Her Beast (Beauty and the Captor 1)

His voice grew louder, but still no words, and I closed my eyes, trying to block it all out. For the first time, I longed for the nothingness, but I knew it wouldn’t come. The devil wouldn’t let it.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Its grip was firm, but not unbreakable. He wasn’t trying to haul me up. I had no idea what he was doing. I didn’t want to know.

And then his hand began to shake me, and it jarred me out of whatever stunned state had gripped my mind. But all at once, everything collided.

I didn’t curl up on the floor in abject misery. I didn’t cry. I didn’t sob. I didn’t even lash out.

A scream rose up from deep inside me. I had no idea where it came from. Some conglomeration of every bit of anger, fear, bitterness, and betrayal, it knit together and rocketed outward, and I covered my own ears in some feeble attempt to block out my own sound.

He yanked me off the ground and dragged me out into the other room.

“Don’t you touch me you son of a bitch. I hate you. I hate you,” I screamed over and over again.

He handcuffed me to the post, but I didn’t care. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at him. It was so obvious now. How could I have missed it?

He was confused, but he was angry too. I kept screaming. I couldn’t stop. I watched him stride back into the bathroom, no doubt in search of the belt on his soaking wet pants. I didn’t care. His belt could never hurt me as much as I was hurting now.

I was still screaming when he came back into the room, but he wasn’t holding his belt. He had a plastic cup in his hand.

Acid—it was the first thought that came to my mind, but even in my crazed state, I dismissed it. He wouldn’t do that to me—though how the hell I could be so sure of that when he would do all the other things he’d done to me, I didn’t know. Again, I didn’t care.

The noise continued, my own ear-piercing scream that hadn’t lost an ounce of momentum since it had risen up and burst forth from my lips.

He stopped in front of me, his brilliant, blue eyes full of concern. Concern?—Ha! Like a monster was capable of that emotion.

He stood there, looking indecisive for a brief moment. I didn’t care. It just didn’t matter to me what he did to me. If he killed me, it would be better. To put an end to this misery—yes, it sounded like a reasonable plan to me.

But he didn’t raise a hand to me. Not exactly. He lifted the cup and splashed its contents on my face. No burn. It wasn’t acid. Icy cold water. It was just water. But it stunned me into silence.

The scream I thought would never end died abruptly on my lips and fizzled out in my throat. “I hate you,” I whispered, finding it suddenly too painful to force anything louder past my throat.

“What am I supposed to do with you, Pet?” he asked. It almost sounded like a genuine question. Almost. But I knew he didn’t give a damn what I thought.

“I don’t care what you do with me…” I answered anyways. “…Derek.” I could barely choke out his name. It was as if by forcing it out, speaking it out loud, it made it impossible to take it back, to pretend it wasn’t true.

Surprise flashed through his blue eyes—eyes I wished desperately I could claw out at that moment, to erase the proof of who he was.

“No matter whether it pleases you or not, I am master to you. Do. Not. Ever. Forget. It.”

“Fuck you. I wish it had been anyone but you. Anyone!” I croaked.

“Is that so?” he seethed as anger flashed in his eyes. A possessive anger, it seemed, though it was probably just my imagination.

Then again, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising. I was a thing to him. A possession to use and to break.

“Do you realize if I had been anyone else—like you so much wish—and you had dared use my name, you would have been whipped until your back was an irreparable, bloody mess. So, maybe you should think twice before wishing for a new master, Pet. But don’t worry, you’ll have one soon enough.”

His hands were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had turned white. I waited for the blow, to feel him letting loose his anger on me like a human punching bag. But he just stood there, silent. Ominous. Maybe he was trying to figure out how much he could hurt me without killing me so he could keep it up until he’d vented every ounce of the anger that brewed and churned inside him.