Mending the Beast Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Mending the Beast

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  Mending the Beast

  An Awakening Pride Story

  By Lacey Thorn

  Mending the Beast

  by

  Lacey Thorn

  A Dying Lion...

  Rejected by his mate, Daniel has been on a suicide mission in hopes of avenging her even though he’ll never know her love. When a battle with hunters leaves him in a coma, no one can understand why his animal isn’t healing him.

  A Broken Tiger...

  A brutal attack left Ariel with wounds soul deep. Nightmares she’d once locked deep have returned with a vengeance, bringing a rise of questions to her mind. Her pride believes she’s cast off her mate when the truth is far worse.

  Mate...

  One with a shattered spirit, sure she’ll never be what he needs. One with a shattered body, tired of walking away. Both in need of the mending only a mate’s love can bring. If only they’re willing to reach out and claim it.

  Copyright

  © 2020, Lacey Thorn

  Mending the Beast

  Cover Art by Supernova Indie Publishing Services, LLC

  Edited by Michele Paulin

  Electronic Format ISBN: 978-1-949795-28-8

  Published by: Lacey Thorn Publishing

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To jelly beans and root bear, thanks for sticking with me…Literally…

  Chapter One

  Ariel knew she was dreaming but once again, was helpless to do anything to fight the pull the nightmare had on her. She’d prayed they were gone, but lately, they’d come back with a vengeance, twisting and turning as the past bled into her present. It was to the point she fought sleep with all she had. To the point where she questioned what was then and what was now.

  God help her, she might be losing her mind. Had she been awake, she would have laughed. There’d be no help from that corner. She’d prayed to God once. Prayed while she’d been torn apart and left to bleed out on the ground. There was no God for her. Maybe, the omniscient being found her unworthy also. Maybe, as she’d once been told, she deserved the hell that tormented her even in sleep.

  Sleep. What a laugh. Lately, it was merely another form of exhaustion that briefly sucked her under only to spit her out more tormented and broken than she’d been before. Why wouldn’t the nightmares leave her?

  Fog shrouded the ground. Clouds obscured the moon, leaving the night painted in darkness. It was wrong. All wrong. Wrong time of day. Wrong setting. Wrong emotion. Ariel hadn’t been scared that day. She’d still had hope then. Optimism. She’d still believed in happiness and love and joy. Pure joy. The kind that had laughter spilling from the heart onto the lips then echoing into the world. That had been before her world had burned down around her, leaving her shattered into more pieces than could ever be patched back together. Broken. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.

  The nightmare clawed into her, bringing back the emotions that had overwhelmed her in the aftermath. Hell, the ones she still felt eating away inside her. The changes to psyche didn’t change the outcome.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong, and still, she felt what was coming like a cloying scent that coated a person until it was all they could feel, smell, or taste. Her feet became lead, and no matter how hard she struggled to turn and move, the dream kept steadily plodding forward.

  “Run!” she screamed at the girl she’d been. “Please! Don’t go with him. Don’t trust him.”

  Sobs caught in Ariel’s throat. She didn’t want to relive it again. Didn’t want to wake up screaming for help that would be years too late. Yet, she was helpless to do anything but watch.

  “Ariel.”

  That…wasn’t the voice of her nightmares. That was the voice of a future she was incapable of living, unworthy of grasping.

  “Daniel?” Her voice was soft, timid, and so damn hopeful it was a knife to her heart. She’d never spoken to him in that tone of voice.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, lifting useless fingers as she fought to stop the barrage from echoing around her. This hadn’t happened. Daniel hadn’t been there that day. He’d been nothing more than a girlish dream of happy-ever-after, of love. He’d been the person she’d prayed to God to send to her. A mate to save her when she’d been unable to save herself.

  “I’m so sorry, Ariel.”

  “No! No, damn you! Don’t say that!” she commanded. “Not that. Anything but that. Not that.” She ended on a whimper, falling to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks as she fought to breathe. Fought the claw of unseen hands as they tore at her flesh, ripped at her hair, bringing to vivid life a horror she’d never truly left behind. She wanted to die. Just as she had that day.

  The younger version of her turned and stared, and for some fucking reason, there was still hope in that gaze. Her lips moved, words whispered but swept away before they reached Ariel’s ears. The harder she strained to catch them, the greater the distance between them seemed to grow. The younger version of her reached out a hand then slowly began to fade away until only darkness surrounded her.

  “Help me.”

  Daniel’s voice echoed around her. Ariel surged to her feet, spinning in a circle as she tried to locate where his call came from. She moved in one direction only to hear his plea again and swear it came from a different place.

  “I can’t find you. Daniel! I can’t find you. Where are you? I can’t find you.”

  She was sobbing. There was pain in her chest, her side, her thigh, and her right arm. It made her nauseated. Made her want to collapse under the weight of agony. She refused. She fought to stay on her feet as the need to find Daniel became a frantic beat inside her.

  “Ariel.”

  His call whispered around her, light and soft as a breeze that slowly lifted to surround her, dancing over her skin like soft hands offering comfort. She felt the brush of them over her cheeks, drying her tears. Then across her lips, leaving a tingling warmth that had her parting them on a soft gasp.

  “Daniel.”

  The low, mournful call of a lion had her moving, running swiftly through what appeared to be woods she was unfamiliar with. She heard voices behind her, the voices that always haunted her nightmares. Once, they’d made her tremble and fight to wake, but this time, she ignored them. She ignored the taunts and jeers, pushed aside the feel of invisible hands slapping at her flesh, pinching and poking and prodding. She shoved it all aside with a ferocious yell as she burst into a cleari
ng.

  A single beam of moonlight shone down, illuminating the huge lion that prowled beside a prone body. She knew those legs, recognized the fingers curled passively at his sides as if merely sleeping. As the lion moved, she saw the curve of his face, the tangle of dark blond hair that he was always running his fingers through or tugging on.

  “Daniel.”

  He didn’t move, and though she’d just been running to find him, it was as if her feet were shackled to the earth. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t break free. The lion prowled, his mournful cry sending shivers over her skin.

  “Wake up,” she pleaded, and she wasn’t sure if she was speaking to herself or the man lying across from her.

  The lion stopped and turned toward her. Sadness surrounded him, rolling off him until it crashed into her, crashed over her. She shook her head even before she heard the command in her head.

  “Save him!”

  “I can’t.” She frantically jerked her head back and forth. Hands grabbed her from behind, pulling and hurting her. Words spoken in harsh tones overwhelmed her as she was tugged backward, away from the lion and Daniel. Away from what could be and back into the dregs of the hell she’d never completely left.

  “Save him!”

  She couldn’t. She was as incapable of saving him as she was of saving herself. She knew where they were taking her, knew the hell that awaited her. She wanted to rage, to fight, but as the past pulled her under, fear locked her in place, leaving her helpless. And alone. Always alone.

  Ariel woke with a scream on her lips, leaping to crouch bedside the sweat-soaked mattress as she was ripped from the night terror. Someone banged on the wall in a passive attempt to quiet the demon that still held her by the throat. She bit her lip so hard she drew blood. The metallic taste soothed the rawness of her throat much as it had that day. If that wasn’t as fucked up as it got, she wasn’t sure what was.

  Her gaze immediately sought out her phone, charging on the nightstand in the hotel room she’d be leaving as soon as she showered away the remnants of the dream. Funny how something she avoided like the plague could also be a lifeline. No one had missed her yet. It was no less than she deserved. She’d withdrawn, pulling away from everyone and isolating herself. She really had only herself to blame for no one noticing she wasn’t there.

  She was taking a lesson from another pride member, Kenzie Marshall. It wasn’t exactly the same, but Kenzie had left the pride after her mate had mated her then left. Gabriel Erikson. Daniel’s brother.

  Kenzie had gone in search of answers to her past. Ariel was fleeing because she couldn’t escape her past. Or at least, one defining moment of it. Gabriel had left Kenzie to save another member of their pride. One who’d been in serious trouble. Ariel wanted to believe she was leaving Daniel to save him. He deserved a chance at real happiness with a real mate. One who was unbroken. Maybe, if the mate fate had chosen for him wasn’t there, they’d grant him another one.

  If some small part of her raged at the idea of Daniel with another, she pushed it down, locking it away deep inside where she hoped it would remain silent. The best thing she could do for Daniel was to walk away. Maybe, with her gone, he’d finally be able to stay.

  He wasn’t home in Riverton, Oklahoma now, anyway. He rarely was since her arrival. He’d gone off on a quest to save the world because of her. Well, maybe not the world, but as many shifters as he could. Because he hadn’t been there to save her. Because she’d made him feel that she held that against him. Because she’d hurt him.

  She’d seen it in his eyes. Had watched him become less and less the man she’d first seen. Because of her. Because she was unable to mate. Fear had her building walls that were too high for him to scale, and the filth that encased her soul kept her locked in the dark and silence on the other side. Alone. Where no one could ever hurt her again.

  The pride she’d found herself a part of had split down the middle. Some were scared and concerned for Daniel, seeking ways to help him recover from the coldness of his unwilling mate. Then there were those who wanted to help her, to heal what remained broken inside her. She’d struggled not to see it as pity, but it was hard. God, it was so hard. She’d clung so tightly to the rage inside her that it spilled from her at inopportune times, wreaking havoc on those who loved her. Such as Daniel, who deserved someone worthy of him.

  Now, she pushed everything aside and stepped into the shower, embracing the icy flow of water in the hope it would wash away any remnants of sleep.

  She was close to her first destination. Walker’s Trading Post. It was where Thomas Walker had taken her after he’d found her staked to the ground. She’d been bleeding, close to death when he’d stumbled across her, and she’d been delirious for those first few days.

  For the longest time, she hadn’t remembered anything between the attack and waking up in the bedroom at the trading post. But sometimes, in her nightmares, she swore she heard Thomas crying. Sometimes, she thought she felt him brush a kiss atop her head and whisper words of compassion to her.

  Lies. Thomas had been anything but compassionate. Maybe, those dreams were an illusion of what she wished had happened in the aftermath. Who knew what her fucked up psyche was conjuring? She sure as hell didn’t.

  Lately, she’d begun to wonder what had happened with Thomas in the first few days after he’d found her. Before they’d arrived at the post he’d called home. She’d lost that time in the fog of trauma, pulling deep inside herself as she’d tried to push everything away. She’d ruthlessly locked memory and emotion into boxes stacked tightly away where they couldn’t continue to rip her apart.

  At least, while she was awake. Her nightmares were free game. Yet something pulled at her. Fragments of memory, maybe? She wasn’t sure. That was the thing about repression. Sometimes, it worked really well. She was terrified to pry the lid off of even one of the boxes from that period of her life. What if it was the one that sent them all tumbling, crashing down to shatter open at her feet? To shatter her more thoroughly than she already was.

  But the voices wouldn’t leave her dreams. Thomas’ voice and other voices. One soft and soothing. Another hard and cold. Bright lights and cold metal at her back. Pain. Hands probing and touching where she’d been brutally violated. Whispers. So many whispers. Or maybe, they’d only seemed like whispers as she’d faded in and out. Was she going crazy? Or had Thomas made another stop with her on the way back to his home? And what had made him cry with such raw grief? Was her mind unraveling completely on her and none of those shadows were true?

  Her phone was ringing when she stepped out of the shower. She ignored it. She should really turn off the ringer, but there was something comforting in knowing someone was reaching out to her even though she wouldn’t respond. Wasn’t that a good example of just how fucked up her head was? Her pride cared even when she acted as if it didn’t matter, as if they didn’t matter. She’d overheard one of their pride saying she needed to deal with what had happened before she could move on and maybe, be a mate to Daniel. They’d stated he was her one shot at living and not merely existing. But that was a joke. There was no happy ever after for her, and Daniel’s only shot at it was in finding someone who wasn’t her.

  The moon was still bright in the sky when she stepped into the cool air and headed toward her car. At least, Daniel was with Murphy Dockery. She liked Murphy. Considered him and his brother, Finn, to be friends. The brothers teased and joked with her, making her feel like a little sister, at times. Murphy would keep Daniel safe, though she’d heard Finn’s mate, Laura, worry that Daniel seemed to have a death wish. Because of Ariel. They weren’t even mated, and she was already destroying him. Why couldn’t they all open their eyes and see that?

  The Dockery brothers thought Ariel hated Laura. And Ariel had for a bit, but not for the reason they believed. She’d hated the other woman because she’d left her mate when he needed her the most. When Laura had first come across Finn, he’d been bleeding out and dying. Finn ha
d only remembered that Laura had left him there, alone. Why wouldn’t Ariel hate the other woman for that? But like most things, there was more to the story. Finn actually had died, but Laura’s blood had managed to mix with his, and that had brought him back.

  They thought Ariel hated Laura for another reason. For surviving. Maybe, a part of her had. She’d certainly screamed that at Laura. Laura had also been wooed by a hunter keen on tricking a female shifter into trusting him, following him. Straight into hell.

  That such vileness existed sickened Ariel. It wasn’t enough for shifters to be hunted and killed. No. The purist society believed shifters were an abomination to be eradicated from the earth, but they had even worse plans for some. They had special places of torture where the captured could be drugged and experimented on. Where they might be forced to fight one another to the death. A lab where scientists would cut them open and poke at their insides while they were awake and unable to defend themselves.

  Then there were the sexual games. Some hunters searched out solitary shifters, luring them into a trap. She’d been one of those. She’d been on her own for a year when he’d found her and easily wooed her with an offer of friendship from a man with a cute smile. She’d found him attractive and momentarily wondered what his touch would feel like. She’d been a naïve girl on the cusp of womanhood, but she still berated herself for that. For a momentary attraction to a monster. She’d laughed and gotten chummy with him, agreeing to tag along with him for a bit. For three days. Then she’d been drugged and had passed out cold, only to wake up with the sun rising above her. She’d been stripped naked, her limbs staked wide from her body, making her feel displayed.

  Ariel growled as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek. Tears were useless. They hadn’t helped her then, and they wouldn’t now. She’d been young and foolish. Greedy for friendship. Nursing a desire to belong…somewhere. Anywhere. She’d fallen easily, and that one moment of need, of…weakness, would haunt her for the rest of her life.