The Beast and Me
did you.”
    I shuddered, not of excitement, but nausea.
    I don’t know which one of them pushed me against the wall, trying to reenact the last time, reminding me that there could be an effing huge difference... the only thing I could think of was that White definitely was not there and the bars being closed. If they weren’t... would he come save me?
    The growl was so close yet so far away, made even me cringe, even though it definitely wasn’t addressing me.
    “Oh look, your monster is angry at us”, one of them said, rubbing his hand between my legs again, making me tense from shame and discomfort.
    “You are the monster”, I hissed through my teeth. “You’re going to regret this. I will tell...”
    “That’s enough”, White’s voice sounded through the speakers and my defiance crashed to the ground.
    This, all of this was to make him angry, my ‘monster’. No, he wasn’t, and the one thing I clung to as I heard the barred wall being removed was the fact that the guard had called him a ‘he’, not an ‘it’.
    Why that exactly stayed in my mind, I can’t tell. It distracted me from everything else.
    I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
    It sounded like a truck hitting a mountain next to me, right there, where the exit was. He smashed against it more than just once. Honestly, I think he tried to break it down. I cursed myself for not knowing his name.
    “Please”, I whispered hoarsely, since I didn’t know what else to do.
    There was no chance of moving away and if I had been able to, I still wouldn’t have been physically capable of stopping him. But knowing that he was so outraged because of how they had treated me made me feel so strangely safe that I somehow found the strength to focus and talk to him.
    “Please you are going to hurt yourself.”
    And he stopped. I could hear him breathe heavily.
    How I wished at that moment that I could do something to calm him down. I didn’t care that I couldn’t see him, but it drove me insane that I couldn’t touch him, only to comfort him, to calm him down, but there was nothing I could do.
    Almost nothing.
    “Come here”, I whispered and I told myself silently that I was insane.
    He was probably in the exact same state when he had hurt me so badly. Yet, I already had told him to come. So, I tried to go with it, leaning in his direction, as far as the chains and manacles let me, hoping that he somehow understood, because I had no idea what I was doing.
    The first thing I felt was his cheek against mine. And with that, my question had been answered: no fur, but skin, stubbly, but it was a face, even though somehow warped, but still a face.
    He moved closer and buried his face into my hair and I could feel his uneven breath on my neck.
    It made me feel so strange. I don’t know why I reacted to this like that. All of the sudden I wanted him closer, even closer, and I tried to move my face closer to his.
    “It’s okay”, I whispered, hoping that White couldn’t hear it. “I’m okay. I’m still...”
    I couldn’t believe what I had almost said, what I had thought in that moment. But the most unbelievable thing was that he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him. And... I didn’t imagine that.
    “Mine”, he said “mine.”
    He had spoken. It had sounded like a raspy, throaty hum, still definitely like that word.
    I still feel goose bumps, it still makes me shudder, and feel warm in places I shouldn’t. I should be terrified about this. That little, small, tiny word, that means so much.
    He thinks I’m his. Why? How can he? And still... still it gives me such a strange, fuzzy feeling...
    “Back off”, White’s voice sounded through the speakers again and before I knew what I was doing I said “no”.
    It was nothing but a mere whisper and I don’t know if White actually heard it, but he – my Beast – definitely did. I could sense it. In the way he hesitated moving away, how his hands brushed off my body and how his

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