Page 120 of The Beast King's Bride

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ASH

That’s how I move in with Pete in the cobbler’s house. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go, and he seems glad of the company. To stop myself from thinking, I set about cleaning and tidying up, and after a while, he joins me. Together we scrub the floors and polish the wood and dust everything, coughing from the clouds of dust and laughing.

I need this, I realize, this distraction. Having a good friend to get distracted with, someone who understands me, who wants me to be happy, to be well.

It’s not the same as with Talen. Never the same. It’s clear now, if it wasn’t entirely clear before, that between Pete and me there can be nothing but friendship. We sleep in separate rooms and tease each other, but our touches are never anything more than sisterly—well, brotherly on his side.

It feels good. He’s like the brother I never had, and I think he’s happy to have me with him. He even put away the liquor after the first few days and has been sober ever since. It feels good to see the light slowly returning to his eyes.

It’s also clear that what I felt for Talen is the exact opposite, an inexorable pull, physical and emotional, a desire and love so deep that it’s almost impossible to uproot.

But I’m working on it.

“So what do you want to do?” Pete asks one evening as we sit in front of the fire and the bubbling pot of soup hanging over it, waiting for it to finish cooking so we can eat dinner. “We never got around to discussing that.”

“No, we didn’t.” Part of it was because I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to move past Talen, the memories, the rejection. The visceral way I miss him every day and every night, as if a part of me was hacked off.

Some nights I think I can feel him beside me, but when I open my eyes, there’s only me in the narrow bed. Some days I think I hear his voice, but it’s only the wind. I’m scared.

Scared I will forget his voice, his face, his laughter.

By all rights, I should be furious with him, but as it turns out the heart doesn’t work that way. Love doesn’t let go easily.

“I…” I get up to stir the soup, needing something to do with my hands. “I haven’t given it much thought yet. What about you? What would you do with your life?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, looking down at his hands. “I was training to become a cobbler, you know. Before they passed.”

I hadn’t known. I turn to look at him. “Were you any good?”

“No,” he says grimly and grins.

I grin back. “That’s bad because you have a house and a workshop right here, the tools rusting away.”

“I know.” He shrugs. “I couldn’t even bring myself to come in here for a while, inside the house. I stayed on the streets, but then winter came and… and I realized I’d die out there. I wasn’t…” He huffs. “Wasn’t ready to die yet.”

I abandon the spoon and sit back down beside him. “Good thing you didn’t.” I elbow him. “Or else who would have taken me in?”

He shakes his head. “What I have to put up with.”

“See? I’m so lucky.”

“Ash—”

“I have gold coins,” I tell him. “Fae coins. You have a house. For now, if we’re careful, we can live on them. Go out of town to change one at a time, not let anyone know about them. And then…”

“Then?”

“We’ll see. I can cook. I can find work in a rich house. You could, too.”

“I could.” His grin makes a comeback. “Do you really think we can do this?”

“I really think so. Can’t see why not.”

“You always believed,” he whispers. “Never giving up on the possibilities, the future.”

“Yes, and you always mocked me for it. For insisting I was a princess.”

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