Beauty's Secret (Beast and Beauty Book 2)
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Beauty's Secret
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Beauty's Secret
Copyright © 2021 Brantwijn Serrah.
ISBN: 9781954031012
Written by Brantwijn Serrah
Edited by Celia Breslin
Cover design by Christian Bentulan
and Brantwijn Serrah
Also By Brantwijn Serrah
Short Stories
Right Where I Want You
Equinox
Hunting Grounds
Graveyard Games
Bad Dreams
The Holston Street Halloween Party
Standalone Novels
His Cemetery Doll
Chronicles of the Four Courts
Book 1: Goblin Fires
Book 2: Elfin Nights
All Mad Here (A Four Courts Short)
Shifter's Dawn
Book 1: Leaving Tracks in the Snow
Book 2: Chasing Ghosts in the Night
Book 3: Standing Tall at the Dawn
The Dark Roads Saga
Book 1: The Pact
Book 2: Into Nostra
Book 3: Shadowlands
Book 4: Fighting Dirty
Book 5: Path of Wolves
Beast and Beauty
Book 1: Beauty's Curse
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Author's Note
Hello, my Wayfarer,
Welcome once again to the world of Beast and Beauty. I'm so glad to see you back, and if you're brand new, welcome to the party!
Beauty's Secret marks the second chapter in the adventures of Sadira, a warrior, submissive, and slave (in the parlance of power exchange), and her barbarian Master, Bannon Sha'kurukh, the Red Bear of Sanraeth. In Book One, these two found themselves thrust together by cruel law and harsh circumstance and discovered a passionate connection through bondage and domination.
The story you are about to read contains strong themes of power exchange and BDSM, though I have taken poetic license to weave certain lifestyle elements into the fantasy world my characters inhabit. You won't find any explicit discussion of a contract or see the same terms you might see in a modern BDSM romance, but I hope I have managed to convey the importance of safewords, well-communicated limits, and the tenet safe, sane, and consensual, at all times. Anywhere I may have failed to accurately address or represent the lifestyle or consenting members within it, I beg your forgiveness. I hope you will please consider the wider library of excellent informational material on BDSM and power exchange, should you find yourself drawn to it. And I promise to keep learning as well.
As always, my darlings,
Read, write, and be merry.
Brantwijn
Dedication
With love, for my love.
Special thanks to Ashley Harper, of my reader group, who christened the country of Sanraeth, and for whom the character of Ashe is named.
Prologue
Somewhere ahead, in a sea of blue light, my mother calls.
Seren! Time to come home, your dinner's waiting!
"Madrēn?"
So, I wade toward the light, shielding my face with an upraised arm. Soft green creepers and dangling tendrils of fern brush my head and shoulders. The smells of crisp, clean water and deep, wet soil invite me deeper down the passageway. A sense of sweetness, of peace and blessing, awaits me ahead.
Yet even as my heart leaps, a cutting sting jabs at my gut.
"Madrēn! I hear you!"
Blue light, pulsing like a heartbeat. Drawing me deeper in. A fire in the heart of the earth. So, I push on, bare feet silent on moss-covered stones. Rough, gray stones, the colors of a thunderstorm, not the familiar, sandy yellow of Vashtaren dwellings or the ochre hue of Alaric's castle.
Yes, the castle. I am not this little girl. Not Seren. I am—
Something slithers in the darkness.
I am Sadira. The soldier. The slave.
"Madrēn, are you here?"
Seren! Where've you got to, my silly face?
A low, dry hiss rises from the shadows. The hollow rattle of a sidewinder's tail. Around my ankles, long, winding coils grow tight. Like the tattoos, red as blood, spiraling over my skin.
No. No, you can't keep me here. You can't keep me from her!
"Madrēn!"
But the snakes drown out her voice. In a rising chorus of hisses and slithering scales, they tangle around my limbs.
Has the light grown weaker? Or are these hideous reptiles pulling me away from it?
The light is dying. Somewhere buried beneath the earth, the light—the Light—is dying.
And my mother. My mother, left behind in some unknown land.
Is she still calling me? After nearly thirty years, is she still waiting for me to come home?
There is no black morass of shadows—no writhing snakes. This is a dream, and dreams hold no real enemies, no tyrant kings, no great serpents. Whatever lies ahead, it belongs to me—part of the life Alaric Khan stole away—and I will go to it!
With each resolute step, though, the snare of the dream tightens.
I've been here before. I've dreamt of this all. Yet I have never—made it—
"Let...go of...me..."
I must reach...that...light!
Beauty's Secret
Beast and Beauty, Book Two
by Brantwijn Serrah
Chapter One
I jolted up from the bed, hands flying up in thoughtless reflex. For an instant, I was sure someone meant to grab my arms and snatch me away into empty blackness.
Just a dream, I assured myself. That sense of attack... or was it falling?
The spartan bedchamber around me stood silent in the gray pre-dawn. The desert heat had already begun to rise, and the thin sheets, damp with sweat, tangled around my legs. I kicked them aside before lying down again, naked.
Beside me, my barbarian warlord Bannon Sha'kurukh reached out and caressed my arm. "Trouble sleeping?"
"No..." I ran a hand through my hair. "I dreamed, is all."
"What did you dream of?"
Brushing my fingers across my lips, I murmured, "I... I don't remember."
He looped his arm over me and drew me close to his body. In the heavy heat, I would have preferred to simply lie next him, twining fingers instead of limbs, whispering instead of sweating in his arms. I allowed him to squeeze me tight against his chest, however. Especially in moments like these—moments so tender and loving—I found it hard to object.
Bannon had moved us into a lesser bedchamber, far from the grand suites of King Alaric, my former master. This new room was far smaller and had no adjoining baths, and certainly no pleasure room where one could find tools, toys, and harsh implements of sensual discipline.
I didn't mind, though. At first, sleeping in Alaric's bed with my new paramour presented a thrill: submitting to Bannon's desires on the very blankets where Alaric had owned me; sharing the opulent baths once reserved only for Alaric's pleasure; kneeling in the wooden stocks of the torture chamber awaiting the harsh sting of Bannon's hand instead of the sadist king's. Acts of def
iance stoking a wicked and sweet and satisfying release; a brazen, vicious infidelity to my tormentor.
Since the culmination of Alaric's last act of evil, though—possessing Bannon's mind and raising a gruesome, undead abomination from the sands—I had no wish to return to those places. I didn't need a soak in his sauna, most of which had collapsed during the final battle, anyway. I had no interest in any of Alaric's possessions.
But today, I must go back, regardless.
I tilted my head up to the small window high on the wall. The pearly silver gleam of morning brightened, little by little. My last day in the castle of King Alaric Khan.
The first day of the search for a homeland and a people I didn't remember. I didn't even know if they still existed.
Seren! Come home, silly face!
Bannon's soft, sleeping breath drifted over the back of my neck. Though I'd started to sweat, and his huge frame practically covered me in his body heat, I closed my eyes and wound my fingers with his.
Stay calm. There is nothing in those rooms to harm you. Not anymore.
My free hand drifted up to my neck, where my slave's collar used to be. The smooth metal ring I used to twist and fiddle with was no longer there. The familiar weight of the embossed black leather, likewise gone. Alaric had used it to mark me in more ways than one: he might have died on the battlefield, leaving me free of his earthly power, but he'd tied up one final, nearly fatal claim in the lines and glyphs around my neck. He'd fashioned the collar into a phylactery to protect and carry his wicked soul, even after his body was cast to the scavengers.
But I destroyed the collar. I broke his power. There's nothing left he can do to me.
Why should a return to his quarters intimidate me now?
Perhaps because it would be the last time in my life. Once I selected whatever final items I wished to take with me, it would be time to bid farewell to those rooms, to Alaric, and to Vashtaren altogether.
I don't belong to this desert. Yet it has crept into my bones. What do I know of other lands or other people, except what we took on the field of battle? I have never seen the sea, or any of the countries beyond it. Barbarian lands might as well be the distant surface of the moon, for all I know.
Bannon had been teaching me to think of his people, the Sanraethi, in more suitable terms. I tried to remember and correct myself. While Bannon didn't seem to mind being called brute or barbarian in the throes of rough, passionate play, the rest of his people weren't amused. If I meant to join him, and them, and wanted to find a place in their ranks, I couldn't continue to think of them as savage foreign soldiers. Especially when they were really my liberators.
I lay awake in Bannon's arms, stifling hot but consoled, as the light from the window strengthened by degrees. It turned from a soft, muggy gray to a brightening rosy glow, and then a crisp, hot gold. Bannon stirred again, sleepily planting kisses along my cheek and jawline before rising and stretching his long, muscular body in the early beam of light. Beautiful lines of sunny splendor limned strong, hard, tawny limbs.
I admired him, and my lips quirked into a smile. His eyes caught mine, and he eased out of the stretch to lunge at me and swat my bottom.
"Get up, you wicked little wretch." Gathering me in his arms, he lifted me from the mattress and swung me around. "Lazing about in bed, are we? I might have to heave you into one of the horse troughs for your morning bath and see how you smirk at me then!"
"No, Sir!" I begged, wriggling in his grasp. "Wouldn't you much rather I bathe you as my punishment?"
Bannon set me on my feet and stroked his beard. "Well, then, that's a good idea. Yes, I think I shall. Stand ready, my girl, while I call up a tub."
I assumed my usual stance of patient obedience: chin up, chest out, hands clasped behind my back. Bannon donned breeches long enough to step out into the hall and send a courier for the wash basin, and I had time to privately hope it wouldn't be his daughter, Ailsa, tasked with bringing it up. Ailsa was old enough to be married herself, but still, she didn't much approve of the circumstances which led Bannon and me to share a bed.
"First smirking, now daydreaming?" Bannon's amber eyes glittered as he closed the door behind him and rubbed his hands together. "Goddess Sherida, what am I to do with such a cheeky girl?"
A delightful heat rose to my cheeks and stirred in my thighs. "You could take me over your knee, Sir."
Bannon ran the backs of two knuckles down my cheek. I resisted the urge to look up into his eyes while his hand drifted down to my neck and then to one flush breast. He seized it with a gentle but possessive greed, squeezing softly, the pad of his thumb circling my studded nipple. I swallowed the moan fighting to rise. He then stepped closer, squaring his body to mine, and his other hand came up to take my right breast, too.
"Look at these brazen little tits." He gave each pinkened nipple a tight tweak. "And that pert ass. That wicked look on your face. I'll bet your pussy's just as wet and ready as a bitch in heat."
I closed my eyes, arching to his touch as he groped and squeezed my breasts together in slow circles, pinching and tugging the stiff peaks, rolling the gold barbells piercing each tip. Every rough touch stoked a sweet, illicit joy, the thrill of exposure and indignity.
"Come then!" He released me, taking a seat on the edge of the bed patting his lap, beckoning me. "As you suggested, kitten. Over my knee."
"Yes, Sir."
I lowered myself over the tops of his thighs. He seized my wrists in one big hand, and with the other caressed my naked bottom. I fidgeted, teasing him, and shot a childish, mocking look over one shoulder. He caught me—I'd meant him to—and his palm came down on my ass with a swift and stinging slap.
"You impertinent brat!" he scolded, though he smiled. I stuck my tongue out and wiggled my rear, daring him, until another solid slap struck my other cheek, and a shiver of delight ran through me.
"Wicked! Little! Tart!"
Bannon punctuated each word with another spanking, bringing a wonderful red heat to my bottom and stoking the deep yearning in my belly and loins. I couldn't help a laugh, which Bannon answered with another slap and a hard, possessive grab.
"What has gotten into you?" he growled. His words were hard, but still playful. "You mark me, kitten, I'll whip these naughty cheeks until they're red as plums and you can't sit straight for a week. Then I'll have you on all fours while I fuck that sweet, sore ass. Is that what you want?"
"Maybe it is."
Just why did I play with him so? I'd challenged him before, spirited and daring, prompting him to punish me in firm, but passionate, ways. This morning, though, I'd found some lustful mischief inside, something I would never have dared to act upon when Alaric disciplined me.
Because Bannon is my Master now.
And my Master hasn't taken me in weeks.
A knock on the door put an end to our game. The wash tub had arrived.
I fell into a pout. As Bannon helped me off his lap, he patted my cheek and gave me a soft chuck under the chin.
"No worries." He rose and crossed to the door. "I won't forget what a wicked girl you've been."
He retrieved the washtub and the tray of bathing implements with one quick word of thanks to the deliverer, then carried it in and kicked the door shut again. "You're in for a very thorough punishment later, Sadira."
Yes. Please. Show me you still want me.
I clasped my hands behind my back and gave him another taunting smile.
Shedding his meager clothing, Bannon sank into the tub and gestured for me to join him. Retrieving a waxy cake of soap and washrag, I obeyed, sliding into the water atop him so we faced one another, my needful pussy pressed conspicuously to his rigid, standing cock. Like this, I bathed him as promised, running the rag over his broad chest and shoulders, then down his arms. The sweet scents of jasmine and patchouli bubbled up from thick lather. With a long, leisurely sigh, Bannon leaned his head back over the rim of the tub and accepted my doting. Yet when I pressed my slippery wet breasts ag
ainst him, he gave no sign he noticed.
At last, I set the cloth aside and instead worked both hands between us, over the shaft of his cock, palms slippery with soap. Bannon uttered a groan as I kneaded him, my hands moving gently in a measured, pumping rhythm. While I stroked, I rocked my body to his with a needful whimper.
Bannon opened one eye and peered at me. "I know what you want."
"Do you?"
"Oh, yes." He slid a hand around the back of my head and tilted me close, so our foreheads touched. "You want a good, hard fuck. Isn't that right, my sweet slut?"
"Yes, Sir." I relinquished my grip on his erection and rested against him. Unable to meet his eyes, I added, "It... has been some time."
Neither one of us had to say, since the battle with Alaric. Or whatever tainted, twisted abomination Alaric had summoned and empowered with his last, dying magic. We hadn't spoken about the matter or discussed any thought of abstinence, but since the fight, we'd spent nearly four weeks in quiet celibacy.
Why, though? I'd wondered more than once. Had it been the deep violation of Alaric possessing Bannon's body? The brutality he promised me while in that body, wearing the face of my new Master, whom I'd come to trust?
Or that eye. That horrible, green, pulsating eye at the heart of his revenant monster. That eye which held everything left of him... and something even darker, even more sadistic, within.
Those things seemed likely, even obvious. It didn't ease my worry, though, when I imagined I'd done something to chill the passion between Bannon and me. Perhaps my barbarian had satisfied his curiosity about Lord Khan's personal consort and her strange lust for pain. Or perhaps having his body stolen and used by a madman had changed him. Made him resent all the prizes—or problems—he'd inherited when he struck Alaric's head from his body.