13
BELLE'S heart was in her throat as she let out a gasp as the cold pinked her cheeks the moment the heavy oak door behind her shut, the sound making her jump. For some reason, she felt as though the door shutting behind her was a fitting enough metaphor for herself sealing her fate.
She could not—would not—let that poor boy suffer Gaston's cruelty, no matter what the man would do to her. She could take it. Better that she suffered than this poor little boy.
She gritted her teeth as she approached the gates and tried to keep her head held high and ignored the look of fear in the boy's eyes, though Chip's fear was not directed at her, but at the look in the unfamiliar stranger's eyes. The handsome man on the other side of the gate was tall and imposing. His face was set into a frown that almost looked like a vicious snarl like he meant to lunge and snatch Chip with his hands and pull him straight through those bars.
"Belle," Gaston growled, the man's deep familiar voice startling her so badly that she nearly tripped over herself.
She accidentally stepped on her dress and had to cling to the bars of the iron-wrought gates to catch her balance that protected the Prince's castle from would-be intruders—of which Gaston was now one.
Belle looked up in alarm as she steadied herself. Gaston's colorless grey eyes raked over Belle's Beastly body, eyeing the twisting little horns atop her head and the fur on her face before he looked deep into Belle's dark brown eyes.
"It's…Chip, right?" she questioned, looking as kindly as she could into the little boy's terrified eyes, trying to smile at him when Mrs. Potts' son nodded mutely.
"Y-yes, miss," he spoke hoarsely in a hushed voice after a moment, his voice trembling and betraying how scared he was.
When she did, she stepped forward and flung an arm out in front of the boy, preventing the child from taking a step closer to the gates. As Belle spoke, she kept her gaze fixed on Gaston.
"I want you to go inside. Find your mother or Lumiere or Cogsworth, someone, and don't come outside for anything."
Chip did not need to be told twice.
He turned his heel and ran and did not look back. Only when Belle's pointed ears twitched at the sound of the door she had come out of clicking shut behind him did she speak when she was confident the boy was safe and inside.
"Wh-what are you doing here, Gaston? LeFou?" Belle asked, her voice slightly hushed as her eyes flicked back and forth between Gaston and LeFou. Gaston's presence here at the Prince's castle was both frightening and utterly terrifying. She did not know what he wanted, but it was not a good sign to see Gaston's shoulders hunched inward.
The hunter was giving off the feel of a predator. He looked as though he were poised at any second to attack, and Belle desperately looked for something—anything—she could use to defend herself with and hit him hard with.
"I had to see you for myself, Belle, to hear your voice again, to know that it is you, all this time," Gaston growled, no semblance of warmth or affection in his voice as his gaze lingered on her curse and monstrous form with no small amount of hatred.
Her nervous eyes looked to the left and right of the vast open grounds that would soon be blanketed under a thick dusting of snow. The castle behind her felt like it was a million miles away. Gaston could climb the fence in seconds, and she'd never get passed him to head inside and by the look on his face, he knew that too.
"What are you doing here, Gaston?" Belle bravely asked again and took a step back as her heart wormed its way into her throat as Gaston did as she suspected he would. He began to climb the gates and LeFou struggled and eventually succeeded in fitting through the bars. She shivered.
There was nothing she'd be able to do if Gaston attempted to attack her now.
Belle watched, horrified, and awed as Gaston's colorless grey eyes looked around the otherwise deserted castle grounds. The man was looking almost lost. She would even go as far as to say he was feeling unsure of himself, and with the disgust temporarily gone from Gaston's handsome face, the man almost looked…sad.
She knew of no other word to describe the hunter's eyes. That fact alone would not have scared Belle so much if she were not fixated on the slight trembling of the man's broad shoulders as he began to stalk towards her. The way his eyes darted around frantically as though to ensure the three of them were well and truly alone outside, made her think Gaston was not well, that he was slightly unstable now. She knew, just as Papa did, what Gaston was capable of on one of his good days, but to see him like this was very, very new. This was dangerous. He was dangerous.
Gaston suddenly looked up as a twig underneath her snapped under the weight of her foot coming down on it and she jumped and nearly tripped, inhaling a sharp breath that pained her lungs.
"Belle, don't be scared," Gaston spoke, in a softer voice that was almost kinder than she was used to hearing from him and that scared her more than his usual boisterous and overconfident tone she was used to hearing in the man. "I would never dream of hurting you."
She bit down on her bottom lip as she came to understand Gaston sounded as though he meant his words. He sounded. Hurt, even.
"Then why are you here?" Belle cried, her words coming out harsher than she meant them to.
The moment Gaston took a step towards her with his hands held by his head as if in surrender, she thought he meant to lunge right there and then and attack her. She shivered as she braced herself for the man to grab her, but he did not come. He halted and glowered at Belle in incredulous disbelief.
"You think I would hurt you, Belle? Truly?" he snarled, his voice still soft and dangerously quiet.
Belle nodded, a bead of sweat glittering along her scalp as she took a shaky step backward.
"When you look at me like I'm not but a monster, Gaston, like you are now, y-yes, I do!" Belle cried and he nearly roared at the top of his lungs like a cursed enraged dragon.
He looked away from her and around the castle grounds once more as if to ensure they were well and truly alone.
She hoped Monsieur Lumiere had done as she had asked and was staying inside.
Belle knew that she did not want anyone else to get hurt if she could supplicate Gaston. She had to try. He was trying to hold himself together, and Belle thought that for the moment, staying quiet would be the best.
She waited for Gaston to regain some small semblance of control over his emotions and when he did, he looked back at her, the man's expression now blank and menacing.
"Did he do this to you? Our Prince," Gaston snarled, spitting the Prince's title with no small amount of disgust in his tone. Belle shivered and nodded feebly. "And yet you still stay here of your own accord. You've not attempted to plead with him for your release. Why, Belle? Tell me, right now, Belle," he growled. His voice sounded broken, and Belle could hardly bear it.
"Because, Gaston, I…." Belle trailed off and thought momentarily as she pondered the truth about why she had not left for their village, aside from how she looked.
Not only did she not wish for Papa to see her in this form, knowing it would only upset him, but also, something of the Prince and the man's sad eyes compelled her to stay within the man's castle. Her mind traveled unprompted to the time in the library she had spent with the Prince over the last several days, both poring over countless books in hopes of finding any clue that might give a more profound meaning on how to break Agathe's spell.
A smile came to her lips as she sometimes remembered catching him staring at her, the same way Gaston tended to, full of an unearthly desire for her, but somehow, with Adam, she did not fear it.
She had brushed it off as a misinterpretation on her part, thinking the intense look was more attributed to his being equally eager to lift her spell, but now…now, Belle wasn't so sure of his feelings, if any, he had for her.
The notion that he could be attracted to her in any way, shape, or form, given the Beast she was, was ridiculous. She shook her head to herself and frowned, trying to dismiss the thought. But even as she attempted to dismiss it from her mind, a small little smile came to her lips as she realized he would look away whenever she turned to catch him at it. Even now, she could see Prince Adam's face, as clearly as if the man was standing beside her.
She could hear his voice whispering into her ear. Her heart grew happy at just the thought of the Prince.
Belle's eyes widened as tears formed at the edges of her eyes as she realized the depths of emotions for the Prince that were growing within her, even now, as she confronted Gaston about it. Standing out here in the nearly frozen cold darkness of his castle's grounds without him by her side, Belle realized that she'd grown to love Adam. Somehow, in the long days and weeks spent in the castle, Belle had fallen in love with him.
Now, with a much bigger problem now staring her down in the face and looking at her expectantly, waiting for her answer, she prayed she'd not waited too long. She swallowed down hard and looked back up at Gaston, who was looking angrier and his face was red. She remembered she owed Gaston an answer.
"I haven't left the castle yet, Gaston, because I do not want my father to see me…like this, and…because I…because I love Prince Adam," she told him.
Gaston let out a furious blood roar and turned towards the tree they stood beside, shredding his knuckles against the tree's rough bark. But he ignored the pain in his now likely broken right hand and the blood trickling down his wrist. Belle yelped in fear and jumped back, scared to see him lash out in this way. Over and over again, Gaston lashed out at the tree, splinters of wood flying everywhere as the hunter let his anger and hurt feelings take control.
He turned towards her when his bleeding knuckles could take no more pain at last.
His chest was heaving hard and his expression was currently struggling to convey the burning anger he felt towards Belle's admission of love for the very man who'd done this to her or his unyielding love.
Whichever was more important to him right now.
Gaston's face crumpled. It looked as though Gaston was on the verge of breaking as a single bead of sweat dripped down from his temple and he stalked toward Belle. LeFou frowned and hurried forward.
"Gaston, stop this, please!" LeFou pleaded, the shorter stout man's face crumpling in abject misery. "This—this isn't right, Gaston, please, let's go home! Belle can't help whom she loves, and I don't think whatever happened to her is anybody's fault! Let's go!" he begged. He darted forward and made to tug on Gaston's coat sleeve in the futile hopes of pulling his best friend away from Belle, but his actions only succeeded in making Gaston angrier.
Gaston kicked out at him but LeFou managed to plant his heels into the snow-covered ground somehow firmly and was now the only thing standing between his best friend and Belle.
LeFou had to crane his neck up to look at Gaston in disappointment, his mouth set in a frown.
"You'd go against the crown, Gaston? Please, Gaston, think this through!" he yelled, throwing his arms out to no one in particular as he tried to make his best friend listen to a semblance of reason. "You would be tried and executed! Please, let's just go home now and forget all of this. Belle's made her choice and you have no right to disrespect that choice if you love her! Please, Gaston, come back with me, don't do this, we're not animals!"
LeFou sounded close to tears as he begged his friend to relent and return to the village with him, without Belle.
Belle stared at LeFou, her mouth slightly slack in surprise and her eyebrows rose high. This was admittedly the first time she'd heard him defend her.
A chill ripped through her when she heard Gaston let out a low growl from deep in the back of his throat and he kicked LeFou aside. Belle heard LeFou cry out in shock and surprise as he landed painfully on his hands to try to stop the fall, but Gaston did not apologize for his rough manhandling of his friend.
His eyes were fixated on her and her alone.
As he walked slowly towards Belle, his steps methodical, he spoke to LeFou, but his gaze never once wavered from Belle's monstrous face.
"No, LeFou, but this bastard Prince is for doing this to her," Gaston reasoned, his gloved hand coming to rest at the hilt of his sword by his right hip.
"Gaston, please!" LeFou begged, sounding on the brink of hyperventilating at this point as he began to try to scramble to his feet, though Gaston turned towards him and held up a hand to stop him.
LeFou's terror for Maurice's daughter was so great that he dared not speak. Gaston had a cold smile on his lips and a hateful glint in his colorless grey eyes. His face was reddening but not from the cold. But from anger.
Gaston turned towards LeFou and snapped at him, his voice raised.
"Do not raise your shrill voice to me again, LeFou! One more word out of you and next time it's your teeth rolling out in the snow and good luck picking them all up when I make short bloody work of your fingers, my friend!" he shouted, the man's voice rising to match his angry mood.
LeFou made a noise that sounded like a pitiful whimper, but feebly nodded and did not dare say another word, looking to Belle pleadingly and trying to apologize on behalf of his friend for Gaston's behavior.
LeFou scrambled to his feet and turned on his heels and fled in the opposite direction. Belle squeezed her eyes shut and prayed the man was going to fetch help.
Gaston turned back to face Belle and was on her in a flash, roughly gripping her wrists before Belle had any time to cry for help or much less back away from him. Gaston's hands held onto Belle tightly, with just enough force to be uncomfortable, but not enough to bruise.
"You're supposed to love me, Belle, how on earth could you have feelings for that bastard Prince who does not deserve you? Look at what he's done to you. Look at how he has ruined you, what he's made you into," Gaston snarled, his eyes narrowed in disgust, and he shook her gently, as though he thought he could shake some sense into her. "If you're still upset about what I said about Maurice, that he was crazy—I—I never meant to say it, you know that! You know I didn't. Why didn't you listen to me, Belle?" he demanded, his tone offended and soft.
"You're primeval, Gaston, and cruel, let go of me or I'll—I'll bite you myself!" she snapped, her temper flaring.
She continued trying to wrench free of his grip, but Gaston had her wrists in a painful vice.
If she tugged any harder, she would break them trying to get free.
She thanked God she was regaining at least a little confidence with the anger returned to her with the too-fresh memory of Gaston insulting her father in front of half the village.
"You've never appreciated my father, what makes you think he'd ever give his blessing?" she cried, unable to believe Gaston's words.
A look of anger flashed across Gaston's face but the denial was prominent in his colorless cold eyes.
It was clear to Belle that Gaston was not allowing himself to believe it—that he would never be a man she could love, and that her heart was someone else's.
"I-I wasn't thinking, it was the first thing that came to mind, Belle, I didn't—" he started to say, but Belle could not let him continue.
Her temper swelled within her chest to alarming proportions and before she could stop herself, there came an animalistic growl from the back of her throat that started deep within her chest, a low and threatening warning.
A sound worthy of a Beast. It made them both freeze.
After a moment, Belle shakily regained her composure and snapped at Gaston.
"You thought it, Gaston, and you said it, you've never been able to watch your words," Belle growled and continued to struggle against his vice grip, but Gaston still held tight and fast.
The hunter's desperation that was plastered all over his handsome face did not match how his body had grown aggressive and tense. A shiver bristled under the fur that covered her body as Belle once again realized just how precarious and dangerously unstable position she was in right now. She was beginning to wish Lumiere had called for a team of the Prince's guards. The captain, Brutus, surely the man could put a stop to Gaston's plan.
Whatever his 'plan' happened to be.
"No, Belle, no, no, no, you're wrong," Gaston shouted and the man shook her again, this time much rougher than before, causing her to cry out in shock. "Belle, you know I think the world of you and Maurice. You are the most beautiful person I know. Even underneath…all this," he muttered, after a pause as his eyes made a quick scan of her monstrous Beastly form and then flicked back up to her eyes. "I'd do anything for you, Belle. I'm the only one who matches you, and you know it," Gaston growled, the edges of his mouth curling upwards into a truly feral snarl.
Belle felt something ugly rise within herself, something even Beastly, she would go as far as to say as she slowly turned her head and glowered at Gaston.
The words were ripped from her lips before she could stop herself from speaking them to the man.
"Adam is kind. Good. He would make the right woman happy someday, Gaston. You? You think only of yourself."
Belle made a face of disgust.
"You've hurt people so much better than you, Gaston, and your eyes follow everything pretty in a skirt. A truly fine husband you'd make," she snapped, and Belle swore she heard Gaston sniff as the hunter looked away for a second.
A chill went down her spine as she heard Gaston let out a laugh that was bitter to the bone and came out sounding a harsh bark.
"This bastard Prince has you good, Belle, doesn't he? What did he promise you to convince you to stay and keep the secret that what has happened to you is his fault, hmm? New gown? Better food? Money? A castle of your own, what?"
The jealousy dripping from his voice was unmistakable and she immediately replied, unsure where she had acquired the courage to speak more boldly to him than in times past, but she had to say it.
Even if she would come to regret her decision later on.
Belle felt herself shudder with angst.
"I'd much rather have the Prince than you. As far as I'm concerned, he's not the monster here! Nor am I, Gaston. You are! I chose to stay because I think Adam could be a man that I could love, and he didn't promise me anything, Gaston, he's never needed to!" she shouted, stomping her foot as she rose her voice to be heard over the winds.
Belle shoved Gaston's chest, hard and strong, she was sure, yes, she was sure, but it did not faze him in the slightest. He stepped back and she watched the color drain from his face and his mouth turn down in a frown.
And then she heard the sinister side she always knew lurking in him, hidden beneath the surface.
"Then I'm sorry, Belle. You leave me no choice."
His words sent a chill through her and a vent of adrenaline pushed Belle to turn on her heels and bolt for the castle.
Before Belle could even make it two feet, one of Gaston's gloved hands curled around her arm and pulled her back, spinning her around to face him.
In the blink of an eye, she felt the hard crack of Gaston's palm smacking against her cheek, sending her reeling backward and falling onto the ground by the sheer force of his blow.
There were at least five years of rejection behind that slap, and Belle could not stop the cry of pain as she landed on the cold hard ground and immediately brought a paw to rest on her cheek. She looked up at him through watery eyes and immediately wished she hadn't. She saw Gaston peeling off his gloves and his gray eyes glittering at her with a coldness, the likes of which was now aimed at her she had never seen before. Blank, yet dull and hostile too.
Before Belle could scramble away, Gaston was already looming over her, bending down and grabbing her by the arm, flipping her over so her back was digging into the snow.
Belle screamed until her throat was raw and hoarse as she squirmed violently underneath his touch, horror the only emotion left in her eyes as Gaston reached for the hunting knife he kept around his belt.
"Hush, Belle, love, the less you fight me on this, I will make it quick for you," Gaston growled, speaking through gritted teeth. "The Prince will not bother you anymore, he will be dealt with, I give you my word, Belle," he said.
"Please..." Belle whispered hoarsely, but Gaston was not listening to her. Hot tears dripped from her eyes yet again as the cold steel of his knife was pressed against her neck to quiet her. Her lower lip began to tremble, and she could hear herself starting to blubber as she waited for the knife to rip into her, but that moment for Belle never came.
She continued to squirm underneath him, but she made no attempts to beg Gaston for her life. She knew from the look in the hunter's eyes that it was over for her. He was surely about to kill her, despite his previous words to her that he would never hurt her. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and a low wolfish whine escaped from the back of her throat. Gaston only looked down at her. Belle's pointed ears perked up at the sound of someone calling her name.
"Belle!" came a distant man's voice through the wind, and then it hit her like molten lava. She would know his voice anywhere. It was Adam. Her lips parted as she prepared to scream but the blade pressed against her neck.
She took a deep breath but nothing. Her eyelids shot open and she looked up at Gaston, who looked furious at the sound of the Prince's voice. The man was calling for Belle.
"I-I'm sorry, Gaston," Belle whispered "I'm sorry," she wept, blinking a nearly frozen tear as it trailed coldly down her cheek.
She watched as Gaston's jaw clenched as the sound of the Prince's voice drew even closer.
"Belle?! Belle, if you can hear me, answer me!" Adam's voice was trembling and she thought he sounded desperate.
There was more emotion in the hunter's face than Belle could ever recall seeing before. Gaston's hand started to violently shake as he maintained his vice grip on his large knife, the weapon trembling against her fur.
The edge of his lip curled into a snarl. Belle could only watch in amazement. There was confusion and rage plastered all over Gaston's face, she was sure, but it was emotion.
Plain as the nose on his face and unmistakable too. Her lips parted in amazement as yet again, the sound of the Prince's voice drew nearer, as did the sound of crunching snow underfoot.
Belle was just about to plead with Gaston to try to convince him one more time to let her go before it ended terribly for him when the Prince saw what he was doing to her.
But before she could say a word, the knife left her throat and Gaston jerked his arm to the right, hard, and smacked Belle hard above her temple.
Immediately, she saw black.