Page 62 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

“Nepheli—”

“You knew what you were doing! It was perfect, wasn’t it? The tortured prince, who doesn’t want to hurt me, whispers sweet nothings in the dark. How romantic, right?”

He stepped forward.

I stepped back.

“What sweet nothings?”

“I heard you last night!”

His throat bobbed. “You weren’t asleep?”

“As if you didn’t know!”

Apollo took another step, his hands raised in mid-air between us. “Nepheli, please, listen to me—”

“Were you looking for someone like me in Elora? Did you realize I was all alone and you thought I was the perfect victim?” A little voice inside me begged me for breath, for reason, for a moment to consider:You’re just scared and overwhelmed. There has to be some other explanation for what Isa said.Deep, deep in my gut, a windswept sense of wrongness told me Apollo didn’t want to hurt me. But I still felt frightened and almost heartbroken, betrayed by my own self. Could I have really been so wrong about him? Why was it easier to believe Apollo had been trying to trick me all along than to believe he’d meant those things he’d said to me last night?

Apollo shook his head, the motion almost manic. “No.No. I didn’t plan any of this. Please, Nepheli, you have to believe me. I never, ever meant to hurt you. Yours was just the last Curiosity Shop I hadn’t searched yet. I was just looking for…” he hesitated. The muscles along his jaw spasmed. His eyes turned to stone.

“For what?” I heaved.

“My heart!” he exploded, white knuckles beating against his chest. “I was looking formy heart!”

What does that even mean?I was about to ask, breathless and confused, but Apollo surged forward lightning-fast and trapped me inside his arms.

“What—” I started, shaking from as much surprise as adrenaline.

He clamped a hand down on my mouth and tried to shove me behind a giant alder tree.

But it was too late.

“Now, what do we have here?” A hoarse, male voice sounded from beyond the glade. I twisted around, scouring the dark. A tall, bulky figure emerged from the fog-dazed darkness. Behind him, another man followed, shorter and leaner but with a horrid edge to his look. And another one, with a gritty scar cutting along his face. But what alarmed me more than their off-putting looks and threatening smiles, were the belts full of blades that dangled from their hips.

Apollo yanked me behind him and drew his body forward in a fighting stance. My stomach twisted into a tight knot. A terrible, awful inkling hiked up my spine—an inward sense of doom. And the worst, most shocking thing of all, was that in a moment of such gut-wrenching panic, my first instinct was to seek protection from the man I had just run away from.

The man with the scar trailed to our left, laughing a low, vicious laugh. “I’d say a certain rogue Prince and his newest plaything.”

“I wonder how much the Queen will pay for her son’s safe return to Thaloria?” the tall one mused darkly, his wide, green eyes leering at Apollo.

“I wonder how much the merchants will pay for thathair,”the short one crooned at me, inching closer.

Apollo growled. “Don’t look at her.”

“Oh, the princeling thinks he can fight,” the short one whistled.

“I don’t want to fight. But I will kill you if I have to,” Apollo warned, and his hand, out of sheer habit, went to where his sword would be sheathed. But Apollo had no sword with him. No dagger. No weapon of any kind. He was dressed only in a billowy white shirt over his black trousers and boots.

We were completely unarmed.

The taller of the bandits whipped his dagger out and came to wield it against Apollo’s throat, turning the blood in my veins to ice. “With what exactly are you going to kill him, boy?”

It happened so fast. Apollo grabbed the bandit’s arm and yanked it forward with one hand as he swiped the dagger with the other. Then he spun, beat his elbow on the back of the bandit’s head, knocking him out, and moved forward to bring the dagger against the other one’s midriff.

Suddenly, there were hands on me, hauling me from behind. I screamed and thrashed and kicked in the air until the cool metal of a blade hungered against my throat and I was forced to still.

“Might want to drop the knife, princeling,” the man behind me hissed, threading his fingers into my hair. He tugged at the roots and yanked back my head to fully expose my throat to the blade, dragging a whimper out of me.

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