Beauty and the Beast (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #3)

by May Sage

  Aurora was a bore. While she had consented to pursue a physical relationship – her words, certainly not his – she took it like sex was a chore: immobile, soundless, expressionless, save for the occasional wince. She’d ripped all the fun out of fucking and trampled over it.

  “I’ll see you on your next leave, then. Four weeks?”

  He shrugged; it would be a whole season, if he could get away with it.

  In an ideal world, Aurora would madly fall in love with some poor guy during his absence, and break up with him.

  He knew she didn’t love him: her actions betrayed no passion, no real affection. He certainly didn’t feel much towards her, either. However, he wasn’t at liberty to just get out of the mess: he was Prince and heir of the Jereenan throne, and she, the daughter of the Regent of Ferren. Their separation would strain the relationship between their respective kingdoms.

  So, he bid his time.

  Jereena.

  Flora was sweet. Brown hair, dark eyes, pouty purple lips currently wrapped around his cock. He wished she was an option, but her father was crazy protective, and didn’t let any of the twelve Eastlean princesses date.

  Well, that didn’t exactly stop them from fucking, but whatever.

  Aiden breathed in between his teeth, clenching his fist when she started pumping him with her hand. Hell, she was seriously good. As soon as the stupid King put her on the menu, he was marrying her.

  She removed him from her mouth and said “try not to come on my hair,” before aiming her sweet tongue towards his balls.

  He blanked out, everything around him disappeared for an instant.

  When his vision returned, he thought he might be hallucinating, because there, in front of him, in his bedroom, was Aurora Stevenson.

  She didn’t seem shocked, or in pain; she was just pissed. He couldn’t help a smile; well, she’d be breaking up with him, now. She’d make a scene about it, but he was free.

  Aiden knew she had too much pride for ever admitting to what had occurred, so a generic reason would be served to the Regent and his own father.

  Results.

  “I wished you’d prove me wrong,” Aurora said, sounding almost bored. “But you’re pathetically predictable.”

  That was rich, coming from Ms. Lay-Down-And-Take-It.

  “I wanted to believe you; you’re so chivalrous, so handsome. A perfect prince charming.”

  She somehow managed to make that sound like an insult; Aiden laughed, before grabbing Flora’s silky hair and directing her head back on him. If he had to listen to that, might as well have a distraction.

  Flora giggled and took the hint like a champ, sucking him harder than ever. The girl liked an audience? Goddess, she was perfect.

  “I won’t be this naïve again. And you will never again entice a woman with that pretty face of yours.”

  He caught her smile before she spoke again; a cold, cruel smile, which would be haunting him for years.

  “Aiden, I wish that your appearance matches who you truly are inside.”

  It didn’t worry him; he recalled smirking as she left, before fucking Flora like there was no tomorrow.

  He had been right: there hadn’t been a tomorrow. The next morning, he was a beast.

  Now.

  Aiden woke with a start, sweating, out of breath; Adler whined next to him, demanding reassurance by bumping his head against his leg. Aiden reached down and scratched the dog curled up next to him.

  Fuck. It had been a while – over two years, at least. He’d stopped dreaming of his life as it had been before his change when he’d accepted his new form.

  It wasn’t that bad. He would have gotten used to it sooner, if he hadn’t been so handsome, rich, important and successful before. It was a hard fall, from the top of the world to the very bottom.

  There was no use pretending that he didn’t know what had made him think of it now.

  Aiden lifted the hand which wasn’t petting Adler – the one Sibelle had caressed the previous day – and stared at it, still dumbfounded over the contact of her skin.

  Sibelle had moved in.

  He yet again wondered what madness had made him request that she should live under his roof.

  Admittedly, it made sense, he needed everyone to believe she was a captive here; but why submit himself to her presence? Looking at her was a violent reminder of all of his imperfections.

  Yet, he had given in as soon as she’d passed the threshold, spying from his window as she and his men had come in earlier that afternoon.

  When he’d learnt where she lived, downtown, in a crappy area, just a step up from the slums, he’d growled – actually growled – and told them to move her in completely, paying to terminate her lease; she was going to stay for a season or two, in any case – there was no sense in wasting her cash on an unnecessary apartment. In a few months, she might be able to save enough to afford a nicer, safer area.

  Lightwoods and Clocks had carried her belongings up; no need for a second trip, as there were just two suitcases. Aiden had frowned and asked if she’d convinced them to go against his directives, but Clocks had shaken his head: the apartment was completely empty.

  What kind of woman could fit her entire life in two suitcases? There was a story there.

  Adler had run all the way down to greet her, and had probably gotten a scratch out of it, before returning to Aiden, head bowed down; the damn dog knew he wasn’t supposed to just go make friends without authorization. He’d expected a remonstrance, but Aiden just shrugged. Whatever. He certainly couldn’t blame him.

  Aiden did his best to distract himself from all thoughts of Sibelle Thornton, but they crept back in unconsciously.

  Her room was on the other side of the stairway, just a few meters away.

  If he was still the nineteen-year-old boy he’d been ten years ago, he could have crossed that gap and let himself in; would have, too. One look at his reflection through his window, and he turned away, ashamed; not only of what he saw, but also of what he recalled.

  She was a commoner – a lower-class one, too. He’d seen her kind as a group of sheep bred to serve and entertain him. He would have invaded her space, showered her under empty promises and screwed her hard, without ever intending to go back for seconds.

  He knew better now.

  Aiden slumped back on his bed, never noticing that the mattress didn’t sink quite as deep as it usually did. He didn’t feel the long hair around his face as he drifted off to a restless sleep.

  Sometime overnight, as he resolved to embrace who he was now and stop dreaming of out of reach or forgone beauty – would it be his or hers – his golden skin turned back to its ghostly pallor, his muscles engorged, and his dirty blond hair vanished.

  Such was the will of the fays, who just loved to take the piss out of those they cursed.

  •

  One of Belle’s fingernails broke the previous day while she’d been packing; in the morning, she automatically looked down to her hand.

  The entire set of nails was back to their usual length, neatly and beautifully manicured.

  Normally, she would have panicked. She knew whatever part of her body she hurt was normally healed up pretty quickly, but witnessing her blatant weirdness always hit a nerve, reminding her that her life was a lie. Today, she frowned, expecting a fright that just wasn’t there.

  She knew why, too.

  It had all started when her eyes had fallen on the Beast. She’d all but sighed in relief, because his appearance told her what she’d hoped for over two decades.

  She wasn’t the only weirdo out there.

  To distract herself, Belle resolved to explore the house she was supposed to call home for the next hundred days or so; although it wasn’t a house as much as a hotel – or perhaps a brothel.

  The ground floor was a bar, open anytime of the day; she greeted the servers with an awkward wave of her hand. They looked at her as though she’d grown a second head, most probably wondering what a girl li
ke her, in a hoodie and a pair of jeans, was doing here.

  The clientele was her exact opposite; their persona screamed opulence. Expensive watches, clothes, jewelry, phones, laptops. As a child, she would have made a killing out of their wallets.

  On the first floor, the large empty rooms were far from what one would imagine upon hearing “casino,” although she knew the Nest was advertised as such.

  There was no obnoxious red carpet, no cheap leather chairs or fruit machines here; everything was stylish. Wooden flooring, a mini indoor garden, beige furnishing and slick tables, presently bare. Each piece of equipment, from the roulette to the blackjack accessories, would be set up just before opening.

  She wondered at the elevated platform in the middle of the principal room; it was empty of anything, save for one round table. The walls around it were thick and translucent, clouded over.

  Finally, Belle blushed. There was only one purpose she could imagine for such a set up. Shows. As in, sex shows.

  Damn. This place spelled money and power. What had Ben been thinking?

  The second and third floor had her blushing again. Just rooms; guest rooms, much smaller than hers, carrying the sort of utilities most hotels provided, but also a few… extras.

  She opened the first bedside draw to find a very large tub of lube and a handful of colorful fruit flavored condoms. The one bellow held a dildo, vibrator, some eggs, cock ring, and butt plug, and the last contained rope, chains, silk mask, riding crops – the works. Yes, she could identify all of them. She might be abnormal, but she did have fully functional female bits that needed attention from time to time. As she preferred to play with them by herself, she definitely knew her way around most of those toys.

  Nonetheless, Belle cringed. These weren’t here for little DIY sessions.

  She’d done her homework; she knew that the Nest was a very private, select casino; she’d imagined that sex went hand in hand with that sort of business. She just hadn’t expected it to be quite so predominant.

  Belle was disgusted, feeling half angry, half sick. She didn’t have a thing against sex per se, her peeve was the non-consensual kind, and she didn’t believe for one second that workers desired their clients. Well, maybe some of them, but surely, most of the patrons were unattractive, or they would find someone to volunteer their services, rather than paying for it.

  The fourth floor managed to relax her. It was full of rooms, too, but those felt cozy, lived in; after popping her head in a messy bedroom, she closed the door, feeling quite intrusive.

  She ran into Arthur Lightwoods, who confirmed that she’d made it to the employees’ quarters.

  Belle considered asking about the rooms downstairs, but she bit her tongue.

  She didn’t mind Arthur, he was friendly, but he smiled too much, which made her wonder what he had to hide. She was more comfortable around Clocks, the silent, focused guy who communicated by nodding or shaking his head.

  “Ok, I’ll go. No need to rush and hide your dirty magazines.”

  He chuckled and she smiled in triumph. She didn’t joke very often; managing to extract a laugh from someone who wasn’t a sibling was noteworthy.

  Finally, Belle returned to the last floor. She’d already seen part of that level: her space was located on the right, and she understood that the left hand side of the penthouse was the Beast’s domain.

  What itched at her curiosity were the large doors just in front of the grand staircase, but she’d tried them and they were closed.

  She pouted all the way back to her rooms.

  Her apartment was phenomenal; larger, more luxurious than any place she’d ever seen, let alone lived in. There was a music room, a TV room, an office, a walk in closet – full of garments far too girly for her – and her bedroom, which would have been fit for a princess.

  Everything in there seemed new; it had that smell, that feel, and she’d found a couple of tags on her pillows.

  She really appreciated the effort; however, the person who’d shopped had never met her.

  The room was pink. A subtle, almost tasteful pink, but pink all the same. There also was an awful lot of lace involved. And freaking ribbons.

  Belle had borne it the first night, too tired from all the packing, carrying and unpacking she’d done in record time; Clocks and Lightwoods had helped when they’d made it to her place, so she hadn’t had to use a muscle from there to the Nest, but she’d taken the opportunity to sort through her shit, picking out everything she didn’t need, and she’d dropped the bulk of it off at the nearest orphanage earlier in the afternoon.

  She never gave money; money, the administration could steal – but clothes, food, books, blankets went a long way. She recalled the days of her residency there; it had felt like Christmas each time some patron dropped a bag of well-worn unwanted frocks.

  Nine boxes of practically new items made it to the orphanage, while she kept two cases; one of those wasn’t going to stay in her room over twenty-four hours. There weren’t many material things Belle was attached to. Her brother said she was the least high maintenance pretty girl he’d ever met; he was wrong.

  There were things she liked, and they were priceless. Unpolluted wind on her face, naked earth under her feet, and flowers; roses, above them all. She recalled experiencing it all, back when they’d lived in the country with her parents; but it wasn’t likely to happen again, until she could get out of Jereena.

  Getting a bit of fresh air sounded simple enough; it wasn’t nowadays. It meant taking time off work to get out of town, to some kinda posh resort, because flowers were picked up to be promptly sold as soon as they grew in the wilderness.

  So, in short, her idea of a treat was pretty damn expensive.

  Belle forced herself to stop daydreaming and spent the next twenty minutes trying to rearrange her temporary abode, hunting for spare linen and normal cushion covers in her cupboards, but it was no use; if anything, the replacements were worse.

  She thought about the generic bed sheets downstairs and resolved to ask if grabbing a few sets was alright, although the idea of spending more time in those rooms didn’t appeal to her.

  “Clocks,” she called out, jumping two steps at once down the posh stairs.

  The man had told her to holler whenever she needed him, and as trying to actually find anyone in that mansion might have taken her a whole afternoon, she did just that.

  She was jumping the last four in one go when the Beast suddenly appeared, emerging from the left corridor with his gorgeous white hunting dog in tow.

  Belle closed her eyes, anticipating the collision, but instead of hitting a hard surface, she somehow ended up in his very large arms, carried under the shoulders and knees, like a freaking bride.

  Her breath caught in her throat for a minute, as she acknowledged how that made her feel.

  Good. Very good.

  Uncomfortable, too, because it shouldn’t have, she wasn’t the kind of woman who needed a man to make her feel warm and safe...

  She felt just that, though. It was his fault: he was so damn big, and smelt like all sorts of yummy stuff. Like sweat and musk, and…

  The Beast cleared his throat. She realized that he’d dropped her down on the floor, but she was still attached to him, because at some point within the last few minutes, she’d lost her mind and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  What the hell.

  She let him go, mumbling god knew what about her room being completely, utterly pink. She was demanding to know what had made him think that she might possibly like that color; no other room in the entire house had a shred of pink in it.

  “You’ve been exploring?” he asked, frowning.

  “You wouldn’t have?”

  Anyone who’d just moved in would have looked around – it was basic human curiosity.

  Ok, Belle may possibly have been injected with an extra dose of nosiness, but she was quite certain she wasn’t the exception – just an extreme case following that particular rule.
>
  “Perhaps. It’s fine – just don’t go down to the dungeons,” he ordered, his low voice curt and threatening.

  Oh, boy. He just had to say that, didn’t he?

  Belle hadn’t been overly interested in the dungeons – that sort of term often went along with spiders, rats and other creepiness.

  But he’d forbidden it now, making in number one on the list of things she needed to explore during her stay at the Nest.

  Belle might not be that different from her brother, after all.

  Chapter Four

  the Streets

  He was kidding. Right? He better be kidding.

  “Perfect size!” the girl told her, smiling as she took her in.

  If he wasn’t kidding, she needed to kick his ass to the moon and back.

  The Beast had sent her a fuck me suit. Great. Exactly what she needed to wear in a fucking brothel.

  Belle turned to the girl who was untightening the ridiculous garment.

  “Vera, right?” she asked her.

  The girl was perhaps a bit younger than Belle, but she seemed legal – or somewhat close.

  “Do you like working here?”

  Ok, that was probing, but she needed to bring it up with someone.

  “Definitely. My family has worked in this house for generations; some of my relatives left when it became… a bit more public.”

  That was one way of putting it.

  “But I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of difference. The job is the same.”

  “So you don’t do… things downstairs?”

  If looks could kill. Vera had been friendly until then, but her smile slipped and her tone changed.

  “Do you like mopping the floor at the library?” she snapped.