Tame his Beast - Claire C. Riley Page 0,9

have survived that first month if I’d been awake. Pain, so much pain.

“So you brought her to see me,” I chuckled. “Bitch will probably quit after this little encounter. You’re welcome.”

Jenna pulled out the tube of cream for my burns and my body involuntarily shuddered. Fucking hated that cream. Hated new bandages. Hated sponge baths. Hated this place and this room and this damned bed. Jenna’s scowl grew deeper.

“What the fuck did I say now?”

“Her name’s Belle, not bitch, not sweetbutt, and most certainly not your darlin’. Belle. Nurse Belle to you. And getting her to quit was not my intention, not ever.”

I held up my hands and then winced as pain lanced down both arms when the scars and burns and bruises stretched with the too-quick movement. Fuck, that hurt.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” I said truthfully.

“I wouldn’t want your apology anyway, Beast.” Jenna removed the cap on the cream. “A man like you doesn’t ever mean his apologies, so what would be the point.”

“True,” I agreed.

I gritted my teeth as she rubbed the cream into the worst burns, the pain making me feel sick. Everything hurt, all the fucking time. But the cream was like a thousand bees stinging me over and over and over and over. Little daggers of death pricking my skin and splitting me in two. Goddamn I hated the cream.

“Almost done,” she said almost kindly, continuing on with her slow torture. “Just the big one to go now.”

Great. Just the really big one that made me want to pull my own teeth out. Just fucking perfect.

I let my mind go elsewhere. To a place better than this where I didn’t constantly hurt. Where my body was tattooed and sculpted to perfection, not shredded by knives and fire. Where my muscles weren’t wasting away in this fucking uncomfortable bed. To a place where grown men feared me and beautiful women adored me. I let my mind go there, ignoring the way my head spun and my stomach clenched with the need to vomit because it hurt so fucking much. I was shivering with the pain of it all and willing myself to not be there.

“I’m sorry,” she said, replacing the cap on the cream and placing it on the cart next to her.

I laughed bitterly, my body already covered in sweat again. “The fuck you are.”

She frowned, grabbing a bandage and wrapping it around my burns and then draping the bedsheet back over me, mummifying and hiding my horrors from prying eyes.

She removed her gloves and cleared away her torture devices before coming to stand next to the bed again.

“You don’t make it easy, Beast,” she said, her voice softer than it usually was.

“Nothing in this life ever is,” I said, my one eye gazing out the window at the dreary day outside.

Doctor Collins wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to see out of my damaged eye again. Said it needed to heal. It needed time. And maybe, just maybe, if I was real lucky…

“I am sorry. I’m a nurse; I don’t like seeing people in pain.”

I snorted out a laugh. “That’s not what you just said.”

She sighed and I looked back at her. My body felt like it was on fire all over again. Every muscle ached and burned and throbbed in angry, vibrant pain.

“Men like me, we deserve what comes to us, right?” I bit out, and I rejoiced in the sadness that crept across her features and stole the softness that had filled her eyes. “We deserve it, so fuck it. Let’s bring in people and show them what happens to men like me. Ain’t that right, Nurse?”

“That’s not what I said,” she stammered, but we both knew that was a lie.

And we both knew that she was right too.

Men like me didn’t deserve a second chance. We didn’t deserve kindness. We deserved a long, painful death and a one-way ticket to hell. And that was exactly what I’d gotten.

“Yeah it is. How many men have you treated that I put in here, I wonder? How many men with bodies broken and skin destroyed? Men just like me that probably deserved it too, right?” The words tasted good on my tongue, the anger and violence that writhed inside me coming to life as she frowned harder at me and shook her head. “You wanna know a secret, Nurse? I enjoyed it every single time.”

She frowned in confusion at me and I smirked. I was on a roll now, ready