Page 16 of Beauty and Her Beasts (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 1)

I didn’t care for an apology. I cared about my solitude. Moon didn’t seem inclined to move, so I hobbled forward another step, letting out one last growl. Moon finally took the hint and ran off into the woods, likely back toward Declan’s place.

I shook my head and shifted back the second I was sure he wasn’t coming back.

But my solitude was already shattered once. I was no closer to peace than I had been when I first saw the woman. I had zero doubts someone else was bound to stumble upon my derelict and try to converse with me. It was only a matter of time.

I hated pity. I despised people who showed me pity even more so. Knowing my luck, the next person to stumble upon me would probably be Gunnar. Recently, he had been overly persistent in getting me to mingle with the people. Do my duty. Own up to my inheritance.

His insistence was something I tolerated less and less by the day.

I stood from the ground and brushed off the back of my pants with my one arm and frowned at the empty crate once more. I would have to replenish my stash now. Or perhaps, it was a lost cause altogether?

Some help. The waste that it was. It was supposed to take the smell of the new girl and her beauty away from me. It was supposed to erase her completely from my memory. But it wasn’t effective enough to permanently work.

She was still inside my head, taking up my thoughts again. I would have to figure out a more solid solution to my problem, but first I needed to sleep off my horrible migraine.

Giving up at the lake, officially, I headed for my bed. As I made my way back to the castle, I passed Declan as he busied himself with cutting wood for the coming winter just in front of his cabin. We had access to a chainsaw, but who was I to tell him about that? If he wanted to do things the hard way, then I wasn’t going to stop him.

Moon rushed to him, still whining from the interaction from earlier. Declan stopped chopping and looked up at me. He gave a half-hearted wave and then turned to comfort his wolf. I shook my head. I wanted interaction with him about as much as I wanted to shove hot needles into my nail beds. Besides, if I had entertained the idea of a conversation with him, it would only be a matter of minutes before he brought up some sort of lame excuse to talk to me about my missing arm or my parents.

I continued to my room in the basement. Leaving Declan to his wood chopping and wolf.

Somehow, and by the grace of whatever was looking out for me, I managed to dodge and duck everyone else in the hotel on the way to my room. Including Gunnar and that girl. But the second I entered my room, a piece of paper lying on my bed caught my attention. It was a piece of paper that was most certainly not there when I left my room the day before.

Anger boiled through every vein and nerve in my body. I huffed out a growl and stormed over to the thing, snatching it from my mattress. My room was hidden for a purpose and it wasn’t so anyone could just waltz right in and invade my privacy. As I unfolded the paper, I discovered it was a letter from Gunnar, of all people.

I thought about crumpling the damn thing up and tossing it into the nearby sewer completely unread, but Gunnar would only figure out a way to deliver his message again and again until I finally listened.

I had half a mind of going up there and tearing him a new asshole for the simple fact of invading my private space. There was a reason why I chose to live in the basement and it wasn’t so he could come down, into my room, and deliver his little notes whenever he damn well pleased.

With much annoyance, I read the single line scribbled on the paper.

Talk to her.

I rolled my eyes as he signed the page with his first initial. Pretentious was not a quality I would have ever given Gunnar, but surprises never ceased. Regardless, I had a bigger problem on my hands. If Gunnar found where I slept, then I needed to move.

I collapsed onto my bed and screamed into my pillow because that was the only thing that would come close to alleviating the pent-up frustration pushing my patience over the edge and keep me from murder.

Was it too hard to respect my need for privacy and solitude? Why did he insist on pushing me to the limits?

At some point, he will get it through his head that I don’t want to be bothered or I will have to make my stance perfectly clear.

But I wasn’t going to do anything until I slept off the hammering in my head.

7

ALLANA

I had decided that I was going to spend the first day of my first weekend of my new life sitting in the garden at a small picnic table, writing my father a letter describing the beauty of the gardens in the morning. The birds sang sweet songs as a gentle, cool breeze rustled through the trees that surrounded the garden. The heat from the sun kissed my face. My surroundings were so beautiful. And, almost as if by magic, the roses that filled the bushes were still fully in bloom and smelled sweeter than honey.

I breathed in deep their perfume as I signed the letter and slipped it into the envelope.

A bark sounded from close by as I slipped the letter into my belt. Before I had a chance to look in the direction of the sound, a tawny wolf jumped into my lap, startling me. He licked my face and made tiny, high-pitched whimpers as I tried to force him off of me while laughing.

“Moon!” A man’s voice shouted.

I looked around the massive creature to find Declan running up. His eyes were wide with shock.

“I’m guessing this massive creature belongs to you?” I asked. Moon continued to lick my face, and I chuckled.

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