~*~Chapter Four~*~
She awakened to tiny pin pricks on her back. She lay on straw, barely covered by a blanket. "Wh- what happened?" she called out.
Then she remembered. She had been stripped naked by that awful Peter Manning and forced inside a cage. She had been given to a beast.
She sat up in fright as a whimper escaped her lips. Where was he? Where was the deadly animal who was supposed to breed with her?
When she moved, he let out a growl. He stood between her and the door of the wooden enclosure, so there was no escape. Would he hurt her? He looked like a ferocious beast with his unruly, unkept hair and beard. His body was covered with dirt and his clothing hung in rags off his muscular body. She stared at him in horror. Would he rape her? When she tried to scramble out of the make-shift bed made of straw, he pounced on her.
"Wh- what are you going to do to me?" she asked in fear as he pressed his large body over hers.
Very gently, he caressed the tousled curls back from her face. He looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and tenderness. He was staring at the wound upon her forehead and the bruise his uncle had left on her cheek. He grunted as he gently caressed her wounds.
"Wh- what are you doing?" she asked him softly. His touch soothed her. She could get lost in his eyes. She wondered what he looked like under all that hair and all of the dirt.
Suddenly he moved back a fraction, pulling the blanket away in the process. She gasped in embarrassment, trying to hide her nudity with her trembling hands. He pulled her hands away and raised them over her head. She could feel his gaze upon her body as he drank in her nakedness. He looked like he wanted to eat her.
"Please don't hurt me. Please..."
Her soft little whimpers wounded his heart. He slowly let her hands free as he spoke to her in guttural growls and grunts. She had no clue what he was trying to tell her. "Can you speak?" she asked him gently. "My... my name is Marty. Can you say my name?"
"Marty," she continued to coax.
"Mmmm," he said in a growl.
"What is your name?"
He opened his mouth but no words came out. He looked horribly frightened. Suddenly he clamped his lips together and gave her an angry scowl. "What's wrong?" she whispered.
He glanced toward the house that contained his uncle and everything wicked he had ever known. He reached for her hand and placed it on his chest. She could feel his heart pounding strongly in his chest. It soothed her and all of her scars.
She wasn't afraid of him... not in that moment.
"You're not really a beast at all..."