Page 4 of How To Please A Princely Fae

She’s not here, and that bothers me.

The longer I spend time with her, the more used to her moods I grow. When she’s thoughtful or bothered by a problem a customer brings her, she’s in here, in her green-lit laboratory, surrounded by her potion-making ingredients, her beautiful scarlet-red hair curling in the heat and humidity over her cast-iron cauldron.

A cauldron she named Fred, because of course she did.

A small smile lifts the corner of one lip, but the fire beneath Fred remains dark.

There is no Willow here, and the magical signature of her laboratory seems even more profound without the curvy beauty.

She is small and soft, but her magic packs as much of a punch as anyone I’ve ever met.

A surprising sense of pride wells in me for the witch.

Pride I have no place to feel, seeing as how I have nothing to do with it.

The only thing I will cause the witch is trouble, just as I have always done. Shame and anger curdle under my skin, the familiar feeling of revulsion making my wings twitch as I walk towards the greenhouse.

It’s Willow’s favorite place, everything about her softening further the longer she spends in here.

Often, I find myself drawn to her and her magic as she works in the greenhouse, the scent of the green witch’s charms somehow triggering a deep response within me.

I pause in the doorway, the heat and humidity of the room seeping into my skin, expecting to find the lush-bodied witch within.

I can almost envision her just there, behind a massive cream-colored bloom with her eyes nearly closed. Her curly red hair drifting over her shoulders, one of her sleeves almost always falling down her arm, her skin as creamy as the bloom itself—a flower I've never noticed before tonight.

My feet take another step into the greenhouse, almost moving of their own accord. “Willow,” I call but there's no answer. It's clear she's not here but that's not the only thing that's different. A humid air is moist, heavy almost, and there's a scent of magic hanging on it.

There's a spicy tang to it, and it's like nothing I recognize.

It's closer to my mother's magic the Dark Queen of the Unseelie fae than to anything I've become accustomed to Willow using. Still, it doesn't have the slippery feel of my mother's magic, and though it's not hers, it leaves me wary of it all the same.

Some kind of spell work has happened here.

I don't know what kind. I was never taught enough about magic to be able to discern between the spell work, only I was raised around enough of it to know that something has been cast.

My boots tap against the floor, a low thrum of power washing over me. It's pulling me forward, further into the greenhouse, distracting me from my task of finding Willow.

“Willow,” I breathe.

I should be looking for Willow; I need to know if she is okay. I need to know if she's truly thinking of going off with some foul creature that just happened to appear at the fall festival. It seems quite a sudden decision to make this evening.

I need to know if she is leaving.

Magic is whispering to me. I don't know what it's saying, but it's asking a question. A question I feel the need to answer.

"I shouldn't want her," I state out loud, almost startling at the sound of my own voice. "She deserves more than what I can give her, she deserves to be safe."

A humorless laugh escapes my lips. "I don't even know who I am." I pause, sadness threatening to swallow me up.

I never got a chance to figure out who Iwas, much less who I am now without the Underhill. Without the pressures of being even a spare to the throne, without the malicious gaze of my mother, always expecting me to do something I was never quite sure of for reasons I never understood.

For reasons that now, without her, without all the pressure of the Underhill, weigh on my shoulders—and start to unravel.

In more ways than one.

"I don't deserve someone who is kind, who doesn't have a past that threatens to stab them in the back when they least expect it. She deserves someone without an agenda who can love her in all the ways that she deserves to be loved and in all the ways that I don't know how."

I purse my lips.

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