Page 91 of Beau and the Beast

Wolfram worked to put his room back into order, flipping the thick mattress so that the torn side was down and trying to remember where they'd had to special order the thing from. He'd be needing a new one.

It was odd how quickly Beau had slotted into his days. He felt off-balance without the schedule that Beau had set out for him. Remembering the way he had been when Beau arrived was like trying to remember the minutia of a day a year ago.

Wolfram had been living completely out of sync with the others in the penthouse, no schedule to speak of, eating alone in his room and sleeping away most of the day. He sat in the dark just as often as in the light. He studied his languages, read his books, and did his duties for the Mueller Global Endowment Fund. Days had blurred together and now...

Life had a natural rhythm now. Days were punctuated by time with Beau, by dinner with his staff.

All of the work that Beau had done to get his staff to tolerate Wolfram had probably been forfeited with the performance from that morning. He trusted Beau not to spread the story of what had happened, but he knew that Violet would be concerned for them all—even for Wolfram.

He was losing control and Violet was the only one who had seen it. It was as if the curse was intensifying as the last months of his life wound down.

Maybe something fundamental changed inside of him.

If they broke the curse now with Beau's book, would it even change the person that Wolfram had become—more beast than man in his worst moments?

Wolfram's day went on like a river flowing backward, ceaseless and strange, and he gave into the current of it.

He did not want to surrender to the animal side of himself, but again and again it was proving more powerful than Wolfram.

* * *

“Wolfram’s father is a puzzle.”

No…

“Wolfram’s father is an enigma.”

Not quite.

“Isidore Wolfram senior is more monster than man.”

Urgh.

Beau struggled with words all afternoon. Words had been coming out of him like a torrent before, but now he would’ve been satisfied with the slightest trickle. He doubted every word he managed to put down with the typewriter, and his manuscript pages were beginning to have more struck-through lines than actual useful information.

By late afternoon, Beau resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get a single thing done with his manuscript and he retired to his room.

He set out his sketchbook and charcoals and began to draw from memory.

Beau wasn’t a sophisticated artist, but he’d always doodled and he’d been delighted when Violet had surprised him with the art supplies along with the typewriter and notebooks he’d requested. Beau sketched objects around his guest room first, then his own face, and then portraits of the others in the penthouse.

Beau was still tired from the night before, the interference with the nightmare and then the interrupted sleep that came from being in a strange bed.

He let his mind wander as he sketched Wolfram from memory—and finally, he allowed himself to think about what had happened that morning.

Beau had known, of course, what Wolfram was capable of. He’d seen the guest room and Wolfram had even admitted it. And he wasn’t stupid. He understood that the muscles he’d kneaded and the teeth he’d admired weren’t some gentlemanly accessories that Wolfram wore for fun.

He’d been stunned when Wolfram had run into him, hitting Beau with his body, scaring him and knocking him down. But it had come on the heels of such tenderness, Wolfram allowing him to stay in his bed—Wolfram embracing him.

The touch was haunting—the safety he’d felt in that moment, the undeniable connection to Wolfram. Had he ever felt that way with Lincoln? Was it even fair to compare the two? Wolfram was bigger, older, entirely different.

Beau had allowed himself to stay with Lincoln for so long, even though they had no future, in part because of their spark, the attraction they shared. He’d craved Lincoln’s big hands on his body, the shape of him curled against Beau’s back as they slept.

What would it be like to share those things with Wolfram? What would it mean to lie in bed and tuck himself in against Wolfram?

And more… could they evenhavemore? Sure, his friend was shaped like any other man—but he had physical outliers. Horns and claws and a tail. If by some strange luck Wolfram wanted more from him, too, would their anatomy even match up in a way that allowed anything to happen between them?

Like Lincoln but better and bigger in every way…The thought sent a shudder through him.

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