Page 56 of Apples Dipped in Gold

I jumped, not realizing he had wandered up beside me.

I looked at him, confused.

“Why not?”

“The fae are not relegated to land,” he said. “Some of the most vicious reside in water.”

His words sent a shiver down my spine. I pulled my hand out of the water and straightened. It should not surprise me that the water, which appeared so serene, would actually be infested with nefarious fae.

“Then how are we supposed to bathe?”

“They will not bother you while the Prince of Nightshade is near,” said the fox.

I turned to look for Lore and found that he had pulled a blanket from the bag he had packed at Cardic’s and was attempting to secure it on a branch near the riverbank.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I am trying,” he said, grunting as he struggled, “to give you…some privacy.”

The blanket slipped and fell, half in the river and half on land.

“Fuck,” Lore hissed.

I giggled as I went to him and picked the blanket up from the ground, wringing out the part that had landed in the water. I held it up by the corners and handed it to Lore.

“This will suffice,” I said and started to remove my dress.

“I take it you’ve decided to bathe,” he said from the other side of the blanket.

“I do not think I have a choice,” I replied as I reached behind me to untie the laces at my back. I thought that they had been tied into a bow, but I found instead that they were in a tangle, and I had only made them worse. I dropped my chin to my chest, twisting both arms behind me, trying desperately to claw at the knot.

“Does it usually take you this long to undress?” asked Lore. “I am certain I could make quicker work of that dress.”

“I do not want to hear about your conquests, Prince,” I said, offering a frustrated growl.

Lore dropped the blanket.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“My arms are tired, and you are not naked,” he said. “Turn.”

I glared at him, and he tilted his head back, looking over my head with squinted eyes.

“Is that a fly?”

He swatted at it.

“There’s another!”

I scowled at him. “Fine!”

I turned, giving him my back. I wasn’t sure why this made me feel so exposed. Maybe because I was about to wade into a river completely naked in front of a man, and I had never done anything like it before.

Lore was the first man who had ever kissed me, and he hadn’t even touched my lips.

I wonder if he knew.

He could probably guess, given his years of experience.

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