CHAPTER 30
BELLE tried to ignore how the coldness nearly made her numb as she blinked a nearly frozen tear as she quite literally stomped her way in a seething fury to the gates.
She felt as though she were walking into a battle the closer she approached the towering iron-wrought gates and the cloaked figure whose stance remained unchanged and still as a marble statue. Her fingers twitched, itching to reach for the dagger at her hip that the Prince had gifted her, but she was unskilled in its usage and resisted the urge.
She was not on the battlefield, she had to remind herself, but within the relative safety of Prince Adam du Barreau's home and there was no reason for her to fear for her life just yet.
The man with his fingers curled around the bars of the gates seemed vaguely familiar, causing Belle's heart to thump beneath her ribs, and her head swam as she tried to ground herself in reality. She tried to speak the closer she got to the gates, but couldn't manage to catch her breath long enough to utter a word.
Belle reached the gate and stood there, standing as tall and proud as she was able, having quickened her pace enough that she no longer heard Adam's footsteps. Belle waited for the cloaked figure to say something, but he stayed just as still as he was.
Still, silent, cold, and distant.
Belle's right hand curled instinctively over the hilt of the dagger despite her unfamiliarity with weapons and she forced herself to focus on the feel of the cold metal in hand.
It brought her back to herself a little bit and gave her the comfort and courage she needed to do what she had to do, to stop acting like a daft bimbo and see this man on his way or provide aid if in the unlikely event he had come seeking the Prince's aid.
She forced herself to release her grip on the weapon at her waist and awkwardly cleared her throat.
"Can I help you, monsieur?" she asked, hoping that her voice sounded kind, though even she could detect the faintest twinges of suspicion as she raised her brows at him.
"Can you?" the man fired back without missing a beat, in a reedy-sounding voice that was almost hoarse, which instantly sent a cold chill down Belle's spine that the frustrated young woman knew had nothing to do with the chill.
She was only vaguely aware of Adam nudging to stand beside her, his shoulder almost touching. Without being made aware she was doing so, she reached for his hand.
Glancing sideways out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Prince's posture go stiff and rigid as he studied the stranger before the two of them with cold, calculating eyes.
"What do you want?" Adam growled in a wolfish tone. The Prince's threatening tone merely spurred a quiet shrug from the cloaked stranger.
He took two steps near, and it was only then, that both Belle and Adam's gazes drifted towards the petite woman standing alongside him. Belle drew in a pained gasp as she studied what had become of Agathe since the last time she laid eyes on her.
The older woman's skin was cracked and bruised, her golden strawberry blonde curls now stiff and coarse, a plastering of red surrounded the edge of her windburned lips. But her green eyes were alighted with the same passionate fire Belle had grown accustomed to. Agathe's wrists were bound, the rope leading towards her captor, a man by the build of him, and by the sound of his voice, of course, of great height and shrouded in two pairs of worn-off cloaks.
"Why do you have her?" Belle demanded angrily as the cloaked figure took two steps closer, pulling on the length of rope in his hands slightly and forcing a jab of angered pain upon Agathe's expression as she shot him a dark look.
The rope chafed her skin badly, the skin of her wrists bleeding and nearly rubbed raw, suggesting that poor Agathe had been the man's prisoner for quite some time.
When the cloaked figure spoke, the voice was one coming from a man of many years—hoarse, acrid, and filled with the likes of a hostility that Belle had never known.
"Is it true, mademoiselle?" he asked, ignoring Agathe's gasp of surprise as his captive laid eyes upon the changed form of the Prince as Adam stepped forward to address the intruder upon his property. "You've been held prisoner within these very walls? Does a Changeling remain within these walls? A monster?" he growled through gritted teeth.
Adam stiffened, his own jaw rooting in his growing unease, though he forced himself to remain calm, for Belle's sake, and the other woman's.
He did not want to alarm them or cause discord to break out when it was unwanted.
"What does it matter to you?" Adam snarled, feeling the edges of his lips curl back and upward in a feral snarl of rage that, for a moment, caused the cloaked figure to visibly startle, which both Belle and Adam were secretly pleased to see.
It gave the stranger a tangible sense of vulnerability.
The cloaked man scoffed, and though the hood of his cloaks obscured most of the details of the man's face, Belle's overactive imagination imagined the man rolling his eyes.
"So, it is true, then, I surmised as much," he murmured, speaking in low tones.
Adam's teeth clenched. He stole a quick glance towards the woman whom the stranger held captive and then back to the man, sensing Belle's discomfort and wanting to do for the woman he loved whatever he could to make this right.
"Why do you have her?" he asked, repeating Belle's question, realizing the man still owed them an answer.
"Oh, her?"
As if forgetting he almost had a captive for a moment, the cloaked figure looked at Agathe's shivering form from head to toe for a split second before he chided her.
He stepped closer towards the shivering woman and pulled out a small stout knife from within his cloak pocket.
"I needed directions through the damned Wolves Woods, you might say, as this wench was the one and the same who's rumored to have cursed this land's young Prince."
Here, he cut the ropes to their relief and pushed Agathe through the now-open gate, towards Belle's outstretched arms, reveling in the Prince's look of shock to be standing once more in the presence of the witch who'd cursed him.
D'Arque continued addressing them in his listless baritone.
"I would have killed her, she was as good as dead in this storm that's coming. But then she spouted such rumors as a Beast that's rumored to live in this castle, a Skin Changer, so I've kept her alive, and no, I had no part of these beatings. Found the wench just as she was, monsieur," the man responded.
Adam stiffed as he took note of how Belle clung to the witch's arm, regarding her as though she were a familiar, though now he only had in mind a probable spy who meant Belle harm. He thought there was an unhinging effect to the cloaked stranger on the other side of the gates.
"I had heard that the Prince of this home was cursed," the stranger murmured in a low voice as if telling some secret to himself and the Prince's blood immediately went sour. "Now, I have never met the late Duke's son, but why do my guts tell me that it's you, boy?" the strange said lowly.
The Prince curled his hands into balled fists at his side. "Who are you?" he spat with no small measure of contempt and distrust in his tone as he narrowed his eyes.
The cloaked figure finally pulled down the hood of his thick cloak and revealed himself, immediately dissipating the strength from Prince Adam's knees as he gaped in shock.
Beside him, Belle turned pale in aghast turmoil.
"Adam, that's—" she started to say, but she was cut off as the older man raised a hand.
"It is you, isn't it? Good." The revealed man had not yet smiled. Wisps of greying hair fell around his head as the cloak went away to unearth the sigil of a cross on his chest.
The years had taken its toll on his youth, though the man's eyes were burning with a passion to extinguish that which threatened the holy order of their precious world.
In the frigid air, the Prince felt his temples moisten as beads of sweat glittered on his scalp and dripped down the sides of his temples.
Standing before him was none other than Monsieur D'Arque, the owner of one such asylum on the outskirts of Paris, where the criminally and mentally insane were housed, never again to see the light of the sun outside.
The devil himself only knew what went on behind those stone walls, and Adam found himself staring directly into the eyes of the said devil, and this devil was, of course, Monsieur D'Arque.
D'Arque furrowed his brows and frowned at the Prince. "Were I a more savage man, I ought to rip your throat right here in favor of the disgusting pig that was your father, Your Highness, but in exchange of lessening the heavy burden, Your Highness, I offer you this chance. You will come with me willingly and of your own volition, and I might be able to help remove the stain of whatever wretched witchcraft was placed upon you, but you must understand that if you harbor any remnants of its corruption, certain…precautions will have to be taken."
Belle felt like her mind was reeling as her gaze flitted back from Monsieur D'Arque, Adam, and finally towards Agathe. It felt like it was entirely too much to take in at once.
Agathe…was the sorceress who had done this to him? She was the one who had cursed her master?!
Belle parted her lips slightly to speak, though before she could, a man's voice from somewhere behind D'Arque carried on the cold wind and reached her ringing eardrums.
"Belle!"
Gaston's voice was unmistakable, and soon, the man's towering form moved into her line of sight as the soldier and Villeneuve's resident hero stood beside D'Arque.
Realization dawned on Belle, and she felt her fingertips go numb as her mind suddenly discerned that this was no trick that was toying with her ears or her eyes now.
The voice was Gaston's, and the man was definitely standing alongside D'Arque. All she needed to do was lift her gaze and look into his eyes. But Belle couldn't manage it.
After a moment or two of struggling internally with herself, Belle's heart pounded in her roaring eardrums, which were alive with the rush of her own blood, as she found Gaston Dupont, standing but a few feet from her.
Her gasp spilled through the uneasy silence that had settled in the air between them, though before Belle could so much as collect her thoughts enough in order to form a coherent reply, to ask Gaston what he thought he was doing here, she heard Adam beside her let out a furious blood yell and stalked his way forward towards his former friend, a murderous look glistening in Adam's pale blue eyes.
"What. Are. You. Doing? This is MY home, with MY hearth keep, Gaston?!" Adam's furious rasp seethed in front of Gaston as without waiting for the soldier to react, he wrenched Gaston's elbows behind him before the disgraced soldier, once a noble and wealthy man, now the owner of a single tavern in a simple, provincial village.
Gaston, who had once been one of the greatest soldiers in all of France, high-ranking and brutal, showing no mercy, had not even realized the seething Prince was alongside Belle.
Gaston's sole focus was on Belle. He stood motionless and did not even care if the Prince, or even D'Arque for that matter, slit his throat. He almost hoped that would be his end this day.
It would be far more pleasant than realizing that Belle had never once loved him in the way he hoped. But then he remembered his promise to Claire, and a sudden vent of adrenaline coursed through his veins as he recalled his words to the young woman waiting for him.
That he would come back.
Gaston bent just slightly, scrambling to pick up a nearby rock, and successfully succeeded in smashing it against the Prince's temple, earning him a resounding curse from the Prince's lips.
At the verge of fury, Adam threw himself at Gaston, forgetting proper edict, or that Belle, D'Arque, and Agathe were watching on. The women could only look on in stunned horror, while Monsieur D'Arque looked listless.
"GASTON! ADAM! STOP!"
Both feuding men were sloths to recognize that the angry shout came from the Prince's shy, sweet hearth keep. She stalked forward towards the men with a speed that was almost unseen, her eyes summoning the fury of a hurricane and for a split second, the Prince thought he saw shadows of his lovely mother in Belle's stead.
Even in rage, his hearth keep was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and it quickly pulled Adam off his own fury at Gaston. Belle was seething, her teeth gritted in her own anger.
"That's enough!" Belle halted mere inches from Gaston and Adam as they clambered to their feet, leaving both men's faces drained off-color. "Enough ruckus has dispersed needlessly these last few days, do not add to it! You would humiliate one another like this? You're friends! Or at least you were, once! Have either of you no honor?"
Gaston breathed out a sigh of relief as Adam tore his icy gaze away from him as the Prince stepped away and engulfed the young brunette in a protective, almost possessive embrace, much as he had done to Claire a second ago.
"How could you, Adam?" Belle asked in a quiet voice.
Adam swallowed down thickly past the lump in his throat. He could not recall the details of seeing Belle crane her neck up to look at him fully. Her face was stiff, all traces of softness dried out of her as her anger swelled through her.
"How could you…?" Belle narrowed her darkening eyes in despair and incense as she fixed the Prince with a rather pointed glower that made the 6'3 Prince fell two inches tall. "...blame Gaston for coming here as if it were his choice?!"
She looked accusingly at D'Arque, the edges of her mouth turning down.
Adam's lungs turned to stone as he looked to the side to catch Gaston's quick evasion of eye contact, who, he was minimally pleased to see, looked just as shamefaced as him.
And for the first time since the two former friends were reunited after such bitter partings and now this chance meeting again, shame rained down on Prince Adam like arrows that shielded the light of the sun, which was beginning to make sense by how Belle was glaring at him.
Adam was pleased to see that as his hand moved to wind itself onto her shoulder and give the appendage a light but reassuring squeeze, Belle seemed to relax into his touch a bit.
"Belle. Are you alright?" Adam questioned her urgently, unable to keep the worry from his tone.
"I'm fine," Belle said airily, dismissing the Prince's worry for her with a curt wave of her hand and an almost cold nod of her head.
Though upon seeing the Prince begin to fret over her, she smiled adoringly up at him in a way that almost made the man's heart melt right there on the spot and rested her forehead against his, reveling in his nearness.
He saw proudly, out of the corner of his gaze, how Belle continued to keep one hand hovering over the hilt of the dagger that strange bloke in the witch's book had sold him.
Adam raised his eyes to check on the enchantress who had cursed him, who had moved to stand defensively by Belle.
He felt a surge of anger course through him upon seeing her again as he nursed a familiar revolt for her.
The Prince sincerely hoped this witch was not about to curse him for a second time, but the older woman merely smiled enigmatically.
"Milady?" he murmured in a low, hoarse voice as he reached out for a moment, looking unsure as though whether or not to clasp onto her shoulder, but did so anyway, not caring anymore if the witch cursed him for it.
Agathe nodded her head reassuringly, still staring a hole straight through Gaston, though most of her attentions were fixated solely on Monsieur D'Arque.
A look of intense hatred was twisting the witch's beautiful features into something feral and animalistic that sent chills down both Belle and Adam's spines at the exact same moment as they looked upon her.
"Yes, Your Highness. I am fine," she answered strongly, jutting out her chin slightly defiantly as she wasted no time in taking her place by Belle's side, tugging on the sleeve of the younger woman's gown to pull his hearth keep back.
Having ensured that the woman he loved was unharmed, Adam spun furiously on Gaston, while D'Arque silently watched like the phantom specter Adam knew him to be.
He stepped away from Belle and gnashed his teeth.
"Did you really think that you could come here, to my lands, to my home, and take by rights what is mine?" He scoffed rhetorically and eyed Gaston with immense distrust.
Gaston fought against the urge to roll his eyes at the Prince's posturing.
His entire focus remained fixed on Belle. He cared nothing for the opinions of Agathe or the owner of the insane asylum. He knew whatever words came out of his mouth would sound weak, but it did not matter to the soldier anymore.
For a moment, Gaston thought to himself that perhaps he should be humiliated.
He deserved it for failing Maurice, and for failing Belle, for treating her as though she were to be set upon a pedestal, which Gaston had always known she had hated.
Perhaps that would help Belle now understand the honesty behind his words.
Gaston blew out a breath and addressed her. "I had hoped you would come home with me, Belle. Your father, Maurice, he misses you. My wish was that you would come with me willingly," he said to her, with desperate longing in his eyes, but no longer was the look in his eyes romantic, and it was this realization that made Belle gasp, though Adam did not hear.
Standing protectively in front of Belle and Agathe, the Prince blustered with a fiery rage.
"Oh. That's it!" he bellowed, his furious shout echoing on the harsh winds of the coming snowstorm. "Woman. What's your name? Agathe, isn't it? Or you, old man, hold him down," he growled in a threatening voice. "I'm going to gut this soldier and enjoy every second of it," Adam smiled in bloodthirsty anticipation at the thought of fixing his 'friend' once and for all. Gaston Dupont would trouble Belle no longer.
Adam remembered how, before it had been him, Gaston had been the one to hurt Belle.
Even now, he could see the pain in his hearth keep's dark eyes, which were glistening with unshed moisture that would soon be her tears, but in her stubbornness, she would not let them fall. Even if that pain she felt now was for him, Adam was not going to stand here idly so and abide by Dupont causing his hearth keep more grief now that he was human.
Belle was his love, his hearth keep, and hopefully, one day, his wife, and the thought of anyone thinking they could take her heart for himself was an insult to which he was not going to submit to, nor was he going to tolerate.
"Adam," Belle spoke calmly but curtly, silencing the Prince as she stepped forward in the hopes of rectifying the situation without any bloodshed spilled. "Gaston is a guest here on your property, is he not? We should receive him as the same courtesy as any other."
Belle spoke formally, as though she were a diplomatic, apathy in her tone and her expression was placid as if she were referring to an envoy from the King of France himself or another visiting noble.
Adam squirmed beside Belle, eager to see Gaston properly dealt with and out of their lives forever, once and for all.
She stepped next to Adam and whispered softly into the shell of his ear as she laid her hand upon Adam's left arm.
"There is no need for you to be so troubled, Adam," Belle calmly reassured him. "Gaston will be gone soon."
Belle looked deeply into Adam's eyes, and his very soul started to wallow in the peace of her look, by her depths. Belle nervously eyed the Prince as her gaze flitted between Gaston and the Prince, and then eventually settled on Gaston as she waited for the soldier to say his piece.
Gaston swallowed down past the lump in his throat and spoke from his heart. When he addressed Belle and Adam both, his voice was hoarse, and teeming with remorse.
"I need you to know. Both of you…" Gaston faltered, his mind reeling with all that would have to be left unsaid between the three of them. "That…that I am sorry." Gaston trailed off as his breaths caught in his throat, unable to say anymore, and he ducked his head in hot shame.
Belle sniffed once as a shining pressure had begun to build behind her eyes as her eyes made a quick scan of the way Gaston held himself, how he could barely look in her eyes.
"I know," Belle comforted the distraught soldier, even as she leant against the Prince's supportive arms, with Adam unwilling to let her go.
Gaston swallowed down hard, suddenly feeling like an intruder into both their lives, as he realized that Claire was right. There was nothing for him here, and he had no further place in either of their lives.
"I should go," he murmured quietly, taking one last long look at Belle's astonishingly rich chocolate eyes, for he would never see her again.
He was sure to see them on occasion sometime in his dreams, and the memory of them would have to be enough. Though a part of him hoped, in time, that Belle's image would be replaced with Claire's.
Belle simply nodded her understanding without a word.
"I will…see you safely on your way," the Prince grunted by way of response as he stepped forward, reluctantly relinquishing his hold upon his hearth keep.
Adam wanted to ensure that Gaston Dupont would soon be far away from the woman that he loved, and the people he considered family.
Gaston turned to go, clutching his sword to him, but stopped and straightened his gait as he felt the Prince begin to walk alongside him.
He inhaled deeply, his broad chest filling to its fullest girth. He wanted to make himself appear the soldier and hero that he'd hoped Belle would see him as.
Gaston suddenly turned and held out his hand to shake the Prince's hand, the man who had won Belle's precious heart.
"Your Highness. Adam, my old friend, forgive me," Gaston murmured, the level of his voice rising with a reluctant sort of respect for his monarch as he waited for Prince Adam to take his hand.
Prince Adam eyed Gaston suspiciously as his brow rose in alarm as he took a step in front of Belle to face his former companion. Gaston's hand remained unmoved and outstretched towards him as a truce, a peace offering, and Adam could hardly believe it.
"You are a lucky, lucky man, Prince," Gaston boldly declared.
Adam scrutinized Gaston for a moment, searching the man's face for any hint of a lie, any sign that he was being mocked. He could find none. He'd been more than ready to spring himself onto the soldier who had proclaimed several times his undying affections for his servant.
But now, Adam thought he was beginning to understand that Gaston had never truly been a challenger for Belle's affections, to begin with, really. There was a part of Adam that felt sorry for Gaston. Adam was the one who was blessed enough to possess Belle's heart, and the soldier was to be the unlucky sod living the rest of his life without it, but hopefully, in time, the love of another good woman would come to his former friend.
It was this thought that caused the Prince to extend his own hand proudly and he accepted Gaston's handshake.
"That I am. Old friend," he murmured with emphasis on the use of the word friend.
A part of him hoped that, in time, perhaps their friendship could be rekindled. One day.
Adam pulled back his arm after a moment and draped it confidently around Belle. She was his now, forever, and there was no way in the seven hells he was giving her back. The Prince offered Belle a slightly seductive look, one that she returned as though they were the only ones present.
After a long moment, Belle turned her eyes from the Prince's administrations, a fiery heat having crept to her cheeks as her skin was flushed.
"Goodbye, Gaston," Belle spoke formally, her tone bordering on almost finality, as though she were confident they'd not meet ever again. "Take care of yourself."
Gaston could only stare at Belle for a moment, his dark eyes sparkling and softening with something akin to tenderness, with the affection, he would always feel for her.
Finally, Gaston lowered his head respectfully and turned to go without Belle and to head back to Claire and leave the Prince and Belle in peace.
At least, that had been his plan, u ntil D'Arque flung out his arm and prevented him leaving.
"I am afraid that I cannot let you leave, Monsieur Dupont," D'Arque growled. "The young lady here is to be escorted back to Villeneuve, per the terms of the agreement. And the young master here is to come with me. He is sure to still show signs of corruption that must be…expelled," he growled.
Monsieur D'Arque snapped his fingers and behind him, five other shadows emerged from behind the trees of the Wolves' Woods with pockmarked faces and windburns.
"This wasn't what we agreed to!" Gaston shouted in an attempt to appeal as he staggered backward and flung an arm out in front of Belle, hoping to protect her from harm.
"Gaston?!" cried Belle in disbelief, her eyes widening. "You—you made a deal with Monsieur D'Arque and didn't think to tell me?"
She watched in horror as the color completely drained from Gaston's face.
Gaston blanched and shot them both a furtive, guilty look. "W—well you didn't want to come home with me. I promised Maurice that I would look after you, Belle. You were cross with me, and D'Arque listened, but you have to believe me that I did not know that he could do this!"
"My child, perhaps we could settle your petty dispute once we get you back home?" Monsieur D'Arque interrupted their squabble.
The smug grin on the older gentleman's weathered, reddened face only succeeded in stirring more of the revulsion that Belle nursed against the owner of the asylum.
"I am NOT going back there without answers!" Belle barked, cutting D'Arque off, seeing the man open his mouth to speak and preventing him from saying whatever he'd been about to say. "Why do you want the Prince?"
For a brief moment, D'Arque's face fell, crestfallen, and the heavy sigh the group heard the man let out suggested his patience was on the brink of tipping.
But then, he seemed to take back his words as though a better idea had robbed him off.
"We'll see about that," D'Arque murmured darkly under his breath, bringing his fingers to his mouth and whistling.
The blood drained from Gaston's face as his ears perk up at the howl of a wolf in the not-so-distant clearing of the Wolves' Woods, on the edge of the Prince's property.
"BELLE, RUN!"
The nearest guard let out a guttural, pain-filled bellow as Gaston revealed a small dagger from his waist and plunged it into the man's chest.
As the man fell limply to the ground, Gaston shoved Belle backward and Adam and all three of them ran back towards the castle's towering silhouette in the distance, which was looking ethereal and almost haunting through the snow and as a light mist had begun to seep through the air. But their escape attempt turned into a relatively short one.
The fine hairs on the backs of Belle's neck stood upright on end as she could hear the hellish howling of wolves from the Wolves' Woods, coming closer.
She saw in horror out of the corner of her gaze how Gaston crashed against the hardpacked snow and snow, screaming with an arrow buried on his left thigh.
Belle cried Gaston's name and reached out a trembling hand for him, and before she could even reach out towards the Prince's friend, a gnarled old hand wrestled her back before her cheek was clubbed with a calloused and strong palm.
"Down." D'Arque was in the midst of looking amused at this sick sport of a hunt.
He came sprinting after the man who had hit him, the rest of his men who had accompanied him followed on horseback, minus one who had fallen.
She looked at their eyes and Belle squirmed at the similar malice they held once when she had beholden Gaston as a brute. That all seemed so far away now, a distant bad memory.
A bow was clutched tightly in D'Arque's hands as he calmly approached where Belle and Adam lay sprawled on the ground. The look of pure hostility that was poorly hidden behind his look of smugness made Belle want to vomit.
Belle was barely choking back the sobs as she watched Gaston writhe in pain on the ground a mere twelve or so feet in front of her, turning far too pale as the blood slowly drained from him from the arrow buried in his thigh.
"He's really quite a handsome chap, your friend, milady. Your handsome hero, you might say…" D'Arque's tone held a slight mocking lilt to it. Belle was sure he was taunting her. "And quite brave too, your soldier. Everyone seems so willing to die for you. It's quite a pity if you think on it."
He clucked his tongue in mock disappointment, shaking his head to himself as he whistled.
Belle shivered as the biggest wolf she had ever seen came bounding forward, shaking with the heat of a sickly, grotesque excitement that could be seen in its narrowed eyes and the foaming mouth. Frightened tears began to stream down Belle's face as she turned her face to D'Arque and clung to fistfuls of Adam's jerkin and doublet.
She knew now what D'Arque had planned for them. He would kill Gaston and quite possibly the Prince for believing he held signs of corruption within.
She would beg him if she had to.
"Please. Please, monsieur." She implored frantically, her voice trembling with emotion, her breast heaving with sobs. "There—please don't, sir! Please, just—just let us go!"
"Monsieur!" Adam shouted in shock, his face had gone pale, and he was unable to tear his gaze away from Gaston. "Surely you wouldn't!" he cried, not bothering to hide his desperation. He trailed off as he stared at the older gentleman, now certain that the owner of the insane asylum would indeed slaughter both Gaston and him.
His heart broke at Belle's helpless appeal, already knowing that it fell on deaf ears by the way D'Arque was eyeing her. But before he could move to try to get Belle to safety, the man let a morose, deep chuckle escape from his wind burnt lips.
"Oh, Your Highness," Monsieur D'Arque corrected. "Be assured, the corruption from this witch's curse that burgeons within you and is affecting your mind will be dealt with." He chuckled as he turned to Belle. "And you, mademoiselle, are in no position to ask me for anything."
His tone rose to match his angry mood as Belle sat trembling at the thought of what was to come. Adam's anger was growing as his mind raced to find an escape. Belle swallowed down thickly past the lump in her throat, as the wolf paced back and forth with its tail whipping.
"It's quite astonishing, really, how one can tame a beast with the proper incentive." As if to emphasize this, the older gentleman twirled a piece of raw meat in between his thumb and his forefinger for emphasis. Monsieur D'Arque turned his cold and unfeeling gaze towards Gaston, still writhing on the ground, and patted the wolf's head, almost affectionately. "You're just as weak a meal like this one. RIP HIM!"
His shout reverberated through the canopy of trees, causing a flock of crows to take flight and squawk their displeasure. Belle's blood turned sour.
The disgusting details began itchy on his mind, D'Arque's screams turning to whistles, scalp flayed apart from the skull, sharp fangs closing in around the column of Gaston's throat.
Belle could never imagine Gaston or the Prince sharing this sick twisted form of a sport with one another when they were younger, but once upon a time, it was Adam's favorite sport too.
She barely heard D'Arque's voice over the screams and the sounds of her own hysterical, choked sobs.
"Have you ever seen a body after the wolves have been let at the corpse? It's not so pretty, my young pretty mademoiselle…" D'Arque asked, before turning back to Adam with an arrow notched in the bow and aiming squarely between the Prince's eyes, shooting to kill him.
Despite staring down the tip of death that was now winking at her, Belle could not manage to tear her horrified gaze away from what the wolf was making of poor Gaston, her handsome hero and her and Adam's unlikely savior, staring back at them vacantly with bloodied dark brown eyes that made their color look almost muddy and murky.
His maimed body lay limp and unresponsive as the wolf moved to tear a chunk of flesh from Gaston's arm. Blood splattered and stained the tree roots and snow around them.
Belle screamed as she heard Gaston's last breath start to flee his throat and it was at that moment that a horrible ringing started to screech on her already ringing eardrums, which were pounding with the fevered rush of her blood.
Her heart was almost bursting against her ribcage, and oh, God, she was feeling it.
A horrible drop of fevered rage now fevering and spreading through her veins like wildfire, an emotion she'd never felt before. Her breaths were coming to her in quick pants, half-mad and going out of control as if her very spirit was going stark rabid. A strange tingling sensation and an itch started to rupture on her jaws and started ringing in Belle's mouth.
"I suppose, milady, if you're lucky, you might still be able to see it, with one eye. I would advise you get out of my way, dear," Monsieur D'Arque's last taunting words fleeted Belle's temporary fear, which had rendered her paralyzed and rooted to the spot.
She felt herself running, running so fast that the burst of cold winter wind hit her face and pinked her cheeks, but she did not feel the sting of the cold.
Doubts started to cloud her mind as Belle could hear her breaths running slow and deep, and shaky. She felt heavy and powerful.
But God, when had her sense of hearing ever become this sharp? Every swish of the breeze and flutter of the dead tree branches, every whistle the wind make seemed to fit in her head.
The last thing Belle remembered was the Prince screaming her name, and her eyes rolling back into her head. Her very spirit seemed to leave her chest and leaped from the twigs in a vicious low snarling growl that was coiled with hatred and a ferocious hunger.
Then there came the scream of Man, the Bad Man, and blood. The warm, sticky garish fluid skimmed around her jaws.
There was chaos, the startling sound of shouts renting the air all around her. For the first time, Belle could smell everything over the piney scent of the Wolves Woods.
Flesh, sour breaths, and terror. It smelled sweet like mo. Belle did not consider herself a savage beast but at that very moment, she raged and ravaged towards the one who had hurt the Good Man, the Man in the Red Cloak.
She bared her fangs, tore at a man's arm, and lashed out at a thick throat.
Unsatiated with the minuscule use of her new power, she leaped out on another of the Bad Man's guards and clamped down on his face, again and again, until an eye was nearly pulled from its sockets, the guard's screams intensifying. She could hear the Bad Man screaming.
D'Arque, that Bad Man, that Devil.
Her mind surged with pure rage and Belle went snapping after the man, managing to clamp her jaws around the man's ankle and had the older gentleman screeching in pain, a sound that was like music to her ears after what the Bad Man had done.
A gash screamed on her right side. Another wolf was fearlessly chomping on her leg and Belle met the smaller beast with a furious chomp to its neck, killing it.
The other wolf whimpered as Belle furiously tossed it from side to side, clamped in her jaws before hurling its maimed body against the trunk of a tree. The sound of an arrow whizzing past her pierced across Belle's right ear and she yelped in pain, immediately lurching towards Monsieur D'Arque, who had mounted his horse and was whipping the reigns.
The unmistakable image of the rider and its horse galloping away from the Prince's castle and through the heart of the Wolves' Woods quickly dissipated behind the cloudy mist that was reflected in her dark chocolate eyes, now wide as saucers.
It was only when Belle perceived the danger to be lifted that her heartbeats began to slow at the carnage around them, and she began to fade into blackness.
Her lungs burned, gasping for the taste of the biting chilly air around her.
Belle inhaled deeply in her own body, her cracked and blue-tinged lips opening, her fingers wildly clawing at the air so that her lungs could breathe again. She fell against the blood-stained snow, her body making a horrible sickening thud that was slowly but surely awakening the rest of her senses as she moved her eyes at the horror that was around her.
Adam was staring at her with incredulous disbelief, looking terrified, his face a mess of psychological disturbance at the devil Belle had just made of herself, the mutilated carcasses of D'Arque's accompanying men were still warm and bleeding, she could almost taste the bitter, nasty iron on her tongue and palate.
An empty eye socket here and there, shards of skin and flesh littered the ground near the Prince's estate and an overflow of crimson blood that it was almost a large river.
She rose from her lying place, her fright burgeoning within her constricting chest at the murderous scene.
Belle screamed, shirking away from the massacre that was before her eyes, realizing that the moments before were real, bloody real and that she had had a hand in all this.
Though when the same wolf came padding towards her and Adam, who had recovered from the worst of his shock and scrambled to her side, even with the wolf's huge size and bloodied muzzle, any traces of fear that she might have held for this creature began to dissipate from her, falling away like water over rocks.
Belle held out a hand towards the hulking wolf, thinking that the beast wouldn't hurt her.
"Belle, don't! What are you doing?!" came Adam's voice, a startled shout, coming from somewhere near Belle's right.
She felt a pair of strong hands grab her and she screeched, thinking it was D'Arque. She lashed out at her captor, kicked, spit, tried to bite him, not realizing it was Adam. The entire time she sobbed, screaming for help to come.
Almost hysterical, the Prince turned Belle to face her, tears streaming down his cheeks as he gathered her in his arms as her attempts to attack him waned and eventually tapered off. Adam knelt and tried to will his own strength into her.
Nearly in shock, Belle lifted her blood-covered fingers and caressed Adam's tear-stained cheek, not realizing the pads of her fingertips were creating a trail of crimson on his face.
As if in a dream, Belle smiled.
"Thank God," she whispered in a choking, faint voice that did not sound like hers. Although she was wounded, her arm having been stricken by an arrow, Belle's only thought was of the Prince's safety. "You are unharmed, my love," she sighed, her dark eyes growing glassy, gleaming with warm relief.
Adam watched in horror as the light flickering behind Belle's dark eyes grew weaker with each passing moment.
"Belle! Please," he begged, choking on his words. "Stay with me, don't go, don't do this to me, my love, don't," he begged, holding Belle close as she struggled against the fight to slip into a deep sleep, against the pain that was ravaging her body.
All Belle could do was stare up into his blue eyes, finding a wallowing peace in their soothing depths. It was at that moment, fearing when he might lose her, that Adam's mind went unbidden to the words he had only spoken once, and hoped if he said them again, she'd live.
"I love you," he whispered leaning down to whisper it into the shell of her ear, swearing his declaration passionately as if he thought his words alone could heal her.
Belle's eyes grew even more distant, and an adoring smile flitted across her ashen features. Her heavily-lidded eyes studied Adam as if she were trying to commit every detail of his face to her memory, burning his image to her brain.
Slowly, fatigue started to overcome her. It was a chore just to keep her eyes open and fixed on Adam's face, an effort to draw in a good breath of oxygen. She could see the terror wrought on the Prince's handsome features, watching his mouth moving but she could not hear him.
She knew he was screaming, but the only thing that her eardrums were now filled with was a horrible, fatigued ringing. She wished she could soothe the fear from his brow, seeing his forehead crinkled with stress and worry. She wanted to tell him that she had heard the oath of love he had sworn to her just now, and that was enough for her.
Unable to fight any longer, Belle let her blood-soaked hand fall from Adam's face, leaving streaks of red down his cheek. She gazed up at the Prince and felt the peace of their bond of love, which would connect them, always.
"Adam," was all she could whisper before she let her eyelids flutter closed.
The last thing she saw was Gaston's body lying lifeless on the snow before her consciousness ebbed at the sound of boots and a shrouded cloaked figure coming for their aid.
But even in the embrace of blackness, a dull pain began to fester from her arm as she slipped into sleep.
A fitting punishment for D'Arque, to have Belle turn into a warg XD. Sad they killed off Gaston, but hopefully not all hope is lost. Stay tuned for more! This is shaping up to be around a 40 chapter fic, so plenty more to come!