Was that the part you wanted me to watch?Bunny asked.
Kismet, who’d settled in to graze on shoots of new grass nearby, snorted in laughter.I knew a horse once who tried to bite through his stall door. He looked a lot like you after.
“Some support you two are,” Sebastien commented sourly.
Ilove you,Nonna said with staunch loyalty.
“Sebastien?” Thorn, as if conjured from a dream, gazed at him through the open arch of the gate. She glowed with sensual beauty, hair gleaming like black glass as it spilled long and loose around her. She wore a simple, faded pink gown that emphasized the richness of her skin and the dark blush of her cheeks. Her dark eyes sparkled with artless happiness to see him, her rosy lips parted and curved in a smile of pure delight.
Sebastien’s heart swelled with such immense emotion that hefelt as if it might burst. “Thorn,” he breathed, feeling as if he could sing her name to the skies.
“Are you really here?” she asked, lifting a hand and then dropping it again. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m really here.” He grinned, giddy with the knowledge of that. “I wanted to…” What should he say? His usually glib charm escaped him. He probably looked terrible, sweating and, yes, bloody. He’d torn his clothes, too, he realized. “I wanted to be sure you’re all right.”
She smiled, breathing a laugh. “I’d venture to say that I’m in better shape than you are.”
He gestured to himself ruefully. “I’ve had a bit of an argument with your rose briar.”
“Ah, that.” Her smile clouded over. “It’s warded. I told you. No one can come in and I can’t leave.”
“Unless you walk the Dream.”
“Yes.” She wove her fingers together, slender as the rose canes. “But I promised I wouldn’t do that again. I don’t have enough control.” Her expression saddened. “As you know. I’m so very sorry, for everything.”
“You don’t have to keep saying so, Thorn,” he told her in all sincerity. “It’s not your fault you haven’t been taught. I’m an amateur at magic, too,” he thought to add, rewarded when her smile bloomed.
“Thank you. I haven’t forgiven myself, but I—” She broke off, shaking her head. “How areyou?”
“Me? I’m fine, why—Oh, my leg. It’s stiff and sore, but healing.”
By the look on her face, so transparent with her passing emotions, that wasn’t what she meant at all, but before he could ask, she said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I had to see you,” he replied baldly, no courtly charm in him. Instead, the raw need vibrated through the words, and he wished he could pull them back and make them less… aching.
“I needed to see you, too,” she answered, the sincerity in hervoice and face telling him everything. They gazed at each other, separated by the brambles, connected by mutual longing.
Bunny woofed, breaking the fraught tension, and her face lit up. “Who is this brave and beautiful wolf with you?” She squinted a little. “Oh, you’re not a wolf at all, are you? You’re made of magic. How wonderful.”
I like her. She’s clever. Excellent taste. Powerfully magical, too,Bunny said, preening under Thorn’s admiring gaze.
“This is Bunny. He says he likes you.”
“How sweet. I like you, too, Bunny. Oh, and you must meet my friends. Nessie, darling! Come here, sweetie, and meet Sebastien.” The black-and-brown-patterned goat with nubby horns and a white beard trotted up, baaing in greeting, then tilted her head to eye him through the rose-entwined slats of the gate. “Sebastien is a real prince,” she told the little goat, giving Sebastien a sideways smile.
Thorrrrn is the best person in aaaaall the worrrrld,Nessie informed him.Jada is cruel to her and maaakes her cry. You must rescue herrr.
“I plan to,” he replied to Nessie, the resolve crystallizing right then. Of course he must rescue Thorn. At her quizzical look, he said, “Nessie says that this Jada is mean to you and makes you cry—and that I should rescue you.”
“Oh.” Thorn’s face crumpled, tears welling. She sank to her knees and put her arms around the goat’s neck. “Oh, Nessie. I never realized you knew.”
The chickens came swarming over, clucking with concern and adding their agreement to the tale of Thorn’s plight.
“This is Rooney, Mimi, Daphne, Myrna, Reba, and Gina,” Thorn told him, pointing to each hen in turn. “I used to have one more, a lovely hen named Esmerelda, but she found a hole under the fence and got out. I’m afraid a fox may have killed her.” She whispered that last, so the other chickens wouldn’t overhear.
“Esmerelda?” Sebastien repeated, quite astonished. “Black with puffy feathers around her face?”
Thorn’s pretty lips parted in an O of astonishment. “How did you know? Oh, one of the others told you about her.”
