Fear of the Beast

By Karen See

In less than a year, Brig Thomson’s life has been turned upside down. The monster inside him remains ever present, his control over his beast tenuous at best. His body and mind are compromised by his continued weakened state. After an accident strands him in the middle of nowhere, he accepts help from an enigmatic stranger. But that stranger has a plan and Brig will do very well as a test subject, willing or not. Meanwhile, his pursuers, Kai and David, have been detained by Brig’s childhood mentor. She’s decided David’s the enemy and her ideas of justice are steeped in blood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen See
• Release date: Jul 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311656698

Karen See

Karen See lives in Illinois with her husband, daughter, and two cats. She enjoys writing horror, fantasy, and romance.

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Fear of the Beast

By

Karen See

*****

Copyright © 2015 Karen See

All Rights Reserved

*****

Cover Design by Kelli Neier

Published by Karen See

*****

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Playlist

Other Works

Books by Karen See

About The Author

Chapter One

The nightmares were the worst.

In all of his young life, Brig Thomson had never suffered dreams like he did now. Each night brought forth fresh images of pain and terror, some of them memories of that horrible night when everything had gone terribly wrong. He dreaded sleep and yet knew he couldn’t avoid the necessity of it without going fully round the bend into sheer insanity.

He slept in his car most nights, avoiding places his pursuers might be looking for him and avoiding civilization. Occasionally he squatted in empty and half-built houses. On the nights he chanced motels, he slept in the dingiest dives he could find, the cheap ones that rented by the hour. There, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the wretched and down on their luck, Brig tried to rest.

There was no rest to be found.

He dreamed about all that he’d done, from infecting and killing Malynn, to the attack on Kai. He relived every single second of it all in excruciating, Technicolor detail, and continued to be terrified that his beast would rise up again and take control of him. Brig lived in a cloud of constant terror that threatened to unhinge him.

Malynn pranced about his dreams, taunting and as out of reach as she’d been when alive. She called him names, belittled him, and scorned his attempts to regain the control he’d once had over himself and his beast.

Sometimes, Kai and David made cameo appearances with her.

Beautiful, naïve Kai Lucas with her eyes wide and a look of shattered agony upon her face. Betrayal. He’d betrayed her, ripped apart that trust she’d placed in him. In a couple of hours, he’d torn that naivety and trust to pieces, leaving her a shell of who she’d been. An infected shell at that. He’d smashed her humanity and left her with an existence alien to anything she’d known.

Her eyes haunted him. Every day, every hour.

I didn’t mean to hurt her, he thought. I never meant to hurt her.

He would see David, arms around both hurt and ruined women, the man’s voice telling him the agonies planned for him. David would torture him when he found him. Instinct told Brig that. David would make certain Brig felt nothing but anguish and pain for the rest of his days, though he doubted he’d have many left if David did catch him.

To be completely honest, Brig wouldn’t blame David for torturing him. If he were in David’s place he’d be the same, feel the same righteous anger, and the same need to make him pay the price for his actions. He’d asked himself what he’d do in David’s shoes and tried to be honest with himself, coming back to the same conclusion again and again. He’d choose the revenge route.

It was David who hunted him, with Kai beside him. They were his pursuers, the ones actively looking for him. How were David and Kai tracking him? That wondering ran about his mind in constant circles. Their pursuit was relentless and almost supernatural. Was it supernatural? He’d always known he was powerful. Were those powers enhancing his scent? Were his own abilities a traitor to him? Wouldn’t that just be a kick in the gut? To have his own body as a beacon for his hunters. A poetic kick.

Brig moaned, pressing his cheek to the car seat. It felt wet. Trembling fingers touched his face and he discovered that he was both sweating and crying.

Hell, he thought. I’m in hell. I’ve damned myself and now I’m stuck in it.

Pushing himself to sitting, Brig forced himself to analyze his feelings, his body. He was out of control so badly that it hurt to think of it. He had all of the tenuous control of an immature shifter. Where was his cocky arrogance now? Gone, as though it had never been there at all. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, pulse racing. Sweat soaked through his clothes and he shivered uncontrollably.

Cole had told him he’d have Malynn’s hunger for awhile, but he hadn’t said how long. He hadn’t told Brig it’d hang on, as if that piece of Malynn was alive and determined to make sure he was unable to escape David and Kai. He imagined it like a parasite in him, nestled somewhere rejoicing in his pain.

Keep moving, he told himself. Just keep driving.

Taking a deep breath, Brig started the car. He’d drive a few more hours and maybe exhaustion would set in, allowing him that rest he couldn’t find otherwise.

It felt like he’d been running forever, when in reality only four months had passed. He couldn’t do this much longer. There had to be some place he could hole up and rest, at least for awhile. Brig needed to be somewhere safe long enough to regain that elusive control. He clung to the idea that getting some control back would help everything.

Rubbing a hand along the back of his neck, he sighed. His new companions, fear and uncertainty, were draining. They kept him at attention at all times, in a constant look-out for pursuit.

At first, he’d run to the Memphis area, a place he had the best memories, only to find David and Kai not far behind. They’d been so close at one point that he could have spoken to them in a whisper and they would have heard him, but he’d hidden, used that power he’d discovered in himself to keep them from noticing him. Until seeing them, and the horrible change in them both, he’d tried to convince himself that it was all a dream. He hadn’t lost control, infected and killed one person and infected another.

But he had.

With another sigh, he leaned his head back on the headrest and contemplated those changes for the millionth time since that night. There were consequences for what he’d done that didn’t affect just him alone, spreading outward like a tidal wave, rippling through all he’d known.

Swallowing hard, he made himself recall Kai as she’d been and as she was now. Sweet, loving Kai was changed and it was all his fault. His actions had altered a fundamental piece inside her, making her into a stranger with his girlfriend’s face. There was a vitality about her she’d not had until he’d infected her, but that vitality came at a price. It had taken the sunny humor from her gaze. Would she ever smile again, he wondered? Perhaps someday, though it was doubtful Brig would be there to see it and know she’d been able to put the past behind her and move on.

Could she move on? Or was she going to be forever mired in the desire for revenge?

There’d been such terror in her eyes that night he’d attacked her….

When he’d fled the town, he’d wondered who was going to come after him. David had been a good bet at the time and he understood David’s probable reasons, except…. There’d been more between him and David than Malynn. Even before Brig had infected and killed her, David had been angry with him and increasingly antagonistic for no reason that Brig could think of. Something more pushed the other man onward and Brig didn’t know what that could be, for they’d never really been rivals even though they’d picked at each other like one picks at a troublesome scab. Plain dislike didn’t lend itself to the determination David was showing to take his head.

There was a similarity between David and Kai in that both were colder, but David looked older, less in control of himself. Wilder. Once he’d thought David too tame, almost human. How wrong he’d been! Brig sensed an air of desperation in David to catch him that matched Brig’s own desperation to be away.

That desperation made David all the more dangerous. A desperate man would do anything to achieve his goal. He should know. It took one to know one.

There had been nothing between David and Kai to indicate that they were good friends, much less that they even knew each other. They’d looked like strangers, with no touches or conversation passing between them. Odd. Troubling. Neither Kai nor David had been the standoffish type, both enjoying displaying their affection to those around them. Touchy-feely people. They’d both handed out hugs at the drop of a hat, but no more. To see them devoid of emotion frightened him, prickles of fear icing his spine whenever he thought about it.

How were they following him? Brig couldn’t figure it out.

He’d visited Mandie Adams, hoping that she’d have some insight for him. She hadn’t and she wasn’t strong enough to help him. She’d said that plain enough. Her abilities were on the lowest of the scale, not enough to even help if he started to lose control during basic exercises. So he’d left before really spending much time with her at all.

Sitting forward, he started the car and pulled from the park. It was dark enough now to chance visiting Cassidy.

She’d take care of him, he was sure, just like she’d taken care of him as a child. She’d give him the help he needed.

In her room at the motel she and David were going to stay the night at, Kai sipped a coffee and watched mindless drivel on the television. She wondered if her parents had realized that story of a summer European tour with friends was false yet. Cole and Mira had concocted that one, creating a tentative itinerary and details that Kai hadn’t even considered. Kai had told her parents that her friends had wanted her to go with them so badly that they were paying her way. After having heard Kai’s mentions of the rich kids that went to the school, her folks appeared to accept the idea. She’d warned them she probably wouldn’t have much chance to phone or write.

How she’d managed to keep her voice normal was a mystery to her. Kai didn’t want them worrying about her. To discover their little girl had been attacked and given an incurable disease--how they’d think of it--would kill them.

She’d asked to take the semester off and said there was an internship available that she would get class credit for. Her father had been reluctant, but her mother had agreed it would give her practical work experience if she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back. It had been a bizarre conversation, Kai certain her parents would flip out over it and them surprising her by supporting that fake decision she’d made. They hadn’t asked how she was, only if she was sure she was making the right decision.

The weird conversation had almost made her wonder if Cole had managed to explain it all to them without her consent to tell them. They’d been so understanding and eager to let her do what she wanted that she knew something besides herself was different. Her mother had asked if there was anything Kai wanted to talk about before she left with her friends. There’d been hope in her mother’s voice, and Kai couldn’t figure out why. What had her mother been hoping to hear?

They should have been upset that she wasn’t going back. They should have told her she had to, that it was stupid not to go back, and they hadn’t. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask what was going on. She couldn’t make herself talk to them and find out why they were behaving that way, so she let it stand and hadn’t talked to them since that day.

Kai flipped channels and let a deep malaise fall over her. David was restless, wanting to get back on the road and hating that they’d had to stop. She could hear him in the connecting room, waiting for the time to come get her. As night descended, David’s pacing slowed, Kai’s heartbeat quickening a fraction. It was almost time, wasn’t it? He’d been keeping a close eye on the time and on her. He’d noticed her pallor. She needed to do a full shift and soon.

When Kai had made that impulsive decision to accompany David on his quest for Brig’s death, it hadn’t occurred to her that she’d be losing the safety of Mira and Parminder with her during shifting. It should have. An anxious sweat broke out along her skin. It wasn’t a gentle sweat, but rather a drenching worthy of an athlete who’d been exercising for hours in great heat. She despised the moments when she’d be naked in front of him. She’d hated those moments back at Cole’s, too, but there she’d had Mira, Parminder, and the other women to surround her human body until she’d changed into her new form. The women had protected her and made her feel safe.

David tried, but he was too…male.

Kai turned off the TV and sat on the end of her bed, waiting for the connecting door between their rooms to open. Within a couple minutes, it did open, David stepping through holding a Goodwill bag in his hands. He rifled through it. One of the first things they’d done once getting on the road was stop at the nearest Goodwill and pick out a selection of clothes that neither of them would care if they got torn, stained, or even lost. He tossed a tank top and gym shorts onto the bed. They didn’t match. The tank was purple with red stripes and the shorts a particularly virulent shade of green.

Here, put these on. Just those. No underwear.

As though he had to tell her that. She’d learned quickly that excess clothes could tangle the body as it shifted and it was easier to have little to remove. Kai clasped her hands and slid them between her knees, pressing to stop the shaking in them. It didn’t work. It never did.

He was similarly attired in shorts and a t-shirt as worn and faded as the clothes Brig had favored. David put his hands on his hips. Well?

Looking up at him, she saw a glimmer of impatience in his eyes. I’d like a little privacy please. Her voice came out halting and soft.

His head tilted to the left. Privacy, he repeated, then licked his lips. Like I didn’t see you naked at Cole’s and quite a few times since.

David, please. She looked away, swallowing hard.

Modesty doesn’t really have much place in our lives, Kai.

Right. A bitter laugh slipped from her and Kai glanced back up at him. You gonna to tell me to ‘suck it up’ next? Four months ago I was human. Remember that?

He had the grace to look ashamed of himself, ducking his head, and turning his gaze to the floor. I’m sorry.

You should be, she snapped back. I wasn’t raised to have a casual attitude about nudity. I’ve told you that. You’re going to have to be patient with me.

David turned his back to her, setting the bag down on the low dresser. I’m sorry, he repeated. I…I forget sometimes that you were raised with different values and attitudes. You’ve done so well controlling your new powers and assimilating into our ways….

While his back was to her, Kai quickly stripped and put on the clothes, then stepped into the cheap flip-flops by the desk. Okay. You can look again.

He didn’t, instead holding his hand out for her to take. Kai couldn’t make herself touch him. After a few seconds, David withdrew his hand and led her from the room and out to the car.

Hours later, she found she couldn’t stop crying. Much of her numbness from shock had faded and the truth of her situation gnawed at her with razor sharp claws, tearing her up inside. She couldn’t go home. Neither could she go back to school and live a nice, normal life. There would never be a family in her future or anything resembling normal. She’d never hold a tiny infant that had come from her own body. That dream was gone. The only shifter women who could have children were those extremely advanced in their abilities and with iron control, usually those born to it. David had explained that those women born to it seemed to have something in their body’s make-up that allowed a baby to survive the shifting process. However, babies from shifter women were rare these days. Not many had the abilities and control.

Naturals were a dying breed. It wouldn’t be long before only those infected were left to pass it on.

She wept for what had been taken from her. Until Brig was dealt with, all Kai had were impersonal motel rooms and David.

He’d told her that her emotional turbulence would level out and she’d begin to feel normal again. When would that happen? She was so tired of being on an emotional rollercoaster that appeared to have no end. There were times where she cried all day and others where she felt curiously without feeling at all. It’d be nice to feel right again.

Kai lay on the burnt orange and brown bedspread, her body in a fetal position, crying out all of her pain. Trying to rather. Some days she felt she had more of an excess of pain than was healthy for one person.

The air held the fading scents of cigarettes, alcohol, sex, sweat, and all the scents people used to cover up the smells on their bodies. Her new improved sense of smell brought it all to her and she wanted to rip everything apart.

New and improved, new and improved. I’m like a commercial for something, she thought, rolling her face into the spread. Her skin rippled as though with goosebumps, but she knew now that it wasn’t goosebumps. What rippled her flesh right now was power. There was a horrible power in what she’d become, the kind that was an energy dancing on the body in slow or fast dances depending on the mood. Cole had told her about the various powers shifters had and how the powers enhanced hunting. He’d told her stories of shifters hiding their presence to take prey by surprise and of shifters using that same ability to protect their own from harm.

If Kai had to be in this world, she wanted to be the latter shifter. She wanted to protect, not hurt. She never wanted to become jaded and cruel, attacking humans and other shifters.

Kai drew in a breath so sharp that it hurt her chest. What am I now that I can even think about the possibility of attacking others? She rolled onto her back, arms flung out at her sides. Aren’t I becoming one of those Cole mentioned just by hunting Brig? I’m learning to use my abilities to find him and hurt him. Am I doing the right thing?

Her ears heard voices in the hall, sounds here and there that weren’t meant to be overheard, and David next door, his calm breaths behind the connecting door to their rooms. She heard his fingertips running up and down the door, sliding in silken trails.

It was addicting, those intense sensory realizations, and far more scary for being so. David assured her that she’d be able to control the fluctuations soon; she was on the way to total control in them and faster than most who’d been forced into this existence. He’d told her it sometimes seemed like she’d been born to be one of them.

It didn’t feel like she’d have that control. There was no rhyme or reason for when she’d suddenly be able to hear things or smell things that she shouldn’t be able to. Kai shivered, felt the push of power from her body and knew, before it happened, that she was calling David to her.

The talent she’d manifested. She was one who could call other shifters. Time would tell if she could do so over a distance or not. Cole had said it was a generic talent to do so within a single building, yet something of a gift to do so over miles. Calling other shifters over an entire area was far more difficult and rare. Leaders could usually do it, although Cole couldn’t to the degree Sebastian Delevan could. Delevan had been born a shifter, however. Cole hadn’t.

Cole tried to give Kai as much information as he could during her phone calls back to them, usually relaying information through Mira until he tired of that and wrestled the phone from her. It almost made Kai giggle to hear the two arguing over sharing the phone.

The door pushed open, David taking just one step into the room. He leaned against the doorjamb, in loose hunter green pajama bottoms. The top had been shrugged on in hasty jerks, left unbuttoned. Both were new. He wore them for her, having confided once that he preferred sleeping naked when he had a choice. She thought it said a lot about him that when she’d asked him to wear clothes, he did.

His feet were bare, hair tousled. He hadn’t gotten it cut since they left Cole’s and it was getting shaggy and long. Kai had tried to trim it for him, but she wasn’t very good at it. Concern was etched on the tired lines of his face. You called?

Kai curled back up. I want it to end, she whispered. I don’t want to hear the things I’m hearing. It’s like having a bad porno on the TV, only all you get is the sound.

David came to the bed, his footsteps barely there brushes on the brown level loop carpet. He crouched down so that he was at eye level with her. For a few seconds, his gaze was distant and then he quirked a smile. I’ll say. She’s not very convincing is she? If I were that guy I’d be insulted by that performance.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight. David, please.

Sorry.

I can’t turn it off like you can.

Soon. You’re getting better at tuning it in and out.

Liar. She knew he was right. She could feel herself getting stronger even if it sometimes felt like she was making little progress.

You know I’m not. He stood. You want company or no?

He knew better than to touch her other than lying behind her. Kai wasn’t quite ready for anything else. No hugs like they used to give each other or casual brushes of their bodies. David was careful to keep the distance she wanted right now. For awhile. If she ever wanted anything more, she’d have to initiate it.

Want the TV on?

David always asked and no matter what she said, he turned it on, the volume low, giving her something to focus on instead of the sounds from the other rooms in the building. He claimed it was an exercise in focusing herself, in tuning that power in and out as needed. I guess.

He found a news channel and set the remote beside the TV. The bed dipped as he laid behind her. One hand stroked her back, caressing in gentle sweeps, his power a heat on her that she felt through the cloth of her pajama top. All those times she’d felt like the air was hotter when around Brig, David, Parminder, Mira and others had not been her imagination. Shifters not only ran hotter than humans, but their powers were a heat.

Her mind refused to focus on the news channel and Kai drifted to sleep before realizing it was happening.

Chapter Two

Kai stank of Brig.

Even