Claiming Her Beasts #2 by Dia Cole
Lee
The school was as quiet as a graveyard. As I moved through the empty hallway, I caught glimpses of people sleeping in the classrooms. Under Dominic’s rules, all civilians not on patrol had to be in their assigned classrooms until dawn.
Screw Dominic and his rules.
He wanted to kill Reed to free his beast and I would not let that happen.
My wet sneakers squeaked on the speckled linoleum floor as I picked up the pace. Dominic had mentioned that Hunter’s body was on an office floor. He had to be talking about the principal’s office. Dominic had taken up residence there, while his soldiers turned the nearby teachers’ lounge into their sleeping quarters, not that any of them seemed to sleep.
I tensed knowing that any minute one of the soldiers could come through the hallway and try to force me back into a classroom.
The lanterns on the floor flickered as if in warning. Despite knowing better, I glanced at the tree mural on the wall. If anything, it looked even creepier than before. Until now, I hadn’t noticed that each red leaf handprint bore the name of a child.
Are any of those children still alive?
Trying not to shudder, I rushed past the lockers and came to another set of double doors. I cautiously pushed one of the blue doors open not knowing whether I’d find a soldier patrolling the other side.
Thankfully, the hallway was clear. Feeling as if I’d lucked out, I stepped through the doorway and caught sight of my reflection in the glass of a large trophy case.
My God.I look like hell. My long hair hung in a limp, wet, tangle around my pale, makeup-free face. It really brought out the dark shadows bruising the underside of my bloodshot eyes. I looked like a dumpster diving hobo. Scratch that. I looked like something a dumpster diving hobo would find on the bottom of their shoe.
I started to pinch color in my cheeks, before shaking off the rush of vanity. Screw my appearance. For the first time in years, the survival of my family wasn’t tied to my sex appeal. Instead, Reed’s survival depended on how quickly I could come up with a plan to save him. Too bad I hadn’t been the brainy one in the family. Eden had that honor, not that she’d actually used her intelligence for anything other than getting into trouble.
As if my thoughts had conjured her up, my sister stepped out of the library down the hall. She seemed completely unaware of me as she balanced a clear plastic baggie filled with syringes and glass vials on top of a stack of bloody towels.
“Hey, Edie.”
She spun around so quickly the baggie nearly slipped off the towels. Securing it with one hand, she gave me a surprised look. “Lee, what are you doing here?”
“I’d ask you the same question.” As I moved closer to the library door, the acrid smell of cat urine made my eyes water. “Another cat fight?” It seemed Eden was constantly trying to keep the felines and other animals from killing each other.
“Kind of.” She quickly closed the door and flattened her back against it. “I’m headed to the nurse’s office to return the pain meds and get more bandages for… Clyde.”
“Which one is he?” My sister had given me a rundown of all the animals in the library, but I hadn’t paid much attention. I really didn’t give half a shit now, but there was something about Eden’s behavior that triggered my alarm bells.
What’s she up to?
“He’s the ferret,” she said, not budging from her position in front of the door. “He got into it with Summer. She’s the calico that Rosie likes so much.”
Forgetting about Reed for a moment, I moved closer to the door. “I’d like to see him.”
She surprised me by stepping aside. “Fine. Although I don’t know why you’d want to. It’s not as if you’ve ever cared about the animals before.”
Ignoring the scorn in her voice, I tried to turn the door handle. It wouldn’t move. “It’s locked.”
“Really?” Eden wore a look of feigned surprise. “And I don’t have the key with me either. Dang. Looks as if I’m going to have to have a soldier open it for me again.”
I knew my sister too damn well to fall for her act. “Edie.” I gave her the big sister glare. “What’s really going on?”
She gave me a wide-eyed look of innocence. “Nothing, sissy.” When I continued glaring, her gaze narrowed. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
I exhaled heavily, feeling frustration welling up inside me. I should have been able to trust her. I should have been able to confide in her all the crazy shit that was going on with Reed and Dominic and the demon. But we’d always had an adversarial relationship. Maybe we would have been closer if our entire family hadn’t been wiped out in a single horrible night so many years ago and I hadn’t been tasked with looking after her. But I’d taken that responsibility seriously. Maybe too seriously.
As I studied the annoyed expression on her face, I realized I was the Avi to her Zara. And much like Zara couldn’t stand to be around her eldest brother, Eden couldn’t stand to be around me. The knowledge shouldn’t have stung as much as it did, but my emotions were raw and I was exhausted. “You know I’m only on your ass all the time because I love you.”
“Maybe you could love me a little less,” she groused. “I’m an adult, capable of making decisions for myself.”
“Are you?” If only I could trust in her decisions. But time and time again, I was left cleaning up her messes and bailing her ass out of jail. And yet, if I didn’t ease up on her, I knew intuitively she’d keep pulling away.
Eden rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, I have to return these meds. Sharon wants all the narcotics tightly controlled.” She patted the plastic baggie.
As I stared at the medicine bottles inside, I remembered Reed saying the meds Sharon gave him stopped him from hearing Hunter. An idea flashed in my mind. I reached out and snatched the baggie from her.
Eden tried to grab it back and dropped her stack of towels. “What the hell?”
“I need more pain meds for Reed.” I peered at the syringes and bottles inside the baggie.
Shaking her head, she picked up her towels. “Those are hard core, Lee. You can’t give him any of those narcotics. Besides Sharon will have my ass if I don’t return them. Those are Bernard’s meds and I wasn’t exactly supposed to take them in the first place.”
I faked a gasp. “Do you mean you stole them from her? And here I thought you were so trustworthy.”
She grimaced. “Just give me the bag back, Lee.”
“No.” With these, Reed could suppress the demon, maybe indefinitely.
Eden didn’t look happy. “That’s really addictive stuff. It’s not something to mess around with.”
“You’ll just have to trust me,” I said, throwing her words back at her.
The brat gave me a dirty look. “I’m going to tell Sharon you have her meds. She’ll come after you.”
“She can get in line.” I wasn’t scared of the nurse, or Darcy, or Dominic, or Hunter. Especially not with this. I clutched the baggie to my chest.
Eden huffed and stalked off.
Feeling relieved that I had at least some kind of plan, I followed her toward the eastern wing of the school until the hallway branched. As she continued toward the nurse’s office, I took a right and headed toward the front entrance of the school.
The glass doors were closed, but I could see multiple flashlights bobbing around in the darkness outside. If my luck held, all the soldiers would be outside reinforcing the gate or whatever the hell Dominic said they were doing.
I'd just relaxed when Mike stepped out of the teachers’ lounge and into my path.
The blond soldier looked almost as intimidating as Dominic as he loomed over me in his army uniform. “Ms. Walker, you need to be in your assigned classroom.”
Thinking fast, I said, “Oh, well I was helping Eden look for you.”
His suspicious expression morphed into one of surprise. “She’s looking for me?”
“Yes, she needed your help with something.” And I wasn’t totally lying. Eden told me she needed a soldier to let her into the library, even though I’d bet my only pair of jeans she’d had the key on her. “She’s headed to the nurse's office.”
“Oh,” he glanced over my shoulder. The eagerness in his blue eyes made me blurt out, “Is there a rule that soldiers and civilians can’t be together?”
His expression fell. “Yes.”
“Oh, that’s too bad because my sister is totally into you.” I winked. Take that you lying brat. “I’ll head back to my classroom.”
“You do that,” Mike said in a choked voice. Then the man practically zoomed around me in his haste to hunt down my sister.
Chuckling, I stepped behind the empty reception desk and approached the principal’s office. The mini blinds covering the windowpane in the door were closed and the room was dark. Still, I turned the handle slowly.
I half expected the door to be locked, but it wasn’t. I quickly yanked it open, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me. The office was pitch black and of course I didn’t have a flashlight.
Crap.
But I had one of Reed’s small plastic lighters. Shoving the baggie under my arm, I fumbled around in my pockets until I found it. Congratulating myself on having picked it up after it’d fallen out of my shirt outside, I tried to ignite a spark.
Click. Click. Click. Oh, come on!
The fourth time was the charm. Holding the small flame out in front of me, I swung it around the room. What a letdown. There wasn’t much of anything in here. Just an L-shaped desk cluttered with stacks of papers, a wall of metal filing cabinets, and two chairs parked near a door that read ‘Principal.’
Getting warmer, I told myself. As I crossed the small space, I caught a whiff of vanilla from an unlit candle sitting on the desk. The scent, one of my favorites, made me homesick. Wondering if I’d ever be able to return to my old life, I grabbed the candle and lit it. The much bigger flame brightened my mood and the room.
Pocketing the lighter, I re-secured the baggie under my arm and carried the candle over to the real principal’s office. Holding my breath, I opened it.
Inside was a massive office, roughly half the size of the classroom I’d been sleeping in. Other than the shiny framed diplomas mounted on the wall, it looked nothing like any principal’s office I’d ever been in. I whistled under my breath at the expensive-looking ebony desk with matching floor to ceiling bookcases. There was even a stain glass Tiffany lamp sitting on a side table by a long black leather couch.
What would a principal even do with a couch that size?Sleep on it? Maybe there was a mini bar under the desk too.
Scoffing under my breath, I scanned the rest of the space. Dominic said Hunter’s body lay on the office floor, right?
My stomach sank as I realized Dominic could have been referring to another location. Dammit. Maybe he meant one of the office buildings down the street. Feeling more and more let down, I carried my candle closer to the desk. Dozens of knives were lined up over the top of the black wood. The wickedly sharp blades gleamed in the candlelight.
The weapons, along with the open bag of cinnamon hard candy sitting on the desk, were a jolting reminder I was invading the private space of a dangerous man.
Time to go.
I’d just backed away, when I spied something large crammed behind the leather executive chair.
What’s that?
As I stepped around the desk, I realized there was a green blanket draped over something that looked to be a body.
I gasped when I spotted a giant foot, larger than a car tire, peeking out from underneath the blanket.
Oh, God. Is this Hunter?
Holding my breath, I set the candle and baggie down on the desk. Then I knelt down and lifted the blanket. I don’t know what I expected to find under there. Maybe a horned, red-skinned demon or a bestial-looking monster. Instead, I came face-to-face with an attractive man whose unique features were strangely familiar.
It was crazy because there was no way I’d ever seen him before. It’s not like I could have ever forgotten seeing someone with ombre shoulder-length hair that went from strawberry-blond, to burgundy, to dark black. And I couldn’t have forgotten that heavy dark brow, prominent cheekbones, and rugged chin. The guy oozed so much testosterone it surprised me that his enormous body was hairless. Even more surprising was the fact that his broad chest rose and fell evenly.
Given the way Dominic had been discussing him, I’d assumed Hunter was dead. But he was very much alive, and he had to be over ten-feet-tall.
What the hell is he?
The blanket slipped out of my trembling hands and fell onto his face.
I tensed waiting for him to open his eyes.
When he didn’t, I leaned over and whispered, “Hello,” like an idiot.
He didn’t respond.
I pushed the blanket aside and patted his smooth face trying to wake him. When that didn’t work, I peeled one of his eyelids open.
A metallic gold iris stared sightlessly back at me.
Wow. He definitely wasn’t human. I should have been terrified, but once again I was struck by a strong sense of familiarity.
I know him.
Driven by a strange urge, I pushed up his top lip revealing a mouthful of long, wickedly, sharp teeth. His elongated canines would make any vampire-wannabe pant in desire.
Is he a demon-vampire?
Unable to shake the strange compulsion to touch him. I shoved the blanket down and traced my hands down the smooth, golden skin of his chest. I’d never seen a guy as ripped as him. I swear his muscles had muscles. Not even Dominic or any body builder I’d ever seen could hold a candle to his physique. He even had a twelve-pack. I counted his abs a second time just to confirm it.
The blanket, pooled at his waist and stopped my exploration. I chewed my bottom lip with indecision. Touching someone without their permission was wrong. But then again, Hunter possessed Reed to have sex with me, so… I lifted the blanket and did a double take.
What the hell is that?
The huge appendage laying between the demon’s muscular thighs was well over a foot long, as thick as my calf, and studded from base to tip with strange bumps. Fascinated, I ran my hand over them. The bumps felt like smooth, fleshy protrusions if I stroked downward, but if I slid my hand upward, they became spikes that dug painfully into my skin.
Holy crap.No way was that thing ever getting inside me.
“That’s one way to rouse a male from a coma, Ms. Walker.”
Shit.I twisted around so fast I nearly fell over Hunter’s body.
Dominic stood directly behind me, close enough to slit my throat.