An Oath to Obey

by Lucy Leven

  It came to Claria then, a notion of what it would feel like to be pressed between them, Estienne and the Beast both, to be as the soft and giving counterpoint to their hewn hardness and strength. And that sinful thought sparked a flare of such sparking heat within her that she had to bite her lip fiercely to keep from crying out.

  In the end, it was Estienne who cried out instead. “Enough!” he declared on a gasping, laughing breath. “Enough of this, my lord.”

  He pushed the Beast up and off of him, and rearranged them both in one easy movement, so that now Estienne sat atop, straddling the Beast’s broad thighs. It was easy for him then to reach down and take both their manhoods in hand — in both his hands, such was the size of that handful.

  Claria could see that Estienne was smaller than the Beast in both length and girth, but he did not seem diminished for it — for the Beast was beastly in all things, but especially in what hung between his thighs.

  The Beast, a look of lazy pleasure upon his face, his head resting in the crook of his up-stretched arm, lay watching Estienne at his work, like some indolent god observing a disciple at their worship.

  He moved only to settle a hand at the hard jut of Estienne’s hip, where his grip was firm when the twitching muscles of Estienne’s stomach began to quiver in earnest, when the slide of his hand became stilted, and when Estienne tipped back his head, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

  But he did cry out, just a little then, as he spilled his pleasure, striping pale and long across the Beast’s golden skin, up across the carved muscles of his stomach and his chest, leaving his own hard muscles shivering with his powerful release.

  The Beast made a pleased-sounding rumble and flipped them once more, and now it was he who straddled Estienne’s chest. He took himself in hand there, and with one rough, dragging stroke and then another, and with a wild roar, a noise that some beast of the forest might make, he spilled his hot pleasure upon Estienne’s chin, long across his scarred cheek, his reddened lips.

  And then he leaned down and kissed it away.

  Claria’s breath came back to her of a sudden, in a shuddering, ragged sound far too loud for the chamber and its low roof and obliging echoes.

  Estienne and the Beast may not have seen her, but if she stayed to watch any longer, they would certainly hear her.

  And so she turned and fled — fled until her feet carried her to the kitchens, and there she stopped, all aquiver.

  Claria felt as a thousand burning embers contained within one small being. She thought she might burn from the inside out, so hot and pressing was the call of her pleasure.

  She pressed herself against the cool stone wall by the store, and utterly unthinking, she hitched up her skirts as she hitched down her smallclothes.

  Down through her curls to her aching bud she reached. She slid her finger atop in tight, harsh little circles, trying desperately to bring herself to relief.

  But it was not enough. She had waited so long and now relief eluded her. She whined frustration through her teeth. Not nearly enough.

  So, daringly, she slid one finger inside of herself, then another. Stroked herself from within as she ground down hard upon the heel of her own hand. With the other hand she reached up to pinch and nip at her nipples through the fine fabric of her dress, drawing thrilling little prickles of pain.

  She closed her eyes and saw again Estienne and the Beast, saw them writhing and rutting together, saw the shining slide of their oiled skin and their oiled manhoods, heard the slick noises they made at their coming together, relived the joy they took in one another and in each other’s pleasure, no thought to affronting the gods.

  No thought to anything but light and laughter and pleasure.

  “Oh!”

  Claria found her relief like a crash of thunder overhead, hard and so powerful as to be almost painful. She bit her apron hard between her teeth to keep from making another sound, locked her knees tight to stop herself from slithering to the flags.

  But when she came back to herself, the muscles of her stomach ached from clenching them so tightly, and she gasped for breath as if she had ran from the castle to the village and back again. Lights danced behind her closed lids, and it felt as though her heart thumped wildly in her ears and not her chest.

  Thumped so loudly that she did not hear the approach of footsteps until it was almost too late.

  Claria had time only to drop her skirts as Estienne ducked through the doorway. His hair was still damp, his skin still gleaming with the heat and the oil.

  And Claria’s smallclothes still lay unlaced in a puddle of linen at her ankles as her breath came yet in little panting heaves.

  Estienne looked at her, and his expression was all concern. “Are you well, Claria?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, far too quickly, far too loudly. “Very well.”

  But Estienne did not seem convinced “You are…your colour is high.”

  Claria glanced down. Her décolletage was flushed so deep a pink she might as well have been one of the roses in the briar. And further down still, the hint of white frills peeked out from under her skirts. Her heart thudded at the sight, and Claria shuffled a step closer to the table, so that it might hide her utter déshabillé from view.

  “It is…” she began, desperately searching for an excuse that might even begin to explain away her appearance. “It is — it is very warm in here.”

  “I—” Estienne began, his brows drawing together in evident puzzlement. And that Claria could understand. It was not especially warm in the kitchens that day, with only one oven burning and the fire low. But, “Yes,” Estienne allowed hesitantly. “Yes, I suppose it is.” Then, equally hesitantly, “I did not mean to interrupt you at your work.” His handsome face shaped around a smile. “It is only, I came for another of your honey cakes.”

  “Oh, then of course you must have one!” Claria said. She reached for a honey bun — and snatched her hand back just as quickly, for with that hand she had touched herself so only moments before.

  Oh, the gods!

  She withdrew the hand to tangle nervously in her apron and offered Estienne a bun with the other hand instead.

  “Thank you, Claria,” he said, taking it from her, their fingers brushing. There was a flush too upon Estienne’s face, his smile familiarly rueful, when he said, “It seems that you have given me quite the unexpected longing for honey.”

  A Sweet Press

  That night, when the Beast came back to his lair, Claria pounced on him and had him as bare as she was before the door was yet closed.

  The Beast, laughing, held her at arm’s length. “Stop a moment, lass. I must unleash my claws, for I fear a wild animal has overtaken my lair.”

  Claria glared up at him and a little growl of frustration broke from her. “Beast!”

  “Oh no, I see I am mistaken,” the Beast said, laughing still. “Not a wild animal. Only a wild woman instead.” He pulled her to him, gathered her close, and kissed her well. “You enjoyed yourself today, it seems?”

  Claria blinked up at him, her mind and body still reeling from his kiss. What could he mean? As much as the Beast knew, she had spent her day about the kitchens, baking. Of course she had enjoyed herself, but why would he ask in particular? “Why would you—”

  “Did you enjoy watching?” the Beast said. He reached down and cupped her mound, let his longest finger slip through her folds, pressed but a little against her throbbing bud. “Did you enjoy getting this sweet little peach all hot and honied at the sight of your Captain and I tumbling?”

  Claria gasped at his touch and his words both. “You knew? Both of you?”

  “You proved not the most stealthy of audiences,” the Beast said, his tone as sly as his smile. But there was no censure in his gaze, nor any admonishment. “Did we put on a good show, lass?” He firmed his touch, feeling the slick slide of her desire, slickening it all the more. “The sweet honey that drips from you speaks loud that you did.”

  �
�I— I—” Claria should have been ashamed of herself — for what she had done, for what she had seen — and she was ashamed, but ashamed was not all she was. For she was also hot with the thought of it, overcome with a strange, squirming feeling, a confusing muddle of wants and desires and denials. “I—” she began again, but her words would not come.

  Little did it matter. The Beast caught up her hair as he caught her mouth, and he kissed her again, so deep and long that she could hardly think when at last he broke that kiss.

  He sat down upon the high bed and drew Claria up into his lap, to straddle his thigh. They came together as they had that first time in the rose garden, but with the Beast in all his wonderful bareness, the length of him, hard and hot, lay pressed tight between their bodies as Claria rocked and rubbed herself against the thick, firm muscles of his thigh, her desire glistening there, wetly, hotly against his skin.

  Oh, how Claria liked to rut so, for her release did not take her quite so fiercely in this manner. She might build herself to the edge of it, tumble over time and time again, and never tire of it, never tire of the pleasure the Beast could bring.

  And so she did, what seemed like an endless string of pleasure, until she tumbled herself to the silks and lay sated, smiling up at the Beast.

  He had found no release, nor strived to, and the strength of him was hard and erect still, a touch of pleasure strung like spiders’ silk from the tip of him, dripping down towards her.

  Claria licked her lips, waiting for the Beast to take himself in hand and spill upon her. But he did not — he spread her legs open wide and lay down between them.

  Positioned so, his hot length pressed not against her hip, nor her stomach, where the Beast most usually settled for the rut. Instead, she felt the head of him nudging at her slick entrance, seeking entrance there just the same.

  The Beast raised a brow as he smiled his sly smile, seeking her permission.

  And Claria wanted to give it. For she wanted that — the Beast inside of her. She doubted she could take him, not truly, such was his staggering girth, but even just to feel the tip of him teasing her so, pressing into her but a little, pulling out again as she clenched around him…

  Oh, the thought of it made her shiver with wanting, and already she was at the edge of quite overcome but—

  “You cannot,” Claria whispered wretchedly, shaking her head against the silks, her refusal taking all she had in her.

  “Why can I not?” the Beast asked, all puzzlement, no annoyance. “You wish me to, lass, do you not?”

  Oh, how Claria wished it. To feel his strength within her, to fill her with his vigour and his manly attentions. To be as one with the Beast in the only way she had not known.

  But no matter how hotly she wished for it, “Such a thing is for a man and woman wed,” she whispered, her cheeks growing hot.

  The Beast quirked a brow again, higher in his amusement. “And you would not marry me, lass?”

  A laugh burst from her lips at the silly question. “You are not for me, Beast. Not in that way.”

  And the Beast laughed a laugh of his own, one that suggested she was right. Idly, he reached down to brush a finger across her bud, to gather up her slickness, then to brush back that way, again and again, until he had her wriggling and writhing under his hand.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “Ah,” the Beast said, “since you ask so prettily, lass.”

  He slipped a finger past the tight ring of her resistance, then another. Claria sighed pleasure with the feel of it, shivered as he withdrew his touch, then shivered anew when he pressed into her again, her body welcoming him now with hot ease.

  She moaned, a high, breathy sound, and reached down to grasp her hands tight around his wrist, to feel the flex of muscle and sinew as he crooked and twisted and thrust is fingers within her.

  The Beast watched her all the while as he undid her, methodically and relentlessly, watched her still as she shuddered and shook through those shivering little aftershocks of pleasure.

  “For your husband only?” the Beast asked.

  Claria nodded, holding on still. “For him alone.”

  A crook to the Beast’s mouth. “A shame,” he said as he withdrew his touch. “But not a great one. For now we shall have to find other inventive delights to satiate this sudden fire of yours, lass.”

  He turned her, so that her back was to his front, so that her bottom pressed firm to his groin, and with a lazy idle thrust, between the softness of her upper thighs he slid his manhood.

  Claria gasped loud at the feel of it, so hot and hard against her skin made slick with her dripping wetness and slipping now with his.

  With each thrust, she could feel the head of him rising to brush against her little bud, the pleasure of it maddeningly fleeting. With each thrust, when she looked down, she could see the fat tip of him appear from between the press of her thighs.

  All back to front, but in all the ways that mattered, the Beast and she were pressed together like the Beast and the Captain had been only half a day before, when they had rutted with one another knowing that she watched.

  When they had kissed one another knowing that she watched — and so she kissed the Beast as he had kissed Estienne, lazily at first, wantonly with it, then fiercer, harder, a tangle of nipping teeth and teasing tongue.

  With her twisted so, with her mouth to his, the angle of the Beast’s thrusts changed. It brought him harder against her bud, closer to the tight entrance of her heat, so close that if she shifted just a little more, he might nudge inside of her.

  Claria thought again, deliriously, of how much of the Beast she might take. Of how much she could take. Hardly any, most likely, but what she could — oh, how she would savour it, the fullness it would deliver, the branding heat it would bring.

  She whined at the thought, squeezing her legs together as the wet heat at her core flared and flamed through her. The Beast pressed his face into the crook of her neck as she did, and Claria felt his rumbling roar just as much as she heard it.

  She cupped her hand around him as he spilled, fiery hot, into her palm, and as she tumbled fully over into her own pleasure as from a height as high as the heavens, the thought of the Beast within her — oh the gods, of Estienne within her — was sinful and sharp in her mind.

  But she could not. She would not.

  No matter how much she damned the gods, such things were for a husband, and for a husband alone.

  Delicate

  Days passed, and Estienne’s presence about the castle was a strange and wonderful torture.

  Days passed, and the thought of Estienne knowing she had watched as he and the Beast tumbled was a hot torture all the more.

  Days passed, and Claria woke from the hottest of dreams to the black of night. The sky outside the high, barred window of the Beast’s lair was nothing but that same blackness. No stars nor moon. And through the window came the still, soft silence that announced a heavy fall of snow.

  Claria woke, she found, because the Beast had woken her. “What is it?” she asked. “Is something amiss?”

  The Beast shook his head, smiling soft and sharp. “Nothing of the sort. I only wish to show you something, lass.”

  Claria squinted up at him, bleary still from sleep. “And it cannot wait until morning?”

  The Beast only shook his head again and lifted her from her nest of furs. Claria was as bare as he had left her after their tumbling hours before, but around her bareness he pulled a heavy robe, all lined and edged with fur just the same.

  Then he took her hand and Claria followed him where he led, and with her head still a little soft with sleep, she did not realise where she was — until realise, all at once, she did.

  No candle burned in the hall of mirrors, no torch. There was no hearth to light a fire or basket to kindle one, but the room was lit all the same. It glowed with a warm golden light. Fiery and unearthly.

  Magic at work.

  And it was light enough to see
that the great, high ceiling had changed in countenance. Stone no longer. It was glass instead, as clear and as sparkling as the windowpanes that lined the ballroom.

  So clear and unmarred it seemed open to the heavy sky above. And when a snowflake tumbled down to land upon her lashes, Claria realised that seem it did not. For the room was open to the sky, the ceiling entirely gone.

  So taken was she by the extraordinary sight that it took her a strange, stuttering moment to realise that, in the middle of the hall of mirrors, there stood Estienne.

  No man made of smoke and shadow. The real Estienne, she knew, whole and of himself. Scarred and steady. Kind and true.

  Her officer.

  Her Estienne.

  But still, “Is this a dream?” Claria asked, her voice barely even a whisper.

  “No dream,” the Beast said from close behind, his warmth closer still.

  “Then this is magic,” she said.

  “Not magic,” Estienne said, shaking his head, setting his long hair to tousling. “Only me.”

  Claria could only stare at him, and all of her was a confusion as roiling as the fiercest winter storm.

  “Why?” she asked, her question for the Beast alone.

  “You want him,” the Beast said, mischief in his tone, “do you not? You want him for your bed and for your heart. You want to touch him and have him touch you.”

  Claria breathed her words as much as spoke them. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  “And he wants you just the same,” the Beast said.

  Claria shook her head. “He does not. He could not…”

  “Ah, but he does,” the Beast said, all mischief and mockery, but a kind mockery — and truthful with it, no matter how strange the truth. “I know well how you like to shiver, Claria,” he said, a whisper in her ear that cast shivers anew. “Should you like to shiver all the more?”