Beasts Read online

  Beasts

  Celia Crown

  Copyright © 2019 by Celia Crown

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are from the author's imagination or folklore, legends, and general myths.

  The book or any portion of the book may not be reproduced or used under any circumstances, except with the written permission from the author. Public names, movies, televisions, and locales, or any references are used for atmospheric purposes. Any similarities and resemblances to alive or dead people, events, brands, and locales are all complete coincidences.

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  Cover Editor: Designrans

  Editor: Syeda Erum Fatima Naqvi

  Contents

  Copyright

  Beasts

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  Author’s other works!

  Follow the Author

  Beasts

  by Celia Crown

  Holly Price is a simple girl with simple needs: iced-coffee and more iced-coffee.

  Things get complicated with a killer on the loose in the sunny state of Florida where the heatwaves are angrier than Satan’s temper and a type of humidity that melts the strongest foundation.

  An attack leads a lawyer with deep ties and an assassin with an arsenal of skills to her rescue.

  Two men coming into her life at the perfect timing is questionable, and it’s more puzzling as to why these two know everything about her; a hold over her that should scare her with how possessively protective they are, but their obsession keeps her safe.

  She sees them; a devil masked as an angel and an angel disguised as a devil. It’s the beginning of an off-balanced rivalry to a strange friendship that runs deeper than family—it’s a bond that neither of them expects.

  She sees the changes and falls in love.

  Chapter One

  Holly

  “I need an Americano venti with two pumps of toffee nut syrup, half a spoonful of chocolate powder, two shots of espresso, three pumps of white bean vanilla cream, and one and a half cubes of ice.”

  I blink at the screen of my phone when I hear the lady in front of me order the most bizarre drink I have ever heard. I’m still trying to figure out if I’m hearing things from the lack of sleep last night.

  It sounds disgusting, and when I look up, the cashier doesn’t blink an eye when she taps the lady’s order into the machine, and it prints out a sticky note that the cashier puts on the venti cup.

  My stomach gurgles at the amount of sugar in her order. I suddenly lose all the appetite I have for that blueberry scone at the display bar.

  I turn my attention to the lady in front of me. Her attire stereotypically fits the influencer look on social media. She has perfectly curled hair, tube tops with frilly sides, short leather skirt, and strappy high heels. Not to mention her entitled aura that surrounds her, the way she shows off her expensive handbag and brand-named sunglasses are sure ways to get people to notice that she has money.

  I’m not sure why she would go to a busy coffee shop when she probably has her own coffee machine at her thousand-dollar home. Maybe it broke, or her personal barista can’t work today, and she has to have her daily dose of caffeine, so she steps into a place for commoners like me and everyone else in the shop.

  Rich people and their first-world problems.

  Sometimes I wish I was rich so I don’t have to pay the monthly rent that keeps me in student loan debts, but then I probably wouldn’t learn so much about the struggles of everyday life.

  The lady pulls out a golden credit card and aggressively stabs it into the card machine with her long pink acrylic nails; that’s a dangerous weapon that I don’t want near my kidneys.

  A thought of her scarping those nails on the black chalkboard makes me cringe as shivers run down my spine but thank goodness that she’s only tapping her nails on the counter while she waits for the approval from the machine.

  It beeps in less than a second, and she yanks her card out, but not before flashing it into the lights to make sure that everyone sees the status she holds while pretending to examine the card for scratches.

  I’d be impressed if it was made of real gold, but that wouldn’t be practical, and I don’t think banks have the resources to make every single card in rich people’s wallets in gold.

  The lady struts off to the side where everyone else is waiting for their orders. My eyes follow her. She is a very beautiful woman, and it’s easy to be taken by her beauty when she willingly flaunts it.

  I silently applaud her for her confidence in showing so much skin, everything on her screams money and if I were to throw in a guess, I’d say she has a very nice car outside that has contrasting colors from interior to exteriors.

  It only makes sense because that’s what literally every picture on social media shows, and it’s most likely white, red, yellow, or sleek black. It’s rare to see neon colors, but I wouldn’t put it past her because her tanned skin makes her clothes look neon.

  “Small iced coffee with a dash of hazelnut cream?” the cashier greets me with a question.

  It takes me a moment to understand what she just said; my regular order is not the thing I thought she would remember. Her job is to memorize drinks like a bartender, so I guess that works too.

  Though I do come here often before my eight in the morning class, I have no idea what possessed me to enroll in a class this early and torture myself through a three-hour lecture.

  “Oh, um, yes, please!” I shoot her a smile while digging out my wallet from my backpack filled with notebooks and pencils that I always throw in instead of putting neatly in the front pocket.

  “It’s already paid for,” she shakes her head and prints out the order to put on my cup.

  I pause with my arm bent at an awkward position, “What? Is this an April Fool’s joke where you make me not pay, and I’m going to have IRS agents knocking on my door?”

  She laughs and writes down my name on the cup, “Oh, no! It’s May, and you’re not going to have the police at your door. Some good Samaritan said it’s a gift.”

  I gasp, flinging the hand in my backpack to my lips. “Was she tall with paperclips in her hair? I swear I didn’t mean to step on her cat’s tail, I apologized to her and the cat!”

  My eyes narrow incredulously over the blueberry scone that the cashier is picking up, “Is it poisoned?”

  “No, no, none of that,” she holds out the scone to me, “They were nice.”

  “Okay…” I trail off, the scone’s scent won me over, and my skepticism flies away.

  Free food is always welcomed in my tummy; having something in my stomach would make the three-hour lecture go by faster without having me thinking of food.

  My professor has a strict rule about eating and drinking in his lecture hall of two hundred students.

  That rule wasn’t there in the fall semester because he just implemented it the third day of class; someone had a burrito during class, and they must have inhaled a piece of lettuce or something because all I saw at the opposite side of the room was lettuce, beans, and rice propelling out of his mouth and landing on the people in front of him.

  I was not a pretty sight, and I felt bad for the people who got hit by his food, but it was hilarious seeing how it went down. The student was dubbed the burrito man, and everyone steered clear of him for a week before he told everyone that he didn’t have food or drinks on him.

  I think people were traumatized and I don’t blame them. I would be traumatized too if I was showered with half-chewed food raining over my hair and sticking to the back of my neck.

  I can’t even stand my own hair on my skin, and I have felt wet food on my hands when I’m washing the dishes.

  “Here you go!” the barista hands me my drink and the iciness is perfect for the hot day.

  Living in Florida, I know it is not an exaggeration when people say that I can die of a heat stroke. I have a constant supply of sunscreen at my apartment; the UV-rays aren’t a joke when they sizzle my skin.

  No one dares to walk around without some protection, but I heard that Arizona has had days where people’s sandals were melting on the asphalt.

  “Thank you,” I said with a smile while nodding to pick up a straw.

  Then I rummage through my backpack and find a pen with a pad of sticky notes. I write a thank you message on a blue note and hands it to the cashier when I walk over.

  “Can you give that to them?”

  She understands with a wink and pockets it in front of her apron.

  There is a commotion in the shop as a couple verbally screams at each other. I didn’t hear it before but now they’re yelling at the top of their lungs. I pick up some content and it’s about a third woman in the relationship and the girl is accusing him of cheating while the guy is trying to calm her down by taking her hand.

  She slaps his hand away with her vicious acrylic nails, and apparently everyone has those nowadays.

  They would be so impractical and get in my way, I can never have them because my professors have a thing for speed. I have to type so fast while ignoring the red, squiggly lines on my laptop. Those nails would be in the way and might accidentally tap on other keys when the pad of my fingers push what I want.

  “Fuck
you!” the woman screams, “I saw the texts, don’t fucking lie to my face!”

  The man sighs, annoyed and a bit on edge with his patience, “You’re making a scene. Stop embarrassing me.”

  Oh, what a poor choice of words. I shoot a prayer to his manhood when the seething anger in her eyes is about to ignite the entire shop into a blazing hellfire. Girls tend to go towards the hair, face, and places where they know will hurt, such as boobs and crotch area.

  If she doesn’t try to gouge his eyes out or slap him to Pluto, then she’s about to kick him in his precious family jewel.

  The man is smart, or he’s had experience because he jumps back when her leg swings up between his thighs and just misses him by centimeters with her sharp stiletto heel.

  I need to get out of here before it turns into a brawl, and I have to get to class anyway. As much as I would like to stay and watch the ending, the class is more important to me when I have to pay for my own tuition.

  “Don’t fucking move!” she bellows and bends her acrylic nails down ineptly to her palms so they don’t break, but she wants to hit him with her fists too.

  “I’m going to rip your balls with my bare hands and shove them down so far down your throat that they’ll come out of your ass!”

  The crazy alarms in my head signal my exit. People are slowly going out with their drinks and looking back to keep watching the show. I do look back too and see what’s happening and I catch the moment she takes someone’s scorching hot coffee and throws it at him.

  He bends his knees and ducks, but he shouts profanities when the coffee splashes off the wall and onto his back.

  I forgot he is shirtless because Florida is hotter than Satan’s breath; everyone would walk around with no clothes if they can. Public indecency tickets would be through the roof, and I’m sure the police department already has enough of them filed away in their system.

  It’s a breath of humid and moist air as I walk out. There is not a lot of people around because most are in their cars driving to work or walking down streets to get to their destination. It’s also seven thirty in the morning and no one in their right mind would be up this early if it wasn’t for pressing matters that they can’t skip.

  I take a sip of my cold coffee and sigh. It’s not too hot just yet. I don’t know how customers can order piping hot drinks during the summer. They have to have a strong tolerance to hotness inside and outside of their body.

  I don’t like my coffee hot because I’m always in a rush to get caffeinated before class, and since my first lecture is the one with a strict rule for food and drinks, I’m gulping down my drink as if the professor is personally coming to snatch it out of my hands.

  The sound of clicking heels snaps on the floor behind me, but before I can turn around, my shoulder gets knocked, and I’m falling on the ground with my drink splashing on the concrete floor.

  It would have been fine if it’s just the floor, but there is a bench right next to me and my hip collided with the edge of it. Pain burst through my lower body, flares of throbbing pain spread as I hold my arm on the bench to stop myself from planting my face onto the floor.

  The woman that was arguing with her boyfriend doesn’t look back as she stomps off with her head held high. I could feel her anger affecting the pain on my hipbone as the boyfriend runs after her.

  Well, a little help or an apology would be nice, but that would be asking too much from people who aren’t thinking right at the moment.

  I mentally shoot an apology towards the nice stranger that got me a cup of coffee.

  A strong hand clasps around my arm and pulls me up slowly. My weight means nothing when whoever is helping me up has biceps bigger than my face. I look up from a chest that makes his shirt look like a second skin to his face, which has a strong jawline, stoic eyes, and a heart-pounding sexiness that reeks of danger.

  “Thank you,” I stammer out, suddenly breathless and absolutely embarrassed.

  “Are you alright, sweetheart?” another voice, deep and velvety, enters my ears.

  I look over to my other side to face a wide chest in a crisp black suit, and I become more than breathless. Not a single breath goes near my burning lungs, but who needs air when there is a man utterly dashing in looks and smile.

  The man who helped me up had a rugged and untamed look with black hair and black eyes to suit his aura, but this man is different; he’s got blond hair and bright blue eyes to match his charming presence.

  Both of them have something that makes me wonder if I’m seeing things; it’s as if a hidden mystery lays beneath their exterior façade. This gut feeling comes from experience with all the professors I have met. I should never judge a book by its cover because the nicest people can have rotten hearts while those who are perceived as the villains are often the ones who are most sacrificial to others.

  “Oh, um, yeah. I’m okay,” I laugh nervously, suppressing the pain in my hipbone with a twitchy smile.

  A squeeze on my arm and the smile on this stranger’s face has me spilling out the truth. It’s the urge to tell that scares me more than the intimidatingly handsome features they are gifted with.

  Who the heck can be this handsome?

  Life’s not fair. I want to look like that too.

  “Maybe not really,” my lips tremble anxiously as I feel more than these two men’s eyes on me.

  The coffee shop customers and pedestrians are giving us weird looks. It probably seems very bad when my coffee is on the ground with two tree-truck of men towering over me. Many might think that I’m being bullied into something or in the middle of a blackmail scenario gone wrong.

  The throbs of pain start to subside to let the ache settle deep in the bone. If bones can bruise, it would turn black from the force upon impact.

  “I’m Isaac, sweetheart,” the man with blond hair introduces himself as he hands me his cup of coffee.

  “Take this, I haven’t drunk it yet,” he curls my fingers around it; the drink is hot with a brown heat protector around it.

  It smells like black coffee, and I don’t have the heart to tell him that I can’t drink it all black. He did offer it to me out of the goodness of his heart.

  “I can’t take this—” I start pushing it back to him.

  He strokes my cheek with oddly gentle fingers, but the callousness makes me second think about the difference.

  “Please,” he says, and I’m speechless again.

  The silent man still holding my arm steers me to his side and drops the other hand down to my hipbone. I don’t have time to ask him what’s he doing as he pushes down on the bone. I yelp in pain and surprisingly didn’t squeeze the coffee cup.

  That would be another disaster I want to avoid.

  “Go to a hospital,” he grunts, low and rough as if he hadn’t used it in years.

  It doesn’t sound like a smoker, but it’s much deeper than a man gone through puberty. Something about these two’s voices rocks my heart like a storm in the middle of the ocean, and I want to stop my mind before it’s singing poetry about their appearances.

  I most likely won’t see them again.

  Sad, but it’s the truth. They’re just good people who came to see if I was okay and probably don’t want me to block the sidewalk with my limbs splayed out.

  Oh god, they saw me awkwardly holding myself up.

  “No, really, I’m fine,” I swallow thickly; having attention from both men is a hard thing to digest.

  I’m not sure how I should act; do I get on my knees and worship them since they are practically god-like or do I awkwardly wave goodbye and channel an Olympian runner to get away?

  “I’ll drive you,” the blond man, Isaac offers with another charming smile.

  “I can’t. I have a class, and I can’t miss it,” I said.

  He nods understandingly, “Then, I will drive you there.”

  The man who didn’t introduce himself clenches my arm to get my attention, “Get to the health clinic at your college, and I want you to put ice on it.”

  I jerk my head up and down, unable to argue with him as his black eyes hone in on me with unnecessary penetrative glares that almost choke me.

  He’s intense.