Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
rupert
Where I want to go?
My bedroom, of course. If I could wish us there with a thought, I would.
But even as Peony tucks her small hand neatly into mine and urges me to walk back to the manor, I wonder if this is the right thing to do.
Although she made it clear what she wants from me, to my genuine surprise and mortification, I’ll have to show her the parts of myself that no one else has ever seen—the parts that horrify me.
What if that’s when she chooses to run? What if it’s so disgusting she ends up seeing herself out? I don’t know if my unfortunate and fragile existence could handle that.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that we’ve reached the manor by the time I realize we’ve been quiet the whole way. Peony peers up at me.
“Are you changing your mind?” she asks. “It’s all right if you do. We can slow down.”
Slow down? I want anything but that. It’s probably wiser to take each step as it comes, but I want to skip all the steps.
My body knows what it wants, what it seeks, and that’s Peony.
How wonderful would it be to have her spread out in front of me?
To slide my strange, wet cock into her and feel her all around me?
I squeeze her little hand in mine. “I have not changed my mind, I assure you.” I let her inside the house, where we each rid ourselves of our coats.
“Then what are you thinking?” Peony asks as I lead the way toward the east wing, and she jogs to catch up with me. I slow down, realizing just how much shorter her legs are, and put an arm around her so she can set our pace. “What’s your hesitation, Rupert?”
She is asking me directly, as she tends to do, and I should tell her the truth.
“I’m afraid of what you’ll think of… me.”
We head up the stairs together, the stars shining brightly through the tall windows.
“What I’ll think of you?” Peony squints as she thinks. “Oh! Do you mean, um, your body?”
It’s so embarrassing that all I can do is nod.
“Ah, I see.” She rubs her chin. “That part specifically?”
I can’t believe she’s asking this, but again, I nod.
“That’s understandable.”
I return to walking with one arm around her down the hall.
“I don’t know what to expect, so I can’t say I won’t be surprised,” she says. That’s what I’m afraid of. But then she strokes the fur on my arm with a calming surety. “I’m sure it will just take time to get used to it. Can you give me time?”
I’m not sure what to make of her question. I would give her all the time in the world.
“You don’t even have to see it if you don’t want to,” I say quickly. “We can just do… other things. If you’d rather not.”
Peony frowns in a way that scrunches up her nose adorably, like a rabbit.
“I’m not going to take off my clothes if you don’t. That’s not fair.”
I can’t help a snort of laughter. “Fair?”
“Yeah! You can’t expect me to open up to you and be vulnerable with my body if you won’t do the same for me.” She crosses her arms as we reach the final steps up to the door to my quarters, pulling away from me.
I hadn’t considered that angle. I figured that because she was human, she wouldn’t be self-conscious about herself the same way that I am. But I suppose it applies to her just as much as it does to me.
If I want her to let me in, then I need to let her in, too.
“I see.” I pause at the threshold. Not only do I understand her request, but I think I might understand myself better, too.
Exposing the strangeness of my physical body is only a part of my reluctance. It’s inherently a part of who I am—and how I got here. And Peony still doesn’t realize what the monster is, what it represents, and why she should be horrified by it. All she sees is an innocent man in a creature’s body.
She doesn’t know just how guilty I am.
peony
Rupert stands much too long at the door, his brow furrowed in thought. But I wait patiently until, at last, he shakes his head and smiles wistfully down at me.
“You know, Peony,” he begins as he finally twists the doorknob, pushing it open, “you have forced me to ask all sorts of questions of myself that I didn’t want to ask.”
It is not what I expected him to say at this moment, but I nod to show I’m listening as he leads me inside.
“Why am I so reluctant to show you myself? What deeper psychological phenomenon is at play?” He sighs wearily. “Not questions I want to ponder, you know, when I am simply trying to be alone with a beautiful woman.”
I have to laugh.
We enter the main room, and here, Rupert invites me to sit in the chair beside his in front of the fire. It’s not burning right now, but he sets about right away to lighting it.
I suppose we’re not going for the bedroom immediately. It seems he has some things to say first.
“I asked for this, you know.” Rupert’s tone changes as he stuffs newspaper into the fireplace, then lights it. “I wanted this to happen.”
Huh? That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve understood up until now that this form was something that befell him, some ailment, maybe. Not that I’ve ever heard of any sickness that turns you into an eight-foot monster.
“I still don’t really believe it,” he says.
“I wake up in the night sometimes still thinking I’m a man, that I never made that deal.
” Rupert rocks back on his heels as he sets some logs on top of the budding flame.
“But I did. I made a trade that seemed like the right choice at the time.” He shakes his head, exhaling a disbelieving breath.
“I thought he wouldn’t do it. I thought he couldn’t do it.
Who believes in magic in the twenty-first century? ”
Magic? My head is spinning with the direction this is taking, but I listen patiently anyway. Nothing is really outside the realm of possibility any longer, not since I saw Rupert in the flesh for the first time.
“I should back up.” He remains on the floor, studying the growing flames as he speaks.
“When my father died, he left me an inheritance. I had already quit cooking school and gone home to be with him when he fell ill. With cash in hand, I stumbled across a very good investment.” He waves a hand in the air.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but I did well enough that I could use it to move forward. Upward.”
Learning he was a successful businessman lines up with where he is now.
“But I wanted more. I wanted to reach the world market and see how I could grow my empire.” His voice gets quieter. “So I sold a controlling share in the business and went to New York City to invest instead.”
He finally rises, making his way over to his chair. He still isn’t looking at me as he speaks.
“I wanted it all, Peony.” It comes out rasping and raw. “I wanted everything. I wanted to live in one of the towers on Fifth Avenue. I wanted to go to the private parties that all the billionaires have and nobody knows about.”
I’m surprised to hear him say this about himself. Rupert does not seem like the sort of person who would care about attending a private party.
He glances up at me, and registering my expression of surprise, he chuckles to himself. Clambering back up to his feet, he returns to his chair, settling in it with a resigned sag.
“I know. Stupid. I was so stupid back then, wanting a yacht, a helicopter, a plane. I spent all my money on these things, to show off how wealthy I was. I was looking at private islands while my stock plummeted.” He shakes his head and gives me a rueful smile.
“I squandered it. My investments did poorly, and it turned out my business acumen back home had been a fluke.”
He drops his head into his hands, and I reach out to rub his shoulder. He flinches at first, but after some hesitation, leans into me.
“I was losing everything. And I couldn’t imagine my life without my luxuries, without people knowing my name.” He swallows thickly. “So I asked for help.”
“What kind of help?” I ask.
“Giancarlo’s kind.” Rupert leans back in his chair, his tail winding through the hole in the back of his chair to hang down on the floor.
“Giancarlo is a friend I made in New York City, someone who… knows things. And people. He is my accountant, so he saw how I was hitting rock bottom. How I needed saving.”
Rupert clenches the arm of his chair, squeezing the fabric with his claws. “He said he’d heard of a guy. A guy who could get you out of pinches like mine. A guy who could not only rescue you, but if you caught his life jacket, he could give you a boat to go with it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Sounds like a rigged game. What does he get for it?”
“You ask the right questions,” Rupert says sadly. “I did not. I heard the answer to my prayers, and so I called the guy up. I had to go to Jersey—if you’d believe it—and meet him at a dock.”
“I probably wouldn’t go,” I admit.
Rupert snorts, then sighs. “I shouldn’t have. But I went anyway. I was addicted to the money, to the lifestyle.
“An old man was waiting for me at the end of the pier in the rain. He asked what I wanted most in the world, and if I was willing to pay the price for it. I told him I’d do anything he wanted if it meant I could have my fortune back and more. ‘All the money I could ever want,’ I said.”
He falls quiet, clearly lost in his memory. I rub his arm, encouraging him to continue.
“The old man promised me that was within his power. I didn’t believe him, even then, thinking it was all some elaborate prank, but I was still willing to try. Then, in words I didn’t understand, he cast a spell on me.”
Rupert’s eyes are shining, his gaze fixed on the fireplace.
“I got what I wanted. All the money in the world, and no way to ever use it.” He laughs bitterly. “It wasn’t a spell—it was a curse. He punished me for my greed by turning me into this.”
He gestures down at himself, finally looking at me with misery on his face.
“The change wasn’t overnight. I had time.
It happened slowly, a sort of evolution.
” Rupert wrinkles his nose as if he’s living it again.
“My face changed. I grew hair all over. I couldn’t fit into any of my clothes.
All I could do was get out of the city in time before the transformation fully took over.
I bought the old place out here with my new money and had it rebuilt into the manor. ”
So that’s what happened. I’m sad, more than anything, that he had to learn a lesson in such an irreversible way.
Rupert says nothing more. I get out of my chair and walk over to his, running my hand through the fine hair of his mane. He lets me stroke him, his eyes closing.
“You’re taking this rather well, Peony,” Rupert says at last. “Though it makes me uneasy that you haven’t spoken yet.”
I smile down at him, though he can’t see it. “Well, the truth is that I feel sorry for you, but I didn’t think you would like to hear that. You don’t seem like the sort of person who wants other people feeling sorry for him.”
After a beat, he nods. “I don’t. But coming from you… it might be all right.”
I stroke his ear as I pet him, and he makes a sound in his throat almost like a purr.
“I mean, ritzy Wall Street investor was not really on my romantic radar at all before this…”
Rupert snorts.
“But I get the sense that’s not who you are now,” I finish.
He falls still under my hand, but I keep running my fingers over his ear and through his mane, untangling it as I go. Though he isn’t moving, his long, scaly tail winds around my ankle, caressing me.
“I hope not,” Rupert eventually says. “I want to believe I’m a better person now. But I have nothing to go on. I’ve been here, interacting only with Kellen and Giancarlo, for more than a decade.” He shudders. “What if I am still that man? What if this were undone, would I simply become him again?”
Undone? That thought hits me in the belly. I can’t imagine Rupert being anyone but himself. I don’t like that idea.
“You wouldn’t.” I lean down next to him, curling my arm around his broad shoulder and only reaching partway. “You aren’t greedy or cutthroat, Rupert. You are kind and earnest, though a little touchy.”
“If only you knew.”
I laugh. “I have an idea after the morning I was late and Kellen came out, furious. You had driven him a little crazy, I think.”
Now that he’s lifted the weight of truth from his spirit, I wonder if Rupert is willing to be himself with me. I bring my lips to the side of his face, where his scales recede and fur takes over, and gently brush them over his skin.
His whole body shivers underneath me.
“Rupert.” I skim upward toward his ear, just gently breathing on it. He gasps, and his ear flicks. I can feel him swallow hard.
“Yes?”
“If you could do anything,” I ask quietly, right in his ear, “what would you do with me?”
He goes still for so long I wonder if I’ve broken him. Then, his arm snakes out and clutches me around the waist, bringing me in against the side of the chair. Now his head is level with my chest, his horns curling away from me.
“Anything?” he asks, leaning closer, so his muzzle is almost between my breasts.
“Anything.”
He huffs in a breath. “I would take you to my bedroom. Now.”