The Beast Within

By Charlotte L R Kane

Keyanah never wanted to be a Wolf, but she was born into a world of Shifters. She denies her heritage and defies the laws and rules of the pack. She would do anything to stop the Wolf from emerging - even risking her own life. Her father is the Alpha and must punish his daughter for not accepting the Wolf. He exiles her into the human world, forcing her to learn and understand the rules of the human world.

Enter Callum, a twenty-one-year-old coffeeshop owner who finds Keyanah and offers her a job. But there is more to him than meets the eye. Keyanah finds herself attracted to Callum, but she doesn't know why. When she moves into his apartment she learns the truth about him. And herself.

Can she allow herself to love Callum or will the threat of the inner Wolf become too much for her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlotte Kane
• Release date: Mar 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215193952

Charlotte L R Kane

I have a degree in Business Management and started writing in 2006 when I was first introduced to fanfiction. From there my passion from writing has been discovered. However, it was only in 2012 that I decided to start writing stories that were not fanfiction and came across the option to have my work published. I started by adapting some of my fanfictions into ‘proper’ pieces of works and published them. From there I have continued my writing journey and expanded my style and genres. Although I prefer to write about the darker sides of life, I love the challenge of exploring situations and genres that I have not done before. For me, writing is about escaping reality. It is freedom. You can create the world, choose who lives and dies, decide if good or evil will prevail. It’s expressing your thoughts and feelings.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

No, no, no , Keyanah begged. She didn’t want this. She fought the beast, fought against the change which was starting. She growled as she felt the beast starting to take over, felt the creature taking over her thoughts, and beginning to take control of her body. She threw herself to the forest floor and began hitting herself, scratching her arms and legs, biting herself, doing anything to hurt herself, to try to halt the transformation that was due to occur. But she felt the transformation taking place; there was no way she could stop it now. No matter how much she begged and pleaded for it to end. She looked down and saw her hands transforming into large paws, her nails elongated and turned into sharp claws. Pained ripped through her body as it twisted and shaped itself into the beast. She bit down on her arm, screaming out in pain as her teeth pierced the skin. Blood slowly dripped from her mouth. Her teeth extended into sharp points and she felt them against her bottom lip. She flung herself against a tree, her body smashing into the hard bark, her body screaming out from the pain.

Her body curved; she heard the crack of bones as they reshaped themselves. Keyanah trembled as she continued to fight the change. She slammed her now fully formed paws onto the soft forest floor, digging into the grass and mud. She continued to punch the ground repeatedly. She was losing the fight. The beast was taking control and there was nothing she could do about it. Her eyes dilated, the surroundings becoming sharper, trees in the distance became focused as her enhanced senses kicked in.

Please, stop, she continued to beg. I don’t want this, she cried, but her body continued to shift and the more it did, the more she wished to hurt herself. This was not who she wanted to be. She wanted to stop the shift, but it was too late. She had to sit by as the creature took control, as she became the beast that she loathed so much. The shift was nearly complete; she felt the thoughts of the beast taking over her own. She was hungry, and she wanted to kill. She needed to feed, to run. She cried out once more before a guttural growl escaped her mouth as the beast emerged fully. The auburn fur flourished in the sunlight. She stretched out and howled; the noise shaking the leaves on the tree beside her. She was finally free. Free to run, to roam, free to hunt. She ran through the forest and joined her pack members in the moonlight, howling loudly in glee as she ran free.

CHAPTER ONE

When Keyanah awoke the following morning, she noticed the scratch and bite marks on her body. She gently caressed the wounds; they were healing quickly – one of the perks of being a Shifter. Apparently. The previous night’s scratches had become small gashes and by the end of the day, they would no longer be there. Her vision began to blur as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Once again, she had been too weak to stop the change, too weak to stop the Wolf from appearing.

She reviled herself for transforming, loathed herself for becoming the creature again. She didn’t really remember much of the change, she never did. The last thing she remembered was walking in the forest and noticing the moon was awfully bright that night. The full moon was due to rise.

She had woken up in her bed. She spotted her clothes beside her and lifted them up and saw the tears in them. The rips were coated with dry blood. How had she gotten home? Had she shifted back and made her way there, or had someone carried her back? Luke, her father’s best friend, had found her by the river and brought her back the last time she had shifted. She heard someone entering the hut and looked up. She saw her father stood in the doorway, and the stern expression on his face meant that he was not happy. He was angry with her. She pulled the duvet around her and braced herself for what was to come.

‘Micah found you last night.’ His voice boomed through the hut. ‘You were down by the river, it looked like you hurt yourself... Again.’ His voice wasn’t relaxed or calm. It was neutral and that scared Keyanah more than her father being angry. When he spoke like that, she knew that she was in trouble. It was his Alpha voice. The one he used when he raised concerns to the pack. He moved closer to her and Keyanah tried to cover the marks on her arms, but Yansen noticed and pulled on her arm, exposing the wounds.

‘You need to stop doing this,’ he growled. His large muscular frame loomed over her, and she swallowed heavily. Of course, he would be larger and stronger because of being the Alpha of the pack. He clenched his fist and she saw that he was trying not to lose his temper with her. Again. He had dark grey eyes that seemed to stare right through a person. He was strict. He had to be. He was the Alpha of the pack, he had to be obeyed or there were consequences – she had seen that more than once.

Keyanah pulled her arm back and covered it with the duvet.

‘Answer me.’ He barked. Keyanah feared her father, but she couldn’t let him see that, so she took a deep breath in and tried to control her breathing. She felt her heart racing and the Wolf was stirring deep inside. She looked into his eyes, matching his gaze. She would not show him fear, he was her father before he was the Alpha.

‘With what? You know I don’t want this life.’ She saw the disappointment in his eyes and it hurt her knowing that she caused it. It was the same look he gave her daily, and she recognised it easily. She dreaded it, but knew she would always get that look from him. She would never get the look of adoration he gave her when she was younger. That look was long gone.

‘This is the life you were born into Keyanah. This is who you are. I don’t understand why you cannot embrace it.’

‘We have discussed this many times father,’ she was annoyed that the conversation once again came to this. ‘Nothing has changed, nothing will change. I will never embrace the Wolf. It is not who I want it to be.’ Her voice got deeper as she said the last part, tired of repeating the words repeatedly. Her father did not understand, could not accept that his daughter did not want to be a Wolf. That she would not accept the life that she was given. She never had a choice; she was born into a family of Shifters but that doesn’t mean that she had to accept it. Didn’t mean that she had to embrace the Wolf. She just wanted to be Human. To be what other people considered normal.

‘But this is who you are Keyanah, your mother would be disappointed.’ That word piqued her anger. That was the one topic that she didn’t like being brought up. Her mother was a subject that was off limits.

‘Do not mention my mother,’ she snapped back. He knew that mentioning her mother was a sore spot for her. She looked up at her father with fierce eyes. ‘Never bring up, mother. Please leave. I need to get dressed.’ Her focus never faltered from her father.

Yansen slammed down a fist on the bedside table, causing her to shrink back a little. ‘Dammit Keyanah, I don’t understand why you are being so difficult. You are a Wolf. Your mother was a Wolf. I am a Wolf. A Wolf is who you are. I don’t understand why you cannot embrace that. Why are you so afraid of being who you were born to be?’

Keyanah didn’t respond and watched as her father’s eyes bore into her before he got up, pushing the chair a little too hastily and stormed out of the hut. She was thankful he left before she could lose her temper any further.

Keyanah sighed and got herself changed. She put a long-sleeved sweater on to hide the marks, which had healed a little more since that morning. She didn’t want the wrath of other pack members as she did her duties – cleaning the hut, and skinning the animals the pack had brought back the previous day. That was how they survived; hunting woodland animals and foraging berries. Members of the pack used to go into the town at a night-time and steal food from the supermarkets. She never understood why good food was being thrown away, but it meant that the pack had good food to barter with. Allowed them to eat something different other than the berries, fish, and animals of the woods. Rules of the pack governed them from entering the town, but that didn’t stop members. She knew a couple of pack members who still made their way into the town every few months. They gave her some supplies in order to keep her quiet, and she stored the goods under her bed, away from her father. The Pack Master. The Alpha.

Keyanah washed her face and, going back to her room, she looked at the photo on her bedside table. The picture of her mother and her. She noticed the similarities between them. She was nothing like her father. She was slim, although athletic, had long auburn hair and dark brown (almost black) eyes. She took after her mother; she had photos of her beside her bed. She looked at them every night and prayed that she would wake up and it had been a dream, that her mother hadn’t been killed and that she was there to hold her and love her and be the person she could talk to. But every morning she woke up with the heartache of knowing her mother had been murdered. Being a Wolf wasn’t a blessing; it wasn’t the way of life that her father made out. She didn’t want to be the one thing that people hunted. Killed mindlessly for their meat and their fur. Hunted. Wanted. Slaughtered. No being a Wolf wasn’t a blessing. It was a curse. When she was transforming, she felt a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. While most people thrived on the Wolf, she wanted to throw up every time the Wolf’s presence was felt.

She wanted nothing more than to be Human, to not have the blood of the Wolf running through her veins. She wished there was a way that she could remove the curse from herself; could take away the thing that dictated her life. Growing up, her father had pressured her into reading the lore books of the pack. Each family would have their own books that contained history, laws, and rules of the society. This information would be generic through all the books, but there was a section about their family and any traits that passed down. Yansen would quiz Keyanah on the history and the laws of the community from when she was old enough to read. Even though she knew the lore, she would often get the answers wrong in defiance, which annoyed and angered her father further.

He would go on about the benefits of being a Wolf, the strength, speed, and power that they gained while they were transformed. The superhuman powers they had in Human form. However, Keyanah would always use her mother as an example. If they were that strong and powerful, then how did her mother die? How did her father allow her mother to be brutally murdered? He was weak and powerless and unable to stop his wife from being killed. That was what made her not want to embrace her heritage, made her hate herself. The reason she wanted to be Human.

CHAPTER TWO - YANSEN

Keyanah didn’t remember the night her mother was killed; she was only four. I tried to keep the news of that night from her but it wasn’t possible. Others in the pack whispered things, and I knew they pitied her. Looked at her as the girl whose mother was murdered in front of her father’s eyes. I am grateful that Keyanah didn’t have to witness the events of that night. It still haunts me to this day, and there are many nights I awake drenched in sweat from the nightmare.

Lyanna and I were out hunting one October evening. There was a chill in the air, but it didn’t affect us. Our coats were thicker during the colder months. Our body temperature was higher than a Humans, it was as if we have a built-in heater. I suddenly heard a rustling and crunch, and I stopped, cautious. Lyanna stopped beside me and glanced around to see what had made the noise. Footsteps. Before we reacted, a silver chain metal net was thrown over Lyanna and I was shot with a silver bullet to my side. I knew it was silver by the burning sensation as the bullet pierced my skin. Lyanna was held down as a silver net was thrown over her – her body reacting to the silver that was touching her. She howled as the silver coursed through her body and I saw the pain in her eyes. Her howls were blood curling, and it pained me that I couldn’t go over to her. The pain of watching her slipping away from me was more than the pain from the bullet. I was being held down by two of the poachers. Forced to watch as the love of my life was tortured in front of my eyes.

Poachers killed for meat and fur. Wolf meat sold for a high amount on the black market and the fur was used for clothing, particularly in the winter. I struggled under the weight of the Poachers, the bullet immobilising me as I was forced to watch my wife being slaughtered in front of me. I was helpless. I couldn’t go and help her, was made to lay and watch as the woman I loved was taken away from me. Her cries pierced my ears, she struggled sobs as she tried to fight against the Poachers. I wanted nothing more than to rip their throats out, to sever their heads from their bodies. I saw the life draining out of her eyes, felt the connection that bound us fading as her essence disappeared. I struggled against them, but they held me down harder. Lyanna was dying and there was nothing I could do to help her. I failed her. Please forgive me, my love, I thought, hoping she heard me. The connection vanished; her life gone. Lyanna was dead. I felt my heart breaking and I cried out loudly, which caused the Poachers to hit me to shut me up. The Poachers walked over to the lifeless body of Lyanna and laughed, gleeful at their kill. One of them pulled out a camera and took a picture of their prize. They removed the chain from her, wrapped her in cords, and tied them tightly around her body. While they were focused on the body of my dead mate, I slunk away into the night. I heard their muffled cries as they realised I had escaped, but I knew I had to get away from them. I hated myself for leaving Lyanna behind but I didn’t have another choice. I hid in a cave until I was sure that the Poachers had gone. The blood had hardened on my skin and I tried to bite the bullet out of me. I shifted back into my Human form and hobbled back to the camp, weak from the blood loss. I collapsed and woke up three days later in a bed, surrounded by Council members whose faces were full of concern.

I didn’t remember what happened at first and asked where Lyanna was. The Alpha had to explain what had happened I had broken down, a cry escaping my Human lips, as I realised that my mate had