“In.ev.it.able. You know how to spell that.” He stomped closer to her. “So why did you miss the word in the last round? Huh?”
“I just got mixed-up. Everybody gets mixed-up sometimes.”
“Bullshit.” This time it was quieter. “You threw the contest.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She studied her book, pretending that the ponies on the cover fascinated her. “Why would I do something like that?”
Avenant’s lips pressed together. “You threw the contest because you heard my parents shouting at me.” He said flatly. “You heard them say that I’d be locked in my closet for a week if I lost.” Being locked in his bedroom so his parents didn’t have to look at him was hard enough, but he dealt with that almost every day. The tight confines of the closet were far worse. The walls felt like they were always moving closer.
Chocolate brown eyes flicked to his and he saw compassion in them. “It was just a stupid spelling bee.” Belle whispered and all his suspicions were confirmed.
He hadn’t been able to confront her in front of all the parents and teachers, but he’d known from the moment it happened that she’d let him win. All afternoon he’d been stewing over it and now he was ready for a fight. He’d glared over at Belle as the principal gave him the first place ribbon and she’d been clapping for him. Clapping. That was the worst part of all, because it showed she didn’t do it out of fear, or as part of some plan, or even to taunt him.
She did it because she felt sorry for him.
Betrayal and shame and fury filled him, so Avenant couldn’t tell one from the other. “You cheated.” He spat out. “How many other times have you done that?”
“Never! It wasn’t even cheating. We’re both good spellers. Either one of us could’ve been champ, depending on which words I got and which you got.” She bit her lower lip. “What’s the big deal?”
Of course it wasn’t a big deal to her. Belle’s parents didn’t care if she won the spelling bee. They barely noticed her at all, except to buy her frilly yellow dresses and pat her head on their way to some party. She had no idea what it was like to be the son of a royal family. To have to win or face the consequences. Every night his mother would tell him stories of what happened to princes who failed in their duties.
“The big deal is I’m Prince of the Northlands.” Avenant yelled. “I don’t have to cheat to beat you. I’m better than you.”
That was a lie. Belle was far better than him in every way. He’d always known that. She was so damn pretty and smart and Good. She was like sunshine in the dead of winter. Sometimes in school he just sat at his desk and stared at her when no one was watching.
If she ever stared back, it would be the happiest day of his life.
“I was trying to help you, you jerk.” Belle snapped. “You could just say thanks, you know.”
“I don’t need your help! And I don’t need this.” Avenant threw the first place ribbon at her and headed for the door. “It’s yours. Take it.”
Belle swatted it away and got to her feet. “You’re being a baby.” She marched after him, her beautiful face fixed in a frown. “Why can’t you ever be nice?”
Avenant didn’t know how to be nice. His parents would’ve been horrified if he even tried. Princes should rule by fear, intimidation, and cold brutality. Especially when they were Bad. When they were beasts. Anything less was weakness. That absolute law had been drilled into his head since babyhood.
Now Belle was looking at him with sympathy and he hated it. She nursed wounded squirrels back to health and let every loser in school sit at her lunch table, for crying out loud. The girl always helped the helpless. But, Avenant wasn’t one of her oddball projects. He was a prince. As long as she was fighting with him, she knew he was strong. When she deliberately lost the spelling bee, he’d wanted to curl up into a ball and die. He couldn’t stand that Belle saw him as weak.
He wanted her to admire him. To like him.
Instead, she thought he was pathetic.
Avenant turned and jabbed a finger at her, trying not to cry. “Don’t ever pity me. You’re nobody. Just a commoner. I’m going to rule this whole kingdom someday. I live in a palace. You don’t live in a palace.” He waved a hand at the nouveau riche decorations of the library. Belle’s family lived in a nice house, but they were basically just socialites who’d stumbled into cash. “I’m royalty. You’re not royalty.
“I wouldn’t want to live in a palace.” Belle retorted. “And it seems horrible to be you, so I don’t want that, either.”
That just made him madder, because he knew she’d seen his parents yelling at him and she was pitying him, again. “Well, your parents didn’t even come to the spelling bee. Just like they didn’t come to the art show or your violin recital. It doesn’t matter to them what you do. Everyone knows that.” He was going too far, but he couldn’t stop. “I’m important. Important to everyone and you’re not important to anybody. If anything, I should feel sorry for you.”
She wasn’t looking at him with sympathy anymore. She wasn’t looking at him, at all. Avenant thought he’d wanted that, but it just made everything worse. She didn’t even answer him back and Belle always answered him back. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, knowing he’d hurt her feelings and not knowing how to fix it.
Belle stared down at the rug and didn’t say anything.
“I can have anything I want.” Avenant continued in a more deflated tone. “And when I marry my princess, she can have anything she wants.”
Belle’s eyes were swimming with tears and it made his stomach hurt. Deep inside, the Beast howled, knowing Belle was upset and blaming him for it. Usually Avenant tried to ignore the monster. His parents told him it was Bad, and wrong, and that he should lock it away. But Avenant was the one wrong, this time. He’d made Belle cry and the Beast knew he was wrong, wrong, wrong. Her tears were the last thing in the world either of them wanted. He tried to think of something that would make it better.
“I can even get her horses.” Avenant gestured to the book she was reading. “I can buy my princess all the horses she asks for. Hundreds of them. We could ride them together. Or she could ride them alone. She probably won’t want to ride with me. I know. But she would be so important to me that it wouldn’t even matter, Belle, so long as she was happy and…”
“You’re never going to find your True Love, because nobody likes you.” She interrupted, wiping at her cheeks. “You’re mean and horrible.”
Avenant winced. “But, I’m a prince. Lots of girls would want to marry a prince.”
“If you think that’s True Love, I really do feel sorry for you.”
“Because you know everything about True Love, right?” He retorted, stung by her words. “You don’t know anything.”
“I read books. I know what it is and I know you can’t just buy it like a horse. My True Love is going to be a knight in shining armor.”
Avenant didn’t like hearing that. “He’ll have to be blind, too.” He muttered, just to make her mad.
Belle pointed towards the door. “Go home. I don’t want you here. I’m sorry I tried to be friends, okay? It won’t happen again. Just leave.”
“Friends?” Hope filled him. Even the Beast was calmed by the idea. “Wait, you want to be friends? We can be friends.”
“Are you crazy?!” She gaped at him. “I will never be your friend, now.”
“Why not?” He demanded in disappointment. No one had ever asked him to be friends before, but he was supposed to be friends with Belle. It was what he wanted. To have her like him the way he liked her. For one gleaming second, Avenant even pictured them riding horses together. “We could at least try.”
“I don’t want to try. You’re ungrateful and selfish and you’re a bully.” More tears fell, but now they were angry. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. I would never be friends with a beast like you.”
Avenant’s insides turned cold. His mind took her words and automatically filtered t
hem through all the experiences of his short life. He didn’t consider the fact that he’d just made her cry and that was why she was refusing to be friends. All he heard was that she didn’t want to be around him because he was Bad. It was the same reason his parents hated to even look at him and why the kingdom whispered about him in disgust. Because, he wasn’t Good.
He wasn’t worthy.
Belle was too important for someone like him. Deep down he knew that and it made him insane.
“I don’t want to be your friend, anyway.” Avenant shouted. “I have a lot of friends already. Better friends than you. Interesting friends. And we do a lot of interesting things.”
“So go bother them, Mr. Popular!”
“I will. I don’t have time to hang out with someone so boring.”
She swiped at her nose. “And don’t come back!”
“I won’t.” Avenant slammed out the door and then stood in her hallway. He stared at the tacky gilt mirror across from him, breathing hard and hating what he saw. In that second, he knew Belle would never, ever be his friend.
He slowly slid down the wall, not wanting to see his reflection. Avenant sat there for a long moment feeling broken. The backs of his eyes burned and he pulled his knees up to his chest to hide his face. She would never, ever like him. Not ever. Because he wasn’t Good enough. His parents were right. He was a beast. Belle saw it, too. She probably just wanted to pretend he didn’t exist, now. To go through the rest of her life never, ever thinking about him, again.
Avenant’s jaw tightened.
No. She wasn’t going to ignore him. That would be worse than getting locked in the closet. Belle had to talk to him. Avenant wanted her to notice him and, no matter what it took, he was going to have her attention.
So, if she wouldn’t like him… then he’d make sure she hated him.
Chapter Four
We had kind of a sick joke down at the station that Avenant didn’t have an enemy in the world.
…At least not for long.
Testimony of Morgana Le Fey, Sheriff of the Northlands- The People of the Northlands v. Prince Avenant
Belle gazed around the icy interior of the labyrinth and let out a long breath. Enough light filtered through the ice that she could see around her. It looked like temple, with massive columns supporting an arched roof. It was warmer inside than it had been out, but the scale of the place creeped her out. She felt very small in the vast space; every sound she made magnified and judged by whatever ancient beings still dwelled here.
No one else was in sight, which didn’t surprise Belle considering she and Avenant were the last two people to enter the maze. It was only the first room and already six hallways went in six different directions, each one as long and frosty as the next. They all looked identical, with ominous symbols carved above each doorway.
Basically, she had no idea which way to choose, she was tethered to her mortal enemy, and she was currently tied for last place. All in all, this contest could be starting off a lot better.
She looked up at Avenant and decided to be decisive. “I’m going left.” She informed him. Given his normal spirit of cooperation and the challenge in her tone, Belle expected him to instantly tell her that he was headed right.
Instead, he just shrugged. “Fine.” He checked his gold watch. “Let’s just get this over with, so I can go home. I have important things to do today.”
“Hitting puppies with rocks or evicting the elderly?”
“Repopulating my dungeon. I’ll probably have to expand it, too, given how many uppity peasants will need cells there.”
“I got rid of the dungeon, when I took over the Northlands. It was an archaic pit of torture and sadness. We painted it yellow and now we use it as a daycare center for the children of the palace staff. We have a swing set and everything.” She shot him a meaningful glare. “Not all of us get our kicks out of firing Mother Goose.”
“That children’s show was annoying. All they did was sing. Badly. I was right to cancel it.”
“Well, when I get control of the kingdom again, I’m putting it back on the air. It promotes early reading skills.”
“You’re so fucking soft.” He muttered. “It’s a miracle you weren’t killed off long ago.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s on your ‘to do’ list.” Belle started down the left hallway, trying to act more confident than she felt. She was silent for a beat, but curiosity overcame her. “So what did Scarlett mean when she said she’d gotten help for you? Did she send someone else in here to lend a hand?”
“I have no idea.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “If she did, she shouldn’t have bothered. I can do this just fine on my own.”
“You really think you’re going to just stroll in, find Excalibur, and be done with the whole contest in a couple of hours, huh?”
“That’s my plan.”
“That’s a terrible plan.” She waved a hand around them. “Look where we are.” Already, new corridors were jutting off and twisting into infinity. They could literally spend months exploring them all. “Obviously, this is going to take a while to figure out.”
He scoffed at that idea, because he truly was the most arrogant man ever born. “There has to be a trick to it. We just need to discover what it is and we’ll be fine.”
It annoyed her whenever she had to agree with him. “I know. And I researched this labyrinth, with that idea in mind.” Belle nodded. “You’re right. It was built by your grandmother’s great-great-great grandfather, but Prince Adam wasn’t a drunken lunatic. He was actually a very impressive man. Intelligent, inventive, kind to his people…” She glanced at Avenant. “I can only imagine his genes are recessive.”
“I hope so, given he was a drunken lunatic.”
“No, he wasn’t. I’m telling you. I found his dairy in the royal library and it was filled with so many amazing ideas. Way more interesting than the writings of your other relatives.”
“No one’s ever read those ponderous journals.” Avenant peered off down a random hall, trying to see the end. “Dear God. I can’t imagine anything duller. They weren’t even written to be read. They were written to sit on shelves and look important.”
“I read them. As soon as I took over the Northlands, I studied everything I could on how to rule a kingdom. I wanted to do a good job.”
“And so you turned to my relatives for tips?” He rolled his eyes. “You poor girl.”
“Adam was a brilliant man.” Belle insisted.
Avenant grunted. “I’m feeling far less charitable towards the drunken lunatic. Especially since I’m standing in the middle of his ridiculous mousetrap.” Avenant ran a finger over the blocks of ice that made up the wall.
Belle was beginning to rethink the idea that the ice was filtering daylight and causing the eerie illumination. The walls themselves seemed to glow.
“You know, if you really wanted to help the Northlands, you should’ve had this stupid maze closed down and left my dungeon alone.” Avenant told her.
“I never even thought about the labyrinth before our court hearing.” Belle had been focused on the parts of the Northlands with the actual people in them. She hadn’t paid any attention to some relic tucked away in the farthest corner of the kingdom. No one ventured up here unless they were stupid or desperate. “I don’t think anyone remembered it existed, at all. Except you.” She shot him a suspicious frown. “How did you come up with the idea of a contest of valor right off the top of your head, anyway?” Even her lawyer needed to look up what it meant.
“When you’re an actual ruler and not a usurper, you intuitively know things.”
“I intuitively know you’re lying.”
“You’ve always been a bitter person.” He said sadly. “You should try to let go of the past and focus on your future. You have so little of it left. It only seems smart to make the most of the scant days that remain before your execution.”
Belle stopped walking and turned to pin him with a serious look. “If we�
��re going to be stuck with each other for a while, do you think you could stop sniping? Do you think you could attempt to make this partnership work?”
“Can you?”
Belle sighed. “I’ll try not to kill you if you try not to kill me. Deal?”
He considered that. “Give me a reason.”
“Simple. Unlike you, I didn’t just leave Adam’s journal sitting on its dusty shelf. I brought it along with me, because it has instructions on how to solve this maze.” She dug the journal out of her coat pocket and held it up. All life’s answers could be found in books. Belle believed that completely. “If you’re civil, I’ll share what I’ve figured out so far.”
Avenant stared at her. “That’s a good reason.” He allowed.
“I thought you’d see it my way.” Belle flipped to the section she’d marked. “Now, I read it all over and it seems like it’s in a code. Like riddles only… not.”
“Coded not-riddles written by a drunken lunatic.” Avenant sighed. “I’m suddenly remembering why I hated those tedious stories my mother used to tell about my tedious ancestors. I should just turn everyone into an ice cube and win the contest by process of elimination.”
Belle ignored that. “The journal talks about how the labyrinth was built as a test for princes. Solving it is supposed to prove their worth.”
“Uh-huh.” He checked his watch again.
“It has three different parts to it, all of them needing different skills. We’re on the ice level. It’s designed to test the first quality that every prince needs.”
“Money?”
“No.” She held up the page so he could see. “It says it ‘A prince must burn through an icy heart and help those around him. By focusing beyond his own selfish desires, he shows he is worthy of victory.’”
He leaned closer to her. “Which means what exactly? Aside from the fact that Adam had real potential as a fortune cookie author.”
Belle tried very hard not to notice his perfect profile. When she was this close to Avenant, it was hard to breathe. It just wasn’t fair that he was so attractive, considering his true nature. You should be able to look at him and see he was a beast. His handsomeness was false advertising.
Beast in Shining Armor (A Kinda Fairy Tale) Page 5
