I drop to my knees next to him and cradle his head in my lap. The rain is abating now and by the light of the full moon I see his lips are deathly pale and the ground around us is soaking with his blood.
He is shaking, eyes closed against the softly falling rain. I lean over him to shield him. “Oh, God, Bastien… I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
A small smile pulls on his mouth. “No. It was always meant to end this way.”
“W-what?”
Behind me Marguerite sobs. When she returned I cannot tell. All my attention is on Bastien. He coughs, a horrible sound. “One dies,” he says, “for the other to be free.”
“No!” I cry. “This is mad. Why should anyone have to die?”
“Part of… curse.”
I refuse to accept that. “Marguerite run. Take the mare, ride to the healer’s house. I don’t care what you must do but get him here.”
Wide eyed, she nods and runs.
“Too late,” Bastien says, his teeth chattering. “Getting cold.”
I lean over him more and rub his arms. “Of course you are. It’s freezing out here. That doesn’t mean you’re going to die.” I look around for something, anything, that will help me keep him warm. There is nothing. My cloak lays heavy and sodden over my shoulders. It would only cool him more. It is too far to the house, I cannot get him inside on my own.
He opens his eyes just a little. “I could almost believe you care for me.”
“Of course I care.” God, where is Marguerite?
“Maybe that’s enough. To keep me out of hell.”
“Stop it this instant! No more talk of death or hell. Marguerite will be back with the healer soon, you’ll see. And then you’ll feel very foolish for being so dramatic.”
He smiles again, one hand reaching up to brush my cheek. But he is too weak already to do it. I take his hand and press it to my cheek. It is cold as ice.
Bastien’s smile fades and his eyelids droop as the night fall silent. There is no more rain and the air is still as death. The starry sky above us steals what little warmth remains.
“Bastien?” I shake him. “Bastien!”
He gasps in a deep breath. His body expands, changes, grows. I’ve never seen magic like this. Where before his transformations have been harsh and painful, the one I am witnessing now is anything but. He changes smoothly, a thing not physical but transcendent. I can feel Bastien fading away until all that remains is the Beast. The weight of him is crushing but I dare not move or breathe.
I count my heartbeats, waiting for him to stir. One died. Would the other live? Would he want to? Bastien is gone forever. There will be no more full moon nights; no respite to humanity from his beastly form. Beast will never again be able to walk among people. The curse is broken, but not the way either of us wished it.
He rouses his brows drawing in a frown before he opens his eyes and blinks up at me. “Lyssette?”
I swallow back my grief. He is alive. I attempt a smile, though my sight blurs with tears. “H-how do you feel?”
The great beast groans and raises his head from my lap. He sits up and twists to kneel before me. He appears to be fully healed. But of course he would. Beast is not the one who was wounded. For the first time I can truly believe that they are… were not one and the same.
“I…” he paws at his shoulder and chest. There is no more wound to be found. I wait for his great sigh of relief but instead his shoulders sink as his eyes fill with despair. “Oh, Lyssette.”
“You’re alive,” I tell him. “The curse is broken.”
“I never wanted this,” he murmurs, unable to meet my gaze.
“You’re alive,” I tell him again, more strongly. “Nothing else matters.”
Beast cups my cheek gently, his fur rasping over my skin. “Of course it does,” he says. “The curse may have split me into two but my heart was always one and the same.” His great paw lowers. “We both loved you equally, though Bastien would never have said so. He would have made you the husband I never can. Of course that matters.”
My throat aches. I want to scream to the heavens, demand they right this wrong. I can’t bear to see my Beast suffer anymore. He’s held out hope for so long, and even in his moment of victory all happiness is stolen from him. He has nothing now.
No, that is a lie. He has me. “I swore to you I would never leave,” I tell him. “And I will stand by my word. No matter what.”
He sighs. “You will leave, Lyssette. You must. I deserved my curse, you did not. I…” He looks away. “I don’t want you coming back to the castle.”
I am rendered speechless by his words.
A chill wind makes me shiver. Beast rises to his full height, towering over me, and offers his paw. “You need to get inside. You’re freezing out here.” So was he a few moments ago. It is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do to raise my hand to his, mirroring his nonchalance. He helps me to my feet and I lean on him far more than I wish to while I regain my balance.
The wind tugs at my gown and hair. My teeth chatter and I cannot stop shaking. I will catch my death out here soon. But I cannot make myself draw nearer to Beast’s warmth for I know that I will never be able to let go again.
Whilst I still can, I step back from him. I am weary, swaying on my feet. He reaches out to steady me but I hold my hand up to stay him. Pain flashes in his eyes. No more than I’ve felt for months.
In my exhaustion I imagine the world around me is changing. But when I look about, I see it is not my imagination. The wind doesn’t howl anymore as it did before; it whispers. Countless voices fly on a rush of air, their words hushed with secrecy and intrigue. I hear Bastien among them. I hear the Beast.
I hear a woman’s laughter and a voice so ethereal it banishes the cold of the night.
He hears them too. His eyes dart around, seeking the source.
The earth steams as it warms but I still shiver in my wet gown. There is light to see by, though it is still full night, the dawn hours away. Where is it coming from?
“Have you learned your lesson, lover?” that diaphanous voice hisses. The question echoes, rushing past us, between us; around us. I feel the Beast’s animosity. His snarl is vicious and bloodthirsty. “Has dying cured your apathy?”
More voices, laughter and cruel shouts which despite their malevolence still sound sweet as a lullaby. What are these creatures? The ground warms beneath my feet and miniscule blades of grass sprout around us.
“Lilith,” Beast growls.
The creature laughs, the sound so beautiful it pains my ears. Light blinds me and I shield my eyes against its glare. When it dims and night returns I blink at the female standing before me. She is tall and lithe, draped in silken robes which move like ocean waves. Her hair is like spun gold, glittering about her beautiful face and her eyes shimmer like stars, just as distant—just as cold. “Lover,” she purrs to my Beast. “It’s been so long. Three hundred years since the night you abandoned me. Do you regret it now, human? Do you wish you stayed in my… good graces?” She smoothes her hand down her breast and the silken dress becomes translucent.
Beast growls, baring his fangs. “You narcissistic bitch!”
The female clucks her tongue in censure. “Oh, now, that is a lovely bit of hypocrisy coming from you, Bastien. I remember how you loved those mirrors in my bower. I thought you wished to see me. But it was yourself you were so enamored with.”
He growls again. “I was a fool to ever think of you as a conquest.”
She smiles. “Yes, a fool to think you could ever win me.”
“A blind fool, seeing beauty in an empty shell,” he snaps.
She hisses.
Beast bares his teeth again, crouching low.
“Ah-ah,” Lilith warns coldly. “I know what you’re thinking. And I would not advise it. You might not care for your life any longer but there is another you hold dear.” She circles me and I am frozen, unable to move or even blink.
Roses bloom at my feet, long vines with sharp thorns winding upward around my legs. I feel them scraping my flesh. A single move will cause them to pierce my skin and I somehow know those barbs are poisonous. I dare not even breathe.
“Damn you, Lilith! Release her!”
Lilith laughs and tears leak from my eyes. “You’re in no position to make demands on me, Bastien,” she says. “After all your trespasses you should show some respect. Perhaps some groveling would not be amiss.”
Beast’s gaze meets mine briefly, fear sparking in their depths, but it is replaced by rage as he once again looks upon the inhumanly beautiful Lilith. “What do you want?”
Her smile is sharp as a blade. “Oh, my dear, beautiful monster. I want what every woman wants. Everything.”
Beast’s eyes narrow on her. “You want me.”
A blood red rose bends toward her and Lilith caresses its petals, playing coy. She answers Beast with a shrug of one delicate shoulder and the air shimmers between us, shadows taking shape. I watch wide eyed as a scene unfolds, countless reflections mirroring a pair of bodies as they writhe among silken sheets. Moans of pleasure answer passionate sighs. They are echoed by the many voices around us. The world breathes in the rhythm of their loveplay, infusing the air with agonizing lust.
“We were beautiful together, you and I,” Lilith says, her voice dreamy with remembrance.
I breathe in and my body tenses with cruel longing. With every moment that stretches on, the pain of unrequited desire intensifies until I want to scream. I am denied.
“You were everything a lover should be and more. Fearless. Dauntless. You used to feed on my pleasure, as I fed on yours.”
My eyes sting with tears. I want to shake my head but I cannot move; I can’t even close my eyes to escape the scene. It is not love, or even sex. It is torture. The sighs turn pleading, the moans become cries of pain. The world breathes faster, a broken rhythm of gasps as though some great being is about to expire beneath my feet. I blink and red hazes my vision, minuscule drops of blood spiking my lashes. The pain behind this driving need is unbearable. I feel as though I am the one in this vision, dying in a futile attempt to achieve something forever beyond my grasp.
“I would have given you everything,” Lilith says. “Beauty and riches, delicacies such as you’ve never tasted and revelries you never could have imagined. I would have made you immortal, lover. And you spat in my face.”
I tear my gaze away from the scene to seek my Beast. Our eyes meet, his filled with shame and regret, mine with sorrow and helpless despair. I see no way out of this predicament. Lilith is a creature unlike any I have ever seen or read about. She is powerful in ways I can hardly comprehend, and she wants something I have no way of denying her.
My heart bleeds for the Beast. He whines low, shifting closer as if he wants to come to me, but the briars coiled around me pull taut, sharp thorns tearing into my gown. I gasp and he stops.
“You love this creature,” Lilith says to me, a questioning lilt to her voice. “Do you love him despite his monstrous form?”
My throat works and I struggle to answer, “Yes.”
“Do you love him despite the cruelty of his human side?”
“Yes,” I say, to my Beast this time.
She leans so close her lips brush the whorls of my ear as she whispers, “Will you still love him when he is mine?”
I have never known a feeling like this. It blooms in my chest and fills me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, banishing the ache and sorrow of Bastien’s past. That is all it is: the past. The beautiful prince turned monster has had three hundred years to regret his mistake, and I can see in his eyes now that he is no longer the man Lilith imagines him to be, if he ever was to begin with.
I see the man he has become. One who, instead of saving himself, sacrificed his own life to protect mine; who, even at his worst, has shown himself capable of great kindness and generosity.
“He will never be yours,” I say and the surety of it gives me strength enough to meet Lilith’s shining gaze without flinching.
She smiles. “We will see.” She glides across her own contrived vision to Beast.
He launches at her with a fearsome snarl, but her form is momentarily no more tangible than mist and he falls through it to the other side.
Lilith remains unharmed.
Her laughter makes the voices keen as Beast claws at my rosethorn prison with a fervor borne of desperation. The briars tear into his paws. Where a vine snaps, another replaces it. Where a bloom drops to the ground, a new branch sprouts and coils upward, lashing at him.
Lilith laughs at his attempts.
“Stop,” I say. “Please. It’s no use.”
Breathing hard, he pauses long enough to see his bloodied paws. His eyes meet mine again, helpless, hopeless.
“You can’t free me.”
He drops heavily to all fours, his great mane brushing against my cheek. “Forgive me.”
“You understand now, don’t you?” Lilith says.
He nods and seems to lack the strength to raise his head. “Yes.”
“What?” I ask, a terrible dread making my body quiver.
“She will not release you until she has what she wants.”
“No… No! You can’t!”
“I must,” he says.
“He will,” Lilith echoes.
“Why?” I demand brokenly.
“Because he doesn’t belong in this world anymore. From the moment he stepped into my bower, he was mine, and deep down, he’s always known it.”
Beast looks at me, his mouth twisting into a bitter little smile. “Because I love you.”
“No, no, no…”
“I will go with you,” he says to Lilith, humbled. Defeated.
“No, please!” I writhe in my prison, heedless of the poisonous barbs cutting into me, branding me with their searing venom.
Beast steps between us, facing his ageless foe. He kneels, as best he can in his fearsome form, and bows his head. “I will be yours. If you free her.”
His words hold magic. They shimmer in the air and make it difficult to draw breath. He speaks them with such finality the fight leeches out of me. I sag and my prison releases me to drop to my knees.
Lilith smiles. She glides forward to claim her prize, and I cannot stand to see her touch him. I struggle to my feet, desperate to get to him, but before she reaches my Beast, Lilith stops. I watch the smile fade from her lips. She tries again, and strikes some invisible barrier in front of her. Anger makes her glow even brighter as she hurls herself forward again and again, each hit like the gong of a soundless bell. It shudders through the air, the ground beneath my feet. My head throbs with it and I am rendered deaf to the world at large.
Slowly, a heavy magic settles over us and I look up to watch Lilith’s face transform with comprehension. Shock turns to denial, then anger, and then she screams her rage to the sky as jagged lightning bolts strike down in a mad storm around her, charring the earth and filling the air with thick black smoke.
I fall to the ground, curled into a ball to shield myself from her maelstrom as best I can. I want to reach out to my Beast, call to him, but I’ve lost all sense of direction.
Then, suddenly, it stops and everything grows quiet. I chance opening my eyes. The air is crisp and clean, the sky glittering with countless stars.
I look for Lilith, but she isn’t there.
I seek my Beast next, but he is gone as well.
In his place, Bastien lays on the cold, hard ground, eyes closed as though in death. My desperate cry pierces the silence. I rush to him, not caring that my own wounds are healed, ignoring the galloping approach of Marguerite and the healer. I pull my beloved into my arms and pray he is still alive.
He is so cold, so very still.
“Live,” I demand. “Live, damn you!”
I sense Marguerite and the healer with me, but choose not to see. They speak to me, but I refuse to hear their words. My heart, my soul, and all that I have left to give is focused solely on the man in my arms.
“You died for me once,” I tell him. “A coward’s way out. I want you to live. For me—for us.” My voice breaks.
The healer grasps my arm to pull me away. I won’t let him. “Mademoiselle, it’s no use.”
“He’s gone, Lyssette,” Marguerite says with such earnest sorrow I almost believe she’s right.
“No.” I refuse to accept that. “He can’t die. I won’t let him.”
“Mademoiselle, please!”
I shove the healer off me. “Wake up, Bastien. Wake up!” I slap his face, beat at his chest. My hands are numb, and my face wet with more useless tears. What good are they now? What good is any of it? “Live!” I scream, shaking Bastien with all the strength I have left.
His lips part on a sigh so small I think I imagined it.
I stop and hold my breath, quietly praying for absolution—his and mine. My heart aches with desperate hope. “Bastien?”
I lay my hand on his chest to better feel its rise and fall. There, another breath! And his heartbeat, weak, fluttering against my palm. His brows pull into a frown, lips moving to form soundless words. I lean in close to hear, “My… strength.”