Beastly Desires

Chapter Twenty-One

Sébastien climbed the last set of stairs up to the watchtower. He carried a rolled bedding of hay along with a blanket and lamp. The small candles flame inside the glass guttered against the wind that blew through the open, slotted windows of the tower's circular room.

A few discarded weapons and metal gear littered the floor, while cobwebs and dust covered a majority of everything else. A small wooden table and stool perched beneath a window and Sebastian set his lamp on top of it before rolling out his bed for the night.

Niel had served him dinner an hour ago. He also mentioned in writing about Colette's encounter with Aarav down in the kitchen. That set him to eat his food quickly before setting off towards the tower.

The sleazy, loose-mouthed cow, he no doubt said more than he should have to Colette. Sebastian still felt the rage to slice his head clean off his shoulders prickle beneath his skin.

Why did it matter to him? Gods, he knew it was pointless. He could never have the girl. She was to him a basket of ripe fruit sitting beneath a guillotin.

Sébastien settled into the hay bed and used the rolled blanket as a makeshift pillow beneath his head. The night was unforgivingly cold but he did not mind it one bit. The fire inside of him kept him uncomfortably warm. He still did not understand the form he took on from the curse and what purpose it served. All he knew was rage, lust and the desire to kill.  All of which he had succumbed to more than once.

He turned over onto his side and watched as a small field mouse scurried across the floor. The mouse stopped for a second and stared at him  before burrowing into a small pile of rubbish. Sébastien nearly laughed. It did not surprise him that his beastly self wasn't as appalling  to a little mouse.
Perhaps he thought of him as another member in his natural habitat. He certainly acted like a wild animal sometimes.

He pictured himself as a wolf prowling through the forest at night. His obsidian dark fur, masked by the night, allowed for  him to blend into the forest floor, giving him the advantage of surprise. He would meander through the winding trees, sniffing out his next victim. A whiff of something alluring would catch his nose and he'd stop dead in his tracks. Listening. Waiting. Dragging in that delectable scent through his nostrils. His whole body would go deadly still as he listened carefully.

A twig breaks and he's on the move. Treading  fast with quite stealth as he tracked the direction the noise came from. That heady scent has him drooling, pushing him faster, steering him towards his meal.

Leaves rustle and the scent becomes intoxicating as he slows and prowls through the thicket surrounding a small clearing in the woods. He pauses behind a thatch of broken tree limbs and vines and dips his head low, peering through the bramble, his eyes ablaze with hunger as he looks upon his victim.

A young human woman kneels in the center. She's naked and her long, raven hair pools down her back and over her shoulders. The loose waves sway across her supple breast and pool around her succulent thighs, so full and flushed with color.

Sébastien growled lowly, making his presence known as he moved around the tree limbs and stalked into the clearing.

The human woman looks up towards him and her eyes are like pools of crystal water. She doesn't seem alarmed by him as he circles her, scenting that dizzying smell entwined with the scent of blood.

She moves to lie on her side, her arm outstretched beneath her head and the other resting on her abdomen. That's when Sebastian sees it. The blood that trickles from the crease of her upper thighs. It streams down her golden skin in small rivets. And where the drops of blood seep into the ground, lavender begins to bloom.  The purplish flowers begin to bloom everywhere, surrounding her body, reaching up and arching over her as if it would encase her in a casket of its stems and petals.

He had to move fast. His body went low to the ground as his spine began to lengthen and straighten out. His legs and arms pulled into himself as his ribs retracted and shrank. His whole body shrank and the fur he don disappeared and was replaced with scales until he became a glittering black snake that writhed  along the ground.

The woman moaned as the flowers encased her body and Sébastien slithered towards her. Towards the scent of blood. The lavender was thick at the base, their stems forming a shield that he could not slip in between. He began to panic. A crazy wave of hunger rolled through him and all he wanted was to taste her. Just one taste. One flick of his serpent tongue along her thigh. To lap at the blood that had him striking at the plants in desperate attempts to enter.

The woman was nearly imperceptible beneath the braided cocoon of lavender. Sébastien hissed as the lavender began to tighten around her body, flattening her against the earth. He was out of time. He couldn't get to her. He couldn't save her. Have her.

He snaked over the shell of lavender and felt the woman disappearing, dissolving into the earth. He transformed back into a wolf as a last attempt to get through to her. He tore and clawed at the flowers, ripping away the stems and petals until he reached soil and he continued digging. Her scent was in the earth. She was buried in the earth and he frantically dug, pulling up roots and rock but the deeper he dug the less he smelled her. The less she existed, until he was panting with defeat and his face was pressed against the damp earth.

No! He howled  into the night.