Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

Étienne stood guard, periodically circling the wagon so that he could speak to Giselle without his lips being seen by the watchful Frans.

“When he sleeps and the others go, I’ll slit his throat and get the key to the lock.”

“No!” Giselle cried through clenched teeth. “It’s wrong to take a life!”

“But look what he’s done to you!”

Giselle hung her head, ashamed for being so careless. Her clan had often retold the story of a long-ago uncle who had flaunted his wings and brought on not only his own death but also those of three more of the clan. His carelessness had been unforgivable. Tears fell from her eyes to the splintered

floor of the cart. “What has been done to me can’t be undone,” she whispered.

“There must be something—”

Giselle jerked her head up. “There is nothing, Étienne! You must face it. In a matter of hours I will barely be a gargouille. I will be as one of them. I will forget our clans and their stories. I will forget who I am. . . . I will forget you.”

Étienne shook his head, his eyes glistening. “You won’t forget me, Giselle!” he whispered. “I won’t let you. And if you do, I’ll find a way to make you remember. We will be together again. Do you hear me? I’ll find a way. Say my name so you won’t forget. Étienne. Say it! Now!”

“Étienne,” Giselle sobbed.

“Again!”

“Étienne.” Her voice was barely a whisper, weak with sorrow.

“You love me, Giselle. You always will. A gargouille match is forever. Remember that. Forever. Look into my eyes. Memorize them. You’ll see them again and you’ll remember. You’ll remember me.”

Giselle stared into his eyes, memorizing his pale gray irises surrounded by a rich ring of black, the eyes of the north, but still uniquely Étienne’s. He deserved more than she could give him now. More than a landwalker’s life. He was still a watcher of the night. Soon she would be fearful of the dark like most landwalkers were. She would cross herself at shadows flitting past the moon. She would recoil at the hideous creatures that adorned the corners of the cathedral and mocked the gargouilles. She would wonder at a stonemaster who could carve such monsters. “Forget me. Bridet was your intended anyway.”

Étienne shook away her comment. “When you reach the duke’s—”

“He’s coming!” Giselle whispered, and looked down at her lap.

Étienne continued his walk around the cart until he was facing Frans, who was reaching into his purse. He flipped two coins to Étienne. “Was the beast a trouble? I saw her talking.”

“She muttered the sounds of an animal. Nothing I could understand.”

Giselle looked up at the voices and for the briefest moment wondered who these two were who imprisoned her in a cage. In the next instant Étienne’s name came to her lips, and it made her gasp. It was happening already—she was forgetting. She moaned, unable to bear for him to see her that way, only a shell of who she once was.

She spat at the ground. “This one, he torments me. Send him away!” She glared at Étienne, trying to convince him she wanted nothing to do with him. She saw the wounded squint of his eyes. She forced another sneer. “Leave!”

“You heard the beast,” Frans said. “Be on your way now. You’ve been paid. We have a long journey ahead, and I don’t want to listen to her howls the whole way.”

Étienne stared for a long while at Giselle, waiting for something, any hint of tenderness, but she only returned his gaze with a steady glare. He finally nodded and walked away.

Giselle followed him with her eyes as Frans readied the horse. She watched Étienne’s back as he walked down the road, his figure growing fainter with each step. Étienne, Giselle said over and over again in her head. Étienne. Étienne. “I won’t forget you,” she whispered. But by the time he reached the forest, she already had.

The journey took another two days. When they reached the duke’s château, Giselle was weak, her lips cracked with thirst and the wound on her leg festering with ooze. She curled in the corner of the cart, too listless to care anymore about the cruel man who imprisoned her, too frail to wonder why she could remember her name and nothing more.

Frans only got a pittance for the wings.

“Imbecile!” the duke shouted at him for believing such tales. “They’re probably nothing more than the plucked wings of water fowl! Only good for soup stock!”

Frans sputtered. “I cut them from her myself—”

The duke drew up close. “I’ll give you a fair price for the girl. If she lives, she may make a decent servant.”

Frans began to argue but then saw the servants of the duke’s estate closing in. Two field-workers gripped their hoes and stepped closer. Frans unlocked the padlock on the cart, and the duke’s servants lifted Giselle out and whisked her away. The duke counted out payment into Frans’s greasy palm. “Never pass this way again.”

Frans clutched his money in his fist and looked into the icy gray eyes of the duke. “She’s only a beast. You’ll find out.”