Page 41 of Not Another Happily Ever After

But just as my foot breaks the threshold of the loose circle, a tall shadow steps in my way.

Frog.

I drag my eyes up from his chest, expecting to find a silent warning in the green pools peeking over his mask. Instead, I find his head half-cocked and his brows pinched low. His gazeflickers between me, the people, and the twins, who have begun to yell for the crowd to get back.

He’s going to tell them. He’s going to force me back into the carriage. He’s?—

Moving?

My shoulders drop on an exhale as I watch him back away from the gap.

One step. Then two.

He’s letting me…pass?

The tiny spark beneath my ribs burns bright, warming my cheeks.

Thank you,I nod.

His eyes hold mine and, for once, they don’t flee. They soften. He nods, low. And then he’s gone, his dark form swallowed by the night.

“I said, get back!” a gravelly voice shouts.

My head whips toward where Wolfe is now raising his sword over the sobbing mother. She has fallen on both knees, her small child curled in a ball before her.

A crack runs through my chest, ripping me apart as I scream, “No!”

My feet move faster than my mind can think putting me between the small family and the tip of Wolfe’s blade.

Wolfe reels back, dropping the weapon. “Princess?” he exhales unsteadily.

“If your sword should see blood tonight, let it be mine,” I pant. My body shakes but my resolve is sound.

Hushed voices fill the depressive courtyard, followed by the sound of the other knights’ boots as they close in, wearing an equal measure of concern and outrage—though it’s hard to tell for who.

Wolfe stands bewildered for another moment more before righting himself and grabbing his sword from the ground.“Forgive me, Princess,” he offers, sliding the blade back into its sheath. “I was only trying to protect us.”

I shake my head, chest heaving. “From whom?”

Wolfe’s brows furrow, his mouth opening and closing before finally answering. “Them.”

He gestures toward the crowd. Toward the mother who still sits cowering at our feet, staring up at us with wide-eyes as she curls her body over the little boy, whose giant blue saucers have just popped open. Curious and hungry.

Hungry.

Not evil.

Not monstrous.

They’re all just people doing what they must to survive. Fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers.

There is no them.

I reach my hands out toward the young boy and his mother.

There is no us.

Hesitating, they wrap their fingers around mine.