I could do it, I thought, staring down the monster taking his time, prowling over the snow toward me. I could fall through the earth and let my thoughts be known. Would he take my offer? Would he agree to the distraction from the many days here in the same routine we’d established?
Arthur was a handsome man. Built of dense muscle and hands—hands that could bring a fae Goddess to her knees, I was sure of it.
Heat flushed up my cheeks as visions of just what we could do with those hands flashed through my mind. I was not accustomed to such a long spell without a bedfellow, and my body betrayed me there in the frozen maze because I wanted him to catch me. I was looking forward to the fall.
The Beast stopped, sniffing into the chilled wind. A light dusting of snowfall blanked his fur. He turned his head, closing his eyes and I frowned. What was Arthur saying to him in there? I knew he could speak to the Beast, but what could hesay that would stop such a powerful creature from what was his nature?
The Beast strained, fighting against himself, a clawed paw stepping forward, then pulling back. Whatever had just happened, the two were at war with each other, the deep, guttural growl of the Beast not meant for me, but someone else.
Without warning, the Beast shot forward, having won whatever argument they’d just fought. With less than a second to spare before my flesh was torn open, I cut my forearm, bleeding, falling, and reaching.
The transformation happened so quickly each time, I struggled to notice the details. We had just begun to fall through the earth when it was Arthur, not the Beast reaching out for me, pulling me to his chest and twisting through the hole in the ground, ready to break our fall once again.
This time, we landed in the kitchens with Piffle crying out in shock and Arthur landing on top of the central countertop, breaking his fall over onions and chopped carrots in preparation for the evening meal.
The landing split the scabbing skin at my shoulder and I hissed through my teeth, sitting up over Arthur to inspect the throbbing cut.
“Mistress! Master!” Piffle cried, rushing to the counter. “Are you hurt?”
I swiped a finger over the wound, bringing a thin trail of blood across my fingertip. “I’ll live, Piffle,” I muttered, turning my attention back to the man beneath me.
I straddled him, my deep purple skirts bundled up to the tops of my thighs on the sides of his torso. The stretch of my legs over his wide body was the pleasurable type of pain, stinging slightly at the pull. That same heat rushed through my veins and a slow smile lifted my lips as I braced my hands on his chest. “Are you hurt, Arthur?”
His fingers on my waist squeezed tighter and the evidence ofjust how unhurt he was grew beneath me. “No,” he growled, lifting me with ease and setting me solidly on the counter beside him. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Stalking away, I called out to him. “If I were to attempt that again, right now, what would happen?”
“Don’t,” he said without turning, exiting the kitchens entirely.
I huffed, crossing my arms at my chest and leaned against the counter. “That man is such a mystery to me, Piffle. And yet…” I trailed, scraping my hand across the cutting board to gather the chopped carrots back into a bowl.
Piffle joined me, stepping onto a stool to reach across the surface and sweep the diced onions into his hands. “Yet he is simple enough to understand, Mistress. CHOPPING KNIFE!”
I pressed my lips in a grin as he shifted, continuing his mincing of the garlic as he spoke. “The Master desires one thing and one thing alone.”
I nodded, biting down on a circle of carrot. “To escape the curse, I know. I cannot help him there, Piffle. And I won’t kill him.”
Piffle-the-Chopping-Knife continued across another bulb of garlic. “He isn’t so bad, Beautiful Goddess. Once you get to know him a little better, you’ll find your heart softening enough to say?—”
“I cannot say those words, my friend. My curse does not allow me to love.”
The little man shifted back into a fae. “Are you sure you cannot?”
“I have been cursed for over five hundred years to never love. I have not said those words since I was sixteen years old.”
“Then…truly…” he trailed, gulping loudly, “the only way you can escape…”
I hummed, dusting my hands over the bowl of scraps. “As I said, I’m not driving a dagger into his heart. There must be another way.”
CHAPTER 28
Arthur
BLOOD.
“No.”
CONSUME.
