my throat, but his meaty hand covers my mouth as he forces me to the ground only a few feet away from the hive. I bite down hard on his fingers and he lets go as I snarl at him.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!” I struggle beneath him, scratching at his face and drawing blood. My hips buck and my legs kick and scramble in the ground, trying to flip him off me. But he’s strong, heavy.
“Oh, you really are a fucking delight. I’m going to enjoy this!” he snarls, slapping me hard enough across my face that I see stars and black spots blurring my vision. I blink them back frantically, willing myself not to pass out. Over the rushing and pulsing of blood in my ears, I hear the subtle sound of the bees happily buzzing change to something a little less peaceful and whole a lot angrier.
With a loud screech, I ram my thumb into his right eye socket and press as hard as I can until my thumb sinks into his flesh. His roar is deafening, but I don’t think about what I’ve done or the blood and gunk covering my thumb. Instead, I use the moment to push him off me and with tears streaming down my face, run straight into hard muscle. I scream again, my fists coming up in my panic, my automatic reaction to fight.
“Hey, hey! It’s me, sweetheart, it’s me!” Franklin growls, snatching my wrists and yanking me against his chest.
“Franklin!” I cry, relief making my knees buckle. He grasps me to his body, hauling me backwards and lifting me off my feet in his haste to get me away from the bastard who’d just tried to rape me.
“Over there! Kill the motherfucker,” he orders over my head. Through the haze of my tears I see Berrin and Franklin rush past us. A few seconds later the sounds of their fists splitting skin and the man howling in agony has bile rising up my throat.
“Oh, God! Oh, God! I just gouged his eye out!” I moan into Franklin’s chest, my throat hoarse from screaming.
“Shh, shh, sweetheart. It’s okay… It’s okay. We got you. We won’t let this motherfucker hurt you ever again!”
Franklin covers my ears with his hands, but it doesn’t stop me from hearing the man’s cries of pain. It doesn’t stop the men I love from falling back into a dark place where violence and brutality rule, and it won’t prevent the beasts within them from claiming my men once again, after all these months of healing with my help and the honey from these bees.
“Make it stop!” I cry, my fingers clutching hold of Franklin’s top in a death grip.
“He doesn’t deserve to live,” Franklin grinds out.
“It’s the honey, Franklin. It made him like this. He’s been coming here to steal it. He’s addicted…” As much as I hate this man for what he almost did to me, I don’t want his blood on their hands.
“The honey only brings out the truth of who you are, Goldie. Even if he hadn’t raped a woman before, that bastard would’ve got off on the thought of it, and one day he would’ve acted on it.”
Behind me the man is pleading for his life but Berrin and Mathieson are relentless and carry on beating him long after his screaming stops.
“It’s done,” Mathieson says a minute later, his voice sharp, void of emotion.
Franklin releases me from his hold and I turn in his arms, barely able to stand upright because I’m shaking so much.
“Don’t look,” Berrin grinds out, stepping in front of my line of sight, but it doesn’t stop me from briefly seeing the man’s broken and battered body nor his blooded eye socket.
“I did that…” I whisper, my words cut short from the bile rising up my throat. This time I’m unable to keep the contents of my stomach inside of me. I feel the firmness of a hand rubbing up and down my back whilst I dry-heave until there’s nothing left inside of me but guilt and emptiness.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, wiping the back of my hand over my lips as Franklin helps me to stand upright. My heart sinks and my stomach drops as I take in Mathieson’s and Berrin’s appearance. Both of them are covered in blood and whilst that’s harrowing enough, it isn’t what causes me the most fear. It’s the fact that their expressions are dark clouds and their eyes are an empty black abyss