Page 46 of Every Eligible Man

One moment the ferret is perched there like a fuzzy gargoyle. The next, he's a streak of brown lightning, rocketing across the muddy yard, past the horrified Baron, straight toward the barn doors.

He hits them with his full body weight, which isn't much, but ferrets are nothing if not determined, and squeezes through a gap in the wood.

An explosion of chittering erupts as Susan finally reunites with her partner in crime.

Then, very distinctly, the sound of Wreck saying: "Ow, Gerald, that's my face."

Cinder's eyes lock on the barn doors.

"Oh," she says softly. "There you are."

The barn doors swing open.

Cinder strides inside like a queen entering conquered territory, which, technically, this is. Her eyes adjust to the dim light, scanning hay bales, empty stalls, farming equipment, and three men who are very badly pretending they haven't been hiding.

Ash has given up on concealment entirely. He stands in the center of the barn, shirtless because he's been mucking out stalls, arms crossed over his massive chest. Gerald is attempting to climb his leg while Susan circles his ankles, chittering with joy.

"Traitor ferret," he mutters. "We fed you for years."

Wreck emerges from behind a hay bale, diving toward his reunited chaos agents. "Oh my gods, Gerald, I thought I'd lost you forever."

Susan and Gerald swarm up his arms, chittering a ferret duet of relieved fury. Wreck clutches them both to his chest, tears actually forming in his eyes.

"I'm never leaving you behind again," he swears. "Never. You're getting extra stolen things forever."

And me? I step out of the shadows last. Because timing matters. Presentation matters. Even covered in hay and farm dirt, I know how to make an entrance.

Bastard emerges from behind me with a threatening honk that says "I've been waiting for this."

Cinder stares.

Three men. Three bodies she recognizes even without the fancy clothes. Three faces she's been searching for across eight hundred and forty-seven disappointing alternatives.

I watch her expression shift. The shock of recognition. The flare of heat in her eyes. The way her breathing changes when she looks at each of us in turn.

"You," she breathes. "It's you."

"My lady." Baron Grimwald has followed her in, still sputtering. "These are just farmhands. They're nobody! They're less than nobody."

"Quiet." Cinder doesn't look at him. She can't look away from us. "I've been hunting you for four days. I've inspected every cock in this kingdom. I've been bitten, peed on, and propositioned by a man who claimed his penis could 'vibrate on command.' And the whole time, you three were here. Three miles from my castle. Shoveling pig shit."

"To be fair," I offer, letting my most charming smile surface, "we didn't know you were looking. We thought it was a one-night thing."

"One night." Her voice cracks with outrage. "I issued a royal proclamation. I described your penises in official court documents. I have a scribe who needs therapy."

"We don't get a lot of news out here," Wreck says, still clutching his ferrets. "Also, I've been grieving Gerald."

Cinder's eye twitches.

I can see her warring with herself. Part of her wants to murder us. Part of her wants to fuck us. Part of her, the biggest part, I suspect, wants to do both simultaneously.

Then she grabs the boot from her lady-in-waiting and throws it at Ash. "Try it on."

He catches it one-handed and sits down on a hay bale to pull off his work boot. The mud-caked, size-fourteen work boot.

He slides it on. It fits like it was made for him. Because it was.

"Now the glove. You," Cinder says, voice dangerously quiet. She's pointing at me.