"What happened to Baltimore?" asked Barron. 

"Why?" asked Lucas.

"He speaks but I cannot hear a word from him. It is like he"s on mute and he"s playing the game of a mime," said the rabbit, climbing up the chair and then on the table to pick what he liked to eat it, "Though I don"t mind because he"s much easier to hang around, it is the other one I am worried about. He keeps talking to me even though I haven"t spoken a word to him."

"He"s taken an interest in you," stated Lucas for the rabbit to snap his head towards Lucas.

"Please, do not let that happen. He"s is clingy as f.u.c.k. What did you do to him that he wants to be attached to your hip?" demanded Barron. 

"Nothing," came the short answer that had both Belle and Barron give out suspicious look at him, "Before he turned to be a Grim reaper I was the one who took his soul from the realm of the living."

Barron"s bunny ears stood straight on his head, "Did he turn smitten?"

"He adores Lucas," Belle was the one who spoke, her fork moving on her plate, "Guilt was the perfect definition of what a Grim reaper was supposed to be. Cold, merciless, taking lives when the Hawverts commanded so that there could be order and balance. Greed followed Lucas everywhere he went. It was what he believed he wanted to be but seeing what he believed changing and according to him crumbling with the influence…" her voice trailed.

"If I didn"t know he was wors.h.i.+pping you, I would have thought he is in love with you," confessed Barron, shaking his head, "But then I wondered what the Hawverts would say if they found that kind of information. What punishment would one be bestowed with?" 

"What are we going to do with the two Grims?" Belle finally questioned, "Are we really going to collect them all?" 

"No, just these two troublemakers who have been working with the black witches," answered Lucas to fill up the gla.s.s with wine in it. With their lack of movements, the black witches were on their own right now. The clock right now was ticking and they would have to wait for the needle to strike right, "I saw the first star today."

"Did you check how much more time she has?" asked Belle. 

"Seven weeks," hearing Lucas" answer, she realized it wasn"t too far. Seven weeks would pa.s.s just like that. It was close to one and a half month. 

Now that Belle had retrieved the spellbook from the fireplace which she must have burned it a long time ago, she could finally make use of it. 

Once she was done eating, and they went up to the room, Lucas asked, "I need to see your hands," and it made Belle wonder what it was about but she gave her hand to him. With her sleeves that stopped right above her arm which was loose, his eyes scanned for any black or discoloured patches on her skin but he could find none of it. 

"What are you looking for?" 

"Signs of you turning to a black witch that there was some rebound when you tapped into the forbidden magic. There are no marks on your skin, nor your eyes," he said before his eyes s.h.i.+fted to look at her, "I think you are at an advantage. Being part of the dead, the ability I mean."

"I don"t mind if I am dead if I get to stay with you forever," answered Belle without a hitch in her mind and he looked into her eyes. They were seated in her room with the door closed and on the bed, talking to each other on what had happened in the mansion as well as what Lucas had found out in the council.

"You"ve always been like this," he murmured to her, "Our past was nothing different to what we have right now with some minor changes." 

Somewhere deep down in the corner or back of her mind she was anxious that history would repeat and they would have to wait for a few more decades or centuries to meet each other. Finding each other to chase and pursue and fall in love with each other before whatever test awaited in front of them. 

"Was it something that I said that made you sad?" asked Lucas, his hands holding hers. He squeezed her hands in his and she shook her head. A soft smile appearing on her lips. 

"No, it wasn"t," she answered him, "This time should be different right?"

"Not every history has the same facts, Belle. People might be the same. The setting can be the same, but it is us who cause the ripples who change history," he a.s.sured her after sensing her worry in her heart, "I won"t let anything happen to you this time and like you said earlier, you are not that white witch anymore. You are a witch and a vampire at the same time, an overlapping of life abilities which has never happened before. As time goes you might not need me."

Belle shook her head immediately, "I will always want you."

Lucas smiled at the way Belle let out her feelings without holding it back. There was nothing guarding her and her heart was much free that had been chasing him since the beginning of the time.

"Of course," he answered her, "I will always be at your service, Miss Belle. Do not worry, if you"re lost I will always find you."

When she looked into his black, soulless looking eyes that often lacked emotions had something in them, and somewhere she could feel it around her. 

Lucas letting go one of her hands brought it to her face, to trace the side before pulling her close as he leaned forward to plant his lips on hers.