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It was his moms ideas for him to attend his first annual Curse Breakers gala.
It’s only at her behest that he’s standing here now, beneath the twinkling stars of a castle in the deep countryside of some English province he doesn’t know the name of, staring across a fountain at the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life.
Well, okay.
There’s a mask covering most of that mans face.
But beneath those glimmering stars, bright blue eyes twinkle, as if sapphires plucked from the heavens and placed here on an earth, a miracle gaze in a sea of empty looks and broken hearts. He’s just as beautiful as the last time they met here three months ago, and every proceeding three months before that for the last twenty four.
It’s an unspoken agreement between them. That they’ll meet out here once the guests have disappeared into their bubbly and can’t find it in themselves to wonder where the cursed youngest prince and the unwelcome American guest have gone. He stopped wondering why the queen continued inviting him; there was magic in the guest list, Henry had said at that third meeting, out beneath their tree at the center of the maze. The curse had started unraveling, and so the curse breaker had been at the party where they first met.
The curse breaker, he explained, could have been any soul fortunate enough to have been invited.
And so, until the curse finally breaks in entirety, it’s to be the same four hundred guests, at the same castle in the countryside, beneath the same glimmering stars, dancing to the same classical songs. Once every three months the invite arrives, golden and shimmering, and once every three months, Alex hops on a plane to greet saccharine sapphire eyes, and so it will go, until the Cursed Three finally find the love that breaks their chains.
The thing is.
Twelve months ago, Princess Beatrice walked onto the ballroom floor in a stunning maroon dress, her elegant hair tumbling down her shoulders in waves. Not a mask to be seen. No blemish or scar or any indication that there’d ever been any harm to her skin. And the queen, frail as she had been, had stood at her side, tall and formidable, and declared that the Cursed Three were now the Cursed Two.
And so that way it remained.
Until one night three months ago.
Sitting beneath that tree of theirs, Alex reached out and laced his fingers through Henry’s. Pulling them to his lips, he pressed the gentlest kiss against the gloved knuckles. He’d held that hand there against his lips, warming the silk fabric with his breath. And they’d gazed across the gaping distance between one another.
It hadn’t been done with intention; with the thought of what if at the back of his mind. Not with the drive to break a curse he had no right breaking. He’d simply been sitting outside a party with a boy he liked, who he could not kiss or touch or love, and he’d wanted to hold his hand. So, he had.
They’d stayed like that for quite some time.
Sitting beneath the tree, their hands laced between them as they stared up at the stars in the distance, sipping their champagne and listening to the quiet staccato of the music from the ballroom drifting out over their courtyard in the green. And then, as they had at every gala before, they stood just before midnight, gave one another the barest hint of a smile—a barely there uptilt of lips that moved the edges of Henry’s mask, a crooked tilt of Alex’s mouth that, he knew, tipped his chin handsomely.
And then they’d turned on and gone their separate ways.
They didn’t know what they’d done.
How could they?
Alex hadn’t known until his plane landed back in D.C. Until Zahra pulled him aside and asked him if he’d been there when it happened. When he had no answer, no idea, no fucking clue as to what she was talking about, she’d pulled him into a private office and told him that just after eleven, the oldest prince shed his curse.
He’d met Henry out by the tree just after half past ten. They’d sat and talked. Alex had stared for a long time, a weight shifting in his stomach, something heavy and indomitable that he couldn’t shake, until he reached across them and pulled Henry’s hand into his own and that weight had— vanished. As if a feather caught by a breeze.
It wasn’t until he was sitting in that office in D.C., Zahra pacing back and forth in front of him with her own theories and guesses and wonderings that Alex first started to wonder, himself.
And he had wondered for ninety days.
He had sat at White House dinners and wondered. He had sat on a bench at the park he liked, gazing out on the tree that didn’t quite take the expanse as his and Henry’s did, and he’d wondered. He’d closed his eyes before bed, the softest glint of sapphire crashing through his longest dreams, and he’d wondered. For every breath he breathed and every step he took; for every hand he shook and smile he smiled. Every kind word and curious glance all held the quiet question; cradled it, nurtured it. Let it grow, grow, grow, until he finally stepped on that plane this morning.
Until he stepped off that dance floor and onto the grass.
Until he looked across the yawning expanse of a garden so beautiful it would put those at the White House to shame. Until his eyes caught the shine of sapphire, and all that wonder ebbed away; replaced with sure hearted certainty.
It had been them.
The same realization is reflected in those shining eyes. He knows it, too. He must. Alex swallows and takes a step towards him, lets his feet guide him home; because that is what Henry is. For two years, they have met beneath the stars and revealed all their darkest bits, bared it all out to the heavens and to each other. They’d laughed, they’d cried, they stared up at the skies and wondered what the world would be like if only things were different.
They meet beside the fountain. Alex isn’t sure what’s louder, the sound of his heartbeat in his ears or the rush of the water over the edges of the cliff at the top of the fountain. He doesn’t care, though, not really, because Henry’s wide eyes are flickering back and forth between his.
He waits for him to say it. To ask. To declare it. To make real what’s been in their heads and hearts this whole time.
Only, Henry doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move but for the rise and fall of his chest, the dancing of his wandering eyes. He looks at Alex like he’s afraid to ever stop; afraid to break the very gentle hold they have on another. Afraid that if he does it’ll mean it’s not true. Alex knows that’s what he’s thinking, it must be, because it’s what’s racing through his own mind.
This can’t be real.
He’s a nobody from Austin. His heart isn’t strong enough to break a curse.
Only it had been. Twice.
The first, on the night he realized he loved Henry. With his bright eyes and caustic wit; the careful way he’d leaned against the tree, suave and demanding all at once. The way he dreams and the grip he has on hope despite the life he’s led and the curse wrapped around him, body and soul. The fact that he’s still so soft, so kind, despite the cruel whip of his grandmothers tongue and the even crueler heart hiding in her chest.
His love for him had broken Princess Bea’s curse.
Three will seek, three will yearn, but only one will find love strong enough to break the curse.
And again, on the night he first allowed himself to touch. A thin press of silk preventing the warmth of a true touch. It had still felt monumental though; intimate and prudent and everlasting. A moment written in the stars that night and every night thereafter, whether or not their fingers found one another again.
They’d fundamentally changed the very inner workings of the universe that night. Not just in the breaking of Prince Phillip’s curse. But in their understanding of what they were; what they could be.
“It’s us,” Alex finally says, his voice crackling and quiet.
Henry’s chest rises high with a hefty inhale. “It can’t be,” he says on the exhale, shaking his head. “A—A love,” he says the word like he can’t quite believe it’s true, “Like ours isn’t—it’s not. We can’t be.”
“But we are.”
Henry takes another deep, shuddering a breath, his shoulders slumping as if whatever fight he had in him has been brushed away with the breeze. “They’ll never accept it.”
“They won’t have a choice.” Alex takes a step in towards him, heart hammering. “If we shatter the curse, they’ll have no choice.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?”
Alex swallows; takes another step, holding his hands out between him. “If my realizing I loved you could break one chain, and us taking one another in hand could break another, imagine . . .” He bites his lip, his brow furrowing. “Imagine what a kiss could do.”
Henry’s eyes flicker between his. “That’s what broke Bea’s curse?” He asks, soft. “You—you realized you love me?” Alex nods. “ . . . All this time, you—” He breaks off, as if he can’t believe the words well enough to speak them.
“I fell in love with you the first time our gazes met on the dance floor,” Alex says, taking one final step between them. “I just didn’t know it until that night by the tree. If it doesn’t work; if we’re wrong and what’s happening between us has nothing to do with what’s happening with the curse, I won’t even care. I’ll love you like this until I stop breathing, cursed or not. You have my heart, Henry. Then, now, tomorrow. The rest of it doesn’t matter to me.”
Henry blinks. “You’d still love me if I remained this way forever?”
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation; no rush or need to extrapolate. It’s as simple as the night is long. It’s the only true fact in all of this there is:
Alex Claremont-Diaz loves Henry. Not the prince, not the cursed third. Henry.
The hesitation comes when Henry doesn’t reply or react beyond the stunned parting of his lips. Alex bites his own lip; forces himself to ask the question he’s certain he already knows the answer to, but needs to hear to confirm: “Do you love me?”
Henry inhales shakily. “Do you even need to ask?”
“I know what I feel. What I believe . . . what I hope.” Alex swallows, shaking his head. “But I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“Of course I love you,” Henry whispers, the words catching on the back of his teeth and breaking off on the final syllable.
Three will seek.
Three will yearn.
But only one will find love strong enough to break the curse.
“Don’t we owe it to that love to try?” Alex asks. “To prove that it’s strong enough? Not just to break your curse, but to prove to yourself that you’re more than the curse placed on you? That the kind of love you can hold isn’t wrong; it’s the very thing that can save the rest of them?” He reaches out for Henry’s hands. “Your love isn’t just beautiful; it’s strength, and resilience, and fucking beautiful and it doesn’t matter how they see it, because whatever they think, it’s stronger than their ignorance.”
“You don’t know that it’s enough,” Henry whispers, gaze falling to their hands.
“I do, actually.”
His head snaps back up, lips curling inward as he starts to shake his head. “You can’t.”
“The first time we met, the curse shuddered,” Alex says insistently. He ducks his head to meet Henry’s gaze as he looks down. “The first time I realized how I feel, your sister was freed. The first time we touched your brother was freed. You cannot honestly tell me that’s all just a coincidence.”
“Alex—”
“Kiss me.”
Henry’s breath catches.
“Kiss me and prove me wrong.” He squeezes Henry’s hands again. “Kiss me right here, right now, and if your curse isn’t broken, then, fine, you’re right. It won’t matter, though. Because I won’t leave. I’m not here to break the curse. I never was.”
Henry nods. “You’re here because my grandmother—”
“I’m the son of the leader of the free world,” Alex interrupts. “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.” His mouth falls open, eyes darting back and forth between Alex’s, and Alex brings their hands to his chest, holding them against himself. “I’m here because of you.”
Henry takes in a big breath, nodding once. “Because you . . . love me,” he says with the kind of awe that one directs at the stars on a cloudless night—as if it’s the most beautiful revelation. As if the very knowledge of it might change the world in entirety.
And if they’re right?
It will.
It’ll change everything.
“I love you,” Alex confirms, nodding with meaning. He holds Henry’s hand tighter to himself, presses it flat against his chest where he’s sure to feel his heart beating. “And if it’s not us, I’ll still love you. I don’t care if we break the curse.”
“But I’ll—”
“I love you as you are,” He says, meaning it. “Cursed or not.”
“I’ll never be able to—”
“I don’t care.”
“Alex, be serious.”
“I am.” He steps in closer, holds him firmer. “Kiss me and I’ll show you.”
Henry’s gaze dips down to his lips and then back up, his own parting. “Are you sure?” he asks, voice barely more than a whisper. “Once we know . . .”
“There’s no going back.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t want to go back to pretending.”
Henry nods. “I don’t either.”
“Then kiss me.”
He licks his lips. “I think . . . I might be afraid.”
“Of us not breaking it?”
He shakes his head, gaze trailing slowly back up to meet Alex’s. “Of what happens when we do.”
Not if.
When.
“That’s a worry for after.”
Henry huffs out a breath of quiet, contemplative laughter. “Happily ever after?”
Alex nods, seriously. “If I have my way, yeah.”
Henry watches him for a beat, and then his fingers curl beneath Alex’s palm, fisting in the fabric of his tuxedo jacket. “Okay,” he breathes, nodding once, twice, three times, his eyes locked on Alex’s lips. “Let’s . . . break a generational curse.”
Alex grins. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
They sit in the final breath of the word for a moment, eyes drifting over one another—Alex isn’t even sure who moves first. Who closes the distance and captures the others lips. It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter.
Because as soon as they touch—he feels it.
The universe bends beneath their will—and between one breath and the next.
The curse shatters.
When they enter the banquet hall; it’s quiet. The music has stopped, everyone’s still but for their eyes; their twisting necks.
They enter hand in hand through the french doors at the back of the hall. The crowd parts for them, silent and awestruck, as they make their way through the room. Eyes track their every movement; soft gasps reflect off the domed ceiling. This is the first time they’re seeing Henry’s face for the first time, as his mask is clasped tightly in the hand now wound in Alex’s.
They come to the center of the room and face the crowd as a whole; together.
Three will seek.
Three will yearn.
Alex looks at Henry.
Only one will find love strong enough to break the curse.