Beauty in Spring (Beauty #1)(9)

“Tomorrow,” I growl against her lips, “your answer will be yes.”



Her answer is the same, tossed carelessly at me over a meal of roast guinea hen. “Release me first.”

Not yet. But I say nothing, cold bitterness digging into my throat with arid, icy claws—hot irritation prickling my skin. The beast does not like clothes, but I have taken to wearing them again now that Cora is here. Though I do not wear much. The beast would not tolerate shoes or underpants. But even a soft cotton shirt and my ancient jeans seem to chafe and constrict every movement.

As if heading me off before I can ask her to get down on her hands and knees, she asks, “My luggage is out by the east access gate. Can you get it for me tomorrow?”

“I already collected your suitcase.” Drawn there by her scent as I’d run a course through the grounds, because the open air pleases both me and the beast. “I took it to your bedchamber this afternoon.”

A chamber in the northwest wing—as far from mine as she could get.

“Thank you,” she says absently, poking at her meal. “What else did you do today?”

“I watched you.”

Her head jerks up and her widened gaze meets mine. “From where?”

From a distance, because I wasn’t certain of my control. The beast has become more insistent since she arrived. “The northeast tower.”

“You said you stayed all day in the southeast tower.”

“That was before you risked choking yourself to death.”

Because today she tested the length of the chain, walking across the great lawn. A few paces away from the main gates, the chain had gone taut, stopping her short. Yet still she’d pulled against it, futilely trying to break the links or make them stretch farther, until she crumpled to the ground in a sobbing heap.

The beast’s claws dug gouges into the stone sill as we’d watched, knowing we could cross the distance quickly if she hurt herself, terrified she would. And it was I who had held us back, because I didn’t know whether I would be the one in control as we rushed to her side. If the beast emerged…he would not stop at easing the chain’s pull upon her neck. He would not stop until he made her his.

Listlessly she pushes a carrot around her plate with a fork. “The chain won’t let me leave the grounds.”

“No. It won’t.” Not until I rescind my vow to marry her.

She raises accusing eyes to mine. “You won’t let me leave. You could free me.”

“Yes,” I agree softly. “But I won’t.”

Her jaw clenches and her lips tremble as she stares at me with hatred shining from the blue of her eyes. Abruptly she pushes away from the table, collecting her dishes to carry into the kitchen.

“I will let you leave the room,” I tell her. “Does that please you?”

She hurls her plate at my head.



I have always loved that Cora is a fighter. I’ve always loved that she never gives up.

But I cannot bear another day of watching this.

The beast urges me to run as I cross the great lawn, and I give in to that urge, my focus tight on Cora’s figure ahead, never allowing him to break through my skin.

Each of her sobbing, gasping breaths rips a gaping hole into my heart. The long golden chain is tense as a wire, stretching from her nape to the hall in the distance, yet she’s still straining against it. Fighting.

Let her fight me, instead.

Roughly I snag my arm around her waist and swing her up against my chest. “That’s enough!”

“Let me go!” She screams as I begin carrying her back toward the manor house. Instantly the tension on the chain eases. “Damn you, Gideon. Go back!”

Her voice is hoarse, from choking or sobbing or both. Bruises ring her neck, and her skin is raw and reddened. There’s not a chance in hell that I’ll let her go and I am not turning back.

Her fists land solid blows against my shoulders. Wild kicks send sharp pains shooting through my shins.

The beast loves it. My cock is a thick iron bar that grows hotter and harder with every blow she lands.

I don’t love it. Not when her ragged sobs accompany every hit, not when her struggles rapidly weaken until she’s lying limp against my chest, weeping helplessly against my shoulder.

“You will never do this again.” Forced through the raw ache of my throat, the command is harsh and thick. “If you do, I will lock the doors so that you cannot even leave the house.”

“Then I will jump from a window!”

Cold fear pierces my skin, the beast trying to claw through the holes her words ripped in me. “Do not even say such a thing!” I roar and when she flinches against me, burying her face against my throat, I have to fight for the calm before I speak again. “Would you?”

In a quiet voice, she says, “No.”

Yet it must have crossed her mind. Hoarsely I ask, “Do you want to escape me so badly?”

“I want to be free!” Despair fills her cry and she pounds her fist against my chest. “Do you not understand the difference?”

I do. But I can’t let her go yet.

And at least she is fighting again. “Will you marry me, Cora?”

“Fuck off,” she says.



For days, Cora takes her meals to her chambers instead of joining me at the table. As the moon wanes and March becomes April, my time with her grows shorter—but she is not completely absent. I watch her from the tower as she spends each day working in the south garden, and although she rarely strays from the northwest wing, the entire house is filled with her scent. Each breath I take carries her into me, her sweet fragrance—tinged with the cold bitterness I know too well after years spent alone.