Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Epilogue (REN)

SANNAH - January 2011

Evie cried all night, with her head tucked carefully against my side so that I could not see her face. But even though I couldn't see her crying, it didn't make it any easier to bear.

She tried not to, she did all that she could to hold it back but there was only so much sorrow that she could bury down inside of her and that was past her limit. She was scared and so was I. Everything was changing.

Just as I'd feared my whole life, I had become the beast that I was born to be. And even though Beauty loved the Beast, it was not enough to keep me human.

I wished I could have remembered my interaction with Alaric a lot sooner. There were so many things that he had said that held so much meaning. I'd been too panicked at the time to listen and afterwards it seemed erased from my memory. But Alaric knew I would be safe.

As I fell asleep that night, wrapped up in Evie's arms, Alaric's voice echoed in my mind saying one very clear thing while I remained unable to make any sense of it.

In death, we are freed of the darkness in our souls.

**

"REN!"

I was so tired.

"REN! WAKE UP!"

Everything was so loud. I didn't know why Evie thought it was necessary to be yelling at the top of her lungs so early in the morning. I grumbled something unintelligible to her and tried to return to my sleep. The second wakeup call came when I noticed the extra weight that was laying on top of my body. I forced one eye open to stare up into Evie's blurry face.

"Why are you straddling me?" I laughed in a groggy voice, taking in the view of Evie's body sat atop of me, legs parted on either side of my waist. "You do realize you're currently straddling me, right?"

Evie's eyes opened impossibly wide and she froze for a few split seconds.

"Oh my god, your eyes." she gasped, completely ignoring my previous question.

I opened my other eye and slowly Evie's face started to come into focus. She was now grinning like a madman, but her face was covered in wet streaks from a large amount of tears. In fact, she was still crying, blubbering and wiping her face while she looked down at me. My comment made Evie blush and I felt her legs as they became tenser on my body but she didn't move or make any action to try get off of me. Not that I was going to complain about it or anything, but I wasn't quite awake enough to comprehend the next action I should take.

"So the straddling is just a thing that is happening. That's cool."

"Ren, shut up for two seconds and think." Evie said, sounding almost giddy.

Think? What did she mean 'think'?

All I could think about was that Evie was sitting on top of my lap, facing me, in bed. It was distracting. She smelt excited and magical and I thought I was about to lose my mind. It was more than distracting.  Or was that the point?

I smirked at her and looked her carefully up and down. She followed my eyes with her own and shook her head.

"Don't think about that," she scolded and I shrugged.

"What am I meant to think about, then?" I grumbled.

"You're human, Ren." Evie said carefully, her voice still very much excited, but weighing out each word to make sure that I got the corrected meaning.

Human.

Stupid.

Why was I so God damn stupid?