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

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  I opened my eyes, barely able to function at this point, and he smiled.

  “You’re mine.”

  I nodded. “Always.”

  “Good.” He filled me again, and if it weren’t impossible, I’d say he’d grown in size.

  I was full, so full. Every single thrust brought me closer to another orgasm. He wasn’t gentle now. No, he was owning me, marking me as his. It was too much and not enough.

  “I’m there again,” I said through the haze.

  I barely got the words out before I was pushed over the cliff and into another orgasm. This time Abram finished with me. He pulled out completely, though, and he used his hand to rub his cum into my skin, marking me in a primal way.

  “Why’d you do that?” I asked.

  “So that when he comes back, he knows that he may have my body, but I own your soul.”

  I reached for him, needed the kiss that his lips offered. One moment, he was there with me, kissing me with everything he had. The next, he faltered and pulled back.

  “Char?” He looked down at where our naked bodies were pressed together, and his eyes clouded over.

  “He’s gone,” I said quietly. “Already.”

  “I tried,” Not Abram said. “I tried to give him as much time as I could, but I was forced back.”

  I pushed away, feeling desolate as I pulled a blanket over my body to cover my nakedness.

  I’d just had sex with the man I loved, and he was still here. But it wasn’t him. It would never be him, not forever.

  Confusion and guilt crashed into me. Was sleeping with Abram wrong? I would have regretted passing on a chance at intimacy with the man I loved, not knowing when or if the chance would ever present itself again. But the rushed sex left me feeling cold.

  When Not Abram turned around, I got dressed and slipped my shoes back on. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Abram doing the same.

  “Charisse,” he said comfortingly. “I know you don’t want to hear this. I saw everything. I may be crass, and I may be a dick. But I would never…you know.”

  The sob escaped before I could stop it, and I was angrier than I’d been in a long time. The tears were supposed to be done. I wasn’t supposed to cry about this anymore.

  He reached for me. “Charisse.”

  Before he could touch me, the door to our cell opened, and the same man from before was standing there with a knowing smile on his face. He turned to the unmade bed and sniffed the air.

  “Well,” he said. “I suppose I missed all the fun.”

  Abram took a step forward and snarled, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “He’s not worth it,” I told him.

  “Let’s go,” the man said. “I’ve got orders to bring you upstairs.”

  He moved to grab my arm, but I stepped around him. Abram tried to follow, but the door was shut in his face and locked again. When I looked at the man with a gun for an answer, he just shrugged.

  “You’re the only one wanted,” he said by way of explanation. “You know, it really is admirable how many men you carry around with you. First, you’ve got three men with you, and now, the queen’s right-hand man wants to see you. I’m surprised. Especially because of how fat you are.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. I’d been hearing I was fat half my life. I wasn’t about to let this idiot goad me.

  “Well,” I told him with a false smile, “I guess they just like curves.”

  He didn’t say another word as he led me up through the building to where the offices used to be. I followed closely, not wanting to give him a reason to point his gun at me again.

  “Through there.” The man pointed to an open door, and I walked into the room beyond with as much courage as I could muster.

  “Well, well,” a voice I hadn’t heard in years said from the darkness. It was a voice that couldn't be here. It was impossible. I’d killed him.

  Dalton walked toward me, the shadows leaving his face, and a hard look in his eyes.

  “Fuck,” I muttered and ran for the door.

  Before I could even take a step outside, he was there with one hand wrapped in my hair. He yanked me back and slammed the door shut, closing me off from any chance of escape.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Charisse.”

  Chapter 22

  Dalton was squeezing so hard that flashes of light danced in front of my eyes. The lack of oxygen was taking its toll, and I couldn’t breathe more than a gasp at a time. It hurt so badly, and I couldn’t even get my magic to respond.

  Scratching at him, kicking didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. In an instant, he’d stripped me of the strength I’d gained since we last saw one another. I was helpless, the same woman who’d almost lost everything.

  “Dalton,” I choked, the word barely audible over the alarms blaring inside my skull. “Stop.”

  His muscles had to be straining with the effort of holding me up. The thought flickered through my mind as everything grew dim.

  My eyes closed, and I knew if he didn’t stop, I was going to pass out any second now.

  He didn’t answer at first. Didn’t acknowledge my fingers scratching against his hands, though the grip he had on my throat lightened minutely. Just enough to keep me alive. Air rushed into my lungs, and I coughed from trying to take such a sudden deep breath.

  A smile cracked across Dalton’s face. He was just as demented as I remembered.

  “I remember everything you did to me, you know.” His once attractive face contorted in rage. “You killed me, Charisse. You took away my chance at forever. Now, I don’t even have my power as a beast. At least you still have your magic to keep you warm at night. I’ve been surviving off Ryland’s scraps.”

  Dalton was dead. He couldn’t be here. I’d killed him. He was seriously the only person I’d actively tried to kill.

  “I chopped off your head,” I said dumbly.

  I really had. I’d watched it separate from his body. I’d had nightmares about it constantly after it happened. Abram held me through the tears, telling me that I did the right thing. I knew for a fact that he’d been dead.

  The way his eyes flared at my words told me that I’d made a mistake. As though his grip tightening against my throat wasn’t enough. I tried to get away, but it wasn’t working. My magic still wasn’t responding. I flexed so hard that I thought it’d explode out of me, but nothing. Not even a wisp of magic left my fingers.

  “I could spill every ounce of your blood,” Dalton whispered against my face. “Do you think if I did, I might be able to get my power back?”

  He was crazy. Even crazier than he’d been before.

  “No,” I croaked.

  He wasn’t squeezing my throat hard enough to kill me anymore. Just hard enough that it was extremely uncomfortable to breathe, and I couldn’t take a full breath, either.

  “Shame.” His eyes flashed. “Ryland wants you alive for now, for some godforsaken reason, but I think you’d be better off dead, just like the beast you were with. I can smell him on you. You disgust me, Charisse Bellamy.”

  He’d played his hand, though. Hurting me was one thing, but Dalton’s boss wanted me alive. That knowledge gave me a hint of strength, and I met Dalton’s snarl with a smile.

  “You know,” I said. “He took me in that bed. In the dungeon you put us in. I wonder how much that hurts, Dalton. To know that no matter what you did, or what you do, you’ll never be the beast I need to keep my bed warm at night.”

  “You know that he won’t be able to give you forever, Charisse. He won’t live long enough. No beast could survive that mark on their chest. Not for long. It’s too bad, really. I’d love another chance to kill him.”

  Dalton’s words made me sick to my stomach. I pulled back, trying to get out of his hold. He didn’t budge, though.

  “Fuck,” I grunted. “Let me go.”

  He laughed in my face, spittle landing on my skin as he did.
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  “No.” He caressed my cheek, in a twisted version of affection. “Once Ryland is done with you, I’m going to kill your beast the way you killed me.”

  Threatening me didn’t do it. Physically assaulting me didn’t, either. It was the very real threat to Abram that woke up my magic. I didn’t even have a chance to cast the spell before power was flying from my fingertips. I couldn’t control it, and I didn’t want to. Not when I was faced with Dalton and everything he wanted to do to me, had done to me.

  Dalton had been choking me, threatening Abram, and nowthen his mouth was sealed shut. There was only skin where his mouth had been a few seconds before. His hands slipped from around my throat, and I landed on both feet with a soft thud, while Dalton collapsed next to me. His hands covered most of his face, so it took a few seconds for me to see exactly what I’d done to him.

  Horror and fascination warred in my mind as I stepped over him, seeing the handiwork my power had manifested.

  Dalton couldn’t breathe. That much was clear. His face was red, and he was scratching at himself. His nose, his lips, even his ears were all sealed shut. It was as if I’d taken an eraser and eliminated those parts of his anatomy. He was suffocating, and there was nothing I wanted to do to help him.

  He used to be handsome, in a boy-next-door sort of way. Now, though, I could barely tell that he was human. Not with the way his skin looked like it was melting in on itself. Most definitely not with the way his face was drenched in blood. His fingers were covered in it, and he was pleading for help with his eyes. I’m sure the moaning he was doing behind his sealed mouth was his last ditch effort to get me to break the spell.

  “You hurt me,” I said slowly, staring into his bulging eyes. “Not only that, but you’re going to try and hurt the man I love. You deserve to die, just like you did the first time. You murdered women, and you tried to murder me. Goodbye, Dalton. I hope you stay dead this time.”

  I could still feel where his hands had wrapped around my throat, and there would no doubt be bruises there for a long time. Dalton was dying, again. This time, I wouldn’t see his blood pooling around his corpse. Sometime in the past year or more, I’d grown bloodthirsty. I wanted to see his blood, to make sure that he couldn’t come back and haunt me.

  When he reached out to grab my leg, I stepped out of his reach and smiled. Yes, I felt like a crazy person, but I wasn’t about to leave until I was sure that Dalton was dead. Again. The last bits of movement stopped, and his lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling.

  “Finally,” I muttered.

  Just for good measure, I kicked Dalton’s corpse. Then I turned to the closed door that led to the nightclub-turned-castle. It was a lot. Too much, really. But I didn’t have a choice. I never had a choice. Beyond that door were a hundred different things I needed to do, people I needed to find, and a genie I had to force back into a bottle.

  Knowing exactly what was next, I turned the handle on the door and stepped into the hall.

  Empty. There absolutely nothing out here. I closed the door silently behind me, not sparing a glance for Dalton. The halls around me were silent, and I tried my best not to make a sound as I headed back toward the basement. My first stop needed to be getting my friends out of their cells. Then we could find the genie.

  The stairs creaked as I stepped down them, but I kept going, breathing a sigh of relief when I made it to the bottom and no one appeared. There was something weird about being back in New Haven that was making my magic unstable, and I didn’t want to get caught unprepared by any crazy people waving weapons around.

  “Do you think we’re safe now?” Stacey’s voice filtered from one of the rooms, and I paused before trying to open the door.

  I don’t know why--call it an obsession with proving that she didn’t know absolutely everything that was going to happen--but I had to hear what she was saying.

  “We must be.” Huntsman’s voice caught me by surprise. “After all, the queen summoned her. I heard the way that other one, the one that used to be a beast, left with her.”

  “Good. That means she’ll be gone soon, and this nightmare will be over.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. What was Stacey talking about? And why was Huntsman part of it?

  When I reached for the handle to call them on their bullshit and find out what was happening, another person joined the conversation. Someone I never should have heard.

  “I still don’t understand why we had to wait all this time.” Briar’s annoyingly sweet voice filtered through the door. “It took you guys long enough to get her here.”

  What the hell?

  I clapped my hand over my mouth so that they couldn’t so much as hear me breathe.

  “You know why,” Huntsman said. “We were looking for the best path forward.”

  “Hmm,” Briar said. “I thought it was going to be harder for Ramsey to get her back to New Haven, though. She keeps talking about how much she hates it. But it barely took any effort at all. Just a fake spell, and she came running.”

  Ramsey’s laugh had me falling to my knees. Oblivious to anyone who might sneak up on me, I let the pain of their betrayal wash through me. All of them. I didn’t need to see their faces to know it was true, either. I’d spent so much time the last few days listening to Stacey, I could tell just by the inflection that it was her. And Ramsey had been my constant companion over the past year, which meant I’d spent more than enough time with Briar since the two were often together.

  “Lulu,” Ramsey said, “I’m sorry for the sacrifices you had to make to help us get to this point, but I hope it’s worth the result in the end.”

  Lulu laughed, and I felt the very last bit of my heart shatter into a million pieces.

  “It wasn’t anything at all,” she said. “Knowing this nightmare is almost over, it’s enough to make me do just about anything.”

  I listened to them, unable to move or defend myself. I was stuck while the people I cared about the most proved to me that I was alone.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost done.” Lulu broke through the haze of pain that had descended over my head. “Once Char is dead, my family can come back. That’s what Ryland promised me. A small price to pay.”

  I crept forward on my hands and knees. I was sure that I couldn’t stand, not with how much it physically hurt to hear this. But I needed to get closer. I needed to face them, to see their reaction once they realized that I knew they’d betrayed me. Only after I saw them with my own eyes would I be able to figure out what to do next.

  My heart raced, and I crept forward until I was sure that they would hear me shuffling around. No one appeared, though. I held my breath for a few seconds, trying to steady my heart while I attempted to use my magic to shield me. Thankfully, it obeyed, and I felt the steady pulsing that indicated I should be okay. I wasn’t going to take any chances, though. I stayed low and kept as quiet as possible. After all, as much as I might hate him right now, Ramsey was an extremely powerful mage.

  The door was hanging ajar, barely. I stuck my face right up to it, down low, and saw my worst fear. It really was them. Some part of me had hoped seeing in the room would prove some other possibility. Reveal that it was all just a trick. But there was no way that the genie could impersonate all of them at the same time.

  There was no sign that there was anything wrong with them. Huntsman and Stacey stood side by side. Ramsey held Briar in his arms, his lips pressed against her cheek. Lulu stood alone, and she was still smiling. The only one I didn’t see was Abram. It didn’t change anything, though. Seeing them here, it decimated every piece of the trust I had for any of them.

  Even the way Huntsman was staring at Stacey hurt. Instead of the annoyed distance that he’d had since the moment she introduced herself, he was eating her up with his eyes. While I stared, he reached over and brushed her hair behind her ear. It was clear that I was missing more than just a few of the pieces.

  “I wish I had a chance to say goodbye,” Lulu said suddenly, l
ooking away from the others. “It sucks that Char has to die to save the rest of us. Are we sure this is the right thing? There’s nothing else we can do?”

  That comment hurt worst of all. It meant that Lulu did care about me, or had at some point. Just not enough to stand by what was right.

  At least Abram wasn’t there with them. There was a chance that he wasn’t involved. He couldn’t be. My mind raced with the possibilities and shifting plans. I had to get away. Screw the rest of them. I’d get to Abram, and the two of us could get the hell away from here. If Huntsman was part of this, there was no reason for me to help him.

  Shuffling backward, awkwardly since I was still crouched down, I practically waddled to get away without them hearing or seeing me. I was almost safe when I heard shuffling from behind me.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  I shrieked, and fell forward. My head slammed into the door, and I ended up sprawled on the floor in front of the people who had betrayed me. I kept my eyes shut, refusing to look at them, refusing to cry for any of the things that they’d just said about me. I couldn’t stand to see the looks on their faces.

  Thankfully, it was completely silent. No doubt they were shocked that I’d ended up there, listening to their private conversation. Especially when they’d been talking about how I was going to die. My life seriously couldn’t get any worse.

  Bootsteps stopped right at my head, and I held my breath with fear that someone was going to hurt me. I opened one eye, and the barrel of a gun was pointed directly at my face, again.

  “Queen Ryland is ready to see you now. No more games, Charisse.”

  Chapter 23

  I stared at the man who was supposed to be my friend. The one who was supposed to guide me in this whole messed up world. Ramsey, as a mage, shouldn’t be able to actually shoot me. But then, what if that had been just another lie he’d told me? What if mages really could hurt others?

  “Ramsey.” The name came out like acid. “Was everything we’ve gone through in the past year a lie? Did none of it matter?”