The Beast's Bride (6 page)

She considered it for a moment as she walked. "Well. I don't really have one yet."

"It'll probably work out a bit better if you do, don't you think?"

She had to agree. "Well, let's see. Belle's frightened of the Beast, and the Beast is kind of a jerk. I've got to get the two of them into a scenario where Belle can see that he's not that scary."

Even though he kind of was. "And I need the Beast to rein in that nasty attitude of his. Maybe I should start with him. Have a nice talk with him and see if I can get him to cool his jets for a bit, and then we can plot out some romantic scenarios."

"It's a start," Muffin agreed.

"He's very…odd, though."

"In what way?"

Pippa thought for a moment. "Every time I glanced over at him, he'd act all freaked out and turn away. You didn't give me a warty nose or anything, did you? To go with the ugly stepsister thing?" She touched her nose just to be sure: still felt smooth.

Muffin snorted. "I saw him doing that, and girlfriend, it had nothing to do with your nose.

You don't know why?"

"No, why?"

Muffin's hand went to the flashlight and she pushed it until the beam shone through Pippa's sleeve.

Through Pippa's sleeve. "You were standing in front of the fire, sweetie. That gown's see through."

3Pippa gasped. She thought back to the beast, who jerked away and had a guilty look every time she glanced over at him. He'd been checking out her body through her clothing! And he'd been able to see an outline of everything since she'd been standing in front of the fire!

And he hadn't said a word to her. Pippa was mortified…and just a little bit angry, too.

"Here we are," Muffin sang out. She pointed down the hall, one of her wrists dripping ruffles of lace. "And there's your room."

Still troubled by the discovery of her see-through gown, Pippa clicked off the flashlight and handed it over to Muffin, who took it back. "Thanks for being my tour guide."

"Of course. I'll pop in from time to time and check on how things are doing," Muffin said with a happy pat of her arm. "Good luck!"

Pippa waited until the fairy godmother disappeared in a puff of glitter, then re-entered the room she shared with Belle. Sure enough, the pretty blonde was snoring loudly, her arms sprawled over the bed. Pippa picked one of Belle’s hands up, pushed her aside, and then slid under the covers.

And even though she tried to go to sleep, she still thought of the beast. The guilty look he'd had on his face as he'd stared at her.

And the longing in his eyes. That made her feel all flushed inside.

3

The next morning, Pippa and Belle had barely finished dressing when there was a gentle knock at the door. One of the servants had left a tray of breakfast behind for them, and Belle carried it into the room with a clearly relieved look on her face.

"Perhaps we're to stay in our room today?" she asked. And she looked rather pleased at the thought.

Well that would not do for Pippa's plans to create a little romance. After all, she was working with a shortened timeline. She only had a month to make these crazy kids fall in love and crack the beast's curse. She thought it'd be a piece of cake at first, but now that all the pieces were in play, a month didn't feel like very much time at all.

Especially not if they were going to be locked away in their room and ignored.

Pippa lifted the lid off of one of the plates. Toast, eggs, and fruit. She grabbed the toast and slapped the eggs on top of them, making a sandwich, and pocketed the fruit. Taking a bite of her breakfast sandwich, she gestured at the door. "Come on, Belle. We're going exploring."

Belle looked at the food, then at Pippa, aghast. "But we're supposed to stay here."

"Don't be a coward." She took another bite of her sandwich, and then gestured for Belle to make one, too. "I want to see what this castle looks like." When Belle seemed rather dismayed at the thought, she added, "Just in case we need to escape one night, we'll need to know our way."

That made Belle perk up a bit. Figured.

They left their rooms and wandered the castle, undisturbed as they polished off their sandwiches. The creepy, animal-headed servants were nowhere to be seen, but all the castle windows had been opened, and light poured into the dark stone hallways. In the daylight and without a rainstorm beating down on them, the castle didn't seem quite so forbidding. The dark stone hallways were just that—halls. There were heavy wooden doors that didn't open when she tugged on them—no key—and the rooms that were open for exploration were not all that interesting. Many seemed like long, empty dining halls or ballrooms, but they were empty of decoration and occupants. She guessed that the beast didn't have many opportunities to throw parties anymore.

3Belle was careful to walk a few steps behind Pippa, making fearful comments about how she wanted to return to their room, and could they please go back before the beast found them? Since that was exactly what Pippa wanted to happen, she ignored Belle's pleading.

But the beast was nowhere to be found.

Frustrated, Pippa drew close to one of the large windows, looking outside for the first time. It had been dark when they arrived, and she didn't recall much of the landscape, although she had remembered that there was a garden. Some garden. Tall, spiny plants rose above the hedges and she could see splashes of blood red mixed in—roses, except not like any sort of roses she'd ever seen before. Mutant roses, maybe. The gardens seemed to have been a maze, once, before they were overgrown and transformed into something more monstrous, as rows and rows of hedges spread out over acres of the castle grounds.

Maybe the beast was out there.

"Come on, Belle," Pippa said cheerfully. "We're going to go look at the garden."

"That garden?" Belle asked with a quiver in her voice. "Doesn't it seem rather scary to you, Pippy?"

Well, a bit. But she wasn't going to let a few overgrown thorny bushes thwart her task.

What's the worst that can happen? She reminded herself. Death?
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
"Not scary in the slightest," she lied cheerfully, and clasped Belle's sweaty hand in her own. "Let's go explore. I bet the way out of here is through that maze."

Belle didn't seem all that mollified with Pippa's answer, not that Pippa blamed her. This Belle? Not much of a rule breaker. In fact, other than her gorgeous face and buxom figure, she didn't seem like the type to warrant being the star of her own freaking fairy tale. Sure, she was sweet and lovely, but weren't other girls? Maybe part of Pippa’s job here was to bring out the best in Belle, too.

So she wrapped an encouraging arm around Belle's shoulders and acted like they were going out for a splendid walk in the great outdoors.

It took them some time to find the hall that led to the gardens, and when they got out there, Pippa reversed her initial assessment. The great outdoors? Not so great. For one, they were creepier outside than they were at first glance. There was complete and utter silence when they stepped outside. No breeze, no birds chirping, nothing. It was like being in a bubble. To make matters worse, the skies had looked clear from inside, but by the time they got outside, the skies 3were overcast and gray, a light fog rolling through. More of the curse, Pippa wondered? Or just bad timing?

Either way, when Belle whimpered, Pippa almost echoed the sentiment.

"I don't like this, Pippy," Belle told her. "Can't we go back inside?"

"It's just a garden," Pippa said encouragingly. "No need to be scared." But she gave it a long, considering look anyhow.

"Let's just stay close to the castle wall?"

That actually didn't seem like a bad idea. Pippa nodded and linked her arm with Belle's and they skirted the thick tangle of the maze, wandering the edge of the castle wall instead.

The mist seemed to thicken with every moment they were outside, until it seemed that they were walking in a fog. That, added to the stillness, contributed to the unnerving factor. "It's very quiet," Pippa mentioned after a long moment of silence.

"Everything here is quiet," Belle observed. "The servants don't talk, there's no music in this big castle, and even the gardens seem dead."

Dead was an eerily accurate word for how it felt. But she forced herself to continue to smile bravely, and walked on. "So you like music, Belle?"

Belle gave her an odd look. "You know that."

Oops, right. She shrugged to cover it up. "Just talking to hear my own voice at the moment, I suppose."

"Hmm," said Belle, and then pointed ahead at a bulky, dark shape looming in the fog.

"What's that?"

The beast, hopefully,
Pippa thought and crossed her fingers.

But as they approached, the shape transformed, and it wasn't that of the beast or any other kind of person. It was a fountain, the pool set deep into the ground. The grass grew over the lip, and they didn't see the pool until they almost stepped into it. Murky, dark water with a thin layer of scum floated there, utterly still. At the center of the pool, a large broken vase was tilted, meant to pour water into the fountain itself, but there was nothing trickling, and only a thin scummy line of green marked where the water had once been.

"Well that's unpleasant," Pippa said cheerfully, glancing at the water.

"Everything here is unpleasant," Belle said darkly. She sounded mutinous.

3Well that wasn't good. She had to make Belle come to appreciate this place and its owner.

"Oh, come on," Pippa said in a coaxing voice. "Think of this as an adventure. Where else are you going to run into a creepy maze, a disgusting fountain, and an overgrown thorny hedge other than an enchanted castle?"

"But I never wanted to run into any of those things."

"Just think of what you can tell your children. It's fun if you think about it."

"Not really."

Great, not only was this Belle not much of a risk taker, but she was kind of a whiner, too. It was a good thing she was gorgeous, or this task would be near impossible. Pippa glanced over at Belle, assessing her. While Pippa had slept-in hair and rings under her eyes from her late night, Belle looked gorgeously refreshed. Her blonde locks were bedroom tousled into a thing of greatness (whereas Pippa's hair was mostly puffy on one side and looked stupid) and her cheeks glowed with good health. And her breasts were practically jiggling right out of that too-small, too-tight peasant gown she wore.

Now if she could only track down the beast and show him just how chesty and vibrant Belle was. Pippa sighed and gave the gardens an assessing look, wishing that they'd vomit up the beast so she could get things moving on the romance.

A rustling noise came from the hedges nearby.

Belle froze, but Pippa took a step forward. Was that the beast's cloak she'd heard? His fur rustling in the non-existent breeze?

Sure enough, there was another rustle.

Belle's fingers turned into claws on her arm. "I want to go back inside, Pippy," she whispered. "Let's go."

She ignored Belle's cowardliness. "It's probably just the beast."

"I know. That's why I want to go back inside." She tugged on Pippa's arm. "Please."

Pippa shook her head and took another step toward the maze. "It'd be rude not to say hello to our host. Come on."

"No! I'm not going in there!"

Oh sure,
now
Belle got a spine. "Fine, you stay here by the fountain. I'll just be a moment."

"Pippy!"

3She ignored Belle's entreaties and headed to the maze entrance. Thick, thorny tendrils of rosebushes clung to her skirts as she walked in, but she ignored them and pushed through. If the beast walked the maze, that explained why his cloak was so tattered. This place was an overgrown nightmare. Dark red roses climbed out of control over every surface, and the hedges of the maze were rounded with neglect and grown out of control. Weeds spiked up on the path, knee high, and Pippa had to push through them to continue forward. She didn't see anyone, though. She continued forward, and then, when the path split into three different directions in front of her, she paused. "Hello?"

Nothing. She could have sworn she heard another rustle off to her left, so she turned down the maze in that direction. If she got lost, she could always just follow her left hand. That was how you found your way out of a maze, she recalled—keep the wall along your left hand.

Or was it your right?

She ignored the little voice of doubt in her mind and continued deeper into the maze. "Beast?

Is that you?" Great, she didn't even know the guy's name. She wasn't going to get very far with cowardly Belle if she had to call the poor guy 'Beast' all the time. She made a mental note to find out his real name the next time she talked to him.

"Pippy? Pippy? Where are you? Come back!" Belle's voice sounded very far away, and more than a little frightened.

"I'll just be a minute, Belle. Hang tight," she called back, and then scanned the maze again.

The noise rustled once more and seemed to be coming from directly ahead.
Aha
, she thought.

Got you.
Grabbing handfuls of her skirts, she hurried forward to catch the beast red handed.

Except when she rounded the corner, it wasn't the beast at all.

A large, hideous rat-like creature the size of a pony turned and hissed at her. Its feet were tipped in massive, black claws, and the eyes were red and beady. A long, scaly tail lashed back and forth as it took a step toward her, and when the tail smacked the nearby hedges, she heard the familiar rustling sound from before.

The beast hadn't been here at all.

Pippa's eyes widened and she took an alarmed step backward.

The creature bared its teeth and hissed at her again, then squatted as if ready to pounce, tail lashing. Oh, damn…

4A large, heavy form crashed into her and knocked her to the ground. The breath exploded out of Pippa's lungs as her back smacked against the earth, just as the rat-beast went sailing overhead. A snarl touched her ear and darkness crept over her, like fabric pulled over her eyes.