Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 66503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I sigh.
He pushes me away. “You’re thinking too much again, aren’t you?” he asks, capturing my attention with a simple stern gaze. “Tell me.”
“I just …” I sigh and look away. “I feel like such a burden to everyone.”
“You are not a burden. Forget what your father told you. It’s not true.”
“But everything happened because of me,” I say, the words so visceral I can feel them slicing into my own heart. I step back to stop myself from falling into his arms again because I don’t want to put that on him.
My guilt is mine alone to carry.
“All you’ve ever done is help me. How do you think I broke free from those chains?” he says, his voice lower, more intense.
I suck in a breath, stepping back when he steps forward.
“You think I got that strength out of nowhere?” he says, clutching my arm so I can’t move away. “You gave it to me.”
I gave him that strength? How?
“Again and again. Not just in that cell, but before too. When you helped me fight Lex. When you stopped them from electrocuting me.” His grip tightens. “When you gave that flower to me.”
“I wanted to save us both,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Become my only reason for existing?”
The air feels too thick to breathe.
He pulls me close to him, despite the fact that my hand is right there between us. “It’s the truth.” His forehead leans against mine. “I’m in love with you, Aurora.”
He’s said it before, and I want to believe it, but can I?
“But how? You’ve seen what I look like. You heard what those men … and even my own father … call me.” His jaw tightens as I say the word. “Monster.”
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more enraged.
His eyes slowly travel down my face, all the way to his own chest, where my hand is still pressed up against him. And I become viscerally aware of just how madly he’s gazing at me and my deformed fingers … at how badly I wished I still had my gloves.
“My father used all his money to fix me, and it didn’t even work… I’m still a monster.” I mutter, not knowing what to say.
His hand rises, and he grabs my hand, entangling his fingers through mine.
“You are not a monster. You’re beautiful.”
Beast
She gasps in shock as though she cannot fathom that I’d say that word again now that I’ve seen what she had to hide.
Whatever she was taught to believe while growing up, it’s all a lie. Made up by her lousy, thieving father who cared nothing about the daughter he was given.
But she is beautiful, she always was, and I want her to know.
“Beautiful? I…?” She can’t finish her sentence. “You said that before in the cell, but I didn’t believe it was true. I—”
“It was true then, and it’s true now,” I interrupt.
I lift her hand and bring it to my face, looking at it thoroughly. But I don’t see what she sees. I don’t see the monster her father made her out to be. I see the girl who went through all the pain in the world just to protect the people she loved.
I pull her hand closer and bring her fingers to my lips to kiss the tips.
Her lips part, and I can tell she’s struggling to breathe.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, planting more and more kisses all over her fingers and hand.
“You don’t have to say that,” she says. “You don’t have to make me feel better after—”
“I’ll say it a million times more until you believe it too.” I interject, pausing my kisses only to look into her eyes so she knows I mean it.
And I’ll make do on my promise right now as I pull her hand closer and kiss every inch of her fingers—every ridge, every bump, every scar. All of it is beautiful because it’s a part of her, and she is nothing but beauty. Not only on the outside but on the inside too. Her heart is too huge for her tiny body. She brought kindness where there was only corruption, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful.
So I kiss her with everything I have, dragging my lips along her hand and arm, snaking around her body until I’m right behind her. And I wrap my arms around her body and sink my teeth into her shoulders just like before.
“Oh God, what are you doing?” she mutters.
“Making you forget,” I reply, licking up the tiny blood droplet before kissing the small wound. “Just like you made me forget in that cell.”
She whimpers as I drag my mouth along her skin all the way up to her neck, leaving pecks all over. And I move her along with me, dragging her body from behind all the way to a large mirror standing in the bedroom where I force her to stand.