Beauty and the Beast (an erotic re-imagining) (17 page)
Instead, as the fogged mirror cleared, she saw the Beast lying just outside the castle door, his immense body sprawled across the stone, his heavy mane falling over his face.
His muscular chest, bared to the morning sky, was so very still.
“Beast?” she whispered, though she knew he could not hear her.
Then, a slight movement. Not much, but his chest rose and fell, a tiny bit. He was still breathing!
Thank the Lord.
His words came back to her…
If you do not return within one week, I will die.
At the time, she thought he meant of loneliness, that he would be heartbroken and would suffer greatly. What a fool she was! In a castle filled with enchantment and magic, how could she be so blind?
The Beast was dying, literally dying, because she had broken her promise. She had sworn, sworn on her life, and he had so quickly turned it around onto his own.
She was killing him.
With renewed urgency, Belle raised her fists to pound on the locked door, to insist that her father let her go.
No, don’t!
She paused. As frantic as she was, if her Papa knew that she still wanted to leave their cottage, he would never open the door.
So, with great effort to behave in a calm and resigned manner, Belle softly knocked on the door.
“Papa?” she called quietly, meekly.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ve slept outside your door, all night.”
“Papa, you were right. May I have some tea? My head hurts from all the shouting last night.” She hesitated. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to upset you so.”
An audible sigh of relief could be heard from the other side of the door.
“One moment, Belle—I’ll bring your tea to you.”
Belle stood, gripping the mirror in one hand, and waited by the door.
What was taking him so long?
Was he on to her?
Finally, she heard her father push something heavy away from the door, and the lock clicked open.
“Be careful, sweetie, the tea is very h—”
Belle pushed past her father, knocking the tea to the ground, the delicate teacup breaking into pieces. But there was no time to turn around, no time to apologize.
She ran into his bedroom and slammed the door, locking it.
“Belle!” he yelled. “Come out here this instant, young lady!”
The only reason he wasn’t as panicked as he should have been was because she hadn’t gone for the front door. He didn’t understand that there were other means of leaving the house. But he would soon.
The golden ring gleamed from his dresser top. Without pause, Belle slipped it onto her finger and twisted it. Once. Twice.
“I love you forever, Papa,” she cried out.
Three times, and she was gone.
11: The Enchantment
The air shimmered
around Belle, the very dust particles themselves seeming to burst into flame. Oh, it was too warm, hot, like being too close to the stove—like being
in
a stove.
But then the shimmer dissipated, and the air around her cooled. The magic settled, leaving her feeling woozy and disoriented.
She looked around for a half a moment, confused—
where is my Beast?
Her luxurious bedchamber in the castle surrounded her. The ring had taken her back to the spot from which she had left, back when the Beast was still alive, when he was still hers.
Belle set the looking glass down hurriedly and ran out of her suite, stumbling down the corridor, passing the portrait of Prince Frederick.
Run, run, find the Beast!
She nearly fell down the grand stairway in her haste, and tore through the great hall, her footsteps echoing off the stone as she ran.
“Beast!” she cried. “Fairies, open the door!”
The fairies complied immediately, the door swung open, letting in a rush of cold air as the heavy castle doors lay ajar. The air was silent, too silent. Not even the whisper of the wind in the trees could be heard. Only the rushing of blood through her ears as her pulse raced.
The Beast lay, so still, on the cold stones at her feet, just outside the door. She ran to him.
“Beast?”
Her voice sounded child-like, scared, to her ears. She
was
scared. Terrified. More terrified than she had ever been when the Beast first loomed over her in that dungeon.
“I never meant for this to happen,” she said to him, but he didn’t open his eyes. “I wanted to be here! I
needed to be here
. God, what have I done?”
He wasn’t moving. Belle’s own breath in the cold dawn air was visible, but his was not. The Beast had no more breath to give.
His fearsome face looked softer in death, as if all of the anger and animalistic tendencies he had adopted over the years had been whisked away along with his life.
“You can’t leave me,” she said, tears rolling down her face. “Fairies! I wish him back to life! I will never call on you again if you just bring him back, bring him back.”
One tear landed on her lip, salty, and the taste took her back to a seaside trip she’d made as a child. Belle had nearly drowned back then. She licked her lips, tasted her tears. She was drowning now.
She clasped the Beast’s heavy hand in her own, and collapsed on top of his bulky form.
“I should have stayed with you when I had the chance, my Beast,” she said. “You are good. You are good
to me
. I don’t know what happened ten years ago to change you, I don’t know what your past has been like. But you are my future. Please, please come back to me.”
Belle’s tears fell onto his chest, and she clung to him, the same way she had clung to the stranger who rescued her from the sea, that day long ago when she thought she would fall under the water, and never come back up.
“I’m drowning, Beast… I need you.”
The wind whipped her thin cotton dress around her body, freezing her to the core. She huddled closer to the Beast, as if he might warm her even now.
“I love you,” she whispered.
She meant it with every fiber of her being. Closing her eyes, she pressed her ear to his chest, and quieted, wanting to hear if maybe, just maybe, his heart would beat for her, the way hers did for him.
But the Beast’s heart was still.
Then—
is his heart beating?
It couldn’t be. But it was! Faintly at first, then stronger.
Belle opened her eyes, but couldn’t see. The wind whirled around them both, but it was if the wind had transformed into fire. Glittering magic swirled, obscuring her vision.
What is happening?
She held on tightly to her Beast, her true love. He seemed to be slipping from her grasp.
“Don’t take him from me!” she cried.
No longer could she feel his fur beneath her cheek, and when she reached her hand out to touch his face—
“…Frederick?”
Frederick, half-naked, lay sprawled on the stone.
Have I fallen asleep?
“Frederick, what have I done?”
He sat up, looking around them as the fire dust settled, leaving behind only a shimmer of the magic that had taken her Beast.
“Belle,” he whispered, and embraced her.
Oh God, his embrace felt so real, so strong. “Am I dreaming?” she asked.
“We’re awake, Beauty,” he said. “You’ve saved me.”
“I killed the Beast,” she whispered, and looked away, unable to face him, knowing that Frederick, above all, wanted her to be with the Beast. To love the Beast.
“Look at me,” he said tenderly.
She gazed into his eyes, his beautiful, green
(human)
eyes.
“I don’t understand…” she said. The conclusions that were forming in her mind made no sense, none at all.
“Yes, you do.” Frederick smiled, and stood, pulling her up against his chest.
“I thought you were imprisoned in the castle. We’ve only met in my dreams,” she said, shaking her head, but laughing, laughing over her tears.
“You broke the spell that changed me into a Beast all those years ago,” he said. “It’s still me. You know me, both prince and beast.
You know me
, Belle.”
And he kissed her, wrapping his arms around her, hugging her close.
He picked her up and carried her over the threshold of the castle door.
“Fairies, we need a fire,” she said as he kicked the door shut behind him with his foot.
No fire appeared.
Belle felt heat warming her face. “Oh. I told the fairies I’d never call on them again if they’d bring you back.”
“The castle’s enchantment is over,” Frederick said, grinning. He knelt by the fireplace to get the fire going. “Although I always thought it was quite adorable how you thought we had a fairy infestation.”
Belle raised her eyebrows and laughed. She had Frederick, and…he was her Beast, too, on the inside, at least. Or was it that the Beast was Frederick on the inside, this whole time? They would have many long hours in the evenings ahead to mull it over.
“Who needs fairies, anyway?” she said. She had everything she needed. Except… “My Papa will be distraught that I’ve left him.”
“He can visit,” Frederick said, finally getting the fire going. “And he can see that I am not the Beast he once feared.”
“What will happen, when I fall asleep, if I don’t have my dream-lover to ravish me?” Belle left the chair Frederick had set her in, to kneel by his side at the hearth.
“At night, my Beauty…you will have the Beast.”
With the flames burning brightly, and the morning sun streaming through the windows of the castle, Belle felt completely surrounded by love and light.
“I love you, Frederick,” she said. “All of you.”
He kissed her. “I love you, Belle. You are my everything.”
Though they no longer had fairies at play in their castle, Beauty and her Beast held the magic of their love close to their hearts…and they both lived happily ever after, together, forever.
The End
About Shoshanna Evers
Critically-acclaimed author Shoshanna Evers has written dozens of sexy stories including Amazon Erotica Bestsellers
Overheated
, and
Enslaved, Book 1 in the Enslaved Trilogy
, as well as the post-apocalyptic dystopian
Pulse Trilogy
from Simon & Schuster Pocket Star. Her work has been featured in
Best Bondage Erotica 2012
and
Best Bondage Erotica 2013
, the Penguin/Berkley Heat anthology
Agony/Ecstasy
, and numerous erotic BDSM novellas including
Chastity Belt
and
Punishing the Art Thief
from Ellora's Cave Publishing.
The non-fiction anthology Shoshanna Evers edited and contributed to,
How To Write Hot Sex: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors
, is a #1 Bestseller in the Authorship, Erotica Writing Reference, and Romance Writing categories on Amazon.
Reviewers have called Shoshanna’s writing “fast paced, intense, and sexual…every naughty fantasy come to life for the reader” with stories where “the plot is fresh and the pacing excellent, the emotions…real and poignant.”
Shoshanna used to work as a syndicated advice columnist and a registered nurse, but now she’s a full-time smut writer and a home-schooling mom. She lives with her family and two big dogs in Northern Idaho.
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to my readers, first and foremost. Without you, I would be writing into the abyss.
Beauty and the Beast
is written in a different style for me, compared to my other books, and I appreciate that you’ve joined me for this journey! And a special shoutout goes to the
Shoshanna Street Team
—thank you for your support, and for spreading the word!
I owe a huge debt to the many incarnations of
Beauty and the Beast
that have come before my erotic re-imagining. While Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont are long gone, their stories live on forever.
