But that wasn’t what he was here for.
“Just because I want more doesn’t mean I’ll demand it, Princess. We’re even, remember?”
Justine exhaled shakily and looked at her closed fist, the one with the antidote in it. “She probably realizes I didn’t eat enough of her poison. How do I know you’re not trying to finish me off with this?”
Frustration clouded his thoughts. He had to get back to the queen —with a bottle of good wine—before she realized how long he’d been gone. And Victor refused to let the beautiful princess be poisoned. Neither of them knew how much or how little of a dose she’d gotten from taking the bite.
“I entered your bedchamber without anyone in the castle noticing me. I had you captive in my arms, unable to scream. If I wanted to finish you off…you’d already be dead.”
Her eyes widened.
“Take it,” he whispered.
In a moment of undeniable trust, Princess Justine popped the capsule into her mouth and swallowed it dry.
“Good, that’s good. Open your mouth,” he said. “I want to know you swallowed.”
He expected her to balk. Instead, she opened her mouth and let him peer inside. She’d swallowed the antidote.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
“Victor Gerard,” he said. “I trust you, too.”
Her lips were so full, so perfect. He wanted to claim them with his, seal their moment with a kiss. But he dare not frighten her now. The queen would taste the princess on his lips if he did, and hurt him for it—and Justine, as well.
“I have to go back to the queen. Tell no one of this. Your life depends on it…and so does mine.”
****
Victor raced back to the queen. She would be furious at him for taking so long. It was only when he knocked on her chamber doors that he realized—he’d forgotten to bring the wine.
Hell and damnation. How could he explain that?
“What took you so long?” she demanded, ushering him inside.
Real fear inflected his voice, lending credence to the lie. “Th-the wine wasn’t there. I don’t know where it went, Your Majesty.”
“Oh really? And you didn’t think to at least bring a different bottle of wine for our celebration, while you were rummaging around the wine cellar? You are so stupid.”
He sank to his knees and lowered his eyes. “I apologize, my Queen.”
“I don’t mind, actually,” she said, to his surprise. She smiled wickedly. “It’s you who will wish you’d been at least a little drunk for what’s to come, my boy.”
That did not sound good.
She leaned in close to him and held his chin in her hand, forcing him to look her in the eye. “Why do I have the feeling I may need another plan when it comes to disposing of the lovely Princess?”
Don’t think, don’t move, or she’ll know. Maybe she already did know. But how?
“Well?” the queen said. “I smell lavender on you, Victor.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from reacting. The queen was a jealous woman.
She pressed her red lips to his ear. “Does she not like truffles?”
“Your Majesty,” he whispered. “I beg you—”
“Princess Justine must never marry the prince,” the Queen interrupted. “Not even for a moment. Tomorrow, during her wedding, a beast —so large and frightening that even the King’s guards won’t dare try to stop it—will kidnap the princess. The beast will drag her away into the woods, right in front of every single person in the kingdom.”
He stared at her in surprise. There was no way a large undertaking such as planning a kidnapping would take place the night before the wedding. She must have had her backup plan figured out in advance, and was only now letting him in on her secret. But why?
He didn’t want any part of it.
“The princess will never be seen again…until they find her body, torn to shreds,” the Queen mused. “No one will know you and I were involved.”
“I will not be involved,” he whispered, and winced as she raised her hand.
Tendrils of smoke danced around his body, stinging as they came in contact with his sweaty skin.
“You will be my beast, Victor,” she said. “You will do everything I say, and I will make you large and even more ferocious than a lion.”
Her eyes lit up with the dark magic that sparkled and swirled within her.
Victor scooted back away from her, afraid. He’d seen that look before. “Please don’t put a spell on me.”
The Queen cackled with delight. “I love it when you beg me, stable boy. Keep begging.”
Anything good he’d felt about himself while with the princess crumbled to sand under the queen’s domination. She always made him beg. The worst part was, he still held out hope that if he did, she might spare him.
“Your Majesty, please don’t—”
“You’ll be free to run around like the other beasts of the woods. Free from everyone except for me. Your beloved Mistress.”
The idea of being free tugged at his soul. That was what he wanted. But to be truly free, he couldn’t be under the queen’s thumb as a beast. He was a man, not an animal.
“Find another way, my Queen.”
She was using her magic to hurt him, to make every bone in his body feel like it was breaking and reforming.
Victor howled in pain. It was like nothing else she’d ever done to him before. With every scream from his mouth, the magic soared higher around him, wrapping him like a tornado. It lifted him off the floor as he spasmed like a man in a fit of epilepsy.
She is killing me.
With a final spray of sparks, and the faint scent of sulfur and ashes in the air, the queen pointed all of her energy toward him and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“You are MY BEAST!”
Victor fell to the floor from mid-air, about five or six feet off the ground, and landed on the hardwood with a terrible thud. Every single cell in his body hurt, as if the enchantress had opened him up and turned him inside out.
He roared in fear and pain, hideous growls emanating from his mouth. When he brought his hands to his face to cover it—no, no! What had happened to him?
Where had these terrible claws come from? His body took up too much space—all of his clothes had ripped from his body during the transition from man to beast, and he stood now, naked, over ten feet tall, a wall of pure animalistic muscle and sinew.
“Look at you!” the queen breathed in delight. “What a masterpiece! Perhaps not enough gorilla in the mix. I thought you’d be…furrier. Instead, you are sleek like a panther.”
Victor glared at her, unable to work his giant jaws to accurately form the words he wanted to speak.
“Your eyes are the same,” she noted, “but I’ve heard that’s to be expected. I like it. I like seeing my pretty Victor staring back at me from this…this devil’s body.”
The queen came in close to him, and ran her hands along his abdominals, which were at her eye level. Her hands dropped lower, wrapping around his organ, which had changed proportionately to fit his new beastly physique.
“Damn,” she said, holding his uncomfortably large length. “I put a lot of lion in the spell. I was hoping for a barbed cock. Imagine how the princess would caterwaul then!”
Victor shouted in protest, the sound like a growl. His black mane, like long silky hair, fell in front of one eye.
“You will do this for me, my beast. You will kidnap the princess, take her to the woods, and destroy her. Or I will destroy you.”
Yes, he could see it in her eyes that she would. And no one would care if the queen should happen to kill a terrifying beast in defense of a princess. He could see it now. The queen, standing over Justine’s dead body, and his own, beastly one, shot down with a poison dart.
Oh dear, I tried everything in my power to save her, she would say. And she would laugh and laugh.
&nbs
p; He had no choice. Tomorrow, he would kidnap Princess Justine.
If he didn’t, she was as good as dead.
****
Chapter 3
The Kidnapping
The morning of her wedding day, Justine walked through the preparations in a trance. Had last night really happened? All of her worst fears, confirmed. The queen really did want to kill her — had actually attempted to kill her. And Victor was the only man in the whole kingdom it seemed she could trust with her life.
Today, he was nowhere to be found. In the week since she had arrived at the castle, she had caught glimpses of his muscular physique dashing about the castle, his dark hair tumbling over his stormy eyes—running errands for the queen. Now that she knew his unfortunate circumstance as to why a lowly stablehand might also be employed as the queen’s personal servant, her heart clenched with compassion for him.
Funny how he had never noticed her. So lost in concentration in service of his queen. She supposed if she were used or whipped on whim, she’d keep her head down, too.
The organ music began, a familiar chord that filled the cathedral.
“Your Grace!” her maid said with a smile. “It’s time.”
How tortuously slow the days here had seemed, only for the moments to speed up until she no longer had any escape. She would be married to a prince she didn’t love before the bells chimed again—and forever entrapped in this kingdom. The long white rug set out along the stone aisle before Justine’s daintily slippered feet seemed miles long.
Her world spun. The open space within the high cathedral’s church made her feel small, and lost, with its stained glass windows and rows upon rows of high-backed pews, packed with people all dressed in their finest clothing… They were all looking at her. The vision swam before her eyes.
This couldn’t be it. She was never supposed to marry someone without love. What had she prayed for, day and night, since she’d become of marriageable age? For love!
Why had God forsaken her now, in her moment of need?
“Princess,” her maid whispered. “Take a deep breath. Did I tie your corset too tightly? You look as though you might faint.”
“You did a fine job,” Justine said. “I’m all right.” She forced a brief smile on her face to prove it.
If she’d learned anything, it was that she had to persevere. As far as the queen was concerned, Justine was just a dead woman walking. No wonder the queen in the front row was smiling and clapping her gloved hands along with all of the other lords and ladies. Princess Justine began her march down the aisle to meet her waiting prince.
Don’t look at her, don’t look at the queen. Don’t give her the satisfaction.
Little girls—children of some of the honored guests at the wedding—skipped alongside of her as she walked down the seemingly endless aisle, tossing rose petals in her path. How she envied them their innocence! The scent of the fresh petals wafted up to her, a calming scent she never would have associated with the panic gripping her now… marrying into a royal family that wished her dead.
Prince Frederick stood at the dais, staring at her with a grim smile that probably matched her own. She couldn’t blame him. What teenager wanted to get married? He had many more wild oats to sow before he’d be ready to settle down and find a bride. In fact, by the time he was ready for the sort of relationship Justine wanted, she may be past her time for producing an heir.
Unless they actually expected her to bed him before he was of age. I won’t do it. They’d have to tie her down first.
This whole thing would have been so much easier if someone had just asked both the prince and her if they really wanted to marry each other. Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered that she had outright refused. Especially since she was refusing a proposition she’d never been given. No one had even thought to ask for her consent—then, or now.
Obeying was her only option.
It was the dying wish of her father, the King of Summerset—his well-intentioned hope that she would be taken care of in his absence for generations to come. She wasn’t mad at her father for what he had done.
No, if she was mad at anyone, it was herself. For believing that marrying for love was even a possibility for her. That one foolish dream had ruined the only wedding day she would ever have.
Victor’s prescient words came back to her: In this kingdom, I am almost as much a slave as you. Ha. Even a stablehand under the queen’s wicked thumb understood that he had more freedoms than a princess caught up in international royal alliances.
Her walk down the aisle—which had seemed endless only moments prior—was over too soon. Twisted time, confounding her once more. The little flower girls flounced off to be seated with their parents, giggling and rosy-cheeked from their moment in the spotlight.
What now? Justine paused, not quite able to force herself to ascend the marble stairs to stand by her groom.
And that was when the organ music ceased, cut off mid-note.
Jaws dropped. The entire church gasped.
For a terrifying moment, there was complete silence in the cathedral.
Justine turned her head slowly, afraid of what she might see. Her breath caught in her throat.
Lord, deliver me from evil—
She could only stare at the enormous beast—unlike any beast she had seen before—as it pounced from the marble sill of an open window onto the floor at the front of the church.
Then—a high-pitched scream…one of the children. But the queen! The queen had a glint in her eye that betrayed her delight in the chaos.
Princess Justine saw all of this at once, like a woman drowning sees her life flash before her eyes. For somehow she knew…that the beast had come for her.
More screams filled the air, but the beast ignored them all. Its ferocious face focused in on only one thing—Justine. The beast stalked down the aisle, unmolested by anyone. No one dared interfere.
Even the prince, with his hand on his still-sheathed sword, seemed dazzled, frozen before the terrifying and unusual monster.
“Away with you!” Justine yelled at the beast as it neared.
It ignored her. It was so close now she could smell it—musky heat and fur and smoke. It stalked her on two feet like the devil himself, a mass of muscles and broad shoulders towering over her.
The floor tilted upward toward her and she lost balance. Maybe the corset was tied too tightly—did floors come up to meet you like that? Justine swooned, and would have fallen to the rose-petal covered aisle, were it not for the beast, who saved her from cracking her skull.
Why save her?
“Help,” she cried weakly. She wasn’t sure if she was speaking to the beast or the crowd.
“Do not fight me, Princess,” the beast said, as it caught her mid-faint, throwing her over its—his?—broad shoulder. His words were meant for only her to hear, low and rumbling like a wolf’s growl.
“What manner of beast can talk?” she whispered, her words barely audible.
Maybe she was hallucinating from the poison after all.
“Leave my Princess be,” Prince Frederick yelled from the front of the church, having apparently found his tongue. “Do not harm her or you will suffer death by my sword.”
At the Prince’s words, the other knights in the kingdom snapped out of their momentary paralysis and yelled their assent.
The beast gripped her even harder, his claws digging into the lacy fabric of her wedding gown. The dress shredded under his grip, tearing with a sickening sound. For a moment, she could feel air on her bare skin where the gown had ripped.
Justine screamed. “Leave me be!”
She raised her fist and hit him over and over again, and the beast absorbed each blow as if she were a mere child play-fighting. But as the knights advanced, his body tensed like a mountain lion about to strike.
ROAAARRRRRRR!
The beast’s roar ricocheted and echoed around the cathedral, as if a hundred beasts were roaring at on
ce. Swords clattered to the marble floor as men rethought their plan of attack.
Justine cried out in fright as the beast carried her out of the church, hurtling through the crowd, its powerful legs and great size no match for any man in the kingdom.
She could hear the knights rallying and shouting as they poured out of the cathedral to chase them down. The courage of the royal army seemed to kindle only when her giant kidnapper was out of their range. Still, they were in pursuit. Maybe they would kill him without killing her in the process.
But the beast was faster, stronger, and had more endurance than they did. It didn’t take long for her meager chance at salvation to disappear from sight.
There was no way that the beast was of this world—any human man or wild animal would have slowed or stopped running by now. Flipped over his shoulder as she was, she could see the beast’s muscled chest, covered in a sleek short fur like the pitbull she’d had for protection as a child in Summerset. The fur did nothing to camouflage the beast’s rippling muscles and masculine —almost human—physique, nor the pink nipples that jutted out against his bulging pecs.
No labored breathing, no sweat. Just a smooth, steady run, one large hand holding her around the waist in a vise-like grip. The soft curve of her waist pressed against the boulder that was his biceps.
When would he tire, when could she escape?
He ran for hours with her over his shoulder, her wedding gown flouncing in the wind, her bottom raised in the air for anyone to view. If only there was someone around to save her, she would gladly have given them the free show. Branches clawed at her as they flew past the trees, catching on her dress and tearing it even more.
“Let me go,” she pleaded, but the beast gave no notice of having heard her.
She pounded on his chest with her fists until her hands and wrists were swollen and bruised. Fighting the beast had no apparent effect on him at all. It only served to injure her.
Beast: The Untold Legend Page 3