The Monster in the Manor: Chapter 30

Stella finally comes to the manor for a visit, upsetting the fragile balance.

Peony

He loves me. 

I feel like a schoolgirl swooning, knowing that Rupert cares for me as deeply as I do for him. I’m so happy and relieved, so grateful that he’s still with me, that I can’t stop a few tears tumbling out just thinking about how lucky I am.

You don’t fully understand what someone means to you until they almost disappear in front of you. I’m never letting Rupert go. He’s stuck with me.

While I keep my face buried in Rupert’s scruff, he moves his hips, his cock dragging down my belly to dip between my legs. I spread them for him, and the slick surface of him rubs delightfully over my pussy.

Now I really need him.

I release Rupert long enough that he can sit back, take his cock by the root, and guide it inside me. With that blunt head, it works harder to fit through, but then suddenly he’s there and we’re together again, those delicious bumps along his crown already performing their magic on me. Rupert lets out a heavy breath, stilling himself halfway in.

“You’re marvelous,” he says, reaching down to cup my cheek as he slides deeper. Then he glides back, withdrawing to drag the head of his cock along my clit, before pushing in once more. He repeats this, sinking in and then pulling back out so he can tease me, tightening my taut strings.

“You’re marvelous, too.” I’m swimming in the pure joy of bringing him inside me again. “Every part of you, Rupert.” My fingers trail up his cheek to his ear, which is one of his erogenous zones—that, and the base of his tail.

“You don’t mean that,” Rupert says, thrusting in as far as he can and then pausing there. He leans over me, coming to rest on his elbow. “If I were a man—”

“But you aren’t,” I say, lifting my hips to draw him even farther inside me. “And I don’t want whoever that is. I want you. I love you, Rupert.”

The hardness in his eyes softens. He rocks gently, in and out, staying fully encased in me.

“Even with the horns?” he asks.

“Especially with the horns.” I trail my hands down his back to his tail, where I squeeze gently. His hips buck, and I gasp as he pushes in. “And the tail. The tail is a big bonus.”

Rupert grins, a wide grin that shows all his sharp teeth. He withdraws from me long enough to reach over to the bedside table, where he pulls out a bottle of lube. I bring him the tip of his tail, which he coats in the shiny stuff before sitting back on his knees.

The tip easily fits into my ass, which has already been trained to take him there. Then Rupert slides his cock back into me, filling me as full as I can possibly be. I moan and clutch him tight, but he has more to do.

His tail starts to wriggle in deeper. With every thrust of his hips, I take even more of it, until his cock and his tail both have stuffed me to bursting. A string of nonsense leaves my mouth because I can’t form a single coherent thought, not in the fog of bliss creeping through every crevice of my body. 

Rupert’s eyes narrow in concentration, his pupils huge and black as his claws drag over my flesh with every wild thrust, never once breaking the skin.

“Then these horns and this tail are all yours,” he says, baring his teeth like a predator. “Every inch is yours, for as long as you want me.”

“I want you!” It’s the only thing I can say with surety. “I want you forever, Rupert.”

His speed picks up, and Rupert’s frantic breaths gust across my face as he reaches underneath me, lifting my hips so he can rut into me at the angle he knows I love. I cry out as that delicious texture on the head of his cock stimulates something deep inside me, and the ring slips in and out with every pump of his hips.

“Then you’ll have me forever.” My monster wraps me up tight against him, holding me close as I fall apart in his arms. I scream, muffling my face in his mane. Rupert groans as I squeeze down harder and harder, my orgasm so close that it’s a tower blotting out the sun.

I’m here with Rupert. I’m safe, I’m loved, I’m accepted. It’s as if everything is beginning right here. 

“Peony,” Rupert chants, again and again as he carries me to the edge. “My little flower, who comes so sweetly around my cock.”

And I do, as if I’m at the center of the galaxy as the universe folds in on me. Rupert thrusts even faster, and as he swells up fat inside me, my pleasure ricochets around the walls of my body, feeding itself.

“Rupert!” I cry his name as the world cracks open, sucking me into it. Then, I feel a sharp lash of pain. I scream again—a different kind of scream—as Rupert bites down on my shoulder right as he erupts inside me. He slams in one more time, his mouth wet and red with my blood.

Then Rupert collapses, nearly squashing me. I gasp for breath, shuddering from the aftershock of my climax and the fresh wound on my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Peony,” he says, sliding his tail out first, and then his cock. Rupert leaps to his feet and hurries into the bathroom while I cover the wound with my hand. His expression is horrified as he returns with a first aid kit. “I don’t know what happened.” The words come out in a messy tumble. “I just did it, all of a sudden. I didn’t mean to.”

I crack a smile. Sometimes I forget that he is still a monster—a creature we can’t even begin to understand, with urges far beyond those of a human.

“It’s all right,” I tell him.

Rupert sighs and shakes his head as he cleans the wound with a cotton ball. “I just felt like I had to… claim you. Mark you. As mine.” He smears some antiseptic gel on the wound before pulling out the bandages.

“That’s kind of romantic.”

He snorts a laugh, relief in his eyes. “Thank you. For being with me, even though I’m an animal.”

When he has me bandaged up, Rupert curls me up into his arms, and everything feels right again.

---

My neck aches when I wake up, but when Rupert takes off the bandage to examine the wound, the skin is already stitching back together. I gaze at in the mirror, both of us surprised at how quickly it’s healing.

“That’s good,” I say as I examine it. “One less thing for Stella to gripe about.”

Rupert frowns over my head in the mirror. “Stella?”

I sigh. Stella is rather upset with me after “standing her up” for dinner, even though I explained multiple times that Andy abducted me and Rupert came to rescue me. She let out disapproving sounds over the phone, saying it had been all over the news and she wanted to see the celebrities for herself.

“She’s coming for dinner tomorrow night. As a make-up for last time.”

Rupert growls low in his throat. 

“I know, I know. But she’s the only family I have.”

He searches my eyes in our reflections. “You still have your father, Peony. You could reach out to him.”

I scrunch up my shoulders and turn away from the mirror, exiting the bathroom. I don’t want to have to face Dad and tell him what a huge mistake I made in siding with Andy. I don’t want to have to remember the kinds of things Andy said to him, the kinds of things I’d agreed with to make the confrontation end.

“Maybe,” I say, picking my clothes up off the floor. “I’m going to head out to the grocery store to pick up ingredients.”

Rupert whirls, his mane standing up on end. “What? You’re going out again? By yourself?!” He rises to his full size. “You were just bloody kidnapped, Peony! At least take Kellen along.”

I frown at him. “I can’t just stop going out because of what happened with Andy.”

His mouth bobs open and closed as he tries to figure out what to say.

“But what if something happens to you again?” he says miserably, sitting down on the bed. “What if you don’t come home to me?”

I sit by his side, reaching up to stroke his cheek where the scales fade into fur.

“That’s not going to happen. I will come home to you. Andy is behind bars, and there’s nobody out there just waiting to pounce on me. You know that, right?”

“Rationally,” Rupert says with a snort. “Rationally, I do. But the monster… Let’s just say we worry about you. An irrational amount.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” I resume putting on my clothes. “But I’m going. You could come, too, if you wanted.”

The disgusted look on his face is all I need. I kiss him on the nose, then flounce out of the room to get started on my meal planning.

---

Rupert

I am all nerves watching Peony drive away. The one concession I made was that we’d get her a different vehicle, one that was less ostentatious and wouldn’t be recognized. I also asked her to shop at a different store, if merely to avoid unnecessary attention. The last thing I want is for the press to jump on her while she’s out shopping.

Peony’s agreement to my terms was begrudging, and I know she resents that I went out and purchased her a gently used Toyota, which will keep her safe and not attract too much attention.

But, as she said, she loves me, so she accepted my terms and left to get her ingredients.

I’m not pleased to be seeing Stella tomorrow, but relationships, I am learning, are about compromise. I want Peony to have the life she wants, as much as it angers me to think of anything happening to her out there in the world while I’m not around to protect her.

I lick my fangs, thinking that perhaps I should go with her. I’m the only one who can truly protect her. But would I bring more attention and thus, more danger? 

Kellen is surprised when he finds me in the kitchen making dinner on my own. He sits down at the counter and hums.

“I thought you’d be inconsolable right now,” he says, watching me busy about. “Withering away in your rooms at the idea that Peony’s gone out again.”

I gnash my teeth together as I add some flour to my workspace and fold my puff pastry dough. “I’ve learned that I can’t stop her. All I can do is make it as painless as possible.”

He gives me a wry smile. “You’re coming to understand her. That’s good.”

I huff at him. As if he knows Peony better than I do.

“It’s good to see you happy, Rupert.”

I wrap up the dough and place it in the freezer, then dust my hands off on my apron as I turn to face him.

Happy? Is that what I am? I think it might be.

That sends a surprising stab of anxiety through me. I almost feel as if Kellen has cursed me just by saying it—by reminding me of what the old man said to me.

And you will never, ever find true happiness.

That had to have been bullshit. Perhaps Andy had the chance to rob us of our future together, but we overcame it. We made it through.

Right?

Suddenly, the front gate buzzer sounds. Kellen hops up to answer it, and Peony’s voice comes through the speaker.

“Kellen! Open it, please!” She sounds frantic. Immediately, my mane rises, and before she can say anything further I sprint to the front door. Throwing it open, I charge out of the manor, racing down the road to the front gate. There, Peony is trapped in her car, surrounded on all sides by vans and trucks. People are shouting her name, cameras flashing.

“Get away!” I roar, my voice a sharp crack through the air. Gasps and shouts rise from the crowd. “Let her through!”

The gate opens and I let out a massive bellow, scaring back the reporters who have crowded around Peony’s car. Her eyes are wide and terrified as she pulls through the gate, and I swipe at a cameraman who tries to follow her.

“Stay off of my property!” My voice booms across the whole gathering. “These claws aren’t just for show!”

Then I step back inside and the gate closes. Even more flashes go off, and the voices surge once more, the reporters lunging at me and poking their microphones through the gate. I turn around and chase after Peony’s car, and the moment she’s parked in front of the manor, I run to the driver’s side door and pull her out. She’s shaking, clinging to me.

I growl low in my throat.

“They were waiting for me,” she says as I lead her inside.

“Vultures,” I hiss under my breath.

When we’re in the door, I haul Peony into my arms and set us down on a settee in the sitting room.

“Perhaps we should move,” I tell her. “I have another property, one they don’t know about.” That’s it, now that I’ve said it aloud. I know that’s the solution. “We can go there, instead. We’ll leave at night, maybe fly out by helicopter.”

Peony frowns. “But… this is home.”

I sigh, pulling her close to me. Then I glare out the window at the assembled mass by the gate, and a snarl licks at my lips.

“Let’s talk about it after dinner tomorrow,” Peony says, patting my cheek. Her breathing has steadied, so I put her down on her feet again. “All right?”

Of course, I have no choice but to give in.

“All right.”