Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Steele
S teele feels her simmering frustration, heavy and electric, like a storm cloud swelling and thickening the air with static tension.
Her bushy, furry brows hike up to her forehead, like the thoughts threading through her mind are too big—a swirling maelstrom of emotions spelled to be tethered to her bones.
“Alright,” she concedes, scrunching herself up on the couch.
It’s easy to see the woman inside the beast.
In fact, if Steele looks hard enough, he sees just that.
He inwardly asks the house to project her as she is inside, and the beast transforms before his eyes.
The maiden within is sitting next to him on the couch, her skin the soft color of caramel and her eyes a dark blue of a midnight sky.
She doesn’t know that he is seeing the true her at this very moment.
Steele’s breath catches, and he wonders if the manor’s magick is somehow amplifying the gravity of her presence—or if it’s just her.
The woman beside him leans back, her nails flexing absentmindedly against the cushion, unaware that he’s no longer seeing the beast but her true form. It’s like something from a fairy tale, yet it’s real.
She’s real.
Her lips move, and he blinks, realizing he hasn’t heard a word she’s said.
“What?” he asks, voice hoarse. She flits back and forth in his vision, between the beast and the maiden—like she’s glitching. He can see the maiden inside the beast, like the beast is a see-through armor.
“I said,” she repeats, her frustration edging toward something softer, “are you going to keep staring at me like that, or do you have something to say?”
A faint smirk tugs at her mouth—a mouth that is both hers and not, as if the beast and maiden share the same sly humor. He feels the pull of her as if tethered by an invisible thread.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, the words slipping free before he can stop them.
Her eyes widen, her claws retracting as if startled by the sudden intimacy of his tone.
“Beautiful?” she scoffs, but there’s no anger behind it, only disbelief.
Steele leans closer, unable to help himself. “Yes. You are.” His fingers brush against hers, and her breath hitches.
The tension between them thickens, a live wire sparking with possibility. His hand slides to her wrist, and he feels her pulse beneath his fingertips—rapid, strong, alive.
“You’re not afraid of me,” she whispers, her voice a mix of wonder and something deeper, darker.
“No,” he replies, his lips so close to hers now that he can feel the warmth of her breath. “You make me feel more alive than I’ve felt in years.”
Her claws rest against his chest, and for a moment, he thinks she’ll push him away. But then, slowly, hesitantly, her fingers relax, sliding up to his shoulder.
When their lips meet, it’s tentative at first—a question asked and answered. But as the moment deepens, so does the kiss, transforming from a gentle brush into something hungry and desperate, a collision of two souls both aching and afraid.
Her magick hums in the air, mingling with the crackling energy of the manor, and Steele feels it wrapping around them, binding them together in a way that feels fated and unbreakable.
Steele pulls back just enough to catch his breath, his forehead resting against hers. Her claws tremble against his shoulder, and for a moment, the silence between them feels sacred, a fragile thing neither wants to shatter.
But then, her gaze flickers, and she looks away, her expression haunted.
“I don’t remember who I used to be,” she says quietly, her voice raw, as if the words are being torn from some hidden part of her. “Not really. Bits and pieces, sure—a laugh, a feeling, the way sunlight felt on my skin. But the details?” She shakes her head, her claws curling into the fabric of his shirt. “They’re gone.”
Steele studies her, his heart clenching. He wants to ask, but the weight in her voice tells him to let her speak on her terms.
“Edmund… the manor… they remind me of my life before. A life I’ve spent years trying to forget.” She exhales sharply, the sound almost a growl. “I’ve fought so hard to let go of who I was because it doesn’t matter anymore. Not in this place. Not in this form.”
“But why let go?” he asks gently, his fingers brushing against her cheek. “Wouldn’t it be better to hold on to those pieces of yourself?”
Her laugh is bitter, almost mocking. “You don’t understand. Those pieces—they’re broken. Jagged. Every time I reach for them, they cut me to shreds. It’s easier to just… exist. To be this.” She gestures to herself, the beastly form that still shadows her true visage in his mind’s eye. “This is all I have left now. The beast. The anger. The solitude.”
Steele’s thumb traces her jawline, his touch steady despite the storm of emotions raging between them. “I don’t think that’s all you have left,” he says softly. “Not from what I’ve seen. Not from what I’ve felt.”
Her eyes meet his, and for a moment, he thinks she might push him away again. But instead, she whispers, “You don’t know the things I’ve done, Steele. The mistakes. The choices that led me here.”
“Then tell me,” he says, his voice firm but not unkind. “I’m not afraid of who you were. And I’m not afraid of who you are now.”
Her lips part, but no words come out. Instead, a single tear escapes, glinting like starlight against her caramel skin before slipping down into the fur of her beastly form. Steele catches it with his thumb, his touch gentle, reverent.
“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” he whispers, leaning in to press a kiss to her temple. “Not with me. For the raindrop to join the rivers and oceans and become one with the earth again, it must first yield to the fall.”
And with that, she falls.
She shatters.
She breaks.
He can feel her coming undone in his arms, unraveling before him with such ferocity that embers dance in the electric air around them.