Taming the Beast

Baylee swallowed, doing her best to organize her thoughts and keep track of the story they were telling. “So this Ellshonna woman had turned you both down for marriage?” A slight chill went through her as she recalled just how unbalanced Sam had been after her rejection. Was she dealing with two more men cut from the same cloth? That gave her the first hint of apprehension she’d experienced since confirmation that they were the beasts.

“Yes. She claimed it was too soon, but I was hopeful that she would finally relent.”

Duncan snorted. “I couldn’t contain myself for long after I followed her here, and I burst in on them. She was in his arms, and I immediately challenged him to a duel.”

Nick shook his head. “I was eager to return the challenge, until it finally sunk in that he was challenging me because he thought I was stealing his woman—the woman I thought was mine.”

“We turned on her together, demanding an explanation.” Duncan snorted. “She told us she’d fallen for both of us, and she didn’t mean to lead us on, but she couldn’t possibly choose.”

Nick shook his head. “We insisted she make a choice, and when she refused, we both told her we wanted nothing more to do with her.”

Relief swept through Baylee at his words, and she was happy to realize they hadn’t been cursed, or whatever the circumstances that had changed them into the beasts, because they had been stalking her or trying to force Ellshonna to take them. “I guess she didn’t like that much?”

Duncan and Nick shared a look before they both laughed. It was kind of a rueful, almost bitter sound, but it still held amusement. “No, not at all. Ellshonna did not like rejection, and she revealed to us that she’d been keeping more than one secret.”

“She was a witch, and she cursed us that we would be our beastly side that we had kept hidden from her by night and live until we found a woman we could both share, who loved us in return. Then she left us.”

“We went after her,” said Duncan. “Not because we had changed our minds about sharing her, but because we wanted to ensure there wasn’t really a curse.”

“As soon as we stepped out into the moonlight, our clothes ripped away, and we became the forms you saw earlier tonight. It didn’t take long to discover that if we tried to leave the lands here, we were beasts all the time. So not only had she cursed us to do something that we loathed the idea of before we could be free, but she had made it as difficult as possible. We’re tied to the estate until the curse is broken.”

“It took almost a hundred years for us to reach the point where we could consider sharing a woman,” said Duncan. “It got easier as time passed, but we didn’t find that special connection with anyone.

“Over the years, we found ways to meet women, but none of them felt right,” said Nick.

“How have you met them?” asked Baylee.

Duncan look slightly embarrassed when he said “You aren’t the first librarian we’ve hired. After they’ve reorganized our library, we always return it to a disorganized state. We’ve also found other reasons to invite women to the estate over the years, and the Internet has made that easier. But until you, we haven’t felt the missing connection with any of them.”

A dart of pain shot through her. “I’m just a convenient female that you’ve settled on to break the curse.”

Nick frowned. “Of course you aren’t. We care about you.”

“Me and the zillion other women you’ve invited before me. Did you just pick me at random?” She sniffed, trying to hide her hurt. That she was just one in a long line of many that they had test-driven to break their curse sent a shard of agony through her chest. “I’m just here for your convenience.”

“No, that isn’t it at all. If we were just picking randomly, there were at least fifteen hundred other resumes on LinkedIn that we could have selected that met the criteria, which is a female around our age. We looked through all of the profiles, and it wasn’t until we both saw your picture and had a strong reaction to it that we decided to invite you. We were hoping you were the one, because we reacted so strongly to you even before we met you.”

Baylee bit her lip. “I want to believe you, but I need time to think about all this. I can’t just be a convenient substitute, or a warm body. There has to be something more for this to work.”

“Don’t you feel it too?” asked Duncan, sounding agonized.

She hesitated for a moment. “I definitely feel something, but now I’m not sure what it is. I’m questioning everything. I just don’t know what to do or think.”

“Is it because we’re beasts?” asked Nick with an air of resignation that suggested he was fully prepared for that possibility.

“No, that’s actually the least of my concerns. I feel like my entire world has tilted on its axes, and there’s a lot I’m going to have to change about my belief system, including incorporating the existence of magic, but that isn’t the biggest fear.” She couldn’t verbalize the biggest fear, which was loving them deeply only to have them not love her the same way in return. If it was a simple matter of them both agreeing on the same woman, and getting her to accept them, then how could she ever be sure that they wanted her and loved her for her, and not just as a means to break the curse?

Chapter 5

As she often did in times of distress, Baylee turned to books as a means of escape. There seemed little point in continuing with reorganizing the library until she had decided if she was going to stay with them. Otherwise, they would simply hire another librarian and hope she was the mate they sought.

The room still became her refuge over the next two days as she tried to sort out her thoughts while avoiding Nick and Duncan. They maintained a respectful distance, which she appreciated, and even had Mrs. Farley bring her trays for food.

It was obvious they weren’t trying to push her, but in a way, that made it even harder to decide. If they had been encroaching on the time she asked for to consider the situation, she would have been more certain of their assertions that they needed her and cared deeply about her.

That was an unfair stance, since she had specifically requested time and distance, but the thing she had asked for was leaving her raw and aching. She missed them, and the connection they had found, and it was leading her toward trusting the bond forming between them. She just wished she could be absolutely certain that it was her specifically they needed to break the curse, rather than being a convenient warm body to whom they were both attracted.

Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it from her pocket with a frown. She had begun to dread looking at the screen, and she wasn’t at all surprised to see Sam had sent her a text message. It was at least the third one of the day, and it was barely after noon. She started to delete it, but her gaze moved to the words as she tried to figure out what had caught her attention.