Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

She gave him a questioning look. Impulsively, she leaned forward and felt his forehead again. But he pushed her hand away and sat up fully, wincing with pain, and then wincing with the effort to hide it. He had to use both hands to swing his stone leg down from the table.

“What are you doing? You nearly died! Sit!” She gently tried to push him back down.

“I’m fine.” He was clearly not fine, but the look in his eye dared anyone to contradict him. “You saved my life. Now, do you want me to turn your friends back or not?”

She stared at him as though he were muttering in a fever dream. “You said you wouldn’t turn them back until our wedding night,” she said. “It was our deal.”

He coughed a mirthless laugh. “Anouk, Anouk, forget our deal. It was all just a stupid game, like you said.” He swept a weak hand toward the collection of chessboards lining the shelves.

“You can’t possibly be strong enough.” She instantly regretted her words when he bristled. She let out a puff of air. “Don’t growl at me like that! It’s the hardest spell there is. It would be challenging even if you were well.”

He thrust his hand toward Violante and beckoned for the vial around her neck, which she handed over after a long moment of reluctance. He uncorked it and poured the entire contents down his throat, then followed it with the contents of his own vial. Anouk gasped. That much powder would have taken the powdersmiths in the basement half a century to produce.

“Do you still doubt me?” Rennar’s eyes practically glistened with power.

Anouk felt a thrill spread from the pit of her stomach to her throat. “You’ll really change them both back? Even Beau?”

Instead of answering, he eased himself to the edge of the billiard table and tested his weight on his leg of stone.

She gave his chest a shove. “And Beau?”

He winced and she clapped her hands over her mouth, afraid she’d hurt him, but he waved off her concern. “Yes! Yes, damn it. Beau too.”

Hope surged like the sugary rush that followed the first bite of something sweet, but she swallowed it back down. The Shadow Prince did nothing for free. People would have razed entire cities for the amount of powder he’d just poured down his throat. “Why?” Her voice was hard.

“Just get the animals before I change my mind.” It came out as a snarl. He added, softer, “Please.”

She felt several sets of eyes on her. Hunter Black and Viggo by the fireplace, Luc and Petra near the bar cart. The only person who seemed bored by the exchange was Queen Violante, who had made herself a mimosa.

Anouk wanted to press Rennar further, but there was a slightly unhinged look in his eye. His offer was fragile. Push him, and he might change his mind. She hurried back to the ballroom, where a fleet of maids were already mopping the floor. The Royals were gone. A few Goblins picked through the fallen trays of food for anything worth snacking on.

She spotted Cricket’s cage overturned beneath a table. She dropped to her knees and fished it out. The white cat inside yowled.

“Zut. Sorry we left you, Cricket.” She peered under the rest of the tables. “Little Beau? Where are you?” She whistled softly and the tablecloth over the dessert table rustled. A blond snout poked out, followed by big brown eyes. “Come on, Little Beau, it’s all right! You can stop hiding. The witches are gone.”

Anouk dusted off a piece of ham that had fallen on the floor and coaxed him out with it, then she tied the end of a tablecloth around his collar and led him back to the billiard room, holding the cat’s cage a safe distance away from him.

Rennar was standing, though he looked unsteady. When he saw her, he motioned to the animals. “Take the cat out of the cage. Put her there, in the center of the rug. Hold her so she doesn’t run away.”

Anouk gingerly reached into the cage and grabbed the cat by the scruff of her neck.

“Here, give her to me. Cats love me.” Luc took her. He sat cross-legged on the rug with the cat struggling in his lap.

“Anouk, take the dog,” Rennar commanded.

The dog sniffed at the magic still sparking in the air from Rennar’s healed bod

y and Hunter Black’s playing-card coat. Then he licked Anouk’s nose.

“Just wait, Beau,” she whispered into his floppy ear. The dog couldn’t know why her hands were shaking. That this was what she’d worked so hard for.

The hush over the billiard room felt sacred as Rennar began to whisper. Something tugged inside Anouk. She knew the words like she knew her own name.

“Des skalla animaeux, fiska ek forma humane . . .”

She closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently in unison with Rennar’s voice. The pit of her stomach ached with longing. It should have been her turning them back to human. Like a rash, the shame of failure spread up her neck.

She opened her eyes. The air began to swirl around the cat and the dog. White fur floated off the cat like dandelion fluff. The cat twisted and snarled in Luc’s lap, green eyes flashing. Little Beau trembled beneath Anouk’s hand. She muttered reassurances in his ear, stroking his back. Handfuls of blond fur came away in her fingers. And then suddenly pale skin showed and she jerked her hand back. The magic was swirling faster, whipping her hair around her face. The cat yowled. Luc hissed—?the cat had clawed him. So much for cats loving him. But he didn’t let go.