Hunted: An Erotic Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (An Adult Fairy Tale Novel) (19 page)

Alena caught some of her breath, but she lost it as quickly as that.  The man in front of her was the most gorgeous and handsome specimen of masculinity she'd ever seen, with unruly dark hair and a playfully sinister gleam in his eyes.  He crooked his lips up, seeing her naked, and laughed.

It was Everett.  She recognized him immediately.  Human now, no longer beast-cursed, but none of that mattered.  He was hers, here, and in a bedroom for the both of them.  Her image of their reunion was so certain and sure before, but now she realized it wasn't.  This was how they should meet, here and now, and while he currently wore clothes and she wore none, they'd both be naked soon enough.

She would lay splayed across the bed as he grabbed her thighs and buried his face between her breasts, singing his praise of her with his lips and his mouth.  He'd torment and tease her, tempt her to the edge of pleasure and insanity, then lure her back just enough before doing it all over again.  And she'd offer him the rose, seduce him with its magic.  Together, one, they'd couple, fuck, rut and mate, make sweet, sensual love, all of it.  On the bed—his bed—right here and now, for all eternity.

Perhaps not exactly forever, but, oh, she wanted to.  If they could, if it was possible, she wanted to love him with all of her heart and soul and every single minuscule piece of her, ad infinitum; forevermore and another day on top of that.

"Miss," Everett said, bemused.  "Are you in need of attire?"

She shook her head and grinned, silly and nymphish.  "Everett, let's make love right here.  I want you so badly.  I haven't stopped thinking about you."

He blinked, then frowned and shook his head.  "Ah, you have me mistaken, sweetling.  My name is Dante."

What game was he playing with her?  She didn't like it, whatever it was.  Why would he lie to her about this?  Did he think she didn't recognize him now that he'd regained his humanity?  She stepped closer to him, tentative, sparing surreptitious glances towards the bed.

"Everett," she said, her voice a sultry whisper.  "Please?  I've missed you and I want you to make love to me.  Or, if you'd rather, we can be rough.  We can fuck if you'd like.  I don't even care.  I just want you inside of me."

Dante, or Everett, or whoever this was, stepped towards her and put his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm's length.  "I do apologize for whatever notions my brother's put in your head.  You seem like a nice young woman, disregarding your lack of clothes.  I can't in good faith accept your request, though.  I'm not Everett, and I don't wish to couple with you based on a lie."

"Why are you doing this?" Alena whined.  "Why can't we?"

"Do you want to know something?" he asked.

Yes, she did.  She wanted to know everything about Everett, no matter if he didn't want to be truthful with her right now or not.  She nodded fast.

"This is silly," he said.  "Perhaps I should let it go, really.  Who knows if this will last, though?  My brother's slept with you, I'm sure, and parts of the mansion are coming back to life.  I'm here, now, aren't I?  But will I be able to stay?"

She didn't know what he meant, but she listened with rapt attention.

"My brother is a nice man, but drawn towards whim and fancy.  He does as he likes half the time, and what he needs to do the other half.  Unfortunately what he likes to do is seduce sweet young maidens such as yourself, with no regard for their well-being.  I hope you understand.  It's not that he has no respect for you, but he never thinks about it."

"I don't understand," she said, shaking her head.  "Everett loves me."  He might not, she knew, but she wanted him to.  If she wanted it enough, would it become true?

"Does he?" the man in front of her asked.  "It's possible.  Perhaps he does.  I'm too afraid to go see him, myself.  I'm nothing, you know?  We're brothers, but he's the Master of the Manse and I'm nothing but his servant.  The eldest gets everything, and the younger nothing.  He's..."  Dante choked on the words.  "He's offered me girls like you before.  His leftovers, he said.  We're similar in looks and build, and in the dim light no one would notice, but I can't.  I couldn't then, and I can't now."

A silent, isolated tear dripped down Alena's cheek and she stared at this man, Dante, entirely unsure of everything all of a sudden.  She wanted and needed.  The rose had made her aroused beyond belief.  And yet, that wasn't everything, was it?  Was want and need and arousal the only way towards love, or was there more to it than that?  She didn't know.  She didn't know anything, she realized.

She didn't know if this was Dante or Everett, and she didn't know if she was truly in love.  It seemed foolish and sophomoric now that she thought about it.  They'd fucked outside and Everett had taken her virginity, then carried her away towards his guest home.  Not his real home, oh no.  That was where Danya stayed.  Danya got everything, really.  Their father preferred her older sister and let her tend his shop alone.  Alena merely got a pat on the head and was told to go out and do as she wished.  Why bother herself with the store?

She was old enough, though.  She was an adult and she could have adult responsibilities.  That's what she wanted.  She wanted to know maturity and be older.  Just a little bit, just enough, but she felt like she desperately needed it or else she didn't belong anywhere.  She was nothing, lesser, and that faint glimpse of tender affection that Everett offered her made her think that perhaps she was something more.

Perhaps not, though.  Perhaps she was merely a shadow, forever getting in the way, relegated to nothing, just like this man said he was.

"Are you really not Everett?" she asked him.  She needed him to say it again, needed him to tell her once more.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I'm not.  I truly am his younger brother.  I'm Dante."

She smiled and held out her hand for him to shake.  "I'm Alena."

He watched her, confusion flittering through his eyes.  Moving one hand from her shoulder, he took her offered hand in his and shook it.  "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Alena," he said.

"Can..."  She felt so silly and childish for this, but she said it anyways.  "Can you kiss the back of my hand?" she asked.  "As if I were a lady?  I know I'm... well, I have no clothes, and you're fully dressed, but can you pretend?"

He grinned, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.  "You're rather odd," he said.  "It's nice, though.  I like it."

"I'm a little tired.  I've been running.  Do you mind if we sit?  On the bed?  Shall we talk?  Do you like to talk?  I've never really talked much with a man before."

"Oh?" he asked.  "Really?  Yes, let's sit, shall we?  What do you mean you haven't talked with a man before?  That seems like something everyone does."

Yes, well, it probably was.  She knew others who did.  Unfortunately no men talked with her.  Or, they talked enough to coax her somewhere private, and then there was no more talking going on.  She liked it, or she used to.  It was fun taking them in her mouth and feeling wanted and needed, or stroking them in her hand and watching the way their faces scrunched up so delightfully.

They wanted her then, if only for a few minutes.  It made her feel special... if only for a few minutes.

None of them talked with her, though.  None of them cared.  No one had ever denied her in regards to sexual dalliance.  She'd only ever had actual sex with Everett, but still.  No one had ever agreed to just sit and talk with her, especially when she was already naked.  It sort of felt nice.  It was enticing in an entirely different sort of way.

She wanted to test it.  When they seated themselves on the bed, she glanced at Dante and batted her eyelashes.  "Can I kiss you?" she asked.

He pursed his lips and frowned.  "No, I don't think that's a good idea."

Oh!  It  made her laugh.  She scooted closer to him and rested her chin on his shoulder and stared at him, curious.  He was a curious and interesting man, wasn't he.  And
handsome
, too.  She wanted to touch his cheek with her fingertips, so she did.

"Alena..." Dante said, furrowing his brow.  "We can't."

"I know," she said.  "I just think you're very nice.  You have soft cheeks."

"Thank you," he said curtly.

Before either of them said anymore, a strangled scream echoed through the outer halls and rebounded into the room.  Alena knew that scream.  She'd heard it somewhat recently, too.  While her father mindlessly ate dinner and she teased her younger sister about cats or yellow elephants over a half-eaten plate of food, she'd heard nearly that exact same scream.

It was Danya.

"That's my sister," she said, confused.

Dante frowned.  "Come, sweetling.  That didn't sound good.  I fear there's magic running amok and we'll need to deal with it sooner rather than later.  I can feel it."

"You can feel magic?" she asked in awe.

"Somewhat," he said with a shrug, leaping from the bed and taking her hand in his.  "My soul was trapped within a suit of armor for decades, so there's a certain... resonance, if you will?  I don't know what's going on exactly, but I know it isn't good.  Something is wrong."

"Oh," Alena said.  She didn't know what to say to that.  Being able to sense magic sounded so interesting and wonderful.  She wished she could do it.

"Come," Dante said once more, tugging on her hand.

They went off in search of Danya and the reason for her scream.

Danya ran down the halls in search of somewhere safe to hide.  Was anywhere safe, though?  This thing, this dark and ruddy skinned man with black-feathered wings upon his back—he obviously wasn't human, and so could he find her no matter what?  Was he like Everett, with a sharpened sense of smell?  If so, he had plenty of scents to follow her by.  She had the disturbing mix of her own forced arousal between her thighs, Everett's semen, and Peter's wicked cum inside of her, callously dripping down her leg and onto her beautiful dress.

The dress was ruined, but if this dangerous monster caught up with her that would be the least of her worries.  Could he smell her?  Could he smell all of it?  Could he, perhaps, smell her fear?  The idea disturbed her.  He shouldn't be able to see while wearing that blindfold of his, but obviously he could in some way.  How, though?  Was it something else?  Something entirely beyond anything she could ever understand?

Danya wasn't anyone important.  She was the daughter of a lazy, flighty shopkeep of no renown, caught up in some grand scheme of magic and witchcraft, lured here by a Beast who shouldn't even exist outside of rumors and legends.  Perhaps she was dreaming all of this and when she woke everything would be fine.

She doubted it, though.  Dreams weren't this real.  Even nightmares weren't this frightening.

Dashing through the halls, she passed by two larger doors.  Glancing over her shoulder, she didn't see the demon chasing her anymore.  This was good.  She'd escape in here, shut the doors behind her, and wait for him to pass her by.  Opening the doors, she intended to do just that, but out of the corner of her eye she spotted the dark and ominous figure of her pursuer patrolling towards her.

The room no longer seemed safe, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Large and open, with a ceiling stretching probably as high as the second floor of the mansion, and with little to nothing in the way of a place to hide.  She couldn't go in there.

Abandoning the doors and fleeing onwards, she ran further down the halls.

Everett and Beatrix arrived at what used to be the pantry of his mansion.  It contained all sorts of dried foods, magically preserved by a spell she'd cast so long ago.  It had sustained him all these years and kept him fed.  Occasionally he'd tried cooking, but his bestial instincts and wild mannerisms made him impatient in the way of culinary artistry.  He never much liked to cook in the first place, and doubly so now.

He thought he might want to try it again, though.  Not immediately, as there were far more pressing issues commanding his attention, but later.  With Danya, with...

Danya was nowhere.  She'd screamed, he was sure of it, and he'd vaguely caught her scent as he rushed here with Beatrix, but now there was nothing.  He had mated with the willing sisters too much, and lost almost the entirety of his beast-cursed senses.  He held on to a little, and he still had some of his strength and most of his ridiculous looking fur, but that was it.

He should be happy to finally be close to becoming fully human, to return to his regular body.  The more he strayed from his beastly aspects, the less of a chance he had to save Danya, though.

Judging by the ruined remains of his pantry and the splintered and gaping hole in the floorboards leading into the wine cellar, Danya might no longer even be alive.  Before, he would have been able to smell her blood and her shattered body, but currently all he could smell was the thick scent of spilled wine from the broken bottles below him.

Beatrix scanned the area, then sighed.  "Nothing," she said.  "No one's there.  Pinem'e is gone."

"Who?" Everett asked.

"One of the fallen angels with a name," she said, as if this made any sense whatsoever.  "I inadvertently summoned him when I meant to bring forth a vampir to torment you."

Everett grunted.  He knew what a vampir was, at least.  Nothing near as powerful and dangerous as this Pinem'e that Beatrix summoned, but frustrating and annoying to deal with nonetheless.

"I don't know what more to do," she said.  "The only thing we
can
do is keep running through the mansion trying to find them.  I doubt I can do much of anything once we do.  If I could have, I would have stopped the dark angel before he left my summoning circle."

Everett nodded.  Beatrix might be a spiteful woman, but she had no real reason to lie to him right now.

"I don't care what you think of me, Everett, but I don't partake in dark and disturbing rituals like that.  I want you to know this.  You may think I'm horrible because of what I did to you, but in all honesty I think you deserved it.  Did everyone in your household deserve the same?  No.  I'm somewhat ashamed of that, but I was angry and what's done is done.  It's far too late to do much about it anyways.  You look like you've been doing a fine job of breaking the curse on your own."