Page 124 of Beau and the Beast

“I can’t let you.”

That was news to Beau. How was this whole thing going to work if Beau was the only one who would ever get off between them?

“I don’t understand why not,” Beau said.

“Because I don’t know what’s going to happen if we do. I bit you the other day—and I wasn’t even the one coming.”

Beau ghosted a hand up to the mark that remained on his shoulder. He’d spent too long admiring it in the mirror earlier. He hardly minded.

“Do you think you’re going to… what, Wolf?” Beau asked, hitching an eyebrow. “Turn into an animal and rip me apart after you come?”

Wolfram shot him a hard look. “This isn’t a joke, Beau.”

“You need to lighten up,” Beau said.

“You’re going to tell a man with ram horns and canines as big as your thumbs who hasn’t had sex in ten years and casually shares brain real estate with something inhuman tolighten up?”

Beau deflated a little, crossing his arms. “Touché.”

Wolfram crossed to the nook by his bookshelf, picking out a book and sitting down, as if the conversation was over.

“Can we talk about this, at least?” Beau asked, kneeling on a cushion next to him.

Wolfram thought it over and finally gave in. Beau was relieved that they could stop pretending like they were going to get any more work done on the book that night. He went to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of wine.

Wolfram was pouring them both a glass when Beau asked himwhat it was like.

The question was vague but they both knew exactly what he was getting at. What was it like to be what Wolfram was—to have a beast’s brain?

He caught Beau with a steady look. Beau had held himself back from asking questions like this because he didn’t want Wolfram to feel like his privacy was being invaded.

But if this thing is going to stand between us, Beau thought,I have a right to know.

Wolfram sat back and massaged his temples, considering how to answer.

“I had this little dog growing up on 8th street,” Wolfram said. “His name was Pippin—don’t ask. My mother brought him home as a puppy—a purebred Jack Russell terrier, probably smarter than half of the people I used to work with. I’d try to take him for a walk but there was nothing he didn’t want to chase. Birds, bugs, cats, sure—but bigger dogs, people, cars. It drove me up the wall. He was impossible to deal with, but we had a ground floor unit with a real back yard, so we’d just let him out and we skipped the walks.”

Wolfram leaned on the small table, swirling the wine in his hand and not looking at Beau.

“He got out one day and never came back. I’m sure he took on something bigger and meaner than he was.”

Beau frowned but didn’t interrupt.

“Pippin was a great dog, other than that. But you knew from walking him that if something moved the wrong way, he’d be off and chasing it. There’s a piece of this—ofme—that’s like that. Pippin didn’t go dumb when he saw something he wanted to chase. He just couldn’t stop himself.”

Finally, he looked up at Beau, his eyes golden and flashing in the warm lamplight.

“When I’m awake and I’m myself, I’m aware of what I am enough that I can override it. But the longer I’ve lived with it, the more it finds a way to take over. It’s almost painful to control, in those moments. I don’t know how to explain it—ithurts.”

Beau reached out, stroking fingertips over the plush fur on the back of Wolfram’s hand. He couldn’t imagine trying to live life with those extra layers of awareness, of instinct.

“And it’s worse when I kiss you?” Beau asked.

“Infinitely,” Wolfram said without hesitating. He reached behind himself to still his lion’s tail that had resumed thumping irritably against the floor. “I’m scared of what it wants. I don’t want to be Pippin chasing a goddamn dump truck.”

“I’m not afraid of it,” Beau said quickly.

Wolfram gave him a cautioning look but spared him the obvious scolding:Youshouldbe.

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