Page 56 of Beauty and Her Beasts (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 1)

The way he kissed me… it was like he was saying goodbye.

That created a mess of emotions within me. My anxieties hiked, and I stood there, staring at my father’s peaceful, sleeping form.

He would know what to say to make everything better, but I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. I had to figure this out on my own.

Without thinking things through, I began searching for a piece of paper and something to write with. It took about fifteen minutes of searching, but I finally found what I needed and scribbled out a quick note for my father, letting him know where I would be and instructing him to stay put.

I found an extra set of boots and slipped them on my feet. They were much too big for me, but it beat getting frostbite on my toes. With a final look at my father, and urgency filling my nerves more and more by the second, I left the cabin, and headed back for the castle, hoping I could make it before anything terrible happened.

Everything was too quiet around me as I stepped through the woods. My footsteps barely made a whisper as I stepped on the frost covered leaves that covered the round. My anxieties heightened even more. My heartbeats pulsed through my ears. My breaths created thick clouds in front of me. Not even a woodland creature made a sound.

Everything in me was urged to move faster.

I quickened my pace as I carefully stepped along the forest floor. My feet slipped in the excess room in the boots, and I knew I had to be cautious of where I was going, but I also couldn’t get myself to focus on anything but the urgency that flooded my veins.

My foot got caught on a root and I fell forward. My hand scraped along a rock embedded in the ground and covered by a layer of frost covered leaves. I hissed as a burning sensation filled my palm. I looked up and was flooded with relief when the sight of the hotel filled my view. I sucked in a breath and quickly pushed myself up from the ground, ignoring the pain that filled my legs, or even the burn in my palm. I was so close, and yet I also felt so far away.

Somehow, I knew time was running out and I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that I was faced with the very real possibility I could lose all three of the men. I hated the way that thought made me feel and I realized I made a decision. If we managed to make it through this, I was going to choose them all.

I forced my feet to move faster. My breaths burned my lungs as I continued to run. Minutes later, I stormed through the back door of the castle. My feet slid and squeaked on the tile floor as I rushed through the halls toward the front of the door.

Growls and shouts echoed toward me.

I pushed myself harder and entered the foyer as Collin charged the men with a group of people behind him carrying weapons. Literal torches and pitchforks. The large entry doors hung in tattered pieces from their hinges. My beautiful home was being destroyed by the man that I had grown to hate.

But I wasn’t going to let the sight stop me. I was going to put an end to this with as little bloodshed as possible. Come hell or high water, this was going to be the last time I had to look at Collin’s face ever again.

I pushed my legs harder than I had ever pushed them before. Seconds before the men collided, I ran between them. I stopped in the small space that was left and faced Collin and his group. Both sides stopped as I interrupted them. Shouts of shock filled the air.

I sucked in a deep breath and screamed as loud as I could, “Stop!”

22

DECLAN

I hated leaving Allana behind at my cabin, but something in my gut gnawed at me. A deep-seated warning that churned and coiled within my stomach. My animal was restless as well, and he had the intuition that rivaled the best fortune tellers. I couldn’t ignore the feeling any longer. Despite having had the chance to finally be with her, I knew Gunnar and King were probably having their asses handed to them. Because Collin wasn’t a man that should be underestimated, and that was strictly due to the fact that he wasn’t above fighting dirty either.

I left and moved as quickly as I could until the castle came into view. Then I ran.

I had gotten to the fight in the nick of time. Collin looked like he was ready to smear Gunnar and King all over the cement. My wolf took over. I shifted and jumped to their sides, growling at Collin who stumbled back a couple of steps at my sudden appearance.

King and Gunnar roared, both in their animal forms. Our voices ricocheted against the walls, echoing the sound back to us.

The people behind Collin, likely those he convinced to back him with a huge lie, stared at us with fear in their eyes. I could almost see the second-guessing they were going through as they considered backing a man like Collin was a mistake in the first place. But there were still a great deal of them who also had determination turning their faces into a mask of no emotion.

That wasn’t good.

King looked to Gunnar and toward me. He nodded once toward Collin. I lowered my head once, understanding what he wanted.

We growled as loud as we could and stalked forward. The more steps we took, the more the people standing behind Collin backed away. It didn’t take much more prompting before a majority of the people turned their tails and ran away. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a dozen or so still unwilling to move or even so much as flench. They remained firmly in place behind him, holding an array of weapons, including torches and pitchforks.

Not original, but it did the trick. Especially if they all came from a farming town.

The three of us backed off and shifted back into our human forms. Collin’s eyes settled on mine.

“You!” He could have shot arrows with his eyes along with the finger he pointed at me as he accusingly called me out.

I smirked. “Wish I could say it’s nice to see you again, but you’re sort of here crashing a party and destroying my home.”

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