Hunted: An Erotic Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (An Adult Fairy Tale Novel) (25 page)

Mmm~yes.

Danya needed to leave.  It was one thing to have seen Everett and Alena basking in the afterglow of their sexual escapades, but it was quite another to be holding onto her younger sister as she delighted in some strange form of witch's magic.  Was it dangerous, though?  Was this alright?

She didn't know.  She didn't understand.  The fallen angel was gone, vanished, swallowed by Alena, and everything seemed fine now.  Fine, yes, except for the desirous twitching of her sister's face, and the way she spasmed in glee, seeming to do so at the merest thought of excitement.

At first Danya thought Alena was hurt somehow, but when she started pulling at her nipples after scaly, feminine gloves sprouted from the skin on her hands, Danya decided maybe she was fine.  Mostly... that was her sister, and...

Strange.  It was strange, and she needed to separate herself from this.  Perhaps she'd make soup, prepare a spot on a quiet couch somewhere, and...

Was that possible?  What had the witches done to her?  She didn't want Alena gone.  She wanted her here again, her sister to take care of, and she wanted everything to be happy.  If she needed to go back to her father's house and her otherwise miserable life in the horrible town she grew up in, she'd do it.  If she needed to... if...

"I'll speak with her," the archwitch said, noticing Danya slinking away from her sister's transformation upon the ballroom floor.  Matilda walked up to Danya and smiled.  "Shall we go?"

"Is she alright?" Danya asked, sparing a glance towards Alena.  "Will she be fine?"

"Yes," the archwitch said.  "It's just the transformation.  The effects are different depending on the person and the process, but not too much.  Within a few minutes, she'll settle down, and then everything should work out."

"Should?" Danya asked.

Matilda shrugged.  "Well, there's a chance that she'll become some sex-crazed succubus fiend, but that's not too terrible, is it?"

"What?" Danya gasped, then repeated the word, shouting.  "What!  What have you done to her?  What's going..."  The world vanished, replaced by something entirely different.  "...on."

She and Matilda stood in a bedroom somewhere entirely separated from the overlarge ballroom.  It looked like this new room was in a tower, high up and aloft, peering out over the forest and surrounding countryside.  Danya recognized some of the area as the land around Everett's mansion, but she didn't recognize this room, nor did she remember any towers here or anywhere near here.

"Beatrix's room," Matilda explained.  "From long ago.  I used to tell her it was silly to take up tasks like this in places like these, but she always wanted to be a good witch.  Who wants to be a good witch, I ask you?  Not that I want to be an evil witch, mind, but I'd rather be an interesting witch.  Good people hardly ever do interesting things, though on occasion they might."

"What are you going to do to me?" Danya asked.  "Are you going to kill me?"

Matilda blinked.  "The idea hadn't occurred to me.  Do you want me to kill you?"

Now Danya blinked.

"I might have been wrong," the witch admitted.  "Good people may do interesting things.  This has certainly been interesting, hasn't it?  I don't know exactly what went on, and previously I might have enjoyed siding with one of the named fallen angels, but there's something to be said for allying with an underdog, don't you think?"

"A what?" Danya asked.  No one here was a dog of any sort.  Unless... did she mean her and Alena?  The sisters?  Dogs, like bitches in heat, ready for mating with the mansion's brothers, treated to scraps and...

"Get those thoughts out of your head," Matilda said, frowning.  "The person who is expected to lose.  That's what that is; an underdog.  It's just a term.  Looking into the future is difficult at times, but I liked to collect new phrases when I could.  It's not so hard, that.  People in the future have such strange ways of saying things.  It's fun to learn them and use them, then no one knows what you're talking about."

"Oh," Danya said.  She didn't understand any of that, nor why it should be fun to speak when no one understood you, but she also wasn't a witch, so maybe that was a part of it.

"Anyways, as I intended to do, I'll explain your sister's predicament.  Pardon Beatrix and I for not being able to perform the spell as properly as usual, but we didn't have much time and I haven't worked alongside her in centuries.  I hope you'll forgive us that."

"Alena will be alright, though?"

"After the transformation, yes.  She'll be a succubus, of course, but that's not the worst thing ever.  A bit of magic here and there, probably wings.  Those scales you saw.  I find them pretty, myself.  Centuries ago, however long I've been gone, some women used to enjoy wearing similar attire to events.  Somewhat scandalous, you know?  Copying the style of a sexual demon and attending a dance like that?  Oh, I wonder what they did afterwards, with the men they coaxed into their bedrooms?  Hm..."

"If my sister is going to be a demon, I hardly think she's going to be alright."

"Half of a demon," Matilda corrected.  "And as long as she isn't a crazy person, she'll be fine.  Anyone with any decent amount of magic can control themselves easily after learning how.  Of course, when she dies or is killed, Pinem'e might become freed, but as long as that doesn't happen anytime too soon, Beatrix and I can teach her how to subdue his soul."

This sounded terrible.  Why did this woman think it wasn't terrible.  Danya frowned and fretted, fumbling with her hands.

"If we'd used his blood," Matilda said, "it would have been worse.  Blood is a painful reagent most times, typically reserved for malicious spells.  It depends on where the blood is from, of course, but most blood is used for evil intentions.  If we'd attained some blood and sealed the named fallen angel within Everett as an example, he'd be wracked with pain for many minutes, barely able to contain it.  Horrid screams and clenched teeth, awfulness, all of that.  Not good."

"Since we used the demon's sexual essence," the witch continued, "it's different.  Angels, especially ones that have fallen towards demonic existence, are somewhat lascivious.  They feed off of strong emotions, like anger and hatred and fear.  But also, they can cause these, and lust, too.  Anything strong and powerful, and..."

"If blood causes pain, because bleeding involves injury and hurt, are you saying that... my sister..."  Danya stopped talking and gaped.  Oh gods, this... this was not good.  This was...

"There's really worse things in life than being brought to magical orgasm and kept that way for multiple minutes, you know?"  Matilda shrugged.  "Ten minutes at the most, I imagine.  It won't be much longer than a quarter of an hour, at any rate.  She'll be tired after, of course, but that's how that goes."

"I need to leave," Danya said.  "We need to leave.  Just... just take it out of her.  Put it somewhere else.  Send us away.  I promise we won't bother you or anyone here ever again.  Just... please?  Please don't do this to my sister?  She hasn't... we haven't... I never wanted this.  I just wanted..."

"Oh, bother," Matilda said, sighing.  "I thought you'd understand, but I suppose not.  Sleeping it off should help."

"I can't sleep!" Danya screamed.  "How do you expect—"

A spell.  Danya realized it a little too late.  Matilda waved a finger through the air and slumbering dust fell upon Danya, knocking her unconscious.  She teetered and wobbled on her feet, suddenly desperately tired. 

"—me... to..."  Somehow she managed to finish part of her sentence before toppling onto the bed and falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Alena lay on Dante's bed, lingerie-clad, marveling at the ceiling.  He had paintings up there, somewhat.  They weren't real paintings, nor were they colored like she normally expected, but there were lines drawn here and there, connected into shapes, moving this way and that.  They reminded her of clouds or constellations, where the person looking at them got to determine what exactly they were.  She liked them.

Dante sat nearby, reading.  Alena moved to watch him instead.  She wondered about Dante.  Was he like the ceiling, the lines?  What was he exactly?  And what was she, too?

The witches explained it to her, but it seemed a little silly and fantastic to her mind.  She was a succubus?  Or partly one.  Not bad, though, oh no.  She didn't want to be bad, anyways.  Alena just wanted to be herself, truth be told, though she wasn't entirely sure what that was, either.

She wanted to test something.  Would it explain more about who she was?  Perhaps, but perhaps not.

"Dante," she said, catching his attention.

He glanced up from his reading.  "Yes, Alena?"

"Can we have sex?"

"No," he said.

She giggled hysterically, rolling on the bed.  One of her new wings creased and bent on the bed cover, causing her to wince in pain and stop her laughter.

Dante set his book aside and rushed to her side.  "Are you alright?" he asked.  "What were you laughing for?"

"I forgot I have wings now," she said.  "It just hurt a little.  I like to move them, but I think I should put them away for now."

Concentrating on the odd new muscles located somewhere along her back, Alena focused and pulled her gossamer wings inwards.  They shrunk, moving closer to her body, then blended into her skin.  On her back, patterned and dark like ink, lay the imprints of her wings.  The witches told her she could pull them in and out of her skin like that, forming something akin to a primal tattoo, but a part of her, too.  Living, different, existing in a sense unlike anything any other human could ever know.

Alena grinned at the idea.  Oh, she was different now, yes.  She liked the thought of that.  She didn't want to be too different, but she wanted something to set her apart.  It never satisfied her to be... well, either Danya's younger sister, or the girl that boy's thought was some simple and easy sexual treat.

In all honesty, that was why she delighted in Dante denying her about sexual things.

"I can compel you," she stated, staring at him.  He hovered over her on the bed now, watching her with interest and concern.  "I could make you agree to have sex with me, you know?"

Dante grinned wide.  "You could, couldn't you?  Will you, then?"

"I hardly want to now," she said, acting haughty.  "You've bored me."

"I've bored you?  Already?"

"Why are you reading?" she asked.  "What are you reading?"

"Why or what?  One answer involves another."

Alena furrowed her brow, confused.  Dante said things sometimes, and she didn't understand them entirely.  He didn't treat her like an idiot, though.  "I don't know," she said.

"I'm reading a book about dragons and princesses," he said.  "I like to think that someday I might need to rescue a damsel in distress, and if I read up about it, I'll know how to go about it when the time arrives."

"I'm in distress," Alena said, hurried.

"Are you?" Dante asked.

"Yes.  There's a handsome man that I know, and even when I'm laying atop his bed in a nightgown, he won't seduce me.  It's distressful."

"Distressing," Dante corrected.  "I wonder why he won't?  Odd."

"I think he likes me," she whispered, shifting her eyes from side to side.  "Do you think that's it?"

"Hm."  Dante tapped his chin in thought.  "You think he likes you so he won't have sex with you?"

"Seduce, I said.  He likes me so he won't seduce me, because he wants there to be more."

"More than what?"

Alena smiled and fidgeted, rubbing her legs together.  This was so fun and she loved it.  She just wanted to talk with Dante forever.  Nothing more.  Or, maybe something more, but they'd talk after, too.  Maybe during?  Was talking allowed during sex?  But what would they talk about then?  About... about things, about...

Dante sidled into bed with her, laying alongside her.  Kissing her forehead, he swept her long, dark hair back across her ear, watching her.

Alena broke away from her mental babbling and gasped.  "Dante!  I'm sorry!  Did I compel you?  I didn't mean it.  I don't know how it works entirely.  I... no, no we don't need to have sex.  I was just joking."

"You didn't compel me," he said smirking.

"Oh."

"I do want to have sex with you," he said.

"You do?"  Oh, this intrigued her.

"Yes, eventually."

"How so?"

"How do I want to have sex with you or how do I plan to do it eventually?" he asked.

"Do you have plans for it?  I never thought of that."  Someone had plans for her?  To seduce her?  What did they involve?  What was that about?  Was that good, or...?

"First," he said, teasing a finger from the side of her hair to her cheek, then her nose.  "I'd like to get to know you better.  I'll ask you to dine with me privately, and perhaps I'll do it very soon."

"You will?" she asked.

"Yes.  And then..."  He caressed down her nose and touched her lips with his fingers.  "I'll flirt with you at dinner, and hopefully make you laugh and smile.  I think you have a beautiful smile."

His finger traced down her chin to her collarbone, and stopped as it reached between her breasts.

"I don't think anyone's ever flirted with me before," she said.  "I wish they would."

"I will," Dante reaffirmed.  "And I'll make some excuse to ask you back to my room.  Perhaps to see a hunting trophy I collected a long time ago."

"You have a hunting trophy?" she asked.

Dante's lips touched against the side of her neck while his fingertip drew a faint, gentle line against the curves of the tops of her breasts.  Alena's eyelashes fluttered and she let out a gasp of a sigh.

"I do," he said, kissing her neck between each word.  "And then, as I show it to you, I'll creep up behind you and place my hands on your waist and breathe heavily on your neck, almost as if I'm going to kiss you, but I won't, not yet."

Alena grabbed at the sheets beneath her, digging her fingernails into them.  "Dante..."

"You might chide me, and I'll apologize.  Did I bring you back to my room for this?  You'll ask me that, but I'll deny it.  Oh, no, of course not.  I'm a gentleman, Alena.  I would never..."