Princess of Thorns

“Stop.” He pulls my hands away, pi

“Why?” I lift my head, bringing my lips to his, drawing him back into another kiss with a sigh of satisfaction.

“We’re on the side of the road,” he mumbles against my mouth.

“I don’t care,” I breathe, shifting beneath him until he groans. “I don’t want to stop.” I slip my tongue out to flick his upper lip. “Don’t stop, Niklaas. Don’t—”

“And this is why you drive me mad!” he shouts, retreating so fast that I curl into a seated position like a roll-y bug discovered beneath a rock. “You never think!”

“I do t-too,” I stammer. “I just—”

“You could have killed us both!” he shouts, jumping up to pace back and forth in the grass. The sun set a good fifteen minutes ago, but there is still plenty of light left to see how irate he’s become. “You’re not fairy-blessed anymore, and even if you were, Alama and I are not. You can’t go jumping from horses without a second thought. You’re the queen, by the Pit, and people are counting on you!”

“I know people are counting on me, but—”

“But nothing!” he shouts, making me flinch. “You have to be more levelheaded.”

“I’m trying, but you don’t make it easy!”

“You think it was easy pulling away from you?” he asks, stooping to shoot me a look that makes me shiver with wishing he were back in my arms, doing all the things we both so clearly enjoy. “But I did it, because you don’t deflower a damn queen in a field by the side of the road.”

“Deflower?” I ask, my lips stretching into a smile. “What am I, a petunia?”

“Don’t smile,” he says, his own lips twitching. “This isn’t fu

“Oh yes it is.” I laugh as I stand, tucking my shirt back into my pants as I turn to search for Button. “I was the one who started this. If anyone was deflowering anyone, it was me deflowering you.”

“I was deflowered long ago, Your Highness,” Niklaas says.

“Yes, I know, I haven’t forgotten what a successful whore you were.” I spy Button and Alama grazing by the side of the road a half a field away and turn back to Niklaas. “Maybe I should run to the nearest village and find a boy or two to experiment with. I mean, if the deflowering business is such a burden, I—”

“Don’t you dare,” he says, snatching me around the waist, pulling me into his arms and up his body until my feet dangle off the ground, muffling my protest with his kiss.

His kiss …

There is nothing better, nothing in the whole world.

“I could get drunk on your kisses,” I sigh against his lips.

“My kisses,” he says, arms tightening around me. “No one else’s.”

“Does this mean you’ll do it?” I ask, pulling back to look him in the eye.

“Deflower you?”

“Marry me,” I say, then add in a whisper. “Then the other. As soon as it can possibly be arranged.”

He shivers and I smile because I know he wants me as much as I want him and that we’ve finally found our way to each other and everything is going to be all right and then he says—

“No.”

—and my heart plummets.

“Why not?” I demand. “You love me, I know you do.”

“I do, more than I’ve ever loved anything,” he says, setting me on my feet. “A frightening amount considering I’ve only known you three weeks.”

“Then why?” I ask, positively sick to the bone. I can’t lose him, not when I was so certain … so sure. “I swear I will never lie to you again, even if we live to be a hundred. Even if it’s kinder to lie than to tell the truth.”

“Even if my breath stinks?” he asks, a teasing glint in his eye that makes me hopeful. “Or my gut starts to spill over my pants?”

“I’ll tell you,” I say. “I swear it. Immediately.”

“So if I ask you a question right now,” he says, humor leaving his voice. “You will be bound to tell the truth?”

“I swear it on my mother’s memory.”

“If it weren’t for my curse, would you still be considering getting married?”

I pause, but hurry to speak when I see distance creep into his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. I won’t even be eighteen until spring. I would rather wait, but—”

“But nothing,” he says, turning to walk away. “I won’t force you—”

“No one is forcing me to do anything! Let me finish!” I grab his arm, digging my heels in until he stops. “But you don’t have a year or five, so we’ll do it now and I will never regret it because I know I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”

“How can you know?” he asks, looking down at me with obvious skepticism. “You’re only seventeen. You’ve only kissed two people, and both of them—”

“Unlike some people, I don’t need to sample every beer in the tavern to know which one I prefer,” I say, propping my hands on my hips, not bothering to hide my frustration. He wanted me to be honest and at the moment he is honestly the most frustrating boy in Mataquin. “And we don’t have another week for me to spend praising your humbling good looks and your sweet heart and your bravery and on and on until your vanity is satisfied.”

“My vanity?” He rolls his eyes, but I see the tension easing from his expression and know I’d better get him to a priest before he finds something else to fret about.

“Yes, your vanity,” I say, tucking my hand into his arm and leading him toward the horses. “Now, you’re going to get on your horse and come back to the castle and we’re going to be married and tomorrow you’ll wake up and you won’t be a swan and I won’t be alone and neither of us will regret a damn thing.”

“Well, I suppose somebody has to keep you out of trouble,” he says, stopping to pull me into his arms. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I ask, lacing my fingers around his neck.

“For being so wretched stubborn. I was pretty sure it was the only thing I didn’t like about you.” He laughs beneath his breath. “But anyone else would have given up on me the fourth or fifth time I said no.”

“I guess you’ll have to add it to the list of things you love about me,” I whisper, standing on tiptoe to brush my lips against his, sighing as my entire being lights up. It’s like being filled with fairy magic but better, because this is magic we make together, Niklaas and I, something that was born and nurtured between us that can never be twisted or tainted or stolen away so long as we’re willing to fight for it.

And I will always fight for him. Always.

I feel shot through with light all the way back to the castle, all through the ceremony, and late into the night as Niklaas and I set about deflowering each other with as much tender enthusiasm as I had expected. And it is beautiful and right and by the time I drift to sleep in his arms, he is truly a part of me, a treasure I will hold close for the rest of my life, the greatest blessing, fairy or otherwise, I have ever known.

Niklaas

I open my eyes to sunlight flooding through unfamiliar yellow curtains, bathing the bed in gold, and for a moment I can’t remember where I am.

And then I hear her sigh and turn my head to find Aurora propped on one arm, watching me wake up, and it all comes rushing back—the breathless ride back to the castle, the wedding in the garden with the last of the autumn roses tucked into Aurora’s hair, going to bed with my best friend and learning I’ve been doing it all wrong, and needed to be deflowered, after all.

Last night was what love is supposed to feel like, terrifying and beautiful and so close you’re afraid you’ll lose a piece of yourself, but you don’t. You gain a piece of the person you love instead, a piece that makes you stronger and happier than you could have imagined possible.

Thank the gods she came after me; thank the gods I had the sense to let myself be saved or I never would have known.

“Good morning,” I mumble with a smile, reaching lazy fingers up to brush her cheek, needing to touch her. “How long have you been awake?”