Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Do I have the courage to end them without the Enchanting Lady?
The cottage door opens and Kendrick strolls in. The cottage seems smaller the moment he walks through the door—or everything else seems less significant.
How did I forget how tall and commanding he is? How piercing his eyes are?
He looks me over with a calculating sweep of his eyes. “Good morning, Princess. I wish I could say you look rested, but you don’t.”
“Is that the kind of sweet talk you’re using to get me to kill your Eloran bad guy?”
“Don’t mind him,” a feminine voice says behind Kendrick. “He wouldn’t know charm if it smacked him in the face.”
A woman peeks out from behind Kendrick. She’s as short as I am, but unlike me, no one would ever mistake her for weak or fragile. She has fierce written all over her. It’s no one thing—not the sword strapped to her back or the miscellany of knives at her hips. It’s not just the tattoos that cover her ivory skin or the fact that her light brown hair is shorn close to her scalp. No, this woman’s ferocity comes from within. It’s the look in her eyes and the instinctive way she balls her fist and scans the room, as if she’s sure her next foe is going to jump out from a dark corner at any moment.
And flowing down the middle of her back—
“That’s my cloak.” I hop off the bed. “And my boots.”
She grins. “Turns out, we’re the same size.”
Kendrick sighs heavily. “Skylar, take them off.”
“What? I wanted to know what it was like to walk in a princess’s shoes.” She unties the cloak and lets it fall to the floor. It’s all I can do to keep my feet rooted where they are. If I scramble to check for my ring, they’ll know it’s something they should keep from me.
It has to be there. She never would’ve found the pocket, not with the way I disguised it.
If I have my cloak, then I have my ring.
“And my boots?” I say, not that I care much about the shoes, aside from having something on my feet.
“Nice to meet you too,” she says. She lifts one foot at a time as she loosens the laces and lets them fall to the ground. She winks at me before she turns to pour herself some coffee from the pot sitting by the fire.
“What’d you find out at the palace?” Remme asks her.
“Inside? Total chaos,” Skylar says. “Lots of infighting and finger pointing.”
My stomach clenches as I imagine what my sister must be feeling this morning. I promised myself she’d never have to rescue me again, and now she thinks I’m missing.
“Outside, they’re keeping it quiet,” Skylar says. “They don’t want anyone to know she’s missing. But why wouldn’t they sound the alarm? Get everyone looking?”
“Because they don’t think she was taken,” Kendrick says, sneaking a glance at me. “They think she ran away with her secret lover.”
“My what?” I squeak.
“Oh, look who’s so pious,” Skylar says, wrapping her hands around her mug. “Saving yourself for your future prince?”
I don’t even have a boyfriend, and the only males I’ve ever kissed have fallen dead at my feet. The idea of my having some secret lover is beyond ridiculous. “Why in the name of the gods would my sister believe that?”
“It’s a long story,” Kendrick says, “but one that bought us some time.”
“Enlighten me.”
Kendrick and Natan exchange a look before Natan nods and heads toward the door, waving to the others to follow him.
Skylar groans. “I literally just got back from doing your scouting,” she mutters. She turns toward my boots, but I snatch them up with my cloak before she can grab them. “I wasn’t going to use yours,” she says, spinning to grab a pair from a small closet.
When the others leave and pull the cottage door shut behind them, I tuck my cloak against me and return to my perch on the edge of the bed. I knead the fabric until my fingers connect with the ridge of the ring between layers of cloth. I release a breath.
Kendrick grabs a chair and swings it around to face me before taking a seat. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “We had someone plant some things in your room,” he says. “It doesn’t take much. A piece of jewelry, some dried rose petals, a love note—all hidden in places a simple search would turn up.”
I shake my head. “That won’t keep her from looking for me.”
“Which is why we need to send someone back to the palace in your place.”
“That would never work. My sister would see through them.”
“But your sister plans to send you away to the Wild Fae territory, does she not?”
I frown. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs. “We have informants.”