Bella could feel it; feel the beast warring with the man for control. She kept her eyes on the wolf’s eyes, refusing to look away. The magic was a mere shadow of what had been here last night, but she gathered it up, anyway, and thrust it at him, backing it with her will. “Come back to me,” she whispered to him. “Come back to me. Come back to me!”
The beast was not going to give up. As she stared into the wolf’s eyes, she sensed the epic struggle going on inside him, a struggle created by Eric. She would not turn away from it; she would not, not even if it meant she would watch him lose that struggle.
“There’s always tomorrow,” she whispered to herself. Just because he lost today, it didn’t follow things would always be that way.
She continued to will magic power to him, fighting beside him as best she could. And just when she was certain that he had lost, and the beast had won, and those guards were going to prod him into the iron box — the wolf gave another huge, convulsive shake —
And when he looked up again, she saw Sebastian.
Before she could say anything, the wolf suddenly jumped up onto his hind feet and began to “dance.” Then he dropped to the floor and “rolled over,” sat up on his haunches to beg and gave one of the guards who was a little too close a wicked look and raised his hind leg —
“Oy!” the guard exclaimed, jumping back with alarm.
Sebastian sat, tongue lolling out in a doglike grin.
The King considered the wolf for a moment. Then slowly, deliberately, he raised his hands to applaud.
Without waiting for the guards to remove the silver wire, Bella threw herself at Sebastian and encircled his neck with her arms. Sebastian didn’t lick her, as she half expected, but he did nuzzle her neck comfortingly, then looked back at the King, every inch of him proclaiming, mine.
“We’ll be talking tomorrow, Duke Sebastian,” the King said, getting to his feet and looking down on both of them. “Your usefulness as a wizard is going to be rivaled by that as a shifter. And I suppose you two want Royal permission to wed?”
“Absolutely,” Bella replied firmly, as the wolf nodded.
The King smiled wryly. “Very well, then. You have it.” He stroked his beard. “I must say, though, this may be the first time in history when the Royal gift to the bride and groom is going to include the Royal crest on a big leather collar, a leash and fleabane — ”
And with that, the King fled, and was chased, chuckling, from the room, by the Godmother, Bella and Sebastian, with Sebastian snapping his teeth at the Royal Posterior the whole way.
Epilogue
SEBASTIAN STOOD NERVOUSLY IN FRONT OF THE DESK. Behind the desk sat Bella’s father, hands steepled in front of his face.
Bella herself was not in the room, but her father had forgotten that she was a sorceress now, and that there were many reflective surfaces in his office. She was in the dining room, hands cupped around her own mirror, watching. And listening. Elena had enchanted the mirror to bring in sound as well as vision.
The reunion with her family — extended family, really, since it had included the servants — had been intense. Her father had actually wept. The twins had been wild with excitement, especially when they got the bare bones of the story — Genevieve had been the one that had surprised Bella the most, though. She’d taken Bella aside and tearfully made absolutely certain that neither Sebastian nor Eric had “interfered” with her. “Because if they have, I shall murder them myself, although that horrible Gamekeeper is dead, so I can’t murder him, but I will do something unforgivable to him, I promise you! I don’t know what, but I am sure that I will think of something!”
When Bella had assured her that nothing of that nature had happened, Genevieve had relaxed, then dragged her off to the parlor and made her go into much greater detail. Long before Bella had admitted that she and Sebastian were in love and that he was going to come in person to ask for her hand, Genevieve had figured it out.
“Oh!” she exclaimed as Bella told her how Sebastian had started to teach her magic. “Oh! Don’t tell me!” She clasped her hands together like an excited little girl. “You two fell in love, didn’t you? He’s asked you to wed him!”
Bella had stared at her, dumbfounded. Genevieve beamed at her. “That is exactly how your father and I fell in love! I was all in a muddle with my accounts. You know my first husband was in the Drapers Guild, and when I went there to look for help, there was Henri on some business or other and I dropped all my account books and he picked them up and asked why I looked so upset and I started to cry and he offered to help me straighten everything out and I said, yes, please, and he started to teach me to do the accounting properly and the next thing I knew he was proposing and I was saying yes!”
Bella had just blinked at her, a little stunned by the avalanche of words. “You said yes, of course, right?” Genevieve persisted. “It’s lovely that he is a Duke and all that, but he seems to be the right sort of person for you! The King has already invested him on the Council! I can’t think of anyone better suited to wed a sorcerer-werewolf — ”
Then she paused, and her brows creased with puzzled chagrin. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it to — ”
Bella had laughed, and patted her stepmother’s arm comfortingly. “I understand exactly what you mean, Genevieve. I’m not exactly a very conventional person, and I would need a rather unconventional mate.”
Genevieve’s relieved smile had been quite genuine. “Of course, it is really rather good for the girls that he’s a Duke…”
Now there was one more hurdle to be dealt with. Henri Beauchamps.
“So. The King speaks very highly of you, Duke Sebastian,” said Henri. “But I have some concerns.”
“Naturally, sir,” Sebastian said politely, but Bella could tell from his posture that he was tense.
