Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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I stood inside the guest bedroom, my jaw slack with disbelief. All I could do was point at the fucking bed, and keep jabbing my forefinger at it with nothing spitting from my mouth because this was fucking ridiculous.
The Purcell girl stood before me, her dark brown eyes round and unblinking. She nervously wrung shaking hands, her nerves tattered from the Venetian Vase incident. Which, after facing off against Tabitha's wrath when she'd pointed her godsdamned wooden spoon at me like she wanted to shoot me in the ass, for fucking starters, I'd put the vase down—intact.
Finally, I managed to suck in a breath of air and push out, "What the hells is this?" I hooked a thumb sideways at the teddy bears propped around a tiny table and chairs. "Is this some kind of joke?"
The servant's bobbed hair swished from side to side as she fervently shook her head: no.
I flicked an open hand down my body, indicating my mammoth build. "Look at me."
She jerkily nodded at my request but her terrified gaze didn't stray from my fuming expression. I waved my hands up and down my body, on the verge of losing it completely, and hissed, "I mean, take a real good,"—fucking—"look."
She dragged her wide-eyed gaze slowly down the length of my armored body to the very tips of my black boots and then back up again. She swallowed and I heard the dry rasp of her mouth. "You're very tall," she croaked.
"You think?" I narrowed my eyes and angled my chin toward the bed behind her. "I'm six-fucking-five. Do you really think I can fit into that?"
She darted a brief glance over a trembling shoulder at the bed with its pink duvet and a picture of a princess on its frilly pillows. "It's...well...um, slightly on the small side...but comfortable?" Her voice squeaked upwards like a question as she tried to downplay the madness of the bedroom with a forced innocent expression.
"It's a kids' bed," I said flatly.
The bed was perfect for a child, not my fucking gigantic physique. I didn't even know if it would support my weight. I certainly wouldn't fit on it properly—my legs would be dangling over the edge all night. Who the hells could sleep like that?
I stomped deeper into the room, ducking my head to clear the mobiles of fairies and glittering stars hanging from the ceiling, and edged around the tiny table with its tiny tea set. My nostrils flared as my gaze skimmed the room with its various shades of pink, the stuffed toys and Barbie dolls, the grand Victorian doll house, and the frilly bed with its lacy Princess canopy.
I rapidly tapped my booted foot on the floor—thump-thump-thump—an agitated gesture that had the servant girl tensing further with every thump. I noticed in my periphery she was making small incremental moves to create more distance between us.
I hissed through gritted teeth. I couldn't believe Romain Deniaud had the gall to put me up in a kids' guest bedroom. A bedroom decorated for girls at that. Beneath the collar of my armored jacket, my skin heated with my building temper at the insult and the slight against me and my family.
