Also Available from Danielle Monsch
Fairy Tales & Ever Afters, Book 2
He may be a Beast
…
Known as Beast in his village for both his
hulking size and multitude of scars, Benton had long ago resigned
himself to a life without love, and he was content with his
solitary existence. At least he had been, until Nissa entered his
life.
…
but she was no Beauty
.
Plain and plain-spoken, Nissa came to the
village three years ago looking for a fresh start and a quiet life.
She has both, until the very strange day when her friend Benton
disappears and a new man arrives at the village – handsome,
charming, and intent on courting her.
A fairy godmother gives Benton his greatest
wish. Now that he is a beauty and not a beast, Benton intends to
make Nissa fall in love with him. However, scars don’t have to be
visible to exist. Will Nissa’s past destroy any chance of Happily
Ever After?
Chapter One
“Hey Rat-face, carrying any cheese in that
basket?”
Nissa sighed and checked the urge to roll her
eyes or speed up her pace over the well-worn path through the
forest. To show weakness was to invite further idiocy.
If boys could somehow be locked away
between the ages of twelve and twenty, life would be
easier
.
These two boys were both sixteen, and while
they weren’t overt and vile in their nastiness, neither would they
allow a chance at an easy target pass them by. “I don’t think
rodents understand how we talk,” said Jonan, the one who started it
all. The son of the local butcher, he was as flat-faced and
flat-headed as his father, with wits to match.
“I agree, mate. That’s why we have rat traps.
We make rats do what we want.” That was Nathaniel, nastier overall
than his dim-witted friend, due to his greater intelligence and
higher social standing thanks to his father’s position on the
village council.
Perhaps a direct confrontation might make
them give up their campaign of harassment. “Boys, you should get
back to the village. I know your parents would not be pleased to
see you this far out.”
Or perhaps she was being wishful in her
thinking, because without a moment’s hesitation, Nathaniel replied,
“What would you know about our parents other than what to serve
them? Besides, we’re hungry. Why don’t you share what’s in your
basket with us?”
“Yeah, before we decide to take it,” Jonan
added.
After committing himself with those words he
puffed out his chest and straightened his back, bringing himself to
full height and breadth. Only sixteen, but he was well on his way
to being one of the largest men in the village.
Acid rose to the back of her throat as
tendrils of ice snaked up her spine. The instinctive step back was
already completed before the reminder to not show weakness echoed
through her head. Twin smiles of new sneering malevolence broke
over both their faces and transformed their countenances from
naughty children to something hard and cruel and eager to hurt.
They took a step forward. With their entire
focus on her, they never sensed the tall, hulking figure that
appeared behind them. Within seconds, both boys were hauled up and
dangled several feet in the air.
Relieved giddiness coursed through her. A
smile she could not prevent – and didn’t want to – spread across
her face. “Benton,” she said, the word a mere whisper of sound.
“They were bothering you?” Benton’s voice was
a thunderclap, deep and rough, not heard often and invoking a
primal fear when it was.
The boys cringed and remained silent. Neither
their fathers’ influence nor their own strength could help them
here, and like bullies everywhere, they only wanted to fight when
their prey was weaker than they were.
Nissa laughed at the sight, her earlier panic
almost embarrassing when faced with the now cowed figures. “No,
they were just being boys, testing limits like boys do.”
Benton’s thin lips tightened. He seemed to be
fighting some inner battle over whether to accept her words or
continue on with the boys in ways that would undoubtedly give them
nightmares.
Finally he leaned over and whispered into
Nathaniel’s ear. Nissa couldn’t hear the words, but Nathaniel went
ghost-white and his eyes took up half his face by the time Benton
pulled away. Benton finished with, “Understand?”
Nathaniel nodded, the movements large and
exaggerated.
Benton dropped them both. The boys collapsed
onto the ground. “Make your friend understand. Go home.”
Both ran without looking back.
Nissa crossed her arms over her chest, though
she knew the effect she was going for was ruined since she couldn’t
shake the smile from her lips. Still, she had to try. “Benton, it
wasn’t necessary to scare them.”
“Be glad all I did was scare them.” He took
the basket from her before he resumed his way along the path
towards his cabin. With a sigh of exasperation – more affectation
than true feelings – she followed him.
Their journey was silent, a normal occurrence
since Benton was not the most talkative of men. Monks who had taken
vows could be said to be more loquacious. It didn’t bother her, not
when the silence was threaded with warm and protective overtones,
his caring and friendship palpable in the currents of the air.
Besides, it meant she was free to ogle him to
her heart’s content. Benton was currently shirtless, and a
shirtless Benton was one of her favorite sights in this world.
There were some in the village who would
disagree with her, those who were concerned only with looks.
Beast.
That was his nickname in the village, though no one
ever said it to his face. All because of his hulking mass and an
abundance of scars over his face and body. But Nissa had heard
enough whispers amongst the women to know she wasn’t the only one
who could see past the scars to the body which otherwise was the
perfect example of a powerful male, all hard muscle and massive
limbs and towering strength.
But those women would then giggle and say
they would also need a sack to put over his head, since even
without the scars, the kindest word anyone could use to describe
his face would be “plain”.
Well, screw them. Their little snobbery meant
she had him all to herself. And she liked his face. His face was an
outward display of his strength and courage, both of which he had
in abundance and without which he’d never had survived the battles
that had scarred him so.
Nissa had traveled this path to his cabin so
often her feed moved on autopilot and her mind had free rein to
enjoy the fine specimen in front of her.
Of course, this was the day Benton would
decide to deviate from their normal routine. When he stopped and
turned around to face her, Nissa couldn’t stop ogling fast and
slammed into him.
His hand gripped her upper arm to prevent her
from falling.
She placed her hands against his chest. Sure,
she could claim it was to steady herself, but that would have been
a big, fat lie. This gave her a valid excuse to touch him, even if
only for a moment, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
If his back was a work of art, his chest was
a gift sent from heaven above, and it was really,
really
cruel to show her all this wonderful flesh, glistening and warm and
emitting that delicious masculine scent, when she wasn’t allowed to
stick her tongue out and run it over every inch of him.
It was a sad, sad situation. She lusted after
her best friend. Had for months now. Wanted to throw him to the
ground and do wicked things to him that would have her branded a
scarlet woman in their village. Wanted him to mount her like a bull
in heat – or any other position he cared to try.
“Where should I put it?”
Confusion reigned for several moments as
Benton’s question about the basket mixed uncomfortably with her
mind’s wanderings, and it took a bit to pull the two threads apart.
“Oh,” Nissa said, dropping her hands from his chest and taking a
step back. “Let’s eat outside today, take advantage of the
beautiful weather before autumn sets in.”
“Hn.” In Benton-speak that meant he thought
it was a fine idea, she was right that the weather couldn’t be more
perfect for early fall, and he really liked the feel of her hands
on him, maybe she could do it again?
Or he could have been just clearing his
throat – either one.
Affection surged through her as she followed
him to the little clearing beside his cabin, pushing the lustful
thoughts aside. Lust was a newcomer in her relationship with
Benton, but the affection had existed from nearly the beginning. In
those early days, when she’d developed tender feelings for the
scarred, solitary man, the realization had been unexpected and not
welcome. Now, those feelings were the center of her existence, the
touchstone her life revolved around.
As she set out their picnic lunch, Benton
began loading wood he had already chopped into a bin. Well, that
explained the sweat and the shirtlessness when he’d found her.
“Getting an early start this year?” Nissa asked.
“More merchants,” came his reply, scorn a
thick overlay over his words.
“Which means?”
“It means I have to deal with useless lumps
who can’t heat their homes or feed their families without me.”
“Benton,” she said, the scold strong in her
voice. “Most of us couldn’t survive being alone in the middle of
the wilderness. I wouldn’t survive a day if I was all alone, so do
you think less of me?”
“You never have to worry.”
She paused in cutting the bread. “And how did
you come to that conclusion?”
He didn’t look at her. She could almost
believe he was deliberately not facing her way. “I’d never let you
be alone.”
Emotion surged inside her that went past
affection, past lust. Benton didn’t need eloquence, not when the
words he uttered speared through the dark places and lit her from
within. She cleared her throat to modulate a voice that otherwise
would tremble with emotion. “That’s good to know. But my point is,
it’s been very good for the village, growing like we have. There’s
even talk of building a school. I won’t believe it until I actually
see it, but it would be a dream to be able to teach somewhere other
than McGrudy’s barn and not have to worry about stray farm animals
trampling over any lesson books or staying in the section where the
roof doesn’t leak on rainy days.”
He stopped loading wood to look straight at
her. He had ice-blue eyes, so pale that in some lights they almost
appeared colorless. She had heard them referred at various times as
“unholy,” - “demonic,” - or even “scary as shit,” - but when he
looked at her with the full force of his gaze, all it engendered in
her was a desire to whimper and bare her throat in submission. “You
want to teach boys like the two from today?”
“I want to teach boys
and
girls, and
all boys are idiots at that age.”
From the way his jaw tightened, Nissa would
bet her best dress he was grinding his teeth. “Any others upsetting
you?”
Oh no. Overprotective Benton spread a warm
glow through her body, but she could not let him go on a
terrorizing spree against the teenage boys of the village. Though
the fathers of the teenage girls would be supportive, Nissa might
find herself out of a teaching job if her students were afraid to
be around her. “I can deal with my kids. Part of growing up is
testing boundaries, and boys can be a little aggressive during that
time. It’s nothing unusual or worth getting upset over. Weren’t
you?”
“Couldn’t be.”
With those words Benton’s voice went beyond
flat to almost lifeless. There was a story not being told. Nissa
prodded. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, going back to the wood pile. “I
get aggressive, bad things happen.”
Definitely a story, but not a good one, and
not for today – not when they had a picnic spread out before them
that she’d been looking forward to all week. Nissa finagled herself
between him and the woodpile and gave a teasing smile up into his
scarred, grim face. “I have brought absolutely delicious food for
us to enjoy together, and I am not going to let you work anymore
while I’m here. Go get cleaned up so we can eat.”
He looked down at her, and though his
features didn’t change, his eyes brightened, the heavy burden he
carried dissolving for the moment. “Will you read to me after?”
“Of course I will, though I’m still waiting
to hear when you’re going to read to me like I’ve been asking you
to do for months.” She placed her hands on his arms and stretched
upwards, going on tip-toe to add a few inches of height. “Please
Benton.”
Since she was the one who had taught him how
to read, he couldn’t use illiteracy as an excuse, but he had come
up with every other possible reason not to fulfill her request. For
someone as straightforward as he was, it was almost impressive how
cagey he became in his efforts to avoid the subject.
His eyes widened the barest fraction before
he turned away. “You have a beautiful voice,” he said and, not
waiting for a reply, walked to the little lake behind his
house.
Nissa was as rooted to the earth as the great
maple trees behind her. Benton had never complimented her in such a
direct manner, and she had no idea he liked her voice. There was
nothing special about it. It wasn’t too squeaky or too growly, and
when she sang cats didn’t join in, but those weren’t exactly
qualities to brag about. Yet, he called it beautiful.
Her cheeks were so warm she used her cool
palms to lessen the heat, and only when her hands touched the
enflamed skin did she realize she was smiling.
Enough of that,
Nissa. You are not a schoolgirl.