by May Sage
Shit. Now he had to go and play the politician. Might as well hold a sign up saying “please, do feel free to take this opportunity to murder me, I insist.”
“How are you holding up,” she asked one of the terrorists, taping his back and discreetly planting a tracker on it.
She wasn’t as careful as she’d sworn she’d be.
Belle was supposed to follow the anti-royalist’s plan, and mark whomever she inadvertently passed by, but she couldn’t. As the Beast was being an obnoxious, arrogant, stupidly confident and sexy ass right now, Belle walked everywhere, and marked as many guys as she could.
She had no other choice. The basic plan was to wait until the bulk of the group had converged around Aiden, and hit him then, all at once; and damn, given the fact that he was pretty much offering himself up right now, it might really work.
The only thing keeping her relatively calm was the careful eyes of Clocks and Lightwood, scanning everyone whom he interacted with.
“Fine. Just want this over with already. Tomorrow, Belle, that shit-ass will be nothing but history.”
It was getting increasingly hard to smile and nod, rather than punching them in the throat when they said stuff like this.
The Prince had been a shit-ass, sure. But anyone watching what he’d accomplished within one little month would stop being an idiot, and be thankful that he’d come back where he belonged.
Reforming the entire system had taken days. He’d fired everyone high up enough to have made any decision over the last decades. They all were under investigations. Every case solved had been reopened.
And more to the point, the Prince was her Beast, and that was that. No one was hurting him. Not if she had anything to say about it.
Belle had attended every meeting she’d been invited to since she’d “joined” the anti-royalists and each time, it had become more evident that most of the guys were tools – but they had numbers on their sides.
While it was possible – actually, expected – to post a soldier every ten meters, and to sneak in some in their casual attires, Aiden’s announcement had meant that the populace outnumbered them by a hundred to one – everyone able to tear themselves from work, living within driving range of the capital had turned up.
Belle knew of at least thirty terrorists, for sure, but she’d heard that some had made a special journey to attend the party, new faces she couldn’t identify.
“You’ve marked twenty-four baddies, sis. Anyone else?”
She crooked her head discreetly, certain one of the many cameras her brother controlled was fixed on her.
There were some guys left, but they were on the other side of the room; she had to navigate cautiously, before someone realized she was meticulously ensuring to see – and touch – all of them.
But then something happened that screwed up all of her careful preparations before Ben had given the order to arrest everyone she’d marked; Aiden’s eyes lifted from the woman who was fruitlessly attempting to flirt with him, and fell on her.
Shit.
Belle shook her head one millimeter left and right; she knew he’d caught it, but that didn’t stop him from leaving the girl where she stood, and parting the crowd until he was right in front of her.
Right in the middle of his enemies; exactly where they wanted him.
♦
He’d seen the panicky expression and he’d taken it for some sort of silly girly crap; god new girls could lose their shit around him; or at least, the real, non-blue version of him.
Aiden should have recalled this was Belle.
The instant he entered her space, he felt the shift in the atmosphere; one woman screamed, and then, everyone started to panic.
Everyone save for the terrorists and the obviously very prepared staff who leaped towards him.
Someone threw a cane his way; catching it mid-flow, he used it to knock the gun out of the guy’s hand who was holding it awkwardly, pointing towards Belle more than him.
But by the time the gun hit a bush, Belle was long gone anyway; from the corner of his eyes, Aiden saw her get a dagger strapped to her fucking thigh, and planting it in the palm of someone who’d just been about to cowardly knife him from behind.
He felt her frame, warm and comforting, right against his back.
Before the next wave, Clocks and Lightwood had taken their respective places on his flank, closing the circle for the very first time.
It was traditional to have three guards, like his father did, to ensure he was protected from every angle, but Aiden had never found someone he trusted completely, implicitly – that was what the third guard was; someone who held his life in his palm when he protected his back.
Belle had taken that place without a word and nothing had ever felt so right.
Truth was, he would have loved to be able to hide her away like he’d fantasized many a time, keeping her safe from any form of harm or discomfort – but it wasn’t who she was.
Belle was the one who belong next to him every time he faced a danger, just as he’d be right next to her if she ever did.
“Belle,” he called out, above the chaos, yet again blocking another knife – thank fuck, no one else seemed to have been able to sneak in firearms.
“Yeah?”
“A thigh sheath, woman? That was damn sexy. I wanna see it if we get out of here!”
She didn’t answer at first, but after a while, he felt his first blow – an elbow hit him right on the flank.
“Shut it, Beast. There’s no if about it. It’s when.”
To be frank, she had a point. They were winning, and winning fast.
Their protective circle was flawless, and so was the aggressive quadrum his father and the king’s guards had formed keeping those who tried to run occupied.
Well, they were winning, until suddenly, everything was lost.
He didn’t know what made him turned towards the arrow, but he knew what made him stay in place.
He might have spotted it early enough to avoid it, but he didn’t move a muscle, because if his body wasn’t in its path, the arrow would have hit her instead.
Aiden was quite at peace, a hundred percent certain of his decision; he wasn’t ecstatic about it, obviously, but there were worse ways to go. How many could say they’d died saving the one they loved?
But just then, when he’d relaxed, ready to take his fate, the impossible happened.
To his horror, there was a frail, supple, delicate frame in his arms, in front of him, instead of resting behind his back.
Shit, the girl was fast.
But his Beauty had forgotten that he was a Beast.
The arrow was just about to collide with Belle’s skull when he used as much raw, brutal force as he could muster to manage to push his body before hers.
So, instead of lodging itself between her amber eyes, it went and pierced his heart.
Chapter Fourteen
the Call
The scream wasn’t human, it was wild, evil, agonizing and it was coming from her throat.
No. No. No.
He could not die. Her beautiful Beast could not leave her behind. Everyone knew how their story was supposed to go. They were the kind of pair made and designed to meet, argue, laugh, cry and love, together, happily ever after.
But even as she worked frantically on his body, quickly turning to a carcass, she knew he was dying. Her eyes scanned his beyond flesh, and she saw with her own eyes that the weapon had found its mark.
Why had he protected her! Why!
She hadn’t realized she’d asked – or more likely, yelled – out loud, until his hoarse, broken voice murmured a weak:
“Because you’re mine.”
She hadn’t thought possible that her pain could increase, but these last words doubled it.
He was wrong.
He’d protected her because she’d lied to him. To herself. To the world.
Everyday she went around pretending to be nothing more than a girl, hiding the fact t
hat of the two of them, she’d always been the Beast.
If he’d known the arrow wouldn’t have been fatal to her, he wouldn’t have died. It was all her fault.
No more.
Belle stopped attempting to use her meager understanding of first aid, and closed her eyes.
No more hiding. She was powerful, she knew it, she felt it to her bones – always had. And if there was the slightest chance that what she was could end this nightmare, she was embracing it.
For the first time, she called to the only real beast of Jereena.
No word passed her lips, but she felt her desperate cry for help resonating like the echo of an earthquake.
They heard it, too, because when her eyes opened again, they were there.
Some soldiers, guards, the King and other humans stood around her, but beyond, a group of creatures had materialized themselves.
Eyes wide opened, King Armand bowed slightly and moved to let them pass.
They were a diverse bunch of unfairly beautiful things. There was a tiny woman with butterfly wings, a very scary, tall thing with black horns on her head, and in front, a man so exquisite she actually thought she might have passed out and started dreaming.
“What the hell!” The scary woman was seething. “Her kind isn’t supposed to be here!”
“Shut it, Mal,” the beautiful man ordered. “The bleeding needs to stop. Do your thing.”
The frightening fay was obviously not happy about it, but she clicked her fingers before replying: “Done. Won’t save him, though. Too far gone.”
In that moment, Belle had never hated anyone as much as she hated that creature; she might have gone for her arteries if the leader hadn’t knelt down next to her, checking over Aiden.
“He’s not going to make it without changing, I’m afraid,” the man told her softly, confusing her.
Changing? What did he mean? The dark cloud which had settled over her mind thinned out, because he’d implied that there was a way to make him come back to her.
“You’ll have to process the change quickly, before his soul passes. It’s already left his shell.”
Each word caught in her throat when she tried to reply. She was desperate because he wanted her to be quick but she had no fucking idea what she was supposed to do! Trying again, she finally managed: “I don’t know what to do. Please show me, I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”
She felt their stare on her, and she couldn’t really blame them from looking at her like she’d lost her mind. She was sobbing like a damn lunatic, but she just couldn’t help it.
“Shhhh,” a soft, musical, delightful voice murmured, although there was no one there.
What came first was the mist – a white mist, which thickened and took the shape of a female.
Then, a real woman appeared out of the cloud.
Belle was beyond caring about the fact that nothing made sense right now; all she knew was that that… female thing made it better.
It was strange because the newcomer looked cold, unforgiving. Her eyes were frost, her beauty, so striking it hurt. Her hand touched Belle’s, and it was actually sub-zero kinda cold.
“Don’t panic little girl. He’s not going anywhere. Hades has no claim on his soul.”
Her piercing blue eyes turned as black as her long hair and she looked up, shearing around the darkening skies. They focused, and she smiled – the kind of smile which made people shudder with fear. Belle sighed, relieved.
“There, I got it,” she told her, pointing towards Adler.
The dog whined, but he nonetheless approached, and turned on his back in sign of submission.
“Hands on the beast,” the stranger instructed, and Belle immediately touched Aiden’s forehead. “Mhh… I meant the other beast, but never mind. Touch the animal, now. Your partner’s attached himself to it. You’ll need to do a transfer. It’s simple; just think about things which are particular to the man, it should remind him where he belongs. I’ll work on his shell.”
Under other circumstances, Belle might have had things to say about a drop dead gorgeous creature groping Aiden’s chest, but considering that blood disappeared under her pristine, crystal white fingers, she let her have at it.
There were delicate blue filigrees now marring his skin; and soon there was nothing left of the huge gaping hole on his peck. Nothing but a star-like scar that resembled a perfect snowflake.
“Transfer, little girl,” the weird woman gently admonished her. “We do have time, but there is a lot of work to do. If it wasn’t long and difficult, any minor god could recall their dear from the dead.”
♦
Somewhere in a little southern kingdom.
Each time she awoke, the introductions got more and more tiresome.
At first, her slumbers hadn’t extended over the occasional decade here and there; when she’d awoken, no one doubted, questioned, wondered about her. They knew exactly who – what – she was.
After the first century of sleep, she’d had some trouble. Her kind had gone to history, by then.
The last time, gods had been considered myths.
The humans were right, in a way; what they believed to be true about gods was a lot of myth, sprinkled with a little dash of fact.
But it baffled her that they could have forgotten; not because she wished to be remembered.
Because they should have recalled the threat her kind represented. The fays remembered that, at least, if their animosity was any indication.
“They both need sleep,” she said, to no one in particular, and a flock of mortals converged around the little goddess and her newly fashioned god.
They were taken again and Eira painfully rose from her knees, finally turning to the two kinds of mortals facing her.
She sighed at their expectant gaze; she really did hate introductions – particularly when she’d just woken up.
“You’re her,” the oldest fay amongst those gathered here breathed. “You’re Skadi. The Winter Goddess.”
She sighed. Amongst her many names, this one – her first – was perhaps the one she hated the most.
“Eira,” she corrected. That one, she’d given to herself. It meant Snow – simple and to the point, just like her. “And if you do insist in standing on ceremonies, I do prefer the Snow Queen.”
They had many questions and she, few answers; fewer yet that she would give.
“I do not know how Belle ended up in this dimension, no.”
What she knew was that it was no coincidence. She’d felt the shift since the last time she’d been awake; the world was more powerful, now. Older, somehow. She could feel the presence of others like her – not just the little Belle, either.
The gods had tried to come back to the dimension they’d shared with the mortals since she – and a few of her kindreds – had helped lock them away. They’d liked using humans, fays, elves, shifters like little pawns; she suspected their constant bickering wasn’t nearly as fun now they didn’t have innocents to use to fight their wars.
“But it’s not possible. No god should be able to even pass though the portals…”
“No god,” she confirmed, “save for those who helped designing those portal. Amphitrite, I, Persephone and Aphrodite have free reign over our own doors. She could be one of their children.”
She was very vague about it, although her response could have been absolute.
She knew whose child Belle was, of course she did. Just like she knew there was a child of Amphitrite somewhere close-by; she felt the energy.
The only question was, why were her friends implanting their blood in this world?
And there was only one answer she could think of.
There was another war coming.
Chapter Fifteen
the Price Of A Rose
Aiden was ready to go on a hike, carrying a grand piano, skipping and playing the flute all at once, the day after he’d died.
He knew why, of course. He’d seen it – perhaps not with hi
s own eyes, but with Adler’s.
When he left his body behind, he was surprised to just be standing above it, looking down; wasn’t he supposed to disappeared, or be sucked in heaven, hell, the Valhalla, somewhere?
He wasn’t sure what had made him go to Adler, probably the way the dog had looked at him, like he could really see him. He’d just intended to pat him, reassure him, but somehow, he’d ended up in him.
Adler liked that. He was a clever dog, but actually becoming sentient had rocked his world.
Good. At least, we can still keep an eye on her, make sure she’s safe, right?
Adler heartedly agreed.
But turned out, instead of letting him stay dead, Belle had just called some serious badass fays and gods to get him sorted out.
He knew he wasn’t the same guy he’d been the day before; he felt it. Something surrounded him, making him feel heavier and lighter all at once.
Belle. He wasn’t sure what the hell it meant, but he knew he had a part of Belle in him.
“Where is she?” were his first words, unsurprisingly.
The medics surrounding him had expected his voice to be weak, but like his limbs and everything else in him, it was on super form.
“She stayed here all night, but I told her to go get some rest,” Armand replied. “Which means she’s most probably pacing in the gardens right now.”
Ignoring the protests of everyone who wanted to check him over, Aiden leaped to his feet, without bothering with a shirt – or shoes, for that matter – and ran, leaping two, three steps at once down the stairs just like she often did.
As promised, he found her in the gardens; more specifically, the inner rose garden he’d designed as the perfect place where he’d eventually propose; according to Ben, if she had any doubt, the perfectly groomed red roses would have worked in his favor.