Book Read Free

Beauty Within

Page 31

by Emily L Goodman


  “May I?” Griffin stood—carefully. He was wobbly on human legs, and Callista could see the signs that he wasn’t feeling entirely himself, though she was sure that her sisters missed it entirely.

  Millicent pressed the ring box into his hand.

  “I believe,” Griffin said softly, going down on one knee with a smile, “that I had asked you a question. Given everything else, I suppose I can forgive you for taking a moment or two to answer me.”

  Callista giggled.

  “It appears,” Griffin continued, “that spending a lifetime with me will not tie you to a beast—so consider carefully, Callista. With the curse lifted, you are going to be marrying a prince.” He smiled faintly.

  She let a slow smile spread across her own face even through her tears. “I think,” she told him quietly, “that I can manage that—if you’ll help me. Will you?” The question was faintly hesitant. “It’s going to take some teaching.”

  “I believe we’ll have plenty of time.” He hesitated. “Is that a yes?”

  Callista nodded, sliding her arms around his neck. “It’s a yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Beast or man, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  He stood. The ring box fell to the ground again, making Millicent giggle and Erin roll her eyes. Griffin might not be a beast anymore, but he was right: he had retained all of that strength, as was obvious as he picked Callista up and spun her around in his arms.

  When they went upstairs later that day, Griffin discovered that the rose that he had watched so carefully for so many years hadn’t just wilted. It had disappeared completely.

  EPILOGUE

  “I think I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that you would be the one to break the spell.” Mrs. Martel looked up from her place on the floor of the library, where they had all retreated with the twins several weeks after Griffin and Callista’s wedding. It had taken them six months to organize it all—not surprising, since they’d also had an entire country who had just remembered that they actually had a prince instead of a regency to deal with.

  “How?” Callista wrapped her arms around a giggling toddler who was making her unsteady way across the floor—much like, she thought with a faint smile, Griffin learning to walk on human feet again instead of the beast’s paws. She hadn’t realized just how different it was going to be for him, on that day so long ago, until she’d watched him stagger across the entrance hallway to the castle after leaning on her heavily to make it up the stairs. It had taken him a few days to adjust fully, and he’d admitted privately to her that the muscles worked entirely differently from what he was used to.

  “There was just something different about you.” Mrs. Martel smiled over at her.

  “I know I’m no princess-like beauty.” Callista hid her face in the toddler’s hair.

  “You’ve cleaned up nicely enough.” Mrs. Martel smiled softly at her. “But it was more than that. You had this inner curiosity, an intrinsic kindness that I couldn’t help but see from the first moment I met you—and I think Griffin saw it, too.”

  “I don’t think he quite knew what to do with me.” Callista smiled over at her new husband, releasing the toddler so she could make her way over to him, giggling all the way.

  “I had no idea what to do with you,” Griffin informed her. “You were no delicate lady to be swept off her feet.”

  “You did quite a lot of sweeping anyway.”

  “I tried.” He hugged little Hannah tightly, brushing his lips across her forehead. “I knew there was something about you that I needed to know more about—and I’m glad I got to know you.”

  “Beauty within,” Arabella mused, looking from one of them to the next. “That was the key part of the spell, wasn’t it? Someone who could see the ‘beauty within’ and fall in love anyway?”

  Griffin nodded, frowning over at her.

  “I wonder if it meant both of you.” She looked from one of them to the other. “Not that you’re not lovely, Callista, but just—isn’t that the definition of true love?”

  “Seeing more than just outward appearance?” Griffin considered it. “There were certainly plenty of lovely young ladies who did nothing to move my heart in the least. It seems,” and he rose, passing Hannah over to Lindsey as he came to rejoin his wife. “I have a taste for kind, curious bookworms with a desire to make big changes in the world.”

  She turned her face up to kiss him—another one of those things that never got old. Getting used to his human form had taken some time. For weeks, she had half expected to see the beast waiting for her whenever Griffin called her name.

  Having him with her and human, however, had been incredible—like a fairy tale happy ending in so many different ways.

  “And I,” she told him teasingly, “like princes who put their kingdoms first, sweep princesses off of their feet, and are willing to go on adventures with me.”

  “Callista,” Griffin said firmly, “every day with you is an adventure.”

  Mrs. Martel smiled. “You know, of all of the girls who have come here, I think she’s the one who suits you best—and the one who will do the most good for our kingdom.”

  “What man intended for evil, God intended for good,” Griffin said lightly. “I don’t appreciate five years spent living with the curse, but I wouldn’t have found the best thing in my life without it.” He raised Callista’s hand to his lips.

  “All right, you two,” Lindsey teased. “Cut the sappy down a little, would you? It’s getting thick in here.”

  They just laughed. Mary Margaret had been taken care of—exiled from the land so that they would never have to see her again, and she could never harm Griffin again. There were orders in place to keep her far away from the castle, and if any of the newly-reinstated guards saw her, she would immediately be imprisoned for the rest of her life. Callista’s family had embraced her marriage and her new husband. The people Griffin loved had made their way back to the castle—a very apologetic Mrs. Martel among the first. Callista’s friends had come pouring up to the castle, delighted to have the mystery solved at last. As far as they were concerned, their life had, for the moment, everything they could have asked for.

  No one would have said that they lived happily ever after. There were arguments, some of them passionate. They butted heads, and disagreed, and needed time and space to clear their heads—but they also loved just as passionately.

  And as it turned out, Callista made a wonderful princess—and once everything was sorted out and the regency had been disbanded, she made an even more wonderful queen.

 

 

 


‹ Prev