Rell and The Rose

Ch. 57, A Beast and A Beast-Slayer

Bastien

I woke half-naked, curled up on the forest floor, a blanket of snow insulating my body.

My entire body ached, covered in scratches and bruises. Something was wrong. Something was different.

And then finally I looked up.

The Blood Moon hung in the sky.

Never, not in all my years as the Beast, had I woken beneath the moon.

I sat up slowly.

How is this possible?

The Moon glowed red over the forest, yet it wasn't the forest I remembered. Everything was covered in white, the branches dusted in a fine layer... and that horrible, creeping darkness that always seemed to watch me was gone. I lifted a trembling hand to my face, touching the now human flesh. My fingers were coated in mud and blood, my shirt gone and my pants were in shreds.

But I was human beneath the Moon.

Could the Beast be gone? Hope crashed and tumbled within my chest.

My memories from the previous day felt fuzzy. Lorcan and I had been talking to the Blood Rose... everything had seemed fine... we had so much time left, so much daylight... and then suddenly it was gone.

The Blood Rose had tricked us.

I'd felt the Beast coming over me, and ran.

But now the Beast was gone...

The curse is broken.

The thought crashed over me, and I tilted my head back, laughing and crying at the same time. The Beast is gone. I'm free.

And then, the thought more important than all: I have to find Rell.

I took off at once, struggling through the snow. At first sheer elation and joy kept me moving. But the snow continued to fall, the cold creeping over my skin. I now faced a problem I'd never before confronted. The moon still hung high in the sky, and it would be hours till first light. Which left me stranded, half naked in the middle of the forest while it snowed.

Still better than being the Beast, I thought with a grin. The cold might hurt my body, but it couldn't touch my soul. Nothing could now that I was free of the Beast. I had to tell Rell. It all just felt so...

"Impossible," a voice called out through the woods. My feet tangled and I fell hard. Then I surged back up, terrified as I spun to face a forest of white.

"But we should be careful with words, as they are powerful things."

Finally I found the source of the voice. A man, leaning beneath a pine, so still I'd nearly missed him. He had raven black hair down to his shoulders, and a long, dark coat with a line of golden buttons.

"I've been waiting a long time to meet you, Bastien," he said, voice soft.

For ten seconds I had no response. And then finally, I said the only thing I could think: "Who the hell are you?"

He pushed off the tree and walked closer, both hands buried in his warm-looking coat. Then, when he was ten feet away, he took off the coat and tossed it to me. I caught it, too startled and cold to do anything but immediately pull it on.

"Have I met you before?" I said, shivering into the warmth of the coat. There was something eerily familiar about him. I'd never met anyone in the forest after a night as the Beast— not even a hiker— and meeting someone now felt both bizarre... and somehow, thought I couldn't explain how, right.