As Belle entered the grounds behind the castle she found that it was covered in roses, hundreds and thousands of beautiful roses, in all kinds of colours. They ranged from emerald green, the colour of her eyes, to midnight black. It was beautiful. Something she had never told anyone else before, something she had always kept secret was the fact that she absolutely adored roses. Her favourite colour of the roses was the blood red ones, they reminded her of death, but they also reminded her of love.

As she journeyed over to the roses, the blood red ones, she was reminded of how she had always avoided any kind of love. For everything that she loved seemed to leave her. There were her parents, mum and dad. They were the best parents any girl could ever wish for. Yes they might have spoilt her rotten as the only child that she was, but they were always there when she needed them, with hugs and kisses and medicines when she was ill. Which had always happened, and it seemed frequently too. For she always came down with a chill or two.

But the deaths of Belle's parents had opened her eyes to the cruel and harsh reality of the world. Everything you loved would die. As a young girl she had always fantasised about her true love, had always loved hearing her parents' stories of how they met and how they knew they were just right for each other. She loved their reassurances that her own true love would just be as wonderful as she was. And she had believed them. She had always held on to that belief. But she was scared to meet that mate, for they spoke of her as a child when they said that she was wonderful. Now, now she was damaged.

'But my mate is a beast, they were right when they said he would be just like me,' Belle murmured to herself as she sat beside the blood red roses and picked one so that she could smell the sweet, sweet fragrance permeating from it. 'And when will he come to see me again?' she asked. Yes Belle found her mate dangerous at times, but she also found him sweet and understanding. And on the plus side he was very ravishing.

'Belle?' A male voice rang out from behind her. A familiar male voice, one that she had heard before, but of which she could not place exactly. 'Oh Belle it is you,' the man said and when she turned she saw one of the most beautiful human men that she had ever laid her eyes on. With that chocolate brown hair, and that beautiful olive complexion, he could have been Spanish, and then those lips! So pink they had to be made from crushed peonies, and under the clothing her wore she could tell that he was broad and as muscular as her father had been when he had been alive.

Yet she did not know him. Who was this odd male that had turned up in the Beast's castle, in this garden that she considered her own? How dare he trespass on a land that did not belong to him? She would tell the Beast immediately and have him escorted from the premises. He did not belong here. Not like she did. He had no right to be here!

And at the stern look on her face the male spoke once more, in a confused manner this time.

'Belle, do you not recognise me?' the male asked and she shook her head. How could she recognise someone that she had never met before?

'No, now please get off this land before I am obliged to go and fetch the master to escort you off this land by himself. And I for one would rather avoid bloodshed if at all possible,' Belle informed him and when he opened his mouth to speak, for what to say she did not know for she soon became deaf. No matter how hard she strained herself to hear the words he surely kept repeating, she just couldn't. And a part of her knew that those words were very important indeed. But she could not judge the truth or importance without actually hearing them. Were they the reason he was here? She could not say.

Whoever he was, she would find out one way or another.