by Audrey Grace
Beauty jabbed at his chest with her finger, and felt the hard muscle beneath the fur. A moment of silence passed between them, before the beast finally sighed.
“You are right. I was cursed because I was not a good man. I did not treasure love and kindness and friendship. I certainly did not practice it. Drink was my friend and my lover, and the women—”
“I don’t want to know.”
“The women were… disposable. They came and went, and I can’t remember a single name or face.”
“That sounds sad to me. Why would I possibly agree to carry the child of a creature like you? You’re rotten on the inside, no matter what you look like on the outside!”
The beast snarled, startling Isabella, and she gasped and leaned away from him. He looked into her eyes, and she saw in the narrow shining bulbs, beneath the layer of anger and ferocity, a tearful glisten of sorrow and despair.
“You must be hungry,” he said after a moment. “Follow me. Let’s go and eat.
“Why should I?” Isabella demanded, feeling her resolve to be defiant bolstered by what she had seen in the beast’s eyes.
“You don’t have to, but I am offering you food and drink. Take it or leave it.”
“Okay. Fine. I’m not hungry, but I’ll eat anyway.”
* * *
“What would you do if you were me?” Isabella asked, sipping on a glass of wine. A grand feast had been prepared for them. “And is that woman who spoke to me first, is she your slave?”
“No,” the beast replied. “She is not. She was my nursemaid. She stays with me out of choice, out of loyalty. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
“So what would you do?”
“Without her?”
“No,” Isabella corrected, smiling for the first time since she’d seen the beast. “If you were me.”
“I would… I would probably do what you are doing.”
“What’s that?”
“Protecting yourself.”
“That’s right,” Isabella sad, nodding her head. “I’m protecting myself. So when will you let me go?”
“In the morning,” he sighed.
“You’ve decided to then?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I cannot force you, anyway, and it seems clear to me you have no intention of helping me.”
“No,” Isabella murmured, and she reminded of her dream, how easily the beast had pinned her down and had ferociously had his way with her, how he had rocked her whole body up and down and how she had felt pain, and something else… something not entirely bad.
“No,” she repeated quietly. “I don’t have any intention of helping you. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to be sorry. I’ll let you go, just like I did that beauty, and then I’ll prepare myself for an angry mob with weapons and fire.”
“I told you! I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“I find it hard to believe you.”
“Why? Because some other woman betrayed you?”
“Yes,” the beast began, but then his voice trailed away and Isabella looked angrily at him. She watched him as his eyebrows furrowed, and as he seemed lost in some distant contemplation.
Eventually he lifted his head and looked at her. “You’re right,” he admitted. “You’re right. Okay, I will choose to trust you.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I suppose I do,” the beast said with a sigh. He put his napkin on the table and buried his face in his hands, another of those human actions that caught Isabella off guard.
“Thank you,” she said. “I really won’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah. I believe you. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. There is no more time. You were my last chance.” Isabella heard an increased sadness in the beast’s voice, and she raised an eyebrow at him, wondering.
“How many chances have you had before?”
“What?”
“How many others like me have there been?”
“Only one.”
“What?” Isabella gasped, looking quizzically at the beast. “Who? The one who betrayed you?”
“Yes.”
“There’s been nobody else?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Just, I didn’t expect that.”
“Do you believe every story you hear?”
“This curse?” Isabella murmured.
“Yes? What about it?”
“When is your time limit? You said before you had little time.”
“Tonight,” the beast said heavily. “Tonight is the last night. When the sun rises tomorrow, I will be frozen like this forever.”
“I see,” she said quietly, nodding her head. Isabella was suddenly quite confused. The beast wasn’t a scary presence anymore, and sitting down and eating with him, even if he did use his hands… paws, made him seem suddenly all the more human. There were also those little movements, those actions, those gestures, and all of them signifying pain and anguish.
The poor, tortured thing! She felt a pang of… of sympathy for the creature.
No, she thought. It was a trap, a ploy! Why should she help the creature anyway? Why should she carry his baby? Why should she help him break the curse? After all, he was the one that earned it!
What could he possibly give her? Gold? Silver? She didn’t want that. Her mind moved on to thoughts of her father, sick and needing his medicine. He was weak, physically and mentally. A fever was taking its toll on his body.
Her face crumpled as tears threatened to break through. He, too, was cursed with an affliction, one that rendered his life unlivable.
But was the beast so different?
Isabella looked back across the table at the beast, and saw there a pitiful creature sitting, shoulders limp and eyes cast down.
All that power, that body, that anger…
“I’m full,” she said. “I want to go to sleep. May I go back to my room?”
“You may,” the beast replied.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Isabella felt compelled to add. She made to stand up, but felt a wave of dizziness take her mind. She sat back down, and noticed that in an instant the beast was at her side.
“Are you alright? Are you unwell?”
“I am… tired.”
Without pause, the beast lifted her off her chair effortlessly, and began to climb the steps to her room.
“I’m alright, really,” she gasped. “Just… the blood must have rushed out of my head too quickly.”
“You have had a frightening, demanding day,” the beast commented quietly. “It is natural to feel fatigued.”
Isabella was in the beast’s arms for the second time that night. This creature, frighteningly powerful and with a ferocity inside him that burned like hellfire, was carrying her, protecting her in his arms.
She felt the hardness of his muscles, saw how he did not shake or tremble with her weight. This beast was all power and passion, and despite herself, her mind wandered back to her dream.
She felt that tingling heat again, the response of her body to her mind’s thoughts. As the beast carried her into her room and set her softly down on the sheets of her bed, Isabella did something she’d never imagined she would.
Lying against the smooth silk of the bed sheets, and slowly rubbing her back into them left and right, she began to part her legs. She laughed at her impulsiveness, and didn’t really know what she was doing.
The creature before her had somehow transformed. Though at first he was a terrifying thing, an unknown thing, now, to her, he was just a man trapped in the body of an animal. He had earned his curse, but was he really so bad?
“What are you doing?” the beast asked, not failing to notice that her knees were parted a short distance. She looked into the creature’s eyes, and as her breathing quickened, and as her cheeks grew red, the came forward to her, and put a hand to her head.
“You have no fever,” he said, and Isabella took the beast’s
claw and dragged it gently down her neck, lightly touching behind her ears before rounding to her chin.
The beast inhaled sharply, and his movements became independent. He had a surprisingly gentle, delicate touch, and Isabella knew that the beast wielded deft hands.
Isabella could not stop her mind from flashing back to her dream, the images of the beast roughly ravaging her sending her heart speeding. Her body tingled and she felt an indescribable yearning, like a pressure inside her building, something intangible; not completely physical.
She only faintly heard the beast’s words in the background. “You are… exhausted… must be… sleep…”
“No,” Isabella breathed as she remembered the beast ravaging her. Of his own accord, he began to touch her again with his claw, descending down her body, running the tip of his sharp nail across the curve of her breast. She felt its edge on her nipple, jolted at the slight sting, and saw that her nipple perked up in response. Her breathing was growing more rapid, nearing a panting.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shaking her head left and right. What had she started? She was feeling something unlike anything she’d felt before: A yearning, a wanting, some aching need for something, and she did not know exactly what it was. She did not know the word for it; she could not describe it to herself, but as she thought back to her dream, as she looked at the gentle yet horrific beast before her, she felt it clutch at her heart, tighten in her womanhood.
The claw passed her navel, and slid down the inside of one of her thighs. Isabella could feel its sharpness blunted by the thick fabric of her dress. She gasped, eyes wide as she felt the beast begin to lift her dress up to her knees.
“Wait,” she whispered, but she did not move. She only opened her legs a little wider, baring herself to the animal. She looked down her body as she saw the beast begin lower himself in between her legs. She could feel her own heat down there, in her womanhood; could feel that she was swollen, that she was moist.
“Wait,” she gasped again, not knowing what she was feeling. She clutched at one of her breasts with her hand and kneaded it fiercely. “No,” she hissed. “This is impure.”
“Shh,” she heard the beast sound before she felt a something warm and wet draped across her aching mound.
“Oh!” she cried, arching her back. It felt good, felt intimate, and she moaned as a delayed ripple of pleasure thrummed through her body.
“No,” she murmured, feeling her inner muscles clutching, squeezing and relaxing, feeling her center growing hotter, her womanhood aching for more attention.
The beast began to lap his tongue, again and again, up and down, licking up her essence. She writhed and wriggled and moaned on the bed, the feeling unlike anything she’d experienced before.
It felt so good, but at the same time felt like there was a pressure building, as if something in her body was winding tighter and tighter.
It would have to release!
“Ugh,” she groaned as the beast began to lick at her faster, his warm and powerful tongue playing with the sensitive nub that topped her womanhood. “No… no… yes…”
She arched her back, feeling the pressure inside her climbing quickly. Her muscles began to quiver and pulse, and she locked her knees and squeezed her thighs as she felt a potent pleasure building up inside her.
“Yes… yes,” she hissed as the beast increased his rhythm. It felt so good, something entirely new, and as she clutched at her breasts, Isabella smiled and hummed. Why hadn’t she experienced this before? It was so, so good.
“Faster,” she moaned, and the beast responded, driving her forward. An unbearable tension rose up inside her before a shattering wave of ecstasy pulsed through her body. She froze, rigid, her mouth open but silent as the pleasure rippled through her, and as a great and exhausting relief followed rapidly in its wake.
And then her body loosened, and she shivered and jolted at every touch to her center. The beast stopped, and Isabella closed her eyes, relishing the feel of ebbing pleasure.
What had just happened? She couldn’t help but grin, loll her head from side to side as she basked in the aftermath of what had been the most blissful feeling she’d ever experienced.
“Do we still have time,” she panted.
“For what?”
“To break your curse.” She opened her eyes and looked down her body at the beast. His head was framed in between her spread legs bent at the knees.
“You don’t have to—”
“Be quick,” she said, panting. “Before I change my mind.”
“There is still time.” The beast nodded his head, and she heard in his voice, and saw in his eyes a flame of passion. He helped her sit up and she let him remove her dress, before lying back down naked on the bed, exposed and bared, like a virgin sacrifice.
She felt a recklessness, an adventurousness course through her. What she had just felt as the beast had lapped at her center was amazing. Surely there was more to experience?
Isabella watched with awe as the beast began to remove his garment of clothing. It covered his groin, and as he slid it down his legs, she gasped. He looked human there, or at least as best as she could figure. But he was large, long and thick, and a heavy sack hung behind slowly erecting vein-lined manhood.
“Can I?” she asked, and the beast nodded. She reached out and touched it, and in her hands the beast’s member quickly became rigid, stiff as the hilt of a sword, thick as the handle of an axe, and both hard and smooth like a river’s pebble.
She began to stroke it clumsily, and the beast let out low sounds and exhales. She could only guess that he was enjoying it. Isabella’s eyes widened as she saw a droplet of fluid form at the tip of the beast’s wide, mushroom-shaped dome. It was like a jewel beading out of him, reflecting the flickering firelight.
She spread it over his dome with a finger, and another followed after it. An urge to taste it overcame her, and she leaned forward and gingerly touched the tip of the beast’s rod with her tongue. It tasted both sweet and salty, something mild and almost indescribable. Like nothing she’d ever tasted before.
The tip swelled a little more as she touched it with her tongue again, and, without knowing why she wanted to, Isabella wrapped her lips around the purple bulb and sucked on it hard. The beast groaned and arched his back, and she felt his hands on the back of her head, gently encouraging her to take him deeper and deeper inside her mouth.
She did as best as she could, resisting when the thick length of gristle was nearly touching the back of her throat. She pushed back and let it out, a strand of saliva tethering her lip to the dome for a moment.
She smacked her lips, tasting him. She couldn’t tell if it was his smell, or his taste, or a combination of both, but he had a muskiness to him, an earthiness that was strangely enticing.
Focusing her attention on the large and heavy sack hanging behind his erect rod, she saw that it was lined with a thin coating of fur. She cupped it gently, and the beast trembled a little, almost as if he was afraid she’d hurt him.
She looked up at him, searching for permission, and the beast nodded. She lowered her face to the sack and took in his scent before dragging her tongue across the fur-lined skin. He smelled strong, a mirror of his powerful image.
Isabella sighed heavily. She felt that yearning, that ache in between her legs again. A kind of haze had enveloped her, and she grinned at the beast.
“Lie down,” he commanded, and she obeyed, collapsing back onto the mattress and spreading her legs for him again. “You are beautiful,” the beast growled. “This may hurt.”
Isabella nodded, and gripped the sheets of the bed. She winced as she felt the beast’s wide tip press against her entrance. Gradually he began to push in, a little bit at a time, before pulling out again. Each time he pushed forward, the progress was a little easier, and she ventured a finger toward her womanhood, feeling it slick with her juices.
The beast continued to work gradually into her, bit by bit, until he had mana
ged to get his entire dome inside her. She could feel it stretching her, the sensation hovering at the edges of pain. But it was like nothing she’d felt before, and it made her hungrier for more.
Thrusting with slightly more power, she felt the beast slide the rest of the way inside her. She twitched as she felt a searing sting of pain, as if something inside her had just torn, but that was instantly quelled by the surge of pleasure felt. She felt so… full. It was like nothing she could relate to.
“Oh,” she moaned as her virgin tightness cloyed and clutched at the beast’s meaty invader when he began to retract it. He pushed forward slowly again, and she clutched at the sheets and arched her back as she felt that overwhelming fullness, as if every nerve inside her was being stimulated.
“Yes,” she gasped as the beast pulled himself out again before entering her warm, wet womanhood. Her body began to rock up and down on the silk bed sheets as the beast’s thrusts increased in rhythm and power, and she writhed on the bed, grasped at his arms, clawed down his chest as he took her.
The tension melted from her face as she began to loosen, began to grow accustomed to the feel of the beast’s repeated penetration. He pushed a little harder with each thrust, and she gasped, feeling him touch something so incredibly deep within her, it felt like her body might suddenly shatter.
“Yes!” she cried as he touched the same spot again. It was a strange kind of pleasure, so potent it almost was uncomfortable, and so very different from the delicate feel of his tongue lapping at her sex. “Yes!” she hissed as he hit it again.
Her rapid pants soon turned to moans, and after each starving inhale she breathed out a strangled cry of pleasure. She felt that pressure inside her building again, and she bit her lip as she ventured her hand back down there to rub circles around her sensitive nub.
It instantly heightened her yearning, and she crunched her stomach forward as the spring within her began to wind tighter and tighter and tighter.
With each thrust the beast was now grunting slightly, and she saw his body tighten up, felt his penetration grow more rapid, and shallower.
