Taming the Beast

“Shit,” she cursed, picking up the fallen lock and hurrying to screw it back into place before he came in and saw her with her hand in the cookie jar. She finally managed to get everything back to normal and strolled outside, fidgeting nervously with her hands.

“Did you find some pleasant reading?” he asked, raising his eyebrow at her.

Bella took a deep breath as she sat down beside him. “I’m sorry I trespassed,” she said, her cheeks turning a guilty red. “Why didn’t you tell me? You’re a world-renowned surgeon?”

“I was,” he said with a sigh. “That was another lifetime ago.”

Bella took his strong hand in hers and traced the lines on his palm with her fingertip. “These hands saved lives,” she said, staring at the rough skin with admiration. “You saved children. You saved families and you saved their parents from having to deal with the worst kind of loss.”

“Like I said,” he answered softly. “It was another lifetime ago. I’m a different man now.”

B

ella leaned in close to him, pressing her breasts against his arm as she brought her face up to his. He closed his eyes as she traced the four jagged scars that were carved into the side of his face. “What happened to you?” she whispered.

He stayed silent and still, holding his breath in as he kept his eyes closed. “I was performing surgery on a boy,” he finally said, opening his sad eyes. “Head trauma. Pretty bad stuff and I’ll spare you the sad details. But I saw the stepfather after I saved the boy. He reeked of alcohol. He was abusive to the boy’s mother. I could just tell by the way the two of them were acting that he was the cause of the head injury. He had hurt the boy.”

Bella’s skin tightened as she imagined the scene, imagined a person so evil that they could do that to a poor innocent child.

“My bear snapped,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “He wanted to maim the guy for what he had done and I almost lost control. I was in the waiting room of the hospital, surrounded by people and Cliff was desperately trying to rip out of me. It took everything that I had to rein him back in and I still almost lost the fight. I had never seen him so furious. I barely managed to keep him in but I did sprout fur and it made quite a scene.”

Bella held his hand, rubbing little circles on his skin with her thumb as he went quiet again, needing another moment.

“I don’t know what happened but someone in the military was alerted of my condition,” he said with a tight voice. “I was in their custody a week later.”

“You got arrested?” she asked. “For saving a kid?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not arrested. They just took me. No charges. They just came to my house, sunk a dart in my neck, and when I woke up I was strapped to a gurney in some military facility.”

“That’s horrible,” Bella said with anger rushing through her.

“I was a test subject in a secret military program,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Some general had a creative idea to parachute enraged bears into enemy territories and let them reek havoc right before a ground attack. I was supposed to be the first bear.”

“Was your bear a problem before they took you?” Bella couldn’t imagine that he was.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Cliff was great. We had a good symbiotic relationship. I lived near the forest and took long walks every day in my bear form. He watched and even encouraged me from within when I was studying or operating. They were the ones who ruined him.”

Bella felt a cold shiver snake down her back. “What did they do?”

Logan sighed. “Everything. They would give me this serum that would slow down my enhanced healing to a human’s speed and then they would spend the days trying to get my bear as furious as possible.”

“By doing what?” Bella didn’t want to know, but she had to ask.

“They tortured him.” Logan said softly, “Everyday. I could feel him losing it with every painful needle they gave. I could feel his lust for blood growing with every shock of the cattle prod, every stab of the knife.”

“Oh, God,” Bella gasped, inching closer to him.

“I don’t know how long I was in there but it must have been months.”

“Months?” she gasped. Who would do such a thing?

“I wish I had been stronger,” he said, his eyes full of shame. “I wish I could have fought longer, but they accomplished what they had planned all along. They made my bear into a monster.”

Bella’s throat tightened as she rested her head on his shoulder. “He’s not a monster,” she whispered. “And neither are you.”

He exhaled long and slow as he pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “You won’t say that after you hear what happened next.”

Bella’s stomach fluttered as he continued. “My bear was going crazy one morning. Completely losing it. I remember having no control over him and that was a very scary feeling. He was too busy snarling and growling at the researchers on the other side of the bars to listen to anything that I had to say. One especially bad researcher, this psychopath named Kevin, came over with the cattle prod and I could just tell that he was in a particularly bad mood. Maybe he got into a fight with his girlfriend or his car needed repairs, but whatever it was, he decided to take it out on my bear. He got Cliff into such a frenzy that he did this to us,” he said, pointing to the long scars on his face.