The Beauregard plantation had been dying for three generations, and Dorothea knew it.

The orchards had gone to seed, the stables stood empty, and the family portraits in the hall seemed to watch her with increasingly desperate eyes. Her father, once a proud Southern gentleman, now spent his days counting coins that grew fewer with each passing week.

On a humid August night, in the year of our Lord 1883, a creature appeared at the edge of the orchard.

It moved through the trees like a shadow—tall, dark, impossible to follow. Dorothea watched from her chamber window, her breath fogging the cold glass. She was twenty-two, the youngest of three daughters, and the only one who had not yet been married off to the highest bidder. Her elder sisters, Catherine and Margaret, had married well—or as well as could be expected in these declining times. Catherine had wed a merchant's son in New Orleans. Margaret had married a lawyer's brother in Charleston. Both had written letters expressing concern, but neither had offered to come.

"Dorothea," her father said from the doorway, "go to bed. It's past midnight."

She did not move. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Just the wind."

"It wasn't wind."

He sighed. "Dorothea, you have always had a vivid imagination. Go to bed."

She went to bed, but she did not sleep.

The truth revealed itself three days later.

The creature appeared at the plantation gates at dawn, standing perfectly still in the morning mist. When Dorothea approached, she saw that it had taken on a roughly humanoid form—tall, dark-haired, with eyes that caught the light like a cat's. It wore tattered clothes that might once have been fine garments.

"I am here to make an offer," it said. Its voice was low and musical, like a cello played in an empty hall.

"What kind of offer?" Dorothea asked.

"The restoration of your family's fortune. In exchange for marriage to one of your daughters."

Dorothea's heart stopped. She should have screamed. She should have run. But something in those cat-like eyes held her in place—a sadness so profound it felt like gravity.

"Which daughter?" she asked.

The creature's gaze shifted to where Catherine and Margaret stood behind their father. "The one who is willing."

Catherine was not willing. She turned pale and stepped back, her hand flying to her throat. Margaret was not willing either. She crossed her arms and stared at the creature with undisguised horror.

Dorothea was willing.

She did not know why. Perhaps it was the desperation of a family on the brink of ruin. Perhaps it was the romantic foolishness of a woman who had read too many novels. Perhaps it was something deeper—something she could not name and would never be able to explain.

"I will marry you," she said.

The creature bowed. When it straightened, its eyes were wet with tears.

"Thank you, Dorothea Beauregard. You have no idea what you have done."

She did not. Not then.

The wedding took place a week later in the plantation chapel. There were no guests, only the priest and the family. The creature wore a black suit that had been tailored to fit his unusual height. His face was handsome in an unsettling way—too symmetrical, too perfect, like a mask carved from marble.

That night, in the marital chamber, he did not touch her.

"I cannot," he said. "Not yet. Not until the moon is full."

Dorothea lay awake beside him, listening to his breathing. It was the breathing of a creature that did not need to sleep but did so out of habit or courtesy. She wanted to ask questions. She wanted to know his name, his history, his intentions. But the words caught in her throat, and she slept instead.

The moon was full in seven days.

When it rose over the Beauregard plantation, the creature was gone. In his place stood a man—human, vulnerable, trembling. He had dark hair and dark eyes and a face that was beautiful in a way that made Dorothea's heart ache.

"My name is Sebastian," he said. "Sebastian Beauregard. I was once a nobleman, like your family. Before the curse."

"What kind of curse?" Dorothea asked.

He looked at her with those cat-like eyes, and she saw the sadness again—the bottomless, oceanic sadness that had held her in its grip from the moment she first saw him in the orchard.

"A witch's curse," he said. "She was my wife. I loved another. She cursed me to spend my nights as a creature of the forest and my days as nothing at all. When the moon is full, I can take human form for one night. One night, Dorothea. That is all."

Dorothea reached out and took his hand. It was cold.

"Will it always be like this?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. The curse weakens. Slowly. Perhaps in fifty years, perhaps in a hundred. But tonight—tonight I am yours. And tomorrow, I will return to the forest."

They loved each other that night under the full moon. It was not the passionate, consuming love of novels. It was something quieter, deeper, more terrible. It was the love of two creatures who understood, perfectly and completely, that they were doomed.

The months that followed were a pattern that would repeat for the rest of their lives. During the day, Dorothea tended to the plantation. The orchards flourished under the creature's care. The family's fortune was restored. Catherine and Margaret wrote letters expressing surprise and a hint of resentment.

At night, when the moon was full, Sebastian would appear. They would love each other in the old chapel, surrounded by the ghosts of Beauregard ancestors who had never known anything like this love. And at dawn, he would return to the forest.

Dorothea did not mind the waiting. She did not mind the loneliness of daytime, the hollow chambers, the portraits that watched her with their increasingly desperate eyes. She had something they could not take away. She had the moonlit hours. She had Sebastian.

But the curse was not done with them.

One winter night, when the moon was full and the snow fell thick and fast, Sebastian came to her trembling. His human form was flickering, like a candle in the wind.

"The curse is changing," he said. "It is becoming stronger. I may not be able to come to you for a long time. Perhaps never."

Dorothea held him as he trembled. She did not cry. She had learned long ago that tears were useless against curses.

"Then I will wait," she said.

He looked at her with those cat-like eyes, and she saw the gratitude and the grief and the love, all swirling together in a turbulence that nearly broke her.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you wait for something that may never come?"

Dorothea looked out the window at the moon, pale and distant and beautiful.

"Because," she said, "I have known what it is to be loved by something that should not be able to love at all. And that is worth waiting for."

Sebastian kissed her forehead. It was the last time he would come to her for seven years.

When he did return, the moon would be full again. And Dorothea would be waiting. She would always be waiting.

The Beauregard plantation flourished. The orchards produced fruit beyond counting. The family's fortune grew. But Dorothea never married again. She never needed to.

She had known a love that defied curses and conventions and the very laws of nature. And that was enough.

It had to be.