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That’s where the cook found me when she came back, on my knees and still staring after the carriage.
“Prince Marceau?”
I looked up at her, and she must’ve seen my loss in my face. “Where’s your wife?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“In a carriage — too many horses for me to outrun.”
“My gran told me that there was a way to save her.”
“How?”
“You have to break the mate bond—immensely painful, but that way she won’t die when your bear does.”
I barked out a small laugh with a high dose of pain in it. “So having my heart ripped out will save her?”
“Yes.”
“Then the work is already done. The bond snapped when she was being carried away from me.”
“Do you know that she was carried away or did she want to escape?”
“Did she say anything about escaping to you?”
“No. Even when you weren’t besotted with her, she always intended to do her duty.”
“So what should I do?”
“Wait until your bear dies, and then claim her as a man.”
“How long will I need to wait?”
“Two weeks from the end of the curse. You can’t see her until then. You’ll always have a little bit of the bear inside of you.”
I couldn’t let a servant see me weep, so I got to my feet.
“Thank you. Your assistance has been appreciated.”
“Anything for her, Your Highness.” She bowed to me. “I hope that they haven’t burned down the kitchen.” With that, she went back to the kitchen.
It turned out that whoever had stolen her from my castle had saved her life. I highly doubted that I would have ever done it to myself. I didn’t know what it was like for Cateline in that carriage, but I was sure that the end of the mate bond must have impacted her.
I had to wait a week and a half more before I could see her. But as soon as I could, I would. I knew where I’d send my own carriage to collect her. It didn’t seem like mere days ago that we’d married. The time we’d spent together felt like years, even though it was short. She was it for me. Both my dying bear and I knew it, and it went against everything that we wanted to watch her leave.
That’s when I made my plan. I’d get in my carriage, then I could stay near her until it was safe. I thought that she might go home, and my coachman knew where to find her.
Inn
Cateline
Only minutes after my stepbrother whisked me away from my husband’s castle, I felt something in the center of my chest. It felt like something was stretching too far.
And then abruptly it snapped, rocking my body so hard that I slammed against the side of the carriage.
“Are you all right, miss?”
