Beauty and the Beast: An Adult Fairytale Romance

by Vivienne Savage

  They’d fire him for letting her slide past, if they didn’t flog him. The poor boy. Ignoring the tight fist around her heart, Anastasia led Sterling from the stable, pausing once to hide in the shadows of the building when she heard a servant girl giggling in the dark with her footman suitor.

  As she tiptoed away from her would-be husband’s cooling corpse, two lovers happily prepared to do the very deed Edward had nearly forced upon her. When another sob threatened to come from her lips, Sterling touched her velvety soft nose to Ana’s cheek, as if to say, “Shhh, it’s going to be okay.”

  Grim determination flashed through the princess, restoring the steel to her spine. Edward hadn’t broken her in the bedroom, and he wouldn’t now, not when escape loomed within reach.

  Once the lovers passed by, she climbed into the saddle and hurried away. She’d only have seconds between the patrol rounds to make her way to freedom. The castle squatted atop the hill, overlooking an enormous city nestled in the valley on one side and a messy swamp with coarse thickets and watery paths on the other. Her path to freedom lay to the north and through the swamp where she hoped the water would disguise their tracks.

  The wand had enough of a charge for three intermediate spells. With the first, she circled the tool above her head in an elegant circle then thrust it downward toward Sterling’s feet.

  Most advanced sorceresses and wizards could cast the haste spell without a wand or staff, hastening the speed of travel by cutting a journey from tedious days to mere hours. The enchantment was a well-known, expensive piece of magic.

  “Let’s go home, girl.”

  For most of the night, she and Sterling were a silver breeze skirting over the wild plains beyond the swampland. They had slipped through checkpoints manned by drowsy guardsmen and onto the open highway stretched between the borders of Dalborough and Creag Morden.

  By sunrise, both the spell and Anastasia’s stamina had faded, but she was no longer in the kingdom. The tenacious princess hung in the saddle, slouched drowsily over Sterling’s neck. A fork in the road labeled by two signs told her the way to their capital city of Lorehaven was north. The second path, a narrow road parallel to the Forest of the Ghost Winds, turned sharply east and cut through the forest.

  The corner of Anastasia’s mouth twitched. Mothers and fathers of Creag Morden whispered nighttime stories to their offspring about terrifying hags who boiled children into candy and chopped unfortunate wanderers into potion ingredients. Supposedly, their spirits walked the woods for eternity seeking justice.

  “I don’t think we’ll be going that way, will we, Sterling?” she asked the mare, suddenly cured of her lethargy. She sat upright again in the saddle. “Shortcut or no, I’d rather take the safer road.”

  She turned the mare to the left fork and continued onward. The longer trip wouldn’t be so bad, she figured, and allowed her time to think, to plan what she would say when she returned home.

  If she’d remained behind at Darkmoor Castle, if she’d let Edward have his way, she’d be awakening to breakfast in bed, preparing to become a blushing bride.

  Instead, she’d listened to her pride. And didn’t regret her choice at all.

  With her second wind regained, she nudged Sterling into a trot. The surroundings became familiar, a narrow road dividing the woods from the gentle, rolling hills to her left. In a day, she’d be home.

  To the left, a three-story watchtower arose like a brick and mortar toothpick in an endless sea of grass. Beside it in a small, fenced-in pasture, three horses nibbled the sweet grass. Anastasia saw one watchguard drowsing at the southward facing post. His chin dipped toward his armored chest, then he stilled altogether. As she passed by the empty window overlooking the road and forest, her belly twisted with stress.

  Why am I so afraid of them seeing me? she wondered.

  Word of Edward’s murder couldn’t have traveled so far, could it? Aside from that, travelers frequently moved along the roads, and her behavior was nothing unusual.

  “There she is!” a voice cried.

  Anastasia started and twisted in the saddle to stare at the tower with wide eyes. The missing soldier from the second level had leaned out of the window to point. “The princess is here! Sound the alarm!”

  Her expected arrival could only mean Darkmoor’s magician, Rangvald, had sent word ahead via magical means. Another shout echoed across the brightening sky and two guards rushed from the tower to leap astride their horses.

  A third descended from the tower’s lookout point, sitting astride the back of a massive griffin. The animal wore spurs on its avian forelegs and looked like it meant business.

  What had they been told about her to come out with the Griffin Guard? A few dozen scenarios flashed through her mind of bribed guards dragging her to certain death in Dalborough.

  “Halt, Princess!” one of the horse-riders called.

  To hell with that. She tapped her heel against Sterling’s ribs and the lean mare shot off like a thunderbolt. When she risked a glance over her shoulder to see the trio closing in, she saw the griffin in the lead, each powerful whoosh of his wings bringing him yards closer and drowning out the bass of Sterling’s unshod hooves beating the ground.

  Anastasia veered to the right and burst into the tree line, branches scratching her face and upper chest. She leaned forward close to Sterling’s neck and dropped her fingers to the wand. Two charges left. With two charges, she could obliterate them, or tax Sterling even further with another haste spell. The latter would jeopardize her mare’s life.

  As she stroked her thumb over the polished weapon and contemplated defensive measures, the ground quaked and shook. Anastasia looked to their rear to see the forest closing in behind her and great branches merging together to form a net. The griffin rider had already surrendered the chase, his wingspan too broad to soar through the forest. While they were elegant forces to be feared in aerial combat, griffins had no place racing on the ground.

  “We’re losing them!” a man cried.

  “What the—?” one of the men’s voices called. His horse neighed and the pursuit ended as the forest abruptly slammed shut behind her, the trunks of many closely positioned trees creating a sturdier barricade than the gates enclosing her father’s castle. The forest had shielded her.

  Or trapped her. It was too early for Anastasia to determine which.

  The terror-inducing chase had depleted all of her oxygen, making the air whistle in and out of her chest. She slumped over the pommel of the saddle and, as they slowed to a walk, Anastasia quickly gasped to fill her starving lungs. The rich, earthy scent of the shaded path greeted her, its air cool and moist compared to the dry sun beyond. Hair clung against her perspiring brow and her heart slammed against her ribs, a relentless drumbeat pulsing in her ears.

  She wasn’t as capable a rider as her father, and the mad gallop across the plains had taxed her and Sterling to the limit. The mare nervously shifted in place, snorting and flaring her nostrils when her rider nudged her to go on. With some coaxing, she continued down a narrow path of packed earth between the trees.

  They walked for hours while searching for an outlet from the forest, subject to the persistent sensation of eyes watching from the shadowed bushes. The thick canopy above them concealed the direction of the sun and dashed any hopes of determining the direction. Occasionally, she heard a sound to her left or right, but when she whipped around to face the source of the noise, she saw nothing.

  “Ghost winds, silly. There’s nothing to fear,” she told herself while dismounting. “This forest isn’t named the Ghost Winds for nothing.” She inhaled a deep breath, pushed her shoulders back, and walked with her chin raised and a hand on Sterling’s reins.

  “So much for returning to the castle before dark…. I think we’re going in circles,” she said a while later while shivering. As the thought came to her mind, the unforgiving wind picked up, its bitter chill felt down to the core of Ana’s bones. “So cold.” She’d been stubborn about relyi
ng on the wand to find her way out of the woods, but hunger tempted her to draw it one more time.

  It would be worth spending another charge to summon a compass, or even a will-o’-wisp to lead her home.

  But rest would be even better.

  “Are you lost, little girl?” a woman’s voice spoke up from her rear, so soft it was nearly lost in the biting wind whipping against Anastasia’s face.

  Ana spun around and stared at a fragile figure in a dark blue cloak. Stringy gray hair spilled from the woman’s hood, framing a wrinkled face with rosy cheeks. The woman’s cloudy gray eyes could have been beautiful once. Now they were only intriguing, blind but not unseeing.

  “Who are you?” Anastasia asked uncertainly. She hung back and kept her distance.

  “An old woman. Only an old woman,” the hag said. Her semi-toothless smile eased Anastasia’s heart, bringing a strange sense of comfort. “An old woman with a spare bed and a pot of delicious dinner to share. Shall you come with me, lovely?”

  While she’d been warned about hags in forests with pots of suspicious dinners, she had few other alternatives. She could wander the forest until she died from exposure, risk capture by corrupt soldiers who would no doubt accept a large purse for her return to Dalborough, or test her luck against the hag and be boiled in the same pot as dinner.

  “Do you live nearby?”

  The woman’s grandmotherly smile never faded. “Yes, dearie. I do. Come along now.”

  Hadn’t her father always told her never to trust strangers?

  He’d also promptly sold her into marriage to one, too. The thought struck her as bittersweet irony that the man she’d trusted more than anything had betrayed her so completely when it counted most.

  “I have lodgings for your beautiful friend. Wouldn’t she love some grain and oats with sweet molasses?”

  Sterling nickered in apparent agreement.

  “We are both starved, yes,” Anastasia agreed. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Are you a forest witch?”

  “Witch? Hardly,” the old woman said. “Only a lonely grandmother wishing for an evening’s company. Now come, before you both catch your death of cold.”

  Although Anastasia had wandered the woods lost and alone for hours, they reached the hag’s cottage in mere minutes, making her wonder how she had missed stumbling upon it, or even catching sight of it between the trees. She had to be blind and senseless.

  A delicious aroma greeted her as she stepped into the clearing, like a cloud of cinnamon and sugar floated above the home instead of the open skies.

  The house itself was built from stone and wood, its tiled roof bright red and glossy beneath the dusky sky. A few stars twinkled at the edge of the horizon above the trees rising on the meadow’s perimeter. There were even three husky, pristine white cows grazing amidst the waist-high grass beside a single golden bull. They watched Anastasia with disinterested blue eyes.

  “My name is Eleanor, and you are welcome to my home. Release your horse here to graze, if you wish. My cows will cause her no harm.”

  The silver mare practically danced a jig when the saddle came down from her back. She bolted into the field without a second glance.

  Despite the warm welcome, Anastasia lingered at the threshold without entering. She’d heard tales of witches luring the innocent into their cabins to devour them in stews and pastries. “You’re more than a lonely grandmother. I can feel the magic here,” she said warily.

  Out of the oven and into the frying pan. It would be Ana’s luck to escape a would-be rapist and end up in some hag’s stew pot.

  “Such a clever girl. Indeed, I am.”

  “Is it too much to ask for a vow of safety?”

  “Far from it.” Eleanor flashed another toothless grin. “No harm shall come to you by my hand or words. I swear on my own power and mother’s grave, what I do for you now is in kindness without debt incurred or obligation made.”

  “Thank you,” Anastasia said appreciatively, a little abashed about asking in the first place. Maybe it appeared rude of her, but it was only another part of life when entering the abode of sorceresses and witches. After escaping one kind of slavery, she’d do anything to avoid entering another.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’ve had a difficult day. I mean no insult.”

  Another glance behind her back revealed Sterling drinking clear-running water from a spring at the edge of the flowers. As she entered the cottage, a familiar tingle ran down her spine and spread to the tips of her fingers. Her skin warmed, and the aching in her feet diminished.

  Any place touched by human emotion and life had a spirit. Forests, manors, hilltops, deserts, and even valleys. But the most powerful spirits were the ones who inhabited a home. Home Sweet Home was the most basic of spells, a charm which came naturally once the soul of a residence accepted its occupant or even a cherished guest, but she’d never experienced it outside of her father’s palace. She hadn’t even felt it when she entered Edward’s castle, as if the cold stone and mortar had loathed her as much as he did.

  “Have a seat, little one,” Eleanor said. She gestured toward a chair at a small wooden table set for two with a pair of steaming mugs.

  “Were you expecting me?”

  “I’m old, dearie. I’ve dealt in magic for a very long time, and while I knew you were coming one evening, I couldn’t pinpoint when….” Eleanor trailed to gaze out a window.

  “That makes you a seer.”

  Eleanor chuckled. “I only dabble in it as a hobby, and nothing more.” When Ana raised one brow in a questioning look, the old woman continued, “I prefer other magical tools and talents over the art of anticipating the future. Shall you have bread with your stew?”

  Anastasia’s belly burbled, demanding a full meal after a long night and day of riding and an even longer evening wandering in circles. “Yes, please.”

  “Excellent! Sit tight.”

  The old woman hustled to the bubbling cauldron where a savory soup filled the cottage’s air with the aroma of veggies and herbs. She ladled a large serving into a bowl and set it in front of her guest before taking the opposite seat with a smaller portion in her bowl.

  Initially, Anastasia picked at her meal with delicate spoonfuls and sips, demonstrating court decorum and the elegance expected of a princess. The tender cuts of meat tasted like rabbit, accompanied by hearty root vegetables and flavorful spices.

  No meal had ever tasted so fine.

  Eleanor squinted at her with her cloudy gray eyes. “There are no members of royalty here,” she said with a quiet smile. “I won’t judge.”

  Anastasia hesitated. “It’s quite good,” she assured the hag. Her gaze returned to the stew; then she began shoveling food into her mouth and tearing pieces of bread to dip into the broth.

  “Have you run away from home?”

  A little broth went down the wrong pipe. Ana sputtered and coughed until she righted the problem, but even afterward, her eyes watered and her face felt hot. “Why would you ask that?”

  “It isn’t common for a young woman such as yourself to come along this way. No traveler enters the Ghost Winds.”

  “Then why do you live here?”

  “The peace, of course. Do you see any militiamen skulking around with their gunpowder weapons? Members of the royal guard? City watchman lurking by windows to take bribes?”

  “No,” Ana said. She raised the bowl to her lips and tipped it, pouring the tasty remnants into her mouth.

  “Seconds?”

  “Oh no, no thank you. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”

  “Then how about a hot and relaxing bath?”

  “As much as I would love to accept the offer—”

  “Won’t this fit you?” Eleanor asked. With previously empty hands, she presented Ana with a cotton shift patterned with lavender flowers. It smelled like sunshine, the fabric softer than anything she’d ever received from the royal tailors.

  Eleanor wouldn’t take no for an
answer, insisting that the water was already prepared. So to the bath she went, after twisting her hair to the nape of her neck and pinning it in place. The high-backed, claw-foot tub smelled like medicine, and while she didn’t know what the forest witch had poured in, she’d try anything to wash away the memory of Edward’s filthy hands.

  As she sank into the water, tears burned the corners of her eyes and spilled from behind her eyelids. A stranger in the woods had shown more compassion in an hour than her new in-laws had in the two days since their meeting.

  Over an hour passed, but the water never lost a fraction of its warmth. She lingered until her skin wrinkled and the heat loosened her aching muscles.

  By the time she crawled into bed, she could barely keep her eyes open to see the sheets she had drawn over her body.

  Chapter

  IN HER DREAMS, Ana walked amidst the flowers of a secret garden.

  Marble statues surrounded her, each one more beautiful than the last. There were women dancing with men nearby in a circle while a band played. A celebration carried on around them, and cheerful party-goers smiled to her courteously.

  “Good evening, Princess.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Princess.”

  The air was sweet with the smell of fresh water and wild blossoms, and in the distance, she saw the sun on the horizon. It blazed gold above the forests beneath the mountain, and the sight stole her breath away.

  This mountaintop castle struck her as more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen. She gazed around in wonder and meandered through a magical garden where pixies drifted through the air on butterfly wings, each one no larger than her hand. All aglow with magical light, they flitted around her.

  In the rear garden, she noticed a solitary figure beside the decorative hedges. What had to be the most handsome man she would ever see in all of her life admired the twilight purple roses growing wild and untamed over a trellis beside the hedge maze. His profile revealed a strong nose and square jaw, framed by tresses redder than silken fire.