Chapter 27
The fear that gripped Bram and hadn’t let go from the moment Marigold arrived dissolved like spun sugar in the rain. She was
alive. She knew he was Bram, and she was alive. For the first time in years his true love looked him in the eyes and called
him by his name.
“Yes, we’d better talk.” With tears shining in her eyes, she twisted in his lap to straddle him, then rained kisses upon his
face. “Later. First, I need you to love me. Now.”
He wouldn’t wait for her to make a second request. With eager—nay, frantic—hands he undid her laces. Marigold was gorgeous
in any setting, but with the flickering fire picking out every gold strand in the wild curls loosed around her shoulders and
the ghost of her rosebud nipples beneath her shift . . . She was a goddess.
“You’re my favorite person, Marigold.”
“You as well . . .” She knit her brows together. “What do you prefer I call you?”
“Edmund,” he said. “I’ve always liked that name.”
She laughed. “Be serious. Bram or Jask?”
“I am both,” he answered. “But I was Bram first. Honestly, Marigold, you could call me an ass and I’d still happily respond.”
“Noted.” She pulled her shift over her head. “Ass.”
Bram’s heart thudded against his chest in time with the blood rushing to his cock. She was too beautiful for words, and he was no poet. But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t show her how well he loved her and write poems with their bodies.
He caressed her perfect breasts, knew the weight of them as sure as he knew the weight of an apple from the orchard, and hungered
for them just as much. As he licked and swirled one tight rosebud with his tongue, he rolled the other between his fingers.
She gasped and rocked against him, then tunneled her hand through his hair.
She tugged at his shirt. “Off.”
He obliged, and she curved against him. The feel of her warm flesh against his, all that soft strength hungry for him, for
his body, blanked his senses. No longer was he a man trapped in an orc’s body. He was only a powerful potion of feelings swirling
together.
Want, need, lust.
But above all, love.
With her grasped in his arms, he rose from the divan. She wrapped her legs around him as he desperately untied his breeches
and shoved them to the floor. As her mouth devoured his, he thought about taking her to bed upstairs.
No, his need was too great.
The wall.
As a man, he might not have had the strength, but in this body, he could hold her up all night. He raised her so her hips
were higher than his, then pinned her against the wall. After notching himself at her entrance, he pressed into her. With
a soft gasp, she melted as he hooked his arms under her legs and rolled his hips.
They locked gazes, and her eyes were blown black.
She bucked into his thrusts, meeting each one. This woman had given him everything. Her heart, her mind, her body. And curse him, he wanted it all, and more. The rules about who could be together mattered not. He would marry this woman, she who’d asked Jask to wed, all smiles, no hesitation.
Still, he’d been starved for her to know she’d found her Bram.
Now that she did, his happiness would never end.
He pulled her away from the wall, still joined together. He needed more, deeper, harder. With a roar, he kicked the crate
from the rug in front of the fire. He knelt, then gently lay her on the plush bearskin. With her hair spread out like sunbeams,
she was an angel.
A devilish angel.
“Don’t stop.” Her breath was shallow, her cheeks and chest flushed, her eyes blown black.
“Never.” He pulled her ass onto his thighs, then lifted her legs to his shoulders. The way her hips rose with his touch thrilled
him. She reached for his legs, caressing his thighs as he flexed.
“Slower,” she said. “I want to savor you.”
As though saying that didn’t make him want to come right now. But she was his princess, and her wish was his everlasting pleasure.
With torturously deliberate movements, he eased into her, causing her body to sway in a way that would be burned into his
memory for the rest of his days.
A smile played on her lips. “This . . . is my . . . favorite birthday.”
“Mine, too.” His voice was rough as he belted his forearm across her shins to keep her locked in tight.
With a gasp, she rolled her hips. “I changed my mind. Faster.”
Obedient as ever, he obliged. Control slipped away as fast became furious, and the sweet tension built in his spine, coiled
between his hips. He held it off, until, until, until. . . .
Princess Marigold of Thornwick fell apart in his arms.
He allowed his own pinnacle to meet hers. One, two, three thrusts as its echoes coursed through him. He stilled, as senseless as if he’d been knocked from his horse in a joust. His chest expanded as he caught his breath, then released a contented sigh.
“Come here.” She reached for him.
Gently, he withdrew from her, already missing the sensation of being overwhelmed by her. He lay next to her before the fire.
She used his chest as a pillow, and he wrapped his arm around her waist, tucking her close to him.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I couldn’t.” He trailed his fingers along the curve of her hip. “It’s the curse. I’m forbidden to reveal my true identity
to anyone, upon pain of their death. It’s also why I can’t leave Grimroot Farm. The rules were quite clear. Perhaps because
you guessed who I am—”
“Who cursed you?” she demanded.
“The autumn sprite.”
“But you hate magic. Why would you engage with a sprite?”
“Starry-eyed ambition on a foolish quest led by Crispin. For a title, I was to gather golden acorns from the Lantern Oak.
After I filled a haversack, the sprite challenged me with a riddle.”
Marigold nodded with understanding. “And you got it wrong.”
“No, that’s the thing—I got it right.”
“And he cursed you anyway?” She drew her brows together. “That’s unfair.”
“It was at Crispin’s behest.”
Her mouth formed an O. “But . . . why?”
“At the time, jealousy motivated him.” He sighed as he swirled his fingertips against her soft shoulder. “Harvest Hollow cheered
me more than him. Now, given what you told me of his plot with your brothers, I wonder if removing me was the first step in
his plan to acquire you.”
“Yuck.” She pulled a face. “I don’t care to be described as an acquisition.”
“My humblest apologies.” He hissed her forehead.
“Accepted. Why would the sprite obey Crispin’s command? He’s made no secret that he’s magic-tolerant, but I doubt a sprite
would do his bidding from simple gratitude. I’ve been a spectator to royal authority my entire life, and that’s simply not
how it works.”
“That, I do not know.”
Her hand fisted. “I will throttle the prince.”
“I love that you’re fired up on my behalf, but there’s no need to attack him. I made my peace with it.”
“Why make your peace? Crispin should pay for this. He’s stolen years from us.”
“It’s partially my fault,” he said.
She blinked at him. “Explain that part.”
“I was a knight, Mare. There are virtues we’re supposed to uphold, like humility. If I had, I wouldn’t have cozened to Crispin
so much and made myself vulnerable. I should’ve known better than to try to win a negotiation with a sprite.”
Her eyes grew shiny in the firelight. “Bram, Crispin did this to you. The shame is his to bear, whether he owns it or not.”
“But I—”
“No.” She laid her hand on his heart. “You trusted him, and he violated that trust. This is not your fault, and he should
be held to account.”
Bram sat with that. Whenever misery befell someone, most often the conversation centered on what the poor soul had done wrong,
how they’d put themselves in a position to be harmed. The default assumption was a villain sought opportunity and everyone
else must defend. A lack of defense was the victim’s fault.
But Marigold reframed it—he was a survivor, not a victim.
“Why put ourselves through that?” Bram asked. “I’ve already won. You’ve left him, found me, and fell back in love with me. This is, in fact, the best way this could have unfolded.”
“And he . . .” She circled her hand in the air above them. “What? Gets away with it?”
“It’ll stain his soul, along with any other injustices he’s enacted.”
“But people should know.”
“You do.” He cupped her cheek. “And for me, that is enough.”
“So how do we break the curse?”
“I . . .” Bram pursed his lips. “I don’t know. During the transformation, I was ill. I’m not sure I paid close enough attention,
but he said true love would fix it.”
She frowned. “But you’ve always had true love.”
“For which I’m grateful,” he said. “But I took it to mean that my true love has a key role in ending the curse.”
Marigold’s eyes flared why. “Ooh, I have an idea!”
She pushed from him and scurried up the stairs. Much as he enjoyed the sight of her behind, he’d rather she stayed by his
side.
“Where are you going?”
“To look for instructions!”
“For curses?” he called.
“No, not curses.” She hurried back down the stairs and, with a flourish, presented her book of fairy tales.
“Mare, those are fictional.”
“Are they, though?” She lay beside him and flipped through the leather-bound tome’s pages. “They’re morality plays in some
cases, cautionary tales in others. They may not contain hard facts, but they offer learning through imagination.”
“But it won’t tell us anything about breaking this specific curse.”
“Yes, it will—look.” She pointed to a picture of a woman sleeping. “This one is reversed by true love’s kiss. Hmph. Your curse would’ve been broken a thousand times by now if that were the solution.”
She flipped the page, this one featuring a frog. “In this, she throws the frog against a wall and it kind of stun-starts his
transformation. Want to try that? I could shrink you.”
“I think not.”
On the next page, a woman puckered up to another hairy beast. Marigold frowned. “I’m realizing these tales may be propaganda
crafted by unattractive men.”
Jask laughed.
She flipped again. “Oh, this one’s closer. A sister silently weaves shirts from nettles for her cursed swan brothers but can’t
speak all the while. Right before she’s set aflame for witchcraft, she throws the shirts on the swans, and presto—they are
again men.”
“You’re no sister to me.” Bram nuzzled her cheek as he palmed her strong thigh, she flipped another page.
“Closer still!” A man-sized hedgehog glanced up from the pages. “The princess kept her promise to marry him and not ask questions,
and delighted in him when he shed his hedgehog skin at night and came to her as a man. One night, she burned the skin and
set him free. Now that is more like it.”
“Alas.” He skated his hand higher. “I do not shed.”
“And thank the saints for it.” She kissed him. “But I mean taking action. This princess understood she shouldn’t sit and wait.
I must speak to the autumn sprite.”
“There’s no casual conversation with a sprite, Marigold. It’s always a gamble, and very rarely does anyone besides the sprite
win.”
“But I—”
“Do not go to the Lantern Oak, Marigold. Promise me.”
She pursed her lips. “Don’t you want to be yourself again?”
“I am.” He arched an eyebrow. “Can’t you love me like this?”
“I already do, Bram. I’ve loved every version of you I’ve known—the boy, the youth, the man, and the orc. This isn’t right, though. The world’s out of balance while an innocent man lives under a curse. And don’t you want to leave Grimroot Farms?”
“For years, I was desperate to leave. Tried everything I could to escape, including flinging myself through the sky on a trebuchet.
The farm isn’t a prison to me—it’s a perimeter. Every inch of it is knowable, manageable, mine. The crops behave according
to predictable rules, and a pumpkin doesn’t stab me in the back, unlike my brothers-in-arms. Aside from all that, the reason
I was desperate to find an escape knocked on my door in the middle of the night, and I’m more content than ever to stay.”
“I swear, you are the sweetest marshmallow.” She kissed him, then broke out into giggles. “You must’ve been shocked to see
me.”
“That’s an understatement.”
She laughed harder. “You tried so hard to get me to leave.”
“And you wouldn’t. Your stubborn reputation is intact.”
“Delightfully stubborn,” she said. “And aren’t you grateful?”
“I am.” He kissed her cheek, then pushed up from the rug. “If you’re up for it, there’s one additional birthday surprise.”
He held out a hand to help her up, then Marigold followed him, both naked as the day they were born. Appropriate, given they
were celebrating her birthday. After washing up, he reached into the cabinet where he’d hidden the cakes.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed.
Marigold sealed them shut. “What is it?”
He fitted a small taper into the center of the apple-sized cake, then set it in front of her. “Happy birthday, Marigold.”
She opened her eyes, then covered her mouth. “I knew I smelled cakes!”
He nodded. “Vanilla with pomegranate frosting. I made it while you were foraging.”
“You did this for me?” She swiped away a tear.
“Why are you crying? Are pomegranates no longer your favorite?”
“These are happy tears. I have missed this so much.” Her wobbly smile steadied. “I took the way you see me, really see me, for granted. If you asked my parents, my brothers, Bess what my favorite fruit is, they wouldn’t know. They’d think
it a silly question.”
“All the better that we found each other again.” He lifted the cake to her mouth. “Dry your tears, Princess Marigold. They
don’t mix well with birthday cake.”
She giggled, then bit into the cake. “Delicious.” She licked her lips. “Now you.”
The frosting was sweet, the honey, pomegranate, butter, and cream perfectly whipped. The cake underneath was moist and spongy,
the way Marigold preferred it, even though she’d never use the m-word to describe it.
“My compliments to the chef,” he said.
“You still have frosting on your lips.”
He swept her into his arms, then kissed her. “Now you do as well.”
“How do you . . .” She traced her fingers on his chest. “Feel about returning to the rug?”
“I feel excellent about it.”
And once again, in front of the fire, he wished Marigold a happy birthday.