Cursed to shift shape for one day each week, Melusine knows that only love can set her free. When she encounters Raymond, a handsome knight in desperate need of help that only she can give, she believes her chance has come. She vows to be his devoted wife and earn his love, even as she chooses to keep her curse secret. When their happy match is tested by misfortune, Raymond vows to prove jealous whispers wrong. Will he be tempted to break his pledge to Melusine in search of the truth? And will his love of his bride survive if her secret is revealed?
Genre: FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & MythologyThis is a novella and a retelling of a medieval fairy tale that is linked to my DragonFate series of paranormal romances.
They are not the audience I would have chosen, but I have few choices left in these days. If naught else, I have learned to make do with what I am granted—that lesson, apparently, will serve me to the end.
So be it.
I watch them from a narrow window, awaiting my moment. They are more like birds than women, these two, their elaborate garb reminiscent of the fine plumage of birds in courtship. They twitter like starlings, they cackle like hens, they rustle their skirts and huddle together. I suspect from their foolish chatter that they are no more clever than the doves in the rafters.
In my time, they would have never survived childhood.
In this time, they are the ornaments of wealthy men, truly no better than peacocks upon gilded chains. For their own sakes, I hope their husbands get children upon them shortly. Such women do not fare well once they have been savored but failed to satisfy.
But then, my children caused all my woes.
The pair halt upon the threshold and peer into the shadows of the old stone castle. I try to see the place with their eyes, not gilded with memories of mine. There is moss on these floors of fitted stone, and undoubtedly there are mice in the dry brown vestiges of the strewing herbs that had once been thick and fragrant. The merry trickle of water echoes from somewhere within the walls, water that had almost certainly invited itself through a nook. A rogue beam of sunlight shines through the broken roof and sets the dust motes to dancing within it. Those doves twitter in the half-rotted rafters, hidden by the shadows of what remains of the roof.
But still there is grace in the keep’s proportions and majesty in its very size. There is elegance in the arches embellished with a mason’s carving. The beauty of this abode can still be found here by those with eyes to see.
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German
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Already translated.
Translated by Julia Schulz
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Chiara Vitali and Alessandra Maffioli
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