THE Prince's lips curled down into a frown as he stood in the Courtyard of his castle, the scent of the rose blossoms overwhelming, their fragrance making him feel somewhat lightheaded and dizzy.
He was beginning to regret giving in to the wench's demands that she be allowed to accompany him back to her wretched hovel of a village.
She had foolishly already allowed herself to be cursed by that hag of a beggar woman she had fooled herself into thinking was a friend to her.
There was no telling what the girl Belle would do if her pathetic fellow villagers were to see her in her monstrous Beast form.
And yet, even as Prince Adam thought about how they would likely turn on her with their pitchforks and torches, threaten to light a pyre and burn her for the she-devil she was, there was something incredibly satisfying about imagining the fear on the prickly farm girl's face.
He knew that the villagers would react in a way that she had not thought was possible. He shook his head to himself and let out a frustrated growl as he recalled the vision of beauty the girl Belle had been before.
Even as a Beast, he could still see the shadow of the celestial-like creature she was underneath the thick hideous brown fur.
He cursed the witch, Agathe, he thought the old crone's name was, though the beggar woman in question who had come to his gate looked to be not older than perhaps forty or so at best. Regardless, Adam hated the witch for ruining the fun he'd wanted to have with his newest and prettiest most prized possession.
A figure nudged beside him and the Prince did not even need to turn to look to see it was her. Belle.
The prickly creature gave Prince Adam something of a rueful look before she awkwardly sank into a curtsy as best as she could and nearly collided the horns atop her head with his, almost taking out his eye.
The cursed Changeling girl jumped back and apologized, clamping a furry hand over her mouth in horror as she muttered and turned away. Gritting his teeth, the Prince lifted his gaze, feeling his angry blush slowly subsiding.
He had been so stuck in his awful mood and cursing the witch into oblivion for ruining what was sure to have been otherwise a pleasant morning with this girl, easily the prettiest French Rose that he had ever seen, that he had not even heard Belle arrive. He watched as the girl swallowed, trying to be brave while suffering the stare that he was sure was scalding as he glared at her, his blue eyes turning steely.
"Are you alone?" he growled, hearing the Beast inhale.
"Yes, Your Highness."
He thought he detected a faint twinge of annoyance creeping its way into her voice, but Adam could not manage to pretend to care.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes to the sky, more than eager to get this unwanted trip to her village over with. Adam motioned for Belle to follow him, and she saw no choice but to comply.
He scowled, the edges of his mouth turning down as he realized that to keep an eye on this one and prevent her from wandering off the path in the Wolves' Woods that would lead them back to her village, he would have to hold her hand. As he stared down at the Beast's delicate but still furry paw, he barely repressed a violent shudder that went down his back. Adam could not think of anything else he desired to touch less, and yet, he had no choice.
Swallowing all the bile that gathered in his throat, he stretched a gloved hand out to Belle, grateful at least, the thick leather hide material of his gloves would serve as a barrier between his fingers and her fur.
Hesitantly, Belle accepted it, and she allowed herself to once more for a second time that day, be led away by the Prince, hoping again she was not making a grave mistake by choosing to trust him.
As Belle trailed dutifully alongside the Prince, she swore she could feel the heat the man's hand was exuding through his gloves and through the fur that covered her hand.
Her heart pounded in her chest for reasons she did not understand as they began to make their way through the heart of the Wolves' Woods. The thick dense forest was so aptly named by the villagers due to the copious packs of wolves that lived in the forest and tended to feed off any who accidentally stumbled across their path.
She found herself praying to God if He was listening that they'd not encounter any at all.
Belle shivered and gritted her teeth as she looked around the thick dense forest, at the myriad of red and gold, and orange leaves still on the trees, finding it beautiful but also eerie.
She thought she was close to having a nervous breakdown, today was certainly proving to be a day of regrets.
Belle should have called for help, and pleaded for someone, anyone, to come.
She was beginning to wish that she would have accepted Gaston's proposal of marriage.
Gaston was a man of many things, but she sensed that in his way, the man did care for her, even if he had difficulty expressing it, and she was sure that Gaston would be more protective of her than anyone else in the village.
But it was the hunter's boastful nature and unguarded manner that Belle secretly dreaded, and it was that which kept her saying no to each of his proposals.
She felt little beads of sweat start to glitter on her hairline at the thought of Gaston seeing her like this and wondered what the man would say if the boy were to learn that the Prince had caused this hex upon her.
She curiously glanced at the Prince, so handsome and fierce, so beautiful, even, godlike, that it pained her to know their ruler of the realm was an arrogant pig who seemed to care only for the outward appearance of a girl.
It pained her to think that the man would never know the joys of true love, what it meant to be loved and to be cared for by another. She scowled and still felt so jaded from earlier.
Everything seemed so surreal, that the very Prince who had whisked her away from her home with ill intentions in his mind, was now returning her. Even if the arrangement was only temporary.
Belle nearly jumped out of her skin as the Prince finally noticed her staring and barked at her.
"If you're going to blatantly stare at me, she-wolf, then you could at least do better to hide it, Beast," the Prince snapped, a harsh edge to his voice that made Belle look up in surprise.
A guilty blush darkened her cheeks and her lips parted as if she meant to speak, however, it took her a moment to recover.
"Forgive me, sir, I—I did not mean to offend you," she stammered, suddenly worried she had done just that as she took note of the way the Prince was clenching his teeth in annoyance, leaving her to only redden further at this awkward and painful situation.
For a brief moment, Belle met the almost wintry-blue eyes of the Prince of the realm.
Prince Adam continued to stare at the prickly she-Beast stoically, enjoying watching her squirm. At the same time, he found himself mesmerized by her lovely dark brown hair and equally dark eyes like that of rich chocolate, the only things left of her beautiful form that reminded him of what she was underneath the rest of her hideousness.
"It is not you that offends me, pretty Belle, save for your monstrous features," he sneered mockingly, letting out an odd noise of dissent through his nose. "The French courts and the fickle simpering ladies that kowtow to me do."
Belle nervously looked up at the Prince, her eyes skittishly avoiding his piercing gaze as she gingerly rubbed the back of her neck. A part of her was almost tempted to tell him about Gaston and how he wanted her, but the inventor's daughter did not think this to be a wise decision.
She could not afford to suffer more cruelty at the Prince's hand.
She looked up once more and tried to condense her conflicting thoughts as cleanly as possible, Belle found her voice, truly grateful that the Prince was letting her come, but overcome with awkwardness.
"I…thank you, Your Highness, for letting me come with you. Agathe is a friend of my father's, I am hoping if she sees….this," she scowled, gesturing to her monstrous form as an abrupt bitterness seeped its way into the pit of her belly, "then she will agree to undo whatever she did. I hope so, at least."
A shiver ripped through her at the thought of the possibility that there was a very real chance she might be stuck this way for the rest of her natural life. She recalled Agathe had mentioned something about seeing the man's heart.
She did not know what her father's friend had meant by that, but she prayed they'd learn the truth soon enough.
"What will you do when we get there?" Belle questioned, curious as to if the Prince had a plan to sneak her back to her father's house undetected, if even she could, given the way she looked now. Just her small horns alone would give her away that she was now something freakish and unnatural, not of this world. He scowled and glared at her.
"Hush, girl. You're trying my patience with your prattle, just let me enjoy this blessed silence in peace, it is the most I have had in months," he grumpily told her, to which Belle reddened maddeningly and frowned right back, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
"I'm only curious, sir," she murmured with some coolness to her tone, trying to make herself sound as threatening as she looked, and already, she could hear her voice lacked the edge.
She heard him sigh in frustration. It was a moment or two before the Prince spoke again.
"You, pretty she-wolf, will do absolutely nothing when we get there. I will go, find your witch. You will wait here in the woods, making no noise and pretending you don't even exist. You cannot risk being seen, as I've told you, you would be set upon and beaten within an inch of your life, and despite your hideousness, even I don't like seeing a helpless creature beaten, girl."
Belle, sensing she was going to get nothing further out of the Prince this way, reluctantly fell silent and continued trailing behind him.
He seemed to know more about what they were doing than she, and for the moment, she knew she had no choice but to trust him, even if she would come to regret that decision later.
She did not know how long they had been walking, but she did not think she could take any more.
She had been too anxious to eat much of the supper that Mrs. Potts had brought her earlier, she had not thought to pack any of the dinner to take with her to share with the Prince.
With each step, her stomach growled and gnawed in hunger, reminding her of her pain. But not once did Belle let herself complain, she would not give him the satisfaction of goading her further and mocking her.
"How soon until we can rest?" Belle blurted out, well aware that she must sound like a sulky child, complaining like this, but her feet were beginning to ache dreadfully.
Her small feet were not used to so much walking, and she was sure the Prince was taking them on a longer path back home to the village, perhaps a secret way to avoid being detected by anybody.
The Prince halted in his tracks and nearly caused Belle to accidentally barrel into him.
He motioned for her to take a seat on a fallen log near a pile of fallen timber that some woodcutter looked to have chopped down fairly recently, but for reasons unknown, had left his pile here.
"We're resting now, girl, stop whining. I can hear your stomach growling, you should have eaten the dinner Mrs. Potts brought you. If you did not eat, then it is your fault, I won't be stopping and I won't be hunting a rabbit or a fox for you to eat, so don't bother to ask. Drawing attention to ourselves, especially you, puts us too much at risk. If you ask me, having you here is a liability, something I am sure to regret, I have a gut feeling," he barked gruffly.
Belle situated herself on the log and he stalked his way over towards a stump and perched on it, folding his arms across his chest and practically glaring daggers at her.
"That's not what I meant, mon—" she started to say but she forced the words to cut off in her throat when she realized in horror what she had been about to call the Prince.
Never before had Belle ever thought she would address a crowned Prince in such a disrespectful and mean way, but the insult monster was just…there, burning on the tip of her tongue and begging to be spilled from her pretty lips.
Calling him a monster, she had often thought of such things since he had taken her and brought her to his castle, but she had never once thought to say it out loud to his face.
Belle watched, horrified and riddled with guilt, as a shadow of anger and she thought hurt flashed across the Prince's handsome chiseled features and he frowned.
"Monster, you were going to say, pretty belle, is that? Go on, say it. It is what I am. I know it is, I know the whispers your pathetic peasants speak of behind my back. Even my servants. Say it then, Beast, call me a monster."
Belle could only stare at him, terrified.
"Go on, Beast, say it now. Say. It."
"Stop! There's no need for this," she protested but yelped when he was on her in an instant, bolting up from his perch on the log so fast and coming towards her, that he was a blur.
He nearly knocked her off the log that she was seated on against the hard cold ground. The Prince loomed over her, his face dangerously close to Belle's as he sneered at her.
One of his gloved hands jutted out and grabbed her by the horns and pulled her upward so roughly that she could not stop the sigh of pain that left her lips as she was wrenched to her feet.
"Look at me, Belle," the Prince commanded through gritted teeth, definitely sounding angry with her now. She refused to and his grip around her horns tightened. "Look."
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, tears beginning to leak out of her eyes and getting stuck in the fur that covered her face. Belle suddenly felt as though she had made a terrible mistake.
She had left the relative safety of her new room in the East Wing of the Prince's castle and the company of his servants, who felt sorry for her and were sympathetic to her plight and put herself at the mercy of this...this…Beast.
Belle flinched when the man raised his other gloved hand not holding onto her horns and she thought he was of a mind to strike her, but instead, he merely flipped his long blond hair out of his face and to the side, revealing a horrifying looking scar on the side of his face for the first time that Belle had not gotten a good look at.
It looked like a knife wound.
Her eyes widened in horror when she saw how far up his face it went and snaked around his left ear.
"You should be scared of the monster, Belle," he told her. "A monster and a Changeling she-wolf, how perfect we are for one another," he snapped sarcastically. "The monster was punished by his lord father for daring to go against the Duke's orders when the monster demanded their servants be paid more. The monster that is now attempting to right a wrong by escorting you back to your hovel of a stupid village, even though it's my head that's on the line."
The Prince gazed at the she-wolf's stricken expression as he let go of her horns and staggered backward, panting now from the exertion of feeling his temper swell within himself, his eyes never leaving hers, choosing to focus on her dark eyes and hair, trying to visualize the human woman she once was.
She made to look away as she shakily rose to her feet, though Adam could not say if it was out of a girlish sense of embarrassment or perhaps fear of his scar.
The Prince found himself bitterly thinking with this prickly farm girl, that it should likely be the latter.
As he turned away, he wondered if Belle was afraid of him now and pondered over the irony of just the sentiment. She, a victim of a witch's curse and now suffering through life as this Changeling Beast, afraid of him?
But when he'd heard the beginnings of the word monster on the she-wolf's lips, he'd seen red.
Though he had wanted her right from the start when he'd first laid eyes on her, he had hoped that this farm girl would have proven herself to be different. Not her, not her too, not like the others.
The thought of prickly Belle hating him tugged at his insides uncomfortably and caused a strange seeping pressure in his chest he was not sure what to make of.
That was why the Prince continued to stare at her as he barked at her that they needed to keep on.
He wanted Belle to look at him so he could get a good read at the look in her eyes when the girl did.
That would be the only answer he would need. If she looked at him and the Prince only saw fear, disgust, and hatred, then he would take the witch from whatever den she had burrowed into to hide.
He would force the beggar woman's hand and get the crone to undo this wicked curse.
He would take from Belle what he wanted, and give her back to her father with enough money for a suitable dowry for some peasant boy to marry her, a blacksmith's son, perhaps, who could give her a modest and quiet life.
But what would happen if he saw curiosity or shyness? Perhaps, dare he even think of this next ridiculous notion, the beginnings of affection? He did not know what he would do if he saw that in the she-wolf's eyes.
"You see, girl," he told her. "You cannot even bear the sight of me, just as I cannot you. Let's find your wretched witch and the sooner she undoes this witch's hex, the better," he growled. "Stay close to me and don't stray far."
The Prince made to turn away though before he did, heard the chatter of the she-wolf's teeth and watched her shiver. He growled in frustration, throttling his urge to roar like an enraged dragon as he shrugged out of his cloak.
"Here. I'm not using it anyway, take it, mind it, don't rip it, for God's sake, and warm yourself up," he growled.
Belle stared, stunned.
"But won't you be freezing?" she asked, wanting in part to give the cloak back, but as she hugged the thick garment around herself tighter, the warmth enveloped her like a warm blanket, instantly warming her several times over. She watched as he paused and turned.
"This, Beast, is nothing. The nights will only get colder and I am used to joining my men to hunt in less than a simple cloak. Too many garments can weigh a man down, make them slow," he grunted and turned away from her.
Belle's previously hardened expression softened.
No one, save for Papa, had ever been so considerate and thoughtful of her own needs before. Oh, Gaston liked to put on airs and pretend, but she knew it was just that. An act meant to impress and wile and beguile her.
"I…thank you, sir," Belle said softly, studying the handsome Prince in front of her as though she were truly seeing Prince Adam for the first time.
Given the nature of the scar that marred the features that he worked so hard to hide with his hair, and how his father had given it to him, she thought she was beginning to understand why he kept people at arm's length.
He did not want his servants or the other aristocrats of the French Court to see him so vulnerable.
Yet, she suspected she was one of the few to see him like that, if not the first.
His eyes met hers, and he offered her a morose smirk and chuckled darkly a little bit.
"If it stops your shivering and lets me have the rest of our walk in peace, then anything for you, Belle," the Prince gruffly answered in a raspy voice before he turned away and barked at her to keep up.
If she fell behind, he was leaving her here in the woods and he'd not come back.
But Belle remained rooted to her spot, transfixed, studying the Prince as he got further up the path ahead of her. Her breath caught in her throat slightly as her curious eyes swept over his slender and handsome frame.
Belle frowned as she made a silent vow going forward to be kinder to the Prince.
She was grateful the man had shown his scar and slightly opened up to her. It was painful, yes, but a connection, perhaps something to build upon and get the man to show even an ounce of sympathy to her.
Perhaps…she had misjudged the Prince.