CHAPTER 8

BELLE stood silently watching Gaston. In her simple green dress and long flowing hair, she looked every bit the Princess Gaston knew she had become.

Yet, the beauty's face was so serious and sullen that it sent a chill down his wretched cursed spine and his black and twisted heart pounded relentlessly in his chest.

Behind his beauty, his Belle, the castle in which she had made her home lay in smoldering ruins, fire blazing to life behind him. Belle's brown eyes pleaded with him, beckoning him to save her, but he could not hear his name on her lips as it was drowned out by the sound of her screams as the flames licked and nipped at her skin, burning her.

Gaston fought, trying with all his might to reach Belle, though the distance between the two of them only grew despite his best efforts.

Suddenly, he could see her no longer and the sounds of her screams still rang in his eardrums. He screamed her name and was met with nothing but silence.

As Belle's image vanished right in front of him, the tongues of the fire that engulfed the Prince's shining castle surged and coiled around him, entrapping him. The flames nearly choked him with their smoke and intense heat.

Black spots danced at the edge of his vision. He felt dizzy and could hardly breathe, though before he could let himself succumb to the tides of sweet relief, there was a harrowing, hair-raising scream that filled the smoky air, and then…as if by witch's hex, the flames receded as one and were snuffed out as though they had never been.

Darkness engulfed Gaston wholly and though the air was now relieved of the smoke that had filled the sky only moments ago, it was now cold. There was a bitter chill that hung in the air. Gaston hesitated, unable to decide which of the two extremes was more horrifying.

There came a sound. Gaston's pointed ears in his monstrous accursed form perked up at the sound. A tiny sob. A woman. Crying.

He squinted through the darkness, struggling to see, and not a few feet in front of him, buried underneath the rubble of what used to be the fountain in the castle's Courtyard, lay Isabelle. Without thinking, he launched himself forward, a low growl forming in his throat, though not one of anger. Of fear.

He gingerly rolled the young maid over onto her back with a slight nudge of one of his paws and stared, horror-stricken, as the young woman's eyes were the purest black.

Even the whites of her irises had changed shape and color. His eyes grew wide with wonder and horrified awe as Isabelle too began to disappear completely from his view, and then, in the wake of the destruction the strange fire had caused, gentle snow had begun to fall.

Gaston bolted upright, desperate to escape from the horrors of the strange nightmare. His lungs were starved for breath as he gasped in the taste of the bitter air of the dank moldy cell he still found himself in, though his lungs burned.

His chest heaved as his heart struggled to find its rhythm, and warm wretched water had begun brimming at the edges of his eyelids that Gaston furiously blinked back.

A half-choked and pitiful sob threatened to escape from the back of his throat as his chest undulated with pressure, though he refused to let that pathetic sound leave his lips.

He'd die before he'd ever hear himself whimper. Gaston blinked in confusion as he found himself in the darkness of his cell. No torches in their sconces were lit for warmth and light, and his cell was covered in shadows, though he spotted Belle and the maiden fair from earlier standing in front of his cage, both with nervous looks plastered all over their faces.

But there was something else in the maid's eyes, something that caused Gaston's monstrous body to start to shake. Something that resembled frustration, but also… Curiosity.

She was not looking upon him with fear and disgust as she had when she'd tried to speak with him earlier, but instead, a fierce determination, as though she were trained to mask her fear and panic with apathy and it was then that he knew: something bad had happened to this woman, though what that thing or those things might be, he could not guess.

He knew that look in the maid's eyes well. Try as hard she might, the prickly little beauty could not disguise her pain. He would know well enough, having seen it countless times whenever he looked in the mirror, though no one could know, though he had hoped one day to be able to confide in Belle. Still, Fate, that cruel bastard, had robbed him of that. Gaston swallowed a lump in his throat as he actively averted his gaze and when he did, it felt as though he were swallowing knives as he tore his gaze away from Belle's maid, choosing instead to look upon the woman he thought he loved and now, would never be his, as much as he might wish for it.

By a miracle of God Himself, somehow, after an interminable pause, he managed to find his voice again, though when Gaston, his voice sounded hoarse and waxy, as though he were not used to speaking, and this way, he wasn't.

"What are you doing down here, Belle?" he snapped, a bark to his voice that made both the women flinch and back away slightly from the bars of his cage in alarm. He scowled as Belle kept her hands on her stomach and it was as she bravely took a step forward that he caught the sight of the small swell on Belle's stomach, a knot just above Belle's naval.

Gaston's eyes widened in disbelief, and he swore they flashed fire as Belle tenderly stroked her baby bump and a cautious but hopeful little smile found Belle's pretty pink lips.

"I…I wanted to see you, Gaston, to…to try to help you," Belle whispered, surprised, as she flicked her gaze to the ground before darting them back up to meet Gaston's.

She could not stand to see the hurt and betrayal brimming within Gaston's black eyes, the only part left of the man within that was even remotely human.

Just like it had been with Adam, Belle thought, as a jolt went down her spine.

She cautiously eyed her maid out of the corner of her gaze and saw that Isabelle looked terrified. At this point, Belle could not exactly blame her. The edges of Gaston's lips were pulled upward and back to reveal his fangs as his expression twisted into a feral and wild snarl.

"Why?" he snapped, shouting the question at Belle, his hoarse voice reverberating in the otherwise deserted dungeons. "You had no right to bring me back with you, Belle, none, that was not your decision to make. You should have left me alone in that forest to die, I'd have preferred it to this! You think I asked for this?!" he growled, gesturing towards his horns with a furry paw. "I did not ask for this, but I'm beginning to think you and your husband are finding enjoyment in this, in watching me suffer, and more to the point, you brought her with you?" he demanded, speaking to Belle in a voice that she could only describe as a low growl.

Beside her, Belle practically felt Isabelle stiffen in fear. Belle furrowed her brows into a frown and felt her insides warm her over several times. It took Belle a moment to realize that what she was feeling was anger and a fierce protectiveness for their new hearth keep.

"Yes," she answered stiffly in a cold voice devoid of warmth or affection as she dared to step closer to the bars. "Isabelle has agreed to keep you company and if you behave, I've convinced Adam to let you out of here for a little while. You should stretch your legs and take a walk, Gaston. Perhaps the fresh air in the Courtyard will do you good. I would have hoped to hear you say thank you, Gaston, for bringing you back here and saving your life," Belle sighed.

Gaston bristled and let out an animalistic hiss that Isabelle and Belle were sure no human man could make.

"This is what you would call saving it, Belle? As far as I'm concerned, you've ruined it. Locked in this wretched cell with not even a window, chained to the wall like you think me to be the monster I have become," he growled, his voice livid with blame as he eyed Belle and Isabelle ruefully from where he hunkered in the furthermost corner of his cold prison cell.

Gaston had the temporary satisfaction of watching Belle's face drain of what little color was left. Her lips parted if she meant to speak to him, perhaps she fully intended to apologize, though Gaston was not interested in hearing it. However, though her lips were parted, no sounds came out, and she stiffened as she heard the sound of audible footsteps behind her.

"Belle," Gaston heard a man's voice rasp out, and the Prince's voice immediately set Gaston on edge and caused his hackles to raise. Belle and her maid slowly turned around as Prince Adam came into view, a murky torch in his hands.

The Prince kicked aside a wooden bucket that one of the guards had left in front of Gaston's cell meant to relieve himself when the need arose, and as the bucket tumbled aside, rats were chased back into their crevices. Gaston snarled at the sight of the handsome Prince but could not manage to curse. He did not want the women to have to hear such foul language ripped from his lips, though every poisonous and wicked thought flitted through the hunter's mind then as he ruefully eyed the man who had stolen Belle's heart from him.

Gaston shivered though not from the cold. What chilled his monstrous form now was seeing these iron bars in between him and this damned handsome bloody Prince who'd somehow won Belle's heart, when her heart should have always been his.

Attempting to curl up into a ball, his pointed ears perked up at the sound of the clanking of his chains and he looked down at his iron-bound paws in front of him then. Gaston scowled, his teeth beginning to chatter as he heard the Prince address, Belle, in a condescending tone.

"You should not be down here, my love. You could get sick," he scolded, almost sounding angry with Belle as he came to stand beside Belle and rested a firm hand on her shoulder, squeezing it.

Gaston frowned, seeing how the Prince's gaze traveled from Belle's worried soulful dark eyes to her cheek and lingered on her lips.

He was sure the man was captivated, but what man in their right mind wouldn't be?

Just Belle's face alone was enough to command an entire army of men to her side, and with just a bat of her long lashes and a kind smile, they would bend their knees and swear their loyalty to Belle.

"I—I wanted to see Gaston, Adam, I-I haven't seen him since we brought him back, darling, I wanted to see for myself to make sure that he was being treated well enough."

Belle's voice sounded small and timid, as though she were a little girl who'd gotten caught attempting to sneak a treat before dinner.

Gaston curiously flicked his gaze back towards the Prince, fighting against the urge to kill that pumped through his veins as the Beast within his chest and head growled its displeasure.

There was a savageness within him that was growing and growling warning bells inside of his mind, that Belle's new husband thought so little of him and with one wrong move, could cross him off without any sort of conscience and he doubted the man would lose any sleep at all over his death.

But Belle had insisted that he remain, and it was Belle's influence that he was still alive, and his head was not mounted on a pike outside their castle to serve as a warning to any of the Prince's potential enemies, Gaston realized, as a horrible abrupt bitterness seeped its way into the pit of his stomach.

The Prince's brow furrowed in concentration as he looked towards Gaston who was eyeing Belle as though seeing Maurice's daughter in a new light, and perhaps he was, though the Prince was unable to quell his annoyance.

He turned and raised Belle's chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Belle, you are a merciful woman, though if you ask me, this—this Beast, he does not deserve our kindness," he sighed, though the edges of the Prince's lips tugged up in a faint ghost of a smile. "Let Ser Frederick take you back upstairs, I don't want you down here catching your death. Isabelle, you may escort this creature and his…friend around the halls and outside the grounds if you wish, but a guard will be with you at all times, and he is to be returned to his new quarters in one hour," the Prince ordered in a frustrated and clipped tone.

Isabelle silently nodded and looked towards the Beast to gauge Gaston's reaction and was surprised to see a flicker of emotion that she could not identify pass over his features.

"'Friend?' What are you talking about?" Gaston demanded in a hoarse and incredulous tone as his eyes widened. He felt a horrible, strange pressure begin to seep throughout his chest as a muscle in the Prince's angular jaw twitched and he stepped aside to reveal a figure watching the exchange unfold from the comfort of the shadows. Though as he shuffled forward and the details of his unmistakable features came into Gaston's monstrous line of sight, he balked.

Before him stood his oldest companion, LeFou. Gaston felt his temples moisten as LeFou could barely look him in the eye, though after a moment, the short, stout man managed it.

LeFou was looking thinner these days. He had lost a considerable amount of weight, perhaps due to grief, and like Gaston, there were dark circles under the man's eyes that suggested he had not slept a whit.

This at least, they still had in common. He felt his throat tighten as he spoke his friend's name.

"LeFou," Gaston growled flatly, his voice holding such dread as he regarded his oldest friend. Warm water began to brim in his eyes as he sharply turned his profile to the side and did his best to shrink back into the shadows, where an accursed wretch like him belonged.

He wished LeFou had not been sent for. He did not want perhaps his only friend in this world to see him as he was at current, a mess, and a monstrous one at that. His voice choked in his throat as he fought back the beginnings of a wretched sob that he refused to be released.

"G-Gaston." LeFou nearly choked on his tongue. His voice held a slight stutter to it, likely from nervousness and he was having trouble meeting Gaston's gaze.

Gaston's nostrils flared in agitation. "You look….well," Gaston tried to compliment LeFou as he struggled for something to say. The last he had seen of his friend, LeFou had been doing what he could to rally the town. LeFou nodded wearily, gratitude sparking to life in his dark eyes.

He nervously began to wring his hands. He could not see much of LeFou from how he had situated himself in the cell and the distance that existed between them, however, Gaston could see LeFou's already large eyes widen. Gaston swore he could see his eyes grow three times the size as his nervous eyes made a quick scan of his furry monstrous form. His lips parted as if to say something to Gaston, however, it took the man a moment.

"I—I w-wish I could say the same for you, Gaston. Y-you were looking much better the last time I saw you. Now you're…well….uh…beastly. I…I'm sorry that this happened to you, I—I wish that I could have helped you, b-but I'm here now," LeFou blurted out, his words clumsy and blunt, and he immediately cringed as the words left his mouth.

God, but everything about this situation was so awkward. LeFou had not been able to believe it when Belle's father and a royal guard had returned to the village and demanded that he come, or to listen to the fate that had befallen his best friend, that Gaston had survived though he was much changed.

Maurice had remained uncharacteristically somber and tight-lipped on the journey here, though Belle's old man had refused to speak of what had happened to Gaston, saying it was best that he see his friend's fate himself. LeFou had allowed his overactive and sensitive imagination to imagine the worst possible scenario, though nothing could have prepared him for the gruesome image that met his eyes. Now, he was wishing that he'd not looked at all.

"Your powers of observation are impressive, LeFou, as always, but that begs the question, my old friend," Gaston barked, sarcasm and contempt dripping from his tone as he spat his words at his oldest friend more than spoke them. "What are you doing here? Hmm? Have you come to mock me too, to laugh and see if the rumors were true? Why are you here?" he demanded, his chest tightening as he felt his anger jump a level. LeFou's expression changed only just slightly, though as he lifted his gaze to Gaston's, his eyes were pained.

"I came because we're friends, Gaston, and you need my help. If the Prince could break his curse, you can too, Gaston. You're one of the best. It takes more than looking to see. If love is the only way to undo this witch's curse, then surely, some fair maiden somewhere will have to fall for you, and once they can, ah, look past all this…" LeFou trailed off to wave a short arm towards Gaston's horns, oblivious to how flushed Gaston was becoming. "Then there's hope for you yet." Something came over LeFou at that moment as his eyes made a quick scan of Gaston's cursed monstrous form, a fierce determination Gaston had never seen in LeFou before.

Gaston scowled. He knew there was a strange almost foreign sense of wisdom in LeFou's words that the bumbling fool had to have picked up from someone, from Maurice, perhaps, but at that moment, he could not figure out just what his friend's wisdom was, nor could he pretend to care about it. His stomach sank as his gaze curiously flitted toward Belle's maid, to Isabelle. His shoulders straightened and he sat up a little taller as the Prince made a move to unlock his door.

The Prince turned towards Belle and LeFou.

"My love, please go back upstairs. Get something to eat, I will join you in a moment. You and I will discuss this further later. Monsieur LeFou, you may wait with Isabelle in the Courtyard. Walk around the grounds if you wish with this Beast, but I'd like a moment alone with him."

Belle and Isabelle immediately looked hesitant and somewhat fearful at the thought of leaving the Prince alone with Gaston in the Changeling man's vexed and agitated state, though the note of finality in Adam's voice was almost biting. The Prince was growing impatient and neither woman wanted to dare stoke the fire seed of anger within himself.

The women left, though not before the maid curiously peered over her shoulder to look back at Gaston, searching his face as though she wondered if he would be alright, left alone with the master of the castle who harbored resentment and anger towards him for attempting to take Belle and kill him.

Gaston tilted his head to the side, his horns reflecting in the dim light of the torch the Prince still held in his hands, and offered the maid a curt nod. Supplicated, Isabelle trailed out of the room until it was only the Prince and Gaston in the cell.

Gaston slowly turned his gaze towards the Prince and saw the handsome man's lips twitch in discomfort, though surely, not as discomfort as Gaston felt now, chained to the wall.

His throat itched as he felt the beginnings of an impending fever start to take over his body the longer he stayed down here trapped in this accursed, disgusting room.

"I have heard much about you, monsieur, from my wife," the Prince's hoarse voice devoid of any warmth at all eased its way into Gaston's conflicting thoughts once more. "She wants me to give you free rein about this place, to set you free. What did you have in mind when you tried to kill me? Hmm? To win Belle's heart, though she's never loved you? What? You thought to win her love with my head, was that it?" the Prince snapped, his wintry blue eyes narrowing.

Gaston scoffed and leaned his head back against the frigid cold bricked wall. He could at least snort. "I was protecting our village from a monster, plain and simple."

He did not bother to grace the man with his title. He thought he saw the Prince bristle at Gaston's lack of manners, though Gaston could not manage to pretend to care right now.

"And now I am the monster, thanks to some witch with a grudge against men like us," Gaston continued before the Prince could open his mouth to speak. "If you've heard so much about me from Belle as you claim, what else do you need to hear? It's clear to me that you've already made up your mind about what you think I am. You think me to be a Beast."

"You are now, monsieur, as I was once. The only difference between you and me, hunter, is that I was able to change. I fear, however, that you might not, from the stories I've heard tell about you. What woman in her right mind could love someone like you?" the Prince answered coldly.

Gaston looked up sharply. He was filled with a sudden and violent wave of anger as he looked upon Belle's husband, the man who would be the future father to their child.

But the Prince's icy blue eyes remained impassive, rendering it almost impossible for Gaston to tell what Belle's husband was thinking. His eyebrows lifted and the Prince broke the silence.

"My wife wants me to forgive you for what you have done," the Prince grunted, turning away for a moment, and pinching at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, hoping to forestall the headache he could already feel this evening turning into.

Were it up to him and him alone, he would have killed this creature back in the woods.

Gaston's eyes, wide and glassy, rolled up to the Prince's face. He knew the man was about to say something he did not like. His heart began to pound painfully until it was in his throat. And true to form, Gaston did not like his next words.

"I do not forgive you, not yet." The Prince announced, the man's expression was as grim as a grave. "For the moment, I just want all of this to be put behind me. Were it up to me, I'd have let you die in those woods, monster, it's surely no more and no less than you deserve. Simply performing one good deed does not make up for a lifetime of scorn and hurt that you've caused other people from what Belle has told me of you," the Prince spat, his tone frosty. "You have haunted my wife's shadow too long. I do not want you near my wife, Beast. Let me tell you how it works in my castle, monsieur. You will be free of this cell and moved to new and better quarters, again you've my wife to thank for that. I'd have left you down here, but she insisted," he scowled, his brows furrowing as he continued explaining. "She insists that you not be treated as I was. Like a Beast. You will behave. If you do not behave yourself with this newfound freedom that I entrust you with, then it will be just like it was before, and you will find yourself back in this very cell and chained to that wall before you can blink an eye." The Prince paused, thinking. "But…this witch's curse, what you want, what you need, perhaps…there is hope for you, monsieur. I found my hope when Belle came into my life. Perhaps… there is someone in this castle who can help. I do hope that for you, monsieur, I do, despite what you have done, and though I do not think you will ever be someone that I can truly come to like, as a friend if I am being honest with you," he murmured, and turned away, without another word to Gaston, leaving the door to his cell wide open in his wake.

Gaston stared after the Prince's retreating form as he disappeared from the dungeons, left speechless by the turn of events.

He sneered as he began to inch forward toward the door, hoping that the Prince was already gone by the time he reached the end of the wormway that seemed to lead to a different door. LeFou and the maid were already waiting for him, a shifty-looking mental bit of a guard assigned to him. Though with one withering look from Gaston, the young guard, a boy who could not have been older than seventeen, immediately averted his gaze and let out a groan.

Gaston's lips twitched as he fought back a vicious snarl and flicked his gaze toward the much more pleasant sight of the girl. Pretty Isabelle. She waited alongside LeFou, nervous.

It was obvious the two of them had been talking and most probably about him since their already hushed conversation went quiet the moment he padded forward.

"G-Gaston, here you are, we were hoping y-you'd not take too long. It's already getting dark out, we're losing the light if you want to get outside for a little while," LeFou let out a nervous chuckle as he toyed with the ends of his dark ponytail and bit down on his lip.

Gaston grunted noncommittally and flicked his gaze toward Isabelle. She flushed under his gaze and straightened her gait and awkwardly held out the supper tray she had brought for him.

By a miracle of God Himself, the pretty maid managed to regain control of her voice again.

"I—I thought you'd like to eat outside, the—the days are only going to get colder as winter comes, monsieur, you should see the sky while you're able, we—we could sit in the Courtyard, i-if you want, monsieur, and I could…keep you company, while you eat," she gasped, finding the smoldering intensity of the creature's black eyes, the only bit of him that still looked human enough, too intimidating to look at directly.

She flicked her gaze down to her boots instead and was alarmed when he spoke, and for once, there was not a hint of malice in his voice.

"Gaston, Isabelle. My name is Gaston, and…that would be…nice," he agreed begrudgingly, lowering his voice an octave. The longer he looked upon the beautiful young maid, the more intrigued he grew, but the more the bitterness in his stomach spurred revulsion within him. Was he human again, it would have been easy enough to claim this one for himself?

A winking flash of his dark eyes and upswept brow had always worked well enough on the wenches in the village back home, though, without his looks, he could not behave as such.

Instead, he merely lowered his horned head in gratitude, grateful for the young woman's kindness, and was rewarded with the brief satisfaction of seeing her surprised.

Her cheeks flushed high with color, her cheeks turning a bright cherry red as she nodded, letting out a breathy little squeak that he secretly found charming, and turned on her heels and shyly commanded that Gaston and LeFou follow her.

The moment a gap of space existed between himself and Belle's maid, a part of Gaston felt as though he could breathe again. There was something of Isabelle's presence that, while beautiful, made the air around her stand Stockstill in terror.

Something dark lurked within her, something that haunted her.

He wondered what on earth could be wrong with the girl and what she could have said to convince the Prince of these lands to grant her a position within his castle's walls.

Her beauty, probably, Gaston thought bitterly to himself, knowing that men like the Prince tended to have a fondness for pretty girls, as he did, though only one had ever truly been good enough for him, and she was no longer his, and had never been his, and could never be, at this point.

It was best to wax and seal off the idea of winning Belle's heart in his mind, for good. There was no room in his heart or soul left now for a dreamy life with Belle back in their village, not with her married to the Prince of these lands and expecting a baby in the coming months. He hardened himself at the notion.

No more envisioning Belle holding his hand, smiling at him, or wearing the ring he would slip onto her finger on their wedding day. Those dreams should be burned and made history. Gaston shook his head to himself as he continued to trudge down the length of the long corridor, his mind wandering again to thoughts of pretty Isabelle.

The memory of the blackness of her eyes from his nightmare seemed to have been burned into his mind. He had no idea how she had come to be here, or what in God's name she was if she was a part of their village, he had never seen her before. Not a huge surprise in a village as large as theirs, but certainly odd, considering he knew all the women in town.

Maybe she and her family had been new?

He had questions about Belle's maid, far more than he had any right to, and there was a part of Gaston that swelled with hope.

Somewhere deep down, he hoped to coerce the truth out of her as to what she was simply so he could get answers.