but if I — I won’t hold you to what you said. If you want to go home and forget you ever saw me, and I don’t blame you — ” He stopped, evidently forgetting every word of a speech he must have memorized. Instead, he tentatively took her hand, and looked mournfully into her eyes. “Please — please don’t go.”
A huge knot of tension released itself. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had been sure that after last night he would never want to see her again. Whether out of guilt, or trying to protect her, or some other daft reason, she had been certain he was going to send her away, and he was the Duke; she would have had no more choice in the matter than when she had been sent here.
And then, probably, he would ask the Godmother and the King to lock him up somewhere — somewhere far away, where he would be a danger to no one but deer and rabbits.
She took his other hand. “You couldn’t drive me away,” she declared, and his eyes lit up with that expression she had come to love. “It will be all right. It has to be.”
“The Tradition does demand a happy ending…” he said, although he still sounded uncertain.
“Even if it didn’t we’ll make it give us one,” she said fiercely.
Which was why, when they entered the workroom, they entered it together, hand in hand, which drew an amused look from the Godmother and a raised eyebrow from the King.
Bella had not had a chance to look at the King before, and she had never seen him except at a distance, so while he studied them, she studied him.
He didn’t look old enough to have a full-grown son, but perhaps the rumors about the royal family having some Elven blood in them were true. He certainly looked as fit as Eric, and of the same physical type, including the dark and slightly sardonic features, but that was where the resemblance ended. There was nothing of that undercurrent of cruel indifference that had tinted everything Eric had said or done, even when he was at his most charming.
But there could be no mistake about it. He could be utterly ruthless when he needed to. And that was demonstrated by the two guards with crossbows with silver-tipped quarrels already loaded, the silver collar and chains at his feet, and the iron box in the middle of the floor.
“Well, Duke Sebastian,” the King said, in a voice like velvet over steel. “Your curse has been changed. If you can’t demonstrate to us that you’ve changed it for the better, Godmother Elena and I are going to relocate you, as we have discussed previously.”
“Then you relocate me with him, Your Majesty,” Bella said, without waiting to be addressed, raising her head defiantly. “Where he goes, I go.”
“Thus depriving my kingdom of a promising sorceress?” The King gave her an opaque look. “Have you no sense of duty to your King?”
“You weren’t the one who was bundled up here by armed men with no warning and no explanation!” she snapped. “I think I stopped owing you anything when you snatched every right I had out from under me!”
“She has you there, Eddy,” the Godmother murmured. “And I did warn you that not everyone is going to take to being treated in that fashion quietly. That’s how The Tradition makes rebels. You’re lucky she hasn’t grabbed a knife, taken you hostage and absconded with Sebastian to set themselves up as forest bandits.”
The King muttered something under his breath, his brows knitting.
“You wanted strong and independent thinkers, Eddy, not sheep. You wanted people who, in an emergency, could be counted on to pick up whatever weapon there was and defend themselves and their Kingdom. Don’t complain to me when you also get young ladies like this one.” She folded her arms over her chest, and gave him a decided look.
The King muttered something into his beard. Then he sighed. “A King is not supposed to apologize for anything, and I absolutely will not apologize for the steps I took to safeguard other people of my realm from a potential monster. But the man apologizes for not having the wit to see that you deserved a better explanation than you got, and something other than the sort of arrest that more properly is handed out to a convicted criminal.”
Bella tried not to gape with astonishment. After a moment, she made a curtsy, and replied, “I accept the man’s apology, Your Majesty. But I am not going to leave the man I love to live out the rest of his life in lonely exile.”
He nodded a little stiffly. “Very well, then. Now…I suppose we wait until moonrise.”
“It’s not far off, Majesty,” Sebastian said in a strained voice. “I can feel it.”
Godmother Elena sighed. “Well, that answers the first question.” She looked at Bella. “You might want to look away. This isn’t pleasant.”
Wordlessly she shook her head. The Godmother shrugged. “Then you’ll have to come over here. If he can’t control himself, I don’t want you on my conscience as his first victim.”
Much as she hated to leave him alone — that made sense. Reluctantly she let go of Sebastian’s hand, and stood beside the Godmother. Sebastian stood beside the iron box — which had breathing grates set into the door on the front — and one of the guards encircled him and the box with braided silver wire, twisting the ends together so that it formed a rough magic circle.
Then, they waited.
When the change came, it came with brutal suddenness. One moment Sebastian was standing in the silver circle, looking determined. The next, he had let out a horrible, burbling cry, dropping to his knees, and then to all fours.
Muscles rippled, and there were terrible popping and crunching sounds as the bones moved under his flesh, elongating and shortening, relocating, and the flesh and muscle itself grew or shrank to accommodate the changes. His loose clothing must have been designed for this, since he shook it off almost immediately as he convulsed. A thick pelt of hair erupted all over his body. His face was the worst to watch, as it stretched and pulled, the ears migrating to the top of his head, his teeth growing so fast she could see it happen. And all of this was accompanied by heartbreaking moans and gasps and whines of pain, until with a final convulsion, everything settled into place, and the wolf raised its muzzle and uttered that howl that had become so familiar to her, that long sobbing cry of despair.
Then the wolf dropped its head and stared at them.
