A Curse of Thorns Read online

  Praise for A Curse of Thorns

  “I love this book!!!! This is my favorite fairy tale and I love how the author told the story.” - Sarah Doster, Swoon Reads

  “This was a very fun read. Belle and Bastian were both very likable, and the plot was interesting and engaging. The writing pulled me along without dragging or being rushed…and I didn't cringe once - definitely a feat…I was also very impressed that you made a heroine that DIDN'T get on my nerves. I found her likable and believable for the most part, and Bastian as well.” - Celeste Bridgekeeper, Swoon Reads

  “Beautiful retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast. I like the fact that Belle wasn’t a helpless damsel in distress but a smart girl with exceptional skills.” - Candy, Swoon Reads

  “I loved it! Everything was written so beautifully I just couldn't put it down!!” - Tia8196, Swoon Reads

  “A curse of Thorns was an amazing reimagining of Beauty and the Beast where Belle had just as many scars as the Beast and was anything but a damsel in distress…I loved Sophie and I loved the smoldering tension you created between Belle and Bastian. I like that he seemed to admire her from afar but really grew to love her when they began to interact. I think it's realistic considering he knows he must find someone to love him to break the curse. I loved their chemistry - before and after his transformation. Completely swoon worthy!

  The Hunger Games meets Beauty and the Beast.” - Montrez, Swoon Reads

  “This is incredible, and it brought me to tears more than just twice! This story is too perfect to be compared to anything.” - A.G. Stone, Swoon Reads

  “A CURSE OF THORNS is a great retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’…In your retelling, I love your Belle! Not only is she a reader, she is also a hunter who kills to feed her sisters. I love how she’s a fighter, strong and protective! It’s great to see she and her two sisters love and care for each other. I think it’s awesome that she works in a bookstore…It’s great to see how Sophie talks to Bastian, saying that he’s worthy of love. She’s protective of him. He has no one else for so long. He needs someone like her in his life, a mother-figure…I do love the idea that they have saved each other

  …It’s awesome to see Belle and Bastian fighting together like equals! You have a great ending. Although it’s a happy ending, I like how not everything is perfect yet (the kingdom), still a working progress…Your book was such a fun read!” - Chen Yan Chang, Swoon Reads

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Nicole Mainardi

  All rights reserved.

  Cover and chapter design © 2019 by Heather Croissant

  This book—the first of many to come—is dedicated to my wonderful and supportive husband Kyle, and my parents Joe and Cathy.

  You loved me unconditionally and allowed me to dream, and so I did.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  “Only try to find me out, no matter how I may be disguised, for I love you dearly, and in making me happy, you will find your own happiness. Be as truehearted as you are beautiful, and we shall have nothing left to wish for.” - The Prince

  ~ Madame De Villeneuve ~

  ‘Beauty and the Beast’

  Prologue

  Tale as Old as Time

  O nce upon a time, there lay the small, peaceful kingdom of Briar, tucked away near the far reaches of the French Alps. It was ruled by a gentle hand: the king was a kind man, his wife a stern but generous queen. They had the fealty of the entire kingdom, but they were missing something very precious: an heir. Long after the queen was believed to have any fruitful years left, she bore a child; a son, who they named Bastian. But the queen had lost too much blood in the birthing and perished no more than a week later.

  Bastian was a troubled child from the start: his father was too lost in his grief to pay much heed to him, and the crown’s advisors twisted and warped him. By his eighteenth birthday, he was a tyrant and utterly vain. It was then that the king fell ill, and within a month, he too had passed.

  The young prince inherited his father’s throne and all of Briar, but he was too young and ambitious, and his little kingdom wasn’t enough for him. He was thirsty for power, and he was willing to do anything to possess it.

  Despite Bastian’s protests, his father had never given much thought to a strong military and there were few enlisted men he could call upon to help him in his noble cause. This forced the young king to instate a draft that ordered every able-bodied man in his kingdom to pledge their lives to him in the name of conquest. But, even still, he was not satisfied. He still believed his army too pitiful to take control of the surrounding kingdoms, and to face the even more oppressive Regime that had threatened Briar since before his birth.

  Desperate, Bastian ransacked every corner of his castle for an old book his father had once mentioned to him—a book of magic, given to his family by one of the fae. It wasn’t long before he stumbled upon a hidden compartment in his father’s abandoned desk and found it there. Bound in gold and leather, he could feel the power radiating from it, though the paper was cracking and breaking apart at his touch despite the black magic it held. Reading all through the night, he came upon a spell that would give him infinite power.

  But, according to the spell, he needed a witch.

  As fate would have it, an old, gaunt woman claiming to have magic appeared on his doorstep the very next night. Relentless rain and thunder pounded the castle stones, and, shivering from the cold, she offered him a simple gold ring. She claimed that, with this ring, he could attain the power he sought. And in return for her offering, she asked only for a place to rest her tired bones until the rain let up.

  Bastian saw the witch as hideous and didn’t plan to let her inside, but agreed to the terms, insisting that as long as she gave him the ring, he would do as she asked. The old woman spoke in a language Bastian had never heard and handed him the ring. Bastian snatched it from her, and the magic rushed through his veins like lightning. The moment she tried to take a step inside the castle, though, Bastian slammed the door in her face.

  What the cruel king didn’t realize was that the witch knew he would never hold up his end of the bargain, and so instead of bestowing the ring with power, she’d cursed it.

  That night, the witch came to him in his sleep, now transformed into a beautiful sorceress. He startled awake to find her standing at his bedside, blinding his sleep-filled gaze with her haunting beauty. She told him of his curse: that he would turn into a beast when he awoke the next morning, and only when he could find someone to love him of her own free will—and he love her in return
—could the curse be broken. He tried to apologize and begged her to take the ring back, promising her riches and a part of his kingdom, but she ignored his offerings and disappeared into the night.

  Devastated, Bastian fought to stay awake that night, but when the storm subsided, he could no longer keep the reaching arms of sleep at bay. And when he awoke the next morning and looked at himself in the mirror, he saw that he’d turned into a beast.

  Golden-brown fur dusted most of his deeply-scarred face, growing thicker around his head and coating his body, leaving not one inch of skin exposed or unmarred. Even the tortured roar that released from his throat when he caught sight of his distorted face was beast-like. Unable to stand the sight of himself, he smashed every single mirror in his chambers with his sharp claws.

  After he’d broken every last reflective surface he could find, his hands coated in his own blood, Bastian ordered his servants, who had gathered outside the closed doors of his chambers that they were all to leave the castle immediately and never return. He only demanded that his governess stay with him; she was never to come inside his room except when he was not in it, and if she were ever to sense him near, she would turn the other way. Despite Bastian’s obvious unkindness, the governess had no other family and stayed, as was his command.

  But there was more to Bastian’s curse that the sorceress had not told him: a spell was cast over Briar so that all that lived there would forget him. He would become a legend, a story, a whisper in the woods—he would disappear like a long-forgotten memory in the minds of his people, and would not return to their memories until the curse had been broken.

  Without a leader, the army he’d built quickly dispersed, and the Regime began to sink its claws into Briar. The people of his village quickly forgot about their reclusive king and went about their lives as if he’d never existed. The once-sparse forest around the castle became untamed and grew into a teeming black evergreen that hid the castle from the townspeople. There were whispers that there was dark magic brewing there, but no one dared enter the forest when it became overrun with feral creatures of the Beast’s own design.

  All that was left of the terrible king was his curse—and the hope that, one day, someone would be brave enough to find the castle and break the spell.

  Chapter 1

  A Desolate Place

  BELLE

  I shut my book, breathing in the dust floating up from the pages and placing it back inside the loose floorboard in my room. Dousing the lamp at my bedside, I wished more than anything that I could stay in and read all day. But I had to go out into the Black Forest before the sun rose completely, otherwise I’d miss all the good game and we’d have nothing to eat tonight.

  Pulling on my leather jacket, I grabbed my bow and quiver from where they lay against the door to my room and swung them over my shoulder. I grasped the cold metal door handle and pulled, the hinges managing not to creak too loudly as I looked towards my sisters’ rooms, hoping they were still asleep.

  Our cottage was small for how far it was from town, but the isolation kept us from being too involved in Briar and the Emperor that controlled it. Out here, I was almost able to convince myself that we were our own people, free of the tyranny and corrupt laws of the Regime. It was why I was able to hunt for food out in the treacherous Black Forest behind our cottage, and why I always had to remind my sisters that they must never draw attention to themselves.

  Making it soundlessly through the living room, I opened the back door next to the kitchen, its hinges not nearly as quiet. Catching sight of myself on the side of a hanging metal pot as I passed it—one of my mother’s—I watched my features cringe as the gray early-morning light glinted off the silver scars that marred my face.

  I gritted my teeth, my jaw popping in the reflection. I hated being reminded of them every time I looked into a window, or when I caught myself in a shop mirror out of the corner of my eye. It had happened so long ago, but it hadn’t healed properly—would never heal properly—and I still hadn’t been able to get past the way it disfigured me.

  Sighing, I tied my brown hair back and quickly turned away, fingers biting into my palms as I stepped out into the early-morning fog.

  ~

  The outskirts of the Black Forest were completely silent. My breath came out slow, deliberate, appearing in front of me like a ghost in the early-morning cold as I strained to hear the sounds the living forest made. There weren’t many animals now, unfortunately. It was the middle of winter, and one of the coldest Februaries that Briar had ever seen. Even wrapped tightly in my warmest gear, I had to stop myself from shaking—to keep from losing focus.

  But maybe this winter just felt like the coldest because everyone had less food and less coal. The Regime had significantly cut back on the essentials this year, claiming they were running low on resources. The truth was that they had more resources than they knew what to do with, but they were keeping their citizens under strict provisions in order to maintain control, and it was nearly impossible to stand against them. I wish I could do it, but I had my sisters to think of.

  Still, I found my frozen toes curling in frustration.

  My sister Emily had begged me not to venture out too far today, but the animals were hiding deeper and deeper into the protection of the forest, and without my kills we’d have nothing to eat for the next week. And I couldn’t break my promise to them—to myself—to do everything I could to keep them alive. Our deadbeat father had left us in the middle of the night late last summer, just as the leaves had begun to turn. He hadn’t even said goodbye; all he’d left us was a note, saying that he’d make everything right again. We hadn’t heard from him since.

  I dug my heel into the malleable dirt, trying to concentrate on finding an animal to kill instead of my worthless father, and failing. He’d never touched a hair on our heads, but was a horrible, selfish man, something he’d become even before our mother died birthing Lila, my youngest sister. He’d once been a wealthy merchant, but had squandered all of his—our—money away on gambling when his small fleet of ships was lost at sea, carrying the largest shipment of cargo I’d ever seen. He hadn’t had a job for years after he’d lost everything, and any work he’d managed to find was lost within a few weeks’ time.

  Since the moment I’d found that note, I hadn’t put much hope in him coming back, and he had yet to prove me wrong. I didn’t miss him most of the time, but his absence was hitting us hard. It was deep into the winter of the next year, and we were barely surviving.

  The muscles in my legs were screaming at me to move from my crouched stance, and the pants I was wearing, while worn and stretchy, were old and still too tight around my legs in this position for comfort. But they were the only pair I had. The wet ground sifted beneath my thick hide boots as I repositioned, thinking maybe today was a lost cause—when I spotted a large stark-white pheasant land not a hundred feet from my hiding spot.

  I shook my head slightly, almost feeling sorry for the poor creature, before quietly pulling my bow back with the arrow already in my grasp. I pressed my cold fingers against my cheek, the feathers of the arrow tickling my skin before I released it.

  It stayed true, slicing cleanly through the mist, before burrowing itself into the bird’s eye. It fell silently to the ground—one of my best shots to date to be sure. I allowed myself a victorious grin as I stood and walked over to the bird. It was moments like these that I truly loved hunting.

  Heart racing, I couldn’t help thinking about how nice a hot bath sounded after crouching in the freezing air and wet mud for so long. But a cold one would have to do.

  As I was binding its legs, almost giddy thinking about how we could make use of the feathers and the gristle as well as the meat, something rustled in the trees just above where I’d been squatting. I immediately straightened, reaching back and gripping the feathered tip of an arrow.

  I stayed absolutely still for a long time, fearing that I’d finally been caught hunting illegally.

  Fin
ally, after hearing nothing else, I grabbed up the pheasant and hurried back towards home.

  Chapter 2

  A Former Life

  Belle

  “ Belle!” Mr. Alinder called from the back of the book shop.

  I smiled; he’d probably been waiting to hear the faint tinkle of the bell above the door. Not many people came in here as it was, but I was the only person to ever come in this early. And the cottage I shared with my sisters was a bit of a walk from town, so he was never sure when to expect me.

  He peeked out from behind a precarious stack of books, like a rodent poking its head out of the ground, as I made my way to the back and set my satchel down behind the cash drawer.

  “Where have you been?” he asked cautiously.

  “Oh, the usual, Mr. Alinder,” I said, smiling at his usual appearance of unkempt white hair and askew spectacles. I shrugged off my wool coat, one that had once belonged to my mother, and set it on top of my bag. “Off slaying beasts and saving the world.”

  Actually, after defeathering the bird I’d killed and stringing it up outside under the overhanging roof, I’d read a couple more chapters of an illegal book called Pride and Prejudice. It had only come out a few years ago—Alinder had managed to acquire a copy of it through his back channels—and it had quickly become one of my favorites. Even though I doubted I would never find my own Mr. Darcy, I couldn’t help getting lost in the story. It was difficult facing the reality of our situation most of the time, and reading books allowed time for myself—an escape from my fate and the fate of my sisters.

  He shook his head at me, but I saw his lips tug up in the corner as he turned back to his work of cataloguing the new arrivals. I smoothed my hands down my faded blue dress and pulled my wet hair into a loose braid that I settled over my shoulder, humming a low tune my mother used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep. Alinder usually didn’t mind my humming, but he cleared his throat and pushed his glasses back up his nose, mumbling nonsense to himself.