Blushing Books

 

BEAUTIFULLY PRIMAL A Beauty and the Beast tale by Zoe Blake Beatrice the Beastly will be tamed by no man. Prince Rhys is determined to possess her on his terms. Will she respond to his rough handling or deny them both their destiny? SLEEP, MY BEAUTY A Sleeping Beauty story by Alta Hensley Briar Rose has one choice. Submit or die. But when she meets her trainer, a sadistic and damaged man named Prince, she soon realizes that her choices are not so black and white. In a world cast in an apocalyptic nightmare, is it possible for one woman to find her happily ever after? MR. WOLFFE'S LITTLE RED A Little Red Riding Hood story by Maggie Ryan Regina Redd is a young professional woman during the week... and becomes Little Red when with her Dom/daddy, Drake Wolffe. How will Master Wolffe guide his Little Red through this erotic, intimate journey to push her limits, to learn she can soar so much higher than she ever dreamed? sadistic desires Zainon will expose her to. THE TOWER A Rapunzel story by Jennifer Bene When one of her father's enemies rips Rebecca 'Rapunzel' Sinclair from The Tower and takes her prisoner she is dropped into a nightmare of pain and pleasure. As her masked captor works to break her down will she be able to face the darkness in her past, and the dangerous desires she's discovering inside herself? NIGHTMARES IN WONDERLAND An Alice in Wonderland tale by Addison Cain When darkness falls, Alice hears the tick-tock of the grandfather clock, and the hosts of Wonderland come out to play. The Hatter has all the power, loves to twist and taunt, and is eager to draw sweet Alice into a never-ending nightmare of degradation and fun. Tea anyone? GOLDI IN CHAINS A Goldilocks story by Maren Smith Breaking into that house was every bit as easy as Goldi had been led to believe. What it wasn't, was empty and shifters (particularly were-bears) were not known to be forgiving. Now, trapped in the terrifying dark of their basement dungeon, Goldi knows she's in for a long night of carefully exacted revenge.

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How deep into the woods are you willing to stroll? For the story ahead is truly dark and twisted. The horrors of thorny thickets and poisonous swamps await. You've been warned.

This is where the romance ends and the nightmares begin.

 

Love,

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Every childhood memory, every last horror over the years held one object in common: a stuffed white rabbit. Since I was a baby, the snowy toy sat on a shelf above my reach, high atop the nursery's sprigged walls. I had many playthingsI was not allowed to touch lining that shelf, the china faces of dolls with golden ringlets like mine in plenty. My mother was the one who told me to only look, never touch-that like me, these dolls were expected to remain immaculate and beautiful.

 

There were other rules: I was not permitted to muss my frock and pinafore, nor was I ever allowed to touch my hair. I was to be always clean, starched, crimped, and expressionless-my overlarge blue eyes lowered in a demure position should someone address me. It was never phrased so bluntly, but even as a small child I understood that, like the jewels of my nursery, my purpose was to serve as a pretty item for others to enjoy.

 

Often, I was put on display.

 

When Mama and Papa would throw their soirees, our house would transform into a fairyland-flowers, exotic foods, extra staff bustling about our London brownstone. After dark, the magic of music would seep upstairs, above the crowds of gentlemen in their dress coats and ladies stuffed in taffeta and ribbons. My nanny would spend the entire day preparing me to be seen for five minutes. In my fresh dress, scratchy lace at my throat and at the cuffs of my sleeves, she'd take my hand and lead me down the twisting staircase to where my proud parents waited.

 

If it were near Christmas or my birthday, before the crowds of Papa's friends, all eyes on me, Mother would give me a new doll to add to the collection on the shelf. Like clockwork, my arms would reach out and the new toy lain upon them. Always I would thank her for her generosity, tuck the doll carefully under my arm, and then to be sent right back upstairs.

 

The doll with its cold china face would be taken from me the moment I was restored to my nursery, placed upon the shelf with its myriad counterparts. I never minded the loss of the bauble. My favorite toys were my miniature porcelain tea set and the worn rocking horse at the foot of my bed.

 

Though I'd smiled as expected when my mother handed me the cursed thing, truth was the dolls' fixed expressions frightened me... all thanks to the rabbit nestled in their ranks.

 

Everything goes back to that rabbit.

 

I could not tell you how long it had been up there, who had given it to me... I could tell you nothing about it.

 

But I could tell you this: the dolls with their dead stares could be ignored. I could pretend they were not there. The same could not be said of that stuffed rabbit. Black glass eyes followed me wherever I played, when I napped, dressed, did my toilette. I was always watched... and there was no getting rid of it. One autumn morning, I had finally found the courage to climb atop my bureau and reach for the cursed thing. I threw it in the fire before my nanny might notice, and I watched it burn.

 

That afternoon, I had felt whole. I had not been afraid of the glass eyes or what they would bring when the house was asleep.

 

But, when I had returned to my nursery after the daily, elegant tea with my parents, my short-lived bravery died. In fact, I think a part of me died, sank right out from my toes and into the floorboards.

 

The rabbit was back, on the shelf innocently sitting, tucked between the dolls that looked like me. The white of its fur was pristine. There was no soot or rips. The glass eyes had not melted, they shone under the lamplight, glowering at me in judgment.

 

One look at the thing, and I had screamed my head off. My nanny had come running, and in the end, I'd earned a whipping for my noise. Like all good children, I was to be seen and never heard.

 

For the hundredth time, I'd begged her to take the white rabbit away.

 

My pleas fell on deaf ears.

 

Every few years, months, weeks, I don't know... I never slept, recalling time was a difficulty for me... I would again try to make my move against the rabbit. I had thrown it out my window and into the street to be run over by carriages and made dirty by the dust and shuffling of strangers. Other times, I had hidden it someplace else in the house: locked it in cabinets, buried it in the attic, set it upon the bed in the maid's room. The rabbit always came back.

 

I don't know why. I never know the why of anything.

 

Night after night that rabbit would infect my little nursery with evil. Tucked into my bed, alone, the house would be soundless save the ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs. The growing noise of that clock was the herald of trouble: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, louder and louder. No breaking storm could have roared through the house as furiously as that screaming timepiece.

 

Covers to my chin, my wide blue eyes would dart to and fro. Though the noise was wretched, I longed for it to continue into forever. I would rather feel it vibrate through my bones than face what came next. Because that cranking cog of noise would end abruptly, sometimes after hours, sometimes after just a few short moments. Then I would be trapped in deafening silence, with only the sound of blood racing through my ears to warn me danger had arrived.

 

Silence was unsafe. The dark was a living thing, monstrous. The thin slice of moonlight cutting through the curtains offering no succor. Casting the shape of my window's panes against the papered wall, that scant light illuminated a single horrid thing. If I let my gaze stray, peeked just a little to the right, I would see something that should not be.

 

The rabbit's stitched head had turned, those flat glass eyes staring right at me. And then they would come.

 

The first time I'd seen her grace my nursery, I had been very little-so young that I could not tell you what my age might have been. The apparition was naked, slender-a young woman, shoulders hunched forward in the shadows. Long hair, tangled and matted, hung messy to her waist. Every bit of her bared body was covered in wet blood. Before her, she'd rub her slippery hands together while pacing, back and forth, a terrible clicking coming from her throat.

 

One sight of her, and I had wet the bed.

 

Hours stretched by, her dark eyes shining behind the wet tangles of blood drenched hair, watching me, waiting. The monster's prowl endless, I cowered in sodden covers, tracking her every movement.

 

In my heart I knew that to place even a toe from that bed, to consider running for my nanny, would be the end of me. I didn't dare breathe. I knew that naked, bloody woman wanted badly to hurt me.

 

At daybreak, when my nanny arrived to prepare me for the day, she scolded me soundly for dirtying the sheets. I was marched in my soiled nightdress before my parents, intruding upon their private breakfast so that they too might echo the castigations of my nanny.

 

I had tried to tell them that there had been someone in my room. I tried to make them hear me. My father had scowled, his waxed mustache twitching.

 

Tantrums and melodramatics were not to be tolerated. I had earned myself a spanking and a day locked away in my room, made to lie on the same wet bed, where every time I closed my eyes, I was certain bloody hands would slip from some dark corner to strangle me.

 

Even after a sleepless night, even with the safety of the sun bright in the room, I could not find rest. It was too wet and cold, my blankets smelled, and I was ashamed of myself.

 

It was not until almost dark that the maid came to change my sheets and dress me in a clean gown for sleeping.

She should not have bothered.

 

The tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, of the grandfather clock crashed through the house so loud, so very loud I was certain the whole city must have heard that drumming.

 

Before I was fully prepared, before my childish prayers to Jesus were done, all went quiet.

 

Swallowing, I cut a glance where I should never have looked. Up high on the shelf, moonlight showing the perfect white fur, the rabbit had once again turned its head to watch me.

 

The woman was coming back, I knew it. She was coming and she'd figured out how to get me.

 

But then there was no wet slap of her sodden feet on the floor. No chesty, clicking breaths.

 

All was quiet and I began to breathe easy. It had just been a bad dream; the rabbit must always have been facing my direction. My papa was right; I was just a silly little girl full of nonsense.

 

I was so very wrong.

 

There were worse things than the bloody woman. In the silence, I heard a pair of soft, childish giggles. Spider-like hands crept up the side of my bed, fisting my covers.

 

Something was under my bed!

 

With a terrible yank, my blankets began to be dragged under the mattress, the childish laughter growing mean. I tried to make a grab for my only defense, but whatever was hidden beneath me was so much stronger. In vain, I toppled to the floor. Before I might clamber back up, hands shot out from the dark space under my bed, encircled my ankles, and yanked my little body across the floor.

 

Next thing I knew I was stuffed under my bed, prodded and scratched by the unseen nightmare.

 

Unlike the evening before when I had kept silent, doing my best not to draw the red woman's attention, I screamed. No one heard, no one came to save me. Scrambling to claw my way free, I fought and I kicked. My gown was ripped, white ruffles torn right off. I got myself to the nursery corner. Pressed my boney shoulders into the tasteful wallpaper and stared around the room, knees knocking together.

 

My arms smarted, my legs-I had been scratched so badly there were bleeding cuts all over me.

 

Then I saw them.

 

The first one leapt upon my bed and began jumping. The other took my sheet, threw it over his head, and ran about the room like a shrouded ghost. Two little boys... they were just two little half-dressed, emaciated boys.

Chortling as he bounded up and down on my mattress, the cruel-eyed waif grinned at me. His teeth had been filed into points, sharp and sinister. Looking at my wrist, I could see the bite marks those teeth had left behind-little puncture wounds that did not bleed much, but stung so badly my eyes watered.

 

His cohort was exactly the same.

 

The remainder of the night I spent pressed back against that corner. Sometimes I think the demented pair forgot I was there, or they had grown bored of me. They would play their vicious games; if one grew angry with his companion the play would grow violent. Turning their claws and teeth on one another, the scamps crashed about my room-knocking toys from shelves, breaking things.

 

When they would pull apart from their fighting, they turned their beady-eyed stare at me.

 

Snarls turned to giggles. In seeing my terror, the boys had found a new game to play. Trying to trick me, the pair of them worked in unison to sneak, to make a grab at my hands or feet, to drag me back screaming under the bed. My knees were bruised, elbows too, from all the times I had fallen trying to break free and hide from the pair of devils.

 

They were more cunning than one tired little girl.

 

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