The silver collar snapped open.
For one terrifying second, nothing happened.
Then the wolf screamed.
It wasn't an animal's cry. It sounded like a man being tortured, filled with so much pain that I covered my ears and stumbled backward.
Black smoke rose from its body.
The wolf collapsed.
I stared in horror as its enormous frame twisted, its bones cracking beneath its skin. I wanted to run, but my legs refused to move.
Then, suddenly, everything stopped.
A man lay on the floor where the wolf had been.
The prince.
He was unconscious, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. The silver collar rested beside him, its metal split down the middle.
I couldn't breathe.
He had transformed back into a human.
But how?
And why had the collar broken?
I approached cautiously.
"Your Highness?"
He didn't move.
I knelt beside him, my hands trembling as I reached toward his shoulder.
The moment my fingers touched his skin, his eyes flew open.
Golden.
Completely golden.
He seized my wrist.
"Who told you to remove it?"
"I didn't!" I cried. "It broke by itself!"
His grip tightened before he abruptly released me.
He looked at the broken collar.
For the first time, I saw genuine fear on his face.
"No," he whispered.
He scrambled backward, staring at the pieces as though they were something far more terrifying than the wolf he had become.
"No, no, no..."
"What happened?" I asked.
He ignored me.
Instead, he looked at my hand.
At the fingers that had touched him.
Then he looked into my eyes.
"What is your mother's name?"
I blinked.
"What?"
"Your mother's name, Rose!"
"Margaret. Her name is Margaret Vale."
The prince went completely still.
The silence was so sudden that I could hear the fire crackling behind us.
"Margaret," he repeated.
His face had turned pale.
I stared at him, confused and frightened.
"Do you know my mother?"
He rose unsteadily to his feet, grabbed a black robe from a nearby chair, and wrapped it around himself.
"Get out."
I flinched.
"But—"
"GET OUT!"
I scrambled toward the door.
Before I could reach it, his voice stopped me.
"Rose."
I turned slowly.
He stood beside the fireplace, his expression cold again.
"Not a word about what happened here. Not to Alistair. Not to Elena. Nobody."
I swallowed.
"And if I do?"
His golden eyes darkened.
"Then I will have to decide whether bringing you here was the greatest mistake of my life."
I left without another word.
But as I hurried down the corridor, one question followed me.
Why had the prince looked at me as though my mother's name had resurrected a nightmare?
---
I barely slept that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the wolf collapsing on the floor.
I remembered the pain in its cry, the broken collar, and the prince's terrified expression.
Most of all, I remembered the way he had looked at me.
Not like a man looking at a stranger.
Like a man looking at a ghost.
At dawn, Elena arrived with breakfast.
She took one look at my face and frowned.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me."
I hesitated before telling her about the collar.
When I finished, the tray slipped from her hands.
The plate shattered against the floor.
"You broke the collar?"
"I told you, it broke by itself!"
Elena grabbed my shoulders.
"Listen carefully. If anyone asks, you never entered his chambers last night."
"Why?"
"Because if the council discovers the collar is broken, they'll kill him."
My stomach dropped.
"Why would they kill their own prince?"
Elena's lips trembled.
"Because the collar wasn't just keeping him from transforming."
She glanced toward the door.
"It was keeping the curse contained."
A chill crept down my spine.
"Contained?"
She nodded.
"And now that it's broken, there's only one thing that can stop the curse from consuming him completely."
I gripped the edge of the table.
"What?"
Elena looked at me.
"You."
Before I could respond, footsteps sounded in the corridor.
A moment later, Alistair appeared at the doorway.
His expression was grave.
"Miss Rose. His Highness requests your presence."
I stood slowly.
"Is he going to hurt me?"
Alistair studied me for a long moment.
"No."
He glanced at Elena, who immediately lowered her eyes.
Then he turned back to me.
"But there is something you must understand before you see him."
"What?"
Alistair's voice dropped to a whisper.
"The prince has been cursed for three hundred years."
My blood ran cold.
"And last night," he continued, "you did something no one has managed to do in all that time."
He stepped aside.
"You woke the curse's true heir."
I stared at him.
"Who is that?"
Alistair looked toward the end of the corridor.
Then he spoke the words that made my entire world tilt.
"Your mother was supposed to be his bride, Rose."
He paused.
"But she ran away."