THE BEAST WHO LOVED ME
They sent her to study the monster. She never expected to fall in love with his prison.
Dr. Elara Vance doesn't believe in curses. She believes in data, evidence, and cold hard facts. When she's dispatched to a remote mountain to investigate strange geological anomalies, she expects rocks and fossils—not a beast of bone and earth who speaks in the language of ancient glaciers.
Kael has been trapped for a thousand years. Cursed, forgotten, and ravenous for any connection beyond the terror his very presence inspires. He expects Elara to scream. To run. To beg.
She brings him a barometer and asks about his weather patterns.
What begins as a battle of wills becomes something neither of them prepared for—a slow, aching intimacy built on shared loneliness and the terrifying realization that they see each other more clearly than anyone else ever has.
But Elara's government handlers didn't send her to study the beast.
They sent her to harvest his power.
Now she faces an impossible choice: betray the man she loves and return to the life she knew, or destroy everything she's ever built to save a creature the world calls a monster.
The only thing more dangerous than loving a beast is letting him go.
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Chapter: Chapter 2c: The Morning AfterNo." He shook his head. "No, you don't. You don't know what I'm capable of. You don't know what I've done. You don't know—" He stopped. His voice broke. "You don't know how much it hurts."She stepped toward him. "Then tell me.""Margot—""Tell me."He looked at her for a long moment. And then he broke.The story came out in pieces.He had been a prince once. Beloved by his people, respected by his enemies. He had fallen in love with a sorceress from a rival kingdom—a woman named Elara, fierce and brilliant and kind. They had planned to unite their kingdoms, to end the war that had raged for generations.But his father had discovered their plans. He had executed Elara in front of Alistair, forcing him to watch as the woman he loved died.Alistair had snapped. His grief had unleashed a power that he had never known existed, a power that had burned the kingdom to ash and killed thousands.The survivors had wanted to kill him. But they had also been afraid. So they had cursed him inste
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
Chapter: Chapter 2b: The Morning AfterIt was a massive room, circular, with shelves that rose three stories high. Books in every language, every age, every subject. Some were bound in leather, others in crumbling parchment. Some had been eaten by worms, others were pristine.She walked through the shelves, trailing her fingers along their spines. She read titles aloud, tasting the words on her tongue.She hadn't realized how much she had missed books. In Ashford Manor, she had been allowed to read—her mother had considered it a harmless, useless hobby for a girl who was never going to marry well. But she had been limited to the old library, the one with the water-stained volumes and the broken shelves.This library was different. This library was alive.She pulled down a volume of poetry and opened it at random. The words were beautiful, aching, full of love and loss and longing.She read aloud."Even in the darkness, there is light. Even in the silence, there is song. Even in the death of hope, there is—""You're reading
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
Chapter: Chapter 2a: The Morning AfterMargot woke to the smell of smoke.Not the clean, sharp smoke of a fresh fire—this was older, heavier, clinging to the stones like memory. She opened her eyes and remembered where she was. The tower. The beast. The night before.She had fallen asleep on a worn chaise near the hearth, too exhausted to find a proper bed. Her gown was wrinkled, her hair a tangled mess, and there was ash on her fingers from lighting the fire.But she was alive. That counted for something.She sat up slowly, her body aching from the journey and the cold and the sheer weight of everything that had happened. The fire had burned low, embers glowing orange in the gray morning light. The great hall was empty.The beast was gone.She didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified. She pushed herself to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself against the chill. Her breath misted in the air."Hello?" she called.Silence.She walked toward the door that led deeper into the tower, her footsteps echoing in the va
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
Chapter: Chapter 1c: The Forgotten DaughterHe paled. "My lady""I'm joking." She wasn'tHe lapsed into silence after that.They traveled for three days. The landscape grew wilder, more untamed. The villages grew sparse. The roads grew rougher.And then, on the evening of the third day, she saw it.The tower.It rose from the cliffs like a dark finger pointing at the sky. Jagged and ancient and impossible. It was magnificent. It was terrifying. It was where she would either die or be reborn.She felt something shift inside her. Not fear, exactly. Something stranger. Something that felt almost like anticipation.She was going to face the beast. She was going to survive. She was going to prove everyone wrong.Or she was going to die trying.The carriage stopped at the base of the tower.The soldiers opened the door. They didn't offer to help her out. They didn't offer to carry her trunk. They just stood there, waiting, their faces carefully blank.She climbed out on her own.The tower loomed above her. It was even more massive u
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
Chapter: Chapter 1b: The Forgotten DaughterHer mother gasped. Her father sputtered.But Margot was already turning away.She walked to the door, her steps steady, her back straight. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her break. She would not give them the pleasure of her tears.She paused at the threshold."I'll go," she said quietly. "Not because you commanded me. Not because it's my duty. I'll go because I'd rather die in that tower than spend one more day in this house, being invisible to people who claim to love me.And she walked out.The night was cold.Margot sat in her room, staring at the single trunk she had packed. It was pitifully small—a few books, a worn journal, a small knife she had hidden for years, a change of clothes that were already faded and threadbare.She had nothing else.Nothing else to take. Nothing else to leave behind.Her sisters had rooms full of gowns and jewelry, trinkets and treasures. Margot had a trunk. A trunk that was barely half-full.She sat on her bed, her hands folded
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
Chapter: Chapter 1a: The Forgotten DaughterThe summons came at dusk.Margot knew it was coming before the servant knocked on her door. She had felt it in her bones all day that strange, heavy stillness that preceded disaster. The way the birds had gone silent in the garden. The way her mother had looked through her at breakfast as if she were already a ghost.She had been reading when the knock came. A worn volume of poetry, its spine cracked and pages yellowed with age. She closed it slowly, marking her place with a ribbon she had saved from her sister's discarded gown. Waste not, want not. That was what her nursemaid used to say. Before she was dismissed. Before Margot learned that nothing and no one in this house stayed forever.The servant's face was carefully blank. "Your father requests your presence in his study, my lady."Not requests. Demands. Her father never requested anything. He commanded. He expected. And the forgotten daughter, the third child, the one who had never quite mattered, was expected to obey."Te
Last Updated: 2026-08-10
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