'What are you doing Isabelle?' The witch asked and Belle turned wondering how the woman knew her by her full name, she had only told her, her nick name the name that Red had called her by. This was yet another mystery for her to figure out wasn't it?
Yet she had no time to think it through or to even rationalise about this woman's connection to her because she felt Beast's heart beat its last beat. Tears fell from her eyes and she turned her gaze and her attention toward her mate, toward the male that she loved. But now he was gone.
'No, Beast, don't do this, wake up, don't die, don't die!' She begged but his heart had already given out. 'Why would you do this to me?' Belle cried out and fell forward on top of his beastly form and howled with agony, her tears dripping onto his fur coat and sinking through. 'Come back I love you damn it,' she said, her raging beginning to get the better of her now.
'Isabelle my darling there is something you must know,' the witch began and Belle turned to her, hope glittering in her eyes.
'Bring him back, bring him back now. Please, I will do anything for you, just bring him back, don't let him be dead. Oh this is all my fault,' Belle sobbed, drawing her knees to her chest and holding on tight.
'You're crying Belle?' Usha's voice called from behind her and Belle turned to see her once friend, now worst enemy, standing there a look of wonder on her face. Of course there was. Belle had never cried. At least not in any of her recollection, but she couldn't seem to stop the tears that flowed now.
'Silence, get away from me, you are no longer worthy of the title friend, get out of my garden or I will, or I will…' she trailed off knowing that, even though her friend had betrayed her she could not ever harm her. Red was the only friend that Belle had ever had and like a sister she had stood beside her.
'There is no need to bargain me to bring him back Isabelle, look,' the witch said and Belle could almost hear a smile in her voice. A smile, why when this woman had seemed so…emotionless! Belle had only known one other person as emotionless as this woman and she was supposed to be long dead. Could it be? She wondered to herself and then stopped when she felt something move directly behind her. Was it Beast?
'Beast,' she called out and when she turned she couldn't find him. The only thing that lay where he once had was a handsome man, with chocolate brown hair and the darkest of emeralds lay in his eyes. Eyes that she recognised but couldn't place, for she had never seen this man in her entire life. She would have remembered him, or would she, considering the fact that he was now as naked as the day that he was surely born.
'Beast!' Belle cried out more urgently now, standing and searching the garden. He might be dead, but somebody had taken his body and left in its place a man. Was this the witch's doing, to tempt her into changing her love?
'I am here Belle,' she turned with hope, but all she saw was the stranger making his way over to her. At her confused expression he proceeded to explain. 'I was born many centuries ago and I was placed under a curse by this witch,' he pointed an accusing finger. 'A curse she swore only her descendant could break.' Realisation hit his eyes as he spoke and he narrowed his eyes at her.
'What is the matter?' Belle asked, trying to comfort him, trying to hold him but he only turned away.
'You tricked me, you both tricked me, you were in this together!' He pointed his pale fingers accusingly first at her and then the witch. 'You are mother and daughter are you not? You sent her here? You knew that she would touch my roses, therefore ensuring my countdown,' Beast said and Belle shook her head, close to tears again. He was accusing her of trying to kill him? Why?
'My mother is dead Beast I am an orphan,' she tried to tell him but he would not hear of it.
'Actually that's not entirely true Isabelle,' the witch said and before she knew it, she was staring not at a stranger but the mother that had supposedly died. 'Oh don't look at me like that. I had to fake my death. I was supposed to be growing old but that never does work for me as an immortal witch. But look at you; you're everything I'd hoped you'd be. Isabelle you have changed so much since your last reincarnation, but you are still the daughter I know you to be, a little harder and stone faced when it comes to emotions, but at least you can cry for the things that you want, the people that you want. And hey who knows, maybe I agreed to curse you because I knew my daughter would only fall in love with her mate if he was something out of the ordinary, if he was something that was supposed to be reviled and feared. After all my daughter always did love the monsters,' the witch, her mother, said and memories of a time Belle had never before seen flitted through her mind.
She remembered being a woman in another time, another place, something like medieval and she could see herself in a forest looking for something. A werewolf her memory whispered and she remembered wanting to see how it functioned and what it did. Her mother was right. She did love the beasts.
'You did this for my own good?' Beast asked and the witch nodded.
'Now you can truly have a blood offspring as you have always desired Charlie,' mother announced and Belle thought of that. She had always wanted to be a mother, always wanted a family to replace the corrupt one she had known.
'Charlie?' Belle called out and when she reached him he suddenly wore clothing, she shot her mother a look and hugged him tight to her when she reached him. 'Thank god you're alive, I love you, I love you so much. I loved you as a beast and I love you now.' With those words of love she was treat to a kiss, a kiss so passionate and filled with heat that she could not ignore her own growing desire for him. At least now they would fit better together.
'And I love you Belle, come with me to my wing and lets waste the night,' he suggested and she giggled, actually giggled for the first time in any of her existences.