Page 36 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
The moment I saw it, my whole body exploded in low-level pain. If my nails weren’t so dull, I would have scratched my skin off. “Franny!” I shouted, pushing the door open with my shoulder, then paused to scratch my back up and down the door frame. “Mother!” My scalp was on fire. I dug my fingers into it and scratched until my hair stood on end. “Anyone!”
The Good Wizard popped his head out from around the corner. “Can I be of any assistance?” he asked as he watched me writhe and twist my arms around to scratch everywhere within reach.
“Yes! Please, I—” I coughed and choked as the itch traveled through my throat.
“Oh my.” He bustled over to me and touched me before I could warn him about possible contagions. He clasped my face in both of his hands, looked deeply into my eyes, and then nodded once. “I know what will help you.”
I scratched all the way to his guest room. He forcefully pushed me down on the bed, then searched through his battered old luggage.
“What’s the matter with me?” I tried to ask, but the sound was muffled because I was trying to satisfy the itch by scraping my tongue against my teeth.
“You’re having a bad reaction to a potion,” the wizard explained.
“Potion? What kind of potion?”
The wizard didn’t answer. He grabbed a few bottles and an empty teacup from his nightstand and began mixing ingredients together. Then he shoved the teacup at me and ordered, “Drink.”
Remembering the pink tea that had been sitting on my desk, I shook my head desperately. Good Wizard or not, I wasnotdrinking anything else without explanation.
Instead of arguing with me, the wizard placed one hand behind my head and forced the teacup to my lips, shoving the edge between them, and poured the liquid down my throat. I sputtered and coughed, the bitter potion spilling out the edges of my mouth and dripping onto my clothes.Pestilence! Pestilence, motherfucking pestilence!
Finally the wizard lowered the cup and skipped back a few steps, out of reach of my swinging arm.
“What the fuck?” I demanded, panting heavily. Then a pleasant,cool relief spread from my throat to my stomach and slowly through the rest of my body, soothing the persistent itch. A subtle hint remained, but I could now resist the urge to scratch until I bled.
“I apologize for my forceful techniques, Your Highness. It is important to treat these things as soon as possible.”
I rubbed my throat, the skin there tender and raised. “What did you mean? When you said it was a bad reaction?”
The wizard folded his hands in his sleeves and turned on Lecture Mode. “Look at the remnants of the rash on your arm. What do you see?”
I squinted at my arm. The red bumps of various sizes were all vaguely the same shape. “Hearts.”
“Precisely. At some point in the last few hours, you drank a love potion. A quite powerful one too, by the looks of it.”
“First off: why would anyone feed me a love potion? Second: why did I break out into a rash instead of like, serenading one of the maids?”
“I don’t know the answer to the first, but the second is obvious: you are incompatible with the person you were meant to fall in love with.”
I frowned, wondering what that said about me. “I thought love potions made you fall for whoever you saw next.”
“Cheap ones, maybe,” the wizard replied, sniffing in indignation. “But this one was high quality. It likely came in two parts: one for the victim—that’s you—to drink, and one for the soon-to-be object of their desire.”
“And what, we’re so bad for each other that the universe decided to eliminate me by having me scratch myself to death?”
“In a way. This reaction is common when the two parties are blood related. Do you have any secret siblings, perhaps?”
I stared at him blankly.
“No judgment, but if the king or queen strayed …”
I couldn’t imagine either of my parents hiding a side piece. My mother was too absorbed in her queenly duties and reputation, and an affair would just be too much work for my father. “If they were secret, how would I know about them?”
“Good point … then I can only surmise that the one who gave you this potion was Her Highness Princess Francesca.”
I wanted to argue with him, but the tea had accompanied the letters … Not that I believed for a moment my sister wouldintentionallyfeedme love potion. Maybe she’d accidentally swapped the cups. “Would the other recipientalsobreak out in hives?”
“No, only you.”
