Reshina
The Beast was unlike anything I’d ever brought beyond the Veil before.
When the curse had arrived, I’d placed it in a vial as a dark, twisted thing, same as the others, but powerful, vibrating against the glass.
From the start, it had been far more potent of a curse than what I usually carried to the poor soul who would need to endure it.
And as I hid in the frozen shrubbery not two hundred paces from the staircase leading out of the Underrealm, I took precious few moments to study the creature who, through sheer fate or irony, had trapped its bringer into the curse with it, wholly enjoying the chase and inevitable dripping of blood upon the snow.
The Beast was twice the size of any man, fae or human, with fur so dark, you’d think it black as a starless night unless you were a Ravenfae, prone to see details others could not.
His fur matted in places—wavy, sometimes curling atop his massive head with two black horns segmented and sharp protruding from his skull.
I’d caught ahold of them once, attempting to yank his head to the side before he could bite down on my skin, but the creature was powerful, a monster built for one purpose—to hunt, to bite, to feed. I’d narrowly escaped his teeth that time, and I had been much more careful since.
The hunt meant more to this creature than I could have guessed, and though the Beast had not bitten me again, his teeth had scraped over my shoulder the day before, breaking my skin and leaving a tantrum of a wound to show for it.
The sting rose to the surface of my mind as I thought of it, keeping an eye on where the Beast sniffed the ground, his great black eyes searching for his prey.
He’d uncover my scent soon enough and bolt toward me, hidden between the needles of the shrubbery.
My sharp nails were poised, ready to cut into my arm until the last moment.
I’d questioned to myself many times why I still tried to escape—why I didn’t give in and search for another way to leave.
The truth of it was, the Beast and Arthur… intrigued me.
A dichotomous being who would show its other side often enough, there were times Arthur proved a sharp tongue and beastly manners at our dinners together.
If I ever attempted to leave a little early, he’d remind me not to tempt his strength against the Beast. Then he’d bring his chair right beside mine again, eating next to me in silent restraint.
And then there were times the Beast chased me down, but paused before his teeth dove toward my flesh as if the man inside held the willpower to stop him, giving me the few seconds I needed to rip at my skin and bleed onto the snow.
We found ourselves in a strange limbo, me doing what I could to find a way out of the curse, him reminding me there was a solution I could take.
But I had no immediate plans to kill Arthur. It would be a desperate day indeed for me to take a life from the Realm I was stationed to protect… especially his life.
The Beast caught my scent, rummaging through the snow, his black eyes darting to the line of shrubbery where I pulled my knees close to my chest, my heart racing in a thrill I’d never felt before. His lips curled upon his maw as he stalked toward me on all fours, keeping our gaze locked.
It excited me, the hunt.
At first, I attempted escape purely to do just that.
But somewhere around my twentieth attempt to leave, I found my body atop Arthur’s as he broke our fall and something stirred deep within me—something I knew well enough to name.
Lust.
I toiled over offering myself to him as a distraction for both of us while we researched together each evening and dined at the same table each night.
I knew well enough that Arthur was curious to better know the woman he’d read about in that Goddessdamned book.
Perhaps he saw me as a conquest, a woman to fuck and add to his line of warm bodies in his bed.
A Goddess of the Veil would be quite the notch in his bedpost and a Beast the same in mine.
I could do it, I thought, staring down the monster taking his time, prowling over the snow toward me. I could fall through the earth and let my thoughts be known. Would he take my offer? Would he agree to the distraction from the many days here in the same routine we’d established?
Arthur was a handsome man. Built of dense muscle and hands—hands that could bring a fae Goddess to her knees, I was sure of it.
Heat flushed up my cheeks as visions of just what we could do with those hands flashed through my mind. I was not accustomed to such a long spell without a bedfellow, and my body betrayed me there in the frozen maze because I wanted him to catch me. I was looking forward to the fall.
The Beast stopped, sniffing into the chilled wind.
A light dusting of snowfall blanked his fur.
He turned his head, closing his eyes and I frowned.
What was Arthur saying to him in there? I knew he could speak to the Beast, but what could he say that would stop such a powerful creature from what was his nature?
The Beast strained, fighting against himself, a clawed paw stepping forward, then pulling back. Whatever had just happened, the two were at war with each other, the deep, guttural growl of the Beast not meant for me, but someone else.
Without warning, the Beast shot forward, having won whatever argument they’d just fought. With less than a second to spare before my flesh was torn open, I cut my forearm, bleeding, falling, and reaching.
The transformation happened so quickly each time, I struggled to notice the details. We had just begun to fall through the earth when it was Arthur, not the Beast reaching out for me, pulling me to his chest and twisting through the hole in the ground, ready to break our fall once again.
This time, we landed in the kitchens with Piffle crying out in shock and Arthur landing on top of the central countertop, breaking his fall over onions and chopped carrots in preparation for the evening meal.
The landing split the scabbing skin at my shoulder and I hissed through my teeth, sitting up over Arthur to inspect the throbbing cut.
“Mistress! Master!” Piffle cried, rushing to the counter. “Are you hurt?”
I swiped a finger over the wound, bringing a thin trail of blood across my fingertip. “I’ll live, Piffle,” I muttered, turning my attention back to the man beneath me.
I straddled him, my deep purple skirts bundled up to the tops of my thighs on the sides of his torso.
The stretch of my legs over his wide body was the pleasurable type of pain, stinging slightly at the pull.
That same heat rushed through my veins and a slow smile lifted my lips as I braced my hands on his chest. “Are you hurt, Arthur?”
His fingers on my waist squeezed tighter and the evidence of just how unhurt he was grew beneath me. “No,” he growled, lifting me with ease and setting me solidly on the counter beside him. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Stalking away, I called out to him. “If I were to attempt that again, right now, what would happen?”
“Don’t,” he said without turning, exiting the kitchens entirely.
I huffed, crossing my arms at my chest and leaned against the counter. “That man is such a mystery to me, Piffle. And yet…” I trailed, scraping my hand across the cutting board to gather the chopped carrots back into a bowl.
Piffle joined me, stepping onto a stool to reach across the surface and sweep the diced onions into his hands. “Yet he is simple enough to understand, Mistress. CHOPPING KNIFE!”
I pressed my lips in a grin as he shifted, continuing his mincing of the garlic as he spoke. “The Master desires one thing and one thing alone.”
I nodded, biting down on a circle of carrot. “To escape the curse, I know. I cannot help him there, Piffle. And I won’t kill him.”
Piffle-the-Chopping-Knife continued across another bulb of garlic. “He isn’t so bad, Beautiful Goddess. Once you get to know him a little better, you’ll find your heart softening enough to say—”
“I cannot say those words, my friend. My curse does not allow me to love.”
The little man shifted back into a fae. “Are you sure you cannot?”
“I have been cursed for over five hundred years to never love. I have not said those words since I was sixteen years old.”
“Then…truly…” he trailed, gulping loudly, “the only way you can escape…”
I hummed, dusting my hands over the bowl of scraps. “As I said, I’m not driving a dagger into his heart. There must be another way.”