The Beast Inside | ✓

Epilogue

Bella blushed as she tried to remove her hand from Adam's grasp. "You need to sleep, Adam, and for that, you have to let go of my hand."

Adam shook his head, pouting as his hair fell in front of his eyes, just like it used to when he was a beast. "I don't  ever want to let go of you," he whined, making Bella smile.

"You have not recovered fully. You need to rest. I promise I'll visit you first thing in the morning," Bella compromised.

Adam smiled deviously, a beautiful sight as he laid on his bed, pulling Bella into his arms. "Alright then, but I want my goodnight kiss."

Bella's eyes widened. "Adam!" she exclaimed, turning her eyes away as her cheeks bloomed with a dark shade of red.

She tugged her hand away and hurriedly walked out of the room, her eyes downcast as shyness reigned over her body. Just before she reached the bedroom door, she turned around, giving him a small smile. "Goodnight, Adam. I'll see you tomorrow."

She vaguely heard a goodnight in return and she walked back to her own room. As she snuggled under the covers of her comfortable bed, her mind went back to the day Adam got shot, as it did frequently every night.

Bella's eyes widened as Adam's eyes closed, shaking him by the shoulders to wake him up. She grasped his hand to check his pulse, her heart thudding when she could not feel a pulse.

No! Adam cannot die! Bella refused to believe that this would be her reality, clutching Adam's shirt as she sobbed into it.

A soothing chime started to ring around the castle and a winged angel descended to the ground beside Adam's lifeless body.

"Don't worry, Bella," she said calmly, "he is not going to die for the curse has indeed been reversed."

Bella looked up with her, the tenseness in her body releasing as she registered the words.

"He will live?" she asked, simply to confirm it.

"He will," she stated. "Bella, I want you to tell him something. Tell him the curse was broken because the Beauty he had been searching for was himself. He had to love himself despite his flaws, and he had to become humble enough to love his family too."

Giving Bella a gentle smile, she replied, "I am glad he found you in the process though, Bella."

Bella returned the smile, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "How do you know that his curse was lifted? Are you an angel?"

The lady smiled, her wings fluttering with the cool breeze. "No, Bella, I'm not an angel. I am, in fact, the witch who cursed him five hundred years ago."

With that, she flapped her wings, before taking off into the sky, leaving Bella tensed with both horror and relief.

Three weeks later, the encounter still did not leave Bella's mind. For some reason, knowing that she was not the cause of Adam becoming a human again, it made her feel insecure. As though, he would leave her if he found out that she was not the Beauty that he was searching for.

He loved her though, her mind warred, and love was not that fickle. Yet, the possibility that he would let her go, that she would lose the love she newly found, was enough to keep her up at night.

Shaking her head, Bella tried to dislodge these thoughts from taking forefront on her mind and turned her body, wrapping the covers around her tightly as she prepared for another sleepless night.

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As the sun rose, so did the castle. Bella entered the dining room for breakfast with the grace of a tornado, as a complete mess. Although she looked positively radiant, her dress and hair were a complete mess. That was probably due to the girl hanging off her back; who was also known as Diana, her best friend.