Page 2 of Beast's Wife

Morgan waited for him to start eating before she picked up her fork. Again, there were only so many slaps around the face one could take before you followed the rules. At her parents’ house, the men always started eating first; the women had to wait. Those were the rules, no matter the meal. It didn’t even matter if you were starving. You waited. Simple as that.

But, she learned to survive. She had learned to do a lot of things because of her parents.

Glancing over at her husband, she didn’t know what he planned for her, but she had a horrible feeling it wasn’t anything good.

****

Carver Turner couldn’t stand women who were afraid of him. He couldn’t stand it when they had no reason to fear him. He knew his reputation would terrify most people, but he’d not done anything wrong to Morgan.

In fact, going against his better judgment, he’d married her, although she was only twenty-one. She had her whole life ahead of her, but then, he knew if he didn’t marry her, some other bastard would.

He didn’t need her to tell him what kind of life she had led up to this point. The scars told their own story, and he had come to listen to the body rather than the lips.

Words could be lies.

Words tried to hide.

Words were not to be trusted.

And yet, Morgan had thick, beautiful lips.

She’d been out of her mind, sick, when they had arrived at his home. Her family had hoped to be protected from his wrath, as well as the anger of Romone. He didn’t give a flying fuck about Romone, or who had upset him.

He rather enjoyed irritating the fuck out of the man. It was a fun game. Kind of like everyone knowing where he lived. He had no problem with men and even women coming to settle an old score. It was how he determined the strong from the weak, but also those who would come to betray him.

All his life, he didn’t know nor understand fear. It was a pointless emotion to him.

Staring at Morgan, he didn’t like how she shuddered, while bowed down, cleaning her feet. Why did she shudder? Was she afraid of him? He would understand her fear if he’d given her cause to feel that way, but he’d done fuck all to earn it. In fact, he had done more for Morgan than any other human being in his life. He was not known for keeping people safe, or helping them get better. He was the one that brought pain, destruction, chaos, and above all, death.

Carver noticed she waited for him to do something before she would do it herself, and rather than it be charming, he was finding it fucking irritating.

“Are you that afraid of me?” he asked.

“What?” Her blue eyes went wide as she looked up at him.

Even startled, she was beautiful.

He’d seen her a few times, around the fucked-up parties that were thrown. Often alone, or close to her family, but not quite standing with them. She caught his eye because out of all the people in the room, she was often the only one to appeardisgusted by what was going on. Everyone else was bloodthirsty and more than happy with the man or woman getting their comeuppance. The irony was, if the tables turned, they would be complaining so hard and so fast, it would echo off the walls just as loudly as their screams.

Sometimes people died, not because they did anything wrong, but because it entertained Romone. He liked to have his power kick.

“You shudder out in the hall, and now you won’t do anything unless I do it first. Why? Do I scare you that much? You don’t know me.”

“Ugh … it’s nothing like—”

“Do me a favor, Morgan, do not lie to me,” he said. “You lie to me and I will consider you my enemy, got it?”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “I shuddered at the door because I remembered what would happen if I left wet or muddy footprints on the floor. Trust me, being beaten by a belt is not fun. I wait for you to eat, because that was what I was taught. And again, I don’t like being slapped in the face. I find it irritating.”

Carver stared at her. At first, he felt like laughing, because that was not the answer he was expecting, but he didn’t laugh nor smile. He stared at her.

“That’s why they are dead,” he said.

“What?”

Carver wasn’t used to being questioned and he turned to look at his wife.

“Why are they dead?” Morgan asked.

---