The next morning, rays of sunlight pierce the white-gold curtains hanging over the windows. Tyler wakes up in the unfamiliar yet fancy room, and he's delirious. He takes one look at the mirror hanging across the room facing the bed and remembers where he is and how he got here.
His mother. The beast-prince-guy. The clock and the candle. Tyler feels sick.
"Oh, shit," he mumbles, running his hand through his unkempt hair. "It wasn't a dream."
Somehow, he'd gotten under the covers, the soft silk duvet drawing him further into the bed. Tyler is exhausted despite sleeping all night and he's tempted to stay in the bed, but he knows he can't avoid the beast for long. He throws the sheets off and the moment his feet touch the sleek dark wood floor, there's a knock at the door.
"Bonjour!" Ryan's voice echoes from the other side of the door.
"Leave me alone," Tyler calls back bitterly, looking down at his clothes. Despite being the best clothes he owned, they looked like rags compared to the riches around him.
Ryan opens the door a crack, smiling softly. "I have come to request your presence for breakfast. You had quite a long night, and our prince was hoping you would be willing to-"
"No."
His refusal must've caught Ryan off guard, because the wick in his hair flickered to a pale white. "I am sorry, monsieur, but I must insist," he says.
"If he wants me out of this room, he will have to come and ask himself," Tyler shoots back, flying back and landing face first on the best.
He hears Ryan leave and shut the door quietly behind him. Moments later, the door explodes with loud rapping knocks, making Tyler almost jump out of his skin.
"Come to breakfast!" A voice bellows. It's not the beast's voice- at least, not completely. There's a deep intonation Tyler recognizes from his voice before, but it's lost its roughness and sounds more like a person rather than a monster. "That is an order!"
"I am not hungry!" Tyler shouts in response.
"I am ordering you to-"
"You cannot order me around, I am your prisoner, not your servant!"
He hears a growl, the closest sound to the beast he's heard so far. When a beat passes and no other sound comes through, Tyler assumes he's left.
Tyler takes his time looking through the room, examining every piece of furniture. A rough yet fancy rug lies in the center of the room, large gilded portraits of who he assumes to be the royal family hanging on the walls. The clothing into the wide, ornate dresser sitting in the corner seems to be for a young boy. He wonders whose room this was.
"What to wear, what to wear," he mumbles, picking out a silk baby blue button down and white slacks, which when he put on, seems to fit him perfectly. "I hope he minds, and he makes me leave, that insufferable bastard."
After showering in the marble bathroom attached to the bedroom and getting dressed in the clothes he found, Tyler opens the door a crack, seeing a teenage boy asleep against the wall across his room. His eyes are closed yet they run rampant behind his eyelids, tan hands twitching in his lap every so often. He has dark, curly hair tucked under a thin silver and blue crown, the royal emblem sewed into the pocket of his white shirt.
Had the beast lied about being the only member of the family left? This boy certainly looks to be royalty but has no resemblance to the monster he'd met before. Tyler steps into the hall and sees a plate of eggs and bread and a water glass sitting beside him, untouched.
