Beast within the Beauty || A Beauty and the Beast Retelling

Chapter Thirty-One || To Deny a Beast

I was late. Far, far too late.

Maverick slowed into a trot, sparing me a moment to study the ruins I feared to recognize. I drew a breath, biting back the taste of smoke and ash. Snow tinted in shades of dirt and blood plastered the ground, marred by staggered tracks of both animals and beasts.

Slain carcasses smeared the earth—a remnant of the forest beasts that must have come to feast on what hens and goats the village had to offer. A hand drifted over my mouth—as if to suppress some sound or other.

The sight was familiar to me—an occurrence that had frequented us when I was younger. I had not known it to repeat itself in the years we had begun to comply to the castle's lord.

Fire had devoured one of the barns, given the charred walls and gaping hole left in the side of the structure. It was rather likely that Raoul's suspicion had come true. The beasts escaped those forests and came here, feeding on unguarded animals and striking fear in the village people.

The streets remained laden in heaps of snow, deserted of any breathing soul. Slowly, Maverick dared yet another step. It seemed to me he was anxious. I narrowed my gaze, studying the dip between the thrashed fences and the edge of the road. A disheveled lump sat beneath the snow.

No. No. That was not a lump. My stomach fell. A body—that of a person.

I clambered off of Maverick's back, desperate to be proven incorrect, to be wrong. I was not. A small body huddled into the nook of the earth, curled tightly both for warmth and to remain hidden. A child. My fingers dove into the snow, scooping the lot of it away.

No. No. I pulled the little girl into my arms. "Joceline."

Panic surged within my chest. Her body was cold against my fingers. My throat closed. She must have been outside when the beasts came—must have resorted to hiding in this ditch until they left. She must have taken shelter here far too long. "Joceline. Open your eyes."

I fumbled to set my ear over her chest. Relief came flooding over me. She was breathing. Mon Dieu. I called out for help.

Her clothing was drenched and I could feel no warmth from her body. Why wasn't someone watching her? Why did those damned beasts have to come here? My lips trembled, unable to contain my shaky breaths. If only I had been present to stop it—to keep her from harm's way.

I yanked the coat from around my shoulders and wound it around her frail, shivering frame, desperate to rub some warmth into her. I clutched the child to my chest, fearing that if I so much as loosened my grasp, she would slip away with the breath of wind.

As I ran past the village outskirts and ravaged structures, I came along the knitted, unlit cottages. "Open the door, please!" I could hear the fear in my voice. "Anyone at all!" The houses fell before me in heaped shadows, dark, and marked only by the streaks of light seeping through cracks in the curtains. I approached the doorstep most familiar to me and rapped my knuckles along, calling out to its occupants.

Silence.

And then the door creaked open, slowly. I set foot past the threshold of my home, greeted by the stilled stares of both men and women I vaguely recognized. "Clear the table," I demanded, half-mad with worry.

"What are you doing?" A woman's voice. "Help her—make way!"

Arms beckoned me in, attempting to seize the child in my arms. "No," I growled out, tightening my grasp as I stepped forth. "Fetch blankets. Move!" I laid her atop the wooden table, making quick work to remove her soaked clothing and lay my dry coat over her.