by Piper Rayne
The gleam in his eyes shifted—not only hungry but ravenous.
A growl rolled out of him, and as he stood to a full, towering height of nearly seven feet, my entire body quaked with terror.
The villagers of Fairfield were forbidden to enter the forest—not only because it was a sacred place, but because we were always warned about the Beast that lurked in its shadows.
A Beast that would tear us apart, devour our human flesh, delight especially in the tenderness of young virgins. Ever since I’d met Gawen, I’d thought this was only a rumor, a myth.
Something that Mortas perpetuated all these years in order to keep us away from the magic of the forest.
But now I saw that there was indeed a Beast.
He was standing right in front of me, snarling, fangs dripping with saliva, ready to eat me up.
“Gawen,” I whispered, slowly reaching back to grab a gnarled branch: hardly a weapon against those teeth, but I didn’t want to hurt him. I simply wanted to defend myself. “It’s me. It’s Rosaline.” I had to believe that he was still within this body somewhere. I had to believe, that even with Mortas’s spell, the man I loved was inside, and knew who I was.
With a horrendous roar that instantly sent goose bumps rippling across my skin, Gawen lunged for me.
I lifted up the branch, ready to swing it to defend myself, just long enough to get him to snap out of it. But then he did.
He blinked and shook his head.
His face and hands were still covered in a thick fur, and those fangs protruded from his mouth like some sort of forest lion…
But his eyes. They shifted back into that lovely golden color and burned as he glanced down at his body, his clawed hands, the way he was inches away from tearing into my throat.
“My love,” I said, my breath coming out in fat puffs. “It’s me, Rosaline.”
“Rosaline,” Gawen repeated, and he sounded like himself, so much so that I dared to hope.
“Yes, it’s me.” I was so relieved I could have cried; instead, I made contact with him, reached out to touch his arms. He shuddered a bit when I did. “Is that you, Gawen?” Again, with his name, and whatever tether I had thrown out to him, he clung to.
“Yes. Yes, it’s me.” Gawen pulled me into his chest. His body was still familiar to me, his chest still the place I wanted to rest my head, even though it was undeniably the form of a much stronger beast now. “My love, how could I—?” Gawen’s voice choked with emotion, and he kissed the top of my forehead. Even with his fanged teeth and his furry face, he felt like my Gawen. “I could have killed you.”
“You could have,” I mused, “but you didn’t.” My hands snaked up to his face, and I held it as if it was the most precious thing in the world to me. “You didn’t, and that is what is important.”
Devastation shone in Gawen’s eyes, and he looked utterly exhausted, so I took his hand in mine, bringing it up to kiss it, furry though it was. “Come on,” I told him, “let’s get you home. We have much to discuss.”
Chapter Sixteen
GAWEN
Last week, when Rosaline fell into that pond, I was the one who had carted her home when she nearly had hypothermia, but now she was the one who was bringing me safely back to the hut.
I was able to walk on my own two legs, but barely. The curse that Mortas had befell upon me made my bones feel wrung out, and the adrenaline from my transformation into this … this beast… It drained me. I needed to sleep, to rest in the safety of my own four walls, and so I dragged myself through the woods, leaning on Rosaline when I could.
Rosaline, for her part, was a much sturdier crutch than I was expecting, but she wasn’t doing it all on her own. I could hear her, whispering to the trees around us, asking for the roots and the branches to help carry us forward. The ground smoothed itself, the leaves seemed to reach out and push us along, gently.
The whole Fair Forest, conspiring to help us.
Not for the first time, I reflected on how grateful I was to have found her—Rosaline, the true guardian of the forest. In my very cells, I knew it was her. I knew she was the one who was born to keep the Fair Forest alive. Everything in these woods responded to her very breath, but there was something different about the forest.
Ever since I’d transformed, the change was unmistakable. The forest, shriveled up, dried, like it was on the very brink of survival.
But I couldn’t worry about that now. My eyes were already closed to slits as Rosaline led me through my yard, past my beds of produce which had all shriveled to yellowed husks, into my hut, which was, without a fire, noticeably cold, but that didn’t matter because I was feverish.
“Here,” Rosaline uttered softly as she tugged off the tattered boots that had burst open like pea pods when I’d shifted into this Beast. “And your tunic too.” She peeled the shredded remains of my clothing off me and pulled back the covers of my bed.
I nestled beneath my quilt, and despite my fatigue, I managed to chuckle. “How odd does this look? A Beast in a bed?”
“Like something from a bedtime story for children.” Rosaline slipped off her own boots and hung the cloak she’d worn over the fire to dry.
I marveled at the grace of her figure, the gorgeousness of her face, even despite such terrifying conditions. Her brown hair was tangled with nettles, and her cheeks were rough and pink from our run through the trees, but even so, she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
Blood.
Streaked across her shoulder. When she pulled off my borrowed tunic that she’d worn, I could see it, and an overwhelming sense of injustice rose up within me. “Who?” I bellowed, stretching out of the bed to touch the wound. “Who did this? Mortas?” A scratch, a tear in her perfect flesh, almost as if something had reached out with its claws and—
Oh.
I curled over with shame. My hands, I tucked beneath me, hiding them like the culprits they were—one of my Beast’s claws had hurt my dear Rosaline, and if I could have, I would have cut them clean off. What need did I have for hands, if they were only going to cause pain?
But Rosaline shushed me, dipping a rag into a bowl of water, not to wipe away the blood from her wound, but to press against my forehead. “That’s from a stick,” she assured me. “Jutting from a cedar. It scratched me when I was bringing you back home.”
The compress was cool against my fiery skin, and I let myself close my eyes again, comforted by Rosaline’s presence. She leaned against the side of the bed, across my body—there wasn’t much room for her anymore, but I would move to the floor when she was ready to get some sleep herself.
Sleep… My Beast’s body was overworked, sore, but my mind still raced. Mortas. The birch tree.
This curse, Rosaline, the hatred in Mortas' eyes as he looked at her.
“How?” I murmured. “How could he do this?”
Rosaline shook her head, biting her lip. “He’s a bad man, Gawen. He’s plotting evil things.”
“But … he was my master.” I was still struggling to reconcile the two—Mortas, the man who had placed me in this hut, given me my first spells, taught me how to strengthen the wards around the forest and care for the land. And the Mortas Rosaline knew from the village, a conman who used his power to make fake prophecies and control the masses.
“I can’t believe … he betrayed me.” My eyes were closed, my breathing slowing, and my mind, finally, cleared away the fog, enough that I could lightly doze.
The last thing I felt before I drifted off to sleep was Rosaline’s hand in mine—steadfast and unafraid, even though I could tear into her without any effort.
Such a delicate beauty, yes—but so strong, so brave.
Mine.
My hands, strong enough to rip out a tree by the roots.
My arms, thick and corded with muscle.
My legs, able to carry me faster than you would expect, and my teeth, sharp enough to bite through bone.
I am chasing my prey through the Fair Forest, running through bush
es, leaping over fallen logs.
She glances behind her, over her shoulder, her hair covering most of her eyes—but she sees me, and a gasp of fright issues from her mouth.
It only serves to fill me with more desire, more hunger—I will catch her, and I will tear her apart. It’s only a matter of time.
Splashing through a tea-colored stream, I barely feel the cold water with my fur-covered body. I have no need for clothing anymore, or for the pathetic little dwelling in the middle of the forest, or for anything that is a relic of my past self as a human. I have turned myself over entirely to the animal within.
Now the only thing that exists is this urge within me to rip, bite, tear, kill… and her scent.
Good enough to eat.
I woke up thrashing in my bed, so violently I struck my head against the wall.
I could faintly hear Rosaline’s voice, calling my name.
Gawen. Gawen—I was pretty sure that was my name. Wasn’t that the name that belonged to me? The name that I’d been given by some long-dead parents, the name I’d answered to whenever the forest whispered it on the wind, the name that Rosaline had cried out when I’d made love to her.
That did it.
I opened my eyes, emerging from my dream, and Rosaline’s face came into focus.
Concern lining her brows and forehead, but those sharp emerald eyes were confident and loving, almost like she knew that she would be able to carry me back from the brink again.
And her lips, soft, pink, and pursed with worry, but patient…
I wanted to kiss her, but when I arched up to meet her mouth with my own, my entire bedframe snapped, crumbling beneath me.
“What the devil?” I shouted, the fury in my system making my fur bristle, stand on edge.
“It’s all right,” Rosaline soothed, stroking my arm so the fur laid back down. “You were having a bad dream, I think, and you—you broke the bed.”
Yes, I broke the bed—all I’d done was fall asleep, a benign enough task, but even then it appeared I wasn’t safe from the beastly nature that was attempting to take over my entire body.
“Dammit,” I growled, standing up from the mess of blankets and pillows and newly-splintered beams. I’d thrashed so hard in my sleep I’d collapsed the bed.
That was not how I’d imagined breaking this piece of furniture, I wanted to joke to Rosaline, but I couldn’t even find the part of me that knew how to laugh.
All I knew was how to kill, how to rip, how to tear.
“Gawen.” Rosaline, saying my name, again, it brought me back from the edge. I focused on her face, her eyes. “It’s all right. We don’t need a bed.” She bent down, pushing away the beams so they were against the wall beneath the window, and my cock stiffened at the sight of her ass, perfectly rounded, just within reach.
“There.” She’d arranged the blankets and quilts and pillows in a cozy-looking nest on the floor and gestured for me to climb back under the covers.
Part of me wanted to roar, attack, kill, but she’d said my name. Gawen.
It was like a spell, every time she said it, and so I obeyed, tucking myself back down beneath the blankets on the floor, letting my beastly body relax.
“Now, I want you to drink this.” Rosaline poured a hot, herb-filled tea into a mug and passed it into my hands.
I sniffed it, unconvinced. “What’s in it?”
“Valerian root. Lemon balm. Lavender.” She took a tiny sip herself and winced, then grinned. “Tastes awful, but it will calm your nerves.”
She was right—it tasted like forest grit, but as soon as I’d swallowed I felt my heartbeat slow, my pulse calm. All my muscles relaxed, and I was able to think clearly for the first time since—since the nightmare.
That’s all it was, I assured myself. A nightmare.
Not an omen.
Not anything that was going to happen—just a dream.
“Where did you learn to brew herbs like this?” I asked, just to distract myself from the image of chasing Rosaline through the trees, my claws out, ready to shred her flesh.
Rosaline smiled as she nestled beside me, her hand splayed on my chest. “Until Mortas tied me to that tree, I was the only daughter of a working farmer, remember? I’m not just a useless virgin sacrifice. I know about herbs.” She paused a moment before adding, “Not that I’m a virgin.”
“Not anymore,” I agreed. My cock ached to prove my love to her again, stiffening underneath the blankets, but I didn’t dare touch her like that, not until I could guarantee her safety.
It was such a fine line between wanting to watch her squirm with pleasure and wanting to devour.
“Plus,” Rosaline went on, “turns out if you ask the woods for help brewing a tea that will calm a troubled mind, the trees are all too happy to help.” She swirled her own mug around and around, watching the herbs settle, and I marveled at how lucky I was.
To find a woman who would sit by me, lay by my side, even though I looked … even though I looked just like…
“Gawen.” Again, with my name. I could have kissed every square inch of her body if it meant I could hear her whisper my name with every touch. “We have to figure out how—how to undo this.” She glanced at my new beastly form, up and down, and then met my eyes.
And she saw the answer within them—she furrowed her eyebrows, tilting her head down. “You … you know how to break this spell?”
“I do not,” I answered truthfully. “But it is not the first time that I’ve taken this form.” Sipping my tea, I waited until my nerves were settled enough to tell her. “I’ve lived as a Beast many times before.”
The Beast of the Fair Forest, I thought bitterly, and then I told her everything I knew.
Chapter Seventeen
ROSALINE
He’d been dreaming of eating me.
I knew it—from the way he thrashed while he slept, murmuring things like, “Yes, run, run while you can” and “Kill, rip, tear, kill.”
It was devastating to see him like this, but as soon as Gawen mentioned that he’d been in this beastly form before, a shock went through my system.
This was not the first time he’d been cursed in this body? This was not the first time he’d dreamed about tearing a young woman to shreds?
But if my time with Gawen had taught me anything, it was to resist judging what I didn’t understand and to trust.
Trust that our bond, our connection, would always triumph.
“I was born in a town not far from here,” Gawen started, pushing himself up to sitting, leaning against his leather easy chair. “Much bigger than Fairfront—big enough that when my parents set me down outside a crowded booth in a Saturday market, someone stole me.”
“Your poor mother,” I whispered. I could think of few things worse than your own child being abducted, and Gawen’s eyes spoke of the years of carrying this guilt and this sympathy on his shoulders.
“Yes,” he agreed, “I’m sure it was horrible for her. But I never saw her again, so I cannot confirm. Nor my father.” To shield himself from showing the intense emotions that this tale elicited, Gawen fed a few logs into the small fire; the flames caught the wood and blazed forth, casting gleaming jewels in his golden eyes. “After one thing or another, I ended up at the town orphanage—I don’t remember who had me or why, but I did manage to remember my own name for all those years.”
“Gawen,” I breathed, and smiled when he gave a full-body shudder. Something happened whenever I spoke his name—it was almost like a spell.
“And that was the name that Mortas kept for me when he plucked me out of the orphanage and brought me here.” An edge came to Gawen’s voice, but his eyes were soft with the memory—trying to reconcile the Mortas that had saved him from childhood poverty and the Mortas who had just barely attacked us in the forest. I couldn’t imagine it would be easy.
But then again, I’d had to do my own similar reckoning. Realizing that the man who had led my village was a fake and a dangerous con artist.
Realizing that all the elders believed him anyway. Realizing that my own father would give me over to the Beast of the Fair Forest in order to save everyone else from famine, but I concentrated on Gawen’s words as he told me his story.
“Mortas told me that he’d been looking for me for a long time,” Gawen explained. “He put me on the back of his horse and rode me down a road that never seemed to end. I would doze against his back and wake up, and the landscape would be exactly the same. We rode past cities and fields, an ocean, and then the edge of the forest came into view, and when he told me that I’d been chosen to be the forest’s guardian… I could feel it. In my heart. In my head. My entire body buzzed with the rightness of it.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
He scoffed, “Six or seven. Young enough to have almost no gumption, no filter at all—it was a wonder he didn’t remove me from his horse and drag me along by a lead just to wear me out. I complained about everything—I let him know every moment I was thirsty, hungry, tired, bored… But somehow, he did not thrash me on the spot. Two weeks of travel it took until we finally reached the Fair Forest. And I suppose I should have known better than to trust him. I’m sure that he’d put some sort of charm on me to make me feel the forest magic was thrumming under my skin, but … I felt like I’d just come home.”
“Perhaps not,” I offered. “Perhaps there was something about the forest that drew you in. Perhaps there still is.”
“Perhaps,” Gawen echoed with a nod. “Mortas took me here, to the very heart of the woods, and told me that I must be prepared to give up everything, my whole life, in order to keep the Fair Forest protected, and in return I would live here, safe, as long as I would take care of the land. And for so many years this seemed like a fair trade.” He sighed, so much trouble and sorrow in his eyes, that it was easy to forget that the rest of him looked so animalistic. “Until one day, I decided it wasn’t. One day, I tried to leave.”
My reaction to this was almost instantaneous; I couldn’t imagine Gawen leaving the forest. To picture it was like trying to picture one of the ancient fir trees walking down the village thoroughfare. Gawen was so much a part of this landscape, he was the forest. But before he even explained, I understood why.
