Page 97 of Bride of the Fae Prince

I twist and roll myself out of the covers, then crawl on my knees and elbows around to the footboard of the bed. Chest heaving, I pause for a ten second break to recover my strength.

My strength does not recover. I forge on anyway.

Finally, I reach the door. It’s closed. I lift a weak arm, slamming the heel of my hand into wood and scrabbling with my fingernails. The doorknob isso high. The world tilts to one side, and I fall back to the ground, losing my progress.

“Aaaaaaa,” I moan. My husband’s name is one syllable. Three letters. Yet my tongue is determined not to work. Useless thing.

Slumping to the floor, I poke my fingers beneath the door. Maybe I can slide underneath it. I’ll be a cat and squeeze through.Think small, fluffy thoughts . . .

Then there’s a voice. “My lord? Before you leave . . . um, there are fingers beneath your bedroom door.”

Oh, that’s Edvear! Maybe he can help me get to Ash. I try to call for him, and only succeed in choking on a gasp. I sag back tothe ground. I amsotired. Maybe I’ll sleep a little bit, andthenI’ll go after Ash.

It’s so rude of him, leaving when I want him the most.

“Fingers?” comes the startled reply. It’s quieter, as though from the other side of the world. Ash! He hasn’t left me completely yet. “Stella?”

Come back, Ash!I want to cry after him.I need you to kiss me!

The thought comes out of nowhere, but once it’s there, frustration burns through me. We’re married, and he still hasn’t properly kissed me yet. The gall! It’s so infuriating I manage to lift my head and lean it against the doorframe. Everything is still blurry, but who needs clear vision? It’s quite overrated, in my opinion.

“Please don’t leap over the furniture, my lord! I’m sure it’ll be quite as—”

The door swings open so fast I’m almost sucked through the opening. The world tilts again, and I slip from the doorframe to the threshold, hitting the ground hard.

“Stella!”

I sag, going limp at the sound of his voice. He came back for me. Happiness runs liquid through my veins, though my lips only move in the smallest smile. “Aaaa,” I moan.

“You’re alive! Oh Great Kings, you’re alive!” The voice almost sounds teary in its exaltation. It quickly shifts to concern, coming closer and closer to me. “But what are youdoing? You’re hurting yourself! Can you hear me? Stella?”

“I can hear you just fine!” I retort—except it comes out in a garbled collection of incoherent noises.

Warmth wraps around me, easily lifting me up. The ground vanishes from beneath me, and in my relief to be back in my husband’s arms, I cannot even find the strength to grab hold of him in return.

“Tell the High King that it’ll have to wait,” Ash barks over his shoulder. “And cancel everything else for the day. Oh—and send for the doctor! At once!”

He lowers me back onto the bed, clucking his tongue and commenting on the disarray of the blankets. I don’t care if half of them are on the floor. I’m just glad to have himback.His voice, a constant comforting hum that comes in and out of clarity, soothes me enough that I sink into the mattress, eyes closed, thinking of nothing but how happy I am.

“You scared me nearly to death!” Ash says, slipping beneath the covers beside me and drawing me tightly into his arms. “Are you awake?”

The sound I make is an attempt at an affirmation, but incoherent as it is, it works. Ash keeps talking—why is he talking so much?—and I hear my name over and over again. Then, somehow, I pry my eyes fully open.

There he is, his face hovering above me. His mouth is moving, and his handsome features blur in and out of focus. I beam up at him, grinning. He stops talking. Just for that one moment.

And then he disappears.

The Prince

My hammering heart thudsto an abrupt halt whenher eyes open—eyes I was afraid I’d never see again—and then a wide smile bursts across her features. She’s a mess of tangled hair, crusted eyelashes, matted and wrinkled nightdress, but the moment she smiles, I forget everything else. She’s never been more beautiful.

Then her eyes roll back in her head, and the pleadings that cross my lips are much too desperate for a prince. I’d had her back! For a single, glorious moment. But now she’s gone again, and I slump against the bedframe.

It’s an eternity before the doctor arrives. I wait impatiently as the moment replays in my mind when I opened the door and found her sprawled on the ground, her nightgown in a tangle around her knees and her head fallen to rest against one of her extended arms.

When the doctor finally walks in, I sit up sharply. “She was awake!” In a rush, before he catches and rearranges the spectacles that bounced off his nose at my outburst, I tell him how I’d found her, the way her eyes opened, and how she grunted in response to my questions. “She managed to getoutof bed—and all the way around to the door!”

I’m breathing hard when I finish, waiting—waiting—waitingfor him to say something! To say she’s better. To say she’s still going to die. To say anything.

---