Knotted By the Beast (Knotty Fairytales #3)

Chapter 1 Beast

One

Beast

I’m going to fuck her until she forgets her own name.

That’s the first thought I have when I catch her scent on the wind.

After decades of this curse… yeah, it’s been decades, maybe longer; time gets weird when you’re a monster…

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect on my choices.

Plenty of time to regret being an arrogant bastard.

Plenty of nights alone in this castle thinking about the enchantress I humiliated and the curse she slapped me with.

“You’ll remain a Beast until your true mate chooses you,” she’d said, her eyes glowing with magic and spite. “Not a prince, but a monster. If she can love what you’ve become, only then will you be free.”

Poetic. Painful as fuck. Exactly what I deserved.

I was Prince Pierre once. Powerful alpha, ruler of kingdoms, and a complete piece of shit. I used omegas during their heats and sent them away before dawn with gold and no promises. I mocked the ones who begged for bonds, who wanted knots, who believed in that true mate bullshit.

The enchantress came to my Winter Ball disguised as a desperate omega in heat. She threw herself at my feet, begged for help, and I laughed in her face. Had my guards drag her out while my court scoffed along with me.

Two days later, she came back.

Except this time, she wasn’t pretending to be weak. Her curse was the most powerful thing that ever happened to me.

My transformation was instant and excruciating. My bones breaking and reforming. Fur erupting all over my skin. Fangs and claws pushing out. My body became too big, wrong, other... My servants got caught in the spell too…trapped between forms, neither human nor object… stuck.

And the castle twisted in on itself. The neighboring forest grew thick and wild, keeping the world out, and us trapped. Time stopped meaning anything.

And I waited. Alone. Unmated. Slowly going insane with the need for something I’d spent my human life denying existed. A mate. My mate. The one omega whose scent would make my beast howl with recognition.

But after a while, I stopped believing she would come. Stopped hoping. And just… existed. I prowled my castle like the monster I’d become, tending roses that mocked me with their beauty, watching seasons that didn’t change pass by.

Until three nights ago, when an old man stumbled through my gates.

He was lost, freezing, pathetic. I let him stay, fed him, gave him shelter.

See? Not a complete monster.

In the morning, the ungrateful bastard tried to sneak out through my garden, and picked one of my roses.

My rage was instant. Everything here is mine. My castle, my roses, my cursed existence. And he just took from me like he had the right to.

I had him by the throat in seconds.

“A life for a rose,” I snarled.

He babbled something about a daughter. About her asking for nothing but a simple flower. Pleading for mercy, for understanding, all that human bullshit.

I let him go. Mostly because killing him seemed like too much effort.

“Go home,” I told him. “But I’ll be collecting. A life for a rose. Those are my terms.”

I sent the rose with him…frosted, perfect, impossible to forget. A nice dramatic touch. Let it bloom in his home so he remembers a debt is due.

I expected him to come back. Maybe with gold, or offering himself.

I didn’t expect this.

Standing in my garden tonight, I catch a scent on the wind that makes my entire body lock up.

Omega.

Young.

Mine.

Fuck, yeah…

After all this time, all the waiting, my mate is coming to me.

The scent gets stronger as she approaches. Sweet and warm. She’s scared…I can smell it…but she’s not running away. She’s riding straight toward my castle.

Brave little thing. Or stupid. Either way, I’m keeping her.

My cock is hard as a rock. My knot, already swelling. Every instinct I’ve spent decades suppressing roars to life with a vengeance.

Mine. Mate. Take. Claim. KNOT.

“Sire?” Gideon’s voice echoes from somewhere in the castle. He’s my former captain of the guard, now a talking sword. “Someone’s approaching.”

“I know,” I growl, and even I can hear the rabid possessiveness in my voice.

“Should we prepare a guest room?” That’s Rosalie, the former head of staff, now an enchanted mirror.

“Prepare my room,” I correct. “She’s not sleeping anywhere else.”

“Perhaps we should let the lady decide…” Adrien, my old valet, now a candlestick, starts.

“No.” I’m already moving toward the entrance hall. “She came here. To my castle. She’s mine.”

The scent is getting stronger. Closer. I can hear hoofbeats approaching on the road.

But under her fear and determination, I smell something else. Arousal…

She’s not even here yet, and her body is already responding to me. Her omega recognizes what her mind hasn’t registered yet.

I am her alpha. Her mate. The one she was fucking made for.

The curse said she has to choose me. That she has to love the Beast.

And by the way her scent is already changing? How her body is already calling to mine? That’s not going to be a fucking problem.

I plant myself in the shadows of the entrance hall. I want to see her before she sees me. Want to watch her walk into my home, my lair, my trap. The enchantment might have brought her here, but I’m the one who’s going to make sure she stays. Forever.

The gates open and she rides through. Her scent fucking FLOODS the castle. Sweet, perfect and fucking mine mine mine.

I can hear her dismount. Hear her boots on the stone steps. Hear her heart racing as she pushes open the doors.

My claws flex. My fangs ache. My cock is rock hard and leaking.

The curse wanted her to choose the Beast? Perfect. Because I’m gonna make sure she can’t choose anything else.

The doors open, she steps inside, and I get my first real glimpse of my little omega…not just her scent, but her, standing in my entrance hall, looking around with beautiful, big brown eyes, and curves for fucking days.

Mine.