Page 12 of To Charm a Dark Prince

“Oh!” The woman stepped out of the home. Her eyes were huge and dark. “Who are you? Why are you wearing my husband’s clothes?”

“I—I woke up in the woods—” Not technically a lie. “And I’m sorry, I’ll give them back, I just—I was naked and cold, and—” Also not a lie. “And I don’t know where I am.” Okay, she knew, just not in any meaningful way. “I’m so sorry, I don’t—”

“Youpoorthing! Look at you, you’re shaking. One of the s’lei must’ve gotten you.” She huffed. “Those monsters are always stealing pretty girls, wiping their memories. I don’t know why those damnable knights don’t do theironejob and hunt the rest of them down. Come in, dear. Come in.” The woman waved her inside, glancing around as if worried someone else might have seen or she might not be alone. “Quickly now.”

Suddenly, Gwen really didn’t want to know what the s’lei were. Or what else they did besides steal pretty girls and wipe their memories. Gwen smiled nervously but accepted the woman’s invitation. The inside of the small single-room home was warm and cozy, if just as tilted and wacky as the exterior.

The woman stuck her head outside to search around one more time and then shut the door and locked it. Wherever her husband was, he wasn’t there.

“Sit by the fire, dear.” The woman patted her shoulder. “My name is Valessa. Do you remember your name?”

“Gwen. I…I don’t know if I was attacked or not.” Kind of? Sort of? Her asshole cat-who-wasn’t-a-cat burned down her home. She walked over to the fire and took one of the seats, glad to warm her hands. The fire still looked like the wrong color. It was too whitish yellow. Which was weird because theotherfire from the crater had looked normally orangey-red.

She wasn’t going to ask. Even if she was boiling over with questions—which was pretty normal for her, to be fair—this situation was weird enough that she knew when to keep her mouth shut.

“The s’lei are bastards at best. Our neighbors down the street lost their son to them a few years ago. Poor boy never came back. Just magical enough to exist, not enough to be caught, those ugly bastards.” Valessa poured some liquid into a wooden mug and handed it to her.

It looked like wine. “You—you really don’t need to go through the trouble…”

“Quite all right. Trust me, dear. Wilhelm is on watch with the guard tonight. I can put some blankets down here by the fire. Once the morning comes, we’ll talk to the mayor and see if he can help you.” Valessa patted Gwen’s shoulder again before settling down by the fire in the other chair. “Can you tell me what else you remember? It might give us some clues on where your home is.”

Gwen had a choice. She could lie and play dumb. That was probably what Merlin would tell her to do. Pretend she had no memories at all until morning, then make a break for it.

But Merlin was also a jackass. A mean-spirited, cruel jackass.

Valessa seemed very nice and sweet.

What was the worst that could happen? Gwen should have known not to jinx it.

“Well, um…see, here’s the thing…I’m not from here. I’m from Earth.” She smiled nervously.

Valessa jumped to her feet, ran to the front door and threw it open as if it washerhome that was on fire. The older woman screamed as she ran out of the home. “Guards!Guards!”

Gwen groaned and put her head in her hands. “Oh, I’m so screwed.”

FOUR

Gwen ran for the back door. Maybe she could still make it to the woods before they caught her.

She scrambled at the bar holding the back door shut, but in her panic, she kept slipping and couldn’t wedge it out from the latch. Maybe she could still escape out the front. If she was lucky, she could run faster than them.

She made it about four steps out the front door when hands grabbed her by the upper arms. She yelped as she was dragged backwards. “Hey! Hey, let me go!”

She kicked at them, but there were two of them and one of her. And she wasn’t exactly a fighter. Before she knew it, she was out in the street, being pushed ahead by the two men who had snagged her.

Taking one look at the first guy, she screamed and staggered back.

He had horns.

Legit, literalhorns.

“Oooh, shit—ooh, this is too fucking weird,” she said through a wail, as she threaded her hands into her hair and tried desperately to keep her lungs functional. Maybe Avalon wasn’t going to be as cool as she had hoped. “Please, let me go, there’s been a terrible mistake, and—”

“Calm down, miss.” Someone spoke to her from her left. Someone who wasn’t the guards. She turned. This guy looked normal at first, except for the fact that he had deer legs.

Deer legs.

Deer guy was also wearing a fancy, grayish blue coat. He had a long thin goatee, and a pair of very small circular glasses perched on the end of his thin nose. “We mean you no harm. Valessa was just frightened. We have not had any visitors here in…hundreds of years.”

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