Taming the Beast: Eleven Paranormal Romances

by Alyse Zaftig

  She was grateful for her forethought, as it was only on days like today, after having the dream, yet again, that she found it difficult to accept Mrs. Pulse’s attempts at converting her. But this morning she found it hard to even act civil, let alone drink so.

  She tried to be like Mrs. Pulse and keep her frustrations from showing, as they all had their own problems around here, but she could already tell that today wasn’t going to be one of her more successful days.

  She took in more of the hot, soothing coffee, trying hard not to let her irritation this morning show. She knew her mood wasn’t Mrs. P’s fault, but damn it. That dream fucked up her entire day, every damn time she woke up with it teasing her, torturing her, like it had yet again this morning.

  Her body still ached from it. She didn’t even mind when she carelessly missed her mouth on her next sip and coffee burned her lap, as it almost took her mind off of the other kind of heat that was burning so hot between her thighs. Almost.

  She figured she’d probably just have to lock herself into her massive, beautiful library again and lose herself in the fictional tales of other, more glamourous, sexy, exotic places, and try to forget that she was stuck here, alone but for the also cursed, animated objects that her father had installed here to keep her prisoner in this posh, luxurious, gilded cage.

  She’d hoped that her father’s rage would have calmed long before, as he’d really gone overboard this time, but unfortunately he’d died before he could come to his senses that night and remove this silly, stupid curse.

  Just because he’d walked in on her and her boyfriend in bed was no reason to do all of this!

  He’d kicked Gastard out, naked, in a rage, not even letting him gather his clothes!

  Even replaying that part in her mind, Belle couldn’t help but dwell on how beautiful that man looked naked. As she watched Gastard in her memory now, scrambling out of her bed when her father had burst in, she took note of his every plane and curve. His powerful back, his bitable biceps, his rock hard but still squeezable ass, fuck she was getting horny for him all over again.

  Damn it.

  She both loved and hated the nights that dreaming of him back then, in her bed every chance they could sneak some alone-time in, came back to haunt her. She remembered how he turned back toward her that night, right before he’d been shooed out her bedroom door with threats of death and damnation from her father.

  He’d winked.

  I’ll be back, that wink said. As soon as your dad calms down, love. I’ll be back. Don’t worry, it will be all right.

  Only it hadn’t been all right at all.

  Her father had seen that wink as well, and he also saw the huge erection Gastard still sported. Thick and hard, trembling with need and trying to reach for her, that magnificent cock stood proud and defiant against her father, and Belle knew that was what sent him over the edge.

  If Gastard had slithered away, his cock limp, embarrassed at being caught, swearing it would never happen again, her father might have calmed down, but nope.

  The knowledge that they’d be right back to fucking like rabbits the moment they could see each other again had pissed her dad off so much that he’d waved his hand and yelled out his curse, dooming her to this, before he’d stormed out of the manor in a cloud of rage.

  Only, instead of coming back home later that night, his anger faded, to speak to Belle more rationally, realizing that she was a grown ass young woman who’d only made a mistake in thinking she’d have an empty house longer than she really did, her dad had gotten completely pissed-drunk down at the bar. He’d fallen off of his bar stool, hitting his head and dying before he could reverse his angry curse.

  With her father dead, and her mother having run off with some traveling flying-carpet salesman long ago, she’d been left here ever since.

  All the staff in the manor at the time had been caught in the same curse, only they’d been turned into various sex toys instead of what she’d been turned into.

  And none of them could leave the manor.

  She’d waited and waited, but Gastard had never returned. She eventually assumed that whatever kept her here in the manor also kept him, and anyone else, from coming here, as no one had ever come here again.

  She was stuck here, doomed to be the only human in the place, the love of her life chased off naked and never to return. And that wasn’t even the worst part of the curse. Every time she’d tried to leave the manor, to go find Gastard, well let’s just say that did not go well.

  “I just ache for him, Mrs. Pulse. You know? I miss him so much. His ability to laugh at himself, to never take himself too seriously. The way he just commanded your attention by walking into the room, the way his kiss made me warm and tingly all over,” Belle sighed.

  She drained the last bit of coffee and set her mug down on the table before continuing, her mind now firmly in the past.

  “The way his cock felt…”

  Mrs. Pulse cut her off right there, interrupting with, “And that’s my cue to leave.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. P. I forgot where I was there for a minute. It’s that damn dream, you know? When he comes to me in that dream, all is right with the world. And then I wake up and he’s still gone. I just ache for his touch, that’s all. Surely you understand. I’m assuming there was a Mr. Pulse in your life before you got stuck here with me. You get it, don’t you? That burning need to be touched. Kissed. To be flipped over and fu…”

  “I’m going to send Eva in here for you to talk to, Belle. She’d be more appropriate for this kind of conversation. I’m sorry, I truly am. But I have my own issues. There is a Mr. Pulse out there, and it’s just too hard to dwell on.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand. No need to send Eva in, I’ll be all right.”

  “I thought I heard my name,” Eva said, her accent announcing her presence before she even came around the corner.

  “Aww,” Eva said, as she came all the way into the room and caught sight of Belle’s face. “You’ve had the dream again, haven’t you? The one where Gastard is still… around.”

  “Round, thick and hard, you mean? Oh, yes. That dream. Again. You’re so lucky, you have Vibiere. That guy’s batteries run non-stop, I can tell. I hear you two sometimes, and well, I’m happy for you both. I truly am. But hearing you two just makes me ache more!”

  “Ah yes, my Vibiere’s battery life would make anyone jealous, for sure. Belle, sweetie, I know I’ve suggested it before, but why don’t you just…”

  “With Vibiere? I could never!”

  “No, I meant…”

  “I appreciate your offer of a threesome, I really do. I just can’t bring myself to…”

  “Belle! I was just going to suggest that you go to him. To Gastard. If he can’t come here…”

  “I can’t go to him. I can’t leave the manor! You know what happens!”

  “I do. I know exactly what happens when you leave the manor. But you’ve never tried pushing past that and leaving the grounds, have you? What happens when you go past the gate? Can you, even? Get past the gate?”

  Belle

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried,” Belle admitted.

  “Guess you don’t want Gastard all that much, then. Do you?”

  “Eva, the minute I walk outside, I turn into a fucking monster!”

  “Oh, calm your tits, Belle. You turn into a shifter. You act like you’re the only shifter there’s ever been in all of history. They actually used to be quite common, you know. I dated one once, before the curse, when I was human. The sex was amazing,” Eva said.

  “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “All the shifters I’ve ever heard stories about could shift at will. They could control it. And they were born that way. They had families and packs. They weren’t human indoors with an angry curse one day forcing their shift every time they tried to leave their own home.”

  “Except the ones who were controlled by the moon. The early ones, the very f
irst werewolves, they couldn’t control it. And not everyone was born that way, many were bitten and turned. Shit happens around here, ya know. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last.”

  “Why are we arguing about this? It’s silly. I’m not going outside.”

  “Look, Belle, this curse your dad put on this manor, whatever it is that makes you shift when you walk outside, at least it lets you go outside. We can’t. That force field or whatever keeps us inside.

  Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to sunbathe in the nude? I’m almost glad I’m silicone now. I’d be too embarrassed to see how white my human form has got to be by now.”

  “You’d be embarrassed to be seen because you’ve gotten pale but you don’t understand why I’m embarrassed to step outside and become a beast?”

  “Beasts, I mean shifters, are sexy. As far as curses go, that one isn’t that bad. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I can’t even tell what it is I shift into! Is it a wolf? A bear? I don’t even know what you’d call my animal. Why dad had to add insult to injury and make my shifter form unclassifiable on top of everything else, I just don’t know.”

  “Of course you know. He walked in on his precious little princess doing it doggy-style with a townie. He hated that you were seeing someone so common, but to find him here, fucking his daughter, in his manor? Fucking you like an animal, even? He wanted to keep you two apart, yes. He also obviously wanted to make sure that if you left the manor, you’d look like…”

  “A freak-show beast of a monster shifter?”

  “…like something guys probably wouldn’t want to fuck. That’s all. He was protective.”

  “Ya think?”

  “At least he gave you a house-full of sex toys. He may not have wanted any actual men getting anywhere near you, but at least he didn’t mind leaving you other options.”

  “Which I could never use! That’s gross. As if I’d actually be ok using house-staff-turned-into-sex-toys. You guys were people I knew. Are people, I mean. Under the curse. What the fuck was wrong with that man, anyway? Who casts spells like that?”

  “But he’s gone now, Belle. And you seem to be the only one in the manor who can leave the house. In any form. Aren’t you curious to see if you can leave the grounds completely? Maybe you could go into town and see Gastard. You could ask him why he never came back…”

  “I could ask him? Really? Do you think he speaks monster? You think he could translate my weird barking noises into the words, why did you never come back for me? And that’s if he even lets me get close enough to make any noises. He’d get a posse together and hunt me. He’d shoot me on site without ever knowing it was me!”

  “All I’m saying is that if I were you, I’d at least try. Your dad was weird. Maybe his oddly inventive, heat-of-the-moment spell doesn’t even have any power once you leave the grounds. Maybe there’s just a curse-bubble over us that, if you face your own vanity and burst through it, willing to go to your one true love no matter how you look, maybe that would break the spell. I hear that true love does weird things to curses.”

  “Oh, my God. Do you think so? Could it really be that easy?”

  “I don’t know. For all I know the curse gets even worse the further away you get from the manor. Maybe once you leave the gates you become something even worse than an odd-breed shifter. Or maybe you can’t even get past the gates at all, like we can’t get past the front damn door.

  I’m just saying that for all your whining and moping and aching for Gastard and his cock, you’ve never really tried very hard to get to him, have you?”

  Belle just sat there, blinking at her in response.

  After a few awkward moments of silence, she started to apologize.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that. It’s just that some days the curse gets to me, too. Vibiere is great and all, and I’m happy to have him, but I had a life outside of here, too, you know.

  I wasn’t the one caught by my dad in bed with some guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but I still get to spend my days now as a fucking talking vibrator. It’s not fair. I only took this housekeeping job to save up for school. Salary, room and board, that’s practically unheard of anymore. It was a great job, until your dad turned us all into fucking objects. Literally.

  This isn’t my idea of fun either, you know. But I still shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Are you mad? I’d never have spoken to the lady of the house like that before, hell your dad would’ve fired me if he heard…”

  “No, I’m not mad. And I didn’t mean you’re right that you shouldn’t speak to me like that. I’m glad you said those things. I meant that you’re right- I haven’t really tried at all, have I? Let’s do it. Tonight.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. Tonight, after it gets dark, when there’s less of a chance of me being seen in that beastly form, I’ll try to go to him. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Gastard

  Gastard tilted back yet another double-shot of whiskey and followed it with some beer and a heavy sigh.

  He spent every single day trying to find a way past that damned invisible wall Belle’s father erected around the manor the last night he’d seen her, and he spent every single night sitting here in this bar, beating himself up over failing. He just knew, every time he set out again, day after day, that this would be the day he’d find a way through the cursed thing and that he’d be reunited with his love by nightfall, holding her in his arms instead of sitting in this bar, defeated yet again.

  Every. Damn. Day.

  And every single night he found himself here again instead, sitting on the same damn stool, with the same damn fools. He’d knock back yet another double to try and forget, even for just one night, what it felt like to be so lonely. He missed her so badly that he thought he’d actually burst from it. He ached for her so much that it hurt.

  He knew he’d become the laughing stock of the town, as every fucking night he heard them whispering and talking about him, but he didn’t care.

  “No one’s swole like Gastard, like a bull, that Gastard! No one’s balls are as incredibly full as Gastard’s!”

  He mentally rolled his eyes as their teasing words reached his ears. You make the mistake of telling one person that not only did your girlfriend’s crazy-ass father catch you in bed together and chase you out of the house, naked as the day you were born, but that he’d also had the bad form to curse you to your retreating back by yelling, “And may your balls never again know release!” as you left, and boom, before you knew it the news was all over town.

  He couldn’t orgasm, thanks to his curse.

  He’d tried, too. During the long, frustrating nights, after he’d failed yet again both to get back to her and to drink enough to forget her just for a while, he used to re-play some of the sexy romps he and Belle had shared, in his mind. Just to try to release some of the pressure and sleep, so he could rest in preparation for another long day of trying to break through her father’s cursed spell wall. But try as he might, he never could attain release.

  It became a challenge there for a while, yanking himself every night just to prove to himself that the old man’s curse had no effect on him, but it was obvious that it did.

  He could jack off until he was raw, but there was no release to be found. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t come.

  Once word got out, the teasing got worse, of course. Not only did the townspeople harass him for spending his days on what they considered to be a fool’s errand, trying to break the old man’s curse surrounding his daughter, but they made fun of him for then spending his nights trying to break his own personal curse, too. By himself.

  The fact that he kept trying to spill his seed into his own palm every night instead of taking advantage of the many women in town who’d made it very clear that they’d love to help him, boggled their minds. And of course, what they couldn’t
understand they had to make fun of.

  “No one licks like Gastard, or flicks clits like Gastard. No one’s dick’s as incredibly thick as Gastard’s!”

  The mean-spirited chants just kept getting more and more outlandish until he thought, Do they really think I can’t hear them? Or do they just not care anymore?

  Then he finally realized they were trying to egg him on. They were hoping the innuendo and invitation in the words would get him worked up enough to make him take one, or more, of them to bed. The sex-crazed twins tried particularly hard, telling him that they’d love the chance to make him forget all about Belle, and help him break her father’s curse at the same time.

  They couldn’t understand why he rejected them every time and wouldn’t let them use his longevity to their advantage. They just didn’t get why he wouldn’t turn to them for comfort and let them try to see if one of their pussies was the magical pussy that would finally break the curse. So to hide their own confusion and wounded pride, they just kept trying to tease and tempt him into their beds. And the taunts they came up with!

  “No one fucks like Gastard, no one sucks like Gastard! No one yanks, no one spanks, no one wanks like Gastard!”

  But he knew it wasn’t mindless, endless fucking he needed, it was her, his one true love that he ached for. Only she could make him happy.

  “No one twerks like Gastard, makes it jerk like Gastard!”

  Ok, now they’re just being silly, he thought.

  “Beast!”

  The word was whispered at first, so softly that it didn’t yet break into Gastard’s train of thought. But then someone else saw what the first man had, and said it again, yelling it loud.

  “There! It’s a beast! Let’s go kill it!”

  Gastard looked toward where they were all pointing, and squinted to better see the large, animal-looking form that seemed to be watching them all through the window.