This novel is an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
"There are darker things than the night."
Blind since birth, Elle Duncan has only ever known darkness, but lack of sight has not hindered her ability to perceive the beauty of the world. Her kind...
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(Aesthetic "Don" by InkedWriter)
Don stood before a narrow window, gazing intently upon a crescent moon embedded in the blackened sky like a fragment of glass, casting glimmering moonbeams upon the vast, green terrain. His sudden intrigue of the silver host had him contemplating their coinciding fates, for it too was bound infinitely to darkness.
The notion drew him further into the deep chasm of his thoughts.
His eyes swept the countryside to the village scattered beyond the verge of the forest, and suddenly he recalled a bargain struck with a peasant.
His temporary lapse of his senses had resulted in a ridiculous idea, and now he was saddled with a peasant's daughter on the account of vexation. The man's daring and intrusion had certainly struck a nerve, and rather than cast the serf out as his instincts had forewarned him to do, he did quite the opposite. He truly hadn't expected the man to agree to his terms, let alone bequeath him a daughter without a word of protest. But desperate men did foolish things.
Don muttered a curse beneath his breath.
Much against his displeasure, he could not negate their arrangement, to do so would portray him contrary to what most believed him to be – a cruel, heartless blackguard of sorts.
And mayhap he was – for he fully intended to collect on his debt.
*******************
Elle could feel her sisters' emotions, a combined static of outrage and fear, diffusing the air like uneasy threads that pulled terribly at her senses.
How could she have not known? How could she have not questioned the food and supplies mysteriously bestowed to them? But suddenly everything came into absolute clarity as to how they had fared better than others. Realizing every bit of it had come with a terrible price.
Stricken, her mother had fallen quiet, her silence disconcerting.
Elle could barely utter a word herself; in fact, words failed her entirely. There was nothing she could do or say to change the inevitable. She had mixed feelings about what her father had done and like her sisters, felt a semblance of fear and anger, but the other part of her sought to understand his motive, which must be grave to have driven him to the mercy of the Rossetti Beast.
The tension was too much to bear and no amount reasoning could alleviate that impalpable strain on the air. It wrecked havoc on Elle's senses and so she sought the evening, autumn breeze hoping to relieve her of that visceral pressure. But as she wandered outside and stood amidst the village her ears began to burn with the hiss and buzz of the villagers. What her father had done had spread like wildfire and now their murmurs carried garrulously to her ears.
