by Lucy Leven
“Does that feel well, lass?” the Beast asked, his rumble of a voice so low that Claria felt his words as much as she heard them.
“Oh, it feels—”
She could not help the hitch of her hips — the smallest of stirs, that the shivering bolt of pleasure it shot through her seemed so disproportionate. So tempting that she could not help but move just so again.
A strange sound tore from her at the doing of it, shocked and pleasured and aghast as one.
But the Beast did not seem aghast, only softly amused. “Just like that, lass,” he said in his wonderful rumble. He set a guiding hand to her lower back, resting there, not pressing nor pushing, but a grounding, steadying weight.
Claria rocked helplessly against him, against the hard, unyielding muscle of his thigh, rocked a quickening rhythm she had never learned, never been taught, but a rhythm her treacherous body knew all the same.
Each little, hitching movement, every slow, delicious press, sent her blood rushing in her ears. She could feel the thundering pulse of it there, and at the fine, reddened skin of her wrists.
But more — she could feel it between her legs, where that little bud of pleasure throbbed so intently. She could feel the press of it building within her, wanting so very much to break and to give her relief.
But not breaking, and bringing no relief. For no matter how she rocked and writhed, no matter how well she knew the peaking of her pleasure must come, that peaking proved maddeningly illusive.
Her movements became unsteady and halting as she teetered there at the teasing, tortuous edge of her undoing. She moaned a little — high and broken — frustrated, pleading, almost wrung out with the feel of it.
A low chuckle from the Beast, warm and warmly amused. With a hand to her hip, he guided her closer. He lifted his leg to press more firmly against her as he did, a solid, steady counterpoint to her unsteady rock, and there — there she came undone.
A feeling of such overcoming pleasure took her. Claria shook with it, helpless, as it sent prickles of sensation across her skin, a gooseflesh of flame to cover every inch of her.
She shivered as it shook through her, trembling every muscle within her, most especially those deep in her most secret, softest places.
Her breath came hitching and catching on shocked, unsteady gasps.
She could hardly fathom what had happened, what strange wildness had overtaken her, what madness she had succumbed to in her hunger to bring that feeling of hot, slipping, aching completion.
“I—” she began, entirely adrift. “Beast, I—”
But smiling, the Beast shook his head. No words he spoke as he lifted her skirts and her petticoats so that they both might see what lay below.
Claria gasped at the sight. Her delicate smallclothes were soaked through with shining wetness, as if she had shamed herself, but Claria had not. She knew she had not. She was wet only, she also knew, with the welling of her own pleasure.
The sight of it made her breath come still in shocked, breathy little gasps, hardly enough to fill her lungs. A flare of panic flickered to life in her chest, but before it could catch fire, the Beast’s grip at her hips shifted, set firm around her ribcage, squeezing there as if to guide her breathing back to its steadiness.
So Claria took a breath with his grounding touch, then another, and another, until the only feeling in her chest was a fluttering echo of her undoing pleasure.
The Beast reached up and ran a hand through her hair, pushed back her curls from her eyes so that he might see them. See her. “You look so very beautiful, lass.”
Beautiful. What a strange understanding of the word the Beast had: Claria’s hair disheveled and her meagre bosom heaving, her skirts hitched up like some sinful wanton, her underthings so wetted that she could see her curls dark through the fine linen, see the glisten of that wetness on her inner thighs, feel it still within and upon her most secret place.
The Beast slipped a hand from her cheek to her waist to her stomach, his touch light as air.
“What— what are you doing?” Claria asked, and how odd her voice sounded, alarmed and anticipatory both as one.
“Touching you,” the Beast said. “If you will give me leave to touch you.”
Touch her…? Did he mean…?
Surely he could not mean…
“Please,” Claria whispered, aghast at herself, “oh please, Beast.”
“With pleasure, sweet lass.”
The Beast’s hand slipped lower still, until to the ribbon of her smallclothes he came. He slipped it loose, and the banding there slackened and slid down her thighs a little — enough, at least, to glimpse the darkness of her curls peeking overtop.
The Beast let his fingers inch down too. Claria felt that sure, practiced touch carding through her curls, to where she was so wet, so hot.
But—
No. Oh, the gods. She could not. Her soul was not wholly of sin. Not yet.
Claria reached down, grasped his wrist. “You must stop, Beast.”
The Beast stilled the instant she spoke, his hand unmoving. He cocked his head like a puzzled pup as he regarded her. “Why must I stop, lass? You do not wish me to stop, do you?”
No, she did not wish him to stop. She wished for him never to stop.
She wished anything else other than the halting of his hot attentions. Wished that the sun might tumble from the sky and that the rains might fall upside down.
But…
“The village friar,” Claria began, halting and unsure. “He said that to touch ourselves so was wrong. That it was sinful. He said to let others touch us so — if we were not man and woman wed — he said that was to defy the gods. To defy their mighty will and invite their fearsome ire.”
The Beast’s hand stayed so very still, but he leaned in, his face so close to hers, as if to kiss her again. But instead, with such commanding certainty, he whispered against her lips, “Then defy the gods, lass.”
“I cannot,” Claria said, nothing certain to her whisper, all trembling and aflame. “Beast, I cannot.”
“You can,” the Beast said, and she knew not how a voice so quiet could sound so sure. “For, lass — what true god would deny such pleasure?”
Claria’s heart beat a thundering drum in her chest. “That is blasphemy,” she whispered. “You question the will of the gods. That is blasphemy, Beast.”
The Beast’s mouth carved a smile, sly and sharp. “So it is,” he said, so unconcerned, as if to invoke the ire of the gods was nothing more concerning than a shower of rain.
But Claria was no beast of claws and golden magic, and the thought terrified her. “But I might anger them, Beast. I might anger the gods.”
“Then I will protect you.”
The Beast said those words with utter surety — so certain in his own domain, like a god himself, unearthly power contained within an earthly body. But so barely contained, in fact, that man was beast, and beast was man.
“Let me touch you, lass,” the Beast whispered. “Let me give you the pleasures you long for. Let me give you the pleasures you deserve.”
“But the gods,” Claria began.
The Beast would not hear her feeble protest. He kissed her as if he meant to own her, as if her mouth was his alone. He kissed her with hot, scalding passion, and he only stopped when he had her gasping and breathless again. “Damn the gods,” he said.
Claria gasped anew. “You cannot say such—”
“Damn the gods.” The Beast took her face in hand, so that she could look nowhere else but into his eyes, golden and aglow. “Damn the gods to all the hells,” he said, each word laid down with such sure intent. “Do you understand, lass?”
Still, Claria was taken by that gaze. The magic in it seemed hot enough to burn, but burn it did not. Instead, it built castles and kitchens. Instead, it kept folk safe — folk like Claria, who had been forsaken by man and god alike.
And so she did nod then, a stilted motion, for she also understood the Beast: the gods h
eld no sway there, not in the garden, not in the castle, not in the Dark Forest beyond.
They held no sway with the Beast, and so they must hold no sway with her.
“Damn— damn them,” she whispered. “Damn the gods, Beast.”
The Beast nodded too, slow and pleased, and when he smiled then, Claria felt bathed in something very close to godly power.
With one hand still cupping her cheek, drawing her into another deep and tender kiss, the Beast reached down his hand and trailed his previous path, past the banding of her smallclothes, down to her damp curls.
“But I am unseemly,” Claria whispered, a fresh flare of shame come upon her. “I am all wetted, Beast.”
“Just as you should be,” the Beast said, his smile sly and slipping.
He moved his hand as he spoke, just as slipping, and the sure press of his fingertip against that hot bud of her pleasure was pleasure untold. Claria cried out in shivering shock. She tried to buck away from the hot wildness of it, but the Beast would not let her. He held her firm, and touched her just as firmly. His touch circled and pressed, unforgiving.
Claria came apart again in mere moments, the echo of her unravelling pleasure ringing in time with the new.
But further the Beast’s touch slipped. One long finger he took, and that finger he pressed into Claria’s most secret place.
Still caught in the haze of her undoing, she had no time to tighten with nerves or in trepidation. Only, instead, time to tighten hard around the Beast with a hot instinct and a hotter pleasure. The sensation of his touch within her, clever and crooking, was as nothing she had ever known, the feeling of his hot fullness, of his sheathing and of his slow, teasing withdrawal.
She would have cried out again if she could, but words were beyond her. Only gasping breaths, only broken whines.
And the broken whine she made was especially ragged when Claria felt the touch of another finger teasing at the tight circle of her entrance, where she held hard around the Beast’s touch.
Surely there was no way she could take so much within her. Even one of the Beast’s fingers felt so much as to be almost too much.
Surely she could not—
A second finger slipped past Claria’s resistance with an ease that made her flush, fierce and fast. With one sinful slide and crook of those clever fingers, one sinful press and push, Claria came to the feeling of overcoming release so hotly and so slickly that she knew her petticoats would be spoiled, her fine gown too, so wet was she with her pleasure.
And so undone was she with that pleasure that she could do nothing but cling to the Beast’s strong shoulders, feel his warmth and power under her unsteady grip, and gasp against that power, breathily, with the ebbing waves of her undoing.
“Sweet lass.” The Beast took her chin between finger and thumb, drawing her mouth to his.
Claria went eagerly to that kiss, and just as she tipped up her face to his, as she turned like a seeking flower to the giving sun, Claria saw that one of the garden’s roses had broken from bud, its exquisite petals all unfurled, a deep, wine-red pink, the most beautiful and delicate of blooms.
The Smell of Fresh Bread
The morning came, cold and crisp outside, autumn drawing to its bare-branched end. But inside the castle and inside the Beast’s lair, the world was warmth and comfort.
Claria lay with her head pillowed on the Beast’s chest, her hand over his heart. The Beast’s arm was heavy around her middle as she came to awareness, surrounded by warmth, slow and honied, and she knew then that the Beast had already awoken.
He pushed back her curls from her face, so that he might see her eyes more clearly. He kissed her soundly, sharp and sweet, and said, “I am afraid I have business today that I cannot put aside. But I will return before evening comes.”
“Then I am happy for that,” Claria said.
The Beast drew her into another sound kiss and only left when he had her breathless. Not a moment later, from down on the flagstones by the castle’s grand entranceway, the clatter of hoofs sounded.
Claria sprang up to stand upon the bed, up on the very tips of her toes so that she might reach the high-up window. She watched as the Beast galloped off atop his golden horse, off down a long, straight path that unfolded itself from the forest in front of him and then disappeared just as quickly behind.
A brisk wakening in the once-slumbering shadows told her that the time had come to dress.
Claria allowed herself to be pulled and pushed and laced into another breathtaking gown. And when it was finished, with a proud little flourish, the castle conjured a looking-glass.
Claria forced herself to look upon her reflection, though she could barely meet her own eyes. For how silly she appeared, like a dowdy maid done up in her mistress’s finery. So she looked instead to the flush of embarrassment that flamed across her cheeks and coloured the smooth skin of her décolletage.
She had flushed yesterday, she knew — yesterday, when she had been brave. When she had asked for what she wanted, and when she had been given what she asked.
And so it was that Claria plucked some fresh bravery from that strangely blooming bough.
“Might I — might I have something plainer?” she asked the shifting, watchful shadows. “Something — something more befitting of my station, perhaps?”
The shadows around her took on a puzzled air, and shifted anew, uncertain, questioning.
“It is,” Claria began, “that this gown is so very beautiful and so awfully fine, and these jewels are so pretty, but — but they are not for me. Do you understand?”
But it was plain that the castle did not understand.
Claria touched her fingers to the jewels at her neck, at her wrist. “These are beautiful and so precious. I take every step scared that I might lose them. And this gown.” Claria swept her hands across the heavy silk of her skirts. “It is beautiful too. So beautiful that I am always worried that I might tear it or stain it, and so I move very little at all, except to walk awfully carefully and sit even more so. Might I—” She took a breath, a fortifying one, and forged on. “Might I have just a simpler dress? One made up in starched cotton or plain muslin, with laces I can manage myself, and with the hem taken up, and no train to tangle at my feet?”
A shifting in that smoke of magic. Now the castle understood, and Claria did not know how she could tell that a room of vague shadows was disgruntled with her, but well she knew it.
So, “Please,” Claria said.
All at once, with the sullen snap of stays and the despairing tear of laces, the beautiful gown slipped from her shoulders. The jewels followed, tumbling from her neck and her wrists with a slinking, chinking tinkle, leaving her in nothing but her pretty chemise.
Claria bent and picked up her so-hastily discarded gown, laid it out neatly across the bed, smoothing the skirts and tucking away the laces. The tumble of diamonds she placed atop.
And then she waited, worried for but a moment that she might spend all day in just her smallclothes. But she need not have fretted, for before her eyes, with a faint shimmer of magic, the jewels disappeared and the grand gown became something else entirely.
The colour of the simple dress was the same as the gown had been — a deep, blooming pink — and more fanciful than she would have ever have chosen for herself. But it was dark enough that she should not have to worry about stains and splatters, and the dress itself, in cut and fit, was as any she had worn for a day of hard work about the bakery.
Claria stepped into it and pulled the dress on. She had laces to manage herself, and skirts of a most sensible length. And when she lifted those skirts to see, the jewel-encrusted slippers upon her feet had become a pair of sensible stacked heels.
Only one thing was missing. “Might I have an apron?” she asked.
And that proved a step too far.
The shadows disappeared, a starched white apron puffed into being in their stead, and drifted to land, unceremoniously, at Claria’s feet.
Whether the castle was pleased or not, Claria felt much more herself.
The fabric she wore was finer, the linens whiter, the leather suppler. Her hair in its neat, plaited knot was shining, her skin pinked not rouged. She was herself — and only herself. In fact, she could almost meet her gaze in that damnable looking glass.
But to feel truly herself, Claria knew where she must go — and so to the kitchens she went.
For how she had missed the kitchens: the ovens and the stoves, the feel of dough under her kneading hands, the warm, dry heat of the bake.
She fussed with the wood stack and the fire until the oven burned just as she liked it, then she rooted around in the store until she had everything she needed.
Flat breads with lavender, honied buns, soft rolls stuffed with cheese: she would make them all.
She spent the day at her work, kneading the dough to a gleaming shine, shaping loaves and buns and rolls. Resting and rising and baking anew.
There were no windows in the kitchens, just firelight. She had no notion of the passing of time until—
“Lass.”
Claria looked up, blew her curls from her eyes with a puff of a breath, and found the Beast watching her from the low, arched doorway.
“Oh, hello,” she said. “I did not hear you on the stairs?” Even she did not miss the questioning in her tone.
“Perhaps I am terribly light of foot,” the Beast suggested, ducking through the doorway and wandering over to her.
“Perhaps,” Claria agreed, but she shook her head all the same, laughing at herself. For what chance was there that he, a being so tangled up in magic, had used the stairs?
The Beast came close enough to look over her shoulder. “What are you making?”
“Rosemary bread and lemon cakes,” she said, nodding to the oven, then to the table where her last batch lay cooling. “Honey buns," she said, cleaning her hands with a cloth, “and rolls baked with soft cheese.”
“You are very skilled.”
Claria blushed at the compliment. “Not very,” she said. “But enough, I think. Especially at honey buns.”
