She laughed harder.
Then he looked at her.
Silence changed between them.
No armies.
No curse explanation.
No Queen.
Just two people on a ruined tower.
“Elara.”
“Yes?”
“I meant what I said.”
“What?”
“I will not ask you to break my curse.”
She looked at him.
“What if I ask?”
He froze.
Elara smiled slightly.
“You spent eighteen years refusing to turn me into payment for your freedom.”
“Yes.”
“That was stupid.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Noble.”
“Thank you.”
“And stupid.”
His ears, or what remained of them beneath fur, seemed to flatten.
Elara stepped closer.
“I am not marrying you because of a curse.”
“Good.”
“I am also not promising anything today.”
“Better.”
“But.”
He waited.
She placed one hand against his cheek.
“You may stop hiding in forests.”
His eyes softened.
“That sounds dangerously like an invitation.”
“It is an invitation to dinner.”
“Only dinner?”
“For now.”
Alaric smiled.
Even as a Beast, the expression changed his entire face.
Seraphine survived.
That surprised everyone.
Elara was not disappointed.
Death would have been simpler.
Truth was harder.
The former Queen was imprisoned in the east tower where she once held her own son.
Alaric visited once.
Only once.
Seraphine sat beside a narrow window.
No crown.
No emeralds.
Gray hair loose.
She looked smaller.
“Come to gloat?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I wanted to know if there was ever a time you loved me.”
Seraphine stared.
The question hurt more than accusation.
Eventually she answered.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When you were born.”
Alaric waited.
She looked away.
“And then?”
“I became afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That love made me weak.”
Alaric’s face tightened.
“So you made me a monster.”
“I tried making you impossible to destroy.”
“You confused those things.”
Silence.
He turned to leave.
Seraphine called after him.
“Will she break it?”
Alaric stopped.
“Elara.”
He looked back.
“The curse.”
Alaric smiled faintly.
“I no longer know if I want her to.”
Seraphine looked confused.
“That body is a prison.”
“No.”
He looked at his claws.
His fur.
His enormous frame.
“It was.”
Then he left.
Months passed.
Blackthorn rebuilt.
The court expected Alaric to hide.
He did not.
At first people stared.
Children cried.
Dogs barked.
Merchants closed shutters.
Alaric walked through the city anyway.
No hood.
No chains.
No apology.
Elara often walked beside him.
Not because he needed protection.
Because she enjoyed watching pompous nobles move quickly out of the way.