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)
But killing the villagers she undoubtedly knew was not how I wanted her to understand what I have become. Crawe, a man she spoke to…the others, I do not know who they are. A splinter flares in my chest. Her father perhaps? I do not know. I barely saw their faces.
She has seen the worst of me tonight. The part of me that did not hesitate to murder through any means necessary, with teeth and claws and beating the villagers with a stick until they fell. I pray her father was not among them. Fuck!
She is running for her life, and the beast knows it. This truth sharpens his senses, making his vision clearer than it had been. He doesn’t fight for complete control, but his dominance over her rages inside of me. His need for her is everything. Some of his rage returns as Elle continues to run. He has claimed her more than once; she belongs to him. She should not flee for so long without stopping and sinking to the ground, showing him she understands her place here.
Elle runs with everything she has, and she is fast, but everything works against her. Her feet leave dark prints in the frost on the ground. If I wanted, I could stop chasing her and walk, and her footprints would lead me to her. Even if she went inside the house, it would take nothing for me to scent her, no matter where she attempted to hide. I could so easily hunt her down.
My mind is heavy with swirls of the memories and the magic and the needs of the beast. It’s as if I’m losing my mind.
Elle tries to change directions and stumbles. The beast inside of me lunges at her, planning to pin her down, perhaps even bite her again to remind her that he claimed her many weeks ago and this attack by the villagers, and even her fear of the attack, does not change that. He wants to remind Elle that she belongs to him. That she belongs to us.
I will never be able to erase the memory of what happened from her mind. I want to tell her that it had to be done, both because the beast cannot be tamed and because men like that will not give up until they are dead. Men who believe they have some claim on another’s life will not stop until their own lives are ended.
I could not let them take her away. I want her to understand that, and I do not know how to make her see that.
All that comes from my throat is another furious growl.
Elle steps out of my way and presses herself up against the wall, her back to the bricks. Her breath is ragged, and she squeezes her eyes closed as if she can pretend she never saw me.
With adrenaline pounding through my veins and every inch of my skin on fire, I cage her against the wall, trying to bring my face down to hers. I want to lick over her pulse and make her submit. To bite and hold her still.
But Elle turns away, facing the wall with her hands against it, her back to me, rejecting me as her cries grow stronger.
A sharp pain shatters what’s left of the human side of me.
This was my greatest fear, and it has come to this. Elle, blocking me out as much as she can with her body, because she can’t bear to look. Because she’s now afraid of me and blames me for what happened tonight.
Elle will never forget now that she has seen the beast.
My body shakes with fear as I tower over her. Fear that I have lost her forever even though I’m far too aware I never deserved her to begin with. This was all a mistake. Unable to think straight, I leave her. Hating the beast, hating myself, hating the witch, and hating the villagers.
I’ll find her again. She can’t run from me forever.
ELLE
Has the magic driven me mad?
I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom, my body exhausted and my bones seeming to ache with constant sadness.
Maybe I have gone mad, and now this is all my mind can do. Stare at the ceiling and wonder how it all went wrong.
“It was wrong from the beginning,” I whisper to the ceiling. “I should have known it would always be wrong.”
No matter how many times I ask the questions, the ceiling never answers and neither do the roses.
The roses are what might convince me that I am out of my mind.
“It was ruined from the beginning,” I tell the ceiling and the roses again.
But in my heart, I cannot believe that.
Is it the magic that makes me think it’s not true? That there was something I had with the beast before he became brutal and merciless? The only thing that spares my heart is that my father was not among the men. But the very thought that he might come…my bottom lip wobbles and I have to find a way to beg the beast.