Page 32 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
His eyes widen, and his lips part, but he doesn’t say no—so I open the towel, showing him my body—every lush, creamy curve, from my heavy breasts and rounded belly to my thick thighs.
The Prince stares. After a moment he presses his lips together and turns away. “You’re very beautiful,” he says quietly. “I never denied that. You’re stunning, in fact.”
“Then why are you—” I halt, grappling with a realization. “Wait—can you not feel arousal until the curse breaks? Do you have your—your cock?”
“I do have it, and its current level of functionality is not your concern,” he says evenly. “What you seem to be unable to grasp, in your urgent desire to couple with the nearest male, is that I’ve been a nutcracker doll for weeks.”
There’s an edge to his voice now, a hint of anger, and part of me rejoices because I’m finally breaking through his apathetic calm.
He continues in a tight, fierce tone. “I have been captured, tortured, cursed, shrunken, handled by strangers, forced to stand stiffly in a human’s mansion while my people suffered invasion by dark forces—and now I am grappling with constant changes in my body depending on how long it has been since I’ve drunk human blood. Not to mention I’ve had to fight to protect myself and two hapless human girls, while navigating my conquered kingdom and trying to find allies. So forgive me if I don’t feel like coddling your human vanity tonight!”
His voice is much louder by the end. The door creaks behind me as the Sugarplum Faerie looks in.
“Everything all right?” he asks, and then his eyes pop wide at the sight of me standing there naked. “Bless the stars, that’s a fine view! My best wishes to you both.” He exits hastily, closing the door. Shutting me in with the Prince, who has stalked over to the fireplace and is staring glumly at the dancing flames.
“You should go wet his prick again,” the Prince says gloomily.
“Who? Your cousin?”
“Isn’t that why you two took so long fetching the food?”
“You think we were fucking? For a handful of minutes, in the pantry?”
The Prince shrugs. “He has accomplished conquests in far less time, and in far worse places. Who’s to say you weren’t… sampling the contents of his sugarplums?”
I stifle a snort-laugh. “Well, I wasn’t.”
“I don’t care if you were,” the Prince says hastily. “I don’t care if you do it now. Do whatever you like, but do it elsewhere. I’d like to see if I can sleep.”
I pick up my towel and wrap it around me again. Without another word to him I slip out of the bedroom and close the door.
The room next to the Prince’s has a large bed with two nightgowns laid out on it—flouncy, gauzy things, with embroidered flowers in strategic places. I pull one on and lay the other over a chair. Then I braid my wet hair and flop onto the bed.
Perhaps I was being selfish, thoughtless, and inconsiderate. Clara tells me I am, sometimes. She’s always quick to enumerate her own faults after she tells me mine, as if she doesn’t want me to think she considers herself flawless. Perhaps her self-critical habits have made it too easy for me to ignore what she was trying to say.
I barely considered what the Nutcracker Prince has gone through, until he vented his thoughts to me just now. Certainly I wanted to help free him, but I’ve been mostly focused on what that means forme—which, at first, included adventure, exploration, and new sights—and then, once we arrived, I switched my focus to survival. I fixated on whatIwas enduring, howIcould be safe, and how I could protect Clara.
I’m not responsible for what happened to the Prince, or how he feels about it. But if I’m trying to be a friend, or even a temporary tryst, I should try to be more considerate of what he has endured—what he’s experiencing every hour, every day, until the curse is broken. The strangeness of living in a body that betrays you unexpectedly, that won’t function to its full capacity, that forces you to treat your condition in a way you despise—it must take a toll.
From now on, I must attempt to show human decency to him. Even if he is sometimes an asshole.
11
I stand beside the tub, still muzzy with sleep. It’s a beautiful pink-marble oval with contoured edges, like nothing I’ve seen in my world. I remember the Sugarplum Faerie saying something about heating the water with magic. How convenient that must be.
My eyes feel heavy, so I rub them a little. There’s a toilet in the corner, smooth marble like the bathtub, so I relieve myself and then strip off the ragged gown. It peels away easily, and so do my shredded petticoat, my panties, my corset. I bend over the tub, trailing my fingers through the water.
“Here we are,” says the Sugarplum Faerie, bustling through the door of the bathing room. “I knew I had one of these left. I’ll just drop this in and—”
He freezes, his golden eyes blown large at the sight of me.
I gasp, snatching a towel and holding it in front of myself. “Why are you in here?”
“I did say I would be back in a moment,” he falters. “I thought you would wait to undress. I had to get this.” He holds up a small orb, blue as winter sky. “It’s a healing spell that diffuses into the water. I used one on your sister. I don’t make many of these, you see—it’s a complicated recipe, and most Fae have their own healing powers, but I thought you—with those—” He nods to the scrapes and bruises thatched along my arms. “I thought it might help.”
“Oh,” I falter, pinning the towel against my shoulders. “I—I didn’t hear you say that. I think I’m still half asleep.”
He paces forward, dropping the orb into the bathwater where it fizzes pleasantly and begins to color the water a lovely azure. But he keeps coming closer, until his black nails touch the corner of my towel, right near my fingertips.
