The Beast (7 page)

I swallow with difficulty. Bastien’s eyes
note the action, stare at my neck. He releases my hair and moves
the curls over my shoulder to bare more of it. I know he can see my
pulse fluttering because I can
feel
it. I tense as he leans
closer still, breathing in deep close to my skin. I grow light
headed, my knees become weak. I’ve read about this in the books. It
is the part where the woman grasps onto the man and he puts his
arms about her, taking her weight when she can no longer stand on
her own.

I know Bastien will do no such thing. I must
rely on the door to steady me.

“You’ve let him do this – get close enough to
have your scent; taste your skin. I felt you tremble with fear of
him. You don’t smell of fear now, Lyssette.”

Do not ask!
“What do you smell, then?”
The words tumble out on a whisper of breath rushing past my lips. I
cannot keep my breathing even any longer. I can smell
him
now. He carries the scent of the forest on his skin, earth and
grass, and something I cannot even describe. I want to breathe him
in as he did me.

He inhales again and his lips brush over my
shoulder. “Heat,” he says. “Prim and proper, pretty Mademoiselle
Lyssette. A siren’s lure. You could burn me alive if I’m not
careful.”

I could burn
myself
. I already feel
heat pooling in my belly. My blood runs like liquid fire through my
veins. The silk gown is too thick, too heavy. It is suffocating me.
I want to rip it off so that I might take a full breath.

I can feel him smile against my neck. “You’ve
impressed me. The last woman who read my books to me begged me to
take her before she was even finished. I took great pleasure in
reading every last word to her until she came apart in my
arms.”

My body tenses at his words, even as my legs
become weaker still. “I… I can’t breathe,” I gasp out.

He turns me around so fast my head spins. I
press my cheek against the cool door, seeking relief from this
infernal heat but it will not abate. Bastien tugs my hair away from
my nape and his teeth nip me lightly as he sets to work on the
buttons of my gown. With each one that comes loose I can breathe a
little easier. The garment sags on my arms. If I just lower them it
will slide to the floor to pool at my feet.

“I could make you beg so easily,” he whispers
at my ear. “But I’d rather hear you scream.”

I cry out as he snatches me up into his arms.
With two steps we are by the bed and he tosses me onto it. The
covers billow around me and before they settle, Bastien is upon me,
pinning me down. “Don’t,” I say but the command carries no weight
at all.

It amuses him and he grins. It is the first
time I’ve seen him smile without the slightest hint of malice in
his eyes. Now they gleam with challenge. He will follow through on
his words. “Let me up,” I demand.

“No,” he replies. “Tonight is for me.”

Alarm flashes like lightning down my spine.
It is foolish to imagine Bastien to be anything but cruel. I
struggle to free myself but he holds my wrists against the mattress
and covers my mouth with his.

His kiss shocks the fight out of me. His lips
pry mine open and his tongue thrusts against mine. I feel
possessed, at his mercy – and yet he is not hurting me. Bastien
silently commands my submission but that is not all he wants. “Kiss
me back, damn you,” he demands.

Surely I have imagined that. Surely that is
not despair I see in his eyes. With a curse, he kisses me again. It
steals my breath away. I feel his body tremble and this time I am
sure it is not a ruse. I touch my tongue to his timidly and he
stills. I blush. Did I do it wrong?

He gentles and the slide of his tongue
against mine becomes more sensuous than demanding. I can meet him
this way and I do. Bastien settles more fully over me and I gasp at
the feel of his hard member against my hip.

“Now you fear,” he whispers against my
throbbing lips. He releases one of my hands to caress my cheek so
gently. “Don’t.”

As though the gesture angered him, he snarls
and shoves away from me. I am left baffled, wondering if he is
going to leave me like this. Then my skirt lifts up and billows
almost over my head. “What--”

“Don’t move if you know what’s good for
you.”

My drawers tear up the middle and his arms
come around my thighs. He sets upon me with a growl, kissing my
body the way he kissed my mouth. My body shoots through with
tension and I arch off the mattress. With one hand he presses me
back down. He is ravenous and shows no mercy. I am caught against
his mouth as surely as if I were tied to him with the chains in his
chambers and the things he does with his mouth, his tongue – his
teeth
- make me slap a hand over my mouth to muffle my
cries.

Whatever he is doing, he does it more and I
grit my teeth and hold my breath to keep quiet. I will not give him
the satisfaction of hearing me scream. But how much longer can I
hold out? He spears me with his tongue and my sex clenches around
it. He groans and presses his mouth harder against me.

Pleasure explodes in my core, up my spine,
and I cannot hold back my cry. My body is boneless and I feel his
eyes on me, missing nothing as his clever hand strokes me and the
pleasant waves of delight continue to rock me.

I smile, even as drowsiness weighs my eyelids
down. I’ve never felt so content before. I could be grateful for
Bastien for showing me this. He said this night was for him but he
gave me so much pleasure I cannot believe his intent was purely
selfish.

Then, with a single sentence from those
sinful lips of his, I fall headlong back into my sordid reality.
“If only your precious Beast could see you now.”

I refuse to watch Bastien walk away and leave
me to my own devices. I do, however, hurry to put myself to rights,
thinking he will continue his gloating in the company of my father
and Amalia. Instead, I am told the lord has retired for the
evening.

I dine with my family, determined to put the
entire sordid episode behind me. I sip my wine, eat my food, and
smile at the appropriate times. They are all empty gestures. I
taste nothing, hear nothing. For all my strength of will I cannot
make myself forget.

It is a torture I inflict on myself
willingly, for I cannot myself understand how the evening took such
a wretched turn. I knew Bastien’s demands on me would eventually
escalate. I suppose I simply did not expect them to do it quite so
quickly. Yet despite the cruelty with which I have been abandoned,
I have not been harmed. That is perhaps the most puzzling thing
about it.

Bastien awakened me to something I never knew
existed. He has taught me in one night the incredible pleasure to
be found in a lover’s arms; and the disquieting upheaval. It is a
lesson I will never forget, and one I never intend to repeat. Yet I
cannot say I regret it.

I do not notice the passage of time. Before I
know it, dinner is finished and I excuse myself to retire to my
room. The bed is still in shambles, evidence of my indiscretion. I
could move to a different one but that would not erase the past.
Strange, I can almost sense Bastien in the room even now. Of
course, he would not return.

I lie down to sleep but I am not tired, my
mind in too much turmoil to surrender to sleep.

Of all the things Bastien could have done he
chose one meant to give pleasure without taking in return. He made
me feel as though the world were coming apart at the seams and he
was the only one holding it – and me – together. And I know he did
not reach his own ends; the evidence of his passion was still there
when he left me. Why would he do such a thing? Was his intent
merely to humiliate me; show me that I am not so innocent?

I’ve no reason not to think the worst of him
but I cannot believe that was his plan.

Perhaps…

Like the Beast, the man is a confusing
contradiction. Now that I am alone, I can think and reason, and I
can see what I have been too frightened to see even a month ago.
Bastien can be cruel and cold. His words are vicious daggers meant
to score the most painful of wounds and he is not at all hesitant
to use them. Yet he has not harmed me or my family, though he’s had
plenty of opportunities.

He keeps reminding me we are nothing but his
prisoners but he has treated us with the respect a man would show
his honored guests. It was the Beast who gave us lodging, provided
us with magnificent feasts, and anything our hearts desired. But
three nights out of the month, the man honored those concessions
and afforded us the privacy I asked of him. An unfeeling man would
not have bothered to bargain. A cruel man would not have kept his
word.

It occurs to me that I am the only one ever
allowed to visit him on full moon nights. Not even the servants
will dare enter his lair unless absolutely necessary. I can only
imagine how he used to spend those nights before me. Chained?
Utterly alone? Is it any wonder then that he acts like a caged
animal?

I sit up in my cold bed as the gravity of
this revelation sinks in. A caged animal – that is precisely what
he reminds me of. A beast captured in the wild and locked away
inside four walls, tethered by heavy chains, never to see the light
of day. Bastien is so used to his solitary prison, being feared and
hated, that even when a soul approaches in kindness he does not
know how to react, except in anger. He takes his vengeance out on
anyone who comes near, whether they deserve his wrath or not.

I understand now. Sympathy for this wretched
creature melts away some of my bitterness. I have seen glimpses of
a different side of him tonight. The look in his eyes, his words,
at times so desperate; the way he caressed my cheek so carefully as
if, at least for a moment, I was precious to him. He was not gentle
but perhaps very briefly kind in his own way. I could almost
believe there is a part of Bastien which longs to be good again; to
break out of his prison and rejoin the world.

Yet even if that were true the other part of
him, the near crazed, tortured and abandoned part holds him back.
The part which madly fights for its freedom, willing to tear the
world and itself apart just to see the sun rise bright and full
again must regard any hint of kindness as a weakness.

How can I ever persuade him otherwise? It is
a task almost too great for one woman to undertake. Not for the
first time, hope mingles with helpless despair. I am almost certain
there is good in Bastien. Coaxing it out of him, however, will not
be easy. And if I am wrong, I might pay for my folly with my
soul.

The day breaks in gloom and fog. Summer is
turning to autumn and the country air is chill but a lovely fire
burns in the library hearth, banishing the cold. The smell of books
comforts me. No matter what life brings I can always seek sanctuary
within their pages.

In no mood to converse with my family, I hide
in a concealed nook with a soft lap blanket and a book of fairy
tales. For a while, at least, I want to pretend that every obstacle
can be overcome and deserving people truly can live happily ever
after. Love can victor over all – if it is strong and true
enough.

“Whatever Bastien gives, it is only so he can
take again.” The Beast’s glowing eyes look tired in the darkness of
his hidden passageway. The cold tunnel stands open now, a grave
breeze howling through it and stealing the warmth out of my bones.
“I have warned you about him before.”

There is gruff reproach in his growling voice
which far overshadows the regret in his eyes. Though I have not
fought Bastien’s attentions last night, I did not invite them yet
my Beast blames me for what happened? It angers me. “Yes, you
have,” I tell him. “You know what he is capable of, so why did you
choose to come to my rooms yesterday mere moments before
sunset?”

He must know everything that happened after
his transformation otherwise he would not have said this. It shames
me that his regard of me has lowered, but I will not bear the brunt
of his indignation. I am not the only one at fault. He knows this,
too, and hangs his leonine head. “I shouldn’t have,” he says. His
paw shifts as though to come closer but he stays himself, remaining
little more than a great shadow in his dark tunnel. “I just needed
to see you before…. I wanted to tell you good night.”

Something Bastien did not do when he left me
stunned in bed, with my clothes in shambles as much as my mind.

“What he did—”

“You did,” I say.

He lifts his gaze to mine in surprise.

After all these months, all the patience I
have shown him, all the roaring and threats I have endured, and the
fate of everyone inside these walls weighing me down day after day,
I cannot stand it any longer. It is too hard to try for so long and
have so little to show for it. I am failing and I do not know how
much longer I can keep fighting this losing war. It is exhausting
and it infuriates me that after all that it somehow became my fault
that Bastien took advantage of my moment of weakness.

“Both of you tell me you are not one and the
same, and yet you remember everything. You know each other’s minds.
You know what the other is planning and you let it happen.” The
words come in a rush and with them a terrible realization. “You
let
it happen.” Angry tears sting my eyes. I’ve given
everything to this being; left myself at his mercy time and again.
I’ve borne the Beast’s torments, as I’ve shouldered Bastien’s,
hoping that my pleasance would better them in return.

And for all his now gentle words, I find that
the fearsome, powerful Beast is a coward.

“It is all an excuse,” I say, willing him to
tell me otherwise; praying he can somehow explain himself. “Bastien
is only as cruel as
you
allow him to be every time you
choose to look the other way. You don’t
want
to stop him…
because it would mean admitting that he is part of you.”