Broken Beauty - Stella Andrews

1

Sophia

I can hardly breathe. My chest hurts so much it’s difficult to take in air. The sweat mingles with the terror as I urge my limbs to cooperate. The fear overtakes my reasoning because I thought I was safe. I should be safe, but the fact that someone’s chasing me tells me otherwise.

As I crash through the trees, I struggle to see the danger in front of me. As my foot catches a tree root, it twists from under me and causes a sharp pain to cut through my body like a knife. I can feel them gaining on me, but I will not give up. I need to reach safety; I should never have believed I was safe here.

I am such a fool. I thought I could hide, but the fear that surrounds me like a vise tells me otherwise. I will never be free of it all the time the nightmares crowd my mind. I just wanted time to deal with it but it appears my time has run out.

I can hear him now. Gaining on me so fast I know I don’t stand a chance. It’s the acceptance of my fate that makes me stop and take a deep breath. Maybe it’s time to turn and face my fear head on and deal with it the only way I know how because I’m tired of running. Tired of being scared and tired of life. If he has come for me, I would welcome the darkness. Just to close my eyes and never wake up is looking mighty attractive right now, so I stand my ground and turn and face whatever’s behind me because it’s what’s in front of me I should be afraid of and nothing can be worse than that.

I almost dare not look, but as I raise my eyes, I swallow hard. I think it’s a man stands a short distance away looking at me warily. I’ve never seen the like of him before and I stare in wonder at a beast that makes all other men look like kids. Wild dark hair touches his shoulders and his bare chest eclipses the sun. My heart flutters as I see the tattoo covering his biceps because that tells me he has every right to be here.

“You’re on private property, darlin’.”

His voice growls as he states a simple fact I know only too well. It was why I sought them out, a place that everyone fears which keeps the rest of the world outside.

So, I face him with indifference.

“I know.”

He moves slowly forward and my heart beats faster as a strange excitement grips me. What will he do?

As he draws near, I see the sweat glistening on his tight abs and a smattering of dark hair that calls to the woman in me. He is magnificent and a world away from the men I usually keep the company of. Rough, feral and rugged - a real man. Not the suited and booted smooth criminals that usually occupy my world. This man is pure danger and yet as he moves closer and stares deep into my eyes, I step back in shock. I know those eyes.

He leans forward and his breath flutters across my face like a cooling breeze, fanning the flames of an interest that has no right being there. The dark eyes of the blackest shade penetrate my soul and makes my heart bleed because I know this man. There is no life in those eyes, just the tortured souls of the damned. An empty wretched soul that lost the ability to live and just exists in a tainted world of pain. A killer’s eyes.

I know those eyes because I see them in the mirror every day. We are the same - we are lost.

“Then why are you here?”

His voice is husky and with deep tones that take no shit, so I shrug. “I live here.”

Without warning and with a flick of his wrist, he grabs me hard and spins me against the trunk of a tree and contains me in a prison of muscle that has no key. He is so close our sweat joins and trickles like a river of lust to the ground and I feel his mouth inches from mine causing my mind to scramble.

“Since when?”

My first instinct is to try to struggle and free myself from his iron grip, but I feel strangely safe here. He keeps the whole world out and provides an impenetrable bubble that I could sure use right