Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 74631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
A cloth presses gently between my legs, cleaning up some of the mess, and then the beast pulls my dress down. His gentle touch is at odds with how he just was. He takes me by the waist, avoiding the places where his fingers dug into my hips before, and lifts me down from the table. I’m barefooted, and I cannot say where my house slippers are.
I start to ask if he knows where they are or if he wants me to find them and sway instead, overwhelmed by the pleasure and the food and the late hour. I have to brace myself. My eyes begin to close behind the blindfold, which has managed to stay in place while the beast had his way with me. I can still feel him…and something else. Something that pulls me into a deep slumber.
The last thing I am aware of is being carried in a strong pair of arms and a blanket being pulled over me before I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Days go by, and they are nothing like the night I arrived in the castle.
I wake in an empty bed with sunlight streaming through the window. No notes appear on the floor instructing me what to wear. There are underthings in the wardrobe and any dress I wear is cleaned and hung to wear again while I am asleep.
It is pleasant most places in the castle, but I do not see the beast.
I waited for him the first morning, but after breakfast appeared on a tray in my room and I’ve eaten and explored every inch of the room I know best, I decide to venture out. And what a sight it all is to behold. I am bewitched by the estate.
The castle is large and I move slowly through the hall outside my bedroom, looking at all that I could not see the first night I was here. The blindfold made that impossible, although night would not have been the best time to observe the halls. There is much to see in any castle, I suppose, but this one is carefully decorated without being crowded. I pause before each painting and look at them with the same sense of awe I had in the ballroom.
They’re breathtaking. The details and finery. It was once said that he had destroyed every ounce of beauty and the magic cast darkness in every corner. They were lies I was told. For there is nothing but beauty and life in every inch of this place.
When a day comes and goes with no sign of the beast, I find my bed turned down and the candles low in the room. A hot mug of chamomile tea waits on my bedside table. It soothes me into another deep sleep. It is never cold the way it was when I slept in my father’s cottage. I do not wake in the night shivering, pulling a thin blanket around me. I have pleasant dreams of being full of delicious food and lulled by the weight of a fine comforter, and I wake with the sun in my window and the fire still crackling in the grate.
Although I do worry about my father and what he thinks. He has no idea where I’ve gone. And I have no idea what has happened in my absence.
I go a second day without seeing the beast or any sign of him. I do not hear his footsteps following me in the hall. I do not hear him commanding any of the castle’s objects to work.
He’s nowhere to be found and that makes me anxious. I can’t fight the turmoil that brews inside.
I begin to wonder if I misinterpreted the things we did on the dining room table. I find the room itself and look in, but there is nothing to suggest he fucked me atop the table after feeding me from his hand. It is a gorgeous dining room with heavy, expensive furniture, but he is not waiting there for me.
That night the beast seemed different, almost unable to stop touching me, unable to stop kissing me or licking the wine from my body. He seemed driven to have me by something stronger than magic, and I felt the same. He kissed me and fucked me with such ferocity that at times I wondered if he had lost control to the urges of his body, which I would not have minded.
It meant something to me that I cannot place…but I have no idea what it meant to him.
I’m left to my own thoughts, looking at a large painting of a grand battle scene with knights on horseback valiantly charging into the fray. Those whose faces are visible look courageous and determined. Am I like those knights, or is it the beast who is determined?