Page 4 of Beast’s Surrender, Beauty’s Revenge

CHAPTER FOUR

ALMAS

The Beast pulled back, stretching to his full height, and roared, his crypt breath falling cold across my face as I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut. In a brief, horrid flash, I imagined him wrapping his rough hands around my throat and squeezing, squeezing until my neck cracked and I fell, limp, on the floor.

I’d been alone in the woods for days, and that that was how it might end—I almost laughed.

But as he fell silent, breath heaving so hard that his shoulders rose high with each inhale, I opened my eyes and looked at him.

He was still just a man. Yes, formidable. Yes, terrifying.

But he was the kind of monster I could handle—the one with all his brutality right there on the surface. It wasn’t hidden under fine fabrics and measured words so long and winding I hardly knew what they meant.

Lord Uther had liked that—to find a peasant who was cowed by his cleverness, his wealth. He’d take them and bend them and break them, then drop them back on their family’s stoop as if nothing had ever happened, leaving them to pull their lives together.

Some, I’d heard, didn’t even bother with that, and simply gave up.

“You’re angry,” I whispered, searching his eyes. “I’m angry too. And no one else will help me. I have no one else. Please”—my breath hitched—“please help me. Then—gods, I don’t care about then . Kill everyone. Set yourself up as lord of our town and all its surrounding lands. I don’t care. I only want to save my father.”

The Beast’s eyes narrowed curiously, his brow furrowed as if the concept of a father was new to him. He must have one. He was—yes, certainly human, and normal so far as I could tell, but for a lack of speech.

Every inch of him looked perfectly usual, well, for a warrior of considerable height. His bare torso rippled with muscle, a bellybutton dipping at the narrowed part of his waist.

He was human, even if he was something else besides, and somewhere, he had a father.

“You felled armies,” I reminded him, and I reached out for his shoulder. He shuddered under the touch.

At first, he drew back, glaring cautiously down at me. But when I froze and left my hand there in the air, the Beast let a huff out through his nose and stepped forward once more, pressing into my hand until my palm flatted in the smooth dip between his collarbone and chest.

“I only need you to kill one man.”

“Fool,” he hissed.

I swallowed roughly. “Yes,” I whispered. “And I’m a desperate one.” Steadying my nerves, I stuck my chin up. I was well aware of my vulnerabilities—a spindle-thin neck, weak arms, a narrow chest. But I had long legs that took me far and fast, and my fingers were nimble and clever, the calluses on my fingertips hard from stitching leather. More than all that, I had reached the end of what I could tolerate—this constant fear, this loneliness.

If this man wanted to shove his fist into my vulnerabilities and batter them until I broke, how was that any different from what Uther intended?

“If you want to kill me,” I said, “do it. I’m not afraid of you. There is one person in this world that I fear, and he’s already taken everything from me, so if you will not help me, kill me. It would be kinder than sending me away with nothing.”

“Kinder?” His heavy brow furrowed.

There was no doubt in me when I nodded. “Yes. I cannot go on like I am. I will not. So save me the trouble of finding a high cliff to step off of and help me .”

I stared at him ardently, unsure how much of what I’d said that he understood. He’d scarcely spoke, but he seemed to have my tongue. To some measure, at least, he’d understood me. He’d picked out the words that mattered to echo, the ones he wanted to understand better.

And he did it again. “Father?”

I nodded fast. “My father. His name is Henry. I’m Almas. He—he gardens, it’d be too generous to call him a farmer, and he’s an inventor. He... well, what he tries to do is make the world better. He looks for places where people’s lives might be improved and tries to help them. He is good .” Certainly better than me, given that I was here and ready to throw countless lives away to save his. He would’ve been horrified to find out, but—well, better horrified and alive.

With a shaky breath, I withdrew my hand from the Beast’s heaving shoulder and fell to my knees there on the dirt floor he’d knelt on only moments before. In front of me, I wound my fingers together and clasped my hands.

“Please help me. Lord Uther took him. He means to—he—” I shuddered. I’d not yet allowed myself to put name to what Uther intended, but now, hoping something I said might sway the Beast, I had to try. “He intends to rape me, force me to choose between myself and my father, and I have no leverage. Nowhere else to turn. I’m begging,” I rasped, tears stinging my eyes. I was so fucking tired after stumbling senselessly for days, fleeing my town in fear. “Please.”