A bit of a longer chapter this time around to make up for how short the last one was. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 15

THE castle was a maze, Belle came to realize. She hated to admit to herself, but she was lost. Terror rooted itself deeply in the pit of Belle's stomach as she constantly replayed the Beast-Prince's words over and over again in her mind.

You are mine to do with as I please, pretty little Belle. I think I like you, so I'll keep you. Just…close your eyes and pretend you're back in your pathetic village.

Belle gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as she aimlessly wandered the halls and tried not to shiver. It was not so much the concept of being trapped here in the prince's castle that bothered her so much, she had known what she had been agreeing to the moment her promise not to flee came out of her mouth.

But rather, it was knowing that Gaston had caused this chasm between the two friends. She wondered if the Beast thought of how the military captain had almost succeeded in getting away with her if she'd not done what she believed was the noble thing and gone back, even if she had to sneak away from him. If the Beast would have had Gaston killed, or, in his growing rage, the monster and animal the former prince now was, if he'd have done it himself.

She shivered at the image of the Beast-Prince growing his fangs and digging them into the skin of Gaston's throat, but she was unable to stop herself from imagining it, and then how the creature had looked at her. The way the Beast had stared at her stayed in her mind's eye, practically burning both her retinas.

She found her stomach turning at the thought of what the Beast wanted to do to her, and that concept alone was enough to make her shiver and bile to rise up in the back of her throat at the thought. These thoughts lasted only half a second before another man's image and name flashed itself before her eyes, burning itself into her brain now.

As hard as Belle tried, she could not manage to rustle up the contempt and disgust she'd once harbored deep within her heart for Gaston Dupont. She tried to remember how ferocious he'd been in the attempt to save her life, getting and doing away with that guard before he'd been able to cut out her tongue. She flinched, and the twitch of her facial muscles sent a white-hot flare of agony through her cheek. Belle let out a tiny whimper as she came to an abrupt halt, the pads of her shaking fingers reaching up to touch the grisly scar at her cheek that had permanently marred her features.

She remembered how he'd genuinely seemed to care for her, how he'd pledged his own life for her.

Could she really allow Gaston to marry her, to touch her on their wedding night? But as she thought of how she was surely above accepting were he to ask, she had an image of him above her, in a completely different way that made her blush.

It made Belle's cheeks burn hot and her stomach flutter. Perhaps it was because Gaston had saved her life, maybe it was because he'd tried to offer her advice in the courtyard while the soldier had the chance, regardless of whether she listened or not.

What would Gaston's rough, calloused hands feel like on her soft, smooth skin if she were to accept? Would he be rough with her? Or would the man be kind and gentle, whisper-soft words into her ear? Though she highly doubted the latter, both images as an option in her mind's eye brought more heat to her cheeks. Belle shook her head.

When she came back to herself, Belle was surprised she was actually breathing heavily and biting down on her lower lip. Her hand was clutching onto a fistful of the dark blue velvet gown she wore until a good portion of it was bunched in her hand and pulled tightly across her hips.

"Stop it!" she angrily told herself, her embarrassment quickly giving way to her anger as she huffed, tossing her dark hair back over her shoulders and continuing on down the desolate and dank hallway.

Belle forcefully shook her head, trying to send away the shocking images of the soldier away in her mind.

She turned wrathfully away from the hallway of the servants' quarters and headed towards the grand-looking staircase, itching to explore the upper levels of the estate.

She felt foolish, and powerless against her own thoughts in her surprisingly vulnerable state.

This would not happen again. It could not. She would not allow it to.

She would fill her mind now with the task at hand, and that was being a loyal and humble hearth keep to this cursed prince, Beast or otherwise if it meant that one day her debt would be paid and that he might show an ounce of mercy towards her and send her home. Or at least, her papa would be safe. Nothing and no one, not even Gaston Dupont, valiant soldier, and protector of their little village, would interfere with her service to the prince.

She huffed in agitation, trying her hardest not to look at her reflection within the polished suits of armor that lined the cold stone walls of the castle's corridor as she walked with as much authority as she could muster up towards the stairs.

Belle blinked herself out of the stupor of her own thoughts as the low murmurings of voices, more than one, reached her eardrums the closer she got towards the staircase. She'd barely managed to set one foot over the first step that would take her up to the second floor, the East and West Wing when a pair of voices reached her eardrums.

"My lady!"

She turned around, not expecting to find Mrs. Potts hopping along, Monsieur's Cogsworth and Lumiere alongside her.

It had been something of a shock to discover Cogsworth and Lumiere had been magically enchanted into a clock and candelabra, respectively, and she was still wondering what various objects the other members of staff had been turned into by whatever dark witch's curse this was, and why she had been spared.

Belle had not exactly been expecting company in her venture up the stairwell to investigate the rest of the castle that was to be her new home for God Himself only knew how long. It was obvious the servants had been talking, and most probably about her since their conversation went quiet as Belle curiously looked down her noses at the trio.

"Lady Belle," Cogsworth greeted her with a cordial smile, or as close as a clock with a face could come, Belle supposed. She tried to return the smile with one of her own, though it felt like a pained grimace as the skin near her scar, the fishnet stitches keeping them in place while it healed stretched, the skin feeling like it was now on fire.

Belle nodded. "Monsieur Cogs…." She began, and then remembered the old man's insistence, well, clock in this case, that she merely call him Cogsworth. "Mister Cogsworth."

She flinched and mentally kicked herself for her error. This was not like her at all, so where on earth was this coming from? Thankfully, the little clock didn't seem to notice as he turned towards his colleague, Lumiere.

Lumiere, who had busied himself for a moment by ensuring his flame did not go out, straightened, and gave her a wide smile that made Belle melt a bit as a surge of affection for the three soared in her heart. Cogsworth, Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, any of the servants here within the prince's castle who were left had every opportunity to leave, or so she thought. The fact that they had all chosen to remain under the Beast-Prince's servitude spoke volumes.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle, and a good evening to you, ma Cherie." Lumiere grinned. "Sleep well?"

Belle was startled at his question. What on earth had he meant by that? Did he…did he know about her nightmares?

Surely not. For the last two nights, she'd woken in terror, screaming at the top of her lungs, thrashing from the pain in her wounded cheek, and drenched in a cold sweat, visions of Gaston and the Prince flitting through her mind, though in her dream, the prince was…human. Human, bleeding and dying in her arms.

She could not for the life of her make sense of the images. Revisiting her last dream had been one of the reasons why Belle had hoped to take a light stroll through the castle, to clear her head of her worries. Her face flushed at the memory. But Belle was somehow able to recover quickly enough and gave him a nervous acknowledgment.

"Yes, I—I did, monsieur, thank you," Belle said, perhaps a little too quickly, as she gathered the skirts of her blue velvet gown and sank into a brief but polite curtsy.

She made to turn away and continue climbing the staircase, her hand on the dusty railing of the balustrade in the hopes that it would send the correct message to the Beast-Prince's Heads of Household, that she was not in the mood for company. Honestly, Belle knew of no other way. She tried not to notice how Monsieur Lumiere's questioning gaze bore a hole straight through the back of her skull, or the amused smirk he shot at Cogsworth.

"Are you lost, ma Cherie?" Lumiere called out in what the man-turned-candelabra hoped was a kind and un-accusing tone. Though a stab of fear pricked at the candelabra as Lumiere witnessed the girl crane her neck upwards and look in the direction of the prince's personal quarters, the old West Wing. "Is there something we can help with? Perhaps we could help you to become un-lost. As you know, that staircase leads to the West Wing, Cherie, the master's personal quarters. He is…quite temperamental about who he lets venture inside…"

Lumiere was attempting to be kind, though Belle detected the faint note of fear seeping its way to the surface of the little candelabra's tenor-like tones.

Belle knew the servants were attempting to be kind to her, but nevertheless, it did not stop a wave of irritation coursing through her veins at the query. Once more, she let the pads of her fingertips ghost over the ruined, reddened flesh of her scar that was rough around the edges, the skin near the scar twisted into a gross grotesquerie.

She would never be the same again, and not one of them had stepped forward when the guard of the prince's had been assaulting her with his knife. Irritated, Belle felt a muscle in her jaw twitch.

"No," she addressed Cogsworth, Lumiere, and Mrs. Potts in a voice that almost sent a chill of cold through them. "You have humiliated me and yourselves enough. There's nothing more either of you can do. You could have helped save me from this, but not one of you stepped forward and spoke up," she snapped, pointing with a shaking index finger towards her ruined face, turning on her heels to go.

Belle did not bother to look back, for she would have seen how the three servants huddled together, shame ringing on their ears from somewhere inside of them, as they all knew the prince's newest hearth keep was correct in that regard. Mrs. Potts swallowed. She could not remember seeing the details of Belle peering over her shoulder once more to look at the three of them as she slowly ascended the staircase. Belle's face was stiff, and all traces of softness dried out in the girl.

"How could you…?" She narrowed her dark eyes in incense and despair. "…allow him to do this?"

Lumiere and Cogsworth felt what little breath was left in their lungs turn to stone as they breathed out and watched the young mademoiselle turn away. Lumiere looked to his immediate left to catch old Cogsworth's quick evasion of eye contact now. And for the first time, shame rained down on the three Heads of Household like arrows that shielded the light of the sun, which all made sense now that Belle had left the entryway and left them behind.

Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts watched the young woman ascend the staircase and take a turn to the left, towards the West Wing instead of the East. Mrs. Potts made an odd, strangled noise at the back of her throat and hobbled forward to go after the girl, though Lumiere flung out an arm and stopped her.

"No, Mrs. Potts," he said to her, speaking in a grave tone that was not at all like him. "Let her go. The girl seeing us at this point will only be a danger to herself, and her presence upstairs… It will be good for the master, I think…to see her."

Mrs. Potts looked as though she wanted to protest, though, after a second or two of indecision, she consented and stepped back off of the first step. Lumiere was looking strangely pensive, while Mrs. Potts stood with a hopeful expression resting on her placid China features as the teapot stared. Cogsworth, on the other hand, could barely stifle his worried groan at the thought of what the master would do if and when he discovered the girl nearby the West Wing.

This pairing promised to provide as many irritating moments as had his relationship with Monsieur Lumiere until the two men could come to a mutual understanding with one another. He stood, shaking his head at the images he saw there. Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed by Mrs. Potts, who glanced at Cogsworth and frowned.

The teapot gave the clock a wide-eyed glower.

"You hold so little faith in her? You don't think that this will work?" Mrs. Potts questioned her colleague in annoyance as the trio turned away from the stairs and hobbled their way towards the hallway that would lead them through the servants' quarters and towards the kitchen to prepare their master's supper. He'd no doubt be wanting it soon.

Cogsworth shot Mrs. Potts his most innocent 'leave me out of this gaze,' as he ticked in his ire.

"It has to," Lumiere answered in his friend's place. "If anyone holds a chance of lifting this accursed, wretched witch's curse, it's the lass there." Lumiere's temporary serious nature as they discussed the aspects and conditions of their curse gave the little candelabra a business-first nature. "You surely heard the conditions of the witch's curse," Lumiere patiently reminded Mrs. Potts. "Monsieur Gaston was never supposed to be here that night, I don't think. The master must learn to love another and earn her love in return, but he's not even actively attempting to try…" he cried out.

Lumiere let his voice trail off, looking worried.

"Perhaps all the master needs, is time alone with her," Cogsworth suggested, trying to be helpful. Cogsworth stood listening to them and frowned.

Lumiere nodded his agreement and looked up towards the stairwell just in time to spot the girl's slender silhouette disappear from his line of sight. He let himself have a moment to think and then brought the topic of conversation back towards the lady Belle and the master of the castle, reluctantly.

"Well, one thing's for sure," Lumiere sighed deeply and shook his head. "The master has little under six months to win the girl's affections. Or all of us, we're all doomed, and he'll have killed us all."

Mrs. Potts looked as though she wanted to say more, though she was interrupted by a flustered looking former foot soldier, all of the guards had been enchanted into walking suits of armor, that barreled his way down the hallway, demanding to know where the lady Belle had gotten off to now.

"Why?" Lumiere asked, his curiosity piqued.

It took the rattling suit of armor a moment to answer as the knight caught its breath, doubled over and clutching at a stitch in his side as he answered in a muffled voice that was hidden by his helmet's visor. "There's a man at the front gates, seekin' an audience with the lady. Told me to keep it discreet."

Cogsworth bristled at the suit of armor's inability to provide more adequate enough details. "A man? What man? And you didn't possibly think to get his name and what he wants with the woman before coming to us?" he asked. "This chap. Man has a name?" he questioned, trying to contain his anger. Again, the knight took too long to respond and when he finally did, the mention of this unexpected visitor's name sent a collective cold chill through the Heads of Households' bones, paralyzing them.

"Monsieur Gaston Dupont, Master Cogsworth."

THE more she climbed, the more her angry seething subsided as she thought about her words to them. She did not want either of their pity or help. She was not a damsel in distress anymore, though the events of a few nights ago and again in the Wolves' Woods when the Beast had saved her life might have suggested otherwise to anyone else who didn't know any better.

The moment her feet stepped off the topmost step that had her on the second floor, she held onto the bricked stone walls the moment she left that tense scene behind her. Belle shook her head to herself to rid her head of the sudden dizziness that came to her out of pure anxiety.

Even Belle could not deny the courage that demanded copious amounts of adrenaline to course through her veins to speak to the Beast-Prince's three most trusted advisors in such a bold way like that. The act had hallowed her throat and dried it out, quenching her thirst for a drink of water. It made her wonder how she had done that.

She wasn't interested in the servants' help, yet. Perhaps in some possibly not so far away future when her situation would change, she would look differently at that proposition and change her mind, but now was not that time to decide on that.

Her cheeks reddened in anger as she thought of the servants' cowardice and inability to speak up when that guard had been hurting her, cutting her. Belle paused, still groping along the stone walls for support as a wave of nausea coursed through her. She continued on through the castle corridor.

The Beast had more or less given her permission to move about the castle at will, save for the West Wing, and she decided, considering how sick she felt, she was going to take advantage of the opportunity to try to clear her mind and feel better. Her fingers smoothed over the hardened cold stone, the coldness seeping into Belle's fingertips.

She pressed her cheek against the cold stone, letting out a slow shaky breath as pain surged through the damaged nerves of her cheek, though the coolness felt soothing to her burning, still-healing scar. It was soothing, calming, and relaxing.

Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she pressed herself against the cold stone. Belle reached out and felt the warmth of stone by a nearby torch in its sconce. She found herself enjoying the cold more.

She could not explain it, but in this moment of peace and tranquility, she felt closer to her father.

"What are you doing out at this hour, putain?!"

The voice was male, foreign, and grating, if not a bit gravelly.

Belle let out a startled gasp as she turned, ripping herself away from the soothing cool stone to see who—or what—it was that now stood behind her. A knight in a shining suit of brilliantly polished armor stood there, his face hidden by his visor.

Belle pressed her back against the wall and swallowed down hard at the sight of the guard, working hard to try to memorize the details. Large, tall, broad-shouldered, and…familiar, yet foreign.

She almost—almost—found herself praying for her master to appear and put a stop to this, whatever 'this' was for her, but she knew the Beast wouldn't. Whatever he was doing, his interests were not about protecting her and ensuring her safety.

"The—Cogsworth…he told me that I could—" she started to say, though the knight cut Belle off as he stepped forward, keeping a hand on the hilt of its sword. Belle felt like she had swallowed knives as she licked her lips to moisten them, her mouth dry.

"It's the master's word that matters," the suit of armor interrupted Belle, still speaking to her in that reedy-sounding voice that sent a chill down her spine. "And the master gave me no such order, girl."

Belle's throat hurt as she considered whether or not she should say something to this guard, but as she considered whether or not she should even speak, she struggled to decide how she'd go about it.

Should she beg him for mercy? Should she try and talk to him, try to make herself more human? Or should she simply be quiet and take whatever she was about to get from him?

The questions raced through Belle's brain at an unbelievable speed and by the time she heard the suit of armor coming towards her, her lips were parting, but the only thing that came out was a strangled effort at speech.

"Please…" Belle found the whispered words leaving her lips before she could even make the decision to speak them. "Please don't hurt me, sir, I—I'll return to my rooms if this will cause trouble—" she begged, but again, he cut Belle off.

"We shall see what the master of the house hopes to do with you. I'm surprised you don't… remember me…" he spoke in a gurgling voice that still sent a chill down her spine, and the suit of armor and the guard inside of it was on Belle in a moment, grabbing her wrist in a painful vice and squeezing it, hard enough to break her wrist if he was of that mind. She cried out in pain and struggled to free herself, though her struggling did her little good.

"Do…do I know you?" she whispered in a small voice, hoping to supplicate this guard some. Almost immediately as the words left her mouth in an attempt to diffuse the situation, Belle regretted it. Belle had only a fraction of a second to mull and think that whatever or whoever was underneath this brilliantly polished suit of armor, she was not going to like it one bit, judging by the cold chill that wafted down her spine and terror pricked her heart. And then, his hands reached up to flick up the visor of the helmet, and Belle was stunned into speechlessness as all the blood drained off her face.

She barely heard the faint noise of pain that emanated from the back of her throat as she looked into the cold, listless, and dead eyes of the same guard who had attacked her and mauled her face. The same one she had thought Gaston had killed.

"I…I don't…I never…" Belle stammered weakly, opening her mouth to try to scream for help, but nothing else came out. "Wh—what….?" She begged. Her breaths caught in her throat, mind reeling.

This could not possibly be happening to her…

The thing that had been Ser Laurent merely gazed at Belle with a cold, calculating look in its eyes. The man's flesh was pudding-white, his face, what was left of it that Gaston hadn't managed to ruin, was shredded, and already turning purple with rot and decay. The skin under its eyes was sunken in and hallowed, blotches of brittle decay speckling across the reanimated corpse's cheeks. Under the rueful and baleful glower of those sunken in, inhuman eyes seething with hatred, Belle wanted nothing more than to turn and run, but the knight had her wrist caught in a vice grip.

"H—how?" she squeaked, bile rising in her throat. Belle wasn't sure that she wanted an answer.

"Witch's curse brought me back, wench, how's that for your 'how? The witch can't even let a man die properly, I suppose, now this is some sort of eternal fresh hell, I'd wager,'" Not-Ser-Laurent spoke in a succession of halting, hissing, and spitting words that emerged as he had to pinch the slash in his throat from where Gaston had slit his throat shut in order to properly speak.

Belle squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to look at the gruesome image. Her stomach turned as he began to drag her forwards down a dark, desolate hall devoid of warmth, the cold temperature dropping further.

"No, no, please…" she begged, near tears, as the guard turned around to face her the moment the plea left her lips, and when he turned around, that same dagger he'd cut her face with was clutched in his hands, and Bell once again felt terror seize her.

She continued to splutter until the flat side of his blade was gently placed to her lips. She fell silent but began to tremble even more violently now. The knife was moved and the monstrous reanimated wretch that had once been Ser Laurent looked down to her body again, saying nothing, and turned around.

As Ser Laurent passed the prince's chambers as they neared the West Wing, Belle called out, suddenly desperate for the monster's protection. Surely, as vile, and cruel though the Beast was, he did not wish to see his hearth keep hurt? He'd claimed he had wanted to keep her alive. When they got to the end of the hall, the Beast was lingering at the end of the hallway, by the windowsill, hands placed strategically by his back.

He glanced towards them as he saw them approach, and Belle couldn't be sure, but as the creature's piercing blue eyes found Belle's reddening, tear-stained face, the monster straightened and turned to face Ser Laurent fully.

"Knight," the Beast bit out at Not-Ser Laurent in a hoarse voice that sounded more like a dog bark to her.

Belle felt some hope swell within her chest, inexplicably, as she looked at the master of the castle, and thought she saw a flicker of something, a foreign emotion, pass through those crystal eyes.

"I found the wench wandering 'round the castle, milord," the thing that had been the human version of Ser Laurent once, bringing up Belle's wrist to show the Beast, who let out a low, threatening snarl.

"Let the girl go, she is my hearth keep, bastard," he growled incredulously, staring at Not-Ser-Laurent with a look of anger burning as his eyes darkened almost cerulean in color the angrier the Beast became as he looked at the knight.

Belle flinched at the curse that poured from his lips.

"Perhaps you've forgotten that it was I who gave the girl permission to go about the castle in free will? You brought her up here to tell me what I already know?" the Beast snarled, oblivious to Belle's growing discomfort the angrier he became. "Do you take me for a fool? You dare to question your master's orders, knight?"

"The—the girl was trying to escape, master!" Laurent hissed, and Belle immediately shook her head, trying to keep the trembling in her voice quiet, her tears at bay so he'd not think her weak.

"I—I wasn't! I wasn't, monsieur, I swear, sir!" she pleaded, furiously blinking back tears. Belle saw the Beast bristle at the title but looked back to Ser Laurent with a cold, listlessness in his blue eyes.

"Let the girl go, knight," the Beast rasped in a dangerously threatening tone and leaned back against the door to his own chambers. "Do I need to say it again a second time? I really hate saying it a second time. LEAVE!" he roared, the Beast's face twisted and contorted with wrath, but which slowly faded at the sight of his hearth keep's hollow gaze.

The knight hadn't moved a finger, trying to understand whether or not the command was meant for him or his servant.

And the Beast's piercing icy gaze threw daggers at the dead man. "Do I need to say it a third time, fool? GO!" the Beast bellowed, and still, Ser Laurent made no move at all, which was apparently the wrong course of action.

Not-Ser-Laurent let go of Belle's wrist, afraid and taking a fumbling step backward, but it was already too late. She felt her stomach drop as her eyes traveled to her master, who did not stop his stride at all. She thought she already knew the outcome of this encounter before she saw it play out before her, and bile rose up within her throat.

The soldier called something in a series of hissing and spitting sounds as again, he had to pinch the gash in his throat in order to be able to speak. Of which Belle only caught a word or two of, but most of it she could not understand as she backed away and darted behind the Beast for protection, though the creature kept walking towards the knight.

Not-Ser-Laurent had an armored hand on the hilt of his sword, but the Beast did not flinch. Belle squeezed her eyes shut when she saw the master of the castle approach the knight who had attacked her, a claw raised in the air as if to strike.

Somehow, Belle kept herself from crying but turned her head away and tried to block out the knight's screams, though the sound of footsteps fading down the other side of the corridor and to the stairwell made her wonder if he had let him go.

When she had regained some courage, Belle cautiously peeked open one eyelid to find the Beast standing in front of her, a respectable enough distance away, eyeing her guardedly, as though he was not quite sure what sort of reaction Belle would have.

Though a cry left her lips as it stalked towards her, the master of the castle's warm, large claw winding its way around her arm and gripping her firmly in the effort to keep her up.

Though it wasn't good enough as she used the cold stone wall as a brace for her back and slid effortlessly to the floor as the strength left her legs. When she knew she was firmly resting on the floor, a tiny sob escaped her lips despite her best efforts to quell it as everything within her clenched in horror, visions of now a second monster permanently implanting itself into her brain. This witch's curse, there was no end to all of this cruelty.

The most horrifying aspects of the witch's curse continued to get worse and worse as the days went by.

It was bad enough that Ser Laurent had attacked her when the man had been living, but now she must suffer the guard's company again a second time, though this one much worse than before?

"It—it should have left him dead, why isn't it dead?" she cried in a choked gasp, speaking more to himself than him. Tears leaked out of her eyes as she reached up a finger to furiously wipe them away before the saltiness of her tears could sting the cut on her cheek. Belle could feel the master of the castle, just standing there, watching her cry in silence, in pain.

She felt the monster's eyes on her and when Belle finally managed to collect herself, she looked up slowly. She sniffed when her eyes landed on his blank, expressionless face. Belle looked into the Beast-Prince's piercing pale blue eyes but inside them, there was no clue, no sign, of why he'd not punished her yet for disturbing his peace and quiet.

As the Beast and the hearth keep looked at one another, Belle desperately tried to come to terms with her new situation, as a chill wafted over her. She was stuck in the prince's castle, in the West Wing, a place where she was supposedly not permitted to go, and completely and utterly at the mercy of none other than the Beast himself.