Academia of the Beast: A Dark Retelling of Beauty and the Beast(5)

“I fucking hate you,” she said from behind him. The voice he’d once thought was husky and seductive now grated on his nerves. “Look at me, Conall! I didn’t waste nearly a year of my life to be thrown out on the streets. After all that I’ve put up with you and your mood swings!”

Conall didn’t bother to look back. If he looked at her face he might actually pity her.

Hannah Morse didn’t deserve his pity. If the streets were her only option after betraying him, then that’s where she belonged.

“You break up with me and then throw a party at the Digital Underground. What is wrong with you? Hey,” she yelled. “I am talking to you.”

When Conall turned to her, she took two steps back, her face paling. She’d been spared his glare until now, though she deserved it from the beginning.

“Get your things, and leave. I don’t want to have to get the guards to escort you out.”

She swallowed and made a feeble attempt to hide just how afraid she was at that moment by tossing her voluminous blond hair, and folding her arms across her small chest.

“I don’t believe you.”

He folded his hands before his black suit and stepped forward, and through the glass doors of his balcony. “You don’t have to believe. The curse is real, and if you don’t get out of my home, I will show you just how real it is.”

Her bottom lip trembled and her eyes darted from one end of his large, lavish bedroom to the paintings and tapestries. “Conall, darling. You know that I didn’t mean those things that they put in the paper. I love you.”

He paused and squeezed his eyes shut.

Love? Is she delusional?

Hannah didn’t know what that word meant. During their time together she’d been feeding stories to the tabloids and imperial papers. He should have looked deeper into her past, but even that wouldn’t have revealed her true intentions.

A buzzing sound came from his watch and he glanced down at it. It was Kyle, his oldest cousin. His shoulders slumped and he answered the call by clicking the button on the side. He walked away from Hannah, the device implanted within his ear clicking on with the call.

“What’s up?”

“Are you alone? Is Lennox around?”

Conall glanced at Hannah who still stood there, watching him like a hawk, her almond-shaped blue eyes following him from the center of his bedroom to the study that waited just through the white stone archway.

“What do you need, Kyle? You can speak freely,” he said. “Lennox isn’t here.”

“We found her.”

Conall froze. “What?”

“You heard me right.”

It can’t be. Lennox never lost a prey, and the one time he did, he made sure to tell their father.

When Conall heard the story, he’d been amazed. A young woman had cast an impenetrable barrier, and gotten away. He ran his hand through his black hair, and grasped a handful as he imagined seeing the web she’d cast.

Conall just wished he could have seen such a thing.

“You’re joking.”

“Have I ever been the kind of person to tell jokes?”

Good point.

“You found the witch?”

“Not just any witch. We found the one that Lennox told your father about. She sounds incredible. None of the others were able to do the things she did that night in the woods. And no one escapes Lennox.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“What do think we should do?”

“I think we should exploit her skills. With the other kingdoms at our throats, it won’t hurt to have someone as powerful as her on our side. Just a thought.”

Conall wasn’t sure that he liked the execution of witches, but it was the way things were, and always would be until they were all extinct.

“I agree with you. Whatever you do, don’t let Lennox find out.”

“I will try my best,” Conall said, and the call was ended.

He sighed and returned to Hannah, who now sat on the edge of his bed, her dress on the floor. For a moment, his eyes widened as he looked at her sitting there, naked, her perky breasts pointed toward him.

His room was impeccably clean and tidy. Everything was polished and dusted daily. Stacks of shirts were folded and stored in his wardrobe. Books were lined up in alphabetical order on the shelves in his office. His face reddened. Seeing her clothing sprawled on the floor made his skin crawl.

“Won’t you come to bed, baby?”

“Hannah,” he said, crossing the room to pick her dress off the floor. He shoved it into her arms, his fury boiling forth. “Get out.”

She didn’t ask any questions. The intensity in his eyes said it all, and she hopped from the bed and ran from his room. Before she turned the corner, she shot a look over her shoulder that made his blood run cold.

“You’re mad, Conall. And I feel sorry for you.”

Once alone, Conall rubbed his face. Her words would haunt him. He almost started to love her. Almost. But, not even her attempt to seduce him would erase the distrust for her. You betray Conall once, you never get another chance.

He stared at the open doorway where she’d left, an ache in his heart frightening him. The truth was, he’d only kept her around so that he wouldn’t have to be alone.

“She was never the right one for you,” a soft female voice called from the darkness. Like the wind, it seemed to surround him. “She would have never broken the curse.”