Page 31 of Their Witch Bride

He nods and hurries away.

It’s strange. I’ve been with these shifters for days, and I still don’t know anything about them. Maybe it’s the long days and nights of traveling, but they seem completely uninterested in getting to know me, no matter how hard I try.

And the princes and I? We appear to be avoiding each other, which is a strange arrangement.

Stretching, I yawn and stare out around me. Dawn paints the sky, casting a soft glow on the landscape and giving everything a deceptively magical glow. Heading off the road, I cautiously enter the area we’ll be sleeping in, feeling out of place. Around me, the shifters are setting up camp to sleep. Tents rise like shadows, and a fire flickers to life in the center of the camp.

I wonder if they sleep during the day like nocturnal creatures or if they just do this when they travel. I hope this is just for traveling. The notion of sleeping during the day would take some getting used to if this turns out to be normal life. But I can adjust to it. I can adjust to just about anything. It’s one of my only skills.

Another servant approaches me, reaching for my bag, the one I filled with my weapons. His face is blank, like he’s just going through the motions of what it is to care for a royal, without any interest in getting close to a witch. Not that I blame him. If my mother’s battle stories are true, we witches have killed a lot of shifters, brutally. I wouldn’t want to be near me if I were him either.

“No, I’ll carry it. Don’t worry about it.” I feel better about being surrounded by shifters with my weapons close at hand.

He frowns at me, his first emotion outside of indifference. “I’ll carry it for you. It’s my job.”

Maybe, but I don’t want you to. “It’s okay. I packed it, and I’ve carried it all this way. I can manage,” I insist.

Seriously? What’s this guy’s problem? I get that I’m in the land of freaking giants, but I can carry my own bag.

“Please, Princess, I’ll handle your belongings,” he says, but his voice is filled with frustration.

“Nah. Pass,” I say, taking a couple steps away.

He stands in front of me, reaching for the bag. I shake my head and clutch it to my body even tighter before turning away from him and trying to walk away. I’m not doing this. I’m not being told what to do, nor am I going to have some awkward fight with a servant in front of the entire camp.

“My lady,” he growls behind me, and I can tell he’s too close still.

“Just let the Princess carry her own bag of baubles and jewels! Let her see that we shifters aren’t subservient to the witches just because they have magic. If she wants to survive, she can survive by her own merit,” Prince Drogo calls out from where he’s putting up a tent. The people around him all burst into laughter.

I’m relieved. I don’t even care that they’re making fun of me. I just don’t want to deal with this situation. Things need to stay light with my new captors, I mean, husbands.

“Yep, let me carry it! It’s my own problem if I want to cling to a heavy bag,” I say, shouldering the bag and scanning the area for where I should set up now that I’d dealt with that uncomfortable situation.

So far, we hadn’t officially camped. Moreso, we pulled off the road for a couple hours of sleep at a time. I’m guessing now that they’re back in their territory, they feel safe enough to set up a true camp.

The only warning I have is when I hear the servant huff in irritation behind me, and then he’s suddenly grabbing my bag, nearly pulling me off my feet as I cling to the last thing that feels like mine in the world. The weapons I got from my blacksmith.

When he won’t let go, I yank back, and everything in the bag spills onto the ground. My best three daggers clang together. My favorite sword does a spin before falling completely to the ground. My five throwing stars land straight up in the dirt, and my bow and arrows fall to the ground with the arrows fanning out like a flock of birds taking flight. The servant's eyes widen as he takes in my arsenal, before he quickly walks away.

“Thanks for the help,” I mutter.

The camp has quieted down as everyone stares at me and my mess. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but probably nothing good. Trouble both has a way of finding me, and a way of making me look bad. This is another one of those glorious moments.

Realizing that no one seems to be looking away, I force a smile and shrug my shoulders. “My bobbles are a little different than other women's. Still shiny though.”

Someone snorts.

Another person gives an awkward cough that seems to be covering up a laugh.

Smooth, real smooth.

I kneel down and start gathering my things back up in my bag. Everyone else resumes setting up…well, almost everyone. I can feel eyes boring a hole into me, and I know it's Prince Drogo. He dislikes me the most out of my husbands. And I’m doing a bum job of winning his affection.

I glance up, and our gazes catch. I can practically feel his anger sizzling over me like fire. The tattoos on his arms dance as his muscles swell. The man looks good and ready for a fight, but the target of his anger is me.

The desire to flip him the bird moves through me, but instead I offer him a sickly-sweet smile. If he looked tense before, that’s nothing in comparison to now. Those pale brown eyes of his are filled with rage, and his jaw is clenching so hard I think he might break it.

Serves you right.

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