Andrew's POV

Andrew lay awake. There was a guard standing by the door, and it was really hard to fall asleep knowing there was someone watching you. 

Arthur knew they had the map, and he probably suspected they'd been in the mine and saw the missing children. 

Andrew turned his head to look at the guard, who stayed unmoving with his back against the door. Was Anne also being guarded? Andrew would kill that guard if he put one finger on her. He wanted to kill him just for being in her room. 

And Arthur... No wonder Anne was so defensive and wary about trusting him. She'd probably survived a lot of abuse from the loudmouth mayor with the fake laugh. 

What would Father do when he found out the man he put in charge of Pinecrest was actually a wicked person. 

He and Andrew had to escape. But how?

Andrew pretended to fall asleep by making his breathing even. After half an hour, Andrew reached for the dagger that was strapped to his thigh.

He knew the guard had a sword, but he faced death before in battles.

As silently as possible, he turned onto his side and opened his eyes just enough to see the guard in the candelight. His eyes were closed, and it looked like he was asleep against the door.

Andrew clutched the dagger tightly. He didn't have a choice. He had to kill him. It was either kill or be killed. 

He jumped to his feet and lunged at the guard.

Anne's POV

Anne pretended to be asleep.

A heavy feeling of sadness filled her body. It revealed how much she had hoped killing the beast would lead to her freedom. But now that she knew the children were still alive, their freedom was way more important than hers. 

Suddenly, she heard a loud crash from Andrew's room.

Her guard opened the door. When he did, Andrew ran in, slamming into him. 

Anne snatched her knife that she hid under her pillow. She jumped up and ran to the guard. She was aiming for the guard's neck when another guard came through the doorway and knocked her down. 

Anne struggled with the guard. 

She slammed a fist into his face. He slapped her, and her vision went dark for a moment.

Suddenly, the man was knocked to the side and Andrew was standing over her. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to her feet. 

Just then, more guards ran into the room. Andrew turned and slammed his fist in a guard's throat. The man went down, clutching his neck and gagging. 

Andrew's fist hit another guard in his face. Then two guards leapt on Andrew, holding his arms while a third guard punched him hard in the stomach. 

Another guard grabbed her by the arms. 

"What is going on?"

Arthur was standing in the doorway. Anne threw all her body weight away from the guard, trying to free herself, but he only tightened his grip on her arms. She watched as a guard slammed his fist into Andrew's stomach again, then punched the side of his face.

Another guard came up behind Arthur. "Chase is dead."

"What?"

"He's in Lord Andrew's room. His throat is cut."

"Lord Andrew." Arthur's voice was shocked. "You killed one of my best men. I can't let you get away with that. Come."

Two guards held each of her arms as they pulled her out of the room, behind Andrew and the guards that surrounded him. 

As they made it down the hall, he turned his head to look at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"Yes."

Blood covered his face. She hoped it was from the dead guard, but there was a bad bruise forming on the side of his face.

They made their way down the stairs and out the door. Through all the commotion that happened, no one, not the servants, not her mother, came out of their rooms to see what was wrong. Arthur must've threatened them or locked them in their rooms. She hoped he hadn't hurt Mother.

The street was dark as they walked down it and there was no one around. Arthur must be taking them out of town so the guard could kill them and hide their bodies. 

As they reached the town gate, Arthur said, "I'm sad that I will never see you two again, but a man has to protect himself from people who wish to harm him."

"You can't kill us." Andrew said. "My father will come and investigate. He will discover what happened to me and Anne."

Arthur gave one of his creepy smiles and said, "When your father learns that you were killed by The Beast while hunting for it, he won't blame me for your deaths."

"And how are you going to make it look like we were mauled by animals?"

"Because I control it."

"You control The Beast?"

"You see, about two years ago, I had my men capture a wolf's cub, only they ended up capturing two. We kept them in a cage in the woods and fed them meat as much as they could eat. We also beat them to make sure they hated men. I also had a man train them to come when called. When I was ready to start the mining business, we stopped feeding them until they were starved. Then whenever anyone comes near the mine's entrance, we set The Beasts loose and let them do what wolves do, hunt and kill."

"A clever plan." Andrew said, as if someone just explained how they were going to build a house. If it wasn't for his calm manner, Anne might've started screaming at this man.

"And it worked. People stopped coming into the woods, so there wasn't that what if someone discovered our mine. And when we were ready for workers to extract the silver, it was the perfect cover for the children's disappearance."

"And how do you justify stealing innocent children?" Anne couldn't keep the anger out of her voice.

"They were mostly orphans. No one missed them. And it also gave them something productive to do with themselves."

"That's a horrible thing to say! And less than half of the children were orphans!"

"I did their parents a favor by giving them one less mouth to feed."

"You are an awful person, Arthur! No wonder you could pretend to be so generous. You were using children to work your mines, slaves you wouldn't have to pay. Why didn't you kidnap adults? They would've been better workers and could make a larger profit for you."

"Adults might escape or fight back. The children were too afraid."

"Emma escaped."

"Oh, yes. Little Emma. She must've slipped away while the guards were sleeping. But that's another reason children are better than adults. They are easily threatened. I told them that if they escaped and tell their parents where they'd been, I'd kill their whole family."

"Oh, I know why you just didn't hire adults. It's because the land where the mind is doesn't belong to you, does it?" 

"And I suppose you think the mine and all the silver inside it should belong to Duke Ben?"

"Yes, because the mine does belong to him."

"Would the duke do as much for Pinecrest as I have?"

"Do you mean making mothers afraid that their children will be eaten by The Beast, so fearful they don't let them go outside to play?"

"Your hatred for me never ends, does it? You are a selfish girl. You always were, trying to turn my own wife against me."

"You are evil."

"Accusing your stepdaughter doesn't excuse you, Arthur," Andrew spoke up. "The fact that you don't think you did anything wrong baffles me."

"You know nothing. You are too enamored by this girl's outward beauty to think rationally. You should've gone back to Dawnridge when you had the chance. Now I have to leave you two to your fate. You brought this on yourselves by stealing my property." Arthur turned to guards and muttered, "You know what to do." He left the group and went back into the town.

The guards pulled them deeper in the woods and up the hill that led to the mine's entrance. 

Poor Mother. She would be trapped in the horrible marriage to Arthur.

But if she and Andrew died, maybe Duke Ben would come to find out the answers to what happened and would find the children and free them.

It was dark as they made their way up the hill, so dark she couldn't see her feet, and she found herself stumbling multiple times. Finally, they came out into a small clearing where the moon was visible overhead. They were almost to the entrance of the mine.

The guards stopped. They pushed Anne and Andrew in front of them, holding their arms. One of the guards went forward and disappeared. She heard the sound of metal scraping against metal. Growling soon followed. The guards pushed her and Andrew forward as the growling grew louder.

She saw the eyes reflecting the moonlight. They were coming closer, one step at a time, until the large, thin body of a wolf came into view.