Page 24 of Eliza's Cursed Dragon

Helpless, I stared at the cosmetics. This was something we didn’t have in Fable Forest. Carefully, I fingered a palette with gorgeous colors, when a young woman appeared.

“May I help you?”

“I don’t think my friend has any experience with this. She doesn’t speak, but I would appreciate it if you would get her all the things a young woman like her should have,” Edward explained.

“All the things?” The woman’s eyebrows arched.

“All the things,” Edward confirmed.

The woman took me to a counter, and we spent an hour as she explained all the makeup to me, applying it to my face, showing me how to take it off, bringing an assortment of creams and cleansers.

“You have such beautiful hair,” she complimented.

Edward didn’t miss a beat. “She’ll need everything for that too.”

I had no idea what he meant. Besides soap, what could one possibly want for hair?

I was wrong.

There was a lot. Conditioners, oils, a blow dryer, curling iron, heat protectant, and so much more. That and the other products filled four large bags, especially when we added perfume and a collection of body shampoos, a loofah—I couldn’t wait to try that—body lotion, creams, so much I lost track of it.

“Now we need shoes,” Edward decided after he took my bags to the truck.

Once finished with shoe shopping, we ate lunch at a fancy café where he fed me cake after we were done with our salad and soup.

“There.” He pointed at another store. “I don’t think I will come in with you, but here.” He handed me a small card that I had seen him use at the other stores. He wagged his fingers. “I want you to buy anything your heart desires, alright? If you don’t come out with at least two bags filled, I will have to do the honors myself.”

I giggled and took the card. I giggled even more when I realized that the store he hadn’t wanted to accompany me to sold lingerie.

Of course I had bought underwear before, worn nighties, but nothing like what this store was offering.

I found everything I needed inside and more. Things I hadn’t even known I wanted.

The saleswoman who took me under her wing assured me that my boyfriend would love the garter belt with matching bra and panties.

My face heated at the thought of Edward as my boyfriend and a longing spread through my stomach and lower region.

When I returned from the store with three bags, Edward stood leaning against a lantern, a phone pressed to his ear, talking to somebody who he cut off the moment he laid eyes on me. Hanging up, he put the phone in the pocket of his jeans and took the bags from me even though they weren’t heavy.

Butterflies fluttered inside my belly at the sight of him, at the small brush of our hands when I passed him the bags. He was everything I had ever dreamed a prince to be.

On the drive home I couldn’t stop looking at him and caught him turning his attention from the road to glance at me more than once.

At some point he took my hand, brought it up to his lips, kissed it, and then rested our entwined fingers on his thigh, all the way back to his house.

Within the span of three days, Edward’s pond was finished. However, I wasn’t sure it was a pond, it looked more like a small lake to me. Even larger than the one at the church.

My brothers enjoyed every step of the process. They watched intently as the giant bulldozer dug up Edward’s beautiful lawn, creating a hole so deep I couldn’t see out of it when Edward took me and my brothers down.

The next day another giant machine appeared and filled the hole with what Edward called concrete, to keep the water from leaking into the earth.

It took two days and nights to fill his lake from several garden hoses, and would have probably taken even longer had he not brought in giant trucks filled with water.

As soon as the water was level with the ground, my brothers were in it. Crooning and snorting they splashed each other, moving their wings and tumbling around like only brothers can.

Tears filled my eyes at seeing them this carefree for the first time since our stepmom cursed us. Wherever we had been before we always had to be careful of others seeing us, wanting to do harm to us. Not here though. Not on Edward’s property. Who was right by my side, holding my hand and kissing the tears away.

“They look happy,” he observed.

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