A/N: I don't own Skip Beat! Remember when Reino partially undressed Kyouko? Suppose he ripped out a personal effect of hers. Why? He's a naughty Beagle.

Beware Beagle

Kyouko was in a murky place, with frightful shapes clutching at the air as though seeking to escape from their own perverted hells. It was one of the rare times she wished she'd kept her hair trimmed, for surely the useless tresses would tangle in the branching hands. There was nothing to do than fight through the crowd.

She tried not to look at the grimaces and tried not to think of the sweat and God knew what else were in those hands going every which way. A vague remembrance of green grass and lovely, quiet woodland creatures floated in her mind's eye; this was what she wished for. That sunny meadow she used to know, where the trees beckoned and the leaves sang welcome.

Why was everything black and gray? Where were the bright colors that would coax her out of this pit before the grim and the ghastly infected her? She was lost in brittle, prickly fingers-- hair yanked, shirt stretched and frayed beyond hope. Her arms were planted firmly by the sides of her skirt to preserve the remaining modesty.

A cold hand closed on the scruff of her neck and this time, she did scream. Her vision wavered with the awful groping receding from her view. Her shoulder jarred against cold stone and she sank, cushioned by the mounds of dust on the floor. Her hands rasped the splintered wainscoting.

"Dear me, I did not expect to cause you physical pain," uttered a man's velvety tenor. As rapidly as she was thrown, strong arms encircled her and carried her. Whoever he was, his touch imparted no warmth. She felt powerless and claustrophobic in his grip.

She felt the press of hard, parallel bars on her bottom as the man sat down. A draft stirred her hair and she could smell the cool leather of the couch he'd settled on. Before she looked down, she knew the leather would be black and expansive.

Black leather, formed in the shape of a hand, cupped her chin and lifted her gaze. She was immobilized from the sharp canines, the patrician nose, and then expectant eyes. It was the cruelty in the washed out irises that truly froze her. She knew those uncaring eyes. "Reino."

There was no question of how she'd fallen under his domain; with her pattern of fortune, she went from no luck to botched luck. "Throw me back," she pleaded.

"Now now, my dear Kyouko, why would I ignore your prayers for help? And this might learn you to call for mercy in Purgatory. Would it please you to know that you were so close to home all on your own?" He laughed at her frantic thrashing; she wasn't going anywhere.

"I may consider relinquishing you, my pretty. All you need to do is amuse me."

"You're smiling so you're already amused. And another thing, I am not pretty and I am certainly not yours."

He squeezed her throat, and her tears spilled into the palm of his hand. "When I say amuse me, you will do so. I ask for a pittance in return for your soul."

"Children starve in a wealthy nation like America; puppies get kicked; creeps like you get away with rape and murder."

"How factual. And how would that amuse me?" inquired Reino.

"I thought pure evil would cater to your sadism," Kyouko back-talked. She earned another hug for her breathing passages.

"Children and puppies are nuisances to me, as are their humdrum growing pains. Did no one ever tell you that a basic element of humor is surprise? Perhaps I should demonstrate comedy for you."

Reino released his hold on her neck and passed his hand over his face. His nose broadened by a hairline, the tip of it rounded out minutely. His gaunt face filled out and his eyes burned into her like coal. "I love you. Please stay with me forever." Smirking, Reino drew her closer to his chest, forcing her to nuzzle against his throat. Her little fists attempted to beat against him, the knuckles grinding in like brass points.

"Tsuruga-san is nothing like you, you fiend!" she sobbed.

"Tsuruga-san is nothing you will ever get to cherish," Reino said, stroking her hair in mock comfort and kissing where her hair stuck out at angles. "That's why it's so damned funny."

She sobbed harder and he patted her heaving shoulders. "Oh hush, the joke gets better. The sempai you respect doesn't exist, meaning you've been making a fool of yourself for someone's facade."

"I know that!" Kyouko snapped, her cheeks flushed, her eyelids pink and raw from damming up the tears. "I know that he's forcing himself to be nicer to me even though I am below him in talent and scope."

She didn't register why Reino was ready to bust a gut laughing. "No no, my dear girl. The lies run so much deeper than that; he might as well be in America despite all your charms and goodness. Don't you hate feeling left out?"

He loosened his hold on her and she flopped onto her back, onto his lap, and she had the privilege of watching him wipe his eyes from all that snickering. As he scrubbed at his face, the black hair he'd assumed lightened to sun-ripened corn and his black eyes faded into a sea of blue.

This new imitation confused Kyouko. "Who are you trying to be?" she asked, though her instincts told her she would not like his answer.

"You mean this old face?" Reino pulled down on the skin underneath the lovely blue and stuck his tongue out. He barely held in the next round of laughing. "It's a punch line."

"What's the joke?" Kyouko asked.

"It's a very Corn-y joke," Reino said, grinning with the fangs from his original form. "You'll just choke," he said, wrapping his fingers around her neck lightly," when you get to that question."

"Why should I even trust you? You're persecuting me."

"Because it's not the lies that will destroy you, my dear proud Kyouko. I am a villain, but I have mastered certain weapons proclaimed by heroes. I am also a clairvoyant; Ren Tsuruga will disappear from your life and the only thing you'll have left of him is this visage you see before you."

Reino turned his head to give her a good look at his flattering profile. It turned her stomach; he was beautiful, looking to the heavens as though he would ascend. Tears blurred her vision because Kyouko knew this demonic served his prophecies cold, hard, and exact.

"I believe you," Kyouko said. She swiped at her wet face and breathed out the hiccups.

"If only that would free you," Reino said, feigning a touch of pity. He resumed his regular unnatural face. "You have fulfilled my desires, Kyouko. I am amused; ask a favor of me."

"Let me go," she said, keeping the words as simple and as free of loopholes as she could.

"Of course, of course," he said, waving at her impatiently, or was he waving a hand to dash her hopes? "But I must treat your wounds first before throwing you out there."

He held her warm hand in both of his clammy ones and his wolf-like eyes inspected the offending splinter from various angles. "Have you ever read Sleeping Beauty?" Reino asked. Apparently he was in a mood to chat.

"No," Kyouko said, because she wished to refuse him. She cried out when he squished the inflamed flesh around the splinter.

"Lies do not become us, my sweet. I'll have you know that you have a startling fixation on that particular fairy tale, where you wake up to a rosy life. If you knew the true tale the pestering Grimms tinkered with, I doubt the story would retain its appeal to you."

In spite of herself, Kyouko peered at him curiously for the true fate of the princess. "It was not merely a kiss that wakened Beauty. Only your naïve heart would believe that a Prince bursting to sow his royal oats would chastely desire Beauty. And even when he used her, repeatedly, she would not stir. I won't even touch on the psyche of a man who would bed a cold doll."

Reino calmly removed the hands Kyouko had planted firmly over her ears. "That will hardly expedite the healing process, my dear." He easily ducked all of Kyouko's swinging fists. "Beauty awoke when her twins, crawling over her body to suckle, swallowed the needle stuck in her hand."

"Now isn't that a sweet moral? Life giving life," Reino said. "Warms the soul, I know." He caught one of her punches and bent back her wrist painfully close to the breaking point. When she stopped struggling, Reino expertly teased out the splinter with his sharp teeth. Once he spat it out, he soothed the sore with his warm mouth.

"As an added favor, I will heal the bruises on your heart," Reino said. He pulled, stressing at a previous tear in the shirt, and tossed aside the resulting pink rags.

"There's that expression I wanted." He barely cast an eye over her breasts; it was that look of hers that commanded his attention. That look that promised his own undoing.

"How dare you trespass on my unmarried body?" she asked as sharply as an icicle. In the power of her own fury, she regained control. Kyouko clambered off of him to the other end of the couch, one arm crossed over her bra.

"You were holding back, my darling," Reino returned. He crouched over her and lowered his head, almost reverently placing a kiss over her heart.

"Give me all your passion," he ordered, his dry lips over her pulse. "So that I may feed."

Always, always, Reino's delightful night terrors ended there, with his teeth closing in on pillow or whatever plaything dozed within reach.

However, there was a silver lining even for Reino, in the form of a lavender candle. The waxen shape was an unmistakably feminine figure. On this specific candle, a single red bow from a girl's undergarments decorated the convex dip of polished thighs, signifying the red strings of fate connecting him to Fuwa's feisty girl.

Reino was not too upset on the rude awakening for he was making progress. Shou's smirk was no longer necessary to rouse her temper and the other fellow would take himself out of the running for Kyouko's tireless attention. He could taste her rage, her heat on his lips, and he almost licked his chops.