The Beast and Beauty

Chapter 15: Scars

Arabella

I tried not to feel self-conscious when Lucifer saw me naked, I wasn’t worried he would leer at me or anything, nobody would because I was covered in scars.

He stroked my hair gently from my face and for a moment, I thought maybe he did feel something just a little, maybe for me, but when I looked back at him, I saw only pity in his eyes and wondered how awful I must look for the king of hell to feel pity.

I had managed to get one of my customers to bring a book from another realm, the story Lucifer had mentioned about me. It was called Beauty and the Beast but the more I had read it the more sad I became, I wasn’t beauty in this story, he was, I was the ugly beast and with all these scars probably burned upon his mind now there was no way in all the realms he would ever fall in love with me, my stepmother had made it impossible for me to ever break the curse with true love.

I flinched when I felt Lucifer lift a sponge, and leaning me forward, began to wash my back.

“I’m not being a creep,” he snapped.

“I know, sorry, it’s just my scars still hurt sometimes.”

“Oh,” he replied awkwardly. I tried not to giggle, it was obvious he wasn’t used to being kind or gentle, and I could tell he didn’t know what to say. He washed me more gently and after a while he asked, “what happened to you?”

“Your kingdom is all about t.orture and pain, can you not tell what weapons were used on my skin?”

He touched one of the more sensitive scars and trailed his finger along it. “I can tell someone used a hunter’s knife here, they cut down to the bone making it difficult for them to drag it down which is why it’s so ragged and messy, it tore your skin and wasn’t straight and neat.”

He touched another scar, “this one I know they used a leather whip.” His fingers trailed over my scars, and he asked, “but that’s not what I meant, I meant who did this and why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? My stepmother did it.”

I felt hot energy fill the room and wrap itself around me, it was hard to breathe and fear filled me when the room trembled. I grabbed hold of Lucifer’s hand that was resting on the handle of the bath. “Lucifer what’s happening!”

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. “Sorry, my realm reacts to my wrath, I’ll control my anger better.”

“Why are you angry and why does your realm react to you?”

“I’m angry because of what you went through, aren’t you? And I created this realm, so it’s connected to me.”

He carried on washing me, and true to his word, he was a gentleman and didn’t leer or act creepy as he had put it, if anything, he washed me as though he were bored and would rather be doing anything else. I could at least entertain him with my story.

“I’ve never been angry really, it was always normal to me growing up—“ he cut me off, his deep voice laced with anger, “what? This happened when you were a child?”

“Well yes, it began when I was around five and carried on until my teen years, and then she stopped because she moved onto her new obsession of working with demons.”

“You mean she did this for her rituals?”

“Yes, a lot of her dark magic requires blood, and she didn’t want to spill any of her own, so she used mine.”

“She cut you down to the bone, some of these are so deep it’s like she was trying to kill you, not simply spill a drop of blood.”

I shrugged, “yes well sometimes she would be in an angry mood, or someone would upset her, so during her rituals she would take her anger out on me and use the excuse of needing my blood and pain. Other times I made her cross, especially with incidents like this one, and so she would beat me or whip me when father was out working on the farms or out at war. That’s why I don’t have any scars anywhere else, these were easily hidden from him.”

“That’s f.ucking insane, hurting a child for bed-wetting when she was the reason for creating your fears in the first place. She’s lucky you’re telling me now and not when we were back there.”

The bathroom door suddenly burst open and a beautiful woman came bounding in.

“Lucifer! I knew it, so you are back!”

Lucifer used his body to protect my dignity and resting his elbows on his knees he managed to wrap his arms around my chest area without actually making contact. It was sweet he wanted to protect me.

“F.ucking knock Hecate!” He snapped.

“Oh, shush, I’ve seen it all. What are you doing anyway? Did I interrupt? Can I join?”

So this was Hecate the goddess? She truly was beautiful with wild luminous green eyes that sparkled, her skin was as flawless as Lucifer’s which I suppose was to be expected of a goddess, her hair was raven black with waves and curls that were wild and untamed, she wore a tight black mesh dress with patterns that looked like the galaxy and the stars embroidered into it, the front of her dress had a v cut down it that reached her naval leaving you in no confusion about how big her breasts were, the material barely covered them.

Her left leg was on display too, the dress had a slit in it that ran up to her hip, thankfully it ran along the outside of her leg so that only the side of her leg and hip were exposed and nothing else. Her skin was Snow White with an almost luminous glow about it that reminded me of the gentle glow of the moon. Her body was perfect too, she was almost as tall as Lucifer and had all the womanly hips, curves, a full bosom and bottom, she was literally perfect. No wonder he was in love with her.

Lucifer’s deep voice jolted me back to reality. “No you can’t join, we aren’t doing anything, I’m simply helping her wash.”

She winked at him, “sure you are.”

He rolled his eyes at her, but I could see the hint of a smile on his lips at her teasing. I wondered how many people or other beings got to wind the devil up and get away with it?

I was certain she was the only one.

“How long have you been back for? Dagons been driving me nuts, making me help him with every damn spell he can think of.”

“Not long, less than an hour.”

“How did you do it?”

“My clever little princess here found a loophole, Zatana told us a demon could not remove it, but she said nothing about a human removing it. Nice little slip up that Belle here noticed.”

Hecate looked at me with such deep intensity, I wasn’t sure if she wanted to devour me or welcome me like a mother who hasn’t seen her daughter in years. “Very clever.”

Looking back at Lucifer, she teased him some more. “So she’s your princess, huh?”

I don’t think he had realized how it sounded out loud, he did what he usually did and became angry. “I didn’t mean it like that, shut the f.uck up”

She ignored his wrath as though it were nothing and carried on. “Dagon said her—“ she looked at me, “sorry you, are called Arabella?”

I nodded and she looked back to Lucifer. “That’s adorable, you’ve even given her a cute little nickname, Belle, I like it.”

I felt the heat of his anger drowning the room again when he snarled, “I suggest you leave before your mouth gets you somewhere painful.”

She knew she’d pushed too far but still not looking too fazed, she rolled her eyes like she was used to this. “Fine, we will talk later, just you and me?” Her voice promised there would be more than just talking between them. “Maybe,” he muttered, his anger dissipating.

I watched fascinated as her raven black hair literally became a flock of ravens followed by the rest of her body, the ravens flew up above us and disappeared until it was just me and Lucifer again.