Mr. Beast Owns Beauty

By Q. Zayne

A dutiful daughter, tightly closed as a rosebud. A cursed, obsessed prince. In the enchanted woods, no one will hear her scream. Beware: This dark fairy tale passion has claws.
When a royal recluse demands a man’s treasured daughter as payment, his curvy captive transforms him.

His aggressive courtship outrages Belle, but he needs her to break the curse that made him a lonely lion-man.

Unless he wins her heart, they’ll both remain prisoners in his remote castle.

Only virginal Belle’s love can save their lives.

Note: Mr. Beast Owns Beauty is a standalone 29,000-word novella, with an HEA, no cliffhanger. This New Adult dark fantasy is rated 18+ for language and high-heat scenes. The tale includes Mr. Beast’s point of view as well as Belle’s. Mr. Beast Owns Beauty was inspired by one of the earliest versions of the original fairy tale.

Frequent top-selling Kindle author Q. Zayne has published more than fifty edgy books, and is celebrating more than a year of traveling the Yucatan. Zayne's fiction celebrates sex, BDSM, dominant alphas claiming curvy women, ESP, fated love, ancient lore, and magic.

Adventurous reader, get your copy to enjoy a werelion's love that culminates in hot defloration and making the royal heir!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Q. Zayne
• Release date: Dec 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370518722

Q. Zayne

Q. Zayne often appears on top 100 author lists. Q. minored in Classical Archaeology and has an MFA in Creative Writing from SFSU. After teaching at the university, working as an editor, and freelancing, the author embarked on a wild digital publishing adventure. Thanks to fabulous readers, super promoters, and unflagging supporters, Q. writes fiction for a living from the Yucatan, Central America, and the California coast.Check out the Quin Zayne books for dirty, high-heat romance, and Q. Zayne for Erotica and naughty fairy tales.

Book preview

Teaser

I GRABBED THE SHEET, but didn’t cover myself. I didn’t want it gripping me again, choking the air from my body. My panting made my breasts move like waves.

He was in the room. A masculine musk surrounded me. I took a deep breath.

What did it matter if he looked? He owned me now.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see him approach, not wanting to know what would happen next.

The breathing quieted. Footfalls padded away. He must wear the softest slippers. How long had he been there?

I was alone. I longed to curl between my sisters, warm as puppies.

A long time later, I opened my eyes. Dawn slipped between the tattered velvet drapes and lit the lilies on the wall. I wasn’t home. I was in a beast’s lair.

A roar tore through the stone halls. I leaped out of bed.

Mr. Beast Owns Beauty

An Adult Fairy Tale

by Q. Zayne

Copyright

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

DCMA protected. Do not post this book or any part of it on any site.

Copyright ©2017 Hughes Enterprise.

No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author except for brief excerpts in a review. Cover photo ©Deposit Photos and the photographer, all rights reserved. The use of this photo does not suggest endorsement of this work by the photographer nor the model, nor does it imply anything about the model’s character or lifestyle.

First electronic book publication: August 2017. 2nd Edition December 2017. A short version of this work appeared as Mr. Beast.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual businesses, entities, creatures or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All people and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. This work is for mature readers 18+.

Dedication

To D and for T

for all their help along the way,

to the authors who introduce their readers to my worlds, 

and to the wonderful readers who review my books.

Get free books, exclusive previews, and new release notices. Sign up: Private High-heat Book Club

Act 1: CAPTOR

Mr. Beast—Bride Price

DEAR READER:

Please read the description to make sure this book is for you.

This twisted adult fairy tale isn’t for everyone. It has its roots in an original version of Beauty and the Beast, not the Disney movie. Mr. Beast Owns Beauty is a 29,000-word novella. It’s told from Mr. Beast’s and Belle’s points of view. Beware: This dark fairytale passion breaks rules.

Beloved adventurous reader, this book is for you.

A dutiful daughter, tightly closed as a rosebud. A cursed, obsessed prince. In the enchanted woods, no one will hear her scream.

When a royal recluse demands a man’s treasured daughter as payment, the curvy outsider transforms him and his remote castle.

Beautiful Belle could break the spell of the sorceress who turned him into a lion-man. But his aggressive courtship outrages her. Unless he wins her heart, they’ll both remain prisoners. Only virginal Belle’s love can save their lives.

Publisher’s Note: This New Adult Fantasy novella is rated 18+ for language and high-heat scenes.

As a prince in a remote, unwanted kingdom, you don’t think about having an arch enemy. Pretend enemies, yes, I had plenty of those. I grew up building forts in the forest dead falls, climbing trees to evade attacking armies, building catapults to save the day. I was hero material. My parents raised me to become king. People believed that like my fiery sire, I’d love someone as unexpected as my half-fairy mother and keep the kingdom entertained for another generation. 

Vanquishing foes and keeping everyone safe made my day. As I grew, I often saw a woman waving her scarf at me from the battlements. She would be the one to cry if I didn’t return, and to warm me in bed if I did. Her image blurred when I tried to see her well enough to find her. I knew only that she filled out her dress with sweet curves that made my hands long to touch her and gave me feelings of rushing heat in the place my nurse forbade me to touch.

The years of acting out my battles passed. Nurse was long gone. I grew into a young man alone. I thought of the woman waiting for me, her scarf fluttering, her hand to her warm lips. I touched myself.

Servants told me Nurse’s hair turned white and she fled when she saw what I became. I don’t remember much from that year. There’s an ugly blur of sensations, fur and a ravenous hunger for raw meat: Chasing a deer in the forest and returning home, women screaming and running. Beatings with sticks. Big hands rough on me, the strongest stable men chained me in a stall. The horses screamed in fear until they took them away. I clawed the walls. I roared. No one came near.

I longed for a kind voice, companionship, and relief from the stable’s smells. Hunger weakened me enough that someone dared to slide bowls of food and water to me with a stick, Joseph. From that day, he watched over me, when no one else had the courage or compassion to come near.

He went to my fairy godmother and found out what happened, that jealous Algana laid a curse on me. My father the king preferred my mother over her. I was their only child. Algana had her revenge.

Some curse: I became part lion, with a lion’s head, massive mane and roar, a lion’s paws, claws and tail, but the legs, loins, arms, and torso of a man. I sported heart and mind of a man, too. My heart ached at the awareness of the beast I’d become. Perhaps the curse had some compensation. I grew physically powerful, more so than any forebears of my line. My chest and shoulders grew broad, my haunches muscular, my cock grew long and wide. Once I became hard, I stayed hard for a long time.

It seemed that women found me handsome.  In rare moments, I wavered into man form and dared to enter the village. Those times didn’t last for long and I had no control over when I’d return to being part beast. I couldn’t bear to see the terror in the faces of my companions. A woman heavy with child fainted at the sight of my transformation in the road. I stopped going to the village. That was many years ago.

Since then, I remained in the castle. I buried the oldest servants each in their time. Only my parents, the king and queen, survive of my small family. The plague took more than half of the village. I like to think my mother remembers the appealing young prince she told me I used to be before the curse turned me into an unspeakable beast. When her fever passed, she left with my godmother, the fairy Osmala. My father retreated to a tower, to rule over nothing and spare himself the sight of his son.

I remained alone, with only an old housekeeper whose dimming sight kept her from horror at my face and form. The faithful Joseph took such pleasure from grooming my mane and claws, I allowed him that, though I didn’t share his desires for a man in my bed. When he brushes out the tip of my tail, he gets a dreamy look that makes him appear young as a beardless soldier off for his first campaign.

I’ll admit it, I like the claws. They make deep striations in wood when I sharpen them. They look lethal because they are. I can slash a throat open in one swipe, and did so when a man came from the village to kill me. The tail serves for swatting flies. Thanks to Joseph, I returned to living in the castle. There are far fewer flies here to bother me and remind me of the beast that I am. In my mind, I’m still a man, still the son of my sire, and will one day be king of this land.

Joseph moved me to a room with a stout door and outfitted the basement with chains. His son Frank helps with the heaviest work now. I give thanks for them and Rachel daily. At times, unaware of the difficulties I present, Rachel brings a girl from the village to help with a day’s heavy cleaning. Each time, although I stay as far away from