Page 68 of To Ride the Wind

“But if you’re a prince, you must have a godmother,” she said, clutching desperately at possibilities. “We need to call her!”

“I already did.” He sounded grim. “She told me the mountain people were partially right about the way to break the enchantment. It was through a royal marriage. But it would take love as well as a wedding. The moment I looked into my wife’s eyes with my own human eyes and felt nothing but love, the enchantment would be broken. But she told me something else as well. There was a way for me to break the second enchantment, the one tying me back to the mountain kingdom.”

“What…what did you have to do?” Charlotte whispered although she could already guess at the answer.

“I had to find a girl to love who would marry me despite my being a bear—someone who didn’t know my true identity or the details of my enchantments. A girl who would sleep beside me for three months’ worth of nights and trust me without ever seeing my face. The queen’s enchantment creates a false bond and forced loyalty, but it could be broken by trust that was freely given and a bond created by choice. If I could find someone who would believe in me and trust in me enough to sleep beside me in darkness without knowing why, her faith would win my freedom from both enchantments.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You married me, Lottie, and I can assure you I felt nothing but love when I looked into your eyes just now. You’ve freed me from my life as a bear. I will never be one again. But now I cannot escape the mountain queen. My godmother has already done as much as she can for me.”

Charlotte stepped forward, fisting his nightshirt in both hands. “Surely there’s a way! There has to be something I can do!”

“Can you find the mountain kingdom?” he asked in a voice that would have been mocking if it wasn’t so gentle and full of love. “Can you find a place whose only direction is that it lies east of the sun and west of the moon? Can you tear me from the grasp of a queen who has spent two decades consolidating her power? A queen who spends half her time as an enormous bear?”

“Yes,” Charlotte sobbed. “I can do anything! I will do anything to free you. I promise!”

He stared deep into her eyes, his breath coming ragged and fast.

“Lottie,” he finally groaned and yanked her toward him.

For one breath, his blue eyes devoured her face. And then his lips descended on hers.

There was nothing soft about his kiss. It was demanding and possessive and burned with the longing of all their weeks together.

She melted against him, glad for his strong arms pressing her close. She didn’t want the kiss to ever end. She couldn’t accept that he was about to be ripped from her.

But too soon he pulled back, gazing hungrily down at her face again. “Do you know how much I’ve wanted to hold you like this? To gaze human face to human face?”

“I’m sorry!” she wailed. “All I wanted was to see your face once.”

“If only you’d waited!” he cried in tones of fresh anguish. “Do you know how much self-control it took to lie beside you each night—my wife!—and keep my distance? But I endured it in the hope of a future where I could stay by your side night and day in my true form. If only you could have waited as well, then that future could have been ours. But now everything is destroyed!”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, sobbing in earnest now. “I’m sorry. I love you, Henry.”

He stilled, only the muscles in his arms jumping in response to her words. His face softened as he gazed down at her.

“I love you, too, Lottie,” he murmured, and then he was gone.

CHARLOTTE

“Henry!” Charlotte sobbed, her empty arms reaching for a man who was no longer there.

“Henry!” she screamed more loudly, but it wasn’t only her husband who had disappeared.

Her bedchamber was gone, along with the candle and the entire castle. Soft moonlight illuminated a clearing at the base of a mountain face, and nothing blocked the stars that twinkled uncaring overhead.

She fell to her knees, the sobs shaking her so strongly it hurt. But she couldn’t master them. She had won Henry’s love, had been held in his arms, only to have him ripped from her.

She couldn’t accept it. She wouldn’t.

She screamed again, wordlessly this time, shouting her defiance at the cold sky and the unmoving mountain.

Her anger burned against the mountain queen who had stolen her husband, but it also turned inward. Why had she been so impatient? Why hadn’t she trusted in the man she loved so much?

From there, the spark of it leaped to her parents. It had all been their fault. They were the ones who had pressed her and given her the idea. They were the ones who had given her the candle. Why couldn’t they have trusted her when she assured them of Henry’s character and her own happiness? They had married her off, and yet they still thought of her as a child whose judgment couldn’t be trusted.

Distantly, some part of her knew she wasn’t being fair. They had acted out of fear for their daughter, whereas she had acted from selfish desire. She was the one who knew Henry, and yet she had been the one to accept the candle, the one to light it. But in that moment she didn’t care. If it hadn’t been for them, she wouldn’t have lost Henry. The idea of the candle would never have occurred to her on her own.

Anger, grief, pity, fear, and fury bit as deeply as the night’s cold, and she collapsed on the patch of grass where the castle had once stood. Consumed entirely by her tears, she cried until her exhausted body collapsed into unconsciousness.

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