Page 113 of The Pumpkin Bride

She spluttered again, dammit.

The older man lifted a cookie from the plate on the table. “Need me to thump your back?”

“No, thank you,” she wheezed.

“Well, so anyway. A flank of knights were carousing in the Laughing Gourd last night. I tried to ignore their conversation. You know me, I mind my business.”

Marigold laughed, and Alfred narrowed his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Go on.”

Crumbs caught in his beard. “One of ’em—portly guy—noticed a broadside about the festival plastered next to the taproom. Had lots of questions for Elenor.”

“The alewife?”

He nodded. “I inched closer till I could hear what they were saying.”

Meg tangled her fingers together. “And he seemed interested in that?”

“Very. Seemed to think the prince would be interested in it, too. And by interested, I mean vexed. The knight seemed to think he might pay a visit to the festivities. But it’s okay, right? Because you’re not that princess.”

Under the table she felt the warm glow of an orb on her palm.

“That’s right—I’m not.” She shook her head. Not quite a lie, because she wasn’t the same princess who’d left Thornwick.

Not by a long shot.

Now she was a princess who spoiled for a chance to fight her enemies in public rather than swallow it down. If Crispin came to the Goldenmoon Festival, she and Bram would give him that fight.

And then some.

The effort of prying up the loose stones from the meadow caused Bram to break out in a sweat. Despite the whipping wind, he stripped his tunic free. Better to remove it than soil it and grow the laundry pile.

Thankless work, this. But Marigold declared there must be dancing, so clear the stones he must. He’d already built the gazebo for the minstrels, which he and Meg happily christened under a star-bright sky.

Steadily, he swung the pickaxe side of the mattock toward the earth, breaking the soil to loosen the rock. Next, he used the flat side to pry the stones free. Once the earth coughed up the lumps of basalt, he lifted and heaved the stone into a growing pile.

His aim was accurate—another knightly skill that earned admirers.

After the festival, he’d have enough fieldstone to expand the cottage. Another room to allow Marigold to read in peace, perhaps? He grinned. No—not a reading room. An enclosed space specifically for her bath. He might even be able to rig a pump into the room to siphon in the cold water and add a fireplace to heat it near a permanent tub. Not even castles could boast that kind of ingenious luxury.

He rolled his neck.

If she stayed. That was the delusion he was operating under.

She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she seemed determined to coerce the sprite into lifting the curse. To what end, though? After her magic revealed he was both Bram and Jask, what would happen after the curse was broken? Would it restore him? Or create a hybrid half orc, half man, forever mingled, never apart?

Like what the mirror showed him.

That had shocked him more than the first time he’d seen his raw orc face the night he was cursed. At some point in the last three years, the orc had become an indelible part of him. Stitched into him like a squatter that refused to be evicted. The whipping wind matched his mood. His shadow reminded him, with each stroke, he was as much beast as man.

He rested the axe, then stood tall.

Perhaps he was being harsh. This form had served him in ways his human body could not. Take that mountain of stones, for example. Clearing the field would’ve taken a dozen strong men the same amount of time, if not longer. Orcs didn’t tire as easily, nor did they need much sleep. Amazing what a person could accomplish when he only required four hours of rest each night.

If he’d been human and cursed to stay at Grimroot Farm, would he have made it? Or had the orc helped him survive?

Perhaps the sprite had done him a favor with this form. He dragged a kerchief over his forehead, then sipped his flask of water. What a twist of the mind if that were the case. That the sprite had fulfilled Crispin’s command to curse an innocent soul but put his own brand of fuck you in the magic to keep Bram alive.