Arranged To Marry The Beast

Chapter Three- Looming in the shadows

Why should I listen to you, when my heart beats for nobody else but myself?

Blaire stood at a distance, staring at the conversing pair intently. It was just a little after five and her and Raine had just went their separate ways. She left her wild-spirited friend with a promise to talk to her mother about the party, and she had planned on bringing up the topic on their way home, but the mind stewing conversation was delayed by her literature teacher.

Mrs Morline.

Blaire disliked the woman, her fascination with her was most galling. She was probably telling on her, reporting the tiniest misdeed she conducted to her mother; like she divulged to her mother contents of a conversation she'd had with Raine about her neighbor's son, three years ago. When her mother learned that she found Raine's teenage neighbour cute, she forbid her from visiting her ever again.

Her mother only wanted her supposed future husband to be the only ideal man in her eyes, which was insane, seeing as she'd never seen even a picture of him, seeing as he didn't exist.

Blaire prayed that the snoopy woman knew nothing about the central cliff party.

A small nod from her mother concluded their conversation, Blaire took slow strides to the car after the woman had launched herself into her own vehicle.

She greeted her mother as she always did and waited for her to ask her how her day went.

"So how was school, honey?" Jessica could discern Blaire's angst, but she said nothing and waited for her undoing. She hoped it had nothing to do with her encounter with the Beast, she didn't want her asking more questions.

"It was fine.. so mom…" Blaire trailed off, nervously gnawing on the roof of her mouth. "I have been invited to a party tonight, can I please go?"

Jessica's grip tightened on the steering wheel, her tone gave away the negative answer she was inclined to. "What kind of party is it, my poppy?"

Blaire wrung her fingers, she wasn't one to fashion a plausible contexture of lies, but she knew she had to weave up a lie if she was going to earn her mother's permission.

"It's a small party to celebrate SCG winning most games on the Barcanis tournament." Her voice wavered, Jessica wasn't convinced, but what the party was for, was not where her concerns lied.

"I hear you sweetie, will there be any boys?" Blaire nearly rolled her eyes irritably when she asked.

Of course all she cared about was her not mingling with boys.

"Uhmmm… yes, there will be… a few boys….from neighbouring schools, I think.."

Her mother shook her head, an adverse gesture she wasn't hoping to see but knew was bound to happen. "You can't go to that party. Honey you can't be around boys, they're bad influences and they'll make you do things you are not supposed to do."

"Things like what, mom?" Her voice was heavily laced with annoyance. She was tired of being oppressed by her mother's rules.

"That attitude right there will land you in big trouble sweetie, you don't argue with your elders." Her mother scolded.

"Sorry." She murmured a disingenuous apology, her arms crossing over her chest. "Well the party is mandatory, there will be some important announcements made there."

"If it was mandatory, Mrs Morline would've mentioned it to me, you're not going to that party honey, it is for your own good. You will attend even more grand parties as a Queen, with sophisticated, classy people of high eminence, not these peasants."

Her approach had failed, her mother wasn't one to reason with, so Blaire went with a different plan; Raine's plan.

She was going to central cliff without her permission.

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The most risque plan she'd ever came up with was in motion.

Firstly Blaire had succeeded in fooling her mother into borrowing her,  her phone under the false believe that she would be calling Raine to discuss the pair assignment they'd been allocated. Blaire discreetly primed her escape plan and agreed to sneak out of the window while her mother thinks she's sleeping and meet Raine at a nearby park.

Not to rouse any suspicion or wariness of misconduct, Blaire carried on with her night routine as usual, but accidentally spilled some salt in her tea and had to empty it down the sink. After finishing dinner, she brushed her teeth anxiously and was assailed by even more qualms when she had to face her mother.

At exactly ten o'clock, Jessica tucked in her daughter. "Soon you're going to leave mommy and go to a far away land to live with your husband and I'm going to miss you so much poppy."

Blaire returned her saddened smile albeit thinking she was being her usual delusional, mentally deviated self. She did plan on leaving her strict mother, but not to go live in a non-existent kingdom, but to further her education at a far, far away institution. She couldn't wait for the liberating independence, couldn't wait to reap the benefits of living alone, far from her mother's vigilant eyes.

"I'm tired," she feigned a yawn, "good night mom."

"Good night, my love." Jessica pressed her lips onto her temple, turned off the lights and locked her bedroom.

She never understood why she locked her in.

Following her mother's departure, Blaire waited in bed for another half hour, processing the strange dream she had the night before. Convinced her mother wasn't going to come back, she jumped off bed and headed for her closet. Time was of the essence, she couldn't afford any delays or to beset Raine's frail patience.

Quietly, she changed out of her nightdress and into a dark blue summer dress she found most convenient. She had never had to dress for a party, so she wasn't uncertain if the knee-length strapless dress was suitable. She paired the anti-climactic dress with black strapped sandals and examined herself in the mirror.

She owned no make-up or anything for beauty treatment for that matter,so she was happy she could at least garnish her lips with the matte red lipstick Raine borrowed her. Her eyes concentrated on her reflection, she caught something on the mirror that almost frightened her to the point of aborting the plan.

She could've almost missed it, but she couldn't doubt what she saw was real. A dark figure of peculiar shape swooped past her window and vanished just as quickly as it came.

She then recalled the events of the dream she had last night, she couldn't remember much, but she remembered something groping her in her sleep with rough large hands.

The mere thought had every fibre of her being trembling.

Because she knew the legend.

How it is said the Beast would visit sleeping girls and feed on their souls and later seize them and transport them to his lair to become his s*x slaves until the life is drained from their bodies.

But that's all it was, a legend.

A legend that's repressed her and kept her from living a normal life like other teenagers.

"He is not real, Blaire, he's not real." Those were her lines of comfort, the lines that kept her sanity intact.

"That was just a dream."

"There is no Beast."

Brushing her hair, her chest heaved and dropped rapidly and her heartbeat couldn't retire to a normal pace. Fear pruned her bravery to a minimum, she didn't want to go outside.

Because she believed there was something prowling about outside. Looming in the shadows.

But she couldn't call Raine to cancel, so she swallowed that fear and carried on.

That was the biggest mistake of her life.

As she yanked her curtains to the side, a loud groan startled her, followed by a thud resultant of wood slamming into a wall. Then the moans became more consistent and the bustle even more noisy.

Until three years ago she couldn't form a single conjecture why her mother would have a man in her bedroom and would be screaming in the middle of the night, until she vaguely told Raine about her odd observations and the girl told her in detailed elaboration that every time that happens,her mother is having s*x.

The following morning after overhearing her, she would always peek from her bedroom door and see a different man each time leaving her mother's bedroom disoriented. That was before she began locking her door and opening it only in the morning.

Her mother didn't date, she'd never had a husband or a boyfriend, she just bedded men in the middle of the night when she thought she was sleeping.

In some way, Blaire envied her, she seemed to enjoy herself too immensely in the company of the gender she was forbidden from having the slightest interaction with.

The timing was perfect. The clamor in her room would prevent her mother from hearing even the loud creak of her window shutter. Luckily, the house had a single floor and the distance from her window to the ground wasn't one to risk her fracturing a bone or tearing a ligament. Still she hesitated, until she was prompted by a muscular hoarse scream racking the atmosphere and piercing through the silence. It came from the adjacent room, her mother's room.

Hastily she maneuvered out of the window and pushed it close before she could stumbled upon the source of that screaming.