29. Elle

ELLE

I am mere steps away from the prince when he changes, morphing from the man I saw when he came to my room to comfort me, and the same man I saw just moments ago, into the beast. I knew it to be true. That he was both. But to see him, his skin shredding to become thick fur and his back arching, his claws and teeth bared. It's a fright to behold.

"Please," I manage. "You promised." I barely get out before the beast is before me.

My heart races but I try to stay calm. It's not the first time I've been in his presence. The swing comes back to me. He must've been the beast then.

He is tall and wolflike, his teeth sharp and his eyes gold. His dark brown hair and blue eyes are gone. His muscles are corded and hard, pressing at his clothes, splitting the fabric.

As his gaze turns from me to the stairs, he roars, and my instincts betray me.

I let out a scream of terror, unable to swallow it, so loud it hurts my throat. I have never seen such a creature, and I have certainly never felt such a creature touch me. Those hands would not feel like the prince's hands. Those hands have claws, like a wolf, and they are razor sharp and deadly. Those teeth are what bit me.

The mark of the beast.

Footsteps climb faster up the stairwell as my heart races.

"Elle!" My father sprints up the stairs, calling out my name, but stops dead at the sight of the beast. He falls backward, hitting the ground hard, his elbow cracking on the stone.

For a moment I feel nothing but panic and a pure, unavoidable fear. No matter how many times I blink, the beast stays a beast. He does not turn back into the prince.

But then I blink once more, and there is a change. I can see the prince at the heart of the beast. I can see the beast whose form he has taken. It is as if I can see them both at once, changing between forms so quickly that I cannot make sense of him.

With a growl, the beast moves to the stairs, and I try to stop him. Grabbing at his fur but it's no use.

I do not know if the beast can hear me. I do not know if he knows what the prince promised.

"Not my father! Please!" I scream.

My father climbs to his feet and rushes at the beast, who bats him away like he is a child or an insect. He falls back to the ground clutching his head. There is blood, but I cannot take my eyes off the beast for long enough to see to my father's wound.

"Father don't! Please!" I hold a hand up to my father. "Please don't fight him!" I cry out, tears leaking from the corner of my eyes.

"I love him! Please!" I scream and I'm not certain which person, man or beast, my father or the prince, I'm pleading to.

"Please stop!" I call out and the beast pauses. My father calls my name like a question. "Elle?"

The beast looks back at me, I hold his gaze. "My father. Please," I beg him and with a whine, the beast's head lowers, and I feel as though he understands.

"Please," I beg again as he takes a step back, giving me a path to my father.

This tower room is too small to make any escape. My father groans at my feet and I crouch down, touching him. There is blood on the floor from the wound at his head. I murmur at him to be still, but I can hardly hear my own voice. I need to find the wound so I can stop the bleeding.

It was a mistake to take my eyes off the beast.

He roars, the sound hurting my ears, and it seems to rattle the stone beneath my feet. I see his shadow loom over us, and then my father scrambles upright.

"Father, no!"

He does not hear my cry. Once again my father rushes at the beast with nothing but his bare hands, but the beast roars into his face. My father stumbles back, falling in front of me.

"Elle," he says, and puts up one arm to try to defend us.

The beast swipes one enormous paw across my father's body and sends him flying toward the wall. My father slams into it with a terrible thump and crumbles to the floor of the tower, unmoving.

"Father, no!"

My feet don't want to get underneath me, but I force myself upright and run to my father. I place myself between him and the beast. I do not know if he is alive. I cannot bend down to see if he is breathing. I send up a prayer to anyone who will listen to let my father survive this. He does not deserve to die like this.

I put up both hands as the beast stalks across the tower toward me, his claws and teeth bared, growling through his teeth. He is so much taller this way, and the panic in me grows until I think there may be no hope.

The moment he is close enough, I place both hands on his shoulders and push as hard as I can. I am not strong enough to stop him from moving, but I put all the strength I have into holding him back.

"Please, stop! Please," I cry, hoping to be heard over his growls. They are threatening noises, like something out of a nightmare. But he doesn't hurt me. He does not swipe at me. I do not know what will happen next, because I saw the beast enter a similar fury the night the castle was attacked. He must feel this is the same.

Thoughts fly in my mind and I hold onto the beast, wrapping my arms around him. I whisper for him to stop. I beg him. "He's not going to hurt you," I continue. "My father isn't trying to hurt you, I promise. He would not have come here to attack you. Please, stop."

My tears linger in his fur and the beast's form rises and falls with heavy breaths. He's quiet beneath me. With the world quiet around me, I dare to pull back. I dare to loosen my grip and get a look at the beast.

For a single moment, the beast's eyes change. A flash of the prince's blue eyes peeks out from behind the gold. That color is gone in an instant, but it was there.

"I see you," I whisper, my voice shaking because my heart will not slow. "I see you," I repeat, hoping against hope that he will hear me and understand.

The beast cocks his head on an angle, his eyes gold again. There is no sign that the blue was ever there, but in the beast's eyes, confusion flares. He is no longer growling, and his shoulders do not press as hard against my hands. The beast blinks, staring into my eyes. His head lowers and he presses himself into me again. As if a dog wanting to be held. I hold him tightly and pray this will be enough.

"Please," I whisper, begging again. I need to breathe, but I cannot force my lungs to work to calm myself. My heart will not slow until I can make sure my father is all right, and I am terrified that if I wait too long, he will not make it.

The beast eases away from me. I keep my hands up, trying to signal to him that he does not need to fear me and that he does not need to come after my father. There is nothing the man can do to him. He has not made a sound since he fell to the floor and could not harm the beast even if he wanted to.

Then he changes. Right before my eyes. From beast to prince. Relief and disbelief are a maddening thing. The magic and the castle, the last weeks of my life, they are a fantasy that is too fantastical to ever be believed. The prince was never gone.

The transformation is difficult for my eyes to take in. His body seems to blur, shifting even as I watch. There's cracking of bones and the torn clothes fall. I do not know where to look because all of him is changing at once. He is bared to me. Eventually his features smooth out into the man he was when I entered the tower. His chest heaves as if he cannot breathe, and his expression is anguished. His blue eyes shine in the moonlight that comes through the tower, and his hands ball into fists at his sides. He no longer has claws, but I can see the tension in him. The prince may have the form of the man, but he still carries the pain of the beast.

He bares his teeth, gritting them as if to master his feelings.

I take a deeper breath to regain control of my own. I can't help but to hold him, to wrap my arms around him. He barely holds me back but when I pull away from him, he searches my eyes for something, but I cannot know what.

"My father—" I begin.

"He should not have come here," the prince says, his voice taut with the words. I can hear his anger in them and perhaps fear. His gaze lingers on my father, and he says, "What have I done?"