Beauty's Secret (Beast and Beauty Book 2)

by Brantwijn Serrah

  "Mine," he growled as he leaned over me again, clasping one possessive hand around my throat. "Mine. Mine."

  "Yes," I groaned, joyfully exhausted, beautifully used. "Yours... forever yours."

  Then came darkness. Somewhere distant, a ringing chant. A pulsing blue light. As though awakening, I remembered the caracal kitten, and the tent I'd left behind. A man, asleep in a bedroll. A boat—a mission.

  This is not real. This is...

  An echo.

  "Elathae," my hunter whispered in my ear. "Little monster. My wicked, wild, wanton witch."

  Witch. Always witch.

  The cat. The man in the tent. The boat. The—

  Light. Blue light. It is dying.

  I must reach...that...light!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I woke to find myself lying in the mossy scrub of a shady wood. The verdant, wet scent of dewy leaves hung heavy in the air around me.

  I lifted my head, puzzled. For a moment, I couldn't remember my name, or where I'd come from, or what I was doing here in this strange, dark, damp place, in the middle of the night.

  Only the thinnest veil of morning light had begun to outline the shapes and shadows around me, defining low, thick trees and wide, wafting fronds and ferns. I rose from my supine position, giving a sudden start when something tugged at my wrists. Like a tight, unyielding rope, it held me, and I pulled at it with a surge of panic, until just like that, it seemed to evaporate. The bond broke; my wrists were free, as though nothing had really held them at all.

  I sat up and rubbed at one temple. The dream began to fizzle and sift away. I recognized the place, at last: it was not far from the path where Bannon had chased me several days ago. The cold night air raised gooseflesh along my naked skin, and streaks of soil and moss covered me.

  Naked?

  Glancing back and forth, I found myself alone. How had I come to be here?

  "I... was following the cat..."

  Schala. Yes. I'd risen from our tent to chase her when she'd slipped out into the night, because—

  Because there was something waiting out here. Something waiting... for me.

  Bracing myself on a nearby tree limb, I climbed to my feet. "Schala?"

  Nothing. No familiar chirrup. No purring, no head butting my ankles.

  How long had I been lying here? My body ached. Back and hips, even my neck.

  My breasts, too. My thighs, and my—

  I swallowed hard. Gingerly, I touched the deliciously sore, throbbing place between my legs. Yes, my body stung all over with the satisfying bruises of rough sex It had only been a vision, though, hadn't it? A dream, fleeting and meaningless.

  A clenching pain seized my heart. My hands shook. A vision, yes. One of fierce, primal play and domination.

  "No semen, though," I reassured myself. In the vision, the hunter had marked flesh in a clear display of ownership and power. My flesh bore only the stains of dirt and moss.

  Can I find my way back to camp? Naked, in the dark?

  If I didn't, would the others find me?

  "Bannon..."

  I touched my fingers to my lips. If he woke without me beside him, he'd be furious, I was sure. Frightened, maybe, worried, maybe, but furious, underneath. The cool, quietly widening rift between us would only get bigger, if he thought I'd run away from him to go traipsing about alone in the night, in unfamiliar woods.

  But... did I?

  Furrowing my brow, I tried to remember how I'd come to be here. I didn't recall entering the woods. Only following Schala out of the tent flap, and then—

  "Sleepwalking." The sound of my own voice in the pre-dawn quiet calmed me, grounding me. "Just like Bannon and Ailsa suspected... I was sleepwalking after all."

  A nervous, queasy feeling in my gut begged to differ, but I had no time to stand here alone, shivering and naked, to think it through. I had to return to camp as quickly and quietly as I could and hope not to cross anyone else's path on the way. There was just no way to explain this.

  I searched for my own footprints, but they were difficult to discern in the dark. Once I did settle on a pattern in the soil I thought must be my own, I peered closer, and a shiver slipped through my heart like a needle.

  Another set of tracks appeared beside mine.

  Yield, whispered a faraway voice in the back of my mind.

  "Never mind!" I hissed at myself, stamping my foot in the dewy moss. I had to get back to camp, hopefully before Bannon caught me missing. I could tell him about this—I would tell him—but first I needed to be back, and safe, before he had a chance to become angry.

  I took off at a trot, nervous in the darkness. At least the rain had stopped, leaving only a partly cloudy sky overhead. It lightened by fractional degrees, still barely enough, as I stumbled my way back.

  "Ow!"

  A tree root caught my ankle, and I tumbled forward. Brambles scraped my arms, and I struck my head on a hard scuff of stone just off the path. "Damnit!"

  "Who's there?"

  I glanced up, searching for the owner of the familiar voice. "Olsen? It's me, soldier. Sadira!"

  His footsteps scuffed along the path, and I had only enough time to remember my nakedness before he appeared, the light of his torch illuminating the patch of ground just to the left of me. I scooted quickly behind one of the thick ferns before he could shift his lantern my way.

  "What are you doing out here, this hour?" Olsen grumbled.

  We hadn't exactly become fast friends since our clashes back at the castle. I'd once believed him a brazen predator, and while that rather distasteful aspect of his character appeared to have dissipated along with Alaric's looming curse, Olsen still didn't care much for me, nor I for him.

  "Well, what do you think?" I grumbled, peering at him over the top of the ferns. "It's my menses if you must know. Care to be of help?"

  He lifted his lantern higher, illuminating his face, drawn tight in revulsion. Oh, please. Didn't Bannon tell me you were married?

  "Well, if you can't be of use yourself, send me Ailsa," I told him, trying to hide the left side of my face, where blood now dripped from the cut the rock had given me. Olsen's grimace hardened, and he gave me a nod before turning back toward the camp.

  Thank goodness. I sighed with relief and hoped Ailsa wouldn't be long. Several moments later, though, it was Rayyan returned with Olsen, carrying a fold of cloth.

  "There she is," Olsen grumped, waving a hand toward me. Rayyan nodded and thanked him, effectively dismissing him, before coming to join me behind the bush.

  "It's my time, too," he confided to me, measuring out a length of cloth. "Olsen said you needed some—sacred serpent, Sadira, where are your clothes?"

  I brushed aside the fabric he offered. "I don't need it, I just had to get Olsen to keep his distance. Can you go to the tent I share with Bannon and bring me something to wear? Or even a blanket to cover me while I slip back in there?"

  "Not if this is some game or punishment your master has assigned you," he replied with a serious expression. Rayyan knew the ways of sensual slavery, even if he no longer followed them himself.

  "It's not!" I insisted. "I... I think I must have been sleepwalking. I woke up deep in the wood, off the path, and... and I tripped on my way back, and now I'm bleeding. Ry, can you please just help me get back to my tent?"

  "Of course. Here, stand behind me."

  Rayyan stood shorter than me, but he'd put on weight and muscle since his harem days. He offered me his hand and pulled me to my feet, then led the way back toward camp with his lantern held high and ahead of us, obscuring the view.

  "Sleepwalking, are you?"

  "I think." I wiped the tacky blood from the side of my face. "I don't know. I thought I was awake, and Schala ran off into the field—"

  A field of tall, thick grass. Not this scrubby, rocky heath.

  "Speaking of the cat, she's been stalking all over the camp tonight." Rayya swung the lantern back and forth as we came to the edge of the wood,
but none of the other guards appeared near enough to see us. "Making those unhappy sounds she makes when she wants your attention. You know, the grumbling and the moaning?"

  So, Schala didn't know where I went? She didn't follow me? Couldn't follow me by scent?

  We approached the tent I shared with Bannon, and as though she'd been waiting for just that moment, Schala bounded up from the ground just beside the entrance and came trotting to me. She chirped and purred, winding in circles around my legs until I crouched to pick her up.

  "Sadira?"

  The tent flap opened, and Bannon emerged, bleary-eyed. Before he could notice the strangeness of the situation, I gave Rayyan a quick peck on the cheek in thanks and darted into the tent. I grabbed Bannon's hand and pulled him in after me.

  "What's going on?" he rumbled. Then, in a sharper tone, "Why are you naked?"

  "Please, I'll explain." I drew him down beside our firepit, letting Schala drop onto the rumpled fabric of the bedroll. As I searched for the flint to strike the fire, I sensed Bannon's eyes roaming over me.

  "You're bleeding." He touched the scrape on my head, making me pause. I lifted my hand to touch his.

  "I fell," I said. All at once, I lost my sense of direction and purpose. I fell against him, resting my head on his chest, a deep, childlike loss welling up within me.

  "I didn't mean to go," I whispered as he held me. "I woke in the woods. I had... such a strange dream. I can't seem to recall everything, only that there... there was someone with me. Someone called me there, and I thought... I thought..."

  The Red Bear. Not the Red Bear. I am not his she-cat. Yet we are, and always have been. Hunter, lover, prey.

  To my relief, he brought up a hand to stroke my hair, and curled his strong arms tighter around me. We'd been at odds for many days now, and I'd feared he might no longer share the need for this closeness, as he discovered more and more of the beast I really was inside.

  Little monster.

  I closed my eyes and crawled into his lap.

  "Are you very hurt?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "A few bruises, I think. The scrape bled badly, but it isn't very deep."

  He sighed. "My troublesome kitten. Can't turn my back on you for a minute, it seems."

  "I'm sorry." I took one of his hands in mine, twining fingers, giving him a squeeze. "Bannon... I am sorry to have been so difficult during this voyage. To have caused you such trouble, and... I'm so sorry I lied."

  He gave a tired, quiet grumble, but said no more. I closed my eyes and soaked in his familiar warmth, silently vowing I would make it up to him. I would make everything right again.

  Our last few days in port were sunny and warm again, and trade in the city resumed in a bright, lively celebration. With the final repairs on the Drekakona coming to completion, Ashe and other sailors began coming onshore more often to purchase fresh supplies and stock up on a few luxuries, like the plump, juicy dates and the bigger, round, yellow papayas. Several mornings in a row, the ship's cook emerged to join the crab fishers on the rocks, grinning madly as he captured fresh crustaceans in his traps.

  I helped Rayyan and Ashe haul supply crates back on board the ship. Perhaps I was more eager than most to get back on the sea, ever since my unexplained nightly sojourn and the heavy set of tracks—not Bannon's—I'd found by my side in the deep woods. No recurrence of my dreams, yet, and no new instances of sleepwalking, but I wanted to be gone from these shores and the strange visions they induced.

  "Strange indeed," Ailsa murmured as we dropped off boxes of fresh linens and some medicinal herbs for her teas. "Before we came into port you seemed certain it was the ship being haunted. Now you long to return to it."

  I knew Bannon's daughter as a fair and practical woman, rarely swayed by the swell of emotions in those around her when facts spoke their own truth. It wasn't like her to inject that hint of superiority and smugness into her tone, and though it was subtle, it jabbed at me.

  "I don't know what is at hand," I said, leaning against the pile of crates we'd just delivered while Ashe and Rayyan retreated to fetch the next load. All the strangeness and uncertainty around me had left me exhausted to the bone. "I'm not asking for these circumstances to keep haunting me, Ailsa."

  "Of course you're not."

  The practical healing woman returned as she neatened the cabinets and cubbies of her sick bay and cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the single soldier—a woman who seemed to be suffering from an overdose of sun—lying in one of the bunks. Satisfied her patient seemed to be resting quietly and comfortably, Ailsa touched my arm.

  "Come with me."

  "We're due to leave port within the hour. I have other loads of cargo to—"

  "It won't take long."

  With a huff of surrender, I followed. It seemed less draining than arguing.

  She led me through the middle deck, to the center of the vessel, which I'd heard Torv refer to as the waist. I'd only come to this part of the ship once, when Ashe guided Rayyan and me through the decks, showing us the work we'd be asked to do. At the very center of the middle deck stood the shrine to Sherida, and this was where Ailsa led me now.

  Though I'd learned something of the Sanraethi spiritual path and their goddess, the great seer, I hadn't made any real effort to visit the shrine or delve into their practices. I'd met at least one creature of so-called divinity. I had little appetite for more.

  "Why bring me here?" I asked Ailsa.

  "I thought it might soothe you." She touched the altar, tilting her face up toward a holy sigil hung upon the wall behind it. "A place of prayer and meditation to welcome you, when your fears plague you."

  I tried to hide a snort. Shrines and ritual spaces were hardly places of comfort for me.

  "Sherida, seer of all," she said, as though I needed to be told. The reverence in her voice put me on edge. I'd only ever heard such tones from the sorcerers of Akolet, immersed in their worship, calling out in ecstasy to the seven-headed serpent. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as I examined the holy sigil of Sherida, and I found myself grimacing.

  "You must forgive me," I told Ailsa in a low tone. "I am not much interested in matters of worship. It reminds me too much of the men who would have fed me to their holy snake god."

  "Our goddess is nothing like your snake," she assured me. "Sherida is a goddess of light and wisdom."

  "So they said of Akolet."

  I didn't wish for her to see me bristle. I had no quarrel with her faith or her goddess. It only reeked to me of the same intent, the same embrace of forces I had never been built to understand.

  "It is through Sherida's wisdom I have learned to heal." Ailsa came to my side, crossing her arms over her chest. "I am not overtly sentimental. You know that by now. But I do know many of your fellow harem slaves have begun to find peace, and heal their scars, here in this shrine. Meditation on the seer's ways brings serenity to their souls."

  "You know I am not like them."

  "I know you think you can't be," she corrected. "Can't lay down the things that were done to you."

  I stepped away from her, out of the shrine and back into the corridors. I didn't know if she would follow me, but she did, falling into step beside me.

  "I know you are a proud medicine woman, and your clan reveres your skill," I said, terse. "But you seek to treat a malady I do not have. Sherida will do no better soothing my mind than Akolet did destroying it."

  "I watched your fight with Mara," she pointed out. "The way the pain... charged you. It isn't normal."

  "You've never before known a warrior thrilled by the heat and sting of battle?" I challenged. She hesitated, grimacing.

  "It's not the same."

  "Ailsa." I stopped before the ladder back to the main weather deck, turning to look her in the eyes. "Understand me. As much as it discomfits you, as much as you wish you could fit it into your ordered understanding, I am not mad."

  "No," she said. "Not mad—"

  "And my reputat
ion, infamous as it may be, is not the whole truth of me. What you think you know thanks to nasty rumor and curious speculation is not who I am. I have told your father and I will tell you, too, and anybody else who needs to hear it: I am not broken. Alaric may have left me with scars, but underneath those scars, you will not find some innocent, victimized child. I am not ashamed of who I am, Ailsa, and I won't allow you, nor Mara, nor Bannon to make me ashamed."

  She frowned and crossed her arms again. I thought she must want to say something more, but either she anticipated an unpleasant retort or something I'd said had finally gotten through. She rubbed her chin, eyeing me, but remained silent.

  "There are more loads of supplies to carry," I told her again, before seizing the first rung of the ladder to climb up to the open weather deck.

  I'd only just emerged into the sunlight when a pair of leather boots appeared right in front of me. I looked up and found Lieutenant Mara, looking back down at me, her dark, olive-green eyes intent.

  "Supplies are loaded," she told me. Something in her expression made me feel certain I was about to be kicked in the face.

  "Head back down. You and I have something to settle."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bristling at Mara's tone, nevertheless I followed her as she guided me down to the third deck, and toward the rower's gallery. I had no rank of my own, of course, and no place to deny her orders, but so far Bannon had been wise enough not to leave her in charge of me. With him occupied elsewhere, probably with Captain Arne, there was no one to step between us now.

  "Rowers are to report to their places before the next bell," she told me as we strode through the gallery, past the mostly empty benches and a few hands already waiting for their next instructions.

  "Ah," I said. "So, the Red Bear wishes for me to join their team today?"

  "Aye," she confirmed. Choosing a bench, she gestured for me to sit. I did, watching her carefully, even as Schala jumped up into my lap.

  To my astonishment, Mara took the seat beside me.