Beastly Intentions Ch. 04

"But I would have you," she sobbed, covering her face in shame that she couldn't control her emotions better. "I would be with you, like Melissa is with Nathaniel. I could share your fate so that you wouldn't have to be alone anymore, Garren. It is why you took me, is it not? I was cast-off, unwanted garbage from a coupling that shouldn't have happened."

"You are not unwanted, Brenna," he argued. "I wanted you from the moment you looked at me. I knew you as a companion, as a child that made me smile when naught else could. You were a joy to me. You ARE a joy to me."

"But nothing else?" she asked, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown and watching his face. He tried so hard to hide his feelings from her but they were there to see. One just had to look into his eyes to know the tenor of his thoughts.

There was anguish and loneliness in his eyes now, darkening the strange blue color until they seemed almost black. "I cannot put you through this. I will not, not for something so selfish as keeping you with me. You will find someone else. You will!" he stressed, seeing the look upon her flushed face. "Then you will thank me for having the forethought to deny this one thing."

He looked down at his lap, unable to look at her anymore. All he wanted was to lift her in his arms, to tell her of his true feelings, to make her his in every way he could so that she would never be able to leave him. But he couldn't make her like him.

The slamming of the book made him jump. She dumped it off of her lap, stood upon the stairs and looked at him with eyes that flashed blue fire. "You are incredible," she hissed at him, furious. "You deny us both; you deny your feelings for me and all for the sake of some idiotic honorable notion? You are a fool, but then again, so am I for I love you, fool or not." She stamped her foot, and then turned and walked from the room.

He expected the door to slam as she left, but she closed it quietly behind her. The almost hushed click of the latch sounded louder than a slam in the silence of the room. With a growl, he rose from the bed, tearing the covers off and flinging them away from himself, letting the beast that howled within him have free rein as pain flared bright within him.

A lamp flew from the end table, slamming into the back of the fireplace to rain glass and oil onto the flames below, sending them shooting up into the chimney. His chair was knocked to the floor, the glass decanter of brandy sitting next to it, shattering into bits beneath his fingers. He picked up the book, the cause for his problems, wanting to rip into the binding, to tear it to bits so that he would never see it again.

Lifting it, he noticed the small sheet of thin paper that fell from the binding as it ripped under his sharp claws. For a moment, he thought of ignoring it, but his curiosity forced him to set the book down and to pick up the paper.

The handwriting was familiar, a fine script that he would recognize anywhere.

It was his mother's handwriting and it caused an ache in his chest. He slumped backwards, sitting down upon the hard wooden stairs.

The letter was short, addressed to him, and just that fact surprised him enough to calm the rage that had taken him.

* * *

Garren Our Dearest,

My son, if you are reading this it means your father and I are no longer with you. We worried for so long about what would happen if you were to have visited upon you the same affliction that your father had. We decided that it would be to your advantage if we were to write this tale.

The erotic nature of the piece was to disguise the truths behind it and to keep it out of the hands of anyone else who might read it. We'd hoped it would make it into your hands only if you needed to understand why your life is the way it is. Please, son, finish the story, read it carefully, understand it, because it is not just a tale of tribulation and love, it is meant as a guidepost for you. It is not just the allegory it might seem on the surface.

We wish for you a long and happy life, Garren,

Your loving parents,

Nathalie and Melissa

* * *

Garren stared at the letter, his hands shaking. His parents had passed away before he'd reached his majority, dying together on a ship that had foundered as they were making their way home from one of the many trips they took together. It was how they would have wanted to leave this earthly plain, together.

He stared at the book. Nathalie and Melissa, Melissa and Nathaniel, the names were so close but he never would have thought that they would be the same people. Had his parents ever actually loved this way? Had his mother been afflicted because of what had been between them?

He searched his memory, trying to remember if they'd ever appeared to him like this. All he could remember were the happy times, the love that had been between them. Their joy in their love and in the life they created had kept him going after their deaths, and even when he first became afflicted with this cursed disease.

He picked up the book from where it lay by his feet, staring at the rip in the binding where his mother's note had been. Did he dare hope that this contained a cure?