Perhaps not, though. Perhaps she was merely a shadow, forever getting in the way, relegated to nothing, just like this man said he was.
"Are you really not Everett?" she asked him. She needed him to say it again, needed him to tell her once more.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not. I truly am his younger brother. I'm Dante."
She smiled and held out her hand for him to shake. "I'm Alena."
He watched her, confusion flittering through his eyes. Moving one hand from her shoulder, he took her offered hand in his and shook it. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Alena," he said.
"Can..." She felt so silly and childish for this, but she said it anyways. "Can you kiss the back of my hand?" she asked. "As if I were a lady? I know I'm... well, I have no clothes, and you're fully dressed, but can you pretend?"
He grinned, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. "You're rather odd," he said. "It's nice, though. I like it."
"I'm a little tired. I've been running. Do you mind if we sit? On the bed? Shall we talk? Do you like to talk? I've never really talked much with a man before."
"Oh?" he asked. "Really? Yes, let's sit, shall we? What do you mean you haven't talked with a man before? That seems like something everyone does."
Yes, well, it probably was. She knew others who did. Unfortunately no men talked with her. Or, they talked enough to coax her somewhere private, and then there was no more talking going on. She liked it, or she used to. It was fun taking them in her mouth and feeling wanted and needed, or stroking them in her hand and watching the way their faces scrunched up so delightfully.
They wanted her then, if only for a few minutes. It made her feel special... if only for a few minutes.
None of them talked with her, though. None of them cared. No one had ever denied her in regards to sexual dalliance. She'd only ever had actual sex with Everett, but still. No one had ever agreed to just sit and talk with her, especially when she was already naked. It sort of felt nice. It was enticing in an entirely different sort of way.
She wanted to test it. When they seated themselves on the bed, she glanced at Dante and batted her eyelashes. "Can I kiss you?" she asked.
He pursed his lips and frowned. "No, I don't think that's a good idea."
Oh! It made her laugh. She scooted closer to him and rested her chin on his shoulder and stared at him, curious. He was a curious and interesting man, wasn't he. And handsome, too. She wanted to touch his cheek with her fingertips, so she did.
"Alena..." Dante said, furrowing his brow. "We can't."
"I know," she said. "I just think you're very nice. You have soft cheeks."
"Thank you," he said curtly.
Before either of them said anymore, a strangled scream echoed through the outer halls and rebounded into the room. Alena knew that scream. She'd heard it somewhat recently, too. While her father mindlessly ate dinner and she teased her younger sister about cats or yellow elephants over a half-eaten plate of food, she'd heard nearly that exact same scream.
It was Danya.
"That's my sister," she said, confused.
Dante frowned. "Come, sweetling. That didn't sound good. I fear there's magic running amok and we'll need to deal with it sooner rather than later. I can feel it."
"You can feel magic?" she asked in awe.
"Somewhat," he said with a shrug, leaping from the bed and taking her hand in his. "My soul was trapped within a suit of armor for decades, so there's a certain... resonance, if you will? I don't know what's going on exactly, but I know it isn't good. Something is wrong."
"Oh," Alena said. She didn't know what to say to that. Being able to sense magic sounded so interesting and wonderful. She wished she could do it.
"Come," Dante said once more, tugging on her hand.
They went off in search of Danya and the reason for her scream.
...
Danya ran down the halls in search of somewhere safe to hide. Was anywhere safe, though? This thing, this dark and ruddy skinned man with black-feathered wings upon his back—he obviously wasn't human, and so could he find her no matter what? Was he like Everett, with a sharpened sense of smell? If so, he had plenty of scents to follow her by. She had the disturbing mix of her own forced arousal between her thighs, Everett's semen, and Peter's wicked cum inside of her, callously dripping down her leg and onto her beautiful dress.
The dress was ruined, but if this dangerous monster caught up with her that would be the least of her worries. Could he smell her? Could he smell all of it? Could he, perhaps, smell her fear? The idea disturbed her. He shouldn't be able to see while wearing that blindfold of his, but obviously he could in some way. How, though? Was it something else? Something entirely beyond anything she could ever understand?
Danya wasn't anyone important. She was the daughter of a lazy, flighty shopkeep of no renown, caught up in some grand scheme of magic and witchcraft, lured here by a Beast who shouldn't even exist outside of rumors and legends. Perhaps she was dreaming all of this and when she woke everything would be fine.
She doubted it, though. Dreams weren't this real. Even nightmares weren't this frightening.
Dashing through the halls, she passed by two larger doors. Glancing over her shoulder, she didn't see the demon chasing her anymore. This was good. She'd escape in here, shut the doors behind her, and wait for him to pass her by. Opening the doors, she intended to do just that, but out of the corner of her eye she spotted the dark and ominous figure of her pursuer patrolling towards her.
The room no longer seemed safe, not by any stretch of the imagination. Large and open, with a ceiling stretching probably as high as the second floor of the mansion, and with little to nothing in the way of a place to hide. She couldn't go in there.
Abandoning the doors and fleeing onwards, she ran further down the halls.
...
Everett and Beatrix arrived at what used to be the pantry of his mansion. It contained all sorts of dried foods, magically preserved by a spell she'd cast so long ago. It had sustained him all these years and kept him fed. Occasionally he'd tried cooking, but his bestial instincts and wild mannerisms made him impatient in the way of culinary artistry. He never much liked to cook in the first place, and doubly so now.
He thought he might want to try it again, though. Not immediately, as there were far more pressing issues commanding his attention, but later. With Danya, with...
Danya was nowhere. She'd screamed, he was sure of it, and he'd vaguely caught her scent as he rushed here with Beatrix, but now there was nothing. He had mated with the willing sisters too much, and lost almost the entirety of his beast-cursed senses. He held on to a little, and he still had some of his strength and most of his ridiculous looking fur, but that was it.
He should be happy to finally be close to becoming fully human, to return to his regular body. The more he strayed from his beastly aspects, the less of a chance he had to save Danya, though.
Judging by the ruined remains of his pantry and the splintered and gaping hole in the floorboards leading into the wine cellar, Danya might no longer even be alive. Before, he would have been able to smell her blood and her shattered body, but currently all he could smell was the thick scent of spilled wine from the broken bottles below him.
Beatrix scanned the area, then sighed. "Nothing," she said. "No one's there. Pinem'e is gone."
"Who?" Everett asked.
"One of the fallen angels with a name," she said, as if this made any sense whatsoever. "I inadvertently summoned him when I meant to bring forth a vampir to torment you."
Everett grunted. He knew what a vampir was, at least. Nothing near as powerful and dangerous as this Pinem'e that Beatrix summoned, but frustrating and annoying to deal with nonetheless.
"I don't know what more to do," she said. "The only thing we can do is keep running through the mansion trying to find them. I doubt I can do much of anything once we do. If I could have, I would have stopped the dark angel before he
left my summoning circle."
Everett nodded. Beatrix might be a spiteful woman, but she had no real reason to lie to him right now.
"I don't care what you think of me, Everett, but I don't partake in dark and disturbing rituals like that. I want you to know this. You may think I'm horrible because of what I did to you, but in all honesty I think you deserved it. Did everyone in your household deserve the same? No. I'm somewhat ashamed of that, but I was angry and what's done is done. It's far too late to do much about it anyways. You look like you've been doing a fine job of breaking the curse on your own."
He winced, remembering Danya and Alena. Beatrix might not know the exact specifics, but she knew him before he became cursed, and she knew what it took to break the curse, so of course she must know about his sexual escapades.
"The only person who might have a chance at doing anything right now would be a member of the clergy," the witch said, thinking aloud. "Maybe not even anyone current. I doubt we have time to rush into town and find someone who has experience with demons. It's unlikely we'll be able to find someone and get back in time before Pinem'e's destroyed your mansion and killed everyone left in it. He might chase us, though. Or, you, more like. Luring him into town might be even worse."
Everett thought. It was easier to think now, though he was still growing accustomed to real, logical acumen. It took time, but it seemed like one of those things where once you knew it, you could always do it.
He thought, and then he knew. "I have," he said. More. Say it. Correctly. You aren't a beast any longer, he reminded himself. You've almost freed yourself from this curse. "I had a member of the clergy within my household," he finished. Beatrix would know this, too. "He was one of the best and had experience with demon exorcism. We never needed to rely on him for that, but my father insisted we keep safeguards just in case."
"Yes, well, I was such a safeguard once upon a time, now wasn't I? Look what good that did you?" Beatrix laughed at her own joke, then stopped abruptly. "Is he revived? Father Auguste?"
It was certainly possible. Possible, and yet he doubted it. He should've known of Father Auguste had been revived before now, unless he returned after his most recent coupling with Danya. Even still, if Father Auguste came back then, he likely would have immediately recognized the presence of a demon within the mansion and done something about it. Seeing as he hadn't, and Everett had passed by the small chapel room in the mansion many times before his most recent dalliance, it seemed unlikely the priest was back.
"No," he said. "I don't think so."
"A great lot of good that is, then. We could bring him back, of course. If there was a woman here for you to fuck. It's a gamble, but it's better than any other choice we have. Not that we have..." She paused.
Everett blinked at her.
She blinked at him.
"I guess we could," she said, muttering.
He cocked his head to the side and regarded her oddly. "What?"
"Are you an idiot?" she asked. "You bring people's souls back from the objects I put them in by fucking a willing woman, right? I'm a woman, aren't I?"
Everett cleared his throat after nearly choking in surprise. "Beatrix..."
"I'm willing, alright? I'll do it. What other choice do we have?"
He wasn't entirely sure what happened after that. Something primal and base within him took control. To be honest, he did like Beatrix. He liked her before and he'd admired her from afar. It was silly and dumb at the time, and he knew nothing could come of it, but then... there was a faint spark of possibility.
He'd watched Beatrix attending her duties around the mansion for years, always thinking of her more as a guest than anything else. She was a servant of sorts, but not at all the same as anyone else within his family's service. Powerful and strong, an immortal witch, and more than somewhat untouchable because of that. He honestly never thought of her as sexual, though he'd privately fantasized about it on more than one occasion. What need did a witch have for sex, especially one that would live forever?
Oh, he was wrong, though. A few strong glasses of wine and some sweet words brought Beatrix to his bed. The experience was both oddly unsettling, and deliriously amazing all in one. Beatrix was unapproachable, and so no one had bothered approaching her. He found out that this made her all the more willing and eager. She enchanted him that night, literally, and they coupled, bodies entangled together, for hours and hours. He couldn't stop, and didn't want to. Whenever he spent himself inside of her, he remained erect and ready to go again, and so they did.
She had a sparkle in her eyes then that he'd never forget. It pained him to remember it now, because he knew he'd hurt her so much. The whole scenario scared him, though. What good was that to admit? He was the Master in charge of this mansion, and long ago he'd been important. Nearly a King, or at least a prince, a powerful lord, destined to rule this area. He wasn't allowed to be scared, especially of one of his servants.
Those exact thoughts were what led to his downfall. To be honest, he considered stayed in bed late that morning and cuddling with Beatrix, treating her more like a lover than a tramp, but he couldn't. Or, he didn't think he could. He needed to show himself that he was still in charge, and unfortunately at the time that involved humiliating Beatrix. He'd waited until she came down for breakfast, then informed her she needed to leave because he had guests. A witch wasn't proper company for the people he planned to play host to, so she needed to go back to her hovel or hut or whatever dirty, desolate place where she lived, and leave.
He had no guests coming. He didn't know exactly where Beatrix lived. He didn't know that she really did live alone in a small house that could probably use a little cleaning. She wasn't a person to him and she didn't have true feelings or emotions; she was immortal and a witch, existing beyond all of that. She was so much more than him, but in his position he could never admit it, and so he'd berated her and tried to cast her down in order to elevate himself back up again.
It helped that he had a reputation for casual dalliances and fooling around. He never really loved any of the woman he slept with, though he was fond of many of them. Unfortunately fondness couldn't solve the question as to whether he could take them as a wife; and regardless of what he felt, he knew he couldn't act upon it. He couldn't marry some lowly servant girl, nor a lesser woman of nobility. He especially couldn't marry a witch.
That was all in the past, though. And what of now? He supposed it didn't matter what he did or who he married. He was still the Master of this mansion, but what use was that? He had no control, no power. The world had forgotten him long ago and he'd become some whispered rumor, the beast-cursed man who angered a witch. That was all anyone would remember him for.
He was still that, and currently he was rutting with that very same witch off to the side in the destroyed remnants of his pantry.
Beatrix held her dress up near her waist, giving him easy access to the core of her body. Wild, sniffing, losing himself in her intoxicating beauty, he moved forward with reckless abandon and buried his erect cock between the beautifully plump folds of her pussy. He thrust deep, pounding into her, taking and claiming her. She had bound him as a beast, but he was in control right now.
Beatrix was always beautiful. It was magic, he knew, but that didn't make her flawlessness any less attractive and arousing. Everything about her appearance was perfect, as she'd wished it so hundreds and hundreds of years ago. He never asked her exactly how old she was, but he knew of her magic and her rose. He knew she kept it in his guest home where they'd fucked so very long ago. He even knew some of her wishes
Extraordinary beauty, immortality, and his curse. The century rose only fully bloomed once every hundred years, and offered a single near-perfect wish at the same time. With those three wishes, Beatrix was at least three hundred years of age, but for all he knew she could be many hundreds more than that, too.
It didn't even matter. She was as perfectly nubile and beautiful as if she'd just turned eighteen.
Her femininity, those clean-shaven and kissable lower lips just begging to be savored with a tongue and licked and caressed and touched, looked pristine and unused as if she were a virgin. Hundreds of years of knowledge gave her plenty of experience in her version of sexual witchcraft, too. He didn't think that was magically endowed, though he never asked and couldn't know for sure.
She was tight around his cock, then and now. He pressed far into her, feeling her clutch and squeeze against him. It was perfect, almost too perfect; custom-fitted just for his shaft. The first time they'd had sex, he lost himself completely with one thrust. She'd giggled at that, sticking her fingers between her legs and feeling his seed seep out of her. He apologized—it was embarrassing and despite what anyone ever said, he honestly had never done something like that before—but it didn't matter. She'd just winked at him and wiggled her fingers, making his softening cock jut back up to full attraction.
She felt the same now as she did then. Her inner walls caressed and massaged against his throbbing shaft as if she were teasing and caressing him with her fingers. He groaned, relishing in the sensation. It was perfect, and yet there was no love here. There probably never was any love, either. It was fun, yes, and he'd enjoyed it before as he enjoyed it now, but that was it.
That never meant he needed to be rude to her, nor that he needed to humiliate and embarrass her. Even if she was a one night stand, she was a person and worthy of respect. He'd never thought of this before, but after a century of complete isolation, he had a lot of time to think.
"Everett," Beatrix whimpered. Her body grew hotter around him and she squeezed harder against him. "I'm... I'm going to..."
He grabbed her hips and pounded into her. He wasn't going to last much longer. This wasn't an extended thing, anyways. Out of necessity, they fucked, in some random, nonsensical hope that their coupling would revive Father Auguste and give them a means to end the fallen angel's rampage.
He wanted to be considerate to Beatrix, though. If that was the only thing he could do to make any amends, he would try. He could have ignored all of this and let her perfect body have its way with him and his seed in mere seconds, but he forced himself to prolong it enough to give her pleasure, too. Was it worth it? Did she care?
Hunted: An Erotic Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (An Adult Fairy Tale Novel) Page 15