-Belle-
Adam was quiet, which left Belle all alone with her thoughts. The breeze was cool and the smell of food and people still lingered, but it would be gone by tomorrow. A lot of things would be gone by tomorrow.
Her thoughts turned to unpleasant things. She wondered if the hunting party would come for them first or the wolfmen. She wondered if she would ever see her father again. She wondered if she could have prevented all of this by dying in the forest at the start of all this.
Adam approached her and for a moment they stood side by side in silence. The sound of their breathing intertwined and everything was so peaceful. She was lost in thought listening to the sounds around them. Sounds made up her world while everyone else was looking out at something that she would never be able to see.
"What are you thinking about?" Adam asked. His voice was gentle and almost reverent like he was scared to interrupt their last night of peace and quiet. Belle smiled. She wouldn't tell him her thoughts. He didn't need anything else to worry about.
"I was imagining how everything must look tonight." It was a nice lie to keep both of their minds from dwelling on tomorrow.
"It's dark. I don't think you're missing very much." He said.
"You're not very good at this."
Adam snorted in response. "I'm not very good at what? Seeing? I'd say compared to you I'm world class."
Belle turned her eyes upward imagining the moon. It had been a long time since she had seen it, but it was still there in her memory. "You're not very good at being poetic. You're supposed to talk about how the light from the moon bathes everything in a soft innocent sort of light. You're supposed to talk about how the lanterns from the castle cast shadows on the trees that make them seem as tall as giants. You're supposed to tell me about the empty garden that seems sort of haunted now once you've seen how many people it takes to fill the space."
Those were all images of things that she had heard from the mouths of other people and never been able to experience them before. They were someone else's view on the world, but she wanted to know Adam's.
"I wish I could tell you those things, but they aren't true. It's cloudy and there's not a single ounce of light coming from the heavens. The lanterns from the castle make the trees resemble the bars of a cage, and I haven't noticed a single thing this entire night except for you."
Her hands sought out his arms almost out of habit, and he angled himself towards her. It was like a nervous habit she had that made her feel safe.
"Was my dancing that bad?" Belle teased. She was trying to keep it light-hearted, but her heart betrayed her by pounding dangerously in her chest.
"No it's far worse than that." He said with something dark in his tone. She wasn't doing a very good job at keeping their conversation light.
"Are you okay?" She asked, but she continued when he remained silent. She was tired of their back and forth. "We have been skirting around each other for too long now. There is too much that remains unsaid between us."
"Not here." He said, and then the ground wasn't under her feet anymore. He picked up her legs and was now carrying her in her arms as though she weighed nothing.
"Where are we going?" She asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Somewhere to talk." He said gruffly.
"We can talk perfectly well back there!" She said, but he didn't respond.
"I can walk myself!" She tried again, but there was no use in it. He carried her leaving her completely blind to where they were going.
She tried to listen for hallways and doors and she couldn't place where they were until he began to carry her up some stairs.
"The west wing?" She asked aloud, but he still wasn't talking to her. He set her down gently outside of a room and Belle got a familiar chill down her back. Adam unlocked a door and they stepped inside the room that Polly had taken her to nearly a month earlier.
Adam led closed the door behind them and followed the door down until he was sitting on the floor, and Belle followed suit, sitting next to him.
"I've been in the west wing before." She confessed. She had to do something to break his silence. "Polly brought me here."
"Of course she did." He said dryly. "Did she take you to this room?" He asked.
"No, I don't think so."
"This room used to belong to my mother." He said softly. "I haven't been in here in years."
"You don't talk about her a lot." She had heard plenty about Adam's father. Most of it made her wish she could go back in time and strangle him in his sleep, but Adam's mother was a whole other story. Everyone referenced her with a reverent sort of melancholy that was usually reserved for dear friends and family.
"No I don't. She died shortly after I inherited my father's curse."
"How did she die?"
"She got sick. At first she was too sick to leave the castle. Then they decided she shouldn't be coming up and down the stairs so she was confined to the west wing, and then finally she was confined to this room. She spent a year in here unable to leave before she died."
Belle tucked her knees to her chest and leaned against him. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not. All she ever talked about while I was growing up was leaving the forest and taking me with her. She never quite had the courage to stand up to my father, and she got sick right around when I became cursed. She might be dead, but at least she finally got her wish of leaving." He said, almost wistfully.
"I'm sorry she left you alone."
"You told me that there's too much left unsaid between us and this is it. This room is the reason I took you back to your village, it's the reason why I hate myself for bringing you back here a second time, and it's the reason why I haven't had the courage yet to tell you that I love you."
Belle's heart wrenched at his miserable sounding confession. He loved her. No one had ever loved her before. She couldn't stop the tears from coming. She felt pathetic at just how much she was starved for those three words.
His arms were around her then, wiping away the tears that fell.
"Belle please don't cry."
"I can't help it. You just told me that you loved me." She said muffled into his chest.
"Yes. I did. My mother loved me and she died here for it when she wanted nothing else but to be out of this place. I always thought my father was in the wrong for keeping her here. I even thought that it was the forest that was making her sick and I begged him to let her go, but he wouldn't. His love strangled her and she died in that bed. I never thought I'd be the same, but I can't let you go." He said, his voice cracking.
"I don't want to leave." she said.
"You say that now, but in time you won't-"
She was angry. This idiot she was in love with was willing to send her off once before because he thought he knew what she wanted, and she would never let him do it again.
"Do you really love me?" She asked, interrupting him.
"Belle, it's not as easy as that." He said, trying to explain himself using the same tone of voice that people used when they were pointing out something obvious that she should be able to see. She just reiterated her question.
"Adam. I will not let you create a wedge between us because you think I ought to see and feel things differently. It is as easy as this because it's the only thing that matters to me right now. I think I heard you say a minute ago with a voice of pure misery that you loved me. Is that true?"
He was quiet for a moment swimming through the tension that lay between them.
"Love is an insufficient word for me. I love the gardens outside the castle. I love everyone in the castle because they've become my family. I love the rain and the thunder. I love the spring when the forest becomes alive. All of that means nothing to me next to you. You want to know if I love you? Every moment since you left as felt like a death sentence that only lifted when I came down in that clearing. You possess all of my love and everything I have."
He sounded like a beaten man. His voice was thick with emotion and Belle untrapped her hands and she reached up to his face, feeling the familiar lines and contours. This was the face she was in love with. This was the person who had given her the most precious gift anyone had ever given her before.
"I will take it. All of your love and everything you have is mine now and in return, my heart and my every thought belongs to you."
His hand wrapped up in her hair and he pulled her towards him and he kissed her softly. Nothing about him was ever soft aside from the kiss he had wrapped her in.
"I cannot talk you out of your foolishness and convince you to run far away from here while you can?" He asked desperately once they broke apart.
"I always had the option to leave. As I recall, I did have take the opportunity to leave on my own out into the forest. Did it not occur to you that if I didn't want to be here then I wouldn't be? You're not as menacing as you think you are. You couldn't stop me."
"Don't remind me. I'm not sure if you realize how close you were to dying out there."
Belle ignored his comment, she didn't want to start up this argument with him again.
"There's been a woman in that stupid forest every blood moon for years because they want to be rescued by some handsome courageous stranger with a castle. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one who has succeeded, and I keep waiting for you to see that."
He kissed her first. He wrapped her in his arms and showed her that he loved her more than anything. She kissed him back and she was finally at peace with herself. There was no more inner war over her own feelings. It was a dangerous game to be so wrapped up in someone who you needed so much to feel alive.
He was right to take them somewhere secluded. She wanted everything he had to offer. It didn't take long before she was stripped down to her chemise and his shirt had found itself on the floor. They were both breathing heavily and caught up in the feeling of eachother.
Her hand found the lacy hem of the chemise but his hand caught hers and he stopped her.
"Wait." He choked out as if he couldn't believe that he was saying it.
"What?" She whispered.
"You deserve better than this." He said.
"Are you saying that because you think you're some sort of monster?" She demanded.
He laughed at her outrage. She could be fearsome when she wanted to be and she was glaring up at him in fury.
"No, it's true, but that wasn't what I was saying. You deserve a proper lover who courts you. Someone who asks your father for your hand and gives you a beautiful ring. You don't deserve to be ravished on the floor of a bedroom by a beast."
Her heart swelled.
"I'm going to do everything right by you Belle." He looked down at her soft white skin and see through chemise and he clenched his jaw. "Even if it kills me." He added for his own sake.
"You don't have to change who you are to make me happy. You already make me happy."
She sat next to him after it was clear that he would not be doing anything to further impeach her honor.
"You say that now. I think you're forgetting that I'm the same man who tore you from the forest that first night."
"I've forgotten that already."
"I haven't." He insisted. "I won't forget the things I've done to you."
"Everything you did brought me here."
She leaned against him, placing her head against his arm. He reached over and pulled her into his lap and his fingers began to run through her hair, pulling out braids and pins. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch when an annoying thought flashed through her mind.
"What was it like between you and the Queen?" She asked.
She hadn't had a charitable thought for the queen ever since she learned the truth, but sitting here with Adam, she wondered exactly how much they had shared with eachother. Adam's hands stilled in her hair.
"Do you really wish to speak about that right now?" He asked incredulously.
She felt heat rush to her face as she realized what she was saying. She sounded insecure and pathetic asking about his past history. She imagined him holding the Queen the same way that he now held her and she shuddered. Maybe she did not wish to hear about it.
"No, never mind." She said quickly.
He turned her around so that he could see her face and he laughed lightly. "You're blushing. Are you- you couldn't be jealous."
He said that like it was an immutable fact. He said it like she didn't have a reason to be jealous, but she realized she was jealous. Jealous that she never got the chance to break the curse.
"No, of course not." She said quickly, but the damage was already done.
"You have nothing to be jealous of. When you're in front of me, I can't even remember her face." He said. "I thought I was in love with her, but looking back now, I realize that I was just desperate. She wouldn't speak to me unless I was a man, and even then she would never touch me. I thought maybe she was resentful towards me for abducting her and taking her to the forest, but the day the search party arrived she told me exactly what she really thought of me." He finished darkly.
Belle reached up and cradled his face in one of her hands. She didn't want to hear the rest of the story. "I think you're perfect." She said.
"I'm the King Beast. You might need to reevluate your definition of perfect."
"If you weren't the King Beast you wouldn't come back to me tomorrow. I love Adam and I love the Beast.
His mouth crushed into hers and he lifted her into a more comfortable position where he could run his hands through her hair.
"You're not going to make this easy." He said against her mouth.
"Make what easy?" She asked innocently.
"Doing this right." He growled.
She smiled and pulled away from him.
"Fine, I'll help you out. You're going to walk me back to my room and wish me a good night and then you're going to go rest. You have no idea what will happen tomorrow."
If Belle was being honest with herself, she didn't like that idea either. She wanted to stay there forever wrapped in his arms, but they couldn't, not tonight anyways.
She tried to pull herself out of his arms, but his arms were immovable. He released her finally when she persisted.
"Everything is good between us right?" Belle asked, nervously. It felt strange now that she felt like they were on the same page for the first time and fighting for the exact same thing.
Adam stood. "Everything is perfect." He said before taking her arm and leading her towards her room.