Chapter 32 Don’t Let It Go #2
“Absolutely not. Furthermore, if anyone comes looking for you, I might just say they just missed you dancing, and I’m fairly sure you are around here somewhere.” Luci said.
“If you take out the dancing part, it wouldn’t be a lie,” he said.
When he smiled up at her, his front tooth was newly missing, and it melted her heart a little bit more. He was an old soul in a young body.
“You know, though, do you see that boy over there?” Luci bent down and pointed across the room.
“His name is Cochran, and he helped Ira and me out on our quest. He happens to live very close to the Blue Mountains, which I heard just had some new magical activity occurring. You might get a first-hand account from him.”
Max’s eyes widened, and without saying good-bye or thank you, he took off to where Cochran stood by Agnes. They were kind to accept the invitation on such short notice, but the way Agnes drank in every moment was well worth the urgency. Cochran, however, was much more anxious and unsure.
Luci watched as Max approached, and not a few minutes later, the two boys were waving their hands and talking animatedly. It made her chest tighten with emotion, but worse was Ira emerging through the crowd and dipping his head to Agnes. She fawned and praised him, smiling like a bride herself.
He offered her his hand, and even from across the room, her cheeks filled with color while he led her to the dance floor. They laughed and chatted like old friends, and of all the things she’d done right in her life, all of this was one of them.
“Do you believe in magic now, Cinderella?”
Luci turned and nearly fell over as Elowen appeared in a blue shimmer and a puff of cinnamon, wearing a sparkling blue ball gown that hugged her skin before spilling out. Her red hair done up and loose, looking like a drawing from a book.
Sometimes Luci woke up thinking it was all an elaborate dream, but then fairy godmothers popped out of nowhere in the middle of ballrooms, and there was no denying it.
“How long will the flower help her?” Luci asked as she watched Lucien spin Brielle.
“Time will tell, but I can tell you that she will live a long and happy life. After that?” Elowen smiled. “I suspect I’ll be seeing Brielle Treveon again.”
She said the words with a sort of wistfulness that smelled a lot like hope. Enough that a suspicion built in Luci, and she realized she’d never thought to ask.
“How do fairy godmothers come to be?” she asked.
Red lips curved up, and all the answer Luci would ever get was in a single wink.
A mystery that maybe wasn’t so much a mystery.
Despite the unsettling nature of it, Luci found that maybe that wasn’t such a terrible fate.
No one would be better at making dreams come true than the woman who gave Luci everything she had.
“I waited a very long time for you, Lucinda, but I believe it was worth it.” She looked over Luci's shoulder and smiled. “I left you a present where we first met. Live well, Lucinda Blackthorn.”
Before Luci opened her mouth to say a thing, Elowen was gone in a fit of blue magic that lingered in the air several moments before disappearing altogether. How nice it must be to come and go at one’s will. It would make parties like this much easier.
Unsure what one was supposed to do after their fairy godmother came and went without warning, Luci scanned the room for Ira, but Agnes was resting with a glass of wine with a wide smile on her face, and Ira was nowhere to be found.
An arm slid around her waist, and she was beginning to consider that maybe her hiding spot was not so clever after all. Grinning like a mad woman, Luci pressed herself against her assailant and shuddered when he pressed a kiss to her neck.
“Do you often have dalliances with strange women at balls, your highness?” she said.
Her stomach tightened when his warm breath ghosted over her neck.
“It’s something new I thought to try. Do you approve?” he asked against her ear.
Light above, she was melting from the inside out. She twisted and faced her prince, her missing piece. Happiness suited him. It made his bright green eyes shimmer, making her wonder if there wasn’t some truth to the Vencia’s holding magic in their veins. She was certainly willing to find out.
Ira sniffed the air before looking side to side.
“It smells like cinnamon,” he said.
Luci wrapped her arms around his neck, loving that he was hers to touch. No conflict in what shouldn’t be or couldn’t be. It simply was.
“Elowen was here before you chased her away. She said she left me a present where we first met.” Luci said.
Biting back a smile, Ira ran a finger over her cheek before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
His hand drifted lower to rest over her neck, and it sent a thrill through her.
They hadn’t had much time together, with last-minute wedding planning and a possible succession change.
They always made time at dinner for each other, but quiet moments like this were rare.
“Have I told you how incandescently beautiful you are tonight?” he asked.
Luci laughed and dipped her head, but he didn’t let her hide from his words as he lifted her chin with his finger.
“Eyes on me, Cinderella,” he said.
And for the briefest of moments, she was transported back to a time, not so very long ago, where a handsome prince swept her off her feet. A night much like this.
“Are you going to ask me to dance?” she asked, voice thick with memory.
He studied her for a long moment like he was drinking her in, memorizing her. She might have saved him the trouble by reminding him that he’d won her. That she wasn’t going anywhere, but she found she quite liked his eyes on her.
Tucking her hand into his arm, he walked her to the dance floor, oblivious to the eyes and whispers on them.
Luci could only imagine the pair they made.
Maybe they would commission a portrait just so she could remember every detail.
Ignoring all the distractions and the speculation, they found their place on the dance floor and faced one another.
Luci swallowed. “I don’t know how to dance.”
The words were a whisper as they played out this little game. A meeting without masks or secrets. Just two people as they were.
Just as it was before, Ira gave her his best smolder, and she couldn’t keep in the laugh that broke from her.
“That’s quite the power you have, your highness,” she said.
He winked and pulled her in, hand on her waist and on her heart all at once.
Everywhere he touched, she belonged to him.
So when he took the first step and the second, she followed his lead, knowing he would protect her and love her till his last breath.
A future of possibilities that was theirs for the taking.
The music surrounded them, cocooning them in this place of memory and promise.
“I’m going to spin you now,” he said.
Luci didn’t wait for him this time, but met him at the start. She was no longer the woman she was that first dance, but she could appreciate her courage.
As she spun back into his arms, he dipped his mouth to her ear.
“What am I going to do with you in that dress, Lucinda?” he asked.
Just like that, the rules changed. This wasn’t just a memory anymore; the stakes elevated.
She might have risen to the occasion if it weren’t for the fact that she was an inferno.
Cheeks warming against the heat, Ira smiled, knowing he’d flustered her.
It was, after all, one of his favorite pastimes.
“I think you knew what you were doing when you put it on,” he said, spinning her again.
Glass pumpkins give her the strength for this.
“I was simply doing as the bride requested,” she said, feigning indifference.
This time, when he spun her, he caught her with her back to his front while his hand snaked over her stomach, pressing just enough that she might die.
“You’ve never done anything because it was simply requested,” he said.
She stepped away and fixed him with a glare, resuming their dance.
“I believe the first time we did this was for a simple request,” she said.
“Grand finale,” he warned.
Her stomach flipped as he dipped her, holding her weight in his arm while the music swelled and finished.
He leaned forward and said against her lips.
“I think you wanted to dance with me that night,” he said.
A shaky breath blew through her parted lips, and she was lost for words. A battle was fought hard and inevitably lost.
At least he was princely enough not to gloat about his win. Instead, he righted her and whispered in her ear.
“Run away with me?” he asked.
Ruthless man. Using his win to blindside her, knowing she couldn’t deny him a single thing.
“After you,” she said.
His answering smile was imprinted on her heart and written into the pages of her story, never to be dulled by something as mundane as the passage of time.
Cinderella and her prince.