King of Beasts

Chapter 6

After she tossed and turned for an hour, Charlotte always settled on her right side.  He wasn’t sure if it was because of her casted arm, but he thought it was perfect.  He slept on his right side too, after all, and she was the perfect size to press right into his chest.

Charlotte was beautiful.  Not like the beasts, but maybe that’s why Gabe thought she was spectacular.  Eyes too wide for her face, hair too wild for her head, a mouth too dirty for someone so perfect.  The urge to touch her, to have any sort of contact with this beautiful human was overpowering sometimes, so much that he’d wait the entire day for her to close her eyes and drift away so he can grab onto her hand.  In her sleep, Charlotte never fought him, and it was blissful peace for him.  He’s get scarce amount of sleep just for a few more hours of waking attention to his beautiful, beautiful girl.

Primal urges to protect, to possess, would overwhelm the king of beasts sometimes.  She seemed so . . . fragile.  Like if he looked at her for too long she’d break.  He’d found her crumbled and broken after all, and that seemed to be the way of humans.  Always breaking, always falling apart. 

His Charlotte, though, she was something special.  Something too special.  Spoken in hushed whispers outside of her door the healer would express her age old worries of the girl who’d come back to life.  She was dead, the healer explained, dead for more than five minutes.  Brain activity should be minimal if alive at all.  He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to acknowledge that Charlotte had almost left him after he had just found her but it was a phenomenon, one that made her interesting.

He sat in the dark now, chair pulled up to her bedside, fingers wrapped around her hand.

Charlotte had nightmares.  Sometimes she’d tremble in her sleep and he’d watch, wondering if he should leave, if maybe his presence caused her to hurt, and that though hurt him too.  He’d never want to leave Charlotte, never wanted to look anywhere but at her, never wanted to feel anything other than the touch of her skin.

But eventually, after she’d toss and turn and tremble and then settle on her right side, he would succumb to the primitive urge to hold her and he’d grab her hand.  Her tiny, fragile fingers would grip his with ferocity that he was finding he absolutely admired in his tiny little mate.  Her trembling would cease, her cries would quiet, and his beautiful, beautiful girl would fall into a deep sleep clutching onto his hand like she’ drown without it.

And for the first time in two hundred years, he hated the roaming of the beasts.  He hated himself.  He hated—god, he didn’t even know what he hated.  He just hated the fact that Charlotte had been here for four days, one of which she was dead for, another of which she had spent ceaseless hours cursing at him, and another she’d escaped out a window to watch the sunrise.   He just hated that he’d found her, and she wanted to run.  He hated that he had to wait for her to settle on her right side before he could touch what he’s been dreaming of holding for two hundred years.

The other humans had lasted a week before the pull to the beast overwhelmed them and they’d succumb.  And they were happy.  Why couldn’t Charlotte understand she’d be happy?  That Gabe would do anything he was capable of doing to give her what she wanted.  That he would worship her as though she were a goddess, created for him.  She was his beautiful, perfect salvation and she hated him.

No, worse, she feared him.

But in the dark hours of night, when she wasn’t fighting the urge to touch him, when she wasn’t cursing at him until it felt like his ears were bleeding, when she wasn’t doodling periodic elements on scratch paper to ignore him, she gave into Gabe.  She sighed when he touched her, a small puff of air out of her beautiful lips.  Her muscles would relax, she’d stop dreaming, and she’d hold him back.

So he waited, sitting in his chair, and his pack waited, and everyone waited, for their queen to come out and join them.  For Charlotte to grab onto Gabe’s hand when she was awake and sigh like she did when she was asleep. 

Because maybe then, and only then, the beast wouldn’t have to roam the streets any longer.