Beauty and the Beast (an erotic re-imagining) Read Free

you?”
    “It’s me, it’s—” His voice sounded different, though, coming from his new vocal cords. He tried to tell her what happened with the enchantress, but the words wouldn’t come out. It just sounded like angry growling.
    My stepmother is an evil witch who turned me into a beast. If you love me the spell will be broken.
    That’s what he kept trying to say, but the words literally could not come out. That witch had cast a spell to keep him from telling people what she’d done!
    It’s only a spell, I’m still in here, I’m still Prince Frederick!
    But only growls emerged from his mouth.
    Nadine struggled, pushing his paw away from her face. Her eyes widened in terror, her mouth fell open in a gasp,
    “Please, Nadine—”
    I am Frederick!
    Fuck.
    “Look at my eyes,” he said, grateful when the words came out. “You know me.”
    Nadine screamed at the top of her lungs. “Help me, Father! Help!”
    Frederick heard the clomping of feet down the hall. He dove out of her room and into the tree, jumped to the ground, and ran.
    “Help!” she screamed.
    He spared one last glance up at the girl he thought loved him. The girl who didn’t even recognize his eyes, his soul.
    She howled in fear, and he ran away, back into the woods.
    He could still hear her words, echoing in his ears.
    “It’s a BEAST!”
     

1: A Stranger Calls
(Ten Years Later)
     
    The Beast —for that was what he was now, no longer Prince Frederick—stood at the large bay window and stared out onto the empty landscape surrounding his abandoned castle. A storm raged through the sky, pouring rain down in heavy sheets of water.
    It reminded him of the storm on the night he was turned into the Beast.
    His stepmother had left that night, ten years ago, after she’d enchanted him and the castle. She took all of the servants with her. Beast pitied the next unfortunate fool who fell under her spell like his father had done.
    “I would like a fire,” he commanded, pointing to the large stone fireplace.
    It immediately lit up, creating a warming glow. Beast sat before it and watched the flames dance. The scent of roses from an open window drifted through his drawing room, and he ordered the window to shut to keep out the rain. Pity it would also keep out the intoxicating scent of roses as well. The thorny bushes were under every window to deter thieves, but Beast loved them for their roses. They provided the only beauty he’d seen in ten long years.
    He couldn’t even bear to cut the blossoms, for fear of killing their beauty.
    BANG .
    Beast jumped in his chair. What was that? The front door—
    Banging.
    No one had come to the castle since his stepmother left. He had a suspicion she had cast a spell over the town so that they’d forget it even existed. That he existed.
    BANG. BANG.
    They’d come—he’d lived in fear that at some point the townspeople would come to slay the Beast. But now he welcomed it. What was living, if he was forced to live his life alone in this vast, empty castle? Unable to seek out human contact. Unable to do anything other than wish for a girl to come along and break the spell.
    But the castle’s enchantment didn’t work that way. When he was hungry, a meal appeared before him. When he wanted a bath, one was magically poured. But there was no response when he wished for company. He knew, he’d tried.
    “Fire, go out,” he grumbled under his breath. The room fell into darkness once more, and Beast hid in the shadows, awaiting the fate of the stranger knocking on his door.
    “Please, may I come in?” a man’s voice called. “I’m lost and there were wolves at my heels—waiting for me at the castle gate. I beg you, let me in.”
    ***
    To Henry Castelle, the merchant standing before the intimidating castle door, the only thing that kept him banging on that door was the sure knowledge that if he didn’t get shelter tonight, he would die in the woods.
    “Please,” he called, “I mean you no harm, for the