by Lucy Leven
That thrust in turn shifted Estienne within her, the weight of both of them pressing down upon her.
And oh, how it pleased her so, to be so enveloped and encompassed by their power, weighed down by the sheer enormity of their muscled strength.
The Beast held Estienne pressed so close now that Claria could only glimpse his face if she glimpsed it in one of the mirrors — and so she did. Saw there the same shifting, spiking pleasure upon Estienne’s face that she saw upon her own, as she felt suffused in every inch of her, and upon every inch of her, in all the places that Estienne touched her and filled her, the Beast’s presence all around.
Estienne kissed her then, a slick press of lips and the gasping of their breath, gone hitching and heaving at the pleasure Estienne gave to her, and she to him, and the wondrous torment the Beast inflicted upon the both of them.
And the Beast — he growled, a wild, primal sound that brought gooseflesh rushing anew across Claria’s skin, that peaked her nipples to a hardness that was almost painful.
With another growl, louder than the last, the Beast pulled Estienne up towards him, his hand firm around the stem of his neck. Estienne went, his back arching deeply, the motion pressing his halting thrusts deeper still and making Claria moan, loud and wavering.
She felt the Beast’s thrusts as keenly as she felt Estienne’s, and it was the power in that primal movement that tumbled her over the edge of her release.
But to come to that release with Estienne still sheathed within her was such a startling, shocking sensation. She gasped, cried out, gasped again, clenching down hard upon him, her innermost muscles all trembling and rippling around him.
Estienne groaned, his teeth gritted hard, as he held himself at the precarious edge of release. With another hard thrust, the Beast let loose his grip around the stem of Estienne’s throat, and Estienne fell forward then, atop her once more, only catching himself on a forearm, as if the pleasure of the Beast’s attentions and her quivering release had all but sapped his strength.
“Am I to spill in you, sweet Claria?” he whispered in her ear.
“Oh, please,” she whispered in turn, her voice so small, all broken and thready with the pleasure that ran still through her veins. “Please,” she said. “Oh, please, Estienne. Please spill in me.”
And spill he did, a feeling of such warmth and fullness that Claria could hardly fathom it. Could give no words to it. Could only revel in the feel of it, so intimate and inviting. She held tight to Estienne, felt his muscles draw tight and hold and tremble hotly as the Beast used him so, again and again.
Then, one hard, unforgiving thrust from the Beast that sparked pleasure straight to Claria’s core, one sharp, shattered moan from Estienne, and with a bestial roar, the Beast spilled his own pleasure, spilled it deep and hot within Estienne as Estienne had spilled hot and deep within Claria.
The Beast collapsed to the flags behind her, pulled her close and held her tight, just as he pulled Estienne to them too. Claria lay between them, bathed in the embers of her pleasure, caught safe in their strength and their care, and warm even under the sparkling fall of a midwinter snow.
An Oath
Back in the Beast’s lair, Claria woke to an empty bed. The furs lay disturbed where both the Beast and Estienne had slept beside her, but to judge by the light slanting down through the high window, the morning was already half gone.
Claria was a baker, born and raised: early mornings were her trade, as was waking when the day was still more night than not. How could she have slept so long?
Well, perhaps the soft pleasure that suffused her every inch might account for it.
Laughing at her laziness, Claria pushed back the furs and slid down from the Beast’s high bed.
The castle and its clever hands were waiting for her, to wash her and dress her hair, and to dress her too: a simple gown of white muslin, the pretty roses embroidered on it picked out in the deepest of pinks. Around her neck went not the usual string of coral, but a strand of glorious, gleaming pearls.
Claria hardly paid them any mind, for all at once she had become aware of a rising sound, of voices elsewhere in the castle, and one of those voices was building in anger.
The gods, were the Beast and Estienne quarrelling? Whatever could have angered them so?
She slipped on her slippers, lifted her skirts, and ran — ran until her ears led her to the Great Hall and through the great doors that opened to it, and there she stopped in utter astonishment.
For true enough, she had found the Beast and Estienne, both of them in doublets with swords at their hips, and both of them looking very smart.
But that was not what halted Claria’s steps; instead, beside the Beast stood a friar in his long brown robes. He was a tiny, withered little man, and though his hair was still the black of youth, his face looked older than it should — soured like his countenance. “You are a servant of only the most evil gods!” he exclaimed, glaring up at the Beast. “A servant of the gods most base and most sinful.”
“Oh yes,” the Beast agreed cheerfully. “I am quite sure I am.”
Claria looked from the friar to the Beast and back again, and her being was entirely confusion. “What—” she began, but begin was all she did. Words failed her.
The Beast glanced her way, and one of those sly, slipping smiles broke free at the sight of her. “You told me once that certain pleasures were only for a man and woman wed. Well, such pleasures have been partaken of, lass.” He made a graceful, sweeping gesture towards Estienne. “And so here is your husband. And here is the friar to wed you.”
For a moment, long and fraught, Claria could do nothing but stare at the Beast in utmost shock. But that moment broke as the shattering of some grand mirror. She marched over to the Beast, took hold of his wrist and yanked him to her, yanked him away from the other men. Her strength was nothing to his, but he came willingly enough.
“You cannot make Estienne marry me, Beast!” she whispered, harsh and angry, when she had him far enough distant. “He is a man of flesh and blood, not magic to be shaped and ordered to your will.”
The sly smile widened. “I cannot order my magic to do anything it does not wish to do,” the Beast said, “for it is as capricious and mischievous as any unruly lass.”
For a moment — and it was that same moment that startled Claria from her anger — in the Beast’s eyes, there passed a shadow of sadness, a shadow of such grief that it took Claria’s breath, grief old and far away, though potent just the same.
But when the Beast blinked again, it was gone. “But this man is no lass,” he said, his smile returning as he pointed to Estienne, taking no care towards the loudness of his words. “And this man of flesh and blood has a will all of his own, and it was with that will that he ordered me to find him a friar.”
Estienne laughed a soft laugh. “I asked only if you knew one, my friend.”
The Beast quirked a brow in grudging agreement. “Well, I know one now — however much I may wish it otherwise.”
“I was abducted!” the friar shrieked, taking his cue like an actor on the stage. “Stolen from my bed!”
“Stolen from your lady’s bed in the brothel, certainly,” the Beast agreed.
“You—” The friar bit down on whatever he had meant to say and flamed as red as a raspberry, caught somewhere between terror and affront. “I— You—”
The Beast ignored him, just as Estienne did. To Claria, Estienne said, “I wanted to ask for your hand, you see, and I wanted to know that if you agreed, we could be married with haste. But I meant to work up my courage first, for I was worried you might refuse me.” He smiled his equally familiar smile, all gentle ruefulness. “A beast needs no courage, of course.”
“But— but why would you marry me? Why would you even wish to?” Claria asked, entirely discombobulated. “I am a fallen woman. A woman of low morals and sinful inclinations.”
Estienne delivered her a look of such honest puzzlement that it could be nothing but genuine. �
�A fallen woman?” he repeated, as if he understood her not at all. “In what manner have you fallen?”
“I have laid with you in sin,” Claria said, her voice a harsh whisper.
“Sin?” Estienne echoed, his eyes gone wide with what Claria thought might be hurt. “Is that what you would call our night together? Sin?”
“That is not what I mean. Surely you know that.”
“I am not sure that I do,” Estienne said. “For the Beast has lain with me, and I with him, and we are not married. Nor do I intend to marry him.”
“Thank the Dark Forest for that,” the Beast rumbled.
Claria cut him a look just as dark as his forest, then back to Estienne she turned. “But little does that matter — you are men!”
“Indeed!” the friar agreed. “Sinful men of salacious habits and deviant—”
“Oh, be quiet, you horrid little hypocrite!” Claria exclaimed, and with it, she startled herself into silence — startled herself with her own reckless bravery. She had damned the gods, and now it seemed she would damn their conniving servants too.
Estienne took her hands in his then, ducked so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Shall I tell you why I wish to marry you, sweet Claria?” he said. “For it is nothing to do with sins and morals and marriage beds.”
“Then tell me if you must,” Claria said wretchedly.
“You were scared,” Estienne said, “but you took my hand and you got up.”
Claria felt her face pinch with confusion. “I do not understand.”
“All those years ago, Claria,” Estienne said, his tone low and insistent. “You looked up at me with those clear eyes and you trusted me.”
He smiled a soft smile, as soft as his lovely words, but just as the Beast mere moments ago, his eyes were suddenly somewhere else. Somewhere dark and horrid.
“I remembered that,” he told her. “When all was blood and bile and death, and when there was very little left worth living for, I remembered that. I remembered your trust.” Estienne let out a strange, choking little laugh. “And I remembered the taste of those honey cakes of yours.”
“Honey buns,” Claria corrected, mindlessly, helplessly. “Which— which are a type of cake, but not the cake you mean.”
“Cakes, buns. In truth I care not,” Estienne said, though not unkindly. He laughed another laugh, small and warm. “For either way I remembered them.” He reached out to brush a thumb across her cheek. “Just as I remembered this gentle face. You must not blame the master of the castle for any plots and intrigue. I am solely to blame, and I alone. When I heard that you had come to bide at the castle, I asked him to engineer some scheme to bring me here too, for I wished to see you again.”
“To see me…” Claria echoed helplessly, so caught up in his words and in his kind intentions. He spoke his truth, she thought. But whether he loved her or not, whether he cared for her purity or not, such things were of no matter at all, for—
“I cannot marry you!” Claria exclaimed. “Estienne, I cannot!”
“Why ever not?”
“You are a duke!” Claria said, as plain as the fact was plain. “A duke, Estienne.”
Estienne huffed a breath of gentle irritation. “In name only.”
“In everything!” Claria protested. “It is in your blood. It is your birthright.”
“It was my brother’s birthright, and he squandered it.”
He spoke such sense to her in his calm way, as if he could convince her just as he had convinced himself. But Claria could not let him.
“I never knew my mother,” she carried on, a hint of desperation to her voice, “nor my father. I was a foundling, raised for my work. All I know is baking.”
“And trust,” Estienne said, “and courage, and kindness, and hard, honest work.”
He spoke with no curl of a lie in his words. He spoke the truth as he knew it — as if he looked into her soul and knew Claria better than she knew herself.
But there was one thing she did know: whether she had lost the argument or not, she could protest just a little longer.
“But what if you are called to court?” she said. “I would have to accompany you. What would I say? What would I wear? How could I be among folk so high?”
The Beast — watching, well-amused — must have sensed a softening in her resolve, for, “Do you imagine this whelp the sort to attend court, lass?” he asked.
“But what if he did, Beast?” Claria said. She turned back to Estienne. “What if you did? If you were made to by the King?”
“Then we would go, and you would dress just as you liked, and be just as you liked, and if anyone at court spoke a vile word against you,” Estienne said, his voice as a blade’s edge, sharp and gleaming, “then I would have their heads.”
He spoke those words with the same calm, even look that had been upon his face all those years ago when he had ordered her attackers whipped for their crimes. Estienne may have been the most beautiful man Claria had ever known, but there was a well-forged spine of steel hidden under all his handsome gilding.
“Is there to be a wedding this day?” the friar asked suddenly, irritation and apprehension made one in his voice. “For I must be back to the friary for evening prayers.”
“To pray for your soul, friend?” the Beast asked, entirely amused. “Or to pray for ours?
The friar scowled up at him. “You must have a soul for a soul to be prayed for.”
The Beast let out a hearty laugh. “That is true,” he said. “In more ways than one, that is true.” And to Claria he turned. “Well then, lass. Is there to be a wedding this day? Will you marry the blaggard or will you not?”
Estienne was watching her, soft and hopeful. And Claria did not quite know what she had done to deserve such regard, but she could not turn it away, just as she could never turn Estienne away.
So, “I will,” she said. And to Estienne, she said, “I will marry you.”
And so it was, that in the Great Hall of the Beast’s great and magical castle, the friar bound their hands together and spoke the words of joining, and when that was done, Estienne slid onto her finger a band of gold that held clasped a jewel of deepest, wine-red pink.
“My Duchess,” he said, soft reverence in his voice and in his gaze.
“Your wife,” Claria said, speaking just the same.
A True Reflection
They meant to leave with the sunrise, for the road east to Estienne’s estate was long and plagued with brigands. They needed to make the most of what little light late winter would afford them.
And so Claria woke well before the dawn. Estienne lay sleeping yet, his hair a golden halo about his face, and the Beast was already gone from his lair.
But little did that matter: Claria knew where she would find him.
The moon was setting, but still it cast down its ghostly light upon the rose garden, cool and mercurial, as if each rose was cast in pewter and gilded with silver.
The Beast waited for her there, sat atop the furs. Claria went to him, climbed into his lap and kissed him.
She kissed him for all the pleasure he had shown her and taught her, for the world he had unveiled before her, for all the magic he had conjured. Claria straddled his thigh as she kissed him, and all the while she rocked a gentle rhythm, just as she had that first night in the rose garden.
The coming of her release she found with the sweetest of sighs.
The Beast tipped up her chin so that he could kiss her anew, deep and long. Then he broke that kiss to ask, “Might I taste your honey, lass?”
“Always,” Claria said. “Always, dear Beast.”
He laid her out atop the furs, and with the sharpest of his conjured claws, he slit her shift from neck to knee. The fine cloth slid apart and slipped from her. Left her bare and shivering with pleasure in the chill air, made her nipples pebble tight and high, aching to be touched.
And so the Beast touched her — his sure, strong hands reached up and touched her brea
sts as he set his mouth to her warmth, as he licked and lapped at her, so softly.
Under his careful, relentless attentions, Claria came to the completion of her pleasure more times than she could count, each time more wetly, more hotly, more sweetly than the last.
He tasted her and supped from her until the rising sun broke above the wall of the garden, and cold silver became warm gold.
Until bud became bloom.
With precious care, the Beast tumbled her into one last shivering release. Then he kissed her. And Claria kissed him — kissed him, at first, tasting only herself. Kissed him then until all she could taste was him — until the Beast was everything and she had fixed him in her mind, well and true.
Then at last, with a tenderness that made Claria ache, the Beast drew apart from her. He touched his knuckles gently to her cheek, and a sparkling flare of magic saw her washed and dressed and made ready for the journey ahead. Her stockings were rich with wool, her cloak heavy with furs, her mantle just the same.
“A gift for you,” the Beast said.
In his hand was a looking glass. A perfect replica of the glasses that hung in the hall of mirrors, but made small, so that she might hold it in her hand, so that she might take her reflection.
The young woman staring back at her, Claria hardly recognised. Her cheeks were pink and full, her eyes bright, and the smile on her face was small and true.
She looked happy. She looked as happy as Claria felt.
“A true reflection, lass,” the Beast said. “And one you should always have known.”
He picked the rose then. A rose of deepest wine, plucked from the briars, as beautiful and as untouched as when it had first bloomed those long months ago. A thing of summer and of winter just the same. A thing of magic, as the Beast was a thing of magic.
He held it out to her. “You will always be welcome here, lass,” he said.
Claria took the rose from him, mindful of the thorns, caring of the beautiful, unfurling petals.
The Beast kissed her one last time. And so Claria kissed him back, kissed her farewell and her thanks. Then with no words — for no words could she find — she pulled away and pulled the gate fast shut behind her.