The Beast watched as his dear Belle slept sweetly, the soft glow of the fire casting shadows across her face.
She stirred as he laid her on her sheets, and his heart hammered against his broad chest as she reached for his hand. For a moment he thought she might ask him to stay. But he knew better. Her eyes made him pause and his heart stop. Rich, brown, like the warm earth in spring. Brown, like her hair. Warm and full of love and joy and life. He would give anything for his Beauty. He would give anything for his peasant Princess who had stolen his melancholy heart.
She was free. Did he have the courage to tell her so? Would she run if he did? Would she leave him if he left the door open? Or would she stay? Mighty heavens and saints and angels he wanted her to stay! To love past his ugly façade, past the stains and scars and animal face that marred him. To see the man beneath the mask.
He slipped his hand from hers and left quietly, stealing silently along the halls to the west wing, where the changes in his soul had begun. He'd felt such fear when he saw her looking at the rose. One touch and he would be stuck like this forever. Or so he had assumed, anyway. He had always blamed the Enchantress for his fate – assumed he had been punished for the act of refusing her rose. He saw now that it was so much more than that. He had humiliated a pauper for his own position and pleasure. Cast her down to make himself higher. He had turned her away into the dark and the cold when he could have easily spared her a room and a meal. Kindness was greater than power, and humility more powerful than might. He was beginning to see that now. He felt it in every touch of Belle's warm hand. She was greater than Cleopatra, stronger than Boudicca, more powerful than Nefertiti. And he wondered briefly how much she knew of these women. She should know of these women, with whose spirits she held so much in common.
His mind wandered then, as he thought of the richness of her spirit, to the richness of her curves, the lush fullness of her lips. He wondered how it was that no man had ever claimed her. He smiled at his own wondering. She was a woman who would not be claimed! She had claimed him, though, heart and soul!