Beauty In The Beast

by Erik Schubach

  Chapter 8 – London

  She never let go of my cloak as we ran, or when I had to slow to a walk from time to time to rest. She seemed to never tire, and we spoke as we traveled. She did most of the speaking as she wasn't even winded. Was her Yth'Ical aspect giving her the energy and stamina to keep moving like that? It was a sobering thought, knowing it was the souls of those damned by the curse, or those who were killed in the name of it, which gave her inner beast its strength. She spoke of her home, Bucuresti in Romania. Of growing up with her parents, who worked as servants for a powerful family there, the Marcus family. Of the friends and family she said she wished to see again. It broke my heart to tell her that fifty years had passed since the Lupus Curse was unleashed upon the land. This had her just staring off into space as we stopped to drink from a stream beside the roadway. I heard her whispering as her pain returned to her, “Fifty years? Fifty years in the pit?” She looked at her hands again. I knew she was looking for the telltale signs of age and not finding them. We spoke of me, and how I am able to give her the peace and serenity that she has craved for so long. Then I blushed again when she teased, “All that hope in one cute little woman.” I defended admirably with, “Hey...” Which had me instinctively smiling at the huge smile on her face. She knew she was getting to me and the minx was enjoying the sway she already held over me. I was noticing her radical shifts of emotion. Like she was having a difficult time keeping track of our topics. From one moment to the next she could move from despair over the loss of family, to flirty happiness as she teased like she almost didn't remember the prior topic. I thought on that as she told me of the betrayal of the Marcus brothers when they stole her away one night and tied her up to sacrifice. She could feel the silver knife being driven through her flesh and the wave of agony as she felt torn from herself and thrust into the pit. Her eyes started smoking at that, and I had to calm her, feeling on the verge of giving in to the seductive feel of Yth'Ical inside me and knowing how right it felt. Just to be pulled back to myself when I noticed Illiya's eyes in front of mine. She was holding my cheeks, her face inches from mine as she whispered, her breath hot on my face. “Come on Belle, come back to me. You have to stop taking on my rage. I fear that you may succumb to it if you pull it in as your own like that.” I was staring at her lips and smiled as I whispered back, “You're so beautiful, Illy.” Then I snapped out of my daze when I realized what I had said. I pulled back quickly in embarrassment, my cheeks and neck hot. She giggled in mirth then grabbed my cloak, and we continued our trek. As the roads widened and we started passing people on horses or pushing wagons as the sun was getting close to the horizon, I knew I would beat the brothers and their machinations. We crested a hill, and I beheld a sight I would never get used to as I stopped to pant. With the River Thames winding lazily through, the great walled city of London lay before us, filling the horizon from east to west. I smiled as she gasped, then she took my hand and laced our fingers. Yes, London was one of the great wonders of this modern world, and I remembered the first time I had laid eyes upon it in my travels. I had believed Nottingham to be the biggest town I would ever see, until that moment. I glanced over, wondering if the awe on Illiya's face was the same I had worn upon my first sighting of the metropolis. I was feeling doubly happy. Not only because she was by my side, but that I was going to beat Jacob and Wilhelm at their own game. They thought me to not be able to reach the great city before Lady Locksley departed. That's when Illiya snapped her head to the side with the suddenness of a predator hearing prey, her eyes trailing sulfurous smoke. She growled like an animal and released me as she started running and snarling. Her strides getting longer and longer until she took to all fours and began bounding in great strides as her dress caught aflame and shredded. I ran after her, calling her name, traveling in the wake of her reawakened rage, agony and hate. Smaller trees fell to her mad rush as she became Yth'Ical. Her bellowing screech washing over the land as she ran, sending a sickening shiver through me. I could barely keep her in my sight, but the trail of destruction in the wake of the beast she had become was easy to follow. And that smell... I almost vomited as I ran. I needed to reach her, needed to calm her. What was going on? We ran for fifteen or twenty minutes. My lungs ached, and my legs were starting to fail me. After a rough day of travel, to have to exert myself like this was pushing me beyond my physical limits. I felt a warmth on my breastbone that told me that my Lady's feather was lending me strength. Then I skidded to a halt near a fissure in some rocks where the hideously beautiful unicorn demon was striking the rocks with her hooves. Though they were not shod, sparks flew as stone crumbled. Whatever she was after, was in that fissure and she was too large to follow in that form. That wasn't stopping her as she slammed her horn from side to side, shearing of great chunks of stone, slowly enlarging the passageway, reducing the stone to rubble beneath her massively powerful hooves. I stepped closer holding a hand out as if that would stop her from doing the same to me and asked, “Illiya? What is it.” As her head snapped toward me, slinging blood and ichor from her mane, I stumbled back and fell on my back. Her wall of rage rolled off her and struck me like a physical thing. Her eyes burned brightly, and she charged at me. I could feel something even more frightening beneath all the evil, all the pain, and rage... an almost gleefulness at the anticipation of the kill as the ground shook while she galloped toward me, her massive black horn lowered to impale me. I rolled to a crouch and flung both hands out releasing everything I had inside me, all the happiness and joy, all the longing for serenity, even my attraction for this woman I had just met. I said hoarsely in my panic, “Be at peace.” And the wave of positive emotion flowed from me so forcefully, it kicked up dirt and leaves in its wake as it struck her. She leaned into it, and her mane fluttered back, trailing behind as if she were bracing herself in a gale force wind, stripping all the darkness and evil from her soul. She staggered and slowed, then her confusion set in as she looked around then at me. I braced myself when I swear I could see it all coming back to me, all that darkness I took from her. It slammed into me, and it felt oh so good. It filled me with exquisite agony, my very soul feeling the burn of that endless torture that fueled the rage. The rage that made me strong, able to do anything, to kill anyone just to watch the life leave their... I shook myself and gasped out, “No!” I pulled the talisman's power to me, to wrap around this evil, to consume it, extinguish it. Then like it had never been, it was gone. And I sat there in my crouch beneath a woman who was the most exquisite demon in the mortal realm, as she looked down upon me. As I gasped for breath, I could feel her diminished rage, the shadows of the suffering I stole from her. I could sense Illiya in there. Deep down, staring at me from the beast's eyes, and she was afraid. She screamed, and I covered my ears as my eyes began to bleed from the onslaught of the tortured souls that writhed across her skin. Then she rammed her horn down toward me. I swallowed as the deadly point of bone and flesh stopped just inches from my neck. I kept eye contact as I reached up and began to stroke it gently as I stood and moved along it to her great muzzle. “You big baby. I'm here for you Illy. Shhh....” I took smaller, bite-sized portions of her rage and torment, giving her serenity in exchange as the talisman consumed the evil. She pulled back and growled in my face. I smiled, knowing the woman inside and teased, “Oh so threatening.” I put my forehead on hers and realized she was little bigger than a small horse now as she calmed. She was making mewling sounds as I felt her reaching for the peace I offered her. I was on the verge of getting the woman buried deep inside the demon back when the sun extinguished itself on the horizon. Her head snapped to the fissure, and she looked back at me with almost human eyes. They were pleading as she looked back at the passageway and then bolted for it. In this smaller between form, she was able to make it through the opening, and I chased after her, knowing she wanted... no, needed me to follow her. I huffed in exasperation, I wish she could tell me what was going on. With a fleeting glance at where the sun had extinguished itself, I al
lowed myself a moment of regret. I had again missed Lady Locksley. But at the moment, finding out what Illy needed me to know was more important. There would be time to find my Lady, there was always time. Time was all I had as I watched the world rise up around me as I stood, never changing, looking in but never belonging. I ran into the crevice and darkness swallowed me as I made my way forward, one hand on the wall of the cave beyond to steady me as I followed a dim red glow ahead of me. The hellfire that escaped from the cracks of Yth'Ical skin. She paused and looked back, her eyes blazing red as the rage began slowly bubbling up inside of her again. I let peace flow out to her, keeping her with me as I caught up. I placed my hand on the side of her strong neck, and she led me forward, more quietly than I thought possible, her hooves seemed to pad along. Then I got it, she was hunting. I looked at her and the dimly lit cave ahead of us and wondered if demons hunted in packs like wolves. Since I could calm her, in this form was she seeing me as pack, or as the frightened girl, I was. How much of Illiya was in her like this? I could see the bright spot in her emotions where she dug in for battle against the overwhelming evil that surrounded her, and she persevered. For over half a century she has persevered. Just how strong was this woman? She slowed to a stop when we saw flickering light ahead of us. It appeared that there was a cavern in front of us lit by firelight. I could feel a sickness, a riot of emotion ahead of us. It had that nausea inducing tang of black magics to it. She stopped breathing and cocked her head, I followed suit, and I could hear the guttural chanting that sounded vaguely similar to what Illiya's uncle had been chanting. We moved into the chamber and hugged the wall as we looked on at three older women dressed all in red, chanting at a stone altar. They were surrounded by a circle of what looked to be the entrails of animals illuminated by the flickering of torches in stanchions around the altar. My heart skipped a beat, and I had to stop a sharp inhale of breath from giving us away as I saw them drawing something on an unconscious boy in what looked like blood. The air was starting to crackle as they chanted. I stared at the boy, he couldn't have been older than seven or eight, and my mind raced back to when little John was that old. These... witches. What were they doing to him? From the feel of the gathering magic from whatever spell or enchantment they were weaving with their words, it was born of evil and darkness. Illiya charged, bellowing out her demonic screech. I drew my staff from my back and charged by her side. The women spun toward us, and their eyes were lit with the madness I saw in Costin the prior day. That was the madness I associated with the insidious corruption that black magics infected people with. Those who craved the power the darkness could give them, rarely believed there would be a cost. That cost, I was seeing, was their grasp on sanity and an erosion of their moral cores, what little morality they possessed that is. The rage I felt from the beast at my side was different somehow, and I realized it was Illiya's not her Yth'Ical form. There was a taste of determination beneath it, and I realized she must have been reliving her own horror when she saw the boy. She wasn't going to let another innocent suffer for the petty quest for power of others. The three woman moved as one, their hands shooting forward as they chanted. Power filled the air, and Illy shouldered me and slid between the women and myself as I stumbled. Black streamers of raw evil lanced from them, like lightning which swallowed all light. It was like there was an absence of anything inside it, and that power stank of fetid decay. Illiya bellowed in pain as the lightning lashed her hide like dozens of burning whips. It flayed and burned skin from her and her rage built as she grew. Blood and ichor streamed from her wounds as they seemed to heal up with arms and faces pushing up from beneath the injuries. But then she calmed on her own, and I could feel nothing but smug malice from her as she turned her gaze to meet theirs as they pulled out some sort of talismans from their robes in unison. The other two were fractions of a second slower than the woman in the middle, as if they were somehow just her marionettes, moving with her. Yth'Ical grew step by step, that odd calmness still in her as the deliberate clopping of her hooves echoed in the cavern when she stepped toward them. I moved behind her placing a hand on her flank to let her know I was there. The women chanted, and black power slammed into us, I felt as If I couldn't move for a moment and stumbled a bit as Illiya just kept stepping toward them. Then I felt my own talisman flare and shred whatever it was that was threatening to take my mobility away from me. I kept glancing between the women and the forgotten boy, as he started to moan and wake. I needed to get him to safety. The middle woman sneered at us and said, “Stop moving.” When we didn't, her sneer and confidence faltered. Then I understood, whatever that spell had been, was meant to steal our free will from us. I looked at the other two women, is that what she did to them? No, they shared that gleeful madness in their eyes, they were willingly her puppets in this. Yth'Ical charged, bellowing out that poison screech of hers. I saw it had the same effect on them, as their eyes and ears started bleeding. The woman said a word, looking up. There was a loud cracking sound, then two huge stalactites came raining down upon us. I dove to the side but Illiya slashed her horn through the air, and with an explosion of rock, she shattered the falling projectiles into rubble. She windmilled her front hooves and brought them down with a ground-shaking impact upon the rubble, just for good measure it would seem, breaking the largest chunk into smaller bits. Now the confidence of the women seemed to falter at this, and I saw and felt the fear from the other two witches as their leader started leaking confusion and rage. Yth'Ical started slowly advancing, one deliberate step at a time, she wanted to fuel their fear of her. The witches drew gnarled branches from their cloaks and threw singeing gouts of fire at us. Illy imposed her body between them and myself. I could smell her rotting flesh burning, and she barely grunted in discomfort. I could feel that searing heat radiating around her. The witches screamed out in frustration as their focuses caught fire and they had to drop the twisted branches. And Yth'Ical still closed the distance between them. She was huge now, almost as large as when the rage controlled her, but I could still feel Illiya inside her, barely maintaining control. She was growling, and it sent a chill up my spine. She saw them as prey now, and I glanced between them and the boy and couldn't find any pity over what was to befall them. Then the witch changed tactics and seemed to release the control she had over the other two, and she spoke another word. The lesser witches continued to throw spell after spell at Illy as the distance was closed to just twenty feet. I heard a grating sound and looked around as I followed in the wake of the beastly unicorn. My eyes widened as I watched the rubble reshape itself into loosely human shapes of rocks, ten feet tall. Golems? Illy's attention was focused on the witches, and she didn't notice. I screamed out and spun my staff in a figure eight pattern, it whistled as it sliced through the air while I interposed myself between them and the demonic avenger at my back. It began to glow as my emotions got the better of me. It seemed to harness and amplify them into raw power, and I laid into the first which was moving toward Yth'Ical. With a loud crack and release of energy, I drove the end of the staff up in a sweeping arc as the golem swept an arm at me with the intent of knocking me to the side to reach its target. The creature didn't make a sound as a stone in its arm exploded into shrapnel, the arm falling to the cavern floor. It continued to press me, the other following in its wake. The witch had obviously had them target Illy, and I was just in the way. I deflected two strikes from the lead golem as the rocks of its other arm rolled to it and reassembled themselves. I growled. How did one kill something that wasn't alive? Something that could rebuild itself? I gasped in pain as I was grabbed by the golem at the same time I heard the gurgling scream of pain from one of the witches, feeling her terror and disbelief as her life force faded. I pulled in that diminishing but powerful emotion and then thrust it out from within me, and the wave stopped the crushing grip I was in, and shattered the stone hand to the rubble it was constructed of. I landed in a roll, gaining some separation from the relentlessly approaching creatures. I felt the ache of m
y ribs warming as a white light started enveloping me from the point on my chest where the feather had burned into my flesh. My eyes burned, and I looked up at my opponents, and I saw it! There was a single sickeningly black and pulsating glyph on the forehead of each of the golems. I instinctively knew the black magic marks were beating in time with the old crone's heart. I bellowed out a challenge and ran at the first golem. I ducked beneath a sweeping arm and slammed my staff up from under its guard and smashed the glyph with all my strength and emotion I could pour into the staff. There was a deafening crack and an explosion of rock. I went flying back and tumbling along the cave floor as if I were thrown from a detonation. Then I heard the crone gasp in pain as the golem crumbled to a pile of stones. Were they tied to her in more ways than just magic? I scrambled to my feet as the rubble seemed to roll to the other golem, increasing it in size as I heard the second minor witch scream in agony as Illy roared. I tried not to notice the sickening crunch and wet sounds coming from behind me. I had my hands full with a mammoth golem, fully twenty feet tall. The witch spoke again, and I got the impression that the golem snapped its gaze from Yth'Ical to me, though it had no eyes. Just great. I rolled away as it brought its fists down onto the cavern floor where I had been standing a moment before. The ground shook, and a couple smaller stalactites were shaken loose from the cavern roof. They came crashing down around us. How was I going to strike the glyph if I couldn't reach the golem's head? I felt Illy's control fading as the witch struck her with a wall of black force that was leeching the life out of the very world around it. The unicorn had to lean into it to take another step. That rage, fury, and hate began washing over the girl inside, and started taking control. I could taste Illy's fear of that happening, and I glanced at the Golem one last time and decide it was all or nothing. I screamed as I violently tore the negative emotions coming from Yth'Ical and the witch into me. All that evil, all that divine... no! I pushed it all into my staff, and it glowed intensely white, burning my hands. The cavern was lit brighter than day as Yth'Ical gasped, and the witch staggered. I threw the staff, praying to the Goddess that my aim would be true. In an explosion of light and shrapnel, the head of the remaining golem was pulverized into dust, and my staff clattered to the ground, along with the mountain of rocks that had once been animated by evil. I turned at the gasp behind me to see that the crone had fallen to a knee grasping her chest. Pain rolled off of her, then it was gone, as a now much smaller demonic unicorn drove its great horn through her withered and blackened heart. That's when the screaming started. The little boy had awoken and was staring at Illiya as she lifted the witch's body, impaled on the twisted horn, and flung her lifeless corpse away. It spun through the air and impacted the cavern wall with a sickening wet sound. Yth'Ical's eyes flared at the sound, and she spun toward the boy, lowering her head in preparation to charge. And the boy continued to scream. His terror was palpable, and I ran between the two and held my hands out to both as I urge, “Be at peace.” Allowing my power to flow from me like a gentle wave so I could consume the negative emotions more easily than when I tore them from people. The boy calmed and was reduced to blubbering tears as Illy stomped up to me, anger in her eyes, it was disappointment I could feel, in my not allowing her to rampage like she was compelled to by her demon aspect. She skittered back, hooves clopping when I slapped her muzzle lightly and reprimanded, “You were scaring the child.” She looked incensed, and she bellowed at me. I sighed as my face was splattered with saliva, blood, and ichor. If I were to help her to find a way to break her curse, I knew I'd have to endure this frequently. I'd be washing myself and my clothes more often than I would like. I grabbed her horn and shook it as I narrowed my eyes playfully and said, “Stop whining woman.” She whinnied in protest, and that made me smile because I could feel amusement mixed in the violent emotions of her beast. I shook a finger at her and chastised. “Stay here, you're terrifying the boy.” I started to walk to the crying boy who had curled up into a defensive ball, and I stopped when I heard a steady clop of hooves behind me. I turned back and shook my head, “Stop being bullheaded. Let me speak with him first.” Then I pushed the horn away from my face. “And point that thing somewhere else.” I wondered if I were pushing my luck, the girl was, after all, a demon. But she made an amused sound and turned her head away then started lazily walking away. I reached the boy's side and laid a hand gently on his shoulder. He flinched back and sobbed harder. I continued sending out waves of calm and took his fear and Illy's darker emotions into me, allowing the talisman to overwhelm and consume them. This was much more manageable for me. I reached out again and laid my hand on his shoulder and soothed, “Shh. Shh. Shh. It will be alright. The witches are dead.” He looked up at me through red, watery eyes. “What's going on? I want to go home.” One little hand raised and he pointed. “The monster is still here.” I looked over to see Illiya lying on the cavern floor, convulsing as her demon aspect contorted her body as she shrank. I shook my head and pulled him to me, he latched on and hugged me tight as I said, “No, she saved you. I know she can be a little frightening, but I believe she was truly trying to do the right thing here.” Then I tried to pull his attention away from her. “I'm Belle. What's your name, and how did you wind up in the company of witches?” He said in a small and embarrassed voice, “Peter. They promised me pumpkin pie if I went with them to their cottage. Then I woke up here with that... that beast killing them!” I just about leapt out of my own skin when hands rested on my shoulders from behind. I could feel the unnatural heat radiating from them and relaxed as she pulled my cloak off of me and wrapped her naked form in it. I grinned, it was a good thought, no need the boy seeing things he ought not. Then my smile faltered as I looked at the bodies of the slain women. Perhaps he already has. I spoke with the boy for a time to calm him and to learn where he lived with his parents. The whole time, Illy was glued to my back, leaning against me like she couldn't be apart from me. I realized it was the soothing feelings I was still pushing out for them. I hadn't even realized I was doing it, and she was clinging to it like a lifeline. After I felt little Peter the pumpkin pie eater, was calm enough, all I learned was that his family was the third farm on the right. I helped him down to the cavern floor. I'm sure we could find someone who could make more sense of his extremely vague description of home. Perhaps a constable or sheriff. I told him as his fear started rising again as he looked around, “Don't look at them. Just look at me until we get out of here.” I held my hands out, and he grabbed one while Illiya grabbed my other, giving it a little squeeze and shake. I said as he looked up at her, with her blood covered face for the first time, “Peter, this is Illiya. She's...” He said in a tiny voice, “The beast... who saved me.” I smiled sadly as she tensed a bit and I said, “Yes. She's my... she's my friend.” She said in a voice that was timid and almost scared, “Hello, Peter.” I could feel... shame? Rolling off her. What did she have to be ashamed of? She had run off into the darkness to save him. I guess there was the minor fact that she was intent on killing him after she dispatched the witches... but we could work on that. Baby steps. We stopped to retrieve my staff before making our way back out of the cave into the darkness of night. I could see the glow of the fires of London lighting the horizon beyond the trees. I remember my last visit there, at being amazed at the sight of the city at night. All the streets were lit by oil street lamps and some with some type of gas. It looked like a great spider's web from the hilltops. I looked at the two and said, “We should camp. Only a fool traipses about the forest at night.” “Hey,” said an indignant Illiya. I doubled down with a smile into those eyes that had boundless depth. “You heard me Illy.” I crinkled my nose at her, and she rolled her eyes but broke into what would have been a heart stopping smile if it hadn't been for the drying blood on her face. She moved behind a copse of trees by the mouth of the cave with my canteen and cloth as I started gathering stones into a ring for a fire. Little Peter helped, we made a game of it. It amazed me how much trauma a child co
uld endure and almost forget about it just minutes later. I looked at the trees and thought about that. Illiya was little more than a child when this great atrocity had stolen her life from her. By the looks of her, she hadn't been older than eighteen or nineteen when the Five took her. Is that how she had been able to persevere for so long in eternal torment? My heart broke for her all over again. She came back out, looking sheepish wearing only my cloak, my spare dress had been shredded when she changed. But the dim moonlight filtering down from the heavens lit her face, highlighting her delicate features and the graceful curve of her neck. I paused as I looked at her full lips. She hugged herself self-consciously and asked, “What?” I went back to work. “What, what?” She whispered so Peter wouldn't hear, “You keep staring at my lips. You did it earlier too. Did I miss some blood?” I blushed hard at that and tried to defend weakly as I whispered back. “I... no... I was... never mind.” She grinned in self-satisfaction and bit her lower lip and swung side to side coyly. The woman was teasing me! I whispered as Peter came over to us, “You are a wicked woman.” I could taste her amusement, and it was a bright spot in the night. And there was something else underlying that amusement coming from her, it felt so... warm. Peter just came out and said what I could not, “You're really pretty, Illiya.” She beamed down at him and said, “Why thank you, young sir. Shall we gather some wood for the fire?” Her voice wavered when she said fire, it still scared her. I wondered if she would ever feel comfortable with fire again. He nodded enthusiastically, and I stopped her from following him. I shoved my pack to her and said, “You should put something else on under the cloak. I have trousers and a nightdress in there. The last of my clothes.” She looked at me apologetically for ruining my peasants dress, and I turned to follow little Peter to gather wood. Upon our return, she was dressed in my trousers and had the nightdress tucked into them as a makeshift tunic. I had to grin at her as she spun for me. That glint of madness in her eyes tempered her smile. I inclined my head. “Very nice.” Then she proceeded to snicker at me as I worked my flint and steel to start the fire. Her snicker turned into a full giggle when Peter asked with the seriousness only a child could muster, “Are you sure you are doing that right, Belle?” I growled at them both, then grinned in triumph as the dried moss and grassed ignited, and I stacked tinder around it as I blew at the base of the flames until the larger twigs caught fire. I told them both, with a brow raised in challenge. “I do just fine, thank you very much.” I dug around in my pack and pulled out the very last of my meager rations. A single strip of chicken jerky and some dried bread wrapped and tied in corn husks, which I didn't know I still had at the bottom of the pack. I split it up for us to share. But Illiya seemed more fixated on finishing off my canteen. Water, it seemed, was the thing she coveted most in this world, and I was oddly jealous of the wet stuff. But I would see to it that as long as she traveled at my side, I would keep her in good supply. She hid from the fire behind me until I went about arranging my bedroll for Peter to sleep when he started yawning uncontrollably. I told him, “Well see about getting you home on the morrow, little one.” He was asleep as soon as he pulled the blanket tightly around him. I stood and watched a moment, then almost sighed when warm arms wrapped around me from behind. Illy said, “You are so good with him.” I blushed and looked back and shrugged. “He reminds me of my brother.” She cocked her head, almost unnaturally, inviting me to continue. She pulled me down to sit on the ground, her back to a stump and me laying against her. I realized she was sharing her unnatural heat with me since I had given my blanket to the boy. She wrapped my cloak around me as I told her of little John; well not so little now, and the life I left behind. I had to bite back a moan of delight as she just listened intently, one of her hands playing absently with my hair. I kept yawning but tried to fight off sleep as I spoke with this woman who was unlike any other. She caught me looking at her lips again, with their cute cupid's bow, then I almost burst into flames when she grinned and leaned down to capture my lips with hers. After the tenderest of kisses, like she was afraid to break me, she pulled back and shared a smile with me as I stared in dreamy shock. “You need to get some sleep Belle, it has been a long day.” Yes, it certainly had. Illy had kissed me. She hugged me tight to her, and I ignored the slight scent of brimstone and sulfur as the exhaustion I had been fighting off finally prevailed and took me into a pleasant, dreamless sleep.