Beast of Rosemead: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 4)

by Lucy Tempest

  I pulled on his coat, urgency and frustration almost bursting my heart. “Shoot it and miss like you did last time?”

  He glared at me from over his shoulder as he strode forwards. “Last time I was taken off-guard, was too focused on saving you first. Now that you’re here, it will have all my attention.” He patted his crossbow proudly. “And this time they’re not just any arrows, but sharp metal that’ll pierce right through its skull.”

  As I ran after him, needing to convince him to give up his moronic need to kill the Beast, movement came from both sides as reflective eyes advanced in the dark. The castle dwellers, coming to defend their haven and prison.

  Castor and the men aimed their weapons at them and my blood froze. Before, I wouldn’t have hesitated to sprint away to safety and letting them take care of the problem. But now I knew these weren’t monsters that had eaten the staff. They were the staff.

  I jumped on Castor’s back, screeched, “Don’t shoot them! They’re harmless!”

  He tried to shake me off, shouting, “Harmless? Are you mad?”

  I clung harder. “Castor, listen to me! Just let them be and let’s go!”

  “To what end?” He shot at a set of eyes, but I yanked his arm at the last moment and thankfully I heard no cry of pain. He’d missed. He tried to tear me off his back again, infuriated. “Till the next month when we have to give it another sacrifice? Keep doing its hunting for it, so it doesn’t hunt us? Or sacrifice more girls to keep it at bay?”

  “I was in there for days, so believe me when I tell you it’s not like you think. Nothing in that castle wants to harm us!”

  “You sound hysterical.” He bucked me off this time, pushing me towards one of the other hunters. “Get her out of here. We’ll catch up once we’re done.”

  He shot another arrow, right into the eyes’ midst. One set blinked out with a hair-raising yowl and the rest scattered.

  The man threw me over his shoulder with an effortless toss. I kicked, squirmed and screamed, but he was unfazed as he ran back towards his horse, and threw me like a sack of laundry atop it. It was Maple!

  “What is that?” another man shouted from the side.

  I struggled to a sitting position on Maple’s back and looked up to find a giant vulture swooping towards us.

  “Wait!” Jessamine called out in the darkness. “Wait, you can’t leave!”

  Castor froze. He recognized her voice. He had to.

  “Castor, that’s Sir Dale’s sister!” I yelled desperately. “That’s his sister!”

  He might have not heard me. Or he’d heard me and couldn’t credit what I’d said, as it didn’t stop him from aiming at her. I screamed again, to no avail. He let the arrow loose.

  Next moment, I felt all the blood fleeing my head as I heard her shriek in pain, watched her convulse before her wings folded limply and she plummeted headfirst to the ground.

  A scream almost tore my throat apart. “NO!”

  Before I could move, a horned figure leaped high up in the air and caught her before she hit the ground. My relief was short-lived, as Castor and his men aimed their weapons towards Clancy’s silhouette as he landed with the wounded Jessamine in his arms.

  I kicked the man near me in the head, taking him by the surprise as I took Maple’s reins and charged towards Jessamine and Clancy, screaming for Castor and the other men to stop.

  Two riders on horseback were also rushing towards them, swinging a poleaxe and a club. Only when I got closer I realized they were a centaur couple. Following them was the giant slithering mass that was Ivy the snake-woman, hissing and slamming the attackers with her tail.

  It seemed horror only made the men intensify their attacks. One hunter charged the female centaur and stabbed her, while the hunter with a mace smashed it against the male centaur’s leg. Both centaurs crashed into a hard kneel with agonized whinnies that distressed Maple, making her rear up and almost throwing me off.

  “What are all these things?” one of the hunters bellowed.

  “I told you this place was full of monsters of every sort,” Castor roared back. “The sooner we’re done with them, the sooner we kill their master.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Leander seemed to come out of nowhere, barreling into them, knocking down two men for Ivy to coil around and facing the men who’d struck the centaurs. He loomed over them, as huge and harrowing as I had first seen him. He knocked down the man with the dagger and caught the other man’s swinging mace. He bent his arm farther back than naturally possible, eliciting a sickening crack and a screech of agony until he dropped his weapon.

  Castor took that opportunity to attack him from behind, shooting him with an arrow. I screamed and Leander rounded on him just as the arrow ripped into his shoulder.

  With a furious roar, Leander ripped the metal arrow out and bent it with one hand.

  “You have a death wish,” Leander growled at Castor. “Just like your father.”

  At the mention of his father, whatever self-preservation Castor had approached this confrontation with evaporated with a shout of rage as he pulled out a hunting knife from his belt and launched himself at Leander.

  This wasn’t going to end with him winning. And if it did, with Leander dead, that left every other person in here vulnerable. What Clancy feared would come to pass. Whatever happened, so many people would end up dead.

  I had to stop this fight in its tracks. Any way I could. Any way at all.

  I charged Maple at them, separating them and bending to pull on Castor’s hair, sobbing with urgency. “Get on! Get on! Get on!”

  “Not before I finish this!” he yelled. “Get out of my way and go home!”

  Home. He wanted me in his home. Possibly as much as he wanted Leander dead.

  “I’ll marry you!” The promise blurted out of me, the only way I could see out of this impasse. “Come with me now and I’ll marry you. I’ll go to your aunts, I’ll wear what you want, eat what you want—I’ll do anything, if you come with me now!”

  For once, Castor listened to me. After a last moment of hesitation, he swore something vicious under his breath and leaped up on Maple behind me, taking the reins. He shouted for the other men to follow us and exploded out of the gates at a hard gallop.

  As the other men joined us, I tried to look back, but I found my view blocked by Castor’s body. I couldn’t take one last look at the castle or see how the injured were faring. I would never know if Clancy had rescued Jessamine, or if she was beyond help. Worse, I might be unable to convince the hunters of the truth, might be unable to stop them from going back to finish the job they’d started tonight.

  I might not have saved any of the castle inmates, after all. I might have paid my freedom for nothing.

  Chapter Ten

  “I told you not to attack any of them!”

  The shrill scolding burst out of me as soon as I could draw a full breath, making Castor grunt in exasperation. “Would you shut up about this already?”

  I couldn’t. The idea of those poor, cursed people being hunted through no fault of their own, only because of narrow-minded superstition and unsubstantiated fear, tore at me. “I told you the flying one was Sir Dale’s sister and you didn’t listen to me. You could have killed her! You might have killed her! I thought you wanted to save her!”

  “I can’t save her,” he gritted against my ear. “Jessamine Quill is dead, and whatever things you saw in there have clearly messed with your mind.”

  “I know what I saw. I was in there, I talked to them—you didn’t.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” he dismissed. “Don’t worry, you’ll have a lot of time to come to your senses once we’re at my family’s house.”

  Offense and worry stormed through me, but I suddenly didn’t want to argue anymore. I was helpless to change what happened, could only hope no one had been seriously injured, that I’d bought them a chance to better defend themselves next time. For if no one believed me, I had no doubt there would be
a next time.

  Now all I wanted to do was find my father.

  “Woodbine, one of them is following us!” yelled the man to our right.

  Castor checked behind us, swearing under his breath. “It’s the snake!” He turned Maple’s head by her reins. “We need to lose that thing, or at least slow it down until we do. Our best option is going through the woods.”

  “But we never go through the woods at night!” one of the others yelled.

  “And we never have monsters on our tail, either,” Castor shouted back.

  That seemed to end any debate on the others’ part. It was clear they hated the idea of going through the woods, but were even more afraid of Ivy.

  Once we reached flat ground, we took a sharp turn past the statue of Rosmerta and were soon heading into the woods. The trees had looked slim and sparse from a distance, but as we passed between them, they proved tall enough to dwarf us, close enough to block the moonlight.

  The temperature dropped significantly once the woods engulfed us, and vapor puffed out with my every ragged word. “Can you see where we’re going?”

  Castor didn’t answer me, turned Maple where a path between the trees appeared, barely lit by the pale rays that danced through gaps in the leaves above.

  “You should have brought a lantern,” I mumbled.

  “Be quiet, I’m trying to think.”

  Disgruntled, I clamped my lips closed. But there was little thought in our voyage farther into the woods. We just kept going, only managing to see where the trees stood but nothing else.

  Castor didn’t slow our pace down the path that was now bordered by endless lines of mushrooms. With every gallop, they lit up in batches as if they were made of enchanted blue glass, surrounding us with a ghostly cyan glow.

  Suddenly, one of the men yelled, “We lost the snake!”

  “We should turn back now, right?” I urged, the chilling ambiance making me shiver, the bite of cold sinking into my bones. “We should ride back through the city!”

  “I told you to be quiet!” he bit off. “You’re the reason we’re in this mess! If you had stayed at the lodge, like I told you to, we wouldn’t be chased by monsters right now. The least you can do is finally start listening to me!”

  “You should listen to me! I told you they aren’t monsters! They aren’t harming anyone, just staying in their place, and they did nothing to me—”

  “SHUT. UP.” His frustrated shout echoed in the dimness like the ringing of a tower bell, filling the freezing air and rousing things I could sense but not see in our surroundings. “The first thing you’ll learn once we get back is how to listen to voices apart from your own for once in your life!”

  The anger and hurt roiling through me suddenly deflated, joining the vapor curling out of my shaking lips. I was left with nothing but a suffocating sense of dread, of a danger I had no name for. A gut instinct of what lay ahead, unseen and unyielding to our oncoming stampede.

  “Castor, turn back,” I whimpered. “This is not a suggestion or a request. Turn back now.”

  He lowered his head to mine, snarling through clenched teeth. “What did I just say?”

  I saw them then. The sinister presence around us became white eyes above big, glowing smiles, emerging in a row right up ahead. And the moments he’d taken to scold me had led us straight among them.

  Maple reared up with a distressed neigh, but it was too late.

  They attacked before I could see them move.

  Each creature leaped feet into the air, landing on the horses, cackling horribly.

  “REDCAPS!” a man howled. “YOU LED US STRAIGHT TO THE REDCAPS!”

  Before I could draw another breath, one of those redcaps descended on Castor behind me, another latched onto my leg. Terror speared through me as I saw its wide mouth up close.

  The rows of jagged teeth separated, unleashing a nerve-scraping singsong screech. “Pretty fey in my way, not a good snack. Give me your human prey or hear your neck crack.”

  The will to struggle slammed back into me as I kicked it in the eye with everything I had, yanking my leg free as its grip loosened—and only unseated myself off the horse.

  I hit the ground with a bruising slam, and Maple galloped back along the path we’d come through after all the other horses, taking Castor with her. They disappeared before I could sit up.

  The redcaps chased after the men, but before I could hope they’d forgotten about me, three fell back, turned and slowly approached me, like hunters approaching a trapped deer.

  I stared back at them, feeling my heart would uproot itself within my chest at any moment. They were squat, disproportionate men with barrel trunks, spindly limbs, taloned fingers and elongated heads. They all wore caps whose dark red color was blotchy and uneven, like giant bloodstains. Or was that their scalps?

  Any other time, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the idea of predatory gnomes. Now they were the ones laughing, because they knew I’d be an easy prey.

  But I couldn’t make it that easy. I hadn’t escaped the castle just to let those horrible little monsters eat me without a fight.

  Ignoring the screaming pain in my side and arm, I struggled up and ran after the others with the redcaps hot on my trail, their chorus of maniac laughter pouring unknown strength into my legs.

  “Wait for me!” I screamed after the retreating men.

  None of them slowed down, probably unable to hear me in the midst of their frantic shouts as they fought off the flying attacks left and right.

  I pushed forwards, desperate to catch up with them, to find Castor, but a sharp pain stabbed my side, worsening with every tearing breath. Soon, it would drive me to my knees—and it would be all over.

  Then I found Castor. The stench of blood reached me before I saw him, and terror swallowed me whole.

  Five redcaps were pinning him down, each with its teeth buried in a part of him, seeming to be drinking his blood as he screamed and struggled rabidly. I could see their caps—no, it was their scalps—getting darker, and nausea overwhelmed me as I realized it was with his blood.

  But there was nothing I could do for him. If I stopped, the others would catch up with me, then we’d both be dead.

  I had to try to stay alive. For my father. For Adelaide. And to do that, I had one last gamble. If I could stay ahead until I exited the woods, and they were confined to them, they couldn’t follow me out.

  I swerved off the path mid-sprint and ducked between the trees, running towards where I thought Rosemead was.

  Only a few feet in, whatever hope of escape I’d had died. One landed on my back, slamming me facedown in the dirt, pouring its horrifying, rhyming giggle in my ear.

  “Not so fast, pretty sprite, with the tiny head—Stay and put up a fight, now our real meal has fled.”

  It gripped me by the hair, its talons scraping my scalp as it lifted my spinning head. The other two gripped my ankles and dragged me back towards the path. I tried to kick, to dig my nails into the earth, but nothing stopped the inevitable.

  Back on the mushroom path, I tried to throw them off but the one holding my hair slammed my head against the ground. Starbursts of white and purple flashed in the darkness behind my eyes to the rhythm of the pounding pain and swirling dizziness.

  They turned me over and one sat on my chest, gripping my face while the others held my arms and legs down. Hot tears poured down the sides of my face as I feebly struggled, drowning in faintness and fear.

  The redcap on my chest traced my face with its sharp thumbnails, leaving shallow scratches. “So frail and weak, pretty pixie daughter. Your blood does reek, but you’ll be fun to slaughter.”

  It unlatched its jaws, descending towards my face with a smile that grew and grew until the top of its head fell back and all of its face became a gaping maw.

  Heart bursting over and over at the sheer horror, of the sight, of the fate I was about to suffer, I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the worst pain of my life—the one that woul
d end it.

  Horrific screams broke out behind me—the other redcaps. Coming to fight over me? I wished I’d faint and be spared the ordeal—then a thunderous roar drowned all the shrieks out.

  Could it be…?

  My eyes snapped open to the sight of the redcap holding my hands being kicked to the side, its neck at a sharp angle, its body going limp. The one holding my face released me, its face still split in half as it launched itself up into the air, only to get punched away by the furious mass of muscle and messy hair that loomed above me.

  Leander! He’d come for me!

  But was it to save me, or to kill me himself?

  Chapter Eleven

  The redcap holding my legs abandoned me for Leander.

  He raised his arm to swat it like the last one, but it clung to him, biting into his flesh.

  He roared in pain and flung it off, squashing it on the ground, but another two climbed his back, sinking their macabre teeth in his other arm and his shoulder.

  As he roared again and blood trickled out from beneath their teeth, I realized two things in absolute clarity.

  Whatever reason he was here for, I’d take my chances with him.

  And I didn’t want him to get hurt.

  Leander spun around, snapping a redcap’s neck as he flung off another who snatched a mouthful of his bloodstained sleeve. “RUN!”

  His bellow was a shock that had me scrambling up on boneless legs. My disorientation tripled as I stumbled before him, at a loss. I wanted to run more than anything, to live, to find my father. But as the redcaps abandoned Castor and attacked Leander, I found myself frozen.

  They were now coming at him from every direction. No matter how many he killed, more just kept appearing, clawing at him, trying to rip off chunks of his flesh.

  “I SAID RUN!” he shouted again, throwing down a redcap and crushing its head underfoot.

  This time, I obeyed. I staggered back along the path until I reached Castor.

  I kneeled by him, holding back the urge to vomit at the sight of his blood-soaked clothes, looking like tar in the bluish light. I pressed a shaking hand beneath his jaw, whimpered when I found a pulse. He was alive, barely. But Leander could suffer a worse fate.