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B ella rushed inside the manor, closing the door with a snap behind her. She headed straight for the library with only one thing in mind—find the answer and break the curse. She had to because now time was of the essence.

Dread pounded through her. Dread at knowing Lord Vincent saw the beast. He must have followed her from the village to…where? Dickens seemed sure that no one would be able to penetrate the shroud around the castle unless they were wanted, welcomed.

If Lord Vincent followed her that morning, what would be to stop him from following her again tomorrow?

She closed the door to the library and hurried around the room lighting the candles. She paused a moment to light a fire in the hearth to ward off the chill of the room. Then she hurried to the desk and stopped short. She stared at the window. It was no longer boarded. In its place, a new pane of glass was there, letting the pale light of the evening slash through the casement. Her heart thumped as she gaped at it, uncertain when it was repaired.

Surely, Gerald would have mentioned it had someone come to replace the window.

She shoved away thoughts of the new window, trying to push it out of her mind and focus on the task at hand. Emmaline had left the books where she told her. She sat down hard in the chair and stared at the cursed book with its shimmering embossed rose on the cover. The book that was the bane of her existence. The pages were not so willing to give up their secrets, but she was determined.

She reached for a clean piece of parchment, pulling it to her, then snatched her quill. Taking a deep breath, she slammed open the book and flipped to the page where she had left off earlier that day, trying to make the runes appear and the roses bloom.

Sitting back in the chair, she gripped the quill, waiting, holding her breath. But the pages did not yield any movement.

Frustration edged through her as she leaned forward and peered once again at the page.

“Please,” she whispered. “Show me the way to break the curse.”

Still nothing.

The vines remained in place. The runes did not appear. No letters faded into existence.

She dropped the quill and clenched her fists, pounding them once against the desk on either side of the book with aggravation.

“I know you can hear me,” she said to the book.

The pages didn’t move. The ink didn’t shimmer. The book sat still. Silent as a tomb when she needed it the most. Not even a ghostly whisper in response.

She pressed her palms against the frigid pages, fingers trembling.

“I’ve done all I can. I’ve translated the riddles,” she said, barely holding back the sob. “But I’m running out of time. He’s running out of time.”

Still nothing. Only the faint rustle of the fire, the distant howl of wind outside the window. The howl of wind and the howl of the beast out there, somewhere, lurking in the shadows. Ever watchful.

Her throat tightened. A nagging pain seized her chest. The threat of tears burned the backs of her eyes.

“I love him.”

The whispered words came out on a quiver. She pressed her cold, shaking fingers against her lips, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Saints preserve me, I love him. Do you hear me?” She cut a glance down at the infernal book. “I don’t know when or how it happened. But it’s real. If there’s anything left of him to save, please. Please, I beg you. Show me how to save him.”

The silence stretched so long it hurt. She dropped her head, her forehead resting against the page.

Then a pulse. Faint, but there. Under her fingertips. Like a heartbeat.

She looked up.

The ink on the page began to shift, vines and thorns and brambles rearranging themselves in slow, deliberate strokes, as if something inside the book stirred. As if her words had reached it. Pierced whatever enchantment kept it sealed and silent.

A single line of new script appeared at the center of the page.

Love is the name the curse could never bind.

Her breath caught.

Below it, more runes took shape. The final key, the last piece of the riddle she hadn’t been able to solve. But now…the book was showing her.

Because now, it believed her.

She snatched up her quill and wrote, fast and furious, before the letters disappeared and were replaced by rose blooms. Her handwriting was awful, but she didn’t care as she scribbled the words. Her hand cramped as she scribed the last few words.

Then she sat back in the chair, staring down at her messy handwriting and reading over it.

One shall bleed, though no wound is seen. One shall choose, though no path is clear. To break what binds, name what was given freely. Not taken, not stolen, not owed. A crown cast down. A heart left open. A vow made in silence. Speak the truth that lives between the thorn and the bloom. Name it, and he shall be unmade and made whole again.

“Speak the truth that lives between the thorn and the bloom,” she whispered.

The thorn…did that mean Leopold?

The bloom…was that her?

Her mind raced as she worked out how to break the curse. She shoved aside the parchment and searched through her other writings. Desperation pulled at her. She had to put it all together. She found her previous scribbles and writings and organized the pages. Then she took out a fresh sheet of parchment, dipped her quill in ink, and rewrote the phrases.

Shadows stir. The sands of time slip away. Silence forever in the gloaming. In the darkest night, no name remembered. No light is welcome. The hourglass bleeds its last.

When the sky is blind and the stars dare not shine, The final form shall take root. Not beast. Not man. Something in between. Bound by thorn. Named by none.

One shall bleed, though no wound is seen. One shall choose, though no path is clear.

To break what binds, name what was given freely. Not taken, not stolen, not owed. A crown cast down. A heart left open. A vow made in silence. Speak the truth that lives between the thorn and the bloom. Name it, and he shall be unmade and made whole again.

As she rewrote the last line, she read it again. And then sucked in a sharp breath.

“Merciful skies! I know how to break the curse.”

She shoved aside the parchment pages that didn’t matter. Then took the one with the fresh ink and the completed curse—spell?—and folded it in half with a gentle hand. She slipped it between the pages of the book, then slammed the cover closed.

She scooped it up and hurried across the room to the library door with one destination in mind—to get to Leopold.

But then she halted in the open doorway, her heart racing. Leopold’s carriage would not be waiting for her at this time of night in the village. She would have to walk alone in the dark. The only thing that gave her comfort was knowing the beast was out there to protect her.

No, it was too great a risk. Other perils excited on the dark road at night. Vagrants. Highwaymen. She did not want to risk her safety—or that of the beast’s—trying to get to Thornhurst Castle in the middle of the night.

She turned back to the room, headed inside, and snuffed out the candles. Still clutching the book, she toed off her slippers and settled down on the small sofa in front of the fire. This would have to do for tonight. Still holding the book, she watched the flickering flames until, finally, she was fast asleep.

An ethereal mist crept through the trees, thick and unnatural, as the beast sat on the edge of the forest, his keen eyes focused on the small manor house she called Hawthorne Hall.

Something had changed. A subtle tremor in the world his wolf senses picked up. He could not name it, or explain it, but it was there. Stirring. Shifting. Coming.

It was not the wind he sensed. It was something else. More determined. More desperate. More dangerous. His senses pricked against the air. His instincts were on edge. The brand on his foreleg burned with a wicked intensity.

A ripple in the curse.

The veil-shade were coming. The curse was no longer dormant.

It was awoken by something or someone.

He glanced at the girl’s library window. For a brief time, yellow light flickered there. He saw movement through the opaque lace curtains. And then the light snuffed out abruptly. No more movement there, either.

Perhaps the girl left the room.

She was not safe. He knew this. He sensed this with a deep thrumming through him. His paws padded through the garden to the front of the manor house where the strange man who threatened her parked his carriage. Marks from the wheels still showed in the dirt.

Overhead, only the quiet stars twinkling in the night. The moon barely a crescent. His time was near. The time when he would transform for the last time. He swung his head toward the door, thinking of the girl there. The one who told him to go back into the shadows.

She protected him. As he protected her. She sensed he wanted to pounce on the pompous man who threatened her, who threatened him.

A clatter of distant wheels out on the road caught his attention. His head snapped in that direction, his sharp eyes piercing the darkness. There was nothing and no one.

But then he caught sight of it. The shadows moving against the wind when there was nothing. Forming shapes in the unnatural mist.

He knew who and what they were. He knew they were coming for her, for the book.

He dropped his head and growled low and deep in his throat. His front paws were spread, ready to pounce.

This was his last stand against the veil-shade . And he was not going to let them get to the girl behind that closed door.

He would stop them or die trying.