The Devil Inside (Wolf Guard Book 1) Read online

  Table of contents

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Chapter 26.

  Chapter 27.

  Chapter 28.

  Chapter 29.

  Chapter 30.

  Chapter 31.

  Chapter 32.

  Chapter 33.

  Chapter 34.

  Chapter 35.

  Chapter 36.

  Chapter 37.

  Chapter 38.

  Chapter 39.

  Chapter 40.

  Chapter 41.

  Chapter 42.

  Chapter 43.

  Chapter 44. -Epilogue

  Chapter 1.

  Cold.

  It burns like fire.

  Some incandescent flame that wraps around skin, blistering in it's righteous invasion.

  Igniting. Smouldering. A roaring inferno that consumed.

  A breath.

  One single inhalation and all that searing dissipated.

  Sucked into lungs to devour from within.

  A puff of smoke released. A dragon coughing it's remnants.

  The chill returned, a never-ending torturous cycle of flare and ash.

  The click brought me out of the fantasy I had been living.

  The hard thud of a lock disengaging as the bolt drew back.

  The grey wall to the right of me had my unfocused eyes attention. The blandness of all four walls and the concrete flooring created a backdrop for my imagination to run wild. Like a blank screen just waiting for a film to start, this bare and depressingly dreary décor did wonderful things for my illusions. I could lay for hours on the floor, staring at seemingly nothing while my mind whirled in a secret place where my reality could not encroach. I'd spent days on end imagining an elven Kingdom with purple trees and sparkling sapphire oceans. Where I was a guardian of the kingdom, strong and fearless, fighting mythical creatures and villainous traitors. I received adoration from the civilians I was protecting and gratitude from royalty. In this place I was everything I wasn't in reality. In this place I was wanted. In this place I was alive.

  The click enforced an automatic reaction from me. My body, with a learned response from years of repetition, tensed and scuttled across the floor, finding the nearest corner and curling itself into a ball. My head shook itself to make the straggly ends of my hair cover my face and my eyes forced themselves to the floor. My muscles tensed in expectation.

  His shoes tap....tap....tapped on the concrete as he made his way over to my corner. I could make out a slight humming, a song I'd never heard, maybe one he had heard on the radio today and couldn't get out of his head.

  His shiny, black, patent leather shoes stopped just before they hit my head, my eyes so focused on the floor I almost missed when they came into view. He knelt slowly, balancing on the balls of his feet. Those shiny shoes creasing slightly when his foot arched into position. His humming became louder and more cheerful as I felt his gaze on me, looking over my curled up form shivering at the cool air he'd let in with him.

  I could no longer stay in my fantasy world. The humming abruptly stopped and I heard a deep inhale before a stroke of his finger wormed it's way down my arm. The creeping, crawling sensation of insects followed in its wake. I could never stand his touch, it had produced an adverse reaction in me even when I was younger and my existence was not this pitiful excuse of a life. Maybe my skin knew then what I did not, that this man was wrong inside, that he would turn me wrong inside.

  "Come now, little girl...it's bath time,” he breathed in my ear. He'd gotten closer than I realised and I cursed myself for not paying attention, I always knew where he was even with my eyes glued to the floor. His words contained an excited hitch in his breath and my entire body cringed in a way I was unable to stop. He chuckled warmly at my reaction.

  "Mm hmm...I know little girl, I love our bath times too".

  His words almost made me heave but my body was long used to repressing such a response. He liked to fantasise too. He liked to pretend that I enjoyed what he did, even when he knew it was painful he would make me tell him how much I liked it. Perhaps that's what he enjoyed so much, the thought that he could hurt me and make me like it, his goal was maybe not just to hurt but to humiliate. If I thought it would get me anywhere I would have told him years ago that it was a waste of his time, I would never enjoy a single thing he did.

  He grabbed my bicep with his rough, calloused hand and dragged me across the floor to the doorway. I made no move to stand; I never did. It was pointless anyway, not only would I be going with him, regardless of whether it was by my own volition or not, but my bare feet had turned numb hours ago from the cold floor and my slip of a silk, strapped nightie was neither long nor warm enough.

  The concrete gave way to wooden flooring and I slid easier across the waxed surface. The bathroom was two doors down and I was forever grateful that I didn't have to be dragged up a flight of stairs. The white tiled flooring of the bathroom was cool on my skin and I shivered again as he dropped my arm to turn on the hot tap and fill the bath. I smelt apples and assumed he was using bubble bath this time.

  I hated the smell of apples.

  I heard him take off his tie and shirt as I fixated on a broken tile in the corner of the bathroom. He always took time to fold his clothes and I found that fascinating; that such a man could cause chaos but be so orderly.

  His shoes and suit trousers remained as he bent to lift me off the floor. He turned to sit on the closed lid of the toilet and pulled my limp body onto his lap. One arm wound around my waist to keep me in place as I slouched forward and his fingers deftly pulled the ties apart one handed at the back of my nightie. His fingers trailed lightly over my skin as my back was revealed to him and a happy murmur escaped his lips. I could feel his deep breaths puff out on the back of my neck and the part of my brain that processed touch wanted to shut down. As the straps became loose he pulled me further into his chest so I wouldn't fall off, and used both hands to skim the silk down my arms and sides until it pooled at my waist. He held me close, nuzzling his face into the side of my neck, twisting the pooled fabric gathered on my lap in his fingers. I felt his erection dig into the cheeks of my ass as his hand trailed a pattern over my stomach.

  I hid my revulsion well. I'd had plenty of practice.

  His other hand came to cup between my legs, resting lightly over the silk that was pushed between them. He used his strength to pull me back onto his bulge, grinding against my butt and rubbing the heel of his hand into my pussy.

  His breath came in short pants against my ear as he touched me.

  "you like that don't you, baby? Hmm you love how I'm petting your little pussy, how hard my cock is waiting to be inside you? "

  No. I despise you. You disgust me. I want to stab you in the heart and watch this white tiled floor run red with your blood.

  "Yes Sir," I replied mechanically.

  His groan of satisfaction was added to the hundreds of memories I wanted to expunge from my mind. The first year I had wallowed in self pity, the second year I had spent praying for a sav
iour. It wasn't until the third year and this one; the fourth, that I had shut down all hope for rescue. I stopped relying on others to save me. This was my reality. This would be my vengeance.

  His movements against me suddenly stopped and he took a deep breath.

  "Looks like your bath is done, " he ran his filthy hands up my stomach to cup and massage my breasts."We'll have to save playtime for later. In you go, baby."

  He stood pulling me with him and letting the silk drop to the floor at my feet. His arm took my knees from under me and I was lifted into the bath. I sat woodenly in the centre my knees almost touching my chest in a useless plea for privacy. His hand dropped to my knee and slid between my thighs to rub at the soft skin of my pussy. I knew the reasons behind the touch, he was reminding me that I had no privacy, that everything I am and every part of me belonged to him.

  "Clean yourself, pet. I will be back to check you've done everywhere to my satisfaction, " he ordered with a leer. "Don't forget to shave my pussy bare, you know how I like it."

  I inwardly shuddered as his finger slipped slightly to my entrance and he prodded within. "Yes Sir."

  He smirked a "good girl" at me and I felt instant relief as he left the bathroom. The razor on the side was a painful temptation for murder, but I knew he would check that everything was back in its place when he returned.

  I started washing, it had been a full three days since the last bath I'd been allowed and if nothing else, at least I would be clean for a moment. I heard him rustling in the bedroom, no doubt changing into his relaxed attire of jeans and bare chest, he enjoyed feeding me while I was sat on his lap leaning against his chest, skin to skin.

  I was a slave. Nothing but a slave.

  But that would change soon.

  My mind was in constant activity. With no paper, pens or anything else to use, his daily comings and goings were logged in my brain. That would turn out to be useful. I may have started out a weak young girl but now I was strong, in mind if not in body. And I had a long list of grievances that he would be answering for.

  I'd finished my grooming quickly, my hair washed and my body scrubbed as if I could wash away the dirt that clung to me.

  As per his wishes I shaved completely and returned everything I used to its proper place. I sat in the cooling water and waited, relaxation was not an option, I don't think I'd known that pleasure since I was fourteen years old. He had come into our lives that year, exactly two years after my father had died. My mother had been wallowing in grief for some time although she had made the effort for my sake to do so in privacy. I had known though, I could always hear her sobs through my bedroom wall. My parents had been mates, that all important word to werewolves. I put no reverence on that word; I had no belief any more that I would be saved by my heroic werewolf mate. If I had one...I do not even think I would recognise him. My emotions so buried and my heart so cold that I doubt it would beat for him.

  When my mother brought him home one day to introduce to me, I had an instant reaction of unease. Maybe it was the predator I saw in his eyes when he looked at me or maybe it was the way he would attempt to touch me in a pretence of innocence. Whatever it was that forewarned me, I should have listened harder. My mother moved him into our house within a year and I never, not once, made any objection. I'd like think it was because I saw how lonely she was and I'd hoped for something to make her feel alive again. However hard I pushed my doubts aside, I never forgot to lock my bedroom door at night.

  As it turned out, a human was no replacement for a lost mate. At my mother's funeral, a year later, his hand on my shoulder and a sly, victorious smile on his face he showed an expression of ownership that at sixteen, even I understood.

  The night of my mother's funeral has been burned into my memories, a night of lost dreams and broken innocence. Two years later on the exact same day while entering my third year of servitude, my soul was irreparably damaged. I think that was why I had never shifted – I was too empty of life to bring a Wolf forth.

  Chapter 2.

  He wasn’t a monster.

  He was a man. Just a man.

  A man diseased of mind.

  He left me in the bath for an hour. The water had cooled considerably and I was back to shivering. I didn't mind though; just another grievance added to an ever extending list.

  There was something growing in me. Something far more than the festering hate that had begun too many years ago. This girl that sits obediently in the bath, awaiting her master's return was just an image, a picture in a book with no accompanying explanation. She sits in silence, she answers his questions and she succumbs to his touches without complaint. But in the dark recesses of her mind something continues to thrive. Like a switch flipped it had changed her from that pathetic, frightened girl into a soulless demon playing a sickening game. Dragging him in with her acquiesce until she could chew him up and spit him out.

  My mouth twitched involuntarily.

  A low panic started, my heart rate accelerating instantly, that pounding of rushing blood echoing in my ears. I sat still, concentrating on my mask. Isolating every single individual facial muscle I could find and shutting them down one by one. I had not had a slip up like this in a year. Wearing a mask so long it had changed from uncomfortable to normal.

  My breathing slowly evened out as I kept my eyes forward and my ears tuned to the sounds of him eating dinner. Opening a bottle of wine and the glug of pouring it into a glass. I could not expect any food this evening, he had fed me yesterday and regularly missed days to keep my weight at an acceptable level.

  He liked my appearance. Liked the long, dark auburn hair that, when washed and styled would be thick with ringlet like curls. Liked the green eyes that, although blank and unfocused, were pretty none the less. Liked the smaller stature that was kept at an 'acceptable' slimmer size.

  Some would hate their appearance; shoved into slavery because of someone else's desires. I didn't...I hated him. This was me. Regardless of the fact that it attracted him, I could not hate the way I looked. If I had been less attractive then maybe it would have been some other family he infiltrated, some other girl. I'm glad it was me for no other reason than I’m going to enjoy the end result. I'm going to revel in his screams of pain. An eye for an eye, he has so much coming to him.

  My plans are changing, those ones so carefully thought out, so obsessively constructed. My entire thought process hidden behind that locked door like little beams of light firing at different options. They all converged on one single result though; failure. I had expected to be out by now. All this planning. All this scheming. His attention to detail was astounding.

  My mind may be functional but my body was not. Weaker than him, I'd planned for strengthening exercises while locked in my cell all day. The camera in the corner had proved a deterrent.

  Stealing a pen from the desk in his room to test his focus, I'd hidden it well in the mattress I'd originally been provided with. The mattress had been removed and not been given back. I would not be getting and keeping a weapon.

  An attempt to remove myself from the bath one evening and walk to the toilet had also proved a failure. I heard those shoes and their tapping before my foot even touched the floor. I would not be escaping in stealth. It was infuriating, the man must have cameras everywhere. I'd suffered the punishment willingly at the time – every failure was just one step closer to winning. Now however there was this kernel of desperation, a tiny light in the corner of my mind, a constant need for one, just that one chance. It was do or die time. I would either escape or die trying, I was too invested in this act to start over, I would lose my mind to have to go back to the beginning before I'd earned a modicum of trust.

  I heard him stacking the dishwasher. The kitchen, I knew, was twelve foot to the end of the hallway, a right turn, passed the staircase that joined onto the wooden flooring covered in a thick rug and through heavy double doors that muted the sounds.

  My hearing was one thing I assumed I had acquired from
my non existent lineage. I was forever grateful for this. It allowed me many things, not least the ability to hear him coming.

  I heard those heavy double doors close with a thunk.

  Those fucking tapping shoes on the wooden flooring, they beat a drum to my heartbeat.

  I checked that straight face was in place and stared ahead at the tiles. I'd whisper a plea for an easy night but it seemed useless. Even though every so often one would slip out, I'd long ago given up hope for an answered prayer. I wondered if anyone was listening, if someone could hear me but I was simply ignored. I wondered which was worse; the absence of hope or the disregard.

  He was humming again. It was really starting to annoy me; how happy he was at my suffering.

  That was another surprise; that I couldn't keep the annoyance from surfacing, that I had to try at all to push it back down. I was becoming even more desperate, if I couldn't even keep it together any more I couldn't continue to wait and plan.

  The sudden shrilling of the doorbell nearly made my heart stop. I blew out breaths in long bursts attempting to calm myself down again. His footsteps had scuffed on the waxed flooring as he abruptly stopped and turned back towards the door in frustration. I can only imagine the Hell I’m going to get if I can't get those marks out tomorrow. I hear the door opening and a cheery voice filters through to me.

  My heart literally nearly bursts with excitement. I know that voice. That voice that saves me nearly every week. The light airy lilt in her accent is a godsend to me. He won't turn her away, he can't. She's his alibi for his public persona. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't take me away from this place, the house I had grown up in, the town that knew my parents, the people that asked questions. To everyone that I used to know I was that girl who's parents had died. That girl that couldn't cope with the tragedies life had thrown at her. I was the town recluse, hidden away, smothered by her own grief. It often made me wonder how dense people were. Four years and no one had thought to check. Even this woman that turned his attention from me, as grateful as I was to her, had she not wondered even once?

  Maybe people were so caught up in their own lives, their own drama's, that I was but an after thought, a niggling in their brain to ask the question that never gets asked, what ever happened to Arya Heart?