Chapter 5
Zalman, I truly believe this is rather wrong thinking on your part.”
I clicked my tongue at Incendis and turned the page on the book I was reading to him.
I swear I felt a little like Belle in the opening of Disney’s Beauty and The Beast because we’d gone to a little bookstore, I’d climbed the ladder, and he’d bought me a romance novel called Love in the Loaves.
It was about a baker. She was wooing her man with fresh bake goods every day.
He, of course, had no idea what was happening to him.
“I think this is going swimmingly,” I said, using a new vocabulary word from the adorable book in my lap. “You’ve stopped pacing and trying to go back to work—” I didn’t use air quotes but they were implied “—and we’re having a very nice time here in this garden with our book.”
“I’m tied to a bench.”
Yes, fine, he was. I’d borrowed a length of rope from a cart we’d passed and I’d tied him from the waist down to a stone bench.
He couldn’t reach the knots because they were underneath the bench, and it was entirely too heavy for him to carry away because he couldn’t stand up or fly. He’d tried both.
How had I managed to tie him up without him resisting and getting away?
I’d flirted. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did it anyway.
I was weak! Anyone would be if they stood close to him and watched his IQ drop into single digits as he forgot how to speak and kept licking his lips.
I’d shoved a leg between his, too, and his breath had caught in a way that had distracted me for a moment.
But by the time I’d gone around behind him to secure the ropes crisscrossed over his lap and under the bench, he hadn’t even noticed what I’d actually been doing for at least five minutes.
And here we were.
“You’re tied to this bench for your own good.” I patted his thigh and gave him a smile. “Besides you asked me to do it.”
He squinted whiskey-colored eyes at me. “I did not.”
“You said I need to help you break the curse.”
“How does tying me down do that?”
I smiled at him. “You’re relaxing.”
He frowned harder. “You think forcing me to relax will help break the curse?”
I sighed, honestly surprised that we had to discuss it like this. “I think making you change your ways, possibly even stop bad habits, will help break the curse.”
He drew back, now looking shocked. “How is working with my people a bad habit?”
“Were you working with them, though?”
I didn’t like having to be the one to point out what had really been happening in that room and it did break my heart a little to see his face fall before he looked away. He was fully aware of the fact that he wasn’t needed in there.
“I can’t sit idle,” he said quietly. “There’s so much wrong. So many hurting. I must do something.”
I rubbed up and down his back in sympathy.
Some time ago, he’d made his wings disappear, saying they often got in the way.
Without them and with his ears hidden by his hair, he looked almost human.
Something about that felt off to me. Like he should never be so plain as just being a red-headed white guy with a rocking body. Incendis was meant to be more.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. But I just don’t think you’re going about things the right way. Maybe,” I said when he opened his mouth to interrupt, “you can be useful in some other way. You might think of something people could work on, sure, but then you should let them do it.”
He sighed and clasped his hands on his lap.
“I’ve always liked letting the experts be the ones to run things. Obviously, you should be involved when something needs your approval or more money or whatever like that. But to take an idea and make it a reality really should have the experts,” I emphasized again, “doing the work.”
I watched him mull that over, his gaze flicking all over his hands before he closed them and sighed again. This time, he sounded resigned. “I need to trust them,” he said quietly.
Oh, look at him learn! And so quickly, too.
“Exactly.” I leaned in and kissed his cheek.
I’d meant it as a reward and kissing someone’s cheek had never really meant I wanted anything more from them. But Incendis stared at me, and I watched his pupils dilate. He wasn’t just someone, and we’d both been clear about what we’d wanted.
Why was I resisting him so much?
No, stop that. I knew why. And it was the right thing to do.
I cleared my throat and closed the book. “Well, since you’ve learned that lesson, why don’t we find somewhere to have lunch?”
He didn’t answer, but I got up and went around to untie him anyway. I was still on my knees with the loosened rope in my hands when he flew away.
Yeah, I probably should’ve anticipated that.
I didn’t race back to the castle to try and snatch Incendis again.
He’d heard me and agreed. Whether he could stay away and let his people do their work was up to him.
I was confident that he wouldn’t be able to walk in there without now seeing that they didn’t need him checking on them every twenty minutes.
Instead of going back, I explored the village some more. Maybe there were clues to breaking the curse out here amongst the people. I was willing to find out, even if a certain fiery fae wasn’t.
I started at a bakery because of course I had to after reading that book. And I felt a little like I was in the book since this place looked like what I’d imagined while reading. There were thick beams overhead, whitewashed stone walls, and a counter full of paper-wrapped loaves of bread.
I pointed at one and asked, “Are they all made with rice flour?”
The woman transferring loaves from a cart to the counter didn’t look up as she said, “Yeah, of course.”
“Oh, okay. I guess I just wasn’t expecting a gluten-free bakery in the fairy realm.”
Now she looked up at me. Her eyes went wide and she dropped the loaf she’d been holding on the floor. “You’re human!”
I smiled self-consciously as other people looked over, too. “Yeah, I am. I hope that’s okay?”
“Oh. Oh, yes!” She blushed and seemed to physically snap out of it. “I’m sorry. It’s just been forever since I saw one. Of you. A human, I mean.”
I smiled, glad it wasn’t some kind of prejudice. “I guess people don’t fall through fairy rings all that often, huh?”
I flinched back when a man leaned into my personal space. “You came through a ring? When?”
Right, Incendis had said they were all closed off. It probably wasn’t any kind of a secret that they were either. “Um, I did, yeah. Just yesterday in fact.”
Several people gasped. Oh, boy. Was this a bad idea?
“Are you a sorcerer?” a kid asked.
“No,” I said on a laugh. Part of me wanted to skedaddle because the attention was freaking me out, but the rest of me wondered if maybe this was a good thing. “Um, I am here to help Prince Incendis break the curse, though.”
After a shocked beat, everyone started crowding closer and talking all at once. What was I doing? Could they help? Was the king really involved? Had Incendis fallen in love already?
“Wait, hold on.” I reached out to the man who’d asked that last question. “What about Incendis falling in love?”
He looked as uncomfortable as me to be in the spotlight now. “There’s a, uh, rumor that the prince has to get someone to fall in love with him.”
“To break the curse?”
He nodded.
I looked around at the others, many of whom were also nodding.
“Lessons and love,” another woman said. “It’s just that nobody knows which lessons or who might be The One.”
I felt a blush heating my face as I watched some of them debate with each other what kind of enlightenment a prince might need to achieve.
Because now I had to wonder if it was some kind of sign that I’d landed on Incendis’s bed.
While he was naked. Had it been just my free-loving personality that had had me wanting to jump into bed with him or… maybe not?
Why hadn’t he said anything?
“The human’s blushing!” the baker practically squealed. “Maybe you’re the love interest!”
I shook my head and backed away, definitely sure I didn’t need a bakery full of people to guess what I’d just thought of, too. Especially when they started shoving advice at me.
“Watch out for the flames!”
“He’s very shy, so go slowly.”
“Some say he’s a virgin.”
“Looking like he does? No way.”
“I say you just get into his bed tonight.”
“Right? What’s the worst that could happen?”
I held up my hands and started edging toward the door. “You’re all assuming sex equals love, and that’s just wrong thinking. Come on now.”
That had them pausing before changing their tunes.
“Then you should be at the castle wooing him right now!”
“Take some bread.”
“Get flowers.”
Almost to the door, now someone shoved me through it. I stumbled into the road and looked back to find three people in the doorway, the one in the middle shooing me away.
“Go on! Let us know if you need any help.”
I opened my mouth, wanting to tell them they were being ridiculous. But I couldn’t say that. I didn’t believe it.
What if it was me? What if my role wasn’t to solve the court’s problems but to fall for their prince? It wouldn’t be a hardship, but… I sure wouldn’t be going home if the curse did break. There was no way I could fall in love for the first time in my life and then leave him. No way.
I walked back toward the castle with a head full of questions and a real big wish that whoever had cast the curse had instead just written a strongly worded complaint about the current state of affairs.