Page 34 of Out of Peril

The guy sang and danced; he cooked; he cleaned; he loved children; and he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen in my entire life, not to mention those dimples. He was the real deal, everything any woman could ask for. What the hell was he doing with me?

There had to be a catch. Men like this simply weren't real.

I'd learned the hard way to question everything. If it seemed too good to be true, it's because it was. And Walker was definitely too good to be true. Maybe that made me a skeptic, but life had certainly given me enough reasons for that.

He reminded me of a prince in a fairytale or something.

Thinking of books had me changing directions as I headed for the library. Since our arrival I'd avoided that area of the house. But it called to me. In my beastly days just after the Raglan had dumped us and I'd fought my way to freedom, I'd returned home. I may have been stuck inside my beast at the time, but some part of me had survived because this is where she'd come—home.

Those that had been living here at the time had fled in fear. And it was here that I had learned to evolve and gain control over my beast. I'd had to re-learn how to shift and often had to battle her feral nature for dominance.

It wasn't a time in my life I was exactly proud of. In frustration, anger, and self-loathing, I'd destroyed much of the house. Deep claw marks still marred the walls and staircases. Every mirror had been destroyed. Old memories and pictures shredded. There was no way Walker and the kids hadn’t noticed that, but they'd all been kind enough not to say anything.

Cleaning the house today felt a bit restorative, like I was making amends with the past mess I'd made.

Slowly, I opened the door to the library. It was dusty inside, but exactly as I remembered. Tears pricked my eyes as I looked around the room at the warm, dark wood shelves built into the walls and ornately decorated. In the middle of the room stood a large wooden wolf statue, a tribute to my heritage. It hurt to look at it, and I cried, openly mourning the loss of my own wolf for maybe the first time ever.

I knew my wolf wasn't entirely gone, but she'd suffered so much trauma at the hands of the Raglan. We both did. And while I knew she was me and I was her, it helped me to think of us as different beings. It was how I could wake up every day and put one foot in front of the other.

I hadn't killed those creatures.

I hadn't killed those people.

That was all the beast.

It had to be, because if it wasn't, then it meant that I was truly the beast.

There had been so many times I'd considered ending my life. Kill the beast within. But I couldn’t do it because to kill her meant killing me. And I was just selfish enough that I couldn't go through with it.

Maybe that made me a chicken, too.

The world would probably be a better place without me. But then I thought of Maya and Dante. What would have happened to them if I hadn't intervened and protected them? I loved those kids in a way I didn't know was possible. As long as I was alive, they would never have to worry about the boogieman again.

I'd been caught with my guard down and that was never going to happen again. There was too much at stake now.

An image of Walker ran through my mind, and I sighed.

He wanted to return to San Marco. He'd even said as much. He wasn't going to stay with us, and I worried about how quickly the kids were getting attached to him. It was going to hurt us all when he inevitably left.

I knew he thought he needed to protect me or something. I knew enough about mating to know that all mating males felt that draw to their mate. But this was different. No Alpha would ever accept a monster like me into his Pack.

That idea was just as much a fairy tale as the books currently surrounding me.

I took in a deep breath and inhaled the scent of old, worn pages. There was something so peaceful about the smell of old books and some of them had been here for generations.

The room wasn't huge, but it was cozy and contained over a thousand titles. As a child, it had been my favorite place in the world as I'd choose a book from the shelves and curl up on the big window seat that looked out into the backyard and beyond to the river. It was a magical room.

I walked over to the window seat and dusted off the cushion, making me sneeze in the process. I noticed the book sitting there like it was waiting for someone to come and read it.

Beauty and the Beast. I groaned at the irony.

I'm certainly no Belle, I thought.

I thought of how I'd banned Walker to the servants’ quarters and laughed out loud. How cheesy and pathetic could I possibly be.

Well shit, I really am the Beast of this story. I started to laugh even harder. It felt good.

I sat down and stared out into the darkness.

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