Beautiful Savage: A Bully Revenge Romance (The Boys of Sinners Bay Book 2) Read online

  BEAUTIFUL SAVAGE

  The Boys of Sinners Bay Book 2

  By

  Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  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

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  This book is dedicated to all the mountain men living alone in the woods. We know you’re hot AF under all that hair, so come and whisk us away to your cabin anytime so we can get tangled up in your man bush.

  Speaking of man bushes, if you love delving into dark places with your eyes closed, why not follow this link and come and join a tribe of people whose souls are as twisted as yours…

  Light.

  I cracked an eye open and dared to believe for one penetrating, all-consuming moment that this was really happening.

  I’d lived within these four walls for a thousand days of hell. Maybe two. Brick walls, metal and blood were more familiar to me than my own voice.

  I’d stopped speaking after a month in this cell. They beat and battered and burned me, so I stole away the single thing they wanted more than my screams, pushing it down, down, down deep into my belly. Silenced forever. My words, swallowed and locked away. I didn’t have an answer to their question, the one they’d asked an impossible amount of times.

  What is the code?

  What is the code??

  What is the code???

  I only had one honest answer to give, because I had no idea who I was, let alone whatever code it was they wanted. But they thought it was an act. They thought I was a liar when I gave them the only answer I had: I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know!!

  Even they couldn’t tear the truth out of me. So I’d stopped speaking altogether. I retreated into my own body like a snail coiling up in its shell. I reinforced my walls, built them high and made them impenetrable until I was so deeply buried that nothing which happened to my flesh could reach my soul. But now it might have been time to emerge at last.

  The slit of light ran vertically down my body, making me squint. And hope. God was I hoping. I rose to my feet, the too big shirt I wore hanging over the ripped leggings which I’d picked holes into. There was nothing else to do in the silence and the dark. And if I wasn’t doing something, then I started thinking. And when I started thinking, I started remembering. And I never wanted to do that. Because the only memories I had were of this room and the hell I’d endured here.

  Don’t let the demons haunt you in your mind as well as in the flesh.

  I walked silent and bold, wondering if this was really happening or if the gift of death had finally come to steal me away from here. But I hoped it wasn’t that. I’d dreamed of death, made friends with it, begged for it to take me countless times, but death always whispered in my ear, deliver me to them first. That was what I held onto. The image of the five of them bloody at my feet. I may have been small, delicate, but only on the outside. Inside, I was a raging inferno waiting to be unleashed. If only I were bigger, more powerful. If only I had a weapon strong enough to cleave them apart and make them bleed like I had bled, make them scream like I had screamed.

  I pressed my palm to the rough wood of the door, every rivet memorised. There were fingernail marks and dents where I’d kicked and thrashed. I’d tried to get out so many times I’d lost count, but eventually I’d given up. And now, in a twist of fate, Jax had left the door open.

  Jax: the big one with the greasy hair and lack of brain cells. The one who’d held my wrists while his brother punched me until bones shattered. The one who’d smiled while I’d screamed, the one who cheered on the others, but never had the gall to do anything more than hold me down.

  I pushed the door wide and the familiar creak that always preceded the start of pain or marked the end of it sounded in my ears like a klaxon.

  I stepped forward and my bare foot hit something soft. A breath fluttered past my lips and my heart thudded in time with it as I spotted Jax on the ground. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, swollen and blue and his eyes were bulging, his lungs labouring. His arm was twisted awkwardly where he’d fallen, his poorly-bandaged hand swollen and turning a nasty shade of purple. He’d turned up with the cut a few days ago and clearly hadn’t thought a trip to the hospital was worthwhile. Lucky for me.

  Sepsis. The word rang in my head from some past memory I couldn’t grasp. From a time before they’d taken me, before my memories had been stolen away, my identity, my humanity. I was no one to me, but someone to them. And I didn’t know who that someone was.

  Jax groaned, trying to sound out the name he always called me. Butterfly.

  But butterflies were fragile things with short lives and pretty wings. I’d survived unthinkable torture at the hands of him and the others. And he should have known better, because my heart could never be stopped by a single pin, no matter how sharp.

  My lips twisted into a cruel smile as I dropped down beside him, reaching into his pocket. His arm flailed, but he was half dead, unable to stop me from taking his keys. I hesitated for a long moment, crawling close enough so I was all he could see as I stared into his eyes.

  I wanted to speak my name so it was the last thing he could hear, but even if I had known what it was, my voice was buried so deep that I couldn’t find a way to dig it out anymore. So my face would have to do.

  One down, four to go, I mouthed instead and his widening eyes told me he’d understood.

  I turned and ran, adrenaline flooding my veins which had nothing to do with pain for once as I raced up the wooden stairs. Freezing air hit my cheeks as I climbed higher and higher, reaching a hatch above my head. My fingers brushed a lock and I chose a key at random in the bunch, pushing it into the lock.

  Click.

  My heart soared. Luck was with me. Freedom had finally drawn my lot.

  I’m not a butterfly, I’m a dragon with wings of iron and a heart of fire.

  I shoved the heavy doors open with a grunt of effort and the blinding light above made me wince. The world was white, a bleached landscape that stretched in every direction. Snowflakes kissed my cheeks and my breath fogged before me as I climbed out of my underground prison and threw the doors shut behind me.

  Fly. Fly away. Fly fast and hard and never stop.

  With my eyes half closed, I took off into the endless expanse, aiming for a line of trees ahead of me
as my pupils tried to adjust. My bare feet were frozen already, cold enough to ache.

  I ran until my lungs burned and ice drove deeper and deeper into my blood. My crimson hair was sticky and lank, clinging to my cheeks and fluttering across my eyes. The smell of blood still hung in it from the cut on my temple Farley had given me last night.

  I ran until the sun began to sink and heavier snow began to fall, wiping away my tracks.

  I said their names with every footfall, over and over in my head. Jax, Farley, Quentin, Orville, Duke.

  Farley: Jax’s brother. He was just as big as Jax, but was built of muscle instead of fat. He trained his body so that when his ring-clad knuckles cracked against my slender frame, it left a welt for days. When Farley was in a foul mood, my flesh would face his wrath.

  Quentin: the tall guy with the unruly blonde hair. He didn’t care for beating me, but he found other ways to hurt me instead. Electricity, water boarding, sounds that screeched like knives against my eardrums for hours whilst I was held upside down by ropes. He spoke almost as little as me, but when he did, he whispered directly in my ear and sent a shiver of terror down my spine with his twisted fantasies of how he was going to hurt me next.

  Orville: the one who tried to break the rules. He was skeletal with greying hair that he never seemed to wash. He wanted to touch me, bury himself in me and take away my final drops of dignity. Nothing lived behind his eyes except a demon pulling the strings. He always smelled like sweat and his voice was a purr that clawed under my skin. His hands had roamed more than once as he walked the line of what his boss deemed acceptable. He’d frightened me the most once until I realised that him staying his hand meant I was too important to defile. Though I had no idea why.

  Duke: the one who set the rules, who held the other four in check. He had a horseshoe moustache and was always puffing on a cigarette. But despite his rules, he was the real one to fear. He liked me afraid. Liked to scrape a knife across the wall as he approached then run it down my skin. He liked me bleeding and had been the only one who’d had me begging for mercy back when I used my voice. He was the one who’d buried my voice for good. The night he put out cigarettes on my skin between wrapping a plastic bag over my face. Just long enough for me to think I was going to die. My voice had clogged in my throat and I’d found freedom in taking it away from him at last. He’d had plenty of screams from me since that day, but no more words.

  My legs trembled beneath me as I started to slow, wading through the thick snow, my body so numb that I couldn’t feel anything anymore except the pain in my bones.

  My teeth chattered, causing an endless rattling in my skull. I hadn’t eaten for two days. My vision was swimming and shadows flitted around in the dark, making me swing my head left and right. I expected them to descend, the monsters who held me, owned me. How could I escape them when they were all I knew? The broken memories of my past were a muddled jigsaw I couldn’t piece together. Where would I go? Who would I run to?

  I’d wondered a thousand times whether there were people waiting for me out here, longing for me, missing me. Or maybe I’d always been a girl with nothing and no one to belong to.

  I found another inch of resilience in my soul and stretched it out, forcing myself to run once more.

  I will not die when I have four deaths left to deliver!

  An owl hooted somewhere above me in the trees and my heart lurched as I ran on, near-blind and entirely desperate. My dry tongue scraped the roof of my mouth as I gasped for water, my lungs heaving in ice-cold breaths and forcing them back out again. The cold was an enemy I wasn’t prepared to face. If I’d thought it through, maybe I could have pulled Jax’s coat from his body, but one more second in that place might have cost me my freedom. And I’d rather be battling the freezing wind and the biting ice than still be back there in that cell.

  My knees sank into the snow before I realised I’d fallen. I clung to the bark of a pine tree, trying to haul myself upright, just about managing to drag myself to sit against it.

  I was soaked through, my skin prickling with needles as the cold drove deeper. I shivered violently, dragging my knees to my chest and tilting my head to the sky. Clouds hung thickly above the trees and I swore on everything I was, I would live long enough to see the stars again and make a wish. Because I needed a little help if I was ever going to get revenge on the men who’d haunted me.

  Four more deaths is all I need. Then I’ll be someone. I’ll be the last person they ever see.

  “Tyson!”

  Where is that damn dog now?

  I swear I spent more time combing the woods for that mutt than chopping wood for the fire some days. He’d come back to the cabin on his own if I left him to his business, but no doubt he’d drag in some rotten old bone or roll in bear shit again if I allowed it. Not that he gave a fuck what I allowed most of the time, but I did try to rein in his more beastly qualities. Not least because he hated a bath and I wasn’t going to let him sleep in the cabin reeking of bear shit.

  “Tyson!” I called again, stalking up the snow-covered, rocky track through the trees.

  The whole world was turning white as the blizzard tightened its hold on the forest and I grunted in frustration as I hunted the hillside for any sign of the damn dog.

  My hands were growing numb and the memory of the fire I’d left blazing back in the cabin had me drawing to a halt. If the damn dog had gone walkabouts on his own in this weather then I wasn’t sure it was worth the effort to find him. He’d make his way back sharp enough once he realised the snow wasn’t letting up without me freezing my balls off in the attempt to find him.

  I cursed him beneath my breath and turned back to head for the cabin and that fire. I’d get some food cooking and no doubt he’d come running once he caught a sniff of it on the wind.

  I shouldered my rifle and started back down the hill, squinting through the snow storm to try and see the way on.

  I took several steps then paused as the sound of barking called me to a halt.

  I fell still, the oppressive silence of the snow-filled landscape the only thing I could hear for a moment before Tyson’s barks came again.

  I hesitated. Tyson may have been a half wild mutt, but he didn’t make a fuss over nothing. If he was barking, there was good reason for it. Maybe we had company. Though it didn’t seem likely the Cutters would be out in this weather and no one else ventured this far up the mountain and into the forest during winter. So maybe he’d found some other kind of trouble, pissed off a porcupine or made enemies out of a wolf pack…

  “Tyson!” I bellowed one last time. If I could hear him then he could damn well hear me too, but the only response I got was more distant barking.

  I gritted my teeth and turned off of the path as I took a guess at the direction his barks were coming from. There was an echo in this valley which played tricks on you if you didn’t pay enough attention, but I was used to the ways of this forest and I was fairly confident in my route. Living up here for a year had made me adept in a lot of things which I hadn’t been before. But these woods were devious and if you didn’t keep your wits about you, you could find yourself falling prey to all manner of dangers. From the wild animals to pitfalls and sudden drops in the terrain.

  There were old gold mines out here and the tunnels that had been carved into the earth by the men seeking their fortune were as likely to collapse beneath your feet as anything else if you passed too close to them. Not to mention the Cutters gang who occupied the north side of the mountain and the abandoned gold mines there for their cannabis crops. They’d built a community of savages who ruled their territory with an iron fist and held no laws to account. Not that I mixed it with them much. I’d come up here to escape from the world and the life which I thought I’d been destined to live.

  When it turns out your entire life was a lie, there isn’t much else you can do but turn your back on it and leave the past where it belongs. Perhaps one day I’d have to return to Sinners Bay and face the c
onsequences of everything that had happened before I left, but today wasn’t that day. And neither was tomorrow.

  For now at least, solitude was my friend and Tyson my only companion, and that was the way I wanted it. That dog might have been a half wild beast, but since I’d found the stray mutt caught in a hunter’s snare, he’d stuck by my side. And I had to admit that I was more than a little glad of his company. So if the mutt was barking with such urgency then the least I could do was take heed and see what had him so riled up.

  The wind blew mercilessly and I was half blinded as the blizzard raged. It was so intense that my footsteps were disappearing behind me almost as soon as I stepped out of them. If I didn’t know these trees so well, I’d be afraid about finding my way back to the cabin.

  I rounded a rocky cliff and Tyson’s barks grew louder as I squinted into the blizzard.

  “Where are you, boy?” I called, the wind tearing my voice away the moment it left my lips.

  A dark shape raced towards me through the snow and I tightened my grip on my rifle a moment before recognising Tyson’s black and tan coat. He was at least some part German Shepherd and I half wondered if the rest of him was wolf at times due to the size of the beast. Though he was as soft as a boiled egg once you got him on side, he was a mean bastard if he didn’t like the scent of you.

  “There you are, boy. What are you up to now?” I asked him as he shoved a cold, wet nose into my palm. “Come on back to the cabin.”

  I turned to head home and he growled at me, catching the edge of my coat and tugging hard enough to make me stop.

  That was some grade-A Lassie bullshit if ever I’d seen it. I just hoped he wasn’t about to take me to see some kid stuck down a well because I didn’t need the drama of that in my life right now.

  I frowned down at him and scrubbed a hand over the soft fur of his head as I gave in and turned the way he wanted me to go.

  Tyson yapped excitedly and bounded off through the snow. I followed him, carving a path through it as fast as I could to keep up.

  He raced between trees and rounded a huge oak where he started barking again.