Taken By The Beast

BRITTANY CARTER TAKEN BY THE BEAST Copyright © 2023 Brittany Carter Copyright © Brittany Carter 2023 First Published 2022 Carter, Brittany TAKEN BY THE BEAST No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in an form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Chapter 1 Piper The other woman was blonde. The tramp, my now ex-fiancée, had pressed against the shower wall, was blonde. Henry told me he hated when women dyed their hair blonde. That it was trashy and underwhelming. It was the reason I stopped getting highlights. Because he loved my naturally dark locks. I couldn’t get the look the blonde wore on her face when I pulled back the shower curtain and saw her staring at me over his scrawny deltoid, out of my mind. Her freshly manicured fingernails pressed into his skin, and her long slender legs wrapped around his waist. She stopped her fake moaning, but he didn’t notice. I didn’t expect he would. Not that I would know, because I had planned to wait until we married. Good thing we didn’t make it that far. Didn’t look worth it to me. When he finally pulled himself from his premature thrusts and saw over his shoulder, I was long gone. Only hearing his calls when I opened the door to our apartment and rushed down the steps. It took me three weeks of staying at my parents’ house before I gathered the courage to go back when I knew he was at work. My father helped me carry everything that I owned out and into the truck I rented. My heart pounded against my ribs, breaking the entire world I’d built into many shattered pieces. My father hardly spoke as we put my things into the storage unit and drove back home. The pain on his face hurt me. I was Daddy’s little girl, and he warned me about Henry from the start. He’d been right, but I wouldn’t admit it. “I’m going to go on a trip,” I said into the silence of my dad’s pickup. “I need some time alone. I’ve already asked off for a week from work.” My employer at the insurance agency was shocked because I never took off until the end of the year for our annual ski trip with his family. Screw his family and their fancy cabin in the snow. Their unspoken words about my upbringing and my lack of etiquette. The disdain they held in their eyes, and the pity smiles over their expensive wine at dinner. I hoped they would be proud of Henry and his new girl. Maybe she would live up to their expectations. The thump of my dad’s tires pounded against the pavement of the road, deafening the silence between us. “I’m glad,” he said. “Where are you going?” he asked in his deep Southern accent. “The bayou,” I laughed. “I want to go see Grammy.” This brightened his face. “Good. She’ll be happy to see you.” He reached over and patted my knee. “I love you, Piper Girl.” “I love you, too, Dad.” If only I’d known what awaited me in Arabi, Louisiana. I slammed the trunk on my small 1999 Honda CR-V and accepted the onslaught of hugs from my mother. She looked tired around her eyes, most likely worried about her twenty-nine-year-old daughter moving back home. Her graying hair was twisted in a bun, and her hazel eyes—that matched my own—filled with tears that blossomed from me being hurt, and not my trip. “You tell Grammy I love her, and that it’s her turn to come down for the holidays this year.” “Grammy is eighty-five,” I said. “Give her a break.” Mom frowned, but squeezed me tighter. “Henry doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she whispered into my ear. “You’d make a killer wife.” I smiled and pulled back, waving at my father from his stubborn place on the front porch. He wasn’t a ‘goodbye guy.’ I blew him a kiss that he ignored because a macho southern man didn’t ‘blow kisses.’ But I loved him more because of it. I slipped into the worn driver’s seat of my vehicle and buckled my seat belt. It was a three-hour drive from northern Louisiana to Arabi, and I wanted to get there before dark. With my 90’s music blaring, I only stopped for gas and food. Grammy would make sure I had something sweet before bed because she loved ice cream herself. She always made the best homemade peach ice cream. My mouth watered at the thought. With the nearest city in my review mirror, I flew down the homestretch, with my GPS perched on my dash, taking me down some shortcut that I wasn’t familiar with. The sun descended over the trees, and I nervously drummed my fingertips along the steering wheel. “Turn left.” I frowned and knocked on the side of my GPS. “Turn left in 500 feet.” The dirt road looked creepy, like some monster family lived at the end, awaiting their share of Piper Soup. I swallowed, but followed the road. It’d been years since I’d been to her house, and even though I held wonderful memories of her house, most of the time, my parents drove me. The road was curvy and narrowed the more I drove. The creepy low-hanging trees blew in a humid breeze that sucked the breath from me. I rolled up my window, no longer enjoying the surrounding nature. “Oh my God, you piece of crap,” I mumbled, hitting my GPS again. “This is not the way to Grammy’s