Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince (16 page)

It had been weeks since Rachel had last seen Chris, and she was starting to lose hope that she would ever lay eyes on him again. It made eating dinner with her family difficult. It made sleeping impossible. It made breathing hurt. The more she told herself not to think about him, the more intensely her thoughts seemed to focus on him. It was a special kind of hell and Rachel often found herself sitting at her window late into the night when she should have been sleeping.

Even if she had wanted to, she didn’t seem to need as much sleep as everyone else did anymore. Whenever she tried to force the issue, she could almost feel her spirit rising from her body again. Unlike before, it wasn’t a release, it wasn’t a form of freedom, but something cold and frightening. She was convinced that one day she wouldn’t be able to get back into her body, and that fear was enough to make her avoid even the mention of astral travel.

Since she’d never had the chance to give it back to him, she’d kept the Toadstone close. She’d gone to a
jeweler to see if they could work with the stone, but none of the man’s tools could cut or shape it. In the end it had been Alex who managed to drill a small hole through its center with magic so that a strong leather chord could be slid through. Now Rachel wore the stone as a necklace, a talisman. Not just because it made her feel safe but because she hoped it would help draw Chris to her when nothing else could.

Being with family again was its own headache, but Sam and Alex visited her regularly enough to make up for it. It comforted Rachel somewhat, to know that she wasn’t the only one worried about Chris. That didn’t make his absence any easier to bear.

So time and time again, she found herself sitting at the exact same spot as the night before. Hand clutching the windowsill, eyes straining to make out the shapes in the darkness. And one night, she saw it. It was the barest movement at first. Just a rustle of leaves. But she lifted her window anyway, staring out breathlessly out over her parent’s back yard. There was another rustle, a plaintive croak, and Rachel abandoned her perch. She didn’t bother with a coat, or even shoes, instead sailing down the steps barefoot and out the back door. She stopped, scanning the yard as the wind blew her pajama bottoms flush against her legs. She wouldn’t have found him if he hadn’t decided to hop onto a stepping stone at that very moment.

Rachel approached him cautiously. She had no idea if this was the right frog. Ever since she’d lost Chris she’d been capturing ones she’d found in her mother’s garden and giving them experimental pecks on the head. She was pretty sure that she’d contracted some
sort of frog-based disease by now and was surprised that she hadn’t broken out in warts. The odds of this particular frog being Chris were astronomical, but…he didn’t try to run away. He just sat there, patiently, until she knelt down before him. And when she put her hands out, he stepped onto her palms. There was a familiar ache in her arm, as if it remembered the source of its discomfort even if her mind wasn’t so sure about his identity.

“Chris?”

He still possessed the blank gaze of an animal, but as she stared at him, his tongue darted out to slap across her cheek. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, but couldn’t help but smile. It was Chris. It had to be. If it wasn’t, then she’d just picked up the world’s friskiest amphibian.

“Well,” she told him, feeling understandably nervous, “here goes nothing.”

Closing her eyes, she clutched the Toadstone and kissed him.

She knew instantly that this time was different than all the others. This wasn’t the uncaring kiss of a stranger. She kissed him because she loved him. She kissed him because he was hers. She kissed him because, in the long run, she needed Christopher
Greyson more than she needed sleep or security or a world that made sense.

And as it turned out, the idea of true loves kiss wasn’t all bullshit after all.

With a sigh, she felt him transform before her for the last time. Body filling out, growing, until he was the one kissing her, leaning her back over the arm he wrapped around her waist and dipping into her mouth with his tongue.

“Welcome back, Mr.
Greyson,” she said, voice thick.

He chuckled into her mouth and the rest of the night was a haze of muffled moans and rediscovered flesh. Rachel knew that things were far from being over; they were both a long way from being safe. But for now…for now she was exactly where she needed to be and that was enough.

~ END ~

If you enjoyed reading THE FROG PRINCE, you might want to read the other two books in the series:

THE DRAGON KING AND I

and

TO THE FAIREST

I’m not a big fan of normal. It has its place of course, but the imagination and things that inspire a person should transcend the idea of normal. Normal is a stepping stone. A building block you can use to make something fantastic and surreal.   

It’s why I write. I’m always looking for that
angle, that previously unexplored aspect of a story. Don’t just tell me about Marie Antoinette, let me know about her executioner and how he was secretly in love with the woman he was forced to behead, and that’s the real reason she apologized to him on her way to the chopping block.

My stories are a little strange, my methods unorthodox, but it’s how I see the world and the people in it. Some people call me antisocial, but really I just like to absorb things. I love writing enough that I don’t mind that I’m still in the ‘starving artist’ phase of my career, but I hope that one day I’ll make enough doing what I love to be able to afford something other than a kid’s meal from McDonalds.

Connect with me online at www.AdrianneBrooks.com or
Facebook.com/AuthorAdrianneBrooks
.