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

by Rebecca Hamilton

  I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to lose the little bit of food in my stomach. Just as quickly as the wind and destruction started, it stopped. One second, it was loud, rushing through my hair, feeling as though I were flying through the air, and the next, everything was silent.

  Shocked I was still alive, I opened my eyes. Then I blinked several times, because it was like I’d stepped onto another planet. Okay, maybe not another planet, but definitely somewhere far from New Haven.

  My eyes jumped from color to color, overwhelmed by the sight of so many blended together. The walls around me were a combination of red and gray, with shots of green and blue swirled in like marble. I reached out to place my hand on the nearest surface, surprised to find it smooth and cold.

  “It’s glass,” Ryland explained, appearing before me. “The walls are made of glass that’s been spelled to hold everything I could put here, and to contain any magical blast.”

  “It’s the magical version of a bomb shelter,” I mumbled.

  She said something else, but I was distracted by everything that surrounded me that I didn’t make out the words and didn’t care to ask her to repeat herself. Windows perforated the walls, which made no sense. The entire thing was almost translucent to begin with. Why would it need windows?

  I took a step toward one, but then caught sight of a portrait that was propped against one of the walls. Changing my course, I circled the comfortable-looking couch and picked up the painting, surprised to see Ryland there. She wasn’t alone, though. There were two young girls holding on to her hands. No doubt, her children.

  “I painted that.” Ryland’s voice at my side made me jump. I’d been so engrossed in the details that I hadn’t realized she’d approached.

  “You have a family,” I said dumbly. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Ryland, the genie, the creature I’d been searching for, wasn’t a monster.

  She was a mother.

  “I had a family,” she corrected. “They’ve been dead for a long time. Since before I was ever condemned to this bottle, actually.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said without thinking.

  Ryland sniffled, and I offered her what comfort I could and wrapped my arms around her. I mean, she’d already brought me into her bottle, so giving her a hug wasn’t going to kill me.

  “Those windows aren’t really windows,” she told me. “They’re all the memories of the time in my mortal life.”

  “Well, that’s just depressing.” I moved away from her and got a look at the first window I came to. “Who would do that?”

  Ryland’s laugh was bitter. “Being a genie is a curse, Charisse. It’s not magic, fun, and games. It’s torture, meant to be inflicted on someone who was so selfish in their mortal life that they couldn’t care less about the feelings or wishes of others. It’s only after granting three wishes, real wishes that are meant to change a person’s life, that we’re given a chance at freedom. By that point, our old life is over, and we have a chance at a fresh slate.”

  There was so much pain in her words, so much hurt, I couldn't even comprehend what she’d gone through. I’d lost Abram, but my life still went on. Did it hurt more to know your fresh slate could never, ever include the people you loved?

  “Is that why you’re working with them?” I asked. “Is that why you’re taking orders from The Brothers? Are they going to send you back to your human life? To before your family died?”

  Ryland met my gaze, and I saw something there. Doubt. In what she was doing, and who she was working for.

  She shook her head. “My family died a long time ago, and after it happened, I tried to take my own life. All the power in the world at my fingertips, and I’m useless without there being a wish to activate it.”

  I stared at her, wondering if our lives were so very different after all. “What happened?”

  “I lived in a village, a small little fishing village on the coast. We were happy, for a while. Then, there was war, like always. The soldiers raided our village, killed everyone. My family included.” Ryland stared into a window across the room, and I knew it held the memory she was talking about. “I was the only survivor. I couldn’t handle it.”

  I couldn’t offer her any more comfort though. There was nothing to say or do that would take away that pain.

  “I tried to kill myself,” Ryland admitted again. “I threw myself off the cliff outside our village. I was sinking, too, down into the depths of the ocean. While I was there, slowly dying, a bottle that someone had thrown into the sea rubbed up against my body.” She waved her arm around, and I knew that we were standing in the bottle that she’d rubbed against. “The rest,” she said quietly, “is history. I wasted my wishes on trying to bring my family back, or by trying to go back to before they died. I wasted them, and now I’m stuck cursed.”

  “Wasted how?”

  Ryland pressed her lips together and shook her head, tears springing to her eyes. Whatever it was that had happened with her wishes, she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  “You didn’t try to pass the curse to anyone like you did Huntsman?” I asked.

  I found it really hard to believe she’d just accept her fate and stay in a bottle forever. No one, not even the most self-sacrificing person I knew, would ever do that.

  Ryland scoffed. “Are you kidding me? I don’t have a life to go back to. I don’t have a future. Why would I try to break this curse, to trap someone else in it?”

  “But you’re encouraging me to go back,” I pointed out. “You want me to take The Brothers up on their offer to go back to my life before magic. How is any of this relevant to you trying to convince me to take the offer?”

  “It’s a decision, Charisse. One that only you can make. I wanted you to see that not everyone is given the chance to go back. To make their life better. You have that chance. Don’t squander it by doubting the gift you’re being offered.”

  “If you could…if you could go back, and make your life better…would you do it?”

  “In a heartbeat,” Ryland said. “But not even the most powerful wish could do it. I’ve tried. Witches and mages have tried. I even called in a favor with an old friend of yours, while she was still alive. But not even Satina was able to do anything about it.”

  It was heartbreaking, to know the real story behind the genie’s life. And I didn’t want to know. Honestly, it was easier to think of her as just looking out for herself. Now, I had to consider what she was saying, as well as everything she was able to offer me.

  “You don’t have time to think,” Ryland said. “Not much of it, anyway. The Brothers want an answer. They want this to be over. That’s why they sent me.”

  “I don’t like this,” I admitted. “I don’t like being forced into a corner and being told that there is no way out. It’s probably my least favorite thing in the world. All I want to do is tell The Brothers where they can shove it.”

  “That would be a mistake.” Ryland tsked. “The Brothers have everything. They control almost everything they want to. If you think their focus is intense now, it’s not. This is only you barely avoiding them. Getting on their nerves. If you turn down the offer now, you’re going to bring down the worst that they could do. Not only to you, though. No. They’ll destroy everything and everyone that you have ever cared about. You think that this, what happened with your friends, is bad? They were just protecting themselves from going down with you. No. If you don’t take their offer, everything is going to end.”

  When she put it like that, even I thought she made sense. It’s not like I needed to stay here, not with Ramsey and everyone else already abandoning me. If I could go back, start over, maybe I could make a different decision. After all, hadn’t I only gone this way because I didn’t have a choice?

  “I’ll do it,” I told her. “I’ll take their offer.”

  With the decision made, I felt the weight of the world shift from my shoulders. At least for a second.

  Right up until Abram
slipped into my mind.

  My love for him, the way I wanted to be with him, still. Even though he wasn’t my Abram.

  As purple smoke filled the bottle, this time I wasn’t afraid. I knew the genie was bringing us back to the real world. Once there, I would have to make sure she understood. In that split second, my decision had changed.

  My surroundings spun, and my stomach clenched again. Time was running out.

  “I’ve got one condition,” I said breathlessly. I could barely hear myself over the howling wind surrounding us. Could she even hear me? “I want to meet with them,” I shouted over the wind. “The Brothers have to come to me, in person, to make the deal.”

  I blinked. That’s all I did. We were in the bottle, in the eye of the storm. And with a blink, we were standing in the throne room of her castle, the doors behind us creaking open slowly.

  “Oh, my dear,” came a familiar but implacable voice. “We’ve been with you the entire time.”

  Chapter 25

  The voice was achingly familiar, but laced with a staccato that I didn’t recognize. I turned with the feeling I wasn’t going to like what I was about to see.

  Huntsman?

  It couldn’t be, though. He wasn’t dressed the same way. This guy was tall and athletic, with the body of a man who spent hours working outside. He was wearing a pair of designer slacks that hugged his thighs, and a pair of black loafers that went perfectly with his outfit.

  I stared at his chest, where a button-down shirt barely fit his muscles, and his sleeves were nocked at the elbows. On his face, there was barely enough stubble for me to call it a beard. His eyes, though. Those were the biggest tell that he wasn’t Huntsman. His eyes were the darkest shade of green I’d ever seen. If there wasn’t a glint of sun peeking in through the windows on his face, I’d have thought they were black. No, this was not my friend.

  “At least you’re not stupid as well as naive,” he said with a smile. “That’s a pleasant surprise. I’m still shocked at how ridiculous modern people are.”

  He stuck his hands in the pockets of his pants and leaned back against the wall next to Ryland and me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, though I didn’t need to. Clearly he was like...Huntsman’s twin? Or at least brother. The resemblance was eerie.

  “My name is Darcus, but you know me as one of The Brothers.” He chuckled. “I find that I prefer when people call us The Company, however. It seems so much more professional, don’t you think?”

  Before I could stop myself, I was taking a step toward him, with my finger lifted and pointed at his face. “You did this. You caused all of this. Everything I’ve gone through is because of you.”

  “You know now, just like you’ve known all along, what happens if you stick that pretty little nose into things that you don’t belong in. You still did it, though. Didn’t you?” Darcus stared at me with a cocked eyebrow, and the most relaxed stance I’d seen since coming back to New Haven. “Time and again, you stepped into things you shouldn’t have. It didn’t matter what we threw in your path, or what type of wrench we tossed at you. We even made you think that you were going to lose the man that you loved. What did you do?”

  When I didn’t answer, he looked pointedly at me, and I flushed under his scrutiny.

  “You turned around and spent the next year honing skills that you should never have possessed,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, my dear. It’s time you gave up those powers and went back to life like the rest of the world.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not here to discuss the whys and hows with you, Ms. Bellamy.” Darcus took a step forward, pulling his hands from his pockets and lacing his fingers together. “I’m here because your condition for accepting our offer was to meet.” He shrugged. “I’m here. Now, since you’re willing to go back to a time before your power as a Dual was discovered and awakened, it seemed fair to give you a chance to meet me.”

  “Tell me,” I insisted. “Tell me what happens if I go back? Are you going to murder me and take my power?”

  Darcus laughed, and for a moment I forgot that I hated everything about him on principle. It didn’t stop me from wanting to stomp my foot, though.

  “I don’t think you understand how this works,” Darcus said. “I can’t just send you back and take your life like some kind of time-traveling murderer. No. I’m going to strip your Dual nature from you here, and then send you back. Take you back to the beginning of your time here in New Haven, and give you the life you should have lived. A Dual.” He shook his head emphatically. “You never should have existed.”

  He couldn’t be for real right now. Everything I’d gone through was just because he thought I didn’t belong? There had to be more to it than that.

  I stared at him, like he was as crazy as he’d come across. “You’re telling me that all of this is just because I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be here?”

  “You don’t know anything of the magical world. Even after living in it, breathing magic, for how long?” He sneered. “You, Ms. Bellamy, are wasting the power you have.”

  He was angry now, and I could feel the power coming off him. It was like a tidal wave, gaining power with every inch that it traveled away from his body. By the time it hit me in the chest, I was almost drowning in it. All he did was smile, but that told me that he knew what he was doing to me.

  “I’m stronger than you are, Ms. Bellamy. I always will be. You cannot control any of your power, and you’re causing all of this. You couldn’t save your friends. You couldn’t keep them from betraying you. You couldn’t even stop New Haven from becoming one of your own personal hells. So you see, I didn’t do this. You did. Your magic is creating a domino effect, not just here, but all around us. The entire world is being affected because you shouldn’t exist.”

  Ryland cowered in on herself, and I got angry. Pissed, really, didn’t do this emotion justice. It was rage and fury and hate all rolled into one and pressed tightly into my chest. But the worst part was, he wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t control it. Even now, I was having trouble reining in my desire to lash out.

  “You’ve ruined the status quo,” he went on, “and the only thing to do about it now is to remove your power, and for you to take your rightful place.”

  Char. Ryland’s voice echoed in my mind.

  I snapped to attention, barely glancing at her. If she was telling me something in my mind, there was reason she wasn’t saying it where Darcus could hear.

  What’s wrong? I tried to seem like I was enraptured in Darcus and his words, but really I was waiting on the genie to tell me whatever it was she planned on telling me.

  Not everything is as it seems. Not every sacrifice must be made. Not every betrayal is real. I’m sorry for the part I played, but I had no choice.

  Magic exploded from my body at her words. There was no other way to describe it. I couldn’t hold it in. I couldn’t stop the power as it flashed from my fingertips. Ryland was just another victim of The Brothers. Just another person picked at their weakest and trapped forever.

  I was sick of it, and the magic seemed to agree.

  Darcus didn’t look amused. He was straining under the pressure of the power flowing through my body. It was easily twice what I’d felt from him earlier, and there was no doubt in my mind I didn’t have long until he retaliated.

  Ryland stared at me, her purple eyes shining with something close to fear and her fake smile looking more like a grimace. I knew, though, what had to be done. She might not want her curse to break, but there was no reason for her to be trapped in a bottle for the rest of eternity. She’d taken the time to tell me about her family, about what she’d lost. The least I could do was let her go.

  “Time to go, genie.” I didn’t mean to sound threatening. I didn’t mean to cause the fear on her face to amplify. “Go home and kiss your girls.”

  Every bit of power I had at my fingertips moved to follow my command, and I knew it had worked when Ryland vanished. Her bottle, the tellt
ale sign of her imprisonment, lay broken on the floor. But I wasn’t done yet.

  “What did you do?” Darcus snarled. “You freed the genie?” He raised his hands, and his power flared to life.

  “I guess it looks that way, huh?” I said, smirking despite myself. Last thing I needed to do was piss him off more.

  “That’s not supposed to be possible!” he roared.

  This was it. I had no idea what would happen, or what was coming. But I knew that going back wasn’t an option. Not when he was going to take away the one thing that made me special.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” He grabbed a piece of the bottle. His fingers trembled, and I knew that there was something significant about freeing Ryland. “Do you know how much power, time, and effort went into making sure this went perfectly? It’s not easy to stage a betrayal this significant.” He was spitting mad, and the red blotches on his face turned a handsome countenance into something horrific.

  Those words. Betrayal. My friends…

  The doors to the throne room opened behind Darcus, and my mouth fell open as my friends rushed through them. Even Lulu followed the others, looking as though she’d just run a marathon.

  “Char!” she cried. “Please don’t do it.”

  “Don’t go back.” Briar gasped as she leaned down and pressed her hands to her knees. “Genie. Spell.”

  Even Stacey looked panicked. “Not this path,” she said breathlessly. “This isn’t a good path.”

  Ramsey was the only one who looked like he wasn’t out of breath. He’d been making me get up early to exercise and run for a year. That entire year, Briar said the only thing she’d run for was food or zombies.

  “I can take it all away,” Darcus interrupted, suddenly taking up my entire line of sight. “I can take away all the pain that you’ve gone through. That these people have put you through. All you have to do is take my hand.”

  He reached for my hand, but I pulled back. There was something wrong, so very wrong, with everything that was going on.