glare up at him. “Gee… I guess that’s what I do when I get kidnapped by a giant man-beast who holds me captive in a castle to be babysat by a goddamn club girl,” I yell.
His eyebrows lift. “I haven’t kidnapped you. In case you didn’t notice, I saved your ass.”
“And brought me here and kept me locked up.” My eyes hold his. “And now you have me tied to your bed.”
“This is not my bed. This is a guest room, and it is where you’ll stay until I say otherwise.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“Why do you fight me when you know you can’t win?”
“Because you’re making me do something I don’t want to do. And don’t get me started on how you manhandle me like a brute.”
“Because you refuse to listen to reason.”
“Reason? You consider this reasonable behavior?”
“When it’s saving your life…yes.” He brings his face closer. “And just so we’re clear, when you talk about the club girls, you will speak with respect, just as everyone in our clubhouse is expected to.”
For a second, I see a hint of gentleness in his eyes. But one blink and it’s gone.
“Let me go,” I plead.
“This is how it is going to be, Belle. You need to make peace with it now.”
I swallow thickly. “Are you going to hurt me?”
He tilts his head as his eyes roam my face, and I’m so acutely aware of his warmth engulfing me.
“You’re afraid of me,” he says.
“Yes.” I can barely breathe because of the way he is looking at me. The full lips. The dark eyes. The menacing attractiveness of his scars.
“You don’t need to be if you do as you’re told.”
“Says the serial killer right before he makes a lampshade out of your skin,” I say without blinking.
He looks confused. I confuse him. And it’s about the only thing I have going for me right now.
He straightens. “Now, have you calmed down?”
I glare at him. I want to tell him to go to hell but I know it won’t win me any favors. Nor will it get me anywhere with this asshole.
I grit my teeth. “Yes.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” he grumbles.
I narrow my eyes and study the man who is keeping me prisoner.
If you gave me two words to describe him, they would be ruggedly hot. Oh wait, let’s make it three words. Ruggedly hot asshole.
And he’s big.
I know I’ve mentioned it before. But he’s so massive it warrants mentioning it again.
He’s also a grumpy jerk who doesn’t respond well to being challenged, and I realize now I will need to change tactics to get what I want. Which is to find my uncle and get the hell out of this castle.
He comes back to the bed and releases the ties from my wrists.
“Thank you,” I manage. My voice is small.
He looms over me, looking down at me, and I feel tiny in comparison to his size. I hold my breath. Waiting for what other crazy demands he is going to lay on me.
“We will talk in the morning,” he says. “Until then, get some sleep.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to dump all of this on me and then leave me here to stew?”
“What would you have me do?” He arches an eyebrow. Then very slowly, his gaze sweeps over me, and I feel my body begin to burn beneath it. Tiny throbs take up at my core because the heat in his gaze is positively nuclear.
I shift awkwardly. Mainly in an attempt to calm the throbs. But also because I feel very exposed and vulnerable and… like prey.
“I hope you’re ready for a fight,” I blurt out.
His eyes lock to mine. “Fight me, and this will be much worse for you.”
“You might have me at a disadvantage. But I will not make it easy for you.”
He takes a menacing step toward me. “Then this is going to be even less pleasant.”
I see the flash of menace in his eyes. Feel his dark power radiating off him.
Fear twists in my chest. This man could kill me with his bare hands and not even break a sweat.
I shrink back but keep my stare locked on his. I might be afraid, but I’ll be damned if I let him see it.
A cold smirk curls on his lips as he turns and makes his way to the door.
“Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
I watch him leave then leap off the bed to check the door behind him. Of course it’s locked.
A flash of lightning cracks into the room. I walk to the window and look out into the darkness. It is raining again.
At least in here I am safe and dry.
Even if I’m being held captive.