Taming the Beast Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Taming the Beast

  ISBN 9781419918285

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Taming the Beast Copyright © 2009 Evangeline Anderson

  Edited by Shannon Combs

  Photography and cover art by Les Byerley

  Electronic book Publication May 2009

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  TAMING THE BEAST

  Evangeline Anderson

  Prologue

  The Dungeon

  The air in the dungeon was drafty and dank with a dusty, coppery smell like old blood. Gisella shivered as it swirled around her bare ankles, seeking a way up under the gauzy split skirt she was wearing. The skirt’s split came up well past her thighs and showed the barely there wisp of silk that was supposed to serve her as panties. In reality the tiny scrap of fabric barely covered the slit of her sex before it narrowed to a slender string that disappeared between her freshly shaven pussy lips.

  The top of her outfit was scarcely more decent. A see-through blouse woven of the finest silk was pulled tight over her full breasts. The pink buds of her nipples, made into hard little points by fear as much as the chilly dungeon air, were clearly visibly through the thin fabric. Anyone seeing her would have assumed that she was dressed for a seduction—but who or what was she supposed to seduce in the dark and sinister dungeon Gisella wasn’t sure.

  She took another step forward, her slippered feet grating against the dusty stones, aware that the door behind her was locked and there was no going back. To one side she saw a huge four-poster bed piled high with rich quilts and thick mattresses. The sight surprised her—why should a prisoner have such rich sleeping arrangements? And was this where the seduction was to take place?

  Not daring to think about the answer, Gisella made her way deeper into the labyrinth of darkness lit only by a few small torches that hung at intervals along the walls. There was something else in the far corner, a pile of something ivory and white that gleamed dully in the weak light and caught her attention. She walked cautiously forward and stopped, one hand flying to her mouth.

  Bones. The ivory and white pile was composed of well-cleaned bones. Human bones.

  The scream rising in her throat was cut off by a deep voice close by her left ear.

  “So you’re the latest victim. Welcome to the lair of the beast, my lady.”

  Chapter One

  Twenty-Four Hours Before

  The Whorehouse

  “Well, well, off to serve the Goddess.” Uncle Edgar smiled at her, a smile that no doubt was meant to look proud and fatherly. To Gisella Trelain the look on his narrow, horsey face was more lustful than familial. Nevertheless, she was leaving today, hopefully never to see him again, so she tried to suppress her disgust.

  “Yes, Uncle Edgar,” she murmured modestly, looking down at her long blue traveling robes. They were not nearly as beautiful as the pure white ones she would be given at the convent but they would do for now.

  “It’s such a shame, my dear. When you might have made some man so very, very happy.” His eyes slid over her body so blatantly that Gisella was surprised they didn’t leave a trail of slime in their wake. “Very happy,” he repeated, still almost leering at her.

  “I am certain I will better serve my purpose as a priestess of the Light,” she replied primly. Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked off into the distance so she wouldn’t have to watch him undressing her with his eyes. “Will the hovercoach that’s to take me to the spaceport be here soon?”

  “Very soon. In fact—here it is now.” From the way he was fingering something in his pocket—probably the call chip—Gisella got the idea that her uncle had been putting off the moment of parting as long as he could. She was more than a little relieved when the silent silver coach drew up in front of her parents’ estate—no, her uncle’s estate now, she reminded herself—and slid to a stop in front of them.

  She turned to take one last long look at the rolling green lawn that led up to the tall white house where she had grown up. For twenty-one of her twenty-two years she had been so happy here with her parents. They had been strict but fair, touchingly devoted

  to each other and Gisella. Perhaps at times they had been a little too protective—she knew almost nothing of the world outside her secluded neighborhood—but she had still loved them both with all her heart. After their deaths the house had never felt the same, especially when her grasping, greedy uncle had come to take their place as her lawful guardian. How she missed them! But she knew she was leaving behind nothing but memories here, there was nothing left for her in the tall white house but the echoes of what had been. Going to the convent to serve as a priestess wasn’t her first choice but at least it would take her away from the ghosts of the past—and her lascivious uncle.

  “Well,” she said, popping the door release catch and lifting her one piece of luggage into the coach’s plush interior. “I suppose it’s time to say goodbye, Uncle Edgar.”

  “Sadly, yes. Come here, my dear—give your old uncle a hug.” And before Gisella could protest, he had gathered her into his arms. “Are you certain that you want to go?” he breathed wetly in her ear. “You could always stay here…with me.” As he spoke, one hand slid from the small of her back down to cup the curve of her buttocks and he pulled her tight against him.

  Gisella nearly gagged at the intrusion. “Uncle Edgar, please!” she said sharply, struggling in his arms. He was hard and bony everywhere except for his pudgy pot-belly and his belt buckle was digging into her thigh. But what if that isn’t his belt buckle? The thought made her struggle even harder until finally he let her go with obvious reluctance.

  “Very well then.” His flat blue eyes had gone cold at her unspoken refusal to his carnal offer. “You leave me no choice.”

  Gisella wasn’t sure what he was talking about but she was more than grateful to get away from him. His breath smelled like rotten meat and she was sick of fending off his not-so-subtle advances.

  “Goodbye, Uncle Edgar,” she said frostily, climbing into the hovercoach with relief. “May the Goddess keep you.”

  “She may indeed.” He was sneering now, as though he had an unpleasant secret she didn’t know. “But she will certainly not keep you. Someone else will see to that.” And before she could answer him, he had slapped the coach door closed and given it the signal to move on. She was on her way to the convent.

  * * * * *

  After the third winding lane the coach took, Gisella was forced to admit that it didn’t appear to be taking her to the spaceport. In