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And did it really matter if I was free?

“I’ll guess your name,” I said.

His answer was a grin.

Chapter Three

The Beast

The beast released my wrists, and I shoved my hands against his chest, but he vanished.

I sat up.

Where had he gone?

I tried to stand, but my ankle was swollen and bruised. I rolled onto my hands and knees and struggled to my feet, finding that I was now in what appeared to be the entrance of a castle, my eyes narrowing on a door.

I stumbled toward it and fell, moving too quickly for my injured ankle.

“Perhaps you should stay there,” said the beast, and I looked up from the floor into his dark eyes. He stood guard at the door, looking far larger than he had before. “Your knees seem to like it.”

“Fuck you.”

“You will,” he said. “Far sooner than you think if you leave my castle.”

I felt the color drain from my face, and it seemed to spark joy in the beast’s eyes. Until his gaze lowered. I was covered in mud, and now that I was inside and warm, it was drying on my skin.

“Bathe,” he said. “You look and smell like a pig.”

I glared, rising to my feet and crossing my arms over my chest. It seemed ridiculous to hide now, but his sudden cold demeanor reminded me how silly I had been this evening. I should have tried to kill him the moment I met his gaze. Instead, I’d let him touch me and it had done nothing but give him power over me.

My mouth twisted into a disgusted smile.

“Do I repulse you?” I asked, gleeful at the thought.

He arched a brow.

“Clearly not.”

I kept his gaze, unwilling to let my eyes wander, knowing well enough what he meant. I could still feel the hard press of his cock against me.

Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with power here.

I looked around the entryway, which was dark despite several lit candles waning away in corners, noticing that flowering vines covered the walls and draped from the ceiling. Behind me was a staircase covered in moss, the rails tangled in trailing vines, creating a path to a second floor that looked like the dark woods of the Enchanted Forest.

I was no longer surprised that I had found myself outside once I had left the beast’s room. It seemed that his entire castle was a forest.

“Where do you suggest I bathe?” I asked.

“Before me,” he said, and once again, my surroundings changed. Suddenly, I was in a large, cavernous room. Water wept from the rocky walls of a grotto into a dark pool overflowing into a small stream that disappeared into the darkness of the room.

I turned to face the beast, furious.

“I will not bathe in front of you,” I said.

“If you will not bathe in front of me, then you will bathe in front of them,” he said, inclining his head to the darkness of the room, which was lit by several pairs of red eyes. Awful, raspy laughs followed, and the creatures in the shadow came into the light.

The eyes belonged to several short goblins with long, sharp teeth and taloned fingers. Their hair was long and scraggly, more akin to the roots of an old tree. On their heads were pointed caps, red from blood, which they had let mat their hair and drip down their faces.