Beast
Savages and Saints
C.M. Seabrook
Copyright © 2019 by C.M. Seabrook
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by: My Brother’s Editor
Cover Model: Andrew England
Cover Designer: More Than Words Graphic Design
Photographer: Eric Battershell
Judy R.
You are an inspiration.
Thank you for all of your support over the years.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by C.M. Seabrook
Preview: Moody
Blurb
London is everything I should stay away from. Sweet, perfect, and my best friend’s girl. She’s also pregnant with his kid. A kid who will never know its dad - because of me.
She spends her life fixing things...and I spend mine breaking them.
The woman has this whole messed up theory that she can heal me, but I’m not just damaged, I’m irreparably broken. And my love for her won’t just burn her this time, it could destroy us both.
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." -- Samuel Johnson
Prologue
beast: a contemptible person. something formidably difficult to control or deal with.
Abbott
Pain, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced rips through me. Shredding me from the inside.
What have I done?
Broken, I fall, gasping for breath. Night consumes me, birthing some ugly darkness in the deepest part of my soul. A beast that consumes everything I am, everything I was.
A destroyer created from my own sins.
Guilt twists in my gut, distorting truth.
What is truth?
It may be the greatest deceiver of all. Because in the darkness even our own minds deceive us.
My fault.
My fault.
My fault.
Numb. Shattered. Alone. I finally emerge from the darkness, no longer the boy I was, and never to be the man I could’ve become.
Because from this day forward, I am the beast.
Chapter 1
Abbott
“Abbott?” A soft voice filters through my tormented dreams, drawing me back to my even more fucked up reality. “Abbott wake up.”
God, that voice, as sweet and pure as the woman who it belongs to, but it’s also a reminder of everything I’ve done, every shitty thing I’ve thought about doing. Because the truth is, it all revolves around her.
My pain.
My need.
My guilt.
Every. Damn. Thing.
“Come on, Abbott.” Knuckles rasp on my bedroom door before I hear the handle turn, and a stream of light pours into the dark room.
I blink and meet a pair of wide hazel eyes that are filled with more concern than I deserve.
“God, your face.” London hovers in the doorway.
“I’m fine.” My last fight left me with a nasty black eye and a busted up lip, but that’s not where her gaze stays as I sit up and the blanket drops to my waist.
She sucks in a small breath and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, those multi-colored eyes becoming hooded as they fall to my chest, to my abs, to my morning wood that’s only slightly hidden by the thin cotton sheet.
“I...uh...” Her cheeks turn red before her attention is drawn to something else.
Shit.
The warm body that shifts beside me reminds me that I didn’t come home alone last night.
Something flickers in London’s expression, disappointment or maybe disgust, but it’s better than the flash of lust I’d seen there a moment before. Because London McClain is and will always be off limits. But that doesn’t stop my cock from reacting to her every damn time she walks into a room.
Even if she wasn’t my best friend’s girl, she’s also seven months pregnant with his kid.
A kid who will grow up without a father because of me.
“Who’s she?” the blonde mumbles, glaring at London as she twists to her side, exposing her perfect, yet undeniably fake, double Ds.
London rolls her eyes, and I see her jaw clench when her gaze scans the bedside table. An empty bottle of whiskey sits beside a small bag of weed and the newly refilled bottle of Percocet. And I can see the nurse in her ready to give me a lecture, but she snaps her mouth shut and just shakes her head.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my head aching with the movement.
Shit, I drank too much last night.
“Time to go,” I say to the woman in my bed, a chick whose name I can’t even remember.
Yeah, I’m that type of asshole.
“But it’s still dark out,” she pouts, the slur of her words confirming that she’s about as sober as I am. Then her voice turns to a purr, “We could still have some fun. Your friend can join us.” Her fingers slide under the sheets and I grab her wrist before her hand reaches its target.
“No,” I growl out, probably a little more forcefully than necessary.
London is about as likely to jump into my bed as the Pope himself. Not that I have any fantasies about the old dude, but it’s safer to think about him than London’s curvy little body pressed against mine.
Even pregnant London is sexy, but it’s more than just her body that I crave - like the selfish bastard I am, I want everything.
But I gave up that right years ago.
I reach for the pill bottle and pop it open, then toss two tablets in my mouth, downing them with a swig of whiskey. The pills are supposed to be for the pain in my shoulder, an ache from where I took a bullet six months ago. Scar tissue and nerve damage that will probably never go away.
Good.
London is still hovering in the doorway, frowning at me, fidgeting with the keys in her hand. Kyle gave her a set of her own a few months after they started dating. I’ve never thought about asking for them back. I know she comes here sometimes, sleeps in his old room, just to feel close to him.
How fucking twisted am I that I want her here? That I crave her presence more than my next breath.
“Mind giving me a minute?” I say gruffly, self-loathing making the beast inside me rear its ugly head.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll make some coffee. Looks like you’re going to need it,” London mutters before turning on her heels and disappearing down the hall, but not before I see the undeniable hurt in her eyes.
I’d promised her I’d clean myself up. For Kyle. For his memory. And I’d been doing good, or at least good by Abbott Savage standards, until last night when the pain became too much, and the guilt won out.
Shame has a way of wrapping itself around a man’s heart and slowly squeezing the life out of him. And I’m pretty sure if there’s a prize for most fuck-ups in life, I’d be the crowned winner.
I grab a pair of jeans from the floor and shove my legs in
to them, the movement as unsteady and rough as I feel. Guilt, guilt, guilt, pounding against my head and heart.
London has seen me with plenty of chicks over the years, and this isn’t the first time she’s walked in on me with a woman in my bed. Shit, she practically lived here when Kyle was alive. Normally I’d make some dickhead comment and she’d laugh it off, but today isn’t just any day.
Today is the day.
His day. The final goodbye. Which is why I’d spent last night drowning my demons in a bottle of Jack and the pussy of the pretty little blonde who’s now staring daggers at me.
“I thought you said you’re single.” Her lips purse, but her gaze rakes over my body greedily as I get dressed.
“I am.” As fucking single as they come. I gather her clothes and toss them on the bed. “You need to go.”
She pouts. “But it’s not even the morning.”
I glance at the clock on my phone. It’s a little after five, the sun will be rising soon. “I’ll call you an Uber, but you need to leave.”
“Do you want my number?” She slithers out of bed, her body language meant to seduce, but it only makes my gut clench and that small piece of conscience I still have left fills me with self-loathing.
“I don’t do second rounds, sweetheart. In the octagon or in the bedroom. One round knockouts are my specialty.” I groan inwardly as I say the words, knowing what a douchebag I sound like.
“Asshole,” she mutters, finally getting the hint and starting to dress.
I grab a clean t-shirt from a drawer and follow London to the kitchen. Asshole doesn’t even begin to describe me. But at least I don’t pretend to be something I’m not.
I’ll never be Mr. Perfect. Never tried to be. That was Kyle’s gig. The all-American boy with a four point oh GPA and an academic scholarship to the state’s top University. Not that he’d taken the free ride. Instead, he’d accepted the offer to the shitty medical program that Harriston University offered in order to stay close to his sick mother.
Yeah, he was that guy.
The good son, the ideal student, and of course the perfect fucking boyfriend.
And while Kyle poured over medical books with the desire to heal people, I found a way to make a living breaking men’s faces. It’d been a running joke with us, that he’d only gone into medicine to clean up the bloodied bodies I left in my wake, and to fix me up whenever I took a cheap shot.
“You’re too impulsive,” Kyle muttered when he’d been bandaging me up after one of my fights. “If you’d just hold back, you’d take fewer hits—”
“People pay to see me knock guys out in one round.”
“And how many unnecessary shots do you take while doing it? One of these days you’re going to get hurt.”
“Not sure what you’re bitching about, you made more than enough betting on me to pay off half your student loans.” And his mother’s medical bills.
The money was good. And if I had to take a few broken ribs and black eyes in exchange for an adrenaline rush and another big payout, then it was worth it.
Except it wasn’t.
I’d taken too many chances. Too many risks. And I’d lost everything. My career. My best friend. Even my own fucking family can’t look me in the eyes. Because they know the truth of who I am.
Irredeemable.
Broken.
A beast.
They all gave up on me. Everyone except London. For some messed up reason, she still thinks I’m worth saving. Or maybe she just clings to me because I’m her last reminder of Kyle, her final anchor to him.
His mother passed away only a few weeks after Kyle was killed. Another weight added to my conscience. Her heart had given out. She literally died of a broken heart.
My fault.
I roll my shoulder, glad in a way for the pain. A constant reminder of my sins. A punishment I deserve. And yet I still seek more pain. Entering fights I have no chance of winning. Not anymore.
I’m damaged. Irreparably. Body and soul.
But guys still want the chance to fight the Beast of Port Clover, the Widowmaker of Harristown, even if I’m half the man I used to be. So I let them, taking their blows as penance.
Walking into the kitchen, I lean against the counter and watch London’s back as she scoops out coffee grounds and places them in the espresso machine.
“Did you work last night?” I ask, taking in her appearance. She’s wearing a pair of those blue hospital pants with the tie strings that hug her hips and ass.
Stop looking at her ass, dickhead. But even pregnant, it’s still the best ass in Harristown, hell maybe in the whole fucking world.
I pull my eyes up, but the view is no less tempting. Dark hair hangs halfway down her back, soft waves that beg for a man to tangle his fingers in.
God, I’m pathetic.
She’s fucking pregnant. And she’s Kyle’s. Doesn’t matter that he’s gone, she’ll always be his.
“Yeah,” she answers, reaching for a coffee cup on the top shelf, exposing an inch of skin on her lower back. “One of the full-time nurses just retired, so I’ve been able to pick up a few extra shifts.”
“You shouldn’t be working so much.”
Her back remains to me, and I see her shoulders lift and fall slightly like she’s holding back emotions. “Did you forget what day it is?”
I close my eyes, trying to erase the image of Kyle’s lifeless body lying on that steel bed. The police questioning me. The long days afterward. The risks I took to make sure that the man responsible would never hurt London, or anyone else again.
The worst part of it all was London’s grief, her confusion, and my cowardice, unable to tell her that it was all my fault. That every heartbreak she’d ever experienced was all because of me.
If I wasn’t such a selfish prick, I’d push her away too. But she’s the last ray of sunlight in the hell that is my life. So I pace around the perimeters, watching her, needing to protect her, but knowing if I get too, close I’ll destroy us both.
London turns and something that looks like pity is in her eyes when she meets my gaze. “I can go by myself if you’re not up to it—”
“No.” I need to do this. And not just for London, or Kyle, but for myself. A reminder that I’m not the one whose ashes are in an ugly metal container in the next room.
“Just let me...” I glance over my shoulder toward my bedroom and wince. “Take care of that.”
She shakes her head and lets out a sigh. “One of these days you’re going to end up bringing something home you can’t get rid of.”
I grunt. “Trust me, none of the chicks I bring here have any illusions that I’m boyfriend material.”
She chuckles, flashing one of her dimpled smiles. A real smile. One that lights up her whole face. “They might be easy to get rid of, but chlamydia and herpes are a lot harder. And...” She rubs her belly. “There’s this nine-month bug going around. You might have heard about it. After it’s over it gives you this tiny, screaming little human that—”
“Okay wise-ass, I get it.” I toss a dish towel at her, which she catches and throws back at me. The tension that was there a moment before dissipating. “I’ll be ready to go in five minutes.”
Dimples deepen as her smile spreads. “Ten bucks that there’s screaming or something broken involved.”
As if on cue, I hear something shatter down the hall before the front door slams shut with a rattling bang.
I cringe.
One brow raises, and London holds her palm out to me. “Ten bucks.”
“I’ll give you twenty if you can make that coffee faster.”
She pours me a double espresso, which I down quickly along with the two Tylenol she pulls from her purse.
I’m grateful that she doesn’t lecture me about the empty liquor bottles on the kitchen counter, but I see her frown when she starts tossing them into a blue recycling bag.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
She pauses, an empty vodka
bottle in her hand, then drops it in the bag, and says pointedly, “Neither do you.”
I take the bag from her, ignoring the blistering heat that races up my arm when our hands touch. Our gazes lock for a moment, and I wish I couldn’t read the thoughts in her expressive eyes, but I can practically hear the words I know she wants to shout at me.
You’re better than this. Stop drowning your pain in things that don’t matter.
And when I’m with her, I am better. But I also know it’s not fair to drag her down into the dark rabbit hole of misery that is my life. So I shrug off her concern and try to sober up enough to do what has to be done this morning. Say our final goodbye to a man we both loved.
Chapter 2
London
Ten years old
“London Bridge is falling down, falling down...” Kids circle me, chanting the horrible children’s song.
I try to ignore them, focusing on the book I’m pretending to read and not letting the tears that are building at the back of my eyes fall. It’s the fifth school I’ve been to in three years, so I’m used to being the new kid, used to the teasing and curiosity, even the cruelty. Especially when they find out who my father is.
“My mom said her dad stole a bunch of money,” the boy who’s obviously the ring leader says loudly. He’s got bright orange hair, and ears that stick out at odd angles.
“Yeah, my dad said he’s that crazy pastor from TV,” a girl with blonde pigtails whisper-yells. “That they moved here to steal our money too.”
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