Beastly Desires

Chapter Twenty-Six

"What happened between you and the old witch that caused you to become what you are now?" It was a leap to ask but she needed to know.

Sébastien reclined back into his chair, bringing his leg up over his knee. It was such a human gesture that Colette nearly forgot that he wasn't always a beast.

"She wasn't old to begin with. In fact, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen." His gaze slid to hers and Colette felt her face warm.

"Oh?" She breathed.

"I was six and ten years old when I met her. Celeste was her name. I thought it was as pretty as she was and worshiped her from afar. At the time she had been an extended relative of one of the maids when my father was Lord over the estate. They put her in the most ill-fitting clothes and put her to work in the garden, but they knew her beauty couldn't be concealed by any rag placed upon her. I wanted her the first day I met her in that garden. She was tilling the soil when I came up behind her. She had the most mesmerizing eyes. So green you thought you were staring into a candle lit forest. She smiled at me and we immediately became acquainted with one another. She was a year younger than me and had traveled far to be here. Though her stay was not permanent. She was to be betrothed to another."
Colette listened carefully. Sébastien had leaned his head back, sinking into the past as he relayed what had happened.

"I knew I shouldn't have kissed her that day. She refused my proposal and I kissed her. She slapped me good. Told me I sullied her. I don't know what came over me. Rage. Pure rage. I felt that she had led me on. The countless days we spent in that garden talking, sharing secrets, dreaming about the future. I knew I was in love with her but she loved another."

Sébastien took a shaky breath. "I... I couldn't help myself. I was angry, heart broken. I felt debased and used. We were in the stables when I had proposed to her. God. I was so sure she'd say yes and we would marry and live happily ever after. I was a fool." He chuckled bitterly. "A lust hungry fool and I wanted her. I wanted her to myself before she gave her maidenhead away to someone else. So I took her."

He stole her body, so she stole his. Aarav's words echoed in her mind.

"I forced myself onto her and when she tried to scream I gagged her with a horse's rein. I fumbled at putting myself into her. Hell. It was my first time too. But I was determined to have her. The need was too strong and when I entered her, her cry for help dissolved and she turned quiet. So quiet while I took her. Robbed her of her purity. Something evil exploded from her as I finished. Something dark and old. I remember falling back onto the ground and the air in the stable suddenly turned violent. Whipping up hay and debri. It circled around Celeste like a funnel and her eyes turned black. Her hair became white as snow and her body morphed into a crooked, slender figure clothed in a robe of black. A black so dark it absorbed all light into it. I stared in horror as her once beautiful face contorted into a hollowed, wretched, old woman. I was mortified. All I could do was lay there with my trousers down to my ankles. I tried to yell but she grabbed my throat and lifted me into the air. Both of us. We were flying through the air until we landed outside the castle gates. She pointed her crooked finger at me and a voice so cold filled my ears, filled my body as she spoke her curse over me, over the people who lived and served within our castle walls. It was all I could do not to faint as my body was stolen and transformed into this." He gestured to himself, his eyes simmering with contempt.

"I... I woke up in a cell. My own family had chained me to the wall and put a collar around my neck." Sébastien touched his neck as if he could still feel it's weight.

"Unruly rage kindled inside of me as they stood on the other side of the cell with disgust and fear in their eyes. My father hated me the most. He took one look at me and declared that his son was dead. It sparked something in me. Suddenly I wanted to kill him. And I did. I killed him and then my mother and everyone else in my family. And when I was done. When their blood soaked my fur and their screams echoed in my ears I tried killing myself."

Colette let out a small gasp, covering her mouth. She couldn't believe the things he told her. The truth he laid bare before her. She knew it did not come easy for him and she felt her heart open to him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and meant it.

Sébastien leaned forward onto his thighs, dipping his head down. "Ever since then I've struggled with my rage. With... other desires. It's part of this blasted curse. Whatever I felt that day when I took Celeste, it's been heightened, severely. I lose control sometimes. Sometimes I give into those desires. I'm so tired."

Colette watched this beast of a man shudder. She felt the need to reach out and put her hand on his back. He shuddered again beneath her touch.

"I'm sorry. I... I couldn't possibly understand what it's like to not have control over certain... desires, but I know everything is not without purpose. Without fulfillment. Completion. Certainly there is a way to break the curse."

Sébastien groaned. "There is a way to break the curse and free me from this body. Free Niel and Beatrice."

Colette leaned closer to him, her hand finding its way into his silky fur at the nape of his neck. "What is it? How do you break the curse?"

He looked up at her with soulless eyes. "Death."