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Severin could still remember what it felt like to come out of the madness. It was an experience he never wished to relive, although his memories unfortunately replayed the incident often.

When he had first come to his mind felt bandaged—like fragments of a mirror being pushed together. There was an awful, coppery taste in his mouth, and his fingers were wet.Advertisement

Crouched in front of him was a beautiful woman. She wore a gown that had the same iridescence as a dragon fly’s eyes, and her lips were thinned as she stared at him in concentration. “Prince Severin, can you hear me?” she asked, her voice melodious and soothing.

Severin groaned. “What?” he said, or he tried to say. His mouth seemed to have more teeth—and bigger teeth—than he remembered having.

The woman smiled and called over her shoulder. “Please inform His Highness Prince Lucien that it worked.”

Severin groggily raised a hand to rub his eyes, but froze when he realized his hand was covered with fur and his fingers—now thicker—ended with claws that were splashed with red.

“Severin, you need to remain calm,” the woman said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You were attacked.”

Severin briefly closed his eyes, recalling the hideous witch that was waiting for him in the rose garden when he left the meeting with his brother. He remembered her speaking to him, intense pain, and then everything was a blank. “There was a witch,” Severin said, his voice rough and thick.

“Yes,” the woman agreed. “She cursed you to live as a beast, and for your household to wax away and disappear with you.”

Severin spit, trying to get the unpleasant taste out of his mouth. It was blood. There was more in his mouth and coating his teeth. He didn’t know whose it was. His stomach rolled.

The woman placed a cool hand on Severin’s head and waited for his retching to stop.

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“I injured people,” Severin said, looking at the wreckage. He was still in the garden where the witch had found him, but he could smell blood. There were bodies laying on the ground and medical attendants dressed in white hustling about.

“You did. The witch’s curse stole your mind. You didn’t know what you were doing,” the woman said, her dress glowing in the moonlight. “She made you a beast in body and mind.”

“Why am I alive?”

“Your brother would not give the order for the soldiers to eliminate you. Luckily I happened to be on hand as I was intending to request an audience with you.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Angelique. I am an enchantress.”

“You saved me?”

“In a partial meaning of the word, yes. I can’t entirely undo a curse that has been laid, I’m not that powerful. But once I was at a christening and the child was in a bit of a bind, which is where I learned how to modify and weaken curses,” the enchantress explained.

“So I changed your curse. Instead of living as a complete beast, you are only one in body. Your mind is still yours, it is still human, and it will be for the rest of your life.”

Severin felt his head with his paw-like hands. He felt the angular ears, the flat nose, and the protruding muzzle of a large cat. His entire body ached and was covered with blood spattered fur.

“I was also able to stop the curse from spreading farther on your servants. They are no longer disappearing, but I’m afraid to say they cannot speak, and to save their faces I had to encase them with masks,” the enchantress continued.

“Will they ever speak again?” Severin asked, unable to keep his voice from shaking.

“Perhaps. It depends on you. I cannot entirely undo the curse, but you can.”

“How?”

“By falling in love, by another falling in love with you. Love is a powerful emotion. Working it into the curse was the easiest way out I could forge for you,” the enchantress said, smiling. Severin grasped his feline face with his hand.

“…You don’t look very happy. It might sound impossible, but allow me to assure you that love will not evade you,” the enchantress said, kneeling at Severin’s side. “…Severin?” the enchantress said when he did not respond.

When someone knocked on the door of his study, Severin startled out of the reverie that his memory of the horrific night had pitched him into. He slowly opened his cat eyes. “Enter,” he said before yawning, baring a mouth full of white teeth and fangs.

The door was flung open and in swept Burke.

“What is it?” Severin asked, pawing through a stack of papers.

Burke strolled across Severin’s study, his chest puffed with pride as he whipped out his slate and presented it—its message already inscribed—for Severin’s reading pleasure.

Our honored guest has saved the lovely Mademoiselle Emele.

“She did what?” Severin said, leaning back in his chair and giving his valet his full attention.

Burke smiled widely changing the writing on his slate before he stretched his arms out, holding the slate farther in front of him. Our guest knocked a village boy—who was insulting Mademoiselle Emele—from a tree and chased him off. pqdm.com