*-Of course, I don't own any of the characters
*-Reviews area always welcome
The Morning After
Vincent woke up that morning feeling different. To be fair, he was different. He looked down at his right hand, as human as the rest of him. Resting on the 4th finger was his wedding ring, glittering in the morning sun. The he remembered everything.
The fight with Gaston, dying as a Beast, and then somehow returning to life as a man. She was there all along, a reminder of how far he had come in a very short time. They had married two days after his transformation. She had looked so beautiful her in wedding dress, he couldn't have imagined this day until she entered his life.
Then came the wedding night.
"Vincent?" she saw the nervous look in his eyes.
Before she entered his castle for the first time, any interaction with women had been limited to his mother, who had died when he was a child and the castle staff who treated him with a combination of trepidation and fear. His initial reaction was to treat her as he treated his staff, but he soon learned that she was not as easily intimidated. That's when he felt the first bloom of real love, when she called him out on his temper, then thanked him for the rescue from the wolves.
"It's only me" she said, cupping his chin her hands.
"I don't want to hurt you" he said anxiously, remembering the sounds he heard from his parents bedroom, then the grief his father faced when his mother died in childbirth, her unborn daughter dead before she could enter the world.
"I'll survive".
She kissed him and he soon forgot his anxiety, letting nature and their passion take over.
"Belle?" he asked, realizing that her half of the bed was empty.
"Here" she replied, sitting on the next the windows, the sunlight filtering through the room.
Her brown eyes met his blue eyes. Belle felt butterflies as she looked at her husband. Part of her took a moment to digest the word: husband. Not only was she newly married, but she was a princess.
"A penny for your thoughts, love" he said, sitting beside her. She leaned into him, taking in his scent as he wrapped his arms around her.
They were not what they had been, a lonely ostracized peasant girl and a prince hidden in the form of a beast. The last few months had changed everything for both of them and if asked, neither would want it any other way.
"Nothing" she replied.
"You sure?" he asked, gently pushing back a strand of her chocolate colored locks behind her ear.
"I'm sure".
Hearing the footsteps outside of their suite, they knew their time alone would be short. Their duties as prince and princess were bearing down on them, and they knew it.
"Must we get up?" Vincent asked.
"We must".
Hearing "good morning your majesties" behind them, they got up and acquiesced themselves to the fact they did in fact need to get up.
The End