Belle is a maid living in service of a handsome prince who she falls madly in love with. Jealous of all the other women and angry at his refusal to notice her she curses him and turns him into a hideous beast. For years they remain together in the c...
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Just as the door clicks shut behind me I feel a cool rush of air beside me followed by the cracking of wood as an axe buries itself into the door. A startled gasp leaves my lips and my hand instinctively rushes to the knife strapped to my side. Pulling it out of the leather sheath I hold it ready to slice or stab as I turn to face the danger behind me. Fully expecting to see an intruder brandishing a sword or knife to try and kill me I was overcome with the sense of relief that the person holding the sword to try and kill me was only Gaston.
"Oh, it's only you," he sighs. The wildness plaguing his tired eyes settles and he sets his sword on the closest flat surface.
"Yeah." I lower my knife back to its sheath. "Was that really necessary?" I ask pointing to the axe in the door.
His lips press into a thin line and he shrugs. "It seemed necessary at the time." I grab the handle and with one motion manage to pull the blade from the door and hand it back to Gaston. He twirls the weapon round and round. "Although, looking at it now I suppose it was a bit overkill."
"Just slightly," I chuckle.
I follow him into the kitchen and settle at the table while he makes some tea.
"So, Adrien said you were out hunting, is that right?" he asks.
Steam rises from the boiled water as he pours some into each cup he prepared with sugar and tea leaves.
"Yes." He sets one of the cups in front of me, and I immediately pick it up and take a long and considerate sip despite it being so hot. "It's been a while since I've been on a trip like this and I've been wanting to for a while now so I decided to just go."
He sits in the chair across from me and brings his cup to his thin lips taking a small sip. "Have you been wanting to go or did you go because of the fight you had with the kid?"
Sighing, I set my cup back on the table and push it away. I knew the fight would come up. After all, he was here when it happened.
"I didn't think we would get into that so quickly," I say.
"I thought it would be best to get right into it. Avoid any awkward tensions."
I bite my lip to hold back a laugh. "Yeah, because this is certainly helping us avoid any awkward tensions."
He smiles exposing a fresh gap in his mouth from a tooth that either fell out or was knocked out while I was gone.
"Yeah, I suppose this doesn't help, but we needed to talk about this. What happened that morning, Valerie?"
I shrug, "Nothing."
"It didn't sound like nothing. And the way Adrien has been acting these last three weeks shows me that it wasn't nothing."
"He seemed fine to me," I say as I shrug again. I want to slap myself in the face for how unconvincing that sounded. A blind man would be able to see how big of a lie that was.
