The implication hung in the air between us. If Estelle hadn’t been in the hell dimension with our parents, and she wasn’t here now that the curse was broken, then she was somewhere else. Somewhere the Dark Lord had hidden her away from her family. From her protectors.
I thought of all the times Estelle had defied our parents, snuck out of the castle, explored the forest alone despite the dangers. She had been barely seventeen when the curse struck, headstrong and beautiful and convinced of her own immortality in the way only the very young could be. If Hades wanted leverage...
“I’ll find her,” I said, the promise rough in my newly human throat. “Whatever it takes.”
Isabeau stepped closer, her warmth a comfort I hadn’t known I needed. “We,” she corrected softly. “We’ll find her.”
I looked down at her, this woman who had changed everything. Who had given herself to beasts without fear. Who had faced a god and survived. Who had claimed four mates and bound them to her with magic older than kingdoms.
“Yes,” I agreed, taking her hand and bringing it to my lips in a gesture that felt both foreign and deeply right. “We will.”
The golden light from the claiming mark pulsed once more, stronger than before, connecting all five of us across thebattlefield. Isabeau, my brothers, and Alain. Whatever came next, we would face it together. As mates. As equals.
But first, I really did need some fucking clothes.
sixty-six
Isabeau
The words “we’ll find her” hung in the air like a promise wrapped in thorns. Everyone spoke of reunion and homecoming while my mind raced with the missing piece—Estelle, the lost princess. I stood there, watching two kings embrace after decades apart, feeling the weight of my claiming mark pulsing against my skin.
The forest around us had transformed from a place of nightmares to something alive with ancient magic, but all I couldthink about was a face I’d seen once, a wraith spying on me for Gaspard. A face that now might have a name.
My gaze drifted over the gathering crowd. The subjects of the Enchanted Realm blinking in bewildered joy at their freedom, the soldiers of Durand trying to make sense of what they’d witnessed. The newly transformed men who had once been my beasts stood magnificent despite their nakedness, and something burned in my chest at the sight of them in their true forms. Marcel’s quiet authority, Laurent’s watchful intelligence, Bastien’s raw intensity. All of it now housed in human bodies that made my breath catch.
And yet, amid all this impossible joy, the absence of Estelle weighed heavy. A sister, a daughter, a princess…lost to the Dark Lord’s machinations.
“Alain,” I said suddenly, the memory crashing into me with the force of revelation. I turned to find him standing a few paces away, his golden light fading but his presence no less commanding. “The wraith.”
He frowned, stepping closer. “What wraith?”
“Gaspard’s creature.” The words tumbled out, urgent and breathless. “She was real. She had blonde hair, like your mother’s, and I remember her portrait in the castle.”
Alain father’s face drained of color. “Odette,” he whispered, the name a prayer and a curse combined. “My daughter.”
Alain recalled our talk. “She came to me in the reflection of the river’s water too.”
Marcel looked over at me. His knowing eyes wondering what I saw because it had been Laurent with me. “What were her eyes like?”
“Constantly changing but with scenery, not color,” I answered.
“She’s been tethered to a mirror,” the oldest prince answered. “It’s old, evil magic. Tying an innocent soul to do the bidding ofits master. And if we can find that magic mirror, she might be able to offer insight of our own sister’s whereabouts.”
“My father has been searching for Odette for years,” Alain explained, his eyes never leaving mine. “She vanished during her stay with my mother’s friends, to one of our border villages. The same village where—”
“Where Gaspard lived before coming to Thorndale ten years ago,” I finished, pieces clicking into terrible place. "Burshire, the closest village to The Noble City."
Alain nodded grimly, then turned toward his father. “Father, we need to speak with you. It’s about Odette.”
King Geraint broke away from his conversation with the rulers of the Enchanted Realm about their missing daughters, his expression immediately sharpening at the mention of his daughter’s name.
“Gaspard Coventry,” Alain said, his voice steady despite the rage I could feel thrumming through our bond. “He possessed dark artifacts. Not just the ones he used to track Isabeau, but something more powerful. A wraith that spied on her, that haunted her dreams and found me in a water’s reflection.”
I stepped forward, despite feeling woefully underdressed among royalty. My dress was torn and bloodied, my hair wild from battle, but the claiming mark gave me courage. “Your Majesty, Gaspard has been evil long before he took possession of me. My first night there, I heard a woman trapped—crying, pleading. I thought it was a nightmare, a hallucination from...” I faltered, not wanting to speak aloud of the violations I’d suffered.
“From what he did to you,” the king finished quietly, his eyes holding none of the judgment I’d feared. “Go on.”
“She matches Odette’s description,” I continued. “And now, learning about Estelle being missing as well, I wonder if Gaspardwas collecting royalty for the Dark Lord. Trapping them in objects to feed off their power.”
