Beauty in Autumn (Beauty #3)(7)

He growls again, low and menacing, and I feel a surge of alarm. Am I pushing too hard? Is he more beast than man at this point? He says he has no time, but I know he's been cursed for dozens - maybe hundreds - of years. He has all the time in the world. Maybe it's taken its toll on his mind.

"You sure you want to touch the beast's paw?"

Well, when he puts it that way, no, I'm not sure. But now's not the time to be missish. "If I'm to be your wife, I'm probably going to touch more than your paw." I continue to hold my hand out to him. "I'm not afraid."

I can't tell if he growls or laughs, but he makes some sort of deep, rumbling noise in his chest and lumbers closer to me. I remain perfectly still, waiting. I'm a little anxious about his touch - what if it's scales? What if it's fur? What if it's--

The hand that touches mine is warm. Strong. Completely human. There are calluses on the palm and he grips me tight.

I'm confused. Is there someone else here with the beast? This is a...nice hand.

"You look shocked," he says. "Sickened at my touch?" He squeezes my fingers lightly. "Shall I release you?"

I want to laugh with surprise. I want to run my fingers up his arm and see if all of him feels 'normal' or if he's beastly in other areas. But he sounds so miserable that I do the first thing I can think of to make him less so - I pull his hand to my face and kiss the back of it.

He's silent, but I can feel a ripple of surprise move through him. "Come," he says after a moment, gruff. "Let us go before night falls."

And he leads me on through the forest. The beast - no, Ruari - is quiet as we walk, and there's no sound but the heavy thud of his feet on the cobbles, the click of his claws, the occasional snort of his breath that sounds an awful lot like my father's horse. The birds continue to sing and the leaves dance in the air around us, sweeping past my skirts in a rush.

My clothes snag on something and I pause. "Wait. I'm stuck." I release his hand and run my fingers down my skirts, then pull back with a hiss when I encounter a thorny branch. A faint scent touches me - roses. "Oh. I think I must have walked into this rosebush."

"Mmm," is all Ruari says.

The scent is deep with floral notes, sweet and fragile all at once. I free my skirt and then slip my hand into his waiting one once more. We continue on a few more feet, until my skirts snag in another bush. This rose has a heavier, darker scent, thick but still lovely. "Your roses smell wonderful," I tell him. "What's this one called?"

"Moira," he says flatly. "And the one before it was Caitlin. Further up the path will be Dorcha."

I go silent. Moira...that was the girl chosen at the Harvest Stone last year. I seem to remember a Dorcha from years ago, but the Caitlin name is new to me. "Are there...are there more roses?"

"Dozens and dozens," he says in a sad, sad voice.

"What happened to them?" I whisper.

"The curse."

"How...how do we stop it?"

He laughs, a broken, hollow sound. "If I knew that, I would have done it already and spared these girls their fate." He pauses. "And you."

Oh. I feel a little sick to my stomach. "What can we do?"

"We can hope that the curse is lifted after the three days." His tone is abrupt. "Now. Come. We approach the castle."



There is no lovely greeting for me at the castle. The interior is cold and musty, and Ruari casually mentions that he builds no fires, for he never has visitors. His hand is warm and gentle as he guides me down the echoing, empty halls and up the stairs to the chamber that is to be mine.

For three days at least.

"You will be safe here," he tells me abruptly. "Food will be brought for you if you wish it."

"I have food," I tell him, holding my bag close. The room feels large, based on the way my voice sounds, and I wish I could explore it, but I'm too afraid to take my blindfold off. Even after Ruari departs, his heavy form thudding and clicking back down the stairs, I don't remove the blindfold.

I can't stop thinking about those roses.

Or the fact that I only have three days.





3





WILLOW


"Why are you here?"

Even in my dreams, the beast sounds sexy. Commanding. I catch my breath, letting the autumn leaves swirl around my skirt. I'm blindfolded and in the forest once more. And there are no wolves this time. We're alone. Completely and utterly alone.

He's waiting for my answer. Even though I can't see him, I can feel that the air between us is fraught with tension. My nipples are hard and I'm full of excitement and anticipation. I want to run my hands up the bodice of my dress and cup them, but I force myself to stay still for now. "I want..." to break your curse is what goes through my mind, but what comes out is "you".

I hear him suck in a breath. Clearly he's as astonished with my response as I am. But the moment it comes out, it feels right. There's an attraction between us, him and I, and it doesn't matter that I can't see his face or that he's a beast or that I'm some poor, uneducated peasant girl who's never been further than her village. My skin tingles with his nearness.

Ruari approaches, and I can feel the brush of his fur against my skin as he comes nearer. His hand glides up and down my arm, and I can feel the bite of his claws through my chemise. "You want me to touch you?" he asks in that smoky voice of his that gives me goosebumps. "You do not fear the beast?"