Granted by the Beast: A Steamy Paranormal Romance Spin on Beauty and the Beast (Conduit Series Book 4)

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “You’re still assuming she’s telling the truth,” Ramsey said, stepping forward again and staring at Stacey with unyielding and unforgiving eyes. “We have no idea what’s really going on in her head.”

  “But you will,” Stacey said. “You’ll cast the spell that’ll let Charisse see into my thoughts, into my intentions, and then she’ll believe me, which means all of you will believe me.” She shook her head. “I just wish you could do it now.”

  She bit her thumb and stared at the watch on her wrist. The one I hadn’t seen before that moment. She was waiting for something, and I couldn’t figure out what. I’d given up trying to predict what was happening with her. She had proven time and time again in the past few hours of our acquaintance that she knew more than I did.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Ramsey said, moving another step closer to Stacey. “And why wouldn’t we be able to do it now?”

  “Because of the scream,” she said simply.

  “The scream?” I asked. “What—”

  Before the words could leave my mouth, Abram’s screams permeated the room and surrounded us all as though he were right there. My heart leapt, wondering just what was happening in the room beyond my line of sight.

  My gaze moved over to Stacey, who was looking at the door of the room where Abram was being held. Her eyes were wide and full of the knowledge of what had caused him that much pain.

  “He’s not alone.”

  Chapter 17

  My entire body clenched as another pained howl escaped Abram’s lips from the room where he was effectively trapped.

  Yes, I knew he wasn’t the man I loved, but the man I loved was still in there somewhere. Whatever was happening to him, whatever was hurting those arms and legs and heart, was doing it to the same arms and legs and heart that had come to mean the entire world to me.

  I couldn’t allow that.

  A surge of power rushed through me, and I soon saw that I wasn’t standing at all. I was floating. I was hovering above the floor, power emanating from me in what felt like tidal waves.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Stacey answered. “You never tell me.”

  “What do you—”

  “We can’t get in,” she said. “Only you’re able to. And in every timeline, for all the time we know each other afterward, you never tell me what was in that room.” She shook her head, her pink pixie cut hair trembling with the movement. “You only ever say that it changed everything, and that I should have told you to go in there sooner. I’ve listened to you cry, drunkenly, as you beg me to do it faster the next time. I’ve heard you rage about your hatred of me for not doing it. I’m not going to put up with it in this timeline, too.” She pointed her hand toward the door. “So go, damn it! Before you hate me all over again.”

  Another rush of energy moved through me, and a torrent of magic flushed through my body as I found myself flying toward the door against my will. My hands balled into fists as I neared it, ready to slam into the thing as opposed to actually turning the knob.

  I couldn’t control this magic; it wasn’t mine. Stacey had been right. She did have power that I couldn’t understand. The fact that she was able to do this to me was astounding. Especially with all the protection spells we had cast. All of those thoughts flew through my mind while I careened toward the door.

  As it turned out, trying to turn the knob would be a mistake.

  The moment I slammed into the door, something hit me...something other than the door.

  I flinched, expecting it to be hard or powerful, or even something that might tear me apart. During all the things I’d been through in the last few years, ever since I found out the truth about who I was and what I was capable of, my life and even my body had been hit with things constantly trying to hurt and destroy me. There were demons and beasts and more than a few jolts of magically offensive forces that attempted to take me off my feet, throw me off-balance, or just downright kill me without any sort of hesitation.

  No one would be surprised to learn I was expecting that, given all I had been through. Yet, what hit me was something else entirely.

  Something good. Something right.

  As I moved through the door, passing harmlessly through the solid object without so much as breaking stride or getting a splinter, peace flowed through me the likes of which I had never felt before.

  It was like coming home. No. It was better than that. It was like finally realizing where home was after a lifetime of searching. It was like the last page of a book where all your favorite characters get everything they ever wanted and none of the antagonists survive. It was finally finding rest after a lifetime of torment that was meant to destroy your soul.

  After passing through that door, my body shuddered from the sensation, and I was forced to blink repeatedly to see the room and its occupants.

  There, on the tan carpeted floor, his legs bent under him, sat Abram. His eyes were trained at something on the ceiling, something I couldn’t see myself but was there without a doubt.

  He didn’t appear to be in any pain. He wasn’t afraid or upset. Instead, he, too, looked at peace. As though he were living in a moment he wished could stretch out into forever.

  “Charisse,” he said, and his voice held all the love and familiarity it had carried when he was mine.

  I knew, in that instant, I wasn’t in the presence of the thing that took over the man I loved. It was gone, even if only for a few moments. Abram was here. He was back, and I was going to make the most of it. I didn’t have a choice. It was like the missing piece of my soul was staring up at me.

  “She says you can’t see it, Charisse,” he continued while staring at the ceiling. “She says no one can see it yet. But you will.”

  I rushed toward him, not caring about what he was saying right then. We had time for all of that later. I collapsed onto my knees and wrapped my arms around him, never wanting this moment to end. Tears burned at the back of my eyelids as I closed them tightly against the oncoming emotions.

  While I pressed my head into the crook of his shoulder, another wave of peace ran through me. This moment in time was even better than any I could possibly have imagined. Just the feeling of being in his arms again, of wrapping myself around the love of my life, was enough to give me ecstasy.

  “It’s all the same hand,” Abram said. “I can see it all now. It’s always been the same hand, ever since the very beginning. It’s all so obvious. It always had to be this way.” He was rambling, his voice almost incoherent and strained. But I made out every word and stored it away for later.

  “Baby, I don’t know what you mean,” I admitted, kissing his neck and hoping the things he was saying weren’t because of some brain damage brought on by all that had happened to him. “I need you to come with me. I need you to let Ramsey see you. Maybe, if he can actually take a look at what happens to you when you come back to yourself, he can make it permanent.” I was being irrational, but I needed to do something. I had to hope that there was some way to undo the damage.

  “This isn’t about that, Charisse,” Abram said. “This isn’t about any of that. You can’t tell them this. You can’t tell anyone about what’s happening. They’re not meant to understand.”

  “What do you mean?” I pulled away from him, furrowing my eyebrows while trying to wrap my mind around what he was saying. “What are you talking about?”

  Before he could answer, his body seized up, and he passed out.

  “Abram!” I said, shaking him. His tanned olive skin turned sallow, almost pale with his dark hair matted against his time-worn skin. “Abram, come back to me!”

  “You’re still not asking the right questions. How many times did I tell you to ask the right questions and not to let your emotions get the better of you?” An achingly and annoyingly familiar voice chimed from behind me.

  Turning, I saw none other than Satina standing there, a bright glow surrounding her. She was dressed strangely, at least f
or the fact that she was standing in my apartment. It was as though she had stepped out the titanic, right out of the ballroom and transplanted into the room with me.

  “Didn’t I teach you anything?” she asked, the same wry smirk on her lips as always.

  My heart might as well have skidded to a stop. Of all the things I thought I might come into contact with in this room, Satina was definitely not one of them. Especially since she’d been dead for over a year.

  Though, I had to admit, there’s no way that I should be surprised. The feeling I experienced when coming into the room—that peace, that safety—I hadn’t felt since the moment Satina took her last breath on this world and gave me freedom from her machinations. The idea that it came back with her just seemed perfect enough. Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to have questions.

  I wanted to stand, but Abram was still here, still cradled in my arms and just as heavy as he’d always been. Bouncing between the two of them would be like being torn into equal pieces and being expected to survive it. Both of them were people I loved. Both of them were people I was sure I’d never see again. Now that they were both back, albeit in strange and unpredictable manners, I wasn’t sure how to react. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  My mouth went dry, and my body shook with something like fear or anticipation.

  “Is that really you?” I asked cautiously.

  “Still not the right question,” Satina said. As always, she had that air of amusement about her, as if, despite my dire situation and her desire for me to fix it, she still found it all entertaining. “You know it’s me, Charisse. You can see it. More than that, you can feel it. I only have a short time here. Don’t waste it by confirming that which you already know to be true or by questioning me about things that don’t matter.”

  Her voice was a scolding thing, as though I had been called into the principal’s office and this was what was awaiting me there. Still, I knew her well enough to know there was love in it. Satina wouldn’t do anything unless it was in my best interest, even if sometimes it didn’t feel that way.

  Steadying myself, I searched my mind for the right questions, for the things I honestly had no clue about. Wherever Satina came from, wherever she was watching us from, it was clear she had more information about the trouble I was in than I did. I couldn’t waste even a second of that.

  “Can I win this?” I asked, then swallowed hard as I decided to go for broke. “The Brothers—can I beat them?”

  “Define win,” she said quickly. “Or beat, for that matter.” She shook her ethereal head. “The Brothers are Eternals, Charisse. Nothing we do or don’t do can change that. If killing them is your goal, then I’m afraid you’re climbing an insurmountable hill and you’re only going to fail and kill everyone around you while you do it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other choices. It doesn’t mean the things that hunt you won’t also be the things that save you. The things that go bump in the night might just be your greatest allies when all of this is said and done.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “How am I supposed to figure that out?” Why did everything she said always have to be some kind of riddle meant to annoy the hell out of me?

  “Wrong question,” Satina answered with a mischievous smile. “And please hurry. You have no idea how difficult being here is for me. The only reason I was even able to do it was because of her help.”

  “Her?” I asked.

  “Someone who loves you very much,” Satina said. She didn’t smirk when she said it, though. Instead, her strained grin turned to a grimace. If I didn’t know Satina better, I might even think that glint in her eyes was sorrow instead of mischievousness. “Now, please, ask what you need, not what you want. I’m afraid, even with her help, I can’t hold this connection much longer. Unfortunately, I’m bound from telling you the answer unless you ask the question directly.”

  I wanted to ask a lot of things. I wanted to find out who Satina was talking about when she said someone ‘loved me very much.’ I wanted to ask her where she had been. I wanted to find out about life after death. I wanted to know everything, but that wasn’t what I needed.

  I had work to do. I couldn’t afford to indulge myself, to tend to the questions of my own mind or heart, when the world was at stake.

  “How do I do it?” I asked mournfully. “How do I save the world?”

  A smile graced the Conduit’s beautiful face, the likes of which I’d never seen before. It transformed her from a monster in my eyes, to a beautiful young woman once more.

  “That’s the right question,” she said. “You have to make the right choice. The time will come, and it will come soon, where this entire chaotic war will dance on the head of a needle. To make it right, you have to follow your head and heart as one.” She looked at the doorway. “I’m with you Charisse, even when you can’t see me. Someone out there beyond the door isn’t. There’s a traitor to you here, Charisse. A foe disguised as a friend. There’s someone who doesn’t want you to succeed, who will stop at nothing to see you fail and destroyed at the hands of The Brothers. Find them, fix it all, and above all, make the right choice. I know you can do it. It’s what you were destined to do.”

  With that, as I blinked back tears and tried not to sob at the genuine emotion she was showing me, Satina faded away. I was left in an almost empty room with only my thoughts and fears as company.

  My head was still spinning and my heart was racing with everything that had happened in that room. Seeing Satina was a trip, but the thing that stuck out in my mind the most, the thing that threatened to rip me apart, was what she’d told me about my friends.

  She said there was a traitor among the people standing outside that room. At least I knew Abram wasn’t here to kill me. Well, not while he was asleep at least.

  Now, deductive reasoning would tell me the traitor had to be Stacey. I’d just met the woman. I didn’t know her from Adam, and she purported to know everything there was to know about me. She was the easy choice.

  The thing was, she might have been too easy. I had been at this long enough to know things weren’t always as they seemed. What was more, Stacey wasn’t wrong. She obviously had some sort of foreknowledge at her disposal. She hadn’t lied to me yet. At least, not in a way I could prove.

  But if it wasn’t her… I shook my head, not ready to let myself have the thought just yet. Well, the thought was there that if it was her, she’d know that I knew. Especially if she knew all of the different futures. Maybe it was her. It could still possibly be her. It could be someone who wouldn’t destroy me to know they had betrayed my friendship.

  But then, Stsacey wasn’t my friend yet. Did what Satina say apply to future friends? But then, I wouldn’t be her friend in the future if she betrayed me. I wanted to believe she was the traitor, but it just didn’t line up.

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to proceed with the information that I’d gotten, but whatever way it was, I had to be careful around all of them, which left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Ramsey had been my confidant for a year, and Huntsman had proven over and over again that he could be trusted. For the upteenth time in a day, I wanted to scream in frustration.

  “I don’t understand why you can’t just tell us what happened in there,” Ramsey whined as he paced around the kitchen and stared at me as though I was crazy.

  “Because I can’t.” I rolled my eyes. “So, can we just drop it?” I asked, tension obvious in my fraying voice. “We have bigger problems to worry about anyway.” I looked over at Huntsman, another of my friends, another possible traitor. “Like making sure he’s not turned into a genie.”

  “Djinn,” Ramsey corrected me.

  “Like I could give a damn,” I snapped. “You said there was a way to find the genie using Abram.”

  “There is,” Ramsey explained. “I did some research while you were in there...doing whatever it was you were doing for hours on end that you won’t tell us about.” He coughed and then we
nt on as though he hadn’t just acted like a petulant child who didn’t get his way. “I found a spell that will work, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

  I’d heard that before. Repeatedly. From him. Regarding this whole thing.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure I care at this point,” I answered honestly. “What do I have to do?”

  Ramsey scoffed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you haven’t done before.”

  Chapter 18

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, staring at Abram through the open doorway and shaking my head. “There has to be another way. I can’t do this. I...I just won’t.”

  Ramsey, standing next to me with arms crossed over his chest, sighed as he answered. “I’m sorry, Char, but there is no other way. The spell was clear. You have to be joined with Abram for it to work, and since things went horribly wrong the last time we tried to mentally join the two of you, physical joining is all we have on the table right now.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I answered, glaring at the man who used to be the love of my life and feeling my heart break all over again. “You’re asking me to be close to him. You’re asking me to betray what I have with Abram for this thing that’s infiltrated his body.”

  “That’s not what this is,” Ramsey said, shaking his head. “No one is asking you to have sex with him for the spell to work.” He turned away while a blush crept up his cheeks. “Although, I’ve run across more than a few incantations that are fueled by erotic energy. This isn’t about that. This is about literal, physical closeness.” Ramsey held his hands together, indicating what he was talking about. “And of course it isn’t easy for me. You’re my friend, Char. These days, you’re my best, and pretty much only, friend. If you think the idea of putting you in an uncomfortable situation is at all a simple decision for me to make, then you obviously don’t know me very well.” In a jerk of movement, Ramsey slammed his hands on the table and hung his head in defeat. “I don’t know any other way for this to work.”