Page 3 of To Charm a Dark Prince

It’d never happened to her before. Mick had been such a good guy. The perfect boyfriend. Or at least that was what she had thought until one of their mutual friends had texted her a photo from where they were all off at college. Mick was sitting at a table with everyone else. And some blonde was sitting on his lap, kissing his cheek.

All her friends. Every single one.

Except her.

In her place had been a stranger.

God, the betrayalhurt.She had trusted him. Gwen had thought they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. But she really shouldn’t have been surprised that their long-distance plan had lasted less than a week. She had called Mick right after seeing the photo of him with the other girl, and he had confessed.

So here she was. Alone. With nobody to talk to. Feeling like a knife had been stuck into her heart. She planned on having a day of self-care—order a pizza, text her dad to see if she could have a beer, watch a movie, light some candles, and bury herself in her favorite fluffy blankets.

But first, she had to check in on their farm animals. And one in particular.

“Merlin! Where are you?” Gwen nudged open the door to the barn with her shoulder, a bowl of cat food in her hand. She knew she wasn’t supposed to feed the old, crotchety barn cat, but she couldn’t help it. The ancient bastard was looking older by the day, and pretty soon he wouldn’t be able to hunt birds and mice to feed himself.

That, and…well, she loved to spoil the evil thing.

“Merlin?”

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She smiled. “There you are. Hey, buddy.”

Sitting on a box in a pile of hay and a blanket she had put there for him ages ago, was the asshole cat himself. He was scrawny and always had been, no matter how much Gwen fed him. Fur that should have been black was sprinkled with gray. One of his ears was still torn to bits, nearly missing, and both his eyes had a milky film over them. The vet said he was probably blind in one eye, and probably would go blind in both before long.

He also only had one front fang, the other having fallen out before she found him ten years earlier. It gave him a kind of lopsided, snaggle-toothed expression. Honestly, everybody—the vet included—was shocked the cat was still alive.

Merlin swished his tail and glared at her. Like he always did. As she approached, he growled at her. Like he always did.

“Yeah, yeah.” She put the bowl of wet cat food in front of him. “Eat it or don’t, buddy.”

If a cat could sigh, she swore he did. Lowering his head, he started gobbling up the wet food. She was tempted to pet him, but…the last time she did that, she wound up with stitches and, like, eighteen shots for rabies, just in case.

Merlin was an abject asshole.

But she loved him anyway.

“You know, you’re lucky I’m here to give you treats. Mom and Dad aren’t fans of cats. The only reason they let you live out here is because you’re a murder machine and you take care of the mice.” She sat down on a crate next to Merlin’s little fort.

Leaning her head back against the wall, she sighed. “I guess that’s one upside to not having gotten into college. I still get to spoil you.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d gotten into plenty of colleges. But her dad said they were too expensive, and she didn’t get enough aid to be able to afford it.

Not to mention they were afraid that she couldn’t handle it. She had started suffering panic attacks from a fairly young age. Every time she got too nervous or wound up, she’d lose the ability to breathe and black out. Sometimes, there wasn’t even a reason. She’d just be sitting there, minding her own business, swiping through videos on her phone, and then the whole world would get too close.

That morning’s betrayal had left her sitting on the floor, struggling to breathe, for nearly half an hour. At least she hadn’t passed out.

She was in therapy for it. Her parents didn’t believe in medication as a solution for “mental problems,” so she wasn’t taking anything. Which sucked. Maybe if she was, she could have gone to college with her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, she corrected herself in her head. Damn it.Damn it all, Mick.

They had been friends since grade school. And like most young friendships, it bloomed into something romantic as they had gotten older.

She missed him. She missed having someone she could be with. Someone she could trust and rely on. But he went off to Boston and she didn’t. There he went, and here she was.

She wanted to see the world. She wanted to learn. She wanted to find her place and where she belonged. Because she knew it wasn’t here. Stuck. On a farm. In backwater Kansas.

“I was hoping to go to Boston University. Can you imagine it? A big city.” Mournfully, she smiled. “It must be so much fun there. Noisy and crowded and…withpeopleto talk to. Not just cats.” She paused. “No offense.”

Merlin didn’t respond. It’d have been far worse if he had.

“I guess some people are just meant to stay where they’re stuck, right?” She sighed. She had wanted to go major in…hell, she didn’t even know. Maybe history? Literature and lore? Veterinary studies? To be truthful, she hadn’t really cared. She had just wanted to getaway.To getout.To find what she wanted to do with her life. “There’s a whole world out there that doesn’t involve growing corn and raising goats. But no. Here I am.” She nudged a pebble across the dirt floor of the barn with her toe. “Talking to a cat.”

Silence.

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