Page 74 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
He chuckled like an indulgent teacher. “You’ve been doing that quite well on your own, haven’t you?”
Like I needed that reminder. No matter what I did, I fucked things up. I still hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Brendon. I’d had opportunities, but how the hell was I supposed to bring up ‘hey, do you want to spend the rest of our lives together’ to someone I’d known for a week? I’d always thought I’d gotten lucky by not being forced into an arranged marriage. Now the idea of someone else doing all the hard communication for me sounded perfect.Can someone else please just untangle the fucking mess I’ve made?
I craned my neck to look out the nearest window, wondering how much time had passed. It was dark outside, which didn’t tell me much. How much longer did I have until the wedding? Would the evil mage keep me locked up through the whole thing?
But that didn’t really make sense. The wedding could go on even if I wasn’t there to be Franny’s Honor Attendant. Unless my family stopped the whole thing to search for me. I doubted they would—maintaining the Kingdom Defense Spell was too important. They’d probably pretend everything was fine and wait until after the vows were said and our continued safety was secured before sending out a search party. So, why had he grabbedme?
Did he not want to ruin the wedding after all? Was he even an evil mage? The imp, the shadows, and the name—aside from the breakfast bit—all screamed ‘evil mage,’ but plenty of evil mages in the past had other side gigs. And I knew one other magic user with showmanship tendencies who had recently arrived in town. Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “You aren’t actually the Good Wizard in disguise, are you? Trying to scare me onto the right path or something.”
There was a moment of silence and then the evil mage threw his head back and laughed. The laugh was halfway between charming silver fox—sexy if you were into that kind of thing—and cheerful grandfather—I guess also sexy, if you were into that kind of thing.
He wiped tears from his eyes as the laughter settled down. “I never expected you to guess correctly!”
“Uh, master,” a voice from the shadows began, but Cereal waved them off.
“Now, now, he guessed fair and square, no reason to keep up the charade.” He snapped his fingers and the black cape changed into the same blue robe with yellow stars the wizard had arrived in. The beard grew longer and grayer, and a new twinkle entered his eyes. “Since that didn’t work, I guess we’ll try a more direct route.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You, young man, cannot run away from this wedding.”
My brow furrowed and I pursed my lips. “I’m not trying to.”
He gave me a pitying look. “Then what were you doing tonight?”
“I ran away from therehearsal. I couldn’t watch—”
He waved away my excuses. “This wedding is important to so many people. Lives depend on it!” he said grandly, then muttered, “And happy households.”
“What?”
“Marriage,” he began sternly, ignoring my interruption, “is built on love and trust. That trust is broken if you hide other lovers behind your spouse’s back.” He arched his eyebrows significantly and gave me a disappointed look that almost made me apologize on the spot, despite my continued confusion.
“I don’t have a lover—” I snapped my mouth shut and glared at the imp—the same one who had bitten me in the marketplace. “My relationship with Griffin ended months ago. What your …” Wait, what was the imp? If he was the Good Wizard, I couldn’t call the imp a ‘minion.’ And why was the Good Wizard working with an imp? “What yourhelpersaw was just us rehashing an old argument.”
“And the other man?” Cereal asked, still disappointed.
“Whatother man?”
“The one you held here in this tower?”
He couldn’t be talking about Brendon. Which meant he was referring to … “Look, that was a long time ago.”
The shadow snorted and muttered something I couldn’t hear.
“Mattias is … he’s not going to …” I didn’t really know how to explain it. Whatever love we’d had was too stained by misunderstanding and rumors to recover. Even if I’d wanted him back—even if he’d wantedmeback—it would never work out. “Nothing is going to happen between Mattias and I.”
Cereal scanned my face, looking for some sort of deception, then nodded. “That’s good to hear. Your bride deserves better than—”
“My what?”
“Your bride,” he repeated. That time, when he snapped his fingers, it didn’t change anything. He was just trying to remember something. “The redhead.”
I wouldn’t exactly call Brendon a ‘bride.’ He was pretty, but I didn’t think he wanted feminine pronouns or attributes. “He’s not—”
“The Princess of Bane,” Cereal finished before I could explain.
I stared at him for a long time, realizing that I’d once again been an idiot. “You aren’t the Good Wizard, are you?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
To his credit, Cereal didn’t continue the charade once I’d called him out. Another snap of his fingers—I should really learn that trick—and he’d gone through another costume change, back to the evil mage attire. “I normally wouldn’t impersonate one ofthem,” he explained with a hint of embarrassment, “but you’d presented such an excellent opportunity to gain your trust.”
