Claimed by Honor (Bestian Creek Pack Book 1) Read online

  Claimed by Honor

  Bestian Creek Pack, Book 1

  E.J. Darling

  Claimed by Honor by E.J. Darling

  Copyright © February 2019

  Editor: Alexis Whitaker

  Cover Art: Darling Cover Designs

  ISBN: 9781702656320

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Contents

  Other Books in this complete Series

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Epilogue

  Up Next in the Bestian Creek Series

  More from E.J. Darling

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  About the Author

  Other Books in this complete Series

  Engulfed in Fire, Book 2

  Bitten by Nick, Book3

  Cherished by Derek, Book 4

  Flying with Aquila, Book 5

  Prologue

  After two layovers, hours on a plane, and fighting with the rental company on the reasons why a compact car wasn't going to work for her, Anna Williams was finally on vacation.

  When her phone showed no bars, she knew she’d made it. “No service. Perfect.” Anna placed her phone back into the cupholder and looked out over the hood of her rented Jeep to the eroded gravel road.

  She took it slow, bouncing around the crevices, trying her best not to damage the vehicle. She had an entire week to enjoy the wonder of the Cascade Mountains and she was going to bask in the complete solitude it would bring her. A vacation was one hundred percent needed and leaving Dallas was the best decision she’d made recently. Her work had swallowed her up, and she was losing every bit of herself to it. When she walked out on Friday she may or may not have told her boss to kiss her ass. Okay, she did.

  She found a clearing in the trees and decided it would be the perfect place to set up her tent, but that could wait. Right now, she wanted to get her feet on the ground and see everything around her because she was tired of being on her ass.

  Anna grabbed her backpack from the back seat and shrugged it over her shoulders, pulling out her long blonde ponytail from beneath it. Birds were singing overhead, and she could hear some water out in the distance. This place was absolutely incredible. She walked for about an hour, drudged through thick brush, hopped over small cuts made in the earth from rainwater forcing itself down the mountain side, and finally sat down on a fallen log to take a break. She slid her backpack off and took a bottle of water out and took a swig. This was everything she’d needed. No calls, no emails, no boss on her ass about stupid shit. Just her and her thoughts.

  She sat there in the still silence until the sun hung low in the sky before making her way back to the jeep to unpack her gear and settle in for the night. The sounds of nature filled her head as she idling walked the forest. The birds were starting to settle back into their nests and some new animals had begun to come out for the evening.

  The tent went up easier than she had expected and the cooler she packed fit perfectly on the other side of her sleeping bag. She pulled open the small metal lantern her father gave her and lit the inside of the tent so she could ready herself for bed and settle into a book.

  On a whim, she thought she would step outside to change, expose herself to the world, or maybe just a couple curious squirrels. She grabbed her pajamas, that consisted of a long shirt and a pair of shorts and peeled herself out of the small entrance so she could finally stand to her full height. Five foot three wasn’t tall, but in the small one person tent she finally felt like a giant.

  Anna wiggled out of her pants first, then her shirt and sports bra, and tossed them to a small log she’d drug from the woods to the site and have something to sit on besides dirt and leaves. Nearly naked, she decided to free herself from her underwear and be completely free from all constraints. She felt invincible out here with just herself and trees, she didn’t need to feel embarrassed.

  Yoga? Sure, why not? A few stretches in her birthday suit would make this even better. She laughed at herself, she wasn’t normally like this, free balling it up in the mountains, but it was warm out and something about this place made her want to just be. She brought her arms up to the sky and slowly leaned forward to touch her toes. Coming back up, she went into warrior pose, it only felt right. She put a towel down to save her crack from dirt and went to butterfly, then child’s pose. Ending her silent session with calm breathing. The air felt nice on her body and the silence was intoxicating. She could do this forever, up here in the woods with no one to bother her.

  Snap.

  Anan snapped her eyes open. Probably a squirrel, yup squirrel, probably. She tried to get back into her mind, but it was hard to concentrate, she couldn’t put her finger on it because something felt off around her skin. It wasn’t the air, or a chill coming along now that the sun was down. It was something else, and it was making the hair on her arms stand on end.

  Snap.

  It was time to go back inside before a critter decided they needed to defend their territory. She fumbled to put her shorts on, then her long tee shirt and grabbed the rest of her things. She made her way inside her sleeping bag and got out of her mind in a book before she went to bed.

  Three days in paradise.

  She hadn’t seen a soul in those three days, aside from a few forest creatures that definitely didn’t want to be her friend, buttheads. She’d given them food and they gave her their buttholes as they took it and ran off. She’d found an active beaver dam yesterday and had watched them do their daily chores to keep themselves busy and ate her lunch there, tossing a few bits of bread to the interested birds that had dropped by. She was at peace.

  The sun was going down, and she’d made herself a hot dinner consisting of fire charred hotdogs and a can of vegetables that she sat at the edge of the small fire so they could warm up. A few squirrels that refused to leave made their way closer to the fire, obviously begging for a handout. Past experience told her they wouldn’t go away until they were given an offering.

  She reached for the bag containing the hot dog buns she could rip a piece off of and throw at the plump little beggars who dared bother her for more food.

  Snap.

  Her eyes widened in terror. There weren’t too many benign animals out here big enough to snap limbs as they walked through the woods, and if there were, she didn’t want any part in what they wanted.

  Ouch. “What the hell?” She looked down at her arm holding the bag and touched the tiny red feather protruding from her arm. She looked around but could hardly see anything over the harsh light of the campfire. Figures began to dance around in the trees, and suddenly the woods came alive with masked people. Anna tried to stand and run to the Jeep, but her legs wouldn’t move, they felt like a ton of cement attached to her body. She tried t
o scream but it was caught in her chest, no one would hear her anyways. Anna’s head began to spin, and her eyes went blurry as she fell backwards into darkness.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Anna began to regain consciousness, her eyes started to flicker, but the clear blue sky was blinding. She finally got her mind clear enough to remember what happened and all her emotions began to surface, tears streamed down her face and she held back her loud sobs with her hand muffling her mouth.

  “This one’s awake.” She heard a man say from above her head, but the sun still blinded her sensitive eyes and she couldn’t make out anything. Until, the head of the man came into view and blocked the sun from her eyes. “You two, grab her up and take her to the pit. They’ll bring one in after her.”

  Confusion hit her as two uniformed men grabbed her by her arms and drug her through two large metal doors and into a small courtyard. She began screaming from sheer panic.

  “Stop please! You’re hurting my arm! Please, I don’t know what’s going on! Let go you’re hurting me!” She knew they wouldn’t, but she tried appealing to their softer sides if they had one, but by the way they handled her she could tell they didn’t.

  The two men took her through a gate, the only noticeable opening of the tall barbed wire fence, and inside the back door of an old cement building. It looked to be well taken care of. Someone was sinking a lot of money into it. She turned her head to look around but all she saw were trees and wilderness as the panicked screaming came again.

  “Shut up!” The man on her left had a gravelly voice and smelled of stale cigarettes. “If you can’t shut the hell up, I’ll gag you I swear to God.”

  Anna wanted to ask where the hell they were going and who they even were, but fear struck her as the man’s threat replayed in her mind.

  They dragged her into a short hallway and at the end was an elevator door. She panicked again. Anna knew if she went into that elevator there was no way in hell they were going to let her back out. She looked for anything to grab. The frame of the elevator was the only thing she could grip, but they quickly overpowered her and threw her onto the metal floor.

  She went crazy, put everything she had left into maiming whatever came close to her. She got a couple good shots at the tall guys groin and when Smokey reached for her. She took a bite out of this arm to the act.

  “The bitch bit me!”

  “Shut the hell up, Gary! She’s a fucking woman just grab her!”

  There was a hard hit to her temple, and it threw her off long enough for them to get a grip on her and regain control of the situation. Her head was throbbing, and her energy finally gave out. Smokey pushed the “B” button, and as the doors closed, her heart felt like it stopped beating. They were taking her to the basement. Why? What the hell was going on right now? How the hell did she even get here? All she could do was think about all the awful things they would probably do to her when they got down to the bowels of this sick place. There was no way in hell she was going to get out of this place alive. That much she knew.

  The elevator chimed and the door finally opened, after what felt like an eternity in the small space with the two tyrannical strangers, and they pushed her out. Luckily, they let her walk on her own down the long, cold concrete hallway. She passed thick metal doors that had small windows toward the top. Loud banging and yelling came from every door, but she wasn’t tall enough to peer inside and see the people in them. It was a house of horrors and she was at the lowest level.

  “Keep walking,” the tall one warned. She knew what they would do if she didn’t comply, since they’d made their intentions crystal clear.

  At the end of the hall she was instructed to turn right, and they continued down a similar hallway with the same doors, she counted six on each side. Finally, she came to a set of double doors at the end of the third hallway.

  “Open it and walk in,” Smokey instructed her. “Keep going until you reach Cage 3.”

  Cage? What the actual hell was going on here? Had she been dumped into the twilight zone? Anna wished she could scream but fear kept her silent. Maybe if she did what they asked, they would let her go, or at the very least leave her alone. She opened the doors and proceeded to walk into a massive rock cavern. It was so vast she couldn’t see where it ended. The cold space was filled with rows of empty metal cages. She read the big white metal sign on the first cage.

  “One.”

  She could feel her knees get weak and her mind considered falling to the floor, but she stayed on her feet. She walked a few more feet past the next one.

  “Two.”

  She got weaker, her legs were going to fail her, and spots started to appear in her vision. Anna heard the men behind her yell and get closer as they attempted to catch her falling body.

  “Damn it! Just get in the fucking cage!” With a joint effort they threw her non-responsive body into Cage 3.

  Anna laid there for minutes while she waited for her body to respond to her commands. She had time to go over everything that happened, but it didn’t help her make sense of everything going on. Finally, her body started to respond, and she used her arms to push herself up and she sat there. It didn’t make her feel any better when she saw what surrounded her. Tall metal bars went up what looked to be ten feet, the top was completely enclosed with the same metal as the walls.

  “What the hell do they keep in here?” she spoke, and her voice echoed. She looked around for any signs of life in nearby cages, but it was too dark for her to see anything. The only sources of light were low glowing fluorescents way up on the cavernous rock ceiling above her.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” The only reply was her own echo.

  Damn it. She began to get familiar with her cage to see if there was anything helpful, or any food since she hadn’t eaten much of her dinner before she’d been attacked, and her stomach was growling. Which probably contributed to her fainting spell a moment ago. She saw a small used mattress in the far corner of her 10x10 cell that had, what she could guess had once been white sheets, but they had probably never been washed. The only other thing in there is a nasty yellow toilet. She shuttered. She would do everything possible not to use the bathroom that’s for sure.

  Hours had passed, she kept time with the clock on the metal wall beside the door she came in. She’d been conscious and aware for four hours now, in dim lights and solidarity, and she felt she would soon go insane. Coming to these mountains had been an oasis of solidarity and she’d soaked it up, felt the sun on her skin, bathed in a river, but this kind of solidarity was completely different. This was the kind of fucked up shit that made people go insane and murder people.

  “Four hours and seven minutes.”

  At just that moment the doors burst open and the two men from before came through carrying a limp body. The poor woman’s head was slumped down, and Anna couldn’t see past her waist length hair enough to see her face. They brought her through and into a cage caddy corner to hers. They threw the lifeless body onto the bed, locked the cage door and went out the same door they came in without a word.

  Anna ran over to the corner of the cell where it met the other. “Hey! Hey, wake up honey, you need to open your eyes. They’re gone now. No one is going to hurt you.” She’d lie if she had to. It wasn’t just for the other woman, she wanted to believe that with every fiber of her being.

  The body just laid there where it had been tossed, and Anna still couldn’t see her face because the long caramel colored hair covered everything. It fell over the dirty mattress, and Anna reached through the bars to stroke it, trying to give comfort to the woman and herself. She lay there for a few minutes to see if the woman would rouse, but when she didn’t, Anna gave up and sauntered back to her own filthy bed.

  She curled up into a ball and laid there sobbing uncontrollably. She hated being alone now, hated it with a passion and couldn’t wait for a gentle touch. She had even gotten desperate enough to think about her dick of an ex-boyfriend Rodney. She knew she was going i
nsane. This was the end; she’d starve in here or end up on the wrong end of another fist or two before they tortured her into doing anything they wanted. “Wow Anna, that’s some dark shit,” she mumbled.

  The loud double doors banged open again, she could see them from where she laid curled up. She didn’t move, she didn’t make a single sound. The sound of chains clanking, and the shouting of guards was the only thing she could make out. She didn’t want to let anyone know she was awake, so she couldn’t move her head to get a better view of who was coming in.

  The sounds of clanking got louder as they got closer. Then they stopped, right in front of her door. Fear crept up her spine. Too afraid to move while the guard wrestled with his key ring, all she could do was lay there as the key crashed into the lock and the door creaked open.

  “Get inside now, or I’ll shock you again! I don’t want you two talking to each other either, do you hear me? We’ll rip you out of here so fast you’ll wish you were dead.” The guard slammed the door shut. “Now, do what you're meant to and get it done quickly. Boss says this is your last chance. If you don’t perform this time, you’re fucking dead.” She recognized that gravelly voice, Gary. The thought of him made her stomach turn.

  The sounds of chains inside the cell made her panic more. Holy hell they’re in here with me. She was unable to move. Is it a prisoner? Had they just put a damn murderer in there with her? This is fantastic, a great fucking day. She heard the guard lock the door and more chains sounded as they took another prisoner around to the cage where the still lifeless body laid. That cell door locked, and she finally heard the guards head back to the double doors.