The Beast (29 page)

Feeling somehow slighted by this realization, Belle pushed the letters aside. Beneath was the music box Aleksander had gifted to her. Removing it, she set the saddlebags back down. Adoringly, she touched the rose engravings, then lifted the metal cover.
A Starry Waltz
twinkled out. In an instant, Belle’s memory took her back to that dance in the ballroom. The feel of her hand in Aleksander’s, the soft look in his eyes—it all came back to her.

Hurt permeated into her thoughts and the memory vanished. Belle hated feeling this way. She worried for the Prince but felt scorned by his secrets. When she expected him to call her into a moon dream and explain everything, he didn’t. The snub of it was a painful offense. Oh, how she wanted to throttle him.

Frustrated at Aleksander, and her conflicted self, Belle tossed the music box onto her bed. She needed some space. Out of her room, then through the parlor and toward the elevator she slipped. Halfway there, she turned into the Observation Room.

Passing beneath the large, metal archway, Belle stepped onto stone floors. The walls of this room reached up and kept reaching until they angled into a wide arch. But the walls were not walls; they were immense glass windows held together by strong metal beams and large bolts.

Her boots clicked against the hard stone as she walked across the room and over to a lone pedestal. Belle grabbed a lever and flipped it into the up position.
Ke-chug
. Great gas-lamps illuminated the green and blue hues of the watery depths outside her sunken house. They shone out like sun rays, reflecting through the seawater.

Belle then turned the knob of a smaller gas-lamp. It cast yellow light over the room’s three desks and various gadgets. This was her father’s second study; a place he came to do research instead of building inventions. During the day, he could study the ocean or the sky. At night, before lowering LeClair House deep into the sea, Henri could even study the stars.

However, Belle liked this room for quiet thinking. She walked over to the windows. A single fish wiggled closer to the warm gaslights, eying her suspiciously. Ignoring him, Belle stared into the outreaching beams of light and watched the changing colors of the water.

Dread appeared as she opened herself to the flood of worries. What if Gastone was right? What if Aleksander had lied to her about everything? He had kept it from her that he was that beast. What else had he kept from her and why did he not pull her into a moon dream? The Prince had to know that she had questions, that she needed to talk to him. Avoiding her now could only mean bad things. Belle’s chest constricted. She could be wrong and leading them all to their deaths. Her foolishness could be the Hunters’ downfall. Belle felt like she was going to be sick.

She grabbed her stomach, clutching the dress fabric, and took long deep breaths through her nose. Over and over again she mentally told herself to calm down, everything was going to be fine. But the awful feeling didn’t leave.

“Belle?” Turning around, she saw Henri. The lamplight fell over his face, creating shadows and exaggerating the textures of his facial hair. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“I’m afraid that my mind is too unsettled for sleep at the moment.” Belle gave her father a halfhearted smile.

“What troubles you?” Henri walked over to the Constellation Apparatus at the room’s center.

It was a scaled down replica of the orbiting planets and stars. Much like a globe, it rested upon a tall, wooden pedestal and took the shape of a sphere. Though, instead of being a map that sits upon the surface, the celestial bodies were suspended by thin wires to make them appear weightless at the device’s center. Circling it all were two intersecting gold-plated rings. The carvings upon the rings, and where the rings came together, were measurements of time. It was one of several devices Henri used for his research.

“I had expected the Prince to pull me into a moon dream and explain everything to me, alleviate my concerns.” Belle followed her father, watching him examine the position of the simulated stars. “He did not, and now I’m questioning myself as well as him.”

Henri scratched his beard and tilted his head to get a different angle on the constellations. “I suppose I can understand your concern, but beyond that, what would cause you to doubt the Prince?”

“I…” Belle searched for an answer. “I do not know.”

“Did you not trust him before? Did your instincts ever warn you away from him?” Henri straightened and looked at her as he asked his questions, then crossed the floor to one of his desks. He opened a leather book and scribbled notes within. “When you went back to Vakre Fjell seeking help, did Monsieur Petit say anything that would give you pause? Or ring untrue?”

“No! No, nothing like that,” Belle rushed out to stop his flow of questioning. “I’ve never felt cause to mistrust them.”

“Then you must have faith in them.” He snapped the book shut and looked at her. “And faith in yourself. You’re a LeClair, your instincts are impeccable.”

“But what about what you said in the dungeon?” she added, not completely able to shake her discontent. “About there being true evil in that castle?”

Henri looked off into the dense ocean water, his eyes shifting just out of focus. His voice was soft, sad, as he remembered. “I’d watched many of my old friends die violently that day—all for the sake of my invention, no less. Sitting in that dank dungeon on
that
day…everything looked evil to me. I’m an old man, Belle. Too old, I think, for all this.”

His thoughts still looked so far away.

Belle stepped across the cold floor to grasp his big, callused hands in hers. “You’re not so old as you think. Tired perhaps, but so am I.”

He smiled warmly, chasing away their dark thoughts, and squeezed her hands.

“What
are you
doing awake so late?” She curled an eyebrow as the sudden thought came to her.

Henri chuckled. “As tired as I may be, work still invigorates me the same as it did when I was a fanatical, young lad.”

“What are you working on?” Instantly Belle was taken back to her childhood when she would spend hours watching Henri work and sharing his inventions with her. She was so grateful for the distraction now.

“I’m experimenting with a substance called aether.” He grabbed something from his desk and placed it in Belle’s hand.

It was a small glass sphere that was encircled by two brass rings, much like the Constellation Apparatus. Holding it up in the light, Belle marveled at the substance within the globe. It was a swirl of purple and yellow electricity. The snapping lightning curled in on itself and traced the shield of glass; always in motion.

“It is the quintessence of air,” Henri said, causing Belle to look at him sideways and he rushed on to explain. “It is the unseen force between you and me—even the blackness between the stars.” He sighed, his eyes drifting into the depths of the orb. “Its uses are endless. Without it birds could not fly, light could not travel, and gravity would not exist.”

“How did you come by it?” She turned the object over in her hands, trying to imagine the aether surrounding everything.

“Monsieur Genov,” Henri answered, giving the name of his American colleague—the one that specialized in unusual creatures, and was also an inventor. Belle’s father picked up a redwood box from his desk. “He managed to harness the mysterious element and is using it to give ships flight.”

“Flight?!” Handing the orb back to Henri, he tucked it safely into the dark, velvety folds of the box.

“Yes, indeed, flight.” Henri grinned, excitement dancing in his eyes. “He says they’ll be called airships and, with the help of this fantastic substance, the first commercial flight is underway.”

“Remarkable,” Belle whispered.

“Imagine, great, white sails could be soaring the American skies as we speak.” They were both silent as they did just that. Henri then chuckled and came back to himself. “Marvelous. Anyway, he sent me this sample to experiment with.”

“That was kind of him.”

“Genov has both an engineering and entrepreneurial mind. He thinks big.” Henri waved his arms, emphasizing his words with his hands. “Great locomotives and now airships. Whereas my mind tends to veer toward more practical applications. We think differently, you see, and as inventors we have an obligation to explore all avenues.” He placed the box within a drawer in his desk and used a key from his breast pocket to lock it.

“Perhaps you could do something with heating?” Belle touched Henri’s shoulder and leaned to kiss his whiskered cheek. “A portable heating source, for those without a carriage. Could do well in areas such as ours.”

“Indeed, one must have cold blood to live in God’s Cup, or perhaps very hot blood. I’m not really sure which makes more sense,” Henri said with a chuckle that shook his shoulders. “Are you going to bed?”

“Yes, I may not have all of the answers yet, but you’ve eased my mind considerably.” She gave her father a hug and he squeezed her back.

“I am glad. Give it time, my little Bellerina.” He smiled, using his childhood nickname for her. “Sleep well.”

Jack called for her, shouting, “The Prince is rampaging. We need you now! Belle!”

Just like that, with a toss of her covers, Belle was up and out of bed. Pixie flew past her, chittering excitedly. There was no time to dress, so Belle grabbed the sheer robe from next to her bed and draped it over her. Pixie landed on her shoulder, clutching the white fabric.

As Jack started banging again, Belle went to the door and opened it.

“Enjoy your beauty sleep, Princess?” he said quickly, before turning to jog down the hall.

“I’m no Princess!” She followed after, her robe and hair fluttering about her. Belle shouted over the bangs, “What’s going on?”

“His
Highness
woke up and went feral,” the cowboy said over his shoulder with more irritation than worry in his voice. “Doc got out and shut him in the room. Not a scratch on the ol’ boy somehow.”

The fact that Belle hadn’t heard the ruckus was a testament both to her deep sleep and the thick metal walls. Belle didn’t ask any more questions as they approached the group gathered outside Aleksander’s door. Everyone was there, including Bishop Sauvage and Father Sinclair. Belle was dismayed to see that they had come now, of all times. Doc stood at the back, looking like he needed a drink, and the Hunters all had weapons at the ready.

Belle halted just as something slammed into the wooden door. Bits of wood splintered around thick black claws. Everyone froze as the fingers gripped and ungripped the wood. Then with an angry roar, the Prince jerked his hand free.

“This is preposterous. He needs to be put down,” the Bishop argued to Henri.

Belle’s eyebrows shot up. “You want to kill the Vakrein Prince? Are you
mad
?”

Bishop Sauvage’s nostrils flared and he glared contemptuously. “That ceased to matter when he became the devil incarnate.”

“My God.” Belle shook her head, then pushed past Jean and Gastone who stood in front of the door, waiting for it to give way—or a decision to be made. Someone called for her to stop, but she didn’t.

With no weapons on her body, Belle grasped the brass doorknob and turned it. She pulled the door open and made to step forward. At the sound of the intrusion, the beast was across the room too fast for her mind to keep up. His roar blasted her ears, sending an instinctual fear into her bones. A massively clawed paw came down toward her.

It froze. The creature that was Aleksander towered over her, nearly a foot taller than the man she knew. He stared down at her. Anger curled his lips, but his eyes flashed recognition. Aleksander was so close to her, his breath wafted against her hair. Gradually, his paw dropped to his side. He never looked away.

Pixie’s metal joints literally shook at the nape of Belle’s neck where she’d taken refuge. Belle didn’t move; didn’t speak. She allowed the rage and tension to seep from the room. He was a beast of monstrous proportions, but Belle knew him. She knew that beneath the rage and terrifying exterior was her prince. The evidence was in his blue eyes—eyes that were now wolf-like—and the way they looked at her.

Belle dared to speak. “It’s all right. I’m right here.”

Aleksander’s breathing slowed. His head dropped just an inch closer to hers. Belle placed her hand carefully on his chest. The fur was soft to the touch and the heart beneath pounded strong and steady. His muzzle grazed her hair and she felt the intake of breath as he scented her. With her free hand, Belle gestured to the Hunters behind her. Several clicks indicated the lowering of guns, but she didn’t fool herself that there still weren’t a few pointed his way.

Belle pulled back just slightly to look into the Prince’s eyes again. “Will you wait in here for just a moment while I settle this? I won’t be long and I’ll be right outside this door.”

Prince Aleksander stared at her, making her wonder if he could even understand her in this form. Then he stepped back, drawing himself to full height. He really was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. A hellhound with a body that was truly a blend of man and beast, that somehow walked on two legs…She would have thought it was impossible.