To Be Loved

There's a certain safety in being a monster.

Bram doesn't want to be a man. As a Beast he's large and strong and frightening, all features which protect from the wandering hands that haunt his dreams. He doesn't want the spell to break. But he does, he learns, when he invites a young woman to hide in his palace, want to be loved.

Mira has left behind everything she's ever known, accepting an offer from a towering monster, running desperately from the bruising fingerprints of her intended. She...