Chapter Seven

Moments after her terrified and irrational reaction, Merric uncovered the numerous silver platters that Ginny, in her fear, had neglected to notice. Scents of roasted ham, poached eggs, and various fruits met her nose and she greedily sucked in air, as if that were sustenance enough. When she remained standing, sucking in air, Merric walked to her and offered his arm, leading her to the chair opposite the beast.

She sat still for several moments. Silverware clinked together as the beast dove into the meal. Red wine sloshed in his glass, spilling all over him and the table. Food soon sat matted in his fur, on the table, on the floor. Ginny wrinkled her nose in disgust, frowning. The beast shoved food into his mouth, not caring how much actually made it to the huge cavity. Ginny began to feel queasy.

The beast noticed she wasn't touching her food. "What the matter?" he growled. "Don't you like eggs?"

Ginny flinched and gingerly took up her silver-plated fork and knife. She loaded a small bite of salted eggs and a bit of ham onto her fork and slowly put it to her mouth. The beast nodded, satisfied. Ginny suddenly found she was ravenous. Ignoring the beast, she shoveled food into her mouth, taking care, however, not to be as messy as the beast.

After a few moments, she grabbed the pitcher of water and poured herself a glass before Merric could step in and help her. Putting the pitcher down, she caught the beast's glare. She froze. "What?"

His only answer was to deepen his scowl.

She bit her lip for a moment, then continued eating.

Merric stepped forward, "My lady, perhaps…"

"Leave us, Merric," the beast's voice boomed. Merric gave her an apologetic glance and removed himself from the room. Ginny shivered.

"Are you cold?"

She glanced up. "No."

The beast grunted. "Are you afraid?"

Ginny swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Why?"

Ginny blinked. Why? She just stared at him, incredulous.

"Can you speak?" His voice rang out, dripping with sarcasm. "Well? Can you? Or are you too good for the likes of me, my lady?" That made Ginny angry.

"Yes, I can speak," she muttered. "And I'm no inferior of yours."

He stared at her. "Don't you know who I am?"

Ginny shrugged, swallowing her fear. "No, nor do I care to."

The beast laughed, a loud long roar. "Well, there's some fire in the wench after all."

Ginny clenched her teeth, focusing on her eggs.

"Come now, little maiden, don't back down now. I've only just begun."

She bristled at his tone. He watched her, his eyes narrowed. She looked hurt, terrified, spirited. If he hadn't known himself better, he might have frightened by the regret that seared his chest at his harshness with her. Might have. He grunted and returned to his meal.

"When can I go home?"

He looked up, startled by her question. "I told you. No one leaves."

"But I'm no prisoner!"

He growled. "There are rules we all must follow." The beast's glare gave no room for argument.

She argued anyway. "You can't keep me here. I have to return home to my family."

"You should have thought about that before you stepped onto my land."

She found it difficult to breathe. "So, you're just going to keep me locked up? How dare you!"

The beast roared to his feet. "How dare you to dictate how I run my home! I am the master of this castle and all within it obey me!"Ginny gasped and cowered back.

"Please," she whimpered in his shadow. "Let me go!"

The beast ignored her pleas. "Rule number one. Anyone caught trying to leave this place will be killed. Anyone," he snarled, undaunted by the tears streaming down her face. "Rule number two. If you want anything, ask Merric. Don't bother me. Ever." Each syllable enunciated his anger more and with each work Ginny shrank back. "Are we clear?"

Ginny glared at him, not bothering to hide her own anger. Throwing her delicate gold cloth napkin on the table, she pushed back her chair, the legs scraping the tiled floor, and stalked toward the door.

"GINNY!" The beast roared after her. "I did NOT dismiss you." Slashes of red crossed his vision at being dismissed so easily. Ginny froze halfway to the door and once again his chest nearly melted with the pain of guilt. He watched, clinging to his anger like a shield, as she clenched her teeth and walked slowly back to her seat. It was clear to see her fury, her terror, warring with each other.

Ginny sat rigidly still, barely eating more than a few bites. She fought back tears and anger, unable to stomach the loss of her dignity along with everything else.

He smirked and finished his meal quietly, taking his time, letting her sit there. He shoved his guilt away violently, reveling in her fury. And her tenacity. The girl, this pint of a girl, had survived almost two days without food or water and had just lost everything on account of him. And there she sat, holding her head high as she endured his anger and resentment.

He growled his contentment and continued to watch her. Strands of auburn hair had slipped from the braid that held it in place. He blinked, suddenly hit with a forgotten memory…

"Hmm, I don't think the red one will go well with your hair, nor the purple one." He held up the cloths to her deep auburn curls. "Definitely not." He picked up an emerald green scarf. "Ah, what about this one?"

She shook her head. "You know I don't dance at the festivals. I have no need for scarves."

He pointed out the ones he wanted to the merchant."We'll take the green one and that cream colored one there. The one with the white stitching." He pulled a few coins out of his pocket and traded them for the cloths.

She grabbed his arm to stop him. "No. Please. I can't…you can't."

He laughed, patting her hand as he would a child's. "Sweetheart, I can do anything I please. And I please to give these to you as a gift. You never know when you might want to dance and when you decide that day has come, you won't have to scurry around to find proper dancing scarves."

He blinked, swallowing hard. He knew her. Not just her name. He knew she didn't like to dance at festivals. In fact, she avoided them at all costs. He also knew…

He also knew…that…Try as he might, he couldn't remember anything else. Confused, he swallowed a gulp of wine. Had Merric mentioned all of this to him? No, he never spoke to Merric any more than necessary. These were his own memories. From before his exile. But how was that possible? He had inhabited this castle for hundreds of years under the witch's curse. Ginny's great-great-grandfather hadn't been alive at the time of his banishment.

He didn't want to think about it any longer. Glaring at the girl across from him, he fairly shouted at her to leave his sight, which she did with all haste, knocking over her chair in the process. Emotions he thought he had killed surfaced and flinched. Remorse. Regret. Sympathy.

Dom.

The beast stood abruptly, not catching the whispered word. "Who's there?" It was a woman's voice, all ice and fire. "Show yourself! Ginny?"

Dom.

The voice sounded again. The beast glanced around. It hadn't been Ginny's voice. It most certainly hadn't been Merric's. A single shiver of fear rolled down his chest. There was no one else in the castle.

The voice didn't sound again. The beast felt as though he had missed something important, as if some living memory had come and disappeared. He held his head in his hands, trying to remember, wracking his brain.

But nothing came. He didn't remember life before the castle. He couldn't remember a life outside this fortress. Everything was blank. All he knew was that he had been here or ages, for a lifetime and more. Except…

He remembered

A pond.

Ginny.

Ribbons.

Firelight.

Bits and pieces, fragments of someone else's life flooded him. He was drowning.

A rose.

A horse.

A woman in the forest.

The rose! The beast's eyes flew open. He flung his chair back, not bothering to notice the crash and shattering of wood that followed. Breathing heavily, his heart pounding, he raced to the northernmost tower, flinging unnecessary furniture and ceramic statues out of his way. The maze of hallways and corridors blurred past.

"This I give you. I charge you with this perfect rose. The rose will wither as the One who will Save draws near. That is her true test. Unless she is willing to love a beast, to lose everything in favor of love, you will forever remain a beast, and Eden will be lost forever."

The woman's warning seemed to echo off the walls, pounding in his brain, in his very bones. He burst through the rotting oak doors that led to his private study and stopped. There is was. Safe. Sound. Whole. Sitting in the middle of the room on a low table, where it had always stood, was a perfect blood red rose. Entombed in crystal, it shimmered in the morning light that spread from the distant mountains. Abstract rainbows slithered over the dark room.

The beast heaved a sigh. The rose appeared unchanged. For now. Of course, the thought occurred to him, he couldn't trust the notion that this untried girl was his "long lost true love." She couldn't be. Please with his logic, the beast almost didn't notice the scratch of noise behind him. A noise that shouldn't be there.

He whirled, glaring around the room, perfectly silent. Only broken furniture and ripped paintings, evidence of his awesome rage, met his gaze. He turned his head. Something wasn't right. He turned his back on the room and entered a side hall, searching. Waiting.

The rooms were filthy. Shredded sofas lay everywhere and bits and pieces of cloth from the surrounding curtains hung everywhere, covering chandeliers and littering the floor. Two of the large windows were cracked beyond repair, while the remaining three were dirty enough to conceal much of the gray light that trickled in.

There! A shadow. The beast froze, waiting for the attack. He heard a footstep. Another. Another and he lunged from his hiding place and grabbed the intruder by the neck, bellowing a ferocious growl.

"My lord! My lord, stop!"

The beast dropped his hands with a growl, his eyes glowing daggers. "Merric," he growled low in his chest. "What are you doing?"
Merric stepped back, visibly shaken. "The…the girl…she's…"

"SHE'S WHAT!?"

"She's gone."

He bellowed his fury.

Ginny ran hard. She ran harder and faster than she'd ever run before. Her lungs burned and a harsh wind, the last remnant of the recent rainstorm tore at her dress. Branches struck her arms, her face, the ground slick under her feet. Her breaths came out in terrified gasps. She had to get back home! She had to get back! That place…it was worse than her darkest nightmares, haunted by a hideous beast and an eerie manservant. She hadn't even returned to her room before bolting after breakfast. She would leave the beast in his hell and return home.

She refused to realize that she had no idea which way home was. She looked for familiar territory but found only a darkening forest. She turned to look behind her for the hundredth time. The beast wasn't following her.

Not watching where she was going, she tripped over a raise tree root, catching herself as she fell into a thick mud puddle. Suddenly, she was too tired, too cold to move, to even consider moving. Breathing hard, she let the tears come, and sobbing, she lay there for what seemed like hours.

No one leaves this castle. His words followed her, freezing her heart. Maybe death was better than life inside that prison. Maybe…

Ginny froze at the sound of a twig snapping.

There it was again. Fear stopped her tears.

A growl. Footsteps. The crack of a branch. Something was trailing her. Something big. Slowly, ever so slowly, she sat up and looked around her, wiping mud from her skin. There was nothing there.

Yes, there was. Ginny caught the scream in her throat. A wolf, crouched low in the barren bushes, snarled quietly behind her. Its fur was dark as shadow. She wouldn't have seen it but for the dim sunlight that played through the forest canopy. Its yellow-gold eyes glittered.

She thought only one question before it charged: How many more were there?

The forest erupted with the sounds of the charging predator, and Ginny let out a terrified scream. Out of instinct, she rolled just as the wolf reached for her. The animal hit the mud puddle and slid, crashing into a nearby tree.

The wolf lunged, catching a chunk of her dress between its teeth. It snarled and lurched back before striking again. Ginny strained to get away, crawling, her fatiguing muscles straining as she waited for the attack. The wolf attacked once more, landing squarely on Ginny's shoulders, forcing her to the ground and knocking the breath out of her lungs. Ginny fought for breath as the wolf gnawed at her dress. His teeth ripped the delicate clothing, her fangs leaving gashes across her skin. With a whoosh of air, she found the breath to scream. The weight of the wolf was crushing her. Her left shoulder shrieked in pain. The wolf's claws punched through her skin.

Suddenly, the wolf broke off its attack, circling around her, a vicious snarl of a smile on its grim terrible face. At the back of her mind, Ginny realized it was toying with her. Sobbing with pain and fear, Ginny pulled herself to her feet, slipping in the mud. She ran. She could hear the wolf's bellow behind her and ran harder, her wounds and injured shoulder protesting. She wove in and out of the trees, searching frantically for something, ANYTHING!, that would give her an advantage.

Finally, she stopped, her chest on fire. She had come into a clearing, to the edge of a plateau, the ground dropping off not two feet in front of her. She spun, blood dripping from a deep gash in her arm. The wolf was still charging, but it had slowed, eventually coming to a stop at the edge of a forest several yards away.

She was trapped. She looked over her shoulder. Plummeting to her death was surely a much better way to die than being torn to shreds by razor sharp teeth. Warily she turned her gaze back to the wolf. Maybe it would turn away. Maybe it would…

No, she saw the gleaming hunger in its eyes and knew that in the next few moments she was going to die.

The wolf lunged, snarling, its sharp teeth bared. Ginny could only watch in horror as the wolf moved so fast her vision blurred. Then, in a shock of instinct, she ducked, flattening herself to the ground. There was a rush of wind as she felt the wolf sail over her and the animal's squeal of surprise as it fell, plummeting several hundred feet to a bed of rocks below.

Ginny lay terrified and bleeding in the sudden silence. All she heard was the whistle of the wind in her ears, the distant roll of thunder. She swallowed hard. Long seconds passed before she dared to move. As she pushed herself to her knees, she heard a terrible crunching sound. Glancing around, she looked for the wolf or whatever unearthly creature life saw fit to send her next.

Instead, she was surprised to find herself being lowered, the ground beneath her giving way. The slab of earth she sat on slowly and steadily began to separate from the cliff, starting its long tumble to join the wolf in the jagged deathbed below.

Ginny scrambled for a hold. Her left arm protested as she heaved herself toward solid ground. Just as she threw herself over the widening gap, a loud resounding snap clapped through the air and the bit of earth she had previously lain on fell.

Breathing hard, she listened for the fall. The loud thump and consequent crumbling did little to assuage her fear and pounding heart. She pushed herself closer to the forest, further from the edge of the clearing. Her heart pounding, she leaned up against a tree and cried. She sat there for what seemed like hours, listening for every sound, analyzing every shadow until her nerves were in tatters. She must have fallen asleep eventually, for she was woken as a pair of arms lifted her from the ground and she was enveloped in a thick musky scent. Out of her mind with fear, she screamed and struggled, jolted when the stranger roughly handled her injured arm. Darkness came to claim her as pain made her see red. She settled back into the darkness, grateful for the peace that was offered. If this was death, she'd take it gladly.