Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(63)

So I make my way back, crawling to the monster where I kneel at his side. He pets me, places a kiss on my hair, then leans his broken cheek against my head, just resting it there. For a moment, the sadness creeps in, coming from him, from the way he holds me to him. Just holding and holding, and that strange feeling comes back, even after everything he’s just done to me and just made me do. I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t like it at all. It hurts. It hurts so much.

It hurts even worse when he lifts me into his lap, cradling me against his chest while he downs the rest of his glass, then leans back in his chair and nestles me in his arms. Despite my aching hand, and my naked body that he just gave away, I find myself curling into him. I don’t know why I do that. I don’t know why I breathe him in either, and close my eyes.

“Red won’t say it, baby,” he says, placing a tender kiss on my hair, “but I know you’ve made him so happy. He’ll be rubbing one out for years on what you just did for him.”

“Shut up, Shayne!” Red’s voice blasts through the room. “Shut the fuck up!”

“What the hell? What are you so torn up about? I just had Ava give you the time of your life. Well, maybe not exactly. I know I had to force that on you at first, but…come on now. Don’t get so bent out of shape. You know that’s not the worst thing you’ve done, now is it?”

Red gets quiet. The room gets quiet, except for the song still playing.

Then the beast says, “What do you think, Red? Should we tell her?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE




Ava




I stare at a button on his shirt, knowing something bad is coming.

Red shifts in his chair. “Don’t say it, Shayne. Don’t you—”

“Why not? Figured you’d want her to know what you did for her.”

“No. I don’t. I don’t want anyone to—”

“He killed a man,” Shayne whispers in my ear. “Well, I guess I should say, we killed a man. For you, Ava.”

“Motherfucker,” Red mutters.

My eyes blink, my ears ring. Then I remember. I’d let it slip, with so much else going on. But, I remember now.

I’ve killed for you before…

Shayne sits forward, taking me with him, pours himself another glass, and slides the bottle down the table. “Go on, Red. Drink up. Looks like you need it.”

Red stays quiet, but I hear the sound of bourbon pouring.

The beast leans back in his chair, settling me into him again, and takes a sip. “Remember that guy, Ava?” he says soft in my ear. “The one that got you down in that ditch?”

My mind jerks back to a sunny afternoon a long time ago.

“That’s right. I know you remember. Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to him?”

He lets the question hang.

Shayne chuckles. “Your daddy was driving around all weekend, like a drunk bat out of hell in that piece of shit truck, never knowing me and Red already had the sucker in the ground. Wasn’t hard, you know. As soon as I got wind of what had happened to my girl, I went straight to Carson and got the description you’d turned in. When I found out he was a drifter, one of those homeless fucks, I had a good idea of where he’d gone.

“I’d come across an old run down cabin some time before, when I had to go searching for some strays that had broken through a fence. It was set way back deep in the hills, and I could tell it’d been used quite a few times. Even had a small trail that led to it, and onto the Upper Valley. Figured things like that spread around, you know, from drifter to drifter, and sure enough, he was there, hiding out. Had to chase him down though, didn’t we Red? He’d heard us coming through the brush and was already running up the trail when we saw him. But he didn’t stand a chance. I was like a shark smelling that drop of blood. I was on him so fast, tackling him to the ground. And fuck, he stank. Bet that’s something you remember about him, isn’t it baby? God, he was rank.”

He pauses to lay a kiss on my hair, so gently, while his thumb starts moving back and forth across my arm, caressing my skin. “Anyway, he had that ratty, blond hair and those bloodshot grey eyes like you’d described, and there was a set of scratches down the side of his cheek that you said you’d put there. He started muttering about how sorry he was, how he couldn’t help himself when he saw you. But I shut him up real quick, because I got to kicking him and didn’t stop until he was spitting up blood. Then he tried crawling away, and that’s when I stomped on his calf and heard the bone break. Did the same with the other one and knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere then. He started babbling on again, about how sorry he was, but I kicked him good in the head and his eyes rolled back. Not hard enough to kill him mind you, but enough to knock him out. I didn’t want to have to listen to all that whining while we dug his grave.”

He takes another sip of his drink and I hear Red pouring some more in his glass. “So I sent you back to the truck for the shovels, didn’t I, Red? And you were all shook up, puking off to the side and as white as a ghost. But you went and got them, then came back to see me stepping from behind a tree and wiping at my mouth, because I’d gotten sick too. But that didn’t stop us, did it, Red? Nope. We found a good tucked away spot and dug a grave so deep it took us hours. Was starting to get dark by the time we were finished, but still plenty of light to see. And that gave us time for the fucker to come back around. We set him up on that big pile of dirt, so he could see where he was headed. Then I made you get your knives out, which you always had on you by then, remember? When he saw those, he got to squirming, but he wasn’t going anywhere.