6 (part1)

What the hell was taking Camren so long? He should have been back by now, Beast thought as stalked the dark halls of his castle.

Beast stalked the dark halls of his castle. Too anxious to stay confined in a single room, he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time the previous several days. When he did sleep, he still woke up restless and unhappy, pissed off that, other than that one night, he had yet to see his beautiful Beauty. Every time he closed his eyes, he hoped to hear her voice call to him from the darkness. Each time he drifted off into a somewhat decent sleep, he waited for the soft touch of her hands against his flesh.

Taking a break from his feverish pacing, Beast paused and looked down at his disfigured body and wanted to roar out his outrage. Really, who was he fooling? There was no way something as precious and delicate as the woman from his dream could ever love something like him. With claws, almost talons for hands, how could he truly touch her without scaring her wonderful flesh? How could she look upon his face, more beast than man, with curved horns sticking out of his head, and think of him as handsome?

I am a fool…

He knew that. Knew that when she thought about him, if she thought about him, she would think of the prince she had met in her dreams. If she yearned for him, craved for him as much as he craved for her, she thought of the man he’d once been. The man who’d had women begging him for his touch. In a time where he was a prince, destined to be king—in a world where he had anyone and everything he wanted.

As much as he wanted to drop to his knees and scream his hurt and pain out to the world, he would rather feed his rage and anger. The more he thought about the satisfaction that would be plastered across Cassandra’s face if she saw him give in to despair was enough to make him keep his shit together. The witch-bitch deserved nothing from him, except to be served as a hot meal on his dinner plate.

What if Cassandra found out about Beauty? That he had found the key to his freedom? What would she do?

No doubt, try, and kill Beauty or keep them apart by any means necessary. The thought of watching his freedom slip further and further out of his grasp, left to live in an eternity of dark loneliness, was enough to have him pushing all his self-doubt out of his mind and allowing conviction to solidify in his chest.

Growling, Beast turned and headed down the dark hall and towards his throne room. He would not let this chance slip through his fingers… he couldn’t. He wanted his life back. Shit, he wanted his face back. He reached the large double doors at the end of the hall. With one large claw, he pushed the door open and stalked into the room. Each step he took echoed around him, and he refused to look down and see his reflection through the beautifully crafted marble, the image of what he was branded into his memory. He didn’t need a reminder of his ugliness every five seconds. Instead, Beast’s gaze went around the dreary and depressing room, and he remembered a time, long before he had been cursed to be the monster he was, where the throne room had been his favorite area in the place. He had hosted a party just about every day, sometimes large and extravagant and other times simple with just a few of his close friends that he missed dearly. But like his looks and his future, they had been stripped from him.

Their shrieks of horror and their faces of terror were branded into his mind. Those he thought closest to him had run away in fear from one look at him. It was like a punch to the gut. One by one they all ran from the castle, fearful that the gruesome monster would eat them in the dead of night… as if he would.

The very thought had offended him and hurt him to his core. While he wanted to lash out, his brother had stopped Beast. Even though Camren could barely stand the sight of Beast, Camren had stood in the way, stopping his brother from making another huge mistake and proving that he was indeed the monster Cassandra thought he was.

“Brother, though you may look the part, we both know that I am the only beast here… Do not give her the joy of seeing you succumb to your despair. Not now… not ever.”

Those were his brother’s words, words that Beast had latched onto and used to drag himself up from the dark rage that had consumed him. Had it not been for Camren keeping his brother in check, even when the younger brother didn’t want to, Beast didn’t know where he would be.

He turned his gaze to the large throne that his father had once called his own and vowed that to be free from his shackles soon enough. Stepping up on the platform that separated the throne chair from the rest of the room, Beast sat on his father’s golden throne. It had been so long since Beast last graced the gold throne, that he forgot the feeling of completeness that consumed him each time he sat in the chair. He was meant to be a ruler, not some creature lurking in the shadows, searching for something that could never exist. Beauty. He wanted her, and he was growing tired of waiting for his brother. If Camren didn’t hurry and finish whatever he was doing, Beast would have his brother for his next meal. “Where the hell is he?”

As if summoned, Camren all but kicked in the throne room doors.

“Where the hel—” The scent of fresh blood slammed into him, and he was forced to take a moment to collect himself. Once he was sure he wouldn’t go into some blind bloodlust rampage, Beast watched his brother as he dragged in the body of some low-life human, dripping blood staining the marbled floor.

Not that Camren seemed to care. In fact, if Beast read his brother well, his anger had finally got the better of him.

“What happened?” Beast asked as he rose from his seat to meet his brother at the edge of the platform. “Don’t you think you went a little overboard?”

While he didn’t like that his brother had gone ballistic on some poor, defenseless man, Beast wasn’t surprised by Camren’s violence. Too many times Beast had stepped in and stopped his brother from doing something reckless. Though in truth, most of Camren’s actions had been justified. Beast just doubted that the man he looked at on the floor deserved the beating that was handed to him.

“He was in the garden”, his brother all but growled as he tossed the man to Beast’s feet, “with a bag of our mother’s roses.”

“He cut roses from mother’s garden…” On second thought, maybe the human did deserve the ass-kicking. Those roses were sacred treasures, worth more than his weight in gold. Beast’s mother had grown those enchanted roses long before he and Camren were born. After she died, they were all that remained of her. Her very essence and a piece of her soul grew within those roses. Whenever he and Camren felt especially down and lost, they would sit in the rose garden and swear they could feel the presence of her soothing them and telling them not to fear what lay ahead. Camren had an especially soft spot for the roses and visited the garden more than Beast ever did.

The only rose he valued more than the roses in the garden was the witch’s enchanted rose in his bedroom.

“How did he get in?” Confused and no longer enticed by the scent of blood or the proposition of a hot meal, Beast shook the human off his clawed foot. The man rolled to the floor in a limp heap.

“I have no clue,” Camren said as he stepped back. “Maybe the barrier is breaking.”

That was too much for Beast to hope for. Cassandra’s magic had strengthened over time, so he doubted the barrier that kept him trapped in this castle was weakening. If anything, it had probably strengthened over the last century. For a moment, he looked at Camren and envied his freedom. The fact that he could come and go from this depressing place as much as he wanted… but when Beast thought about what his brother had to do to keep that freedom, Beast decided he would much rather be stuck in a dark castle than with Cassandra for the rest of his life.

“Doubt it. Who is he?” Beast took his seat on the throne, his nights of missed sleep suddenly creeping upon him.

“Some wandering traveler from what I can see. Here,” Camren handed him a folded piece of paper., “he had this in his pocket.”

“What is this?” Even as he asked the question, Beast unfolded the piece of old and blood-stained paper. When he laid eyes on the map he had drawn years ago, his eyes widened and darted between the map and the beaten man at his feet.

“I thought you might want to see that. Oh, and I also found this.” This time his brother handed Beast a photo. Instantly, his heart rate tripled as he looked at the picture. “Once I calmed down, I searched his pockets and found that. I figured it was too much of a coincidence that he had not only gotten past the barrier but had managed to find the garden,” Camren continued.

Beauty… this man knew his Beauty.

Judging by the family portrait he had in his hand, the man was her father. Sitting in a chair was a woman who looked identical to Beauty, except she had long braids that were styled into a single braid that hung over her shoulder. To her right was a man who Beauty looked nothing like, and for that Beast was glad. Next to the man stood a younger version of Beauty, a dazzling smile on her face as she hugged her father. Two other women stood at the father’s side. They were lovely creatures, women he would have loved to have in his bed before he had been cursed. With their cold and proud expressions, he would have enjoyed taking their egos down a notch. But after everything, he only saw Beauty, only wanted her, and the man at his feet was the key to unlocking Beast’s freedom.

“Did he have a wallet and ID on him?” Beast asked.

“Already ahead of you. From the information I got from his ID, his name is Philip Lamar and he lives only a couple of hundred miles away from here.” Camren smiled. “No distance at all.”

“Good. Then I have a message for you to deliver.”

A wide smile spread across Beast’s face, clearly showing his large fangs, as the realization hit him that his dreams were within his grasp. Right under Cassandra’s nose, he had gotten the key to his prison.