Chapter 14
Kingsley
Alexander William Kingsley had not been human in a very long time.
Long enough that his legs now seemed too large, his head too heavy on his neck, his organs expanding to their natural size with a painful twist. Gods, he was going to retch any moment now.
And then did, barely getting to the window before he emptied the contents of his stomach over the ledge. Mostly flies.
He retched again.
His most recent transformation back to a frog—mere seconds ago—had been sudden and unexpected, lasting only a few hopeless moments of wandering the manor until he’d found himself secluded and turning quite abruptly back into a man.
They said frogs were disgusting. Humans were worse. In every respect, it seemed.
He stood up straight, adjusting the tie on the pants he’d lifted from the laundry, clutching his stomach, noting abdomen muscles beneath his fingertips where there had once been a smooth, portly belly.
He let out a rasping sound. Another attempt at a word, and he’d miserably failed.
Shoving his newly shorn dark locks away from his face, he tossed the scissors he’d found in the closet off the corner hall, then checked his progress in the hall mirror.
It was uneven at best, but Alexander had to acknowledge that he’d been surprised he was able to use his fingers at all, let alone have the dexterity to trim the thick encumbrance.
At least enough that he could see the worry lines etched into his forehead, his chin shadowed with a faint hint of stubble, and his gold eyes set within the decently attractive face—if he did say so himself—of a human.
Human. He was human again. No gangly limbs, no eating flies, no traveling about on the shoulders of others. He had hands and feet and— He glanced down.
Well, there really weren’t enough ways to express how happy he’d been to see that again.
“Kingsley!” a voice hissed from down the hallway, and Alexander groaned. Which, in his long-unused voice, sounded a touch like a dying cow. “I know you’re back there!”
Clare’s voice had been a source of fun and play when they were children.
To hear it was to be on the verge of adventure, as it had been with all of them together.
Alexander, Tatianna, Malcolm, Clare, and Trystan.
There had been a time in his youth that Alexander had thought his friends the center of the universe.
And when he became a frog, he’d become an outlier, an ornament to the group, the observer.
Being observed was another matter entirely.
He attempted to say Clare’s name—a quick rasp of a sound that was jumbled even to his own ears—but the sound was enough for her to turn the corner and find him with a screech. “Stop wandering off! I told you to stay put.”
Alexander wished there was a way to convey to Clare that he couldn’t stay put, not when he had fingers that weren’t webbed, his eyeline was about six feet above what it used to be, and he was free. “S-Sorry,” he rasped out, his throat scratching painfully from disuse.
Clare sighed, rubbing at her temples. “I wanted to make sense of it all before I went to Trystan. Before they know about you and reason goes away. You’re human again, yes. But how? Why? And who did it?” She sucked in a breath, and Alexander braced himself for what he knew was coming.
Clare stomped over and then whispered something low, for only his ears, something so absurd and outlandish he stared at her in astonishment. “Alexander. Why would you betray me like this?”
Here it was. She was finally going to say it.
The thing she’d been holding back since he’d found her in the courtyard. This was it.
The time had come.
“Why on earth did you cut your beautiful hair?” Clare continued.
He laughed, or rather rasped out a sound of pure relief, shock, his eyes welling with tears, his chest buoyant at all of it. The look upon Clare’s face, the ridiculousness of what she’d just asked him, the absolute chaos of it. Unbelievable, really.
Clare gaped at him just as Tatianna rounded the corner, Becky and Blade trailing close behind her. “Tatianna! I told you not to bring anyone into this yet!”
Blade raised a careful hand. “In all fairness, she didn’t bring us; we ran into her. Literally. Who’s this?”
It was a crime against nature that Alexander didn’t have the voice to tell Blade how many times he’d sat on the man’s shoulder. For the deadlands’ sake, he knew the view from the top of Blade’s head.
Alexander merely waved at them instead, which was not nearly as funny. “Hi,” he said roughly. “I—I—am—”
“Prince Alexander Kingsley,” Rebecka Erring finished, the eyes watching from behind her glasses flying wide, her hand coming up to grip Blade’s arm for support. “Dear gods.”
“What?” Blade bellowed. “He’s— How do you know?”
“There were portraits of each of the royal families on the magical continent within the Fortis library.” Ms. Erring still appeared to be catching her breath. Another pause. “This man is an exact likeness.”
Tatianna nodded, staring at him the way she had in the laundry room, before he’d taken off running.
“It’s really you. Isn’t it?” Her brown eyes were hopeful, her hand reaching for him.
She ran it carefully over his face before her trepidation crumbled and she threw her arms around him with a sob of joy.
“I’m so happy I could burst! Look at you!
” Tatianna backed away, grabbing his hands, beaming at Clare.
“Isn’t it grand? Wait until Trystan sees you! ”
“He cannot!” Clare objected, shattering the illusion of reunions and happiness.
“Trystan has far too much to contend with right now with Evie. Alexander’s transformations are unstable at best. I have no clue what turned him human.
Or what’s keeping him that way. I want to figure it out first. Fix what I broke. ”
“The ‘what you broke’ being…Alexander?” Tatianna raised a brow, a hint of a smile tilting her lips upward.
Alexander said but one word.
“Rude.”
Well—that was much fucking faster than writing it down.
Blade still stared at him in shock, Ms. Erring doing much the same. “How did it happen? Did Winnie’s attempt to change him back actually work?”
Alexander’s head snapped up, his mouth forming the words before he could think better of it. “Win-ni-fred.”
“Winnie was also an option, buddy.” Blade winced, patting Alexander on the back. “Might be easier on the pipes.”
“We have to take him to Trystan at once,” Tatianna urged, spinning Alexander around. “He’ll be… I can’t imagine how happy he’ll be to see you.”
The words sank into his skin, drifting down to touch his now overly large heart.
His best friend.
What have I done?
It was Alexander’s final thought before he doubled over in agony, falling to the floor, feeling a wave of nausea as everything constricted.
And shrank.
He blinked over and over, his world growing larger again until Alexander Kingsley…was once again a frog.
Well.
What the fuck.