Tame his Beast Part 1 Read online

  TAME his BEAST

  A Devil’s Highwaymen Story

  By

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Claire C. Riley

  TAME his BEAST

  A Devil’s Highwaymen Story

  ‘Remember, the Devil was once an angel too’

  Beast, an enforcer for the Devil’s Highwaymen MC, wakes up months after being captured and tortured by another club and discovers brutal and ugly scars covering over half his body.

  Once a beautiful man, able to woo any woman into his bed, now his face and body are their own horror story.

  Though the torture has stopped, Beast continues to relive the agony. He can’t tell anyone about the nightmares he keeps having or about the fear and depression that are tearing him apart inside. He’s the club’s weapon, and he can’t show weakness.

  With no one to trust and nowhere to go, his fear slowly dissolves into rage.

  Belle is working as a trainee nurse at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital when Beast is brought in. She’s at first fearful of the dark-eyed man, and the MC behind him, but refuses to let anyone see that.

  Brought up by her godmother, she’s been taught to trust her instincts and always see the beauty in people…even if at first you only see the ugly.

  He’s full of loneliness and anger.

  She’s full of hope and love.

  Can Belle see behind the beast and thaw his heart before his rage engulfs him? Or will the broken monster destroy her right alongside himself?

  * ‘Tame his Beast’ is a standalone MC romance and connected to my Devil’s Highwaymen world. It is part of the Once Upon a Fairy Tale Night Series, a collection of multi-author fairy tale romance retellings. Follow the series of fairy tale retellings here*

  UK: https://amzn.to/30id76E

  US: https://amzn.to/30gm7ZP

  Chapter One

  ~ Beast ~

  The tortured screams of Angel rang out, echoing off the beaten-up barn walls and breaking the stillness of the cool November air.

  “…Please…”

  Breathing heavily, I hooked my thumbs into the belt loops at my waist and took a couple of steps closer to him, my gaze on his bloody features. Angel’s eyes were rolling in his head and I was no doubt looking blurry to him.

  I nodded toward Echo and he dragged Angel back up to his unsteady feet for me. Angel’s body was broken and bloody. Man didn’t have much left in him, but the fucker was still holding on, no doubt wishing I’d just get on with it and send him to ground. But Hardy had made it clear: the Silverbacks needed to know who was in charge around here.

  No one took on the Highwaymen and walked away.

  Their prez should have known better.

  He would now.

  “…Please, brother, please…” Angel tried to look at me. But his eye sockets were smashed, the swelling so bad his eyes were almost completely closed. “Please…” he pleaded.

  Any other man would be mistaken for thinking that Angel was begging for his life. But not me. I knew better. No, Angel knew it was too late for that. It had been too late for that over an hour ago, but I’d kept the pain raining down on him and then bringing him back when it all got too much. Keeping him there, on the edge of death but not letting him fall over into the abyss of it.

  No, Angel was begging me to kill him, not save him.

  His chin trembled, blood and saliva dribbling from his lips as he pleaded again. I snarled, angry with him. He should have more pride in himself and his club. A man should never beg. It showed weakness to you and your club. It showed others what you were really made of.

  If I was ever going to let him live, I wouldn’t now.

  I gripped the metal chains in the palm of my hand, enjoying their heat and heaviness, the smoothness of the shiny, bloodied metal digging into my skin and leaving an imprint. And then I swung my arm back with a grunt, relishing the feel of the heavy metal hitting Angel’s ribs, the following ricochet threading back up my arms. Angel dropped back down to his knees with another final guttural cry, the chains holding his arms up above him jangling noisily as his body went limp on them.

  Echo looked across to me, waiting for his order, and I nodded again. He moved toward Angel, gripping his hair in his hand and lifting his head up, unconcerned with the bloody saliva trailing from the other man’s slack mouth. Echo’s gaze raised to meet mine as he let go of Angel.

  “It’s done,” he grunted.

  Death. It got us all in the end.

  No matter how much we ran from it or tried to hide from it. Death was inevitable. I dropped the chains to the ground and swiped my sweaty hands down my jeans before reaching into the pocket of my cut and pulling out my hipflask of whiskey and taking a long swallow of it. Damn, it tasted good.

  I looked across at the silent horses standing in their stalls, their judgmental gazes staring back at me. The barn belonged to a friend of the club, and I wondered how much death these horses had witnessed.

  Echo took out his knife and knelt in front of Angel’s dead body, carving the message we’d been told to deliver into his chest. When he was finished, he stood up and we both stepped back to admire his handiwork.

  The words bled red pain down his chest and stomach. A warning to anyone else that tried to fuck with our club.

  “Ready to bounce?” Echo asked, his cigarette dangling from between his lips.

  “Yeah,” I grunted, my jaw ticking as my gaze moved around the barn.

  “’Sup?” he asked, watching me cautiously.

  I listened carefully for anything out of place. The silence of the night hung heavy in the air. Crickets chirped in the distance, and an owl hooted from a perch somewhere in the boughs of the building, but there was nothing else. It was all normal…all just as it should be. Yet something still felt off with the whole thing. I scowled harder and shook my head.

  “I’m not sure, brother.” I narrowed my eyes. “Just a feeling, I guess.”

  Echo automatically pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and flicked off the safety. I’d been training him for the past year, and he’d learned to trust my instincts. When I got a feeling about something being off, I was usually right. I’d been an enforcer for the Devil’s Highwaymen for the better part of ten years, and I was damn good at my job. Maybe even too good, because I didn’t flinch anymore. Not for anything. Or anyone.

  I pulled my own gun out, flicking off the safety, and we made our way toward the barn doors cautiously, listening for any sound that might have been out of place. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath while I listened, but after several minutes of nothing but silence I opened my eyes back up.

  “You gettin’ paranoid, brother?” Echo smirked, flicking his safety back on. “Old age creepin’ up on you making you not work right?”

  I gave him the middle finger. “That’s not what your mama said,” I drolled.

  “Yeah?”

  “Fuck yeah.” I smirked back.

  “What’d she say then?”

  Kid was a quick learner, with a black heart that matched my own. In another life we would have been blood brothers. As it was, we were club brothers, and the bond was just as strong. He was younger than me by a good fifteen years, easily, and he liked to remind me of that fact on a daily basis.

  “She said she liked me creepin’ up on her pussy while you were still suckin’ on her—”

  “All right, all right,” Echo barked out a laugh. “Show some respect for her, brother.”

  “What can I say? Your mama can’t resist me.” I laughed back and put my gun away, more than ready to go grab a beer and get laid. It had been a long-ass day dealing with traitors and ending in death. A man needed to fuck and drink away a day like today.

  We pushed
open the barn doors, both of us still laughing as we came out and the full moon above shone down on us like a light from heaven, when something hot sliced past my right cheek. The pain wasn’t bad, but the shock of it caught me off guard and made me stumble. I reached for the gun at my waistband at the sound of more gunfire coming from the line of trees in front of the barn, watching as Echo fell backwards in slow motion, a red stain blossoming in the center of his chest as the sound of gunfire continued to explode all around me.

  I dropped to the ground with a grunt as fiery pain burned through my right thigh and something heavy hit the back of my head, making my world go black.

  Death—it was nothing to be feared.

  Nothing to run from.

  Nothing to hide from.

  Death was inevitable for us all, in the end.

  *

  Red-hot pain tore through my body and I coughed and choked on the blood that erupted from my dry lips and spilled over my chin.

  “Beg!” someone’s voice roared from above me. “Beg me, motherfucker, and we’ll stop!”

  Laughter so mocking it set my teeth on edge more than the pain did echoed around me and I snarled up into the darkness around me.

  “Nah, not really, but I’ll end it quickly,” the voice laughed again.

  I recognized the voice.

  From somewhere in the back of my head, my memory screamed at me to remember. I knew who this was. I just couldn’t place them.

  Pain so bad I thought my heart would give out rattled through my body. Every organ, every limb, every nerve was on fire with the agonizing ache of death at its bony fingertips. Much like Angel, my eyes refused to open. Wouldn’t matter anyway. After they’d taken a knife to one of my eyes, I didn’t wanna see anything else. Blackness surrounded me, but the pain was vivid, illuminating my dark world every time my body tried to shut itself down.

  How much could one body take before it gave in?

  Angel had lasted four hours, but I’d known men to last for days—weeks, even, depending on the punishment I gave them. I’d never wished for death before, but in that agonizing moment, I wished for death to take me. For the pain to end. I wondered if that had been the same final thoughts of every man I’d tortured and killed over the years.

  I know it was what Angel had wanted.

  A hot blade sliced into my side, deep enough to inflict agonizing pain but not deep enough to kill. I didn’t even have the energy to call out anymore.

  The horses stomped their hooves, agreeing with my death sentence. The black steeds of the horsemen waiting on me to take my final, ragged breath. I couldn’t really blame them for that. Not after the things they’d seen me do over the years.

  “Beg, and it ends,” the voice—closer to my face now—snarled, desperation and agony in their tone. “A single bullet to the brain and it’s over. It’s a better end than you deserve.”

  He was right; it was a much better end than I deserved, and I wanted it to end.

  The pain.

  The darkness.

  The agony.

  But real men don’t ever beg, and they don’t give up.

  I dragged my broken body up to my knees, forcing my one good eye open as much as I could so I could look this fucker in the face. I couldn’t focus properly; his face swam in and out of my vision as I swayed on my knees. I was back inside the barn, the scent of blood and death and animals’ fear heavy in the air. I hissed in pain as I forced myself to stand on shaky, bleeding legs, the knee of my right leg almost giving out as pain lanced through it, causing the blackness at the edge of my vision to flash with white light. I staggered backwards, and hands reached out, pushing me forward, back into the death circle that had been formed around me.

  The world was hazy and jumbled, and I could barely make out the faces that surrounded me. But I lifted my chin, spat a mouthful of blood to the ground at my feet, and laughed loudly.

  “Fuck you,” I growled. “Fuck all of you.”

  “Beg,” the voice said again, his footsteps crunching over the gritty barn floor as he came to stand toe to toe with me. His amber eyes bored into mine, his voice steady. Serious. Pissed off because I wouldn’t back down.

  “I don’t beg for no one,” I replied.

  “I ain’t no one.”

  I forced a smile to my face, knowing it would likely be my last. “You’re no one to me.”

  *

  The crackle of fire was close…the scorch of flames licked my skin…the screams of animals sang me dark lullabies…my body convulsed…I coughed up blood…choking on the smoke…on the pain…on the call of death that was nipping at my heels. I wished it would hurry up and put me out of this goddamned misery. I had places to be and shit to do on the other side. My brothers were waiting on me. I could hear them calling my name…

  In my new world, there was nothing but blackness, the screaming of the horses and the stamping of their hooves. And heat. So much heat. Sweat poured from me, or maybe it was blood. It didn’t really matter anymore.

  I was a dead man regardless.

  I wanted to get up, to drag my broken body away from this hellhole, but nothing worked. My mind told my body to move, but my body was already dead. It had given up hours ago; broken, battered, bloody, dead as dead can be. The Grim Reaper was waiting for me, scythe in hand, ready to drag me to wherever dead men go to pay for their sins.

  And I had sinned plenty.

  But my mind.

  My goddamned mind would not shut off.

  It would not let go.

  The horses’ screams grew louder, torturing me more than any knife or gun or brass knuckles ever could. The screams of those horses burning would haunt me even in death.

  The heat slid along my hands, flames licking at my melting flesh, burning me from the outside in. I coughed again, the coughing never-ending as I slowly suffocated on the thick black smoke that surrounded me.

  Get up! Echo screamed from somewhere. Get the fuck up!

  But Echo was dead, wasn’t he?

  I’d seen him fall.

  I’d seen the blood and the bullet and the emptiness in his eyes as he’d hit the ground.

  Whatever it takes.

  But my limbs were broken, my body already dead.

  Whatever it takes, he told me again. Now get up.

  Grief caught in my chest like a hammer and now I was choking on the misery of his loss and the pain of losing him, and not on smoke and the fire that was torturing me. He was my brother, and it was my fault he was dead. I’d sensed something was wrong but I’d dismissed it.

  My mind roared in anger. At myself. At the world. At the realization that Echo was dead because of me, and now so was I.

  Get up! he ordered me again.

  I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to lie there and let death take me. But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. I had to try. I owed it to Echo.

  So I told my burning hands to move. I told them to do something. To drag my sorry ass out of hell and back into the world. I told them I wasn’t dead yet, that I wasn’t done with this world, but it wasn’t until I begged them that they began to move.

  A man don’t beg for nothing.

  That’s always been my mantra, but in that moment I begged every muscle in my body to work. To move and stretch and flex and drag me out of there.

  The roof above me creaked before giving an almighty roar and collapsing on top of me. Wood and debris showered the ground, slamming into my back and stealing the poisoned air from my dying lungs. Flaming horses ran past me like the apocalypse had begun, their hooves kicking up dirt and flames into my bloodied face, their screams scorched into my brain for all eternity.

  I clawed at the ground, roaring in agony as I dragged my dying body out from under the flaming pile of wood, the air growing thicker with smoke and death as I pulled myself along. Things cut into my body, pain slicing from my chest to my stomach. But I ignored it all and continued to pull and drag and claw myself away from the barn, toward freedom as Echo screamed in my head to ke
ep moving. I dragged my broken and burnt body until I had nothing left in me, finally collapsing next to an old maple tree.

  I rolled onto my back, groaning in pain as something sharp dug into me. My breaths crackled in my chest as I stared up at the dark starlit sky, wondering how it could still look so fucking beautiful when everything else was so fucking rotten and ugly.

  Everything blurred into one. A myriad of death and destruction. Of chaos and anarchy. Of death and devastation.

  “…Beast?...”

  “…Echo?...”

  The screaming of the horses.

  The creaking of the barn.

  The burning of the wood.

  The scent of death.

  The stars above me.

  The ground below.

  The agony of dying.

  The burning pain of living.

  “Whatever it takes,” I groaned as a stampede came toward me.

  Chapter Two

  ~ Belle ~

  I poured my cold coffee down the sink with a heavy sigh. Gripping the edge of the metal basin, I closed my eyes and took some steadying breaths. I was exhausted. I’d been working sixteen hours straight with no end in sight, and that had been the third coffee I’d tipped away.

  The sound of footsteps coming into the cramped room drew my attention, but I didn’t have the energy to open my eyes. I just needed five minutes, then I’d be good to go.

  “It only makes it worse,” my godmother, Jenna, said from behind me before placing a gentle hand on my back.

  I groaned. “How do you do this all the time?”

  I’d been working here for five months and had initially thought that I’d get used to working such long hours, but it was becoming apparent that I wouldn’t. Ever. Maybe nursing wasn’t for me after all. I’d wanted to be just like Jenna, but it felt like I’d never be quite good enough.

  Jenna chuckled. “You just get used to it.”

  I opened my eyes and turned around slowly, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hands. Jenna was a beautiful woman, the spitting image of my own mother, no doubt. I looked like neither woman, unfortunately. Where Jenna had blond hair and pale blue eyes, I had long, untamable brunette curls and hazel eyes. She was petite and slender, and I was five seven and curvy. And clearly I didn’t have her stamina.