Beasts Within (BBW Shifters) Read online

  Her eyes were wide as she looked at it, and she licked her lips before taking it in her hand and stroking lightly.

  “Fuck,” Karic gasped, and he flipped them again.

  From there, it was just a matter of finding the right position. Camilla knew she was going to be tight and that it might hurt a bit, but she was so wet for him, so wanting, and when she felt the head of his length pressing into her, she arched and spread her legs wider for him. “Karic. Karic, fuck.”

  “Hold on,” he murmured, and she wrapped her hand around his biceps, fingers digging into his skin. It hurt when he pushed all the way in, but the discomfort was only temporary, washed away by the rush of heat and pleasure that sped through her body. It felt good to have him inside of her, and when he drew back and thrust back in, she couldn’t help but arch her body to meet his, her legs going around his waist to drag him in deeper.

  “You feel so fucking good,” Karic growled. “Fuck. I gotta…Camilla, I need…”

  “Do it,” she urged. “Fuck, please do it.”

  Apparently that was all the urging he needed. He set a fast, hard pace from there, a pace worthy of two shifters, two top predators locked together by their bodies. She had been concerned that she wouldn’t be able to take it since it was her first time, but her body adjusted easily, adding slickness where it was needed, and she met each thrust head on, gasping and crying out at each jarring stab of pleasure.

  The bed was shaking, the headboard slamming into the wall each time Karic buried himself in her, and the sound of their flesh meeting, coupled with the raw, dirty scent of sex filled the air.

  Camilla’s arms went around Karic’s back, and she could feel her nails tearing through his skin as she scraped them down his back, the sensations roaring through her as he brought her closer and closer to her release. She couldn’t form coherent words, barely could get a full breath. All she could do was hold on as the beast they were creating between them built and then crashed over her, making her scream out when she finally came.

  Karic wasn’t far behind her, and he bit down on her neck again, smothering the snarl of pleasure that ripped its way out of him when he finished.

  It took several long minutes for her to catch her breath and finally realize that Karic was heavy and she was sore.

  But he took care of her. He cleaned them both up and got her tucked into the side of his bed before getting in himself and wrapping his arms around her. “You okay?” he whispered from where he was spooned against her back.

  “Yeah,” she breathed back. “Yeah. That was…really good.”

  She could feel his smile in the darkness. “We’ve got a whole two more days to do it again if you want.”

  And oh, did she want.

  Chapter 9: Leaving

  Well, at least you got two days. Three, if you count the day before we started… Karic sighed, but tried to keep it internal as he drove to the train station. Camilla was quiet in the car beside him, and he glanced at her every few seconds out of the corner of his eye, wondering what she was thinking. The two of them hadn’t really said much since they’d woken that morning, anticipation heavy in the air. Both of them had known, it seemed that it was going to be the day that their little vacation from everything had to end. It had been fun while it lasted. Two whole days spent in bed, learning each other’s bodies, leaving scratches and bruises behind. Things that would make them remember. He’d gone to shower that morning and come back to the sight of Camilla, still naked, hair in a messy halo around her head, looking up times for the train on his laptop.

  Her eyes had been guilty when she looked up at him, but he’d just smiled and walked over to kiss the top of her head. “I know.” And what else could he say? They’d already talked about this. About how it couldn’t last right now. How she had to get away. He wanted her to be safe and to feel safe, so he wasn’t going to try to convince her to change her plans. She’d picked a place in Ohio. A little town he had never heard of that she thought would be the last place they’d look for her. It was a fifteen hour train ride away, and she said she felt good about the decision. Karic had smiled and avoided letting her touch his hands for the rest of the morning. She didn’t need to know how it made him feel.

  Her train was at four, so they’d left the house at three. He could tell she was nervous, and he wanted her to have plenty of time to get situated.

  “I made you some sandwiches,” he said after they’d been driving for a bit. “In your bag. Fifteen hours is a long time, and I didn’t want you to get hungry. There’s four in there so maybe you can trade one for dessert or something.”

  She smiled at that. “Thank you. I…I wish…”

  “I know. You don’t have to say it.” They were both probably thinking the same thing anyway, so he really didn’t see the point of hashing it out and making things awkward.

  They made it to the station in fifteen minutes, and Karic killed the engine, not moving to get out just yet. “Camilla, I…” Fuck. What was he even supposed to say to her now? There was a chance that they would never see each other again after this, though the very thought of it made his stomach twist into knots. “I’m really glad I met you,” he finished. “I’m glad that we had even a little time together because I feel like…like it was something that I needed, you know? And not just because of what happened with us. I mean. I mean I’d never met another shifter with the same attitudes about life as I have. I was beginning to think that there weren’t any and I was just…some kind of weirdo for how I felt about things. But then you came along and…everything was better.”

  When he looked over at her she had her eyes closed, and she was twisting her hands together in her lap. “I feel the same way, you know,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think that there was anyone out there who could make me feel like I wasn’t some kind of freak or like I belonged. And then you saved me, and…and nothing ever felt the same again.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he could tell that she was trying not to cry. “And now I hate Paul even more because I have to leave.”

  “Hey,” Karic said, reaching out to cup her face. “No one said it had to be forever, right? You could come back one day. When things are safe.”

  From the way Camilla shook her head at that, Karic could tell that she didn’t really believe that was something that was going to happen, and he didn’t know how to reassure her, since he didn’t know either. He planned to go down to the police station after this and have a word with someone about the pride and what could be going on over there, but he had no idea what would happen with that. If the pride had been literally getting away with murder for years, Karic didn’t know what he could do to change that. But he knew that he was sure as hell going to try to do something.”

  Sitting in the car was getting them nowhere, so he opened his door and got out, watching Camilla do the same. No amount of stalling was going to delay this permanently.

  The station wasn’t too busy, and it took no time at all for Camilla to get her train ticket and figure out where she was supposed to be. “No transfer,” she murmured as she looked down at her ticket. “That’s lucky.”

  “I guess. Just means you have to be on a train for fifteen straight hours.”

  “There’s enough room to walk around and stuff, though.” And even though he could tell she was sad, there was a gleam of excitement in her eyes. “I’ve never been on a train before, you know? I’ve never even been this close to one. I’ve never been anywhere other than here.” She looked up at him and smiled. “It’s an adventure.”

  And right then and there he shook his head at himself for being so stupid, so selfish as to make this all about him and what he was losing. Camilla hadn’t ever seen more than this town and the river and her pride, and there he was trying to keep her chained to it for his own selfish reasons. Karic snorted a soft laugh at himself for that. “It’s going to be great,” he told her. “I hope you get to see a lot of stuff and just…I hope everything goes well.”

/>   Camilla beamed at him. “Thanks. Can…can I call you sometimes? Once I get settled, I mean. I don’t want you to forget about me, and just hearing your voice is enough to make me smile most of the time, and…” she trailed off a shrugged.

  “Of course you can, dummy,” Karic said, laughing a little. He pulled her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her and leaning his cheek on the top of her head. “Call me all the time. And I’ll call you. And if you get a computer and stuff, we can chat or email or whatever. I don’t want to lose you.”

  He could feel her relieved sigh against him, and he didn’t even care that they were standing in the middle of a crowded train station with people rushing by on either side of them. He blocked out the harsh scents of other people and exhaust and smoke and focused on Camilla, clean, bright Camilla, and how she made him feel.

  “I’m really going to miss you,” she said into his shirt, sniffing a little.

  “I’m not going anywhere, you know?” he murmured. “I’ll be here and whenever you want to talk to me, I’ll be happy. But you deserve to see the world if you want to.”

  She snorted. “I don’t think Fredericktown, Ohio counts as the world, but thank you for the sentiment.” The sharp trill of the train whistle had them pulling apart, and Camilla wiped her eyes. “I should go find a seat and get settled. I…” She smiled and leaned up, and Karic cupped her face for one last kiss, putting all of his feeling into it, hoping she could taste how much he had come to care about her in such a short time.

  “Go,” he breathed when it was done, stepping back and releasing her.

  “Well, well,” a voice broke in, and they both turned. Karic didn’t recognize the large man standing in front of them, but from the way Camilla’s face blanched, he could tell that she did. “Took you long enough, but we knew you’d be heading this way eventually, Cammy. Looks like you found yourself a little boyfriend in the process, too.”

  “No,” Camilla whispered, taking a step back, and Karic could smell her fear even over the scents of everything else. “I’m not…please, Adam. I can’t go back there. You know what he’ll do to me. Please. Just pretend you never saw me.”

  The man—Adam—laughed shortly. “And you know what he’ll do to us if we don’t bring you back.”

  Karic had just enough time to register the use of the word ‘us’ before he heard someone coming up behind him and whirled to see another man standing there, hand in his pocket where there was clearly a gun or something hidden. “Let’s not make this difficult, okay?” he said, and Karic noted how worn out he sounded. “We just want the girl. No one needs to get hurt here today.”

  Camilla looked like a cornered animal, her teeth bared and her hands tight around the strap of her bag. “No. No. I can’t go back there.”

  “You can and you will if you don’t want anything to happen to dog boy here,” the man behind him said. “You know what Paul will have us do to him if he gets in the way.”

  From the horrified look on her face, she did know. Karic watched as the fight drained out of her and resignation filled the space the fear had been. “Camilla,” he breathed, and she turned dull eyes to look at him.

  “They’re right,” she said. “He’ll…Paul will kill you if you get in the way. He doesn’t care about anything but having me back. I…I have to go with them.”

  “Camilla, no you don’t!” Karic said, reaching for her only to feel the man get close up behind him.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  “I have to, Karic,” Camilla said, and tears were welling in her eyes and then spilling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I never should have…I’m so sorry.”

  Adam took her wrist in a firm grip, and all Karic could do was watch as the two men led her away.

  Chapter 10: Captivity

  Camilla couldn’t breathe. The familiar smell of the pride house was thick in her nose, though the cold dampness of the cellar and the musty smell of mildew and mold was layered over that. Her heart was racing so fast she could taste her pulse and she couldn’t sit still. She had been so close. So damned close. All she’d had to do was get on the train and she would have been home free. But Paul had anticipated her method of leaving, and now she was right back in his clutches.

  She still hadn’t seen him yet, either. Adam and Thomas had dragged her to their car at the train station and then put her in the back seat, locking the doors and driving her back to the pride house. Before she could so much as think of getting away from them, they’d each grabbed one of her arms in a tight grip and tossed her into the cellar. “Paul will be back soon,” Adam had said before he’d slammed the door closed. “He’s handling some business.” The lock turning had been loud in the otherwise silent cellar, and Camilla’s stomach had dropped. Paul hated handling business without her, and she could only imagine the kind of mood he was going to be in when he got back.

  They’d neglected to take her bag from her, so she still had her money, the flashlight she’d tucked in there when she’d run away, a change of clothes, and the sandwiches from Karic.

  Karic.

  It had broken her heart a little bit to make him watch as she was led away, knowing there was nothing he could do to save her. It was better this way if the only other option was for him to get hurt. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if something had happened to him because of her.

  “Alright, Camilla,” she said to herself, trying to calm down. “You don’t have to panic. You can figure a way out of this.” She dug in her bag and found the flashlight, shining it around to get a better view of her prison. In all of her time living in the house, she had never set foot in the cellar, knowing the kind of things that Paul used it for.

  The floor was hard, cold earth, and the walls were damp and moldy. There was a little window in the door that led to the outside, but she knew that it was useless. It was too high up for her to get the door unlocked if she broke it and much too small for her to try to climb through. There were no other openings anywhere in the small room, and she sighed. Apparently the only way she was getting out was through the door, and that wasn’t going to happen until Paul showed up. A confrontation was inevitable.

  Good. It was time for one. She might not have been away from him for very long, but she had learned a thing or two about herself in the time she had been gone. She was tired of being a pawn, a tool. This was going to end, one way or another.

  First the bastard just had to show up.

  Hours passed, and Camilla could tell it was dark outside from the way the cellar went from being gloomy to being pitch black. She could feel the darkness pressing in around her, and she had to remind herself several times that there was nothing in it that could hurt her. All the enemies were outside, and really, in here was the safest place for her to be.

  Her skin felt itchy and too small, so after taking a few deep breaths and making sure she couldn’t hear anything outside, she began to strip out of her clothes. Camilla didn’t know if not being human for this would be an advantage, but it was better than being defenseless. Instead of trying to calm down, she focused on the anxiety and tangle of emotions inside of her, letting it build and stretch until she felt like it was going to burst out of her. She channeled the wildness that rode in her blood and closed her eyes, willing her body to remake itself.

  Her bones changed shape, and she gritted her teeth against the grinding pain of it, focusing on the balance and power of her animal, calling the lioness to her and willing it into being. As the animal pushed past the human in her, golden fur spread and the cellar got clearer as her highly superior night vision kicked in. Camilla folded down onto all fours, paws and claws taking the place of her hands and fingers, feet and toes, and she stretched, flicking her tail and grinning to bare her teeth. Already she felt more powerful, more in control. Paul could come and do his worst; she wasn’t afraid of him like this.

  Being penned in made things worse because she wanted to roam and most of all to hunt. She wanted to sink her teeth into
her prey and rip and tear until it was no longer an issue. But enough of Camilla’s mind remained that she kept herself still and quiet. If she played this right, she could catch them by surprise when they opened the door. This could be her chance. It would take them at least a few minutes to change and chase after her, and she could put plenty of distance between them in that time.

  Pacing the room wasn’t going to help anything, so Camilla settled down with her head on her paws, facing the door. Anything or anyone that opened it would have to deal with her, and she contented herself with forming plans in her mind, ways to escape and get help. Maybe if she went to the police they could do something to help. And then once Paul and his people were out of the way, she could stay in the town with Karic and be happy. It would be fine. All she had to do was…

  What was that? Her ears perked up at the sound of footsteps outside the door. She couldn’t smell anything with all the damp and mold in the cellar, but she could tell that there was someone out there, so she got to her feet warily flexing her claws and getting ready to pounce. The sound of a key being turned in the lock sent a jolt of anxiety through her, but she pushed it down. That wasn’t going to help either. Nothing happened for several seconds, and then the door was pulled open and a brilliant light blinded her instantly.

  After being in the dark for so long, she couldn’t see in the light, and she shrank back, shaking her head to try and clear the spots from her vision. Dammit, there went her plan.

  A cruel laugh cut through her disorientation, and Camilla’s heart sank. As long as she lived, she would never forget that laugh, having heard it too many times to count already. Paul. He always had been too clever for his own good, and this was just proof that nothing had changed. He still knew how to keep her at a disadvantage.