Page 44 of Enchanted Heir
“The way he flirted with you,” she added.
The back of Owen’s shoulders shook as he looked out the window.
“He flirts with everything, Mother,” I scolded.
Owen now burst into laughter.
I turned to my mother, realizing that this needed to be taken care of before I could even sit down for tea. “I tried to run, Mother. From Keir. I got as far as the forest. Krew found me. And to keep the king from arresting me, he kissed me to switch me from Keir’s Assemblage to his.”
I almost felt bad for the look of shock upon her face. All the laugh lines around her eyes vanished into thin air.
She tried to speak, but then just admitted, “I think I need to sit down.”
So I dove into the entire story, getting choked up when I explained how I made my master and haphazard escape. My mother’s eyes went glassy also when I explained how trapped I had felt, and how that drove me to want better for myself.
As soon as I finished my rather long-winded explanation, she immediately said, “You did the right thing.”
I cocked my head. “It was reckless. Utterly dangerous, Mother.”
She gave me the look she had given me a thousand times in my life. The look which told me no matter how old or grown I was, she would still be my mother. She’d still know things I would not, could not. “Such are matters of the heart sometimes, dear.” Then after a pause she added, “So are you faking this relationship with Krew or is it real?”
I thought of the way he sometimes looked at me. The times I had absentmindedly wondered the exact same thing. “Fake.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “You hesitated.”
Owen choked on another laugh.
I glared at him.
He hid his face behind his teacup.
I shrugged. “It is difficult when I do trust him and find him as a... friend. And then also have to play the part of doting lovers while in front of the king.” I left the part about us sleeping in the same bed out of my massive explanation. While it was true I was a grown woman, there were some things one just did not want to speak about with their mother. “I do not hate him like I first did,” I added.
“Sounds reckless and utterly dangerous in more ways than one,” she offered.
I groaned. “Can we not spend this whole time speculating about this? Krew has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t wish to have any attachments.”
Mother wrinkled her nose. “Well, what would you like to do then?”
I looked at our bakery. The oven and kitchen. The smell of bread that would never fully leave the building even if she hadn’t made a fresh batch that morning. “Bake.”
“You wish to work?”
I nodded. “Not bread though. I did some of that yesterday. Cookies. I owe Owen a lot of cookies.”
“Cookies it is,” she said with a smile.
I knew she had a lot more questions for me, but I appreciated her allowing me to do what it was I thought I needed.
While I grabbed some butter to melt, she launched into stories about the Nerede reaction to my switching Assemblages. And also the suitors who had been checking in with her to see if she’d heard word.
“In my humble opinion, Nathaniel Wilks and Theodore Jones have been the more persistent and yet also probably would be a good fit for you,” Mother offered. “Should you come home in a month or so as you say.”
I knew them both. Nathaniel had completely ignored me and not even so much as thanked me one day at the bakery. So automatically I felt against that pairing. But the thought of soon marrying either of them, men I barely knew, made me nauseous. Then again, I had barely known Krew and Owen a few months ago and now look at us? “Theodore is at least kind,” I offered. “Nice and also nice looking.”
If Owen rolled his eyes any harder, they’d get stuck up there.
I gave him a simple shrug.
