Chapter 26
Chapter
My wounds are shallow.
My jealousy, regrettably, is not.
With gentle hands, Frog lifts me to my feet, concluding our lesson. Though the warmth of the moment is still evident in the apples of my cheeks.
“That was—”
“You were—”
We both sputter.
“You—”
“I—”
We freeze, quiet, breathless laughs slipping through our lips.
“This feels awfully familiar.” I grin.
“More than you realize.”
Frog pauses, his hands flexing at his side. There’s more he wants to say, I can see it. But just as I’m certain he’s about to name what’s swirling in his eyes, something shifts beyond his shoulders.
I squint into the darkness, and in it find two hauntingly familiar large amber eyes staring back at me. A gasp escapes my lips as I take in the shadowy outline of an impossibly large creature.
It snarls, standing on two feet. Biting at the air with its sharp pointed canines, it reveals just enough of its snout for me to see exactly what it is.
“Miss Sunday?” Frog’s eyes narrow in concern.
Slowly he turns, following my gaze.
“It’s a lupin.” I point with a trembling hand.
Frog’s spine stiffens as he stands face-to-face with the creature born of moonlight.
“Return to the carriage, Miss Sunday,” he orders just as the tall, gaunt werewolf emerges from the trees.
His skin is gray with patches of coarse black fur. And his limbs—god his limbs—they’re hunched and bowed, reflecting only a fraction of the poor soul trapped inside.
“Now!” Frog shouts.
I startle, and start to turn, but then I remember…
“Frog, your blade! It’s at camp!” I cry.
“I’ll be alright,” he promises, nodding over his shoulder. “Just go.”
The lupin drops to all fours and prowls ever closer to my painfully shy knight—though he looks anything but at the moment.
His normally bashful form stands firm against the wolf-like creature.
He doesn’t look at all afraid of the foam frothing from its mouth, or the heat of its amber glare.
If it weren’t for the creature’s unnaturally long claws, I might actually believe Frog’s lie. Believe that he’ll be alright.
But life has a habit of taking what’s most precious and snatching it away.
“Frog…” I breathe, but the weight of that one word is heavier than just a name.
It’s a confession. A plea for the life that’s grown to mean so much to me.
It goes unanswered all the same.
The werewolf and the knight circle each other, but when the werewolf’s sharp gaze cuts to me, I realize too late…
He’s here for me.
My stomach bottoms out as the lupin lunges past the dark knight and sprints toward me. But just as his claw is about to slice through my face, he’s tackled to the ground, Frog’s roar ripping through the trees and rattling my bones as sharp teeth and bloodied flesh collide.
“Run, Princess!” he yells. “Now!”
With unshed tears turning the forest into little more than a blur, I run. Ignoring the sting in my feet and the dark curls and loose vines whipping at my face, I don’t stop. I can’t. Because the fear of what I’ll find is greater than knowing what’s coming for me.
Twice, I stumble.
Twice, I catch myself.
I can only hope there isn’t a third time. My strength is waning just as it did in the tower, only this time, there will be no Gally to soothe me. And there might not be a Frog either.
I will the heavy thu-thump of my heart to quiet. Plead for my legs to not give before I make it back to the others. They’re so close. Just past these crimson-covered bushes.
I start to wave my hands high above my head, hoping they’ll see me. But no one is awake.
“Please.” A whimper bleeds between pants. “Help!” I yell louder, using the last of the air in my lungs.
Merrek is the first to roll to his feet, with Myrrdin and Rhidland right behind him. Without shoes or armor, they sprint through the field my way.
“My lady!”
“Princess!”
Voices call out, but I’m already falling to the ground.
“Frog,” I breathe.
Then the darkness closes in and claims me.
Heavy footfalls and raised voices stir me from my dreamless sleep.
“…I’m just sayin’, her body wasn’t that blue before!”
A dark figure leans overhead, his voice low, but no less snappy. “Why are you looking at her body to begin with, Sir Leeralot?”
Myrrdin? I wince, the harsh glow from the fire forcing me to narrow my eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know,” another figure huffs, throwing his long arms in the air. “Maybe cause it’s my job, Sir Dimblewit!”
Ah.
Merrek.
I sit up, cradling what feels like a small lump on the side of my head as my eyes adjust to the bright light from the crackling fire.
“My lady? You’re up?” Rhidland stops short of the tall grass, carrying more tinder for the fire, his gaze narrowing on the twins. “I reckon we ought to thank these hollow-heads for that.”
Merrek shrinks away from the old man’s glare, lips tucked in and eyes wide, as if to watch for a potential strike.
I’d laugh if my head didn’t hurt so much. The pounding ache is enough to make my stomach churn. Oh, Gally. How I miss you so.
Wait.
Missing.
Someone’s missing.
My hand falls away as I search for the rest of our party. Frog is gone. Frog—
The memory of sharp claws digging into the meat of his arms hits me like a ton of bricks.
My chest grows tighter with every shallow breath. I fear I’m close to spending my lungs dry when a soft hand gently grips my shoulder, reeling me in.
“He’ll be alright, Princess.”
Myrrdin’s voice is level. Calm and sure. Everything I am not.
“We must help him!” I beg, readying my still-weak legs to stand. “Please! There’s a lupin in the woods! It’s hurting him! It’s—”
“His second in command,” Rhidland sighs, dropping the tinder on the small patch of earth they cleared for the fire before taking a seat across from me. “Found that out when I asked to remain in your stead.”
“That’s not possible.” I shake my head. “His second hand is…”
Gone.
The grass is flattened where Wolfe lay, but all that remains in his place are the tattered remains of his trousers and tunic. The scraps of a well-kept secret.
“He’s a lupin?”
Myrrdin nods, giving my stiffened shoulder a gentle squeeze before tending to the waning flames.
“But, how? I mean…I know how. But…”
I trip and tumble over my words, grasping for a logical explanation that would give reason as to why one of my father’s four knights is a werewolf, but I can fathom none.
“People born with the gene are supposed to live relatively unaffected lives,” I recount what little I’ve read on the matter, cursing myself for not spotting the signs sooner.
The amber eyes. His short temper. His unwavering loyalty to those he loves most. They’re all there.
But even still, there’s one box he doesn’t check.
I shake my head, puzzling over the anomaly. “Even with the gene, in order to turn, he would have had to take the life of an innocent. To take the life of—”
“A child.” Myrrdin’s voice is low, but the truth of his words is loud enough to leave a ringing in my ears and send a shiver to my toes.
“He didn’t,” I say, already knowing the answer, but fearing it all the same.
“Not on purpose.”
Merrek takes a seat next to me, offering me a slice of bread. When he forces it into my hand, I decline.
“It was a long time ago. He was just a kid,” he starts, biting into his own piece. “His father owned a bakery, and every Wednesday a girl about his age would come by with a basket, asking for bread.” He swallows, eyeing the crumbs that have fallen into his lap. “Her name was Red.”
“She was his first and only love,” Merrek continues, tossing his bread into the fire. “He didn’t know that when he asked her to stop and make a delivery on her way that he’d be sending her into a fire. He didn’t know there was a plan to kill the queen.”
My body stills as bile slowly creeps up the back of my throat. For the little girl whose remains stopped my father from cutting out my heart…was Red.
“No…” I swallow hard, but it’s too late. The realization rips through my stomach, forcing the guilt and shame to come up in chunks.
“Oh shit!”
“Princess?”
The twins cry out as all three men jump to their feet, their faces pinched in varying shades of concern and disgust as I retch all over where they’d been sitting.
“Oh you’ve done it now!” Myrrdin spits, eyes burning into his brother.
“Me? I just told her the truth, which is more than R—ahhh!”
Merrek falls back, letting out a high-pitched shriek as the purple-pinned arachne Myrrdin just tossed on him climbs up the terrified knight’s chest.
“Oops. Sorry.” Myrrdin shrugs, looking anything but as he stalks over to where Merrek is frantically rolling on the ground.
My mouth hangs open, still dripping with spew as I watch the pair struggle to catch the speedy little spider in stunned silence.
“Well then.” Rhidland slaps his palms against his thighs, groaning as he climbs to his feet. “Tea, My Lady?” He blinks, unfazed by the two large knights now wrestling in the grass behind him.
“I…please,” I nod, swiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
The old guard goes to fetch the canister of herbs from his bag when its front pocket spills open, and with it his extra undergarments.
“What in the realm—who stole my bloody buttons?”
Rhidland’s stony eyes cut toward the twins, his fist winding up to swing. And of course the oblivious oafs are too busy bickering to see they’re being blamed for something our feathery friend did and—
“Oh my God! Buttons!” I gasp.
“Is perfectly alright,” answers the familiar timbre of a painfully shy knight.
Frog!
I stand and spin on my heels so quickly that even his eyes are wide with surprise. I wonder how surprised he’d feel if he knew it’s taking everything in me not to run up and throw my arms around him right now.
“I thought…I didn’t know. I—are you, is he, alright?” I finally spit out.
Because full sentences are so hard now, Sunday?
I inwardly cringe at my sudden inability to speak in his presence.
Frog’s eyes soften.
“Wolfe needs to run it out. But everyone is alright.” He winces as he reaches beneath his cloak with his bloodied arm and gently pulls out a sleeping pink-and-white fluff ball.
“Buttons!” I coo, taking the small dragon from Frog’s hand into my arms. Apart from an exhaustive case of the sleepies, he appears to be otherwise unfazed by tonight’s events. Which is more than I can say for some…
Frog’s tunic is torn to shreds, hanging off his chiseled body in bloodied ribbons beneath his muddied cloak. Though—by some miracle—the cuts look superficial. Nothing that would warrant a pontiff or a sloppy set of stitches. Still…
“You should take that off so we can clean those,” I suggest, nodding toward the shallow lacerations that line his muscled chest.
The men fall silent at my back. Before me, a stunned Frog stands, his dark brows lifted high above his fire-lit eyes. It’s only after the words have fallen past my lips that I realize my mistake.
“I didn’t mean that I would—I just meant—” My dying limbs warm, brought back to life just to paint me with embarrassment.
It’s either that, or the heat from the arm Merrek’s slung around my shoulder.
“Yeah, Frog. Take it off,” he chides, but Frog doesn’t deign to answer.
In fact, I’m quite certain he didn’t hear the copper-curled knight at all. His darkened gaze is locked onto where Merrek’s fingers now play with my loose curls, his every ragged breath on full display through the rips in his tunic.
“Frog?” I ask, unable to hide the concern lacing my voice.
“Sorry, Princess. He can be a bit touchy when it comes to—” Merrek pauses, winking at the dark knight, “Immodesty.”
Oh?
Oh.
“Of course.” I lower my gaze, a faint, apologetic smile on my lips.
An uncomfortable silence stretches between us, broken only by the sound of a kettle at full heat.
“Tea’s ready!” Rhidland calls.
Thank God.
I duck out from under the twin’s arm, practically fleeing as I shuffle my way to Rhidland’s side.
“Careful, it’s hot,” the old guard cautions.
“Indeed,” I agree, unable to help my eyes wandering back toward the dark knight.
It’s only when I go to grab the tulip shaped mug made by Rhidland that I realize I, too, am being watched. For sitting across from me, with his lips tucked into a thin smile, is Myrrdin.
Couldn’t this curse kill me any faster?
“He likes you,” he says.
Hot tea blows out of my nose as I all but choke on a mouthful of the smoky blackberry drink.
“Pardon?” I gasp, swiping at the scalding mess dripping down my face.
“The…dragon?” Myrrdin’s brow knits with concern as he points toward where Buttons has fallen asleep in my lap. “Are you alright, Princess?”
No. As a matter of fact, I am not alright.
Aside from having to marry a man I detest, there’s a good possibility I’m losing my mind.
I am cold…all the time. Except for when I am burning with embarrassment. Which happens, oh, at least twice a day? And always conveniently around him.
My eyes snap to Frog.
The man claims we have never met, yet my heart refuses to agree. Its fondness for him has begun to grow far beyond what is forbidden.
Oh!
And to top it all off?
My body is turning blue.
I could not be further from—
“Perfectly alright.”