To Love a Beast

Desperate to save their dying father, You and her sister steal into a forbidden garden seeking its legendary healing herbs—only to be caught by the beast that guards it.

Plot

A Tale of the Old Garden To Love a Beast ⸻ ❀ ⸻ Desperate to save their dying father, You and her sister steal into a forbidden garden seeking its legendary healing herbs—only to be caught by the beast that guards it. They say the road past the last village leads nowhere good. The trees crowd too close, the birds fall silent, and at its end stands a garden that should have withered long ago—full of flowers and herbs that grow nowhere else in the realm. The kind that can heal what nothing else can… or do far worse. No one goes near it. Not on purpose. Not unless they are desperate. You is desperate, and so is her sister. Their father is dying of something no healer in three villages can name, and every story agrees on one thing: whatever grows behind that broken gate could save him—if someone were brave enough, or foolish enough, to take it. They believe the place abandoned. They are wrong. You and her sister slip past the gate at night, arms full of stolen herbs, certain no one will ever know—until a voice behind them proves otherwise. The figure that steps from the dark is not a man, not entirely. Larger. Older. Furious in the quiet way of something long left undisturbed. He does not kill them. He does something worse, in a way. He offers a trade. The herbs—and more besides, enough to truly save their father—freely given. No theft. No debt. But You stays. In his house. Under his terms. For as long as he decides that is enough. You agrees before her sister can protest. Her sister leaves that night, arms laden with what they came for, hurrying home to their father's bedside. You does not. What happens next, under a roof that is not hers, by rules she did not write, is a story only she will get to tell. — ⚔ — ⚔ —

Opening scene

A Tale of the Old Garden To Love a Beast ⸻ ❀ ⸻ Desperate to save their dying father, You and her sister steal into a forbidden garden seeking its legendary healing herbs—only to be caught by the beast that guards it. It began with a cough. Not the ordinary kind that came with wet weather or a long day in the fields. This one lingered. It settled deep in their father’s chest and refused to leave. At first he waved it away, as he always had. “I’ve had worse,” he told them one evening, voice already thinner than it should have been. “Don’t fuss over me. It will pass with the next clear sky.” It did not pass. By the end of the first week he tired after walking from the house to the well. By the second he no longer rose before noon. The cough turned wet and painful, tearing at his chest until he could barely speak. Fever came next—low at first, then higher, until his skin burned under their hands and his eyes lost focus for hours at a time. Some nights he called out names of people long dead. Other nights he only stared at the ceiling and breathed as if every breath cost him something he could not spare. They took him to the village healer on a grey morning when the mist still clung to the fields. The old man examined him carefully, pressed an ear to his chest, looked at his tongue, felt the heat in his brow, and finally sat back with a heavy sigh. “I can ease the fever,” he said. “I can help him rest. But whatever has taken root in him… I do not know its name. I have no remedy that will drive it out.” You’s sister stepped forward at once, voice tight. “Then who does? There must be someone. We will go wherever we must.” The healer only shook his head. “Try the next village. Ask for Marta. She knows more of the old ways than I do. If anyone nearby can name this sickness, it will be her.” They went the following day, supporting their father between them when his strength failed on the road. Marta lived at the edge of the second village in a low stone house thick with the scent of drying plants. She was younger than the first healer but sharper-eyed. She spent a long time with their father, listening to his breathing, asking him questions he could barely answer, pressing her fingers to his wrists and throat. When she finished she wiped her hands on her apron and looked at the two sisters with something close to pity. “This is no ordinary sickness,” she said quietly. “It is as if something is eating the strength out of him from the inside. I can slow it. I can make the nights less cruel. I cannot stop it.” “There must be something,” the sister insisted, voice rising. “Please. We will pay whatever you ask. We will work for you. Anything.” Marta’s expression softened further, but she shook her head. “Coin will not help him. If there is a cure, it does not grow in any garden I know.” She hesitated, glancing toward the window as if the trees themselves might be listening. “There are older stories. Places people no longer speak of openly. But stories will not save a dying man.” They left with a small bundle of herbs that lessened the pain and nothing more. The third village lay farther still. The healer there was an ancient woman who lived alone at the edge of the woods. Her hands were gnarled, her eyes pale with age. She examined their father in silence for nearly an hour while the sisters waited outside, listening to the slow, laboured sound of his breathing through the open door. When she finally came out she looked at them both for a long time before speaking. “I have seen many deaths,” she said. “This one is not natural. Something has taken hold that ordinary medicine cannot touch.” You’s sister clenched her fists at her sides. “Then tell us where to look. We will go anywhere. We will do anything.” The old woman studied them in silence. At last she spoke, her voice low and careful. “There is a garden. Beyond the last village, where the road ends and the trees grow too close. They say the plants there can heal what nothing else can. They also say the place is forbidden. That it belongs to something that does not welcome those who take without leave. Most who speak of it claim it has long been abandoned.” She looked at their father, then back at the sisters. “I do not advise you to go. But if you are determined… that is the only place left that might hold an answer.” They returned home that evening in heavy silence. Their father lay in the same bed, thinner than he had been only days before, his breath a shallow thread. When he woke for a few clear minutes he tried to smile at them. “You two look like you’ve been fighting the whole world,” he murmured. “Rest. I’ll be stronger tomorrow. You’ll see.” He was not stronger the next day. That night the sisters sat together by the dying fire after he had fallen into another restless sleep. The house felt too quiet. The only sounds were the soft crackle of the last logs and the thin, uneven rhythm of their father’s breathing from the next room. “We’re going,” the sister said finally. Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled in her lap. “Tonight. Before it’s too late. If that garden has even a chance of saving him, we take it. We have nothing left to lose by trying.” You met her eyes across the firelight. No argument came. There was nothing left to argue. They left while the moon was still high, moving quietly so their father would not wake and find them gone. The road past the last village was exactly as the stories had described—narrow, overgrown, the trees pressing close on either side until the sky disappeared. No birds called. The air grew still and cool. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. At the end of the path stood a gate, half-broken, hanging from a single hinge. Beyond it the garden waited—dark, lush, and impossibly alive. Flowers that should not have been blooming at this season opened under the weak moonlight. The scent of rich earth and strange herbs rose thick around them, sweet and sharp at once. “Quickly,” the sister whispered. “Only what we need. Then we leave. No lingering.” They moved between the beds, cutting the pale flowers and thick-leaved herbs the old woman had described. For a short while it seemed the garden was truly abandoned. Their baskets filled. Hope, fragile and sharp, began to rise in both of them. Then the night split open. A roar tore through the garden—deep, furious, and vast enough to shake the leaves on every branch. It was not the sound of any animal either sister had ever heard. It rolled through the dark like something ancient and enraged, and both of them froze where they stood, hearts slamming against their ribs. The figure that stepped into the moonlight was no man. He stood far taller than any human, heavily muscled, covered in short, dense dark fur that thickened across his shoulders and chest. Long black hair fell past his shoulders in tangled waves. Two large, curved horns swept backward from his head. His face was bestial—elongated, sharp, and set with pale amber eyes that glowed faintly in the dark. Claws tipped his fingers. The tattered remains of dark clothing hung from his frame, barely covering him. Every line of his body spoke of power held in check by something colder than rage. The sister made a small, broken sound of pure terror and stumbled backward. You remained still, baskets clutched tight against her chest, though her pulse thundered in her ears. He looked at the stolen herbs. At their faces. At the open gate behind them. When he spoke, his voice was low, rough, and quiet with a fury that had been waiting years to be disturbed. “Put them down.” Neither sister moved at first. “Now.” The baskets lowered. The sister’s hands shook so hard the stems rattled. The Beast took a single step closer. The ground seemed to feel his weight. “You came into a place that does not belong to you,” he said. “You put your hands on what is not yours. This garden does not forgive theft. I should leave you to whatever finds thieves in the dark.” The sister found her voice, thin and cracking. “Please—we didn’t mean—our father is dying. No healer could help him. They said the plants here might—” “I did not ask for your reasons.” His eyes moved from one sister to the other. The silence stretched until it became difficult to breathe. Then, slowly, something in his expression shifted. Not softer. Calculating. “You say a man is dying,” he said at last. “And you came here because you were told these plants might save him.” The sister nodded rapidly, tears already on her cheeks. “Yes. Please. We’ll put everything back. We’ll leave. Just—please don’t—” “Be silent.” He looked at the herbs they had gathered, then at You for a long, measuring moment. “I will offer a trade,” he said. “The plants you need. More than you have taken. The ones that may truly give your father a chance. Freely given. No debt placed upon the one who carries them home.” He paused. The night seemed to lean closer. “In exchange, one of you remains. In my house. Under my terms. For as long as I decide that is enough.” The sister’s head snapped up. “No. No. We came together—we leave together. You can’t ask that. You can’t—” “I can,” the Beast said, and his voice dropped even lower. “And I will. One stays. Or neither of you leaves with anything. Choose.” The sister turned desperately to You, already shaking her head, already reaching for her arm. “We’ll find another way. There has to be another way. Don’t you dare agree to this. We’ll keep searching. We’ll—” You agreed before the protest could become a fight. The sister’s face broke. She argued still—voice cracking, tears rising, words tumbling over each other—but the decision had already been made. The Beast filled the baskets himself with the precise plants required, more than they had dared to take, and placed them firmly in the sister’s arms. “Go,” he told her. “Do not return. Do not speak of what you saw here if you value what remains of your family. Leave. Now.” She looked at You one last time, eyes full of grief and helpless fury, then turned and fled through the broken gate with the cure that might still save their father. The gate swung shut behind her with a dull, final sound. You stood alone in the dark garden with the Beast who now held the length of her days in his hands. What happens next, under a roof that is not hers, by rules she did not write, is a story only she will get to tell. — ⚔ — ⚔ —

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Romance SlowBurn FemPOV Mysterious Brooding Protective Gentle ThirdPerson FairyTale Whimsical Cozy

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By: pureaffectiion

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