Loving the Beast (Beauty)
Skye Warren
LOVING THE BEAST
The sexy journey began in Beauty Touched the Beast and continued in the Beauty series. Now read the breathtaking conclusion in this epilogue novella from New York Times bestselling author Skye Warren…
Since their forbidden beginning, Erin and Blake’s relationship has been marked by deep sensuality and intense emotion. Each challenge only makes them stronger, and Blake is ready to take his new fiance to meet his family. And to meet hers.
Home holds secrets for them both. A dark legacy threatens everything they’ve worked to build. When old debt comes between them, both Blake and Erin must fight to protect each other—and their love.
Thank you for reading the final book in the Beauty series, Loving the Beast: An Epilogue Novella! You can join my Facebook group for fans to discuss the series here: Skye Warren’s Dark Room. And you can sign up for my newsletter to find out about new releases at skyewarren.com/newsletter.
Enjoy the story…
Chapter One
IT SOUNDED LIKE thunder and felt like an earthquake, vibrating right down to his bones. But the cause wasn’t anything as natural as a storm, not with the smell of burnt air and fuel left behind. Two F-22 Raptors had swooped low to the ground, right overhead, their presence just a blur in his retina. He squinted through the leaves, waiting. Even the trees seemed to shudder, holding their breath. The blast came two miles to the south, on the other side of the low mountain range.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Ricardo’s voice was strained, high-pitched. He had his hand on his helmet as if that would somehow keep it on, keep him safe.
Blake knew they were fucked, helmets or not. “We gotta get to the checkpoint.”
But he wasn’t about to tell his teammate the truth. It wouldn’t help to panic. It wouldn’t help to know they’d die anyway. The military had decided they were expendable. In that moment they were just as much the enemy as the terrorists hiding in a damn cave. Like the civilians here, the women and the children and the hard working men, they were fucking collateral.
“We’ll never make it,” Ricardo said, panting.
No, they wouldn’t. “We get to the checkpoint and we get out. We stick to the damn plan.”
His teammate nodded—too fast, too frantic. “Okay. I can do that.”
“I know you can,” Blake said, low and fierce. Even young and green, Ricardo toed the line. Their entire team was a fucking powerhouse—or they had been until they’d been picked off one by one by snipers on the ridge.
The ridge should have been cleared and the birds should have waited until they were clear to strike, but none of that mattered now.
Ricardo’s face twisted in grief, a thin wet track through the thick layer of dirt on his cheek. “I won’t let them die for nothing.”
Blake took the man by the back of the neck and pulled him in. Forehead to forehead. They were close. Teammates. Brothers. The last two fucking men on this godforsaken patch of earth. His chest seized tight. “No matter what, they didn’t die for nothing,” he said. “No matter what, it meant something. Now we’re going to get to the goddamn checkpoint like they’d want us to do.”
“Yeah.” Ricardo’s voice got stronger. “We’re going to get out.”
Blake wasn’t so sure about that, but there was no better plan. No plan at all except the one that had already gone to hell.
They fought through thousands of feet of dense jungle, wary of an ambush at any moment. They ran over exposed flat rock, expecting a bullet from an unseen shooter to take them out all the way.
And somehow—an actual fucking miracle—they made it to the checkpoint.
“Empty,” Ricardo breathed.
Empty. And the hollow feeling in Blake’s stomach couldn’t be surprise, could it? He’d known this would happen. He’d known as soon as the first man had fallen, that something had gone horribly wrong. They wouldn’t make it out of this.
He wasn’t even sorry for himself. He had the strangest thought that his fiancée wouldn’t mind if he never came back. His parents would milk the tragic hero story until they’d made it to the fucking White House. And his work? It was just a bunch of smoke and mirrors—the political stage, the historical backdrop. Intellectual sleight of hand to cover up this, the living and breathing, the fighting and dying of men that amounted to nothing.
No, he wasn’t sorry for himself but he was seriously pissed about Ricardo. Ricardo had a brother. They’d lost so many men today but right now all he could think about was Ricardo’s little brother. He idolized him—and wasn’t Ricardo too young to be an idol? To be a fucking martyr?
He wasn’t much younger than Blake, not in years, but a few tours made all the difference.
Then he heard it—the whoop of a chopper, so faint he might have imagined it.
“What the fuck,” he breathed.