The Beast Within

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Rock took a step forward as if intending to block their path. Des intervened, cutting off Rock and giving the ladies passage behind him. “Don’t do this, man,” Des said in a voice laced with warning. “Don’t make this a battle between brothers when we have a real war to fight. Jag wants the women protected. They are part of the cause.”

  “We don’t know that,” Rock ground out, his anger biting through the words.

  “We know what Jag wants, and that’s enough. When you stop trusting him, you shouldn’t be here.”

  The two men stared at each other, a standoff underway, tension as thick as the danger in the air.

  A loud screeching sounded…the alarm. The end of a standoff between friends. The beginning of a battle with enemies.

  The beasts had arrived.

  Chapter 14

  In a scurry of movement, Karen followed Marisol into the bedroom, and Marisol shut the door with a resounding thud. Karen eyed Eva, noting she still rested, unaware of the hell unfolding.

  “Help me move this stuff in front of the door,” the Healer said, sticking her gun into the waistband of her pants, and then shoving the items on top of the nightstand off to make it mobile.

  Karen looked around the room. Until now, she hadn’t given the surroundings as much attention to her sister. It was large enough to be two rooms, yet it was near empty but for the bed and a chair.

  “There’s nothing to move,” she said, wishing it weren’t the truth. Karen was all for blockading the door.

  Marisol shoved her hands on her hips, opening her mouth to respond when the window glass shattered.

  A man rolled to the floor, landing on his feet in an agile movement that left him in a squat. No. Not a man, Karen realized, feeling shaken by the evil yellow eyes staring back at her.

  If she could have breathed, could have found a voice, Karen might have screamed at the reality of the evil in this world—evil this creature confirmed. The evil she now faced as her own enemy.

  But wait…someone was screaming. The high-pitched sound permeated the air with pure terror, and for an instant, Karen thought it was her own. She shook herself, forcing reality beyond the shock of seeing this creature, and realizing it was Eva screaming. Eva sitting up in the bed, finally awake.

  Problem was, Karen wasn’t the only one who’d turned their attention to Eva. The creature, the beast, stared at Eva, a primal look in his yellow eyes, as if he’d found his prey. Karen watched him…expected him to charge Eva, but he didn’t.

  Why? What was he waiting on?

  Screw this. She couldn’t just stand here and wait for him to tear Eva to shreds. Karen raised her gun, aware of Marisol’s struggle to calm Eva and preparing herself for the kick of firing.

  Karen pulled the trigger, feeling her jaws rattle with the explosion, as the bullet sailed toward the creature’s forehead. In response, the beast leaned ever-so-slightly outside of the target range, the shiny vinyl of the outfit he wore flexing like second skin across far-too-broad shoulders. His thick, muscular forearm extended between his massive thighs to fist the ground and stay balanced.

  She fired again and with a simple, barely there, movement, again, the beast avoided impact. But this time he didn’t stay focused on Eva. The ugly-ass creature fixed Karen with an amused stare that said he wasn’t afraid of her or her weapon.

  God. He was toying with her, Karen realized. Laughter lurked in the depths of those sickly yellow eyes. A yellow that matched the coarseness of his hair, wild around his shoulders, and resembling a lion’s mane. His face, half human and half…something else. The thing had fangs. Not teeth. Fangs. And both his eyes weren’t the same size. One was much larger than the other.

  “Marisol?” she asked, still aiming her weapon, seeming to be in some silent standoff with the beast. “What the hell is it doing?”

  “What I’ve been ordered to do,” it answered, before Marisol could. “Making sure you stay put.”

  Eva whimpered as if the words, or maybe the voice, scared her. “Why?” Karen demanded. “What do you want of my sister? Just let her be free.”

  “She will never be free,” it said.

  Terror and determination collided inside Karen. This animal wasn’t taking her sister. Karen had to shoot it again. Had to. No matter how much her hand and jaw hurt at this point, this was about survival. She fired again, and this time she planned to unload the gun and be done with this beast.

  It stood up as she squeezed the trigger, and the first bullet bounced off his thigh. The second off his stomach. The third his chest. The other shots went into the air.

  Click. She was out of ammo. Not that she could have fired again. Her head felt like it had been slammed into a door.

  The beast snarled, baring his ugly fangs, no longer showing signs of amusement. He was on the move, headed for Karen and the low growl said he was pissed.

  Marisol offered support, firing her weapon, giving Karen a chance to retreat. “Reload!” she screamed at Karen.

  Karen didn’t need to be told twice. Marisol’s efforts were slowing the beast but not for long. With shaking hands, Karen used her thumb to discharge the empty magazine, willing herself to find the power to pull the trigger when the time came. But before she could finish her task, a second beast climbed in through the window.

  Karen snapped the magazine in place, adrenaline and fear making the pain in her body fade. She aimed at the beast closest to her so Marisol could focus on the newest arrival.

  Karen’s shot landed in a direct hit between the target’s eyes. Bingo. The beast stumbled and hit the floor. Just in time, too, because the second beast was coming for Karen and fast, and Marisol was out of ammunition.

  “Holy hell!” Karen yelled, backing up and trying to get a shot off but this new beast was quicker than the other one, and the toll of firing so many times made her slower. She managed to get a shot off but missed the head, the bullet ricocheting off the attacker’s chest.

  Certain she only had seconds to live, Karen felt her chest tighten with emotion. She couldn’t get a shot at his head. The beast was too close and too fast. Plain and simple, she was trapped with nowhere to go. No way to defend herself.

  A flash rushed at her. Time seemed to stand still. A memory filled her mind.

  She was on a farm, running toward a house, away from a beast. Though she couldn’t quite envision herself, she felt it. The rush of adrenaline, the terror of death.

  Harder she ran. Harder. Toward that house. Her house, she realized. Her home. “Victor!” she screamed. “Victor!”

  “Keep running!” she heard him call after her. “Faster! Keep running!”

  And she tried. She tried so hard. But suddenly, pain shot through her head as her hair was grabbed so hard it felt as if someone had ripped it from her scalp. She was yanked against a hard form, nasty breath flooding her face. As she was rotated around, she found Jag—no, he’d been Victor then—speeding toward her. Hope formed as he charged, but it was quickly lost as a beast seemed to appear from nowhere and yank Victor into his hold.

  The beast holding her laughed, deep and ugly. “Now you watch your woman die.”

  For a moment, just one moment, she saw the torment and pain in the eyes of the man called Victor, the man she now knew as Jag. She saw the tears stream from his eyes. And then, for one long excruciating second she felt the sharpness of the beast’s teeth on her neck. She heard her name on the lips of the man who loved her, heard him scream.

  “I love you,” she tried to whisper, but everything had just…gone black.

  Karen snapped back to the present as the beast charging at her in present time was yanked away from her, Jag her rescuer. Dampness clung to her cheeks as she realized she was crying. Tears born of that memory.

  She swiped at them, refocusing on what was happening here and now, determined not to die again at the hand of one of these beasts. She watched in shock as Jag, who had apparently found his way in the window, shoved the beast across the room and against a wall.

>   Grateful for what Jag had just delivered, a second chance in more ways than one, Karen shifted her attention to Eva and Marisol, eager to confirm their safety. She found them both on the bed, huddled together, a beast leaning over them. It yanked the gun from Marisol’s hand and tossed it across the room. Fortunately Rock appeared in the window, swiftly entering the room and grabbing the beast, only to have it rotate out of his grip.

  A moment later, swords were drawn, a full fledged war between him and the beast underway.

  Karen backed against the wall, trying to figure out how to help. Scared Marisol or Eva would end up in the way of a blade. She eyed Jag as he matched blades with his opponent. There were too many men. Too many swords. She was afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.

  A guttural sound of pain drew her gaze back to Rock, and Karen gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. A blade had entered Rock’s stomach, penetrating deeply. She watched his attacker twist it and then jerk it out of his flesh. Blood gushed from the wound like a waterfall, staining his blue T-shirt a darker color.

  “Rock!” Marisol’s screamed ripped through the air, a mixture of pain and denial.

  At that point, everything seemed to go into slow motion again. Karen turned toward Jag, knowing he was Rock’s only hope, probably the only hope any of them possessed.

  Jag seemed to know as much himself. He had given his attention to Rock’s attacker, turning his back on the beast he’d been battling. With a hard flick of his wrist, Jag’s blade sliced through the enemy’s neck. Its head hit the ground like a lead weight, a heavy thump sounding with its impact. The body followed, falling on top of Rock, who was forced to push it aside.

  Karen swallowed, trying to process what had just happened. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Beasts. Sword fights. Chopped-off heads…but it was. It was. She’d seen her past in her vision. She’d lived this once before.

  She didn’t want to lose the same battle again.

  Before she could process another thought, the last remaining beast took advantage of Jag’s back being turned, his sword slicing deep across his shoulders, just barely missing his neck, and down his side. Karen screamed, covering her mouth with her hand as blood tinged Jag’s shirt. Even more so as she thought of how close that blade had come to his neck.

  If Jag was fazed by the injury, he didn’t show it. With a graceful but deadly move, he rotated around to face his attacker, his sword cutting through the air with the movement, and taking the head of the beast.

  Just as Karen started to let out a breath, to allow herself to believe they would survive this, fire erupted on the beastly bodies.

  Karen gasped, expecting a blaze of flames to consume the room. Expecting yet another type of battle to fight.

  But just like that…the bodies were gone, an ashlike substance in their place. Karen realized then there had been no blood with the beheading. Not a drop. Twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn’t have believed any of this was real. Even now, she could almost convince herself all of this was simply a really long nightmare.

  But it wasn’t a nightmare, nor were they out of danger. She knew it. A chill went through her, a warning of more to come. The beasts were gone, but the war had only just begun. And her role here had now become clearer. It went beyond saving Eva.

  Karen was here for Jag…for Victor.

  Chapter 15

  Jag faced the window, sword in hand. For several seconds, he stood there, waiting. Ready for the next Darkland bastard who dared enter that window. No one spoke, as if they knew he needed the silence. Or perhaps they feared what he might do next.

  Like hot lava, the heat of battle coursed through his veins, rich with his anger over the attack and the injury to Rock. But even more than anger, he felt fear. Fear over what the beast might have done to Karen had he not arrived when he did.

  He drew a deep breath and blew it out, forcing himself to calm. Fighting the adrenaline still so a part of his body. Fighting his own beast, the one who surfaced for battle and cried for blood and revenge. Revenge for so many things. The list was long and continued to grow, sometimes it felt with each breath he drew.

  A static sound filled the air. Then, “Jag.”

  He reached down and hit a button on the side of his phone where it hung on his belt loop. “Yeah, Des. I’m here.”

  “They’ve retreated but they hit the bunkhouses hard. We have a shitload of wounded. I need Marisol.”

  Jag turned to look at Rock, his stomach twisting with the sickly paleness of his face. Already Marisol had slid into a healing trance, absorbed in her task. “We have wounded here, too,” Jag told Des, offering no details. “I’ll get her to you as soon as I can.”

  “Tell her to hurry.” One second. Two. “Jag, man…we lost three.”

  He didn’t immediately respond, feeling the news with more of a cut than the blade that had sliced through his flesh. “Copy that,” Jag said, because it was all he could manage. What else could he say?

  He slid his sword into place, self-reprimand burning in his heart. He should have been more prepared. If he’d trained for this, if he’d taught the recruits how to defend against a head-on attack….

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Karen’s soft words drew his attention. He’d avoided looking at her up to this point, still shaken by what he’d felt while fighting for her life. By how intensely he’d feared her death. It made no sense yet, even now, how close she’d come to it shook him to the core.

  A bit more under control, he forced himself to look at her. She sat on the bed beside Eva, who had fallen back into a comalike sleep, looking like an angel who’d just survived the Devil’s work.

  And she had. Lord help them all, she had.

  Her eyes were soft with understanding, her voice a soft caress. His chest tightened with emotion. Damn it, he couldn’t deal with this now. Not when he had Knights wounded and maybe even dying. He didn’t know how Karen knew what he felt. He didn’t know how Karen got into his dreams or evoked such emotions.

  It didn’t matter, either.

  Right now, he felt like shit in every possible way, and besides, she was wrong anyway. He was to blame. The Knights were his responsibility. This shouldn’t have happened here, at the ranch, the place he swore to them they were protected. He had the placed wired like Fort Knox, but it hadn’t been enough. They’d—no, he’d—grown comfortable here. Sure this represented a safety zone, the only escape from a war that lived on eternally. A war they could never depart.

  Jag turned away from Karen, intentionally shutting her out, refocusing on Marisol. He noted the tears streaming down the Healer’s face, despite her departure into a healing trance. Confirmation of what he’d already suspected. Marisol was in love with Rock. She was afraid she couldn’t pull him back from the other side, afraid he’d lost too much blood to be healed.

  The very things which gave the Knight’s life became a weakness in battle. The Knights had blood to drain and souls to darken. The beasts had neither.

  “Your wound needs to be looked at,” Karen said, once again breaking into his world, refusing to be dismissed.

  “I’m fine,” he said, cutting her a hard look meant to tell her to back off.

  “You’re not,” Karen insisted, pushing off the bed and she started to walk toward him.

  Jag held up a hand, watching her eyes widen as she stopped in her footsteps. “I have to check on my men.” He eyed Marisol for a moment and then fixed Karen in a hard stare. His wound did need to be dealt with, but he wasn’t about to say that. He’d heal. He was a Knight, which meant he healed quickly from minor wounds. “Make sure Marisol goes to the bunkhouse as soon as possible. Stay with Rock so she won’t worry.”

  “You can’t leave,” Karen said, disbelief in her voice, as if she couldn’t believe he was actually considering it. “You have to stay until she heals you.”

  He arched a brow, challenging her insistence without a word, the expression on his face one that would make most cower. Taking orders wasn’t hi
s style and, certainly not from Karen. Though his senses screamed that he trust her, his desire for her put him on guard, fearful of a trick.

  Her cheeks flushed, but she stuck to her guns. “You’re hurt, Jag.”

  While he wasn’t about to listen to Karen, let alone do as she wanted, he felt a part of him that was normally detached and cold stir at her concern. It confused him, but then, so did everything about Karen. He shoved aside the feeling, focusing on what was important. The safety of his men. Any one of his could be bleeding to death right now. He wasn’t allowing Marisol to waste her limited energy on him. Nor was he going to explain this to Karen.

  “Just make sure Marisol does as I say,” he told her, his voice cold now, sharp even. He needed out of this room, away from Karen. Away from Rock, lying on the floor half-dead.

  He started for the door, walking past Karen. The scent of death and war faded as his nostrils flared with her scent, with her feminine presence. It took him by storm, a primal calling that made him want to yank her into his and carry her from harm’s way.

  Instead he pushed forward, feeling the urgency of attending his men. But his escaped halted when Karen’s warm hand gripped his arm, the touch like an electric shock to his system.

  His gaze jerked around, eyeing her over his shoulder, ready to deliver harsh words only be taken aback by what he found, by the concern in Karen’s face. The worry for him.

  His gut tightened with the impact.

  Damn it, he didn’t want to react like this to Karen. He needed to deal with his injury and then clear his head and think about how to deal with the beasts.

  Drawing a deep breath, he said, “I have to check on my men.” His gaze going to her hand before returning to her face. “Lives are on the line.”

  With scrutinizing attention, she studied his back and shoulders where the blade of the beast had cut to the bone. “It’s really bad, Jag. Please stay and let Marisol help you. Please.”

  For a moment, he wanted to accept her concern. To allow himself to feel comfort in it as he had once with his wife so very long ago. But he hadn’t been able to protect his wife, and he’d barely saved Karen from the beasts. No matter what her role in all of this, she was better off at a distance.