“Oh my,” I breathed, sitting up straighter. “All this time... I’ve been sharing a bed with a prince.”
The absurdity of it struck me suddenly, and a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up from my chest. Here I was, a village girl accused of witchcraft, the daughter of an inventor who’d been sacrificed to blood-drinking roses, and I’d somehow ended up as the mate of a cursed royal. It was like one of Papa’s fairy tales, only darker and stranger and infinitely more complicated.
“Well, Your Highness,” I said, unable to keep a hint of teasing from my voice despite the gravity of our discovery, “I suppose I should be more respectful now that I know you’re of noble birth.”
Beast made that rumbling sound that I’d come to recognize as laughter, then nudged the journal again with his snout, clearly wanting me to continue my questioning.
I returned to the pages, scanning until I found the passage where Charlotte had named her three sons. “Let’s see... Queen Charlotte and King Henri had three sons—Prince Marcel, the eldest, with his diplomatic nature. Prince Laurent, the middle child, serious and studious with his mother’s amber eyes. And Prince Bastien, the youngest, always getting into mischief.”
I looked up at Beast, studying his amber eyes with new understanding. “You’re not Prince Marcel, are you?”
Beast shook his head.
“I thought not.” I felt a strange fluttering in my chest, like birds taking wing. The one I believed him to be was the second son based on how he communicated with compassion. “Prince Laurent, then? The middle son serious and studious?”
His whole body seemed to come alive with his nod, shifting closer to me on the bed, those intelligent eyes burning with something that might have been joy or relief or both. A sound emerged from his throat. Not quite a word, but something that strained toward speech, as if he was pushing against the very boundaries of the curse.
“Laurent,” I whispered, testing the name on my tongue, feeling its shape in my mouth. “Your name is Laurent.”
The simple act of naming him felt profound, like removing the first stone from a wall that had seemed impenetrable. He wasn’t just Beast anymore. He was Laurent. Prince Laurent, who had once walked these halls as a man, who had studied and learned and lived a human life before the curse had stolen it from him.
Tears pricked my eyes unexpectedly, hot and sudden. “Laurent,” I said again, reaching out to touch his face, running my fingers along the ridge of his brow where a man’s eyebrows would be. “It suits you better than Beast ever did.”
He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing briefly in what could only be described as contentment. When they opened again, something had shifted in their glowing depths. The constant wariness, the wild alertness that had been there since I’d known him, had softened into something more vulnerable, more human.
“I’ve been so unfair to you,” I admitted, my voice catching. “I’ve been thinking of you as two separate beings—the beast who claimed me and the man trapped inside him. But you’re one person, aren’t you? Laurent. Just Laurent, trying to survive whatever was done to you.”
He made a low sound of acknowledgment, pressing his forehead against mine in that gesture of intimacy I’d come to treasure. His fur was warm against my skin, his breath gentle on my face. For the first time, I tried to imagine the man beneath. Not as a separate entity, but as the true nature of the being I’d come to love. Prince Laurent, with amber eyes like mine, serious and studious as his mother had described.
“Do you remember?” I asked softly, pulling back just enough to see his eyes. “Being human, I mean. Does the curse let you remember who you were before?”
His nod was hesitant this time, qualified by a tilting motion of his head that suggested complexity beyond yes or no.
“Some things but not others?” I guessed. “Or maybe the memories are there but... faded? Distant?”
That earned me a nod, more definite this time.
“That’s why you can still read,” I realized aloud. “In the library, when I was reading to you. You were following along with the words, weren’t you?”
Laurent look puzzled at my words, but he pawed the journal to motion yes to reading. His stare was suddenly bright with an emotion I couldn’t quite name. Pride, perhaps, at being recognized for more than the beast he appeared to be. Or maybejust gratitude that someone was finally seeing him—truly seeing him—after who knew how long trapped in this form.
“Laurent,” I said a third time, just because I could, because his name was a gift I’d been given and I wanted to honor it. “Prince Laurent. I will find a way to break this curse. I swear it. Whatever it takes, I will find a way to bring you back.”
I wasn’t sure where the vow came from, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they were true. I would break this curse or die trying. Not just for Laurent, though the thought of restoring him to his human form made my heart race with possibilities I didn’t dare examine too closely. But for Papa too, and for myself, and for whatever connection bound us all together through our amber eyes and the magic that seemed to recognize me as its own.
Laurent’s massive paw came to rest on my hand where it lay against his cheek. The gesture was so human, so deliberate in its tenderness, that I had to blink back tears again.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I promised him. “Now that I know who you are, now that I know what questions to ask... we’re going to piece this puzzle together, Laurent. I feel it in my bones.”
He made a sound of agreement, low and resonant in the quiet room. Then, with the same gentle insistence he’d shown me since the beginning, he nudged me back against the pillows, clearly suggesting I should rest. My wounded arm throbbed in agreement, reminding me that I was still very much human, still vulnerable to the forest’s dangers despite whatever magic might run in my veins.
“Fine,” I conceded, settling back but keeping my hand buried in his fur. “But tomorrow, we start fresh. No more calling you Beast. No more treating you like you’re two separate entities. Just Laurent. A prince under a curse that we’re going to break, together.”
He settled beside me, his massive form curving protectively around mine as it had so many nights before. But now, knowing his name, knowing who he truly was beneath the fur and fangs, the gesture felt different. More deliberate. More precious.
Just before sleep claimed me, I murmured his name one more time, like a talisman against the darkness outside. “Goodnight, Laurent.”
And for the first time since I’d come to this castle, I slept without dreaming of wolves or ghosts or blood-drinking roses. Instead, I dreamed of a man with amber eyes who walked these halls as their rightful prince, who looked at me the way Beast—no, Laurent—did, with that same intensity of focus and depth of feeling that had become as necessary to me as breath.
