Laurent hadn’t moved, but his breathing had slowed, as if he were deliberately making less noise to hear my story better.
“The sound would carry all the way to our cottage at the edge of the village,” I said, my own voice taking on the rhythmic quality of well-loved tales. “If I was watching, waiting, I’d hear it and run for my own bell. I’d ring it in answer, as loud as I could, then sprint for the front gate to be the first to welcome him home.”
My throat tightened with emotion, but I pushed through it. “Some days, though, I’d grow impatient. Couldn’t bear the waiting, not for another moment. So I’d take my bell down to the big oak myself and ring it, over and over, hoping that somehow, wherever Papa was, he’d hear it and know I was thinking of him. Calling him home.”
I closed my eyes, picturing it so clearly. My small self, standing beneath that massive tree, ringing a bell that seemed too big for my hands, the sound echoing across fields that stretched away like an ocean of green.
“Most times, there was no answer,” I said softly. “But sometimes—and these were the moments I lived for—I’d hear ananswering ring. Distant but clear. Papa, close enough to hear, telling me he was coming.”
I opened my eyes to find Laurent still watching, unnervingly still. “I’d race home, breathless, bursting through the door to tell Mama, ‘He’s coming! Papa’s almost home!’ And she would laugh and brush the hair from my face and ask how many times I’d rung the bell today.”
The memory was so vivid I could almost feel my mother’s cool fingers against my forehead, smell the bread baking in her oven, hear the fondness in her voice as she chided me for my impatience.
“When Papa would finally arrive, Mama would tell him, ‘Your little bell rang fifteen times today’, or however many it had been. And he would scoop me up in his arms, laughing, and say, ‘Is that right, my little bell? Fifteen times?’”
I realized I was crying only when a tear splashed onto my hand, startling in its sudden warmth. “That’s what he called me after that. His little bell. Because I would always be the one he came home for, no matter how far he traveled.”
My voice broke on the last word, and I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, embarrassed by the sudden flood of emotion. When I looked up again, Laurent was directly in front of me, closer than I’d expected, closer than morning-Beast ever voluntarily came for anything other than our coupling.
His massive head was level with mine, those amber eyes fixed on my tear-streaked face with an intensity that stole my breath. He never got this close, not in the daylight hours. Kept his distance as if proximity to my humanity might weaken whatever animal instincts ruled him until sunset.
I held perfectly still, afraid that even breathing might break this fragile moment. Time stretched between us, measured in heartbeats rather than seconds.
Then, so gently it might have been my imagination, he leaned forward. His forehead touched mine, just for a moment, a point of warm contact that sparked something deep in my chest. Not claiming, not possessing. Connecting.
Before I could react, before I could even exhale the breath I’d been holding, he pulled back. The moment shattered as a deep rumbling vibration shook the castle around us.
Laurent’s head whipped toward the window, ears flattening against his skull. A growl built in his chest, low and threatening. Whatever had interrupted us was not just danger, it was enemy.
The rumbling intensified, like the earth itself was shifting beneath the castle foundations. Stone grated against stone somewhere below us, and dust sifted down from the ceiling. Then came the howls. Not wolf-sounds, not animal at all, but something that raised the hair on my arms and sent ice through my veins.
Laurent bolted for the door, moving with a speed that belied his size. He paused only briefly at the threshold, turning back to lock eyes with me once more. A warning. Stay. Hide. The message was clear even without words.
Then he was gone, the sound of his claws against stone fading as he raced toward whatever threat had arrived.
I struggled to my feet, swaying as another tremor shook the room. My borrowed slippers slid against the stone as I stumbled toward the window, one hand clutching the bedpost for support. The yellow and black gown I’d found in Queen Charlotte’s closet tangled around my ankles, nearly tripping me.
A wave of darkness washed over the day sky as I reached the window, like an eclipse that arrived in seconds rather than hours. The sudden dimming sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with temperature. Something unnatural was happening. Something worse than corrupted wolves or blood-drinking roses.
I gripped the windowsill, steadying myself as I peered down into the courtyard. What I saw stole the breath from my lungs.
Gaspard stood at the center of the cracked flagstones, but he was changed. Darkness clung to him like a second skin, writhing around his form in tendrils that seemed alive with malevolent purpose. Beside him stood a woman with wild black hair that moved of its own accord—the witch from Charlotte’s journal, it had to be.
And behind them both, towering at least three heads taller than any human should be, was a figure that could only be the Dark Lord himself. Not the devil of church sermons, but something older, more elemental. His beauty was terrible to behold, his eyes twin pools of fire and shadow that seemed to look directly at me even from such a distance.
As I watched, frozen in horror, the courtyard split open. A perfect circle appeared in the center, stone and earth falling away into nothingness. From the void rose flames unlike any I’d ever seen. Black fire shot through with purple, giving off no light yet consuming everything it touched.
Wind howled around the opening, not blowing outward as it should with such an eruption, but inward. Pulling. The vortex created a suction so powerful that loose stones and debris from around the courtyard began sliding toward it, disappearing into that hungry darkness.
I had to grip the window frame with both hands to keep from being dragged forward, my body suddenly lighter, as if the pull wanted me specifically. I lowered myself, ducking down until only my eyes remained above the sill, my knuckles white with the effort of holding on.
A ripping howl tore through the air—Laurent, his voice unmistakable to me now after our weeks together. I saw him emerge from the castle’s main entrance, magnificent and terrible in his fury as he charged toward the intruders. But thevortex’s pull caught him mid-leap, altering his trajectory so that he landed short of his target, claws scraping against stone as he fought the inexorable drag.
Gaspard’s laughter carried upward, triumphant and cruel. He raised a hand, darkness swirling around his fingers, and made a gesture like he was pulling something toward him.
Laurent’s howl turned to one of pain as his massive body began sliding toward the fiery pit despite his desperate resistance. My heart hammered against my ribs, terror making it hard to breathe. I had to help him. Had to do something. But what could I possibly do against such power?
Before I could move, another howl joined the first, identical in pitch and fury, but coming from a different direction. I whipped my head toward the sound just in time to see a second beast emerge from the direction of the blood rose garden.
