A Curse of Thorns

by Nicole Mainardi

  “Sean?”

  His gaze flicked to me for a moment, then back to Thomas.

  “What’s happened to you—what have they done?” I asked him. Sean still looked the same, though his brown hair was shorter and his normally piercing green eyes were dulled.

  “The inevitable,” he told me, keeping his gaze on Bastian and Thomas, who had now stopped fighting. I glanced at Bastian, and his eyes were wide in panic; Thomas was sneering in triumph.

  “What did they do to you?” I asked when I’d turned back to him, horrified.

  He smiled coldly. “Nothing I didn’t want them to do. I’m new again. Better than I was before. The man who baked bread in his father’s bakery and wanted to make you his wife is gone now, and in his place is the perfect soldier.”

  I heard Bastian growl, but ignored him.

  “But what about your father?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.

  That made his jaw tick, though his voice remained calm. “Dead.”

  I let out a shaky breath. “Dead? But how?”

  “We were raided by Regime soldiers a couple nights ago,” he told me. “Apparently, my father had been keeping some of the Regime coin for himself. He deserved everything the Regime did to him.” Horror and disgust filled my stomach, making me want to throw up. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing: the Sean I’d known had loved his father more than anything.

  “After they killed him,” he continued, “Thomas gave me a choice: die with him, or join the Regime. I chose the better option—the only option.”

  “The only option” I told him coldly, “was death.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s your opinion. One that’ll get you killed, but I suppose you’re entitled to it.” Then he called out to Thomas again, “Where should I take her, sir.”

  Thomas smiled wickedly, his rifle now trained on Bastian. “Take her back to the Fairfax’s cottage. I have plans for them both before the night is over.”

  Sean nodded in obedience, then dragged me back towards home, the gun still loosely pointed at my head as I watched the other Regime soldiers come out from behind the trees. Their guns remained pointed at Bastian until they’d secured him. I tried to catch his eye, hoping that he could see that I wanted him to break their hold on him and go back to his castle where he would be safe. But when he met my gaze, his was fierce and determined, and I knew he wouldn’t leave me, no matter how much I wanted him to.

  I hung my head as Sean pulled me along, and I wondered hopelessly how were we going to get out of this.

  Chapter 26

  Cruel One

  BASTIAN

  T he handcuffs bit into my wrists, tearing at the fur there and pulling my skin. I thought again about how I was going to break these bonds and go after the town lawman, Thomas. The man who’d taken Belle’s sisters from her, the man who’d hurt Belle in so many ways that I wished I could tear off a limb for each one, and who was brandishing a blood-soaked dagger at me now.

  But if I challenged him, he’d hurt Belle. And I couldn’t allow that. I’d last as long as I could, hoping she’d find a way out before he killed me.

  The weight of my own head was finally too much, and my chin rested blissfully on my torn chest. I could feel my blood running down to the floor in slow drips from where he’d cut me. But I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.

  “You’re a poor excuse for a beast,” Thomas told me, and when I remained silent, he swung out with the dagger and cut across my cheek. I barely flinched.

  “I can’t believe you actually think she loves you,” he continued. “It was all for the ring, you know. She was doing my bidding, so that she and I could be wed and want for nothing under the care of the Emperor himself.”

  Thomas crouched down so that I was forced to look him in the eye. “How could someone, even with all the…flaws she has, love a Beast?”

  At that, my head snapped up, and I growled, straining against my restraints as I bared my teeth at him. The only flaws he could be talking about were her scars, and I loved them. Every single one of them.

  Thomas flinched away from me and tried to hide the fear I saw in his eyes by turning away for a moment, as if lost in thought. I felt myself smiling at the small triumph, until bone-deep exhaustion overtook me again. My power was draining with each passing moment, bringing me closer to death. I wondered idly if Thomas knew that I was going to die from the curse and he was keeping me alive to suffer through it, or if he simply enjoyed torturing me.

  “When Belle and I go to live with the Emperor,” he went on, turning back to me now that he’d composed himself, “she’ll never want for anything.” He gave me an almost-pleading look, which was so uncharacteristic of what I knew of him that I barely heard his next words. “I can give her a normal life. Don’t you want that? If you truly love her, shouldn’t you want the best for her?”

  My blood boiled in my weakened body. He was right, but for all the wrong reasons.

  “You can’t give her that happiness,” I croaked out, tasting iron in my mouth. “She may not love me as I wished she did, but I love her and her flaws, as you called them. You only love the idea of what you want her to be—of what you think you can mold her into. But Belle is too strong to be changed by someone like you.”

  I’d been so focused on my own words that I hadn’t noticed Thomas’ entire demeanor change. Without warning, his grip tightened on the dagger and he stabbed forward into my left shoulder. The blade went through my flesh like butter until the tip of it hit the bone jarringly. I let out an inhuman howl when he pulled it out of me, and my body strained against the cuffs as I slumped forward.

  “You weren’t able to best me,” Thomas said, wiping off the blade unceremoniously on his pantleg.

  I tried to keep my blurred gaze on him, if only to remain conscious. The more time he spent torturing me, the better chance Belle had of escaping.

  “And you’re at my mercy,” he continued. “So, I have to wonder why you haven’t begged for your life yet.”

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I tried to put venom behind my words. “I’ll die before begging you for a thing.”

  Thomas smiled wickedly. “That can be arranged.”

  Chapter 27

  Loves You Dearly

  BELLE

  N o matter how awful father had been to us, I’d never wanted out of my home so much before in my life as I did now.

  The soldiers had forced Bastian to his knees in the middle of the living room before unceremoniously tossing me into my room and blocking the door. I’d tried to kick it down a couple times, but it was no use—it wouldn’t budge.

  Now, I sat on my lumpy bed, wringing my captured hands behind my back. I knew I’d pay for the movement later—if there even was a later—but I couldn’t help it. I needed a plan, and soon.

  I knew how to escape my room, of course; trying to kick down my door had just been the easiest way. When father would come home drunk and angry, looking for any living soul to scream his problems at, I used to lift up the floorboards near the window that had always been a bit loose, and make my way through a shallow crawl space to Emily and Lila’s room. I’d stayed there all night, not daring to sleep in case father came in looking for them, and then he’d have to answer to me.

  But first, I needed to get these cuffs off. If I was going to have a chance to take out the soldiers at my door, my hands would have to be free. And my only plan wasn’t great.

  I eyed the drawer of my nightstand where I’d always kept a dagger. I hoped that my sisters hadn’t moved anything while I’d been gone, but maybe they’d only been in my room the one time.

  Seeing my sisters in the mirror—having to leave Bastian so suddenly—seemed like so long ago.

  Shaking my head to dispel the memory, I moved across the bed sheets towards the drawer and crouched to reach the handle, the brass filigree cold in my grasp. Thankfully, it opened without a sound, and there was the dagger, glinting softly in the lamplight.

  N
ow was going to be the tricky part.

  Picking it up by the leather hilt, I placed it carefully between the bed frame and the inside of the nightstand. It dangled there between the wood for a moment before dropping to the rug below. Sighing, I tried a couple more times before it fit. Once it did, I hurried to the other side of the nightstand and pushed the heavy piece of furniture towards the bed. When I didn’t hear the knife fall, I went back to see how stable the hilt was. It didn’t budge when I touched it, but it wouldn’t hold for very long. I had to make this count.

  Carefully placing the blade between one of the thin links in the cuffs, I started to move my hands up and down, sawing at the metal. It made a quiet grating sound, but I kept my eyes trained on the door, and no one came to stop me. The only sounds I could hear were my own, and the far-off, indecipherable boom of Thomas’ voice.

  What was likely minutes later, but felt like hours, I heard the metal link snap. I almost cried with relief. It would be a while until I could get the actual cuffs off my wrists, but at least I could move them freely now. The idea of taking a swing at Thomas was very tempting.

  Focus. I had to rescue Bastian first, and then try to find out where they’d taken my sisters—every second counted.

  I hurried over to the loose floorboard, my body aching from what I’d just done, and lifted the wood without a sound.

  Lowering myself into the shallow crawlspace feet-first, the fit was much tighter than I remembered. I crept to my sisters’ room through mold and mud, turning myself around before lifting the second set of loose floorboards and climbing out. I had a ridiculous thought that I’d have to clean up all the mud I’d just tracked onto the floor, then moved noiselessly to the door, pressing my ear to it. It didn’t sound like anyone was outside it, though I still couldn’t hear what was being spoken.

  Then, I heard a wounded roar. Bastian. Tears burned behind my eyes, the idea of Bastian in pain making me feel as if my stomach had been sliced open.

  Looking around the room quickly, I searched for something—anything—I could use to knock out the guards that were keeping watch at my door down the hall. I kicked myself for leaving the dagger in my room, but I wasn’t sure I had the resolve to stab someone in cold blood anyway.

  It didn’t take long for my gaze to land on something I knew didn’t belong there: mother’s frying pan.

  What the hell is the frying pan doing here? I thought, trying to imagine what my sisters would’ve been doing with it in their room instead of in the kitchen, and failing. But it didn’t really matter why; all that mattered was that it was as good a weapon as I was going to get.

  I picked it up gingerly, feeling its weight in my hand, wincing when a chipped part of the rusted handle cut into my skin, and reached for the doorknob. The old metal hinges creaked as the door opened only an inch or two, and I gritted my teeth, hoping it had gone unnoticed. Putting my eye up to the crack I’d made, I had the perfect view of the soldiers. Or, just the one soldier. I wasn’t sure what had happened to the second and third man, but I wasn’t going to question it.

  “Why won’t you beg for your life?” I heard Thomas demand, his voice much clearer now.

  The guard had his back to my door, but he was looking towards the living room and paying little attention to anything else. Anger flared up inside me—someone just trying to get a look at the Beast, the monster that lived in the forgotten castle.

  Luckily, Thomas’s voice was drowning out my footfalls while I crept up behind the soldier.

  “Fight me!” he demanded, followed by a thud and a low grunt that sounded like it had come from Bastian. Thomas was growing impatient, and I was running out of time.

  Just as I came up behind the guard, I heard Thomas ask, “Would things be different if Belle were here to witness your cowardice? Would you fight me then?”

  Bastian didn’t answer, and I wondered if that was because he chose not to, or because couldn’t. Clenching my jaw, I brought the frying pan up and bashed the soldier in the temple with the handle. He crumpled immediately without a sound, and I braced myself under him to break his fall. I didn’t care if it hurt him, but it would make too much noise. I let him slide to the floor, grabbed his rifle, and peeked around the corner.

  Bastian was being held up by handcuffs that had been nailed against the far wall. His sweater was torn and the fur beneath was matted with blood. Head bowed, I could see that there was more blood speckled in his blond mane. Then Thomas came into view. He had the dagger he’d cut me with in his hand, and the silver and fresh blood gleamed eerily in the firelight.

  I trained the rifle on him, my finger twitching against the trigger, and stepped into the room. “Drop it, Thomas.”

  The lawman flinched, but chuckled darkly as he turned, still holding the dagger, pointing it at me now.

  “My, we are resourceful, aren’t we? I should stop underestimating you, Belle,” he chided, and I brought the rifle up to my eye level.

  “I said, drop it!”

  I’d shoot him if it came to that, though I was desperately hoping he’d run away like the coward I knew he was.

  But I could see in his eyes that his pride and thirst for power was winning out against any cowardice. Gaining the Emperor’s favor was everything to him, even more than marrying me.

  “Look, Beast,” Thomas called, though his angry gaze stayed on me. “Your knight in shining armor is here to save you.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bastian’s head raise up painfully, and risked a glance at him. His eyes were lifeless, and I could see the utter defeat in them—until they found me, and widened with fear.

  I took a step closer. “I will shoot you if you don’t drop the dagger,” I warned.

  Thomas laughed fully now. “I don’t think so, Belle. You don’t have it in you. Despite what you did to keep your sisters alive all those months without your father, you could never bring yourself to kill me, or any person for that matter.”

  I breathed in sharply. How had he known about my hunting? My finger twitched against the trigger again, but I steadied it. It didn’t matter how he knew, he was right—I didn’t have it in me to kill him. Still, I couldn’t figure out a way this would end without one of us, or even both of us, ending up dead.

  “You’re not human, Thomas,” I said between my teeth.

  He narrowed his beady eyes at me, and I could see that I’d let him get closer, the distance between him and Bastian growing. I moved into the room more, putting space between us by escaping towards the kitchen.

  Thomas followed my every move, clearly angry from my comment. “Can’t you see him for what he is?” he demanded. “Can’t you see he’s a monster? An ugly, terrible beast? Just look at him!”

  I couldn’t get distracted again, so I kept my eyes on Thomas. “The only monster here is you. Now put the knife down, before you make me test your theory of whether or not I have the nerve to shoot you.”

  Thomas swallowed and I actually saw a trace of fear in his eyes. “Fine,” he said coldly, placing the knife down on the ground slowly. The rifle in my hands followed him until he stood back up.

  “Kick it away,” I commanded, and he hesitated before doing as I said. It skittered across the floor and hit the wall by the fireplace with a loud clank.

  My arms suddenly felt boneless, and my grip on the gun loosened. I ran over to Bastian as I slung the gun over my shoulder by the strap and touched the bleeding gashes on his face. His blue eyes regarded me with a mixture of wonder and exhaustion.

  “I’m so sorry Bastian,” I said, tearing away some of what was left of his sweater to see the extent of the damage. I breathed out quickly—it wasn’t as bad as I’d first thought, but there were still long, garish slashes across his chest from the dagger, and a part of his shoulder that had been stabbed through to the bone. “You’re fine, love. You’ll be fine. All we have to do is get you bandaged up and—”

  “Belle,” Bastian croaked and I looked up at his panicked gaze.

  I didn�
�t realize it was a warning until the weight of the rifle was no longer on my back and an arm had reached around my throat, pulling me backwards. I watched as Bastian thrashed uselessly against the tight bindings. I wanted to call out to him to stop—he was just hurting himself more—but I could barely breathe.

  “You really thought I’d give up that easily?” Thomas hissed into my ear. He didn’t expect an answer, and continued, though more loudly now. “You belong to me!”

  My hands clawed at his forearm, but it was useless. He did nothing to stop me from scratching away at his arm, the blood dripping to the floor, and I felt his skin underneath my fingernails. When he’d had enough, he spun me to face him and gripped my face hard with his other hand.

  “That beast is the only thing standing in the way of everything I’ve ever wanted, and nothing, not even you, can stop me,” he growled, then his eyes softened a bit. “You could learn to love me, you know? We could live comfortably under the Emperor’s care. And I’d be able to look past your scars.”

  I couldn’t tell him how wrong he was—that I’d never love him, not if I had a thousand lifetimes. I needed someone that wouldn’t just look past my scars, but love them as a part of who I was. So I did the only thing I could and spit in his face. It landed near his eye, but he didn’t wipe it away. He actually looked disappointed for a moment before the anger took over and distorted his features.

  “Fine, have it your way,” he threw me to the side and I landed hard against the floor.

  Everything from that point on went too quickly. Ignoring the pain in my hands and knees, I turned to see Thomas bring up the rifle. Scrambling against the blood-slick floor, I ran at him as he placed the rifle at his eye-level, pointing it straight at Bastian. Just as he pulled the trigger, I flew into him. The air was knocked out of me as we crashed to the floor, and Thomas’s head cracked against the stone sickeningly.