Summary:
Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.
Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.
With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.
As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.
“He was not like the vicious, mindless shadows that he ruled. As befit a prince, he far surpassed his subjects in power: he could speak and take such form that mortal eyes could look on him and not go mad. But he was a demon still. After our wedding night, how much of me would be left?”
“One of us had to die. That was the bargain Father had struck, and it was not her fault that he had picked her to be the one who lived, but every time she smiled, I still thought: She smiles because she is safe. She is safe because I am going to die.”
“Then she flung her arms around me. My shoulders tightened and I almost jerked away, but instead I made myself embrace her back. She was my only sister. I should love her and be willing to die for her, since the only other choice was that she die for me. And I did love her; I just couldn’t stop resenting her either.
[...]
“The truth is, Mother died because of you, and now I have to die for your sake too. And neither one of us will ever forgive you.”
“I pushed the thought away. All Astraia’s life, Father and Aunt Telomache had coddled and protected her. They had taught her over and over that her only purpose was to be loved. It wasn’t her fault that she’d never learnt to be brave, much less that they’d picked her to live instead of me. And anyway, how could I wish to live at the price of my own sister’s life?”
“Proud, yes. But not loving. Even when we were very young, it was clear that Astraia took after Mother, and I after Father. So there was never any question which one of us would pay for his sin.”
“No, it’s easy for you, I thought. Tonight you will fondle my father while I am the plaything of a demon.”
From the beginning, Nyx and her husband, the prince of Arcadia, have a complicated relationship. Neither of them is what the other one expected. Ignifex doesn't kiss her that first night, much less take her virginity, and he founds her amusing. Nyx is part good, part evil, and she is not going to let him get away with anything.
“But just one knife?” he said. “A prudent warrior would carry two. Or did I miss one?” He leaned forward. “Will my lady wife let me check?”
I smashed my fist into his face.”
“He spoke slowly, and though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was struggling against the seal on his lips. “I wish . . . we could have met . . . somewhere else.”
The air stilled in my lungs. If that was not a confession of love, it was near enough.
“I do too,” I said.”
It gets complicated though—like I said, Shade is a shadow. He only has a solid body at night, and he must follow all of Ignifex's orders. This whole story is happening in a world where demons exist. It is the story of The Beauty and te Beast in a world of Greek Mythology. It does get confusing at times, but it is the kind of confusing that would be cleared up if you reread it.
My biggest complain with Cruel Beauty is the ending. Not only is it confusing, it is also of the HEA variety. I wish something else had happened, something unpredictable that changed the ending into something almost bittersweet.