Page 58 of Not Another Happily Ever After

We circle each other until the world around us melts away, and with it, for just a moment, goes the weight of everything yet to come. It’s the closing of a chapter I’ve only just opened. The beginning of the end.

“Thank you, friend,”I whisper to the fleeting thrum of the realm’s most delicate and deadly delight. And with my hands lifted above my head, I twirl one last time.

The butterflies answer, circling around me until my entire gown is glittering beneath the luminous show.

“Frog are you seeing?—”

My feet falter to a stop, the words stolen with my breath. Words that pale in comparison to the confession waiting in my knight’s eyes.

One by one the small pink lights flit away, but in the hollows of my cheeks their color remains. For across the field, Frog has yet to move. He stands, with his hand anchored over his heart, watching.

Not in a way that duty demands. Not like a knight guarding his charge.

But like every instinct in him is urging him forward while the oath he made is holding him in place. Even hidden beneath the hood and iron mask, I feel it. A spark of something forbidden. Something unnamed.Perhaps this is what terrifies him so?I wonder when a butterfly comes to rest atop his hood.

The small creature folds its wings and Frog freezes, lifting his eyes slowly as though he might see where its perched upon his head.

I watch with equal measures of concern and curiosity as the realm’s deadliest swordsman is out-dueled by its most delicate pair of blades. And there is no stopping the laughter that bursts from my lips.

Frog has the audacity to look surprised as he lifts a hand to shoo it away, jerking backward when his feeble attempts not only fail, but send it fluttering directly toward his face.

The sharp-edged wings are but a beat from the bridge of his nose when he loses his footing and falls into the tall grass.

“Are you—are you alright over there?” I ask between yelps of laughter.

He doesn’t answer.

Slowly, my smile fades. “Frog?” I take a nervous step forward when he springs up from an entirely new spot in the field.

“How? Did you…just—”Run? Is he running?

I gasp. Because yes, yes he is.

Right. Toward. Me.

“No!” I scramble for the hem of my skirts. Turn then bolt, listening for his heavy footsteps as they thunder across the field.

I can hear them getting closer. Hear Frog’s labored breathing through the iron of his mask. But it isn’t terror sending shivers down my spine. It’s something far more familiar. A memory of warmth.

I chance a look behind me and—He’s closer! He’s definitely closer!

I squeal. “Oh, please. Don’t hold back on my account!” I breathlessly tease, knowing I don’t stand a chance of winning. And secretly hoping I don’t anyway.

Frog answers by gaining even more ground.

I duck beneath a cloud of butterflies.

He follows.

Pink wings explode all around us like when the flowers of old used to shed their petals to the wind.

I spot the nearing treeline, which would make a good hiding spot, and swerve toward it. But Frog’s already one step ahead, anticipating my move before I even make it.

“How do you do that?” I shriek in delighted outrage as he reaches for me.

Frog lets out a laugh in reply. It isn’t loud, not even enough to stir the butterflies floating lazily around us. It’s barely more than a breath escaping through the narrow slits of his mask.

But I hear it. And just like the last time, my chest aches for more. More of this man hiding behind the mask. Without thinking, and knowing I shouldn’t, I reach for it?—