Taming the Beast

“Good morning,” I told the cook.

“Good morning,” she replied, still chopping some carrots. “I guess you and the master slept late.”

I dithered, because I didn’t know what to say. “Yes, we were up all night,” would be a lie. I had fallen asleep immediately, only to wake up to an empty bed in the morning. So I changed the subject. “Could I have some bread, please?”

“I made some plates for you and the master. I thought that you might have worked up an appetite.”

I blushed a lot. None of my father’s servants would have dared to be so bold, but it was rapidly becoming clear that the prince’s servants did not fear him. They were extremely informal, as if their jobs were assured and always would be.

Strange.

“I, um, haven’t seen him this morning?”

The cook grunted as she pushed some metal skewers through a chicken.

“I expect he’s getting his beauty sleep.”

Beauty sleep? He hadn’t been in bed this morning. If he was getting beauty sleep, it wasn’t in our marriage bed.

What if he had vanished to sleep with someone else? The thought made the blood in my veins turn to ice. I just didn’t know what I would do if my new husband stepped out on me so soon.

I’d enjoyed last night, but what if he hadn’t? What if he didn’t like aggressive women and sincerely regretted marrying me?

The bread and cheese tasted like sawdust. I knew that logically they were probably fine. The bread was warm. But I just couldn’t eat more than a few bites. I tore the bread into two pieces, put a slice of cheese in the middle, and snuck the rest onto Marceau’s plate.

“I saw that. What, you don’t like bread and cheese?”

She had turned around and was giving me the same kind of look my governess gave me when she found me hiding with a book yet again.

“I am just saving it for later. Goodbye now.” I slid sideways out the door and ran for it. I didn’t know my way around the castle, but I saw a door that looked like it would connect to the outside.

Awoken

Marceau

When I woke up after the night of the full moon, I could smell something. My mate. My new wife. She was here.

She shouldn’t be here. The secret passages were well concealed. My room was definitely far away from anywhere that she should venture. My mind said one thing, but my nose said another. My bear insisted that our mate was outside.

I looked around the room. Less destruction than usual. I must have slept too deeply to tear up the room as I sometimes did. I found my discarded clothing and got dressed. I needed to see my mate.

I didn’t have a mirror, so I did the best that I could. I didn’t have a valet unless it was absolutely necessary. One of the footmen assisted me in times of dire need, but otherwise I didn’t care. My people didn’t see me very often. I smiled ruefully as I thought of my subjects seeing me like this, the night after a transformation.

As I got out of the room, I knew instinctively that she was outside of the door to my mother’s rose garden. Roses were sacred to our family, since they were the heart of our right to rule our kingdom. My mother’s specially bred two-toned roses required a lot of care, so it was a big tangled now. None of the gardeners could work in it. It was simply too thorny. But I knew that she was inside it.

I made my way to the door and opened it. The bright sunlight hurt my eyes. As a bear, I could see in very low light. The sun at full strength was painful. I sniffed the air. She was definitely here. I followed my nose and my bond to find her at the edge of the rose garden. There wasn’t a path cut through the garden, so I picked my way through it to her.

She was climbing the wall.

My heart sank. I knew that I hadn’t been the most attentive husband in the day that we’d had together, but I thought that taking her to my bed meant something.

Apparently not.

She was three feet off the ground when I put my hands around her waist and brought her back to Earth. She screamed like I was a demon coming out of hell, and I wasn’t feeling too angelic at that moment.

“What were you doing?” my bear growled. He didn’t like the idea of our mate leaving us. I liked it even less than he did.

“I was just trying to get out of the garden. It’s beautiful, but it’s totally unkempt. You’ve got to get your gardeners in here.”