The Beauty and the Beast (1st book of Fantasy Series)

Chapter 42- Reif's POV

My shoulders sagged with relief when she told me that she trusted me even after everything that had happened between us, and my heart skipped a beat before it pounded harder in my chest. "Really?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, and she bit back a laugh and nodded. "Do you mean that?"

"Yes," she said and laughed while she nodded in confirmation. "I trust you, and I do mean it."

I bit back a sigh of relief before I slowly nodded. "Now, are you going to get the saddle off of your horse so that you can ride again?" I asked while I raised an eyebrow in question, and she nodded again.

"Y-"

"Shut up, Peter," Belle said, interrupting him while she looked at her cousin. "We have already been through this multiple times. I am going to do it even with whatever you have to say."

Peter rolled his eyes and scowled. He didn't say another word while he folded his arms across his chest, and she shook her head and bit back a small snort, amused.

Again, my mate shook her head before she walked over to Riser and started to roll up her stirrups before she started to pull off his girth from one side.

Riser breathed a sigh of relief when Belle finished untightening his girth on that side, and his whole body seemed to inflate outward as if he had been holding in his breath while she rode.

Belle snorted and gave him a weird look. "You were not dying, Rise," she said while she patted her horse's neck. "You were fine."

Riser snorted and shook his head before he slowly nodded as if to say that he was and had been dying because of how tight the girth was.

Belle bit back a small snort and shook her head, amused. "You were not, Riser. If you want to die, I could find a way to kill you." She looked at her horse and raised an eyebrow, and her horse took a step back and away from her, and she bit back a small chuckle while she shook her head again.

He gave her the stink eye and seemed to say that she wouldn't kill him, which I knew was true because she cared about him just as much as he did her.

"Of course, I won't, Rise," she said with another laugh in her voice. "Now, come back over here so that I can take your saddle and girth off so that we can continue to ride some more."

Riser snorted and shook his whole body, and the saddle fell off of his back with a large thunk. He looked at Belle, smug, and Belle stared at him with wide eyes and an opened mouth, amused and shocked.

"Riser," she said with a small laugh in her voice while she started to walk over to him. "What is that for?" she asked, and Riser snorted and shook out his body again to throw off the saddle blanket before he walked away further away from her.

"It looks like Riser doesn't want to be ridden any more," I teased while I narrowed my eyes playfully at her, and Belle bit back a small snort while she walked over to her saddle and started to grab his saddle from the ground.

"He doesn't care," she said while she picked it up and walked over to the fence, the girth dragging across the ground and leaving a path in its wake. "He will come over to me when I call him."

I bit back a small chuckle. "Are you sure?" I asked while I raised an eyebrow in question, and she nodded in confirmation while she placed the saddle on the fence. "And what if he doesn't?" I asked and raised the eyebrow higher.

"Then I will walk over to him," she said with a shrug while she grabbed the girth and started to take the girth off of the saddle. "I could also pretend to cry, which also helps get him to come over to me quickly because he doesn't like seeing me cry."