Morbid Bite

IX :: Reality

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MORBID BITE

Chapter Nine :: Reality

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Belle stood in the dark as the moon was covered by a tiny grey cloud. Raoul's eyes reflected the small amount of moonlight that shone down through the trees. He looked like a hunter searching for his prey, yet Belle still felt he showed such vulnerability.

"Why does it matter?" her voice strained as she tried her best to cover up her fear.

The moon reappeared, lighting up the woods around them in an eerily grey coat. The night was worryingly silent, not even the owls were above scouting for their food. The only sound was the occasional whistle as the cold wind ran through the trees. Belle had seen what Raoul had become, he was the monsters that had killed her father, the animal that had killed innocent children, the beast that had altered her life forever...yet he had saved her. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and backed away from the man that stood in front of her, his dark eyes concentrated on her next move.

"I embody the power of their god." He tilted his head to look up at the moon. "To them I am a gift from him..." He stopped mid-sentence and drawing in a ragged breath, he continued. "Some sacrifice their children and others leave animals for...the beast inside me." He placed his fingers on his chest and pushed them hard into his muscle, he stopped but not before he had made white indentations in his skin. Belle's skin cried in sympathy at the pain she saw him cause himself.

"So why does it matter if they know about me?" she asked, her eyes still concentrated on his stomach.

"That doesn't matter." A rustle in the bushes made Raoul's head jerk in the direction on the sound, his ears and eyes alert with animal like senses. "We should go," he said, not giving Belle a chance to ask him again. He started off into the darkness, not looking back to see if she followed.

"Wait."

Belle looked back the way they had come. The thought of going back was terrifying. The wolves had wanted to eat her, and she was helpless against them, she feared if she was attacked again, by an animal or human, she would not survive.

"Your horse. Shouldn't we go back and get him?" Belle raised her voice, but she was not confident enough to shout.

"It wasn't my horse, I was delivering it for a friend." He did not turn around as he limped onwards, not offering Belle an invitation to follow. She did anyway, hitching up her dress and dependently stumbling on in the dark.

It felt like they had walked for days as Belle's bare feet ached and stung in the cold night. She had trodden on countless nettle beds, fallen over many tree stumps and found herself face first in a puddle of mud. Raoul had waited for her, just staying close enough to still be in her view but too far to start a conversation. Part of her could not contain the anger that stormed within her, but the other half was calmer than it had ever been. For some reason knowing the truth had helped her accept what had happened to her father. Raoul was not a daemon sent by the devil to punish her family, he was part of a world she could never understand. Her mother would be turning in her grave if she had witnessed what had happened that night: she had run off with a man of low birth; gone off to a peasant dance; and was following the man who had killed her father. Belle knew if her sisters knew about this they would be smiling smugly as they relished in the karma of her actions.

What had she expected from this night? Belle wondered. For sure she had not thought it would be finding out Raoul was a skin-walking beast, but perhaps the adventure had drawn her to that evening and maybe that had been her misfortune.