Desperately Ever After: Book One: Desperately Ever After Trilogy by Laura Kenyon

Author:Laura Kenyon [Kenyon, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laura Kenyon
Published: 2014-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Later that afternoon, Belle took a stroll through Capitol Park. The sun was bright, the air was warm, and the breeze carried the sounds of a thousand voices shouting “Bring back Belle!” and “Clear as a Belle!”

By now, strolls had become veritable parades. As Rapunzel put it, she was “a thousand times more important than that lady who broke Donner’s curse.” Belle thought she was right—especially if the Mirror’s mockery of her previous disguises was true. Perhaps everyone had always known who she was in public—they just didn’t care. Before, it seemed, she was cream at a dinner party; people liked it well enough, but no one was going to rush out to the market if they could just use milk instead. Now, she was the wine. There was no substitute.

She was watching a pair of teenagers throw a ball around, when something big and warm rammed into her leg. She jumped and dropped her bags.

“Beast!” someone shouted in the distance. “Beast no! Come! Beast, come!”

Belle saw his eyes first. Huge, brown, gentle. Then his nose—large and dark. Then his ears—one drooped and shiny, the other folded inside out. His head came up almost to her waist.

“Beast!”

A spritely woman sprinted over to her, a black leash tailing behind her. She clipped it into the dog’s collar and caught her breath. “I’m so sorry. He must—oh!”

The woman recognized Belle and shrunk back. She pulled on her t-shirt, which was three times too big and had a giant screen print of Belle’s face beneath the words “The True Queen.” A pearl bunny pin clipped the excess material at her hip.

“Well, this is embarrassing.” She shifted in place. “I volunteered for Canines in Need today.” She motioned back toward a folding table covered in blue plastic. “But I wanted to join the protestors too, so …” She tapped her shirt. “Two birds, one scone.”

Belle stared back in confusion. “Scone?”

The woman nodded matter-of-factly. “As an animal lover, that other bird saying just appalls me. I’m Emilia.”

“Belle.”

“Well, I’m sorry about Beast. He’s really a sweet dog, just not very focused.” She jerked forward as Beast lunged toward a poodle a few feet away. He slapped his front paws against the grass, thrust his butt into the air, and began waving his tail like a long, gray flag.

Belle laughed. “Is that a yoga stance?”

Emilia smiled. “He just wants to play. Alllllll the time.”

“How long have you had him?”

Now it was Emilia’s turn to look confused. “Oh. Oh, he’s not mine. He’s one of the shelter dogs. We’ve been hoping to find him a home for six months now.”

“Six months?” Belle looked at the dog. He must have sensed this, because he immediately sprung up to a regal sitting position and stared directly back at her. She didn’t know much about dogs—Donner had nixed the idea once, and that had been it—but she’d heard it wasn’t good if they looked you in the eye. Then again, if this was for the same reason Donner didn’t like the staff looking him in the eye, then Belle liked Beast more because he broke it.

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