Page 17

Chapter

Thirteen

I slept like the dead. Call it post orgasmic haze, cloud bed cuddles, or the warmth of a knight at my back, but I have never slept so well, or so deep.

But now, in the warm light of the sunrise, I am rested but starving.

My stomach rumbles louder than Theo can roar.

Perhaps I house a dragon in my belly? Which would make me pregnant.

Again, I’m not convinced anything I’ve done with the knights to date could implant a baby inside my womb.

Which means I either swallowed a gremlin in my sleep, or orgasms make me ravenous.

An experiment is in order, and in the absence of gremlins, I should test it by having more orgasms.

“What are you plotting?” Malachi asks as he turns to face me on the sofa. Hart catches my gaze and smirks from his seat on the armchair. My cheeks heat with the memory of what he witnessed.

Nash and Theo burst through the door, arms full of platters with Gwyneth on their heels. I perk up, as does my gremlin, at the scent of sausage.

“Why is she muttering about gremlins?” Theo asks. They slide the platters piled high with delicious yummy foods onto the table between us.

Nash hands me a big plate and smiles. “Worked up an appetite?”

“My gremlin thinks so.”

My judgy sword titters to itself in the corner.

Only I can hear it, sense it, feel it. I’d consider that special, but I know it’s a curse, not a gift.

Still, an ornate length of old rusty metal is passing his eye over my life and deciding I am amusing.

I bet the previous Lady was a complete bore. At least with me, he is going places.

“My sword is in the goat house,” I decide.

“Goat house?” Theo asks. “You mean dog house.”

“No, I mean goat house. I never owned a dog, and if I did, it would not live outside in a separate building.”

“I think we have enough magical sidekicks without adding canine friends to the mix,” Malachi decides. True enough.

Gwyneth rolls her eyes and plucks some fruit for herself.

Fruit won’t cut it for my gremlin. Clearly, she has not been getting orgasms, which is both a good and a bad thing.

Good, because Charming is the only one sniffing around my sister, and bad because she is missing out.

It should be a realm-wide declaration that all females are given the wonder of orgasms every diurnal.

I suspect there would be fewer dramatics, tantrums, and crying.

Basically, it would be a service to the realm, a change in the overall mood.

Everyone knows feminine rage is a thousandfold more powerful than anything a man can muster.

It’s just one of the many things we do better.

“You best be quick, Daphne,” Malachi says. “The sausage is disappearing.”

I blink at the half empty platter and scowl at the knights, who are busy chomping on my sausage. I point to each of them. “Don’t make me come get that sausage. I own it. Ask me before you eat it.”

Everyone freezes, then Theo throws his head back and laughs. I cock an eyebrow at him before snatching the entire platter for myself and stabbing a sausage. My eyes roll in the back of my head at the deliciousness.

Eugene and Hamish come scuttling into the living area and bury themselves under my skirts.

Their happy clucking settles something in my chest. I have my knights, my sister, my capons, and sausage.

Genie and the mirror man are monitoring the Idol I angered, so all that’s left to do is extricate me from the doomed narrative, and we will be golden.

My skirts lift an inch and out rolls an egg. I snatch it up and examine it.

“They wouldn’t do this in here if they wanted to keep them, right?”

Gwyneth narrows her eyes. “Why would they want to keep them?”

“Because they are their babies.”

“No, they are eggs.”

“That’s how they have babies. Wait, do capons have orgasms?”

Nash tilts his head like he’s examining a book inside his mind. “I don’t believe so.”

“That’s sad. Maybe if I explained it, they could find the gift that is pleasure.”

“They don’t possess the anatomy,” Nash adds.

“Well, if I could remake the capons, I would change that.” Another egg rolls out from under my skirts. “See? They agree.”

“Moving on from the talk of remaking creatures great and small,” Hart says. “Where are we up to with research?”

Everyone looks at Gwyneth, because they all know I was super busy not researching anything but anatomy.

“The only thing I found was something not found.”

“Oh great, a riddle,” I grumble. “I’m not so good at negotiating straightforward talk, so I should be abysmal at this.”

Malachi slides an arm around my shoulders and pulls me and my meat platter closer. “We all have our strengths, Daphne. Yours is turning the rules on their heads and proving the impossible, possible.”

He makes me sound badass. I love him. It. I mean it.

Gwyneth grabs a book I hadn’t noticed from the floor and puts it on the table before flicking it open to a page with a colorful illustration of a lady hovering above a lake, offering the sword to a handsome knight.

“That’s hardly a revelation,” I point out.

“But it is,” Gwyneth declares. “Nowhere in the history or lore does it mention a broken blade. Yet your father had the hilt, and the Lady kept the sharp end of Excalibur.”

Silence stretches as my sister points out the obvious that no one else has picked up on, not even his own sons, who surely spent a lot of time with the man they call father.

“What does that mean?” I ask before shoving another bite of sausage into my mouth. All this pondering makes my gremlin grumble.

“My guess is he wasn’t worthy and somehow fooled the Lady into appearing, and then tried to pry the sword from her, snapping it in the process,” Hart theorizes.

“She could have said something while committing me to certain doom,” I grumble.

Nash spins the book around to face him. “Is he even a knight?”

Malachi nods at the book. “I can’t see how he couldn’t be. Only a knight can call to a Lady.”

“And Merlin,” I remind them of the old dead dude. “Because he duped the original Lady into falling for him.”

“That’s right, but I doubt our father is a Merlin in disguise,” Theo says.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he is not a wizard. Plus, he wouldn’t have been able to produce a set of knights, including a dragon, if he wasn’t the chosen one.”

“But if he was worthy, he should have had the full sword in his grasp,” Gwyneth argues.

“So he’s a knight, but not the knight,” Nash decides. “Perhaps he killed the worthy one, and our father was the best of a bad bunch, so the narrative and Idols had to make do?”

“That’s food for thought,” I add. “Or is it thought for food? That sounds so much better.”

“Are any of your uncles alive?” Gwyneth asks, ignoring my pondering on food being thoughts. If they are, then I hope they taste like sausages.

Nash rubs his fingers over his lips. I was certainly his food last night. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Do you need another taste to figure it out?” I ask.

He blinks at me. Whoops. This is why inside thoughts should be spoken aloud—because then, reactions would make sense.

Now I sound like a basket case. He grins as he seems to put everything together that I’m not saying, and that is an impressive feat, considering I rarely know what’s happening in my own mind.

“But if you are suggesting he killed the worthy knight to take his place, that makes little sense, because as soon as the worthy dies, the next knight steps up.”

“Unless they haven’t been born yet,” I point out. “Or perhaps the Idols are okay with a goat being in charge?”

“Goat?” Hart asks with a shake of his head. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Maybe the real worthy knight is wasting away somewhere?” Theo adds, ignoring my goat theory. It’s not like they have anything better to offer, so why not goats? They are cute and make milk and cheese. What’s not to like?

“How about your mothers?” I ask, unable to pull my eyes away from Nash as he licks his lips. Tease.

“What about them?” Hart snaps.

“Well, wouldn’t they have insight into your father’s worthiness? Didn’t he have to save them as damsels in distress?”

Nash snorts. “My mother was his original saved damsel. But she was not in distress. In fact, she was busy trying to marry a cobbler, who she fell in love with as a child, when my father plucked her from the town. He declared he had saved her, and therefore, she was his queen.”

“He didn’t slay the dragon? Isn’t that a must for any Arthurian king?”

“It is. An armoured knight did slay a dragon in my father’s era, but it was rumored that he kept his face shielded by his helmet, and the dragon wasn’t a typical one,” Theo says.

“How so?” Gwyneth asks.

“He scared the dragon away, and it was never heard from again. Nobody questioned the will of the Idols, given that this meant their damsels could stop being sacrificed for another generation.”

“This is not in the records,” Gwyneth mutters as she frowns at the book like it deceived her.

“Of course not,” Malachi adds. “My father banned the deviation from ever being documented. All you will find is an adherence to the legend of Arthur.”

“Are you sure he is your father?” I have to ask it, to put it out into the realm. “Because if he isn’t the chosen one, then he shouldn’t have been able to birth a generation with a dragon, right? That’s unique to him and him alone? Unless there are more dragon mommas I don’t know about.”

“She makes an excellent point,” Hart says.

Is that an almost compliment?

“Our mothers all report the same thing,” Theo says. “A one night drunken fumble in the dark they can hardly remember.”

“Clearly, they weren’t getting orgasms,” I grumble. Because if they had, no amount of berry wine would make them forget.

“I think we should visit our father and question him,” Nash declares.

I shrink into Malachi’s side. “On horseback?”

“Still not a fan, huh?” Gwyneth says with a grin. “Ever since that incident when he bit your?—”

“Face,” I snap, shutting her up. “My face. They all want to eat my face.”

“She who steals Idol weapons, cuts down princes with words, and steals hearts, still fears horses?” Malachi asks.

“But they aren’t horses,” I whisper. “They aren’t terrifying.”

“I vote we leave her here,” Hart says.

“Because that worked out so well last time,” Theo grumbles.

I’m not being left behind while they face their deadbeat daddy. “Nope, I’ll come. I’ll face my fear or fear my face. Whatever works for it remaining attached to my head.”

Hart shakes his head and rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “Idols help us.”

I smirk and jump to my feet. “Don’t be a mellow. What could go wrong?”

Hey universe, it’s just me, Daphne Stone, nothing to see here. Just a maiden, damsel, Lady, queen, going about her diurnal, not challenging you in any way, shape, or form. My smile stretches when the realm doesn’t fight back.

I spin in a circle, hear the crack of a shell beneath my bare foot, and slip backward, my arms flailing in the air. Theo catches me, and I boop him on the nose. “Thanks, big guy.”

“Fine, bring Calamity,” Hart snaps. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He’s such a mellow. A handsome, capable, strong mellow who witnessed me fall apart under his brother like it was a revelation.

Hart may act like he doesn’t care, but deep, deep down, he likes me.

He knows life without me would be a monotonous drivel where he was just surviving and waiting for death to claim him.

I make him embrace every breath he takes like a gift. I am basically a blessing.

“Make it stop,” Hart drawls, rubbing his forehead.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Gwyneth advises. “It only gets worse if you try to contain her.”

“I’m uncontainable,” I declare. “A force of nature.”

“Now that, we can agree on,” Hart says as he rises and strides to his bedroom. “I’ll meet you in the stables in ten tempos, unless Calamity’s uncontainable force wrecks your life before then.”

I am not a life wrecker. What a poopfloof. The knights take their leave to pack whatever they deem necessary. I don’t have any possessions here, so I stay on the sofa with my sister. She turns to face me.

“So, orgasms? Multiple knights, or multiple orgasms?”

I grin. “Both.”

We fall back laughing, and my heart feels full and sure, ready for whatever the Idols are about to throw in my path. Be it grand or small, I am ready for it.

I’m an uncontainable force of nature. A calamity. A maiden from Strongfair here to turn the realm on its head and tickle its belly into submission. Take that, Idols. Or just ignore me—which is probably for the best.

Oh look, leftover sausage.