Page 156 of The Discount Damsel

The desire from last night had returned, fiercer than before. But he didn’t know what to do with it. Should he just lean up and kiss her, quick and sweet? A peck on the cheek or a soft meeting of their lips? Should he pull her down on top of him and kiss her with his entire body? Or would that be horribly presumptuous of him? His indecision manifested as a strangled-rooster-like cry that formed in the back of his throat.

Millie’s face contorted with confusion, then fell. She scrambled off him not a heartbeat later, cheeks burning. “I think I’ve got it from here,” she said briskly, tugging the skiff free.

“You’ve only had half a lesson,” he protested.

“But many theoretical ones from Beau.” She didn’t wait. She just shoved the skiff in the direction of the wind whipping through the valley, jumped aboard, and shot off.

Bradley had watched her take many tumbles since then from the vantage points of many different tower windows. She always got up, always tried again. Persistent little princess pirate.

And now, after Pocket’s unwelcome examination of his life choices, he wondered if it was his single-minded ambition holding him back as much as it propelled him forward. But what would he be without it? What would he be if he didn’t earn his staff? A laughingstock. A failure. Unworthy. The freak from the Cut with the wild magic who couldn’t hack it as a real sorcerer.

He couldn’t bear it.

“If you don’t want her, let me kiss her,” Prince Henri said from his birdcage. “When she restores my manhood, I won’t even kill you or the dragon. How’s that sound?”

“Shut up, Henri.”

Bitterness rose from his wounded heart and tainted his voice. More than anything, Bradley missed the easy camaraderie of those first Fellowship days. He missed his friend. He needed that more than he wanted a kiss.

“That’s Prince Henri. How many times do you need reminding, peasant?” The frog prince languished on his swing. “Now you’ve put me in a mood only a bawdy pub song can fix. What will it be? ‘The Bouncing Breasts of the Busty Barmaid’ or ‘Sir Swain’s Swinging Sword’?”

“I said shut up, Henri.” Suspicion had replaced the bitterness lacing his words. Bradley gripped the cage and leaned over it, squinting at the crest of a nearby dune.

Upon the same dune, the princess skimmed back and forth across its face. Dirk the Great Red lounged nearby in the shade of Sir Eustace’s tent, napping.

“Why am I even giving you a choice?” the frog groused. “It’s not like you tip— What was that?” He jumped off his swing and gripped the bars with his sticky webbed feet. “It was like sunlight reflecting off water.”

Or off a spyglass lens.

CHAPTER 64

A FRANTIC CHASE, NAUGHTY DRAGONS, AND THERE’S A PROBLEM IN THE TOWER

Bradley yanked the birdcage from the window to get an unobstructed view just as the owner of the spyglass leapt upright and slung a bola straight at the princess.

“Dirk,” he shouted, but the wind of the approaching sandstorm threw his voice away.

The weighted cord struck Millie like she was a bird, tangling around her arms. She tumbled off the skiff and slid halfway down the dune before the sand arrested her momentum by burying her up to her knees.

Three men popped up from where they had laid hidden on the other side of the dune, all in the muted beiges common to the desert guides they’d seen escorting the Heroes across the waste. They ran down the slope as nimbly as gazelles, converging upon the princess.

Millie shouted and kicked, wormed herself free, and threw herself into a sideways roll down the dune. The plume of orange dust that rose in her wake choked her pursuers; they scattered like minnows to get clear of it.

And still the dragon snoozed, the wind pulling all noise away from his ears.

Bradley whipped a frantic look behind him, searching for something to grab the dragon’s attention—a signal flare, a trumpet, even a soup pot he could bang on like a drum—and found nothing immediately handy. He couldn’t throw himself from this height either, not when his magic was as unreliable as a rake’s promise of fidelity.

When the sorcerer apprentice turned back around, Millie was up and sprinting for the dragon. Her arms were still bound to her sides by the bola, but there was nothing wrong with her legs. They were strong and lean now from their countless treks up and down the tower stairs, and her bare feet were used to uneven surfaces from Sir Roger’s training, so she didn’t falter. There was nothing wrong with her voice, either, and she hollered at the top of her lungs.

Dirk farted in his sleep and rolled over.

Millie yelped when the first of her attackers grabbed her, but she didn’t dissolve into a terrified mess. She slammed down on his instep, whirled, and kneed him in the groin.

“Try breeding another generation of assholes now, asshole,” she snarled before she was off running again.

Millie had only gained another yard or two before the second man caught her. This one kept his feet wide apart so she couldn’t stomp them, so she slammed the back of her head into his nose.

“Aw, you look so good in red,” she complimented as blood gushed down his face.