“Griffin?”
Still no answer.
She turned, thinking about heading into the castle. Maybe he’d gotten caught up in work of his own and hadn’t realized what time it was—or maybe he was lost in a book. She hoped he was. He would be disappointed that he’d missed the chance to meet her, but she would be relieved that he hadn’t been sitting there waiting on her and getting worried, so it all evened out.
Except that as she came around the corner, she saw an unfamiliar woman in the garden?
“Who are you?” Callista demanded, surprised enough that she completely forgot her manners.
The woman turned to her with a haughty sniff. “It doesn’t matter who I am,” she said, her voice oddly flat. “I’m here with your sisters—they want you to come with me.”
“My sisters?” Callista frowned.
“Oh, Cally!” Millicent came running up, clearly caught by the sound of voices. “I’m so glad she’s found you! Listen—you have to come with us right now!”
“Is everything okay?” Fear clenched around her stomach. “Is it Papa? Or Theo?”
“No. No, Cally, don’t worry, everything’s fine,” Erin soothed her, joining their little party. Both she and Millicent wound their arms around Callista’s waist, directing her toward the exit. “We just need you to come with us, okay? It’ll be better once you’re out of here, I—”
“Why? If everything’s all right at home—I still have two weeks left!” I still have forever left. But that would only be the case if Griffin loved her. Neither of them was sure exactly what it would take to break the curse. Griffin had been pretty clear about the fact that she needed to spend a year with him, but he wasn’t sure if that “year and a day” deal was exact for the curse, or if it was something else.
Blasted ill-worded—
“It’s okay, Cally. He won’t mind just two weeks. We’ve already talked to him—he’s not going to make Papa stay just because you leave two weeks early. I mean, Erin and I served more time than that!” Millicent giggled.
“Wait—what?” She frowned from one of them to the other, thoroughly confused.
“Don’t worry about anything,” Erin insisted.
Callista dug her heels in. “You all are worrying me,” she informed them. “First you come in here demanding that I come with you as soon as I can, but you won’t tell me why. Now you’re not even going to let me say goodbye to Griffin? Guys—”
“Look, it’s okay, Cally. You’re under a spell, okay?” Millicent said gently. “But it’s going to be okay once we get you out of here. You’ll see: a few weeks, and you’ll be back to normal again.”
“I’m not under any spell!” She stared at them as though they’d lost their minds. Maybe they had, sometime while she wasn’t paying attention. “Do you guys even know what you’re talking about? Griffin is the one under a curse, not me!”
“And he’s cursed you right along with him. We heard how you were talking when you came home for Stasi’s wedding—like you were making forever kinds of plans with this guy. Callista, you don’t make forever plans with a monster!”
“What?”
“He’s not someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with. I know he’s been kind to you, and I guess you two might be friends, but you’ve got a life to live!”
Callista stopped walking—just stopped. If they wanted to move her, they were going to have to carry her. “I think you’ve got it wrong,” she informed them. “I mean, really, really wrong.”
“We’ve been talking to someone who understands the curse. She thinks you probably just stayed too long, let it get its grip on you—but don’t worry, Cally.” Millicent kept saying that. She was starting to get intensely frustrated with it, because she didn’t want to not worry. She wanted them to explain to her why they had lost their minds and what she could do to get them back!
“Stop.” Callista shook off her sisters as forcefully as she was able. “I’m not—you all don’t understand.” She tried to keep her voice reasonable. Yelling at them wasn’t going to help anything. If she could just get them to listen to her, maybe she could convince them that they were the ones who were stark raving mad.
“Callista, we need to get you out of here,” Erin said seriously. “Just come with us. In a few days, you’ll be completely back to normal. You’d’ve been fine after the wedding, if you’d just stayed for a little bit longer.”
“But—”
“It’s all right,” Erin insisted, talking right over the top of her. “I know you think you need to stay out of honor or whatever, but—”
“Erin!” Callista grabbed her sister’s sleeve, swinging her around so that her sister had to meet her gaze.
Erin blinked at her, surprised that she’d put up that much of a fight. “I love him.” She hadn’t meant to say it that way—with no fanfare at all, and so calmly that it didn’t sound the least bit romantic. She’d thought that when she said it to Griffin, it would be because they’d decided that they were going to move forward with the thing that was growing between them—but there it was. She couldn’t hide it anymore.
“You—you—what?” Erin demanded. “No. No, Cally, this is not—”
“That’s the way the curse is written, right? It will break when someone can see the beauty within? Well…” She smiled softly. “I see the beauty within. I don’t care what he looks like. I don’t care if he looks like a beast for the rest of our lives. He’s just Griffin.”
“But—” Erin’s jaw dropped.
“I don’t want to leave, Erin,” Callista insisted softly. “I want to stay here with him. Maybe even permanently, if he’ll have me.”
“You want to spent the rest of your life with—with—”
“With the kindest person I’ve ever known? With someone who understands me, inside and out?” Callista demanded. “Yes. Yes, I do. More than anything.” She permitted herself a small smile.
“Well, then, I suppose it’s a very good thing that I was planning on asking you a certain question very soon.” When Griffin came out of the shadows, it was evident that he had been planning to come to her rescue—but when it came right down to it, there was no need to rescue her.
Just to come to her. To hear that moment when she had put her heart on her sleeve—and to tell her—
“Callista Christina Marguerite Ramsey.” Griffin went down on one knee, slipping his hand into his pocket and coming out with a ring box. Callista didn’t even see the brilliant diamond in the center of the ring as he flipped it open. Griffin’s eyes were shining far brighter. “Will you do me the incredible honor of being my bride, my companion, my wife, all the days of this life?”
She was reaching for him, her answer shining in her own eyes, but she didn’t get the chance to actually answer the question. A scream split the stillness in the garden, and the unfamiliar young woman lunged out at him. “How could you?” she screamed.
Griffin turned—and it was good that he did, good that his knee had healed long before, because if it hadn’t healed completely, it probably would have crumbled beneath him at that moment. “I—Mary Margaret?” he demanded.
“You were supposed to wait for me!” she howled furiously. “All of this—all these years, I’ve waited—”
Callista stared at her as she tried to grab at him. She might regret, later, not going to Griffin’s aid, but he appeared to have it covered. He just wrapped his hands around her wrists, held on, and waited.
“Waited for what?” he asked quietly, his voice a low growl that vibrated through the garden.
“For you to realize that it was me you were looking for! All those girls—none of them could ever love you like I do! They couldn’t ever see beneath—beneath that—” She stared him up and down. Callista wondered if it made Griffin as uncomfortable as it made her, because to her, it felt as though she was undressing him with her eyes. “They couldn’t know you! Not like me. Not like someone from your past, who—who—”
“You don’t know me
,” Griffin pointed out grimly.
“Don’t know you? No one knows you better than me!” She jerked back away from him, fumbling for her bag. Confused, no one stopped her. “Look—see?” Mary Margaret held out a book—it looked like a diary.
Callista stared at it, confused. Luckily, Mary Margaret didn’t seem to have noticed that she had an audience—or if she’d noticed, she didn’t care at all.
“I’ve written it all down. Your favorite foods, your favorite meals—I even wrote down your favorite books. I’ve read them all.” Mary Margaret sniffed; Callista realized that she was fighting back tears. “I even have pictures of you—pictures of you before and pictures of you now. I came, you know. You thought you were all alone, but I was still there with you, just waiting for you to tell me that you were ready—that you’d learned to love me after all.”
“I—love you?” Griffin’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “You’re the one who cursed me into this form!”
“But it was what was needed. Don’t you see?” Mary Margaret’s voice rose pleadingly. “Don’t you understand? You couldn’t love me as we were then. You were surrounded by beautiful women, incredible women, who were more delicate and more well-trained than I. So long as you surrounded yourself with those outward beauties, you’d never be able to see that there was a deeper beauty in my love for you!”
“I see.” Griffin took a slow, deep breath.
“I knew you would.” Hope filled her face as she reached desperately toward him. “I knew I just had to get to you—had to remind you of everything that we shared. You’ll see—I’ll make you a far better princess than she ever would. I know you’ve been desperate, thinking that you could take any love that happened to find its way to you, but now that you know you can have me—”
“You misunderstand.” Griffin’s deep voice was bitingly polite. “I have no interest in anything from you, unless you care to break the curse once and for all.”
“I will. All it takes is three little words, Griffin—three words, my love, and the spell will shatter forever. I’ll even say them first, because I understand how difficult it is—oh, this wasn’t what I planned at all!” Mary Margaret stamped her foot like a child having a tantrum. “I meant for it to be elegant, and beautiful, and—but it doesn’t matter.” She took a deep breath. “I love you.”
Griffin’s face didn’t change in the slightest. “You misunderstand me,” he said impassively. “I said all that I intended to say to you five years ago. I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with you. I wish you every happiness in the world, but Mary Margaret, it will not be with me.”
“You say that now, but if you’ll just give me a chance—give me the time you gave her—”
“Mary Margaret.” He took a deep breath. Callista felt him bracing himself, remembered what he’d said about having to be very blunt with her the last time they’d been through this—and it was all too clear that her obsession had only grown over the years that had passed since then. “I do not love you. I will never love you.”
Later, Callista would say that she should have seen it coming—should have somehow predicted that moment. Mary Margaret had waited for five years for this moment, and it was all too clear that it wasn’t coming out at all the way she’d thought it would or intended for it to. She’d banked everything on Griffin someday seeing her, someday wanting her, and he wanted nothing to do with her at all.
She went crazy, lunging for him again—and this time, there was a knife in her hand.
“No!” Callista cried—but too late. Far, far too late. The knife had already plunged into his side.
She’d seen him hurt badly just before Christmas, when he’d come to her rescue against her attackers.
This was worse. A glance was enough to tell her that. There was blood pouring from Griffin’s side, and even adrenaline wasn’t enough to keep him on his feet. He went to his knees, his eyes going wide, and then slowly crumbled to the ground.
“If I can’t have you, no one can,” Mary Margaret snarled. “Do you understand me? I’m the one who waited for you. I’m the one who gave you everything.”
“You gave him the curse,” Erin whispered, looking horrified. “You’re the one who—who—”
Mary Margaret turned on her. “Who turned him into a beast? Oh, yes. Because it was the only way he could come to love me, you see. The only hope. And yet even now, he doesn’t love me enough.” A single tear slid down her face.
There were people pouring into the yard. Callista recognized the stable hands, saw Hemsworth at their head, but she didn’t have eyes for any of them as she went to her knees beside Griffin.
“Hey.” He reached for her with a hand that shook. His grip as she slid her fingers into hers was incredibly weak.
“Don’t try to talk,” she whispered, cupping his face in her free hand. Tears blurred her vision. It didn’t take Mrs. Martel’s skills as a makeshift medic to see that he wasn’t in good shape. The pool of blood beneath him was growing too big, too fast.
Even Griffin’s big body couldn’t possibly hold that much.
“Callista.” He leaned into her. “I’m so sorry…that we’ll never get to…”
“Don’t.” The word emerged choked. “It’s not—it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not. But it’s all right. This last year…has been…” He took a deep breath. “The most wonderful of my life.”
“You—”
“Callista.” Griffin’s breath sounded thick and wrong. What had that knife hit? Callista wanted to cover the wound, but Griffin’s stronger hand was already pressed to it and blood was pouring between his fingers anyway. “I want you to know…I love you.” His eyes slid closed.
Callista bent over him, sobbing. She could tell that his chest wasn’t rising and falling, and though she listened with everything in her, she couldn’t hear his heart beating.
“Cally, come away.” Erin tried to pull her up, but Callista clung to Griffin with all her strength, her fingers wrapping so tightly in the fabric of his shirt that Erin would have had to break them to pull her away. “Cally, it’s—it’s too late.”
“No. No, you can’t die,” Callista whispered. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it. Griffin, please!”
“Come away, milady.” Hemsworth stood by, his own face tight and shadowed. “There’s nothing you can do for him now.”
“I can’t—I can’t just leave him. I wanted—the rest of our lives—”
There were tears streaming down Millicent’s face, too. Callista heard them in her voice as she said, “Cally, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t want them to be sorry.She wanted them to understand, to get it—he couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be! The curse should have broken. She’d seen beneath the beast, seen the beauty in him. She’d never even seen the beast.
She’d never look into his human face. She’d never see what he really looked like. Never hear his voice without the faint growl that came from the beast’s vocal cords.
“Cally,” Erin begged.
She ignored them—ignored all of them as she rested her head on his chest and wept for everything that they’d never be able to have. She didn’t even notice when they stepped back to leave her alone—didn’t notice Hemsworth giving slightly choked instructions to the stable hands who were dealing with Mary Margaret, or Erin and Millicent whispering behind her as they tried to decide what to do.
She didn’t care about any of it.
A light hand raised, gently stroked her hair. “Callista.”
She ignored it.
“Callista, look at me.” Slowly, the sound of the voice penetrated—the tenderness in it. There was only one person who ever talked to her like that. But Griffin was—
Callista shifted, staring down at the body beneath her—except it wasn’t the body she was expecting. Instead of the beastly countenance, she was looking down into a human face. Tawny brown hair the same shade as the beast’s fur, wild and in desperate need of a hai
rcut. Strong features—aristocratic, but with a softening around his jaw that admitted the internal compassion. His eyes, though…
Oh, she knew those eyes. Those warm, brown eyes that had sparkled with laughter, filled with concern, darkened with anger—oh, she knew those eyes.
“Griffin?” she breathed.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Yes, my dear?”
“Is it really you?”
He held up his hands, staring at them, then raised them to touch his face. “It would seem,” he said quietly. His voice was a few notes lighter than before, not quite so deep. The growl was gone.
Tears started sliding down Callista’s face again—but this time, they were tears of joy.
“You meant it, didn’t you?” Griffin asked her quietly. “What you said about loving me?”
She nodded, just staring at him, unable to speak.
“Then I vote…” He frowned, pushed himself upright. She moved to stop him, but realized that there was nothing stopping him: though there was still blood pooled beneath him, a rip through the fabric of a shirt that was now vastly oversized, the skin beneath it was untouched. Griffin cleared his throat self-consciously. “That’s better,” he muttered. “Man can’t make sweeping proclamations when he’s flat on his back.”
Callista smiled a little, still trying to come to grips with everything that had happened in the past several minutes. She’d been proposed to—Griffin had died, she was sure of it—and then he had come back, and he was human again—
“I vote,” Griffin said gently, “that we plan a wedding for the soonest time that your entire family can be here. What do you say?”
“I—” She looked around wildly.
“Callista?” He grasped her hands gently. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just fine. I just—my ring! What happened to my ring?”
“It—it’s here!” Millicent grabbed up the box and held it out in trembling hands.
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