My Swan Prince

Prologue

MAX

As children, fairy tales taught us that good overcame evil, the princess got the prince, or in my case, the prince got the prince, and in the end, there was always a “and they lived happily ever after.” Wrong!

Real-life didn’t work that way, and sometimes, the happily ever after in the fairy tales never happened.

Sometimes, after hundreds of years, the curse still haunted families, generations paying for the sins of their ancestors, the punishment lingering long after everyone involved had died.

Me? My punishment began the moment I took my first breath. I was cursed, had been my whole life.

And now, as the silvery moon rose high into the black sky, it beckoned to me, luring me to it, begging me to shift. Pushing my balcony windows open, I stepped out into the night light and jumped, my feet never descending back to the hard, cold surface as I took flight.

A single white feather drifted toward the ground, floating on the wind. I barely noticed it. It wasn’t the first feather I’d lost; it would be replaced as the others had because this was the life I was forced to live.

Two witches, six princes, a princess, and a curse that could not be broken.

LORDE

Bloody hell, it was cold today. The frigid breeze on this dreary spring night caused me to pull my coat a little tighter around my body. I’d mistakenly believed it would be warmer here than it was in London. I was spectacularly wrong!

Why now? Why did it have to be now? My mother and her lessons and speeches about destiny and fate.

Blah, blah, blah. The only thing I was doing right now was freezing my balls off.

I did what the matriarch of my family said, as did everyone else in the family, and I came to Chicago to meet my fate head-on.

Only, I was more unsure of myself than ever before.

This bloody city was where my life began, the very place I’d begged my parents to leave twenty years ago.

Supposedly, my purpose was here, and while I understood that, I also believed I might be cursed at the same time.

The sensation of something landing in my hair, or me walking through something, jerked me from my thoughts like a roller-coaster taking a turn.

Had I just walked through a spider web? Damn!

The very idea of it had my body moving of its own volition, dancing along the sidewalk to rid myself of the imaginary horror.

Imaginary because the moment my body spasmed, a single white feather drifted down to the ground in front of me.

I fought off my embarrassment, thankful the streets were devoid of much life…

only the occasional straggler appeared here and there.

Picking it up, I held it in my hands as I searched the sky, trying to figure out where it came from. There. Across the moon, a solo swan flew with the wind. Instinctively, my hand tightened on the feather, crushing it in my palm. My destiny had appeared.