Once Upon A Kiss: Seventeen Romantic Faerie Tales

by Alethea Kontis

  * * *

  14.November. Harvest 200 OUAT

  The Beast’s House, Kingdom of the Shifters

  Dear Cindy:

  Is everything all right? I haven’t heard from you for a few days and I’m worried. But I also wanted to tell you that we’ve found a solution! We visited the Wicked Witch—she’s wicked good, I’ll tell you that. Anyway, turns out her reputation is a front to keep out anybody looking for free help. The beggars can be as thick as thieves around here and they all want a handout.

  But we went to visit her and she fixed Beastly up with a potion so that on the three nights of the full moon, he turns into a human. So while it’s not ideal, at least we can get down and do the nasty three nights a month. And the rest of the month, well, there are ways. I’ve gotten pretty adept in pleasing myself. And Beastly, well, you know men.

  The Witch assures us this is a permanent fix, and she’ll work on something better. But for now, it works. He proposed, and I’ve accepted. I’m going to become Mrs. Arabelle Beastly come the end of the month. And I so want you to be here. I’d love it if you would be my maid of honor. The wedding’s going to be a little odd. Beastly wants all the household china in attendance, but they’re his only family so whatever. So save the date—November 30th, Harvest 200. It’s going to be grand!

  Love (and write, damn it),

  Arabelle & Beastly

  * * *

  25.November. Harvest 200 OUAT

  333 Rosebud Lane, Kingdom of EverAfter

  Dear Arabelle:

  I’m so sorry I haven’t written. Just so much happened! I hope to make it to your wedding. I’m pretty sure Fairy Godmother can help us get there on time. It’s okay if I bring Antonia, right?

  Yes, I said Antonia! And yes, I’ve moved. The past few weeks have been insane. That’s why you haven’t heard from me. I guess I should start where I left off last time.

  StepBitch was furious. She wanted me to make three entirely new gowns—ones that would ‘knock the pants off the prince.’

  Well, one week to make three ball gowns? I’d like to see anybody manage that. But given their taste levels, I figured I couldn’t go too far wrong. She gave me bolts of hideous fabric. One was covered with a print of prancing ponies and, good gods, it looked like something out of a nursery rhyme. The other two prints were just as bad—a rainbow unicorn print, and little white kitties with pink bows. Hellooooo....we’re talking grown women here. Who wears that at our age?

  But there’s no arguing with her. So I took the fabric and was trying to figure out how to get three dresses done in a week when Fairy Godmother showed up again. It wasn’t time for the dance, so I was surprised to see her. But she said that she was helping out someone else, too. Apparently the Fairy Godmother gig is a busy one, and by helping me finish the dresses, she’d be helping somebody else.

  She waved that witchy wand of hers, and bingo! Three ugly-as-sin dresses, ready to go. I stuffed them in the closet until the day of the dance. There was no reason to let the StepBitch know I was finished and that way, I was able to lock myself in the sewing room and lounge around, while everybody else thought I was drudging away.

  So the closer it got to the third dance, the more nervous I got. What was I going to do? This would be my last chance to see Antonia, and how was I ever going to tell her the truth? The night of the dance, after the StepBitch and her spawn were off, Fairy Godmother showed up again.

  A little part of me was afraid she might stiff me this time, but nope, there she was. And this time my dress was as brilliant as starlight, and she also gave me a pair of glass heels. Damn those things hurt, but she just shook her finger at me and told me, “Beauty and pain often go hand in hand.”

  Right then, I decided that once I was married, hopefully to Antonia, I’d go back to flats and nobody would ever get me out of them.

  The chicken and rats were up for their jobs as usual. I think they were getting used to being in human form. I have no clue what, now that their gig is over. And then, we were off for the ball. By the way, the dizzying speeds of riding the HEA trail, as my fairy godmother calls it, are enough to make you throw up. Luckily, I was too nervous to eat dinner so my stomach just did flip-flops all the way to the castle.

  I got there and damned if the Prince wasn’t waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. And this is where things took a bad turn.

  “I love you,” he told me, his voice loud enough to echo through the room.

  “What?” I said. Apparently, that was enough to cause everybody nearby to edge away.

  He tried again. The Grand Gesture. Down on one knee. The whole shebang. “Marry me and be my Princess Fair!”

  I stared at him like he had two heads. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? Well, I knew better than say no at that point—you know how some men get with rejection. So I opted for attempting to ease my way out of the situation.

  “I can’t give you an answer now.”

  So we danced. And after three dances, I managed to slip away.

  But honestly, Arabelle—we danced a total of nine times. He had talked at me but never asked a thing about my own life. And here he was, thinking he was in love with me?

  Antonia and I had talked for hours. We had kissed. We clicked. But the Prince? I think the only thing clicking was what he had beneath those tight, fugly white pants of his.

  I snuck into the women’s bathroom again, and sure enough, Antonia was there. She kissed me, and I started crying. She asked me what was wrong and I broke down and told her everything. I confessed that I wasn’t a real princess. Of course, she was shocked, hustled me out of the bathroom to a private suite and made me tell her all about my life.

  I guess there’s nothing like the truth because when I told her what my life had been like with the StepBitch and her spawn, and my father no longer giving a damn about anybody or anything, she teared up and said it didn’t matter to her whether I was a princess or a pauper.

  “We’ll run away together,” she said. “My brother’s set to inherit the castle and the ‘Rents trying to set up an arranged marriage for me. I’m not about to marry some drunken lout of a prince when I can have my very own princess. And don’t you talk back! You’re a princess in spirit. I have enough jewels and furs to sell so we’ll have plenty to start our lives together with. We can move to EverAfter where they don’t really give a damn who’s canoodling who. Love is love, whether you’re talking two princes, two princesses, or a chicken and a duck.”

  I grinned at her through my tears. “I guess that makes you the duck, right?”

  We plotted and planned. She would come for me a week later, once she had gathered everything she needed, and we’d be off. Just the two of us. I gave her my address and then, reluctantly, had to leave. The last thing I needed was to be standing in the middle of the dance in my ragged dress, and for my carriage to turn back into a pumpkin out in the courtyard.

  As I was heading up the grand staircase towards the door, however, my shoe got caught on the step. I tugged, but the heel was firmly attached to the damned stair by some sort of sticky goo. I saw the Prince racing toward me and realized he had smeared something gooey on the staircase to catch me on my way out.

  “Dude, this is insane,” I shouted at him. “You really don’t know anything about me, and what if some nice old lady got herself caught on this mess? Really, your brains are all in your pants, aren’t they?”

  He let out a huff and made some rambling spiel about love and destiny. I ignored him, trying to free myself. He was getting close enough that I thought he might be able to catch me. But then I saw Antonia standing behind him, miming for me to take off my shoe. And bingo, that did it. I slid my foot out of the shoe and—yanking off the other one as well—I raced barefoot up the stairs and out to my carriage. We took off onto the HEA Highway and that was that.

  All week, I gathered what I would need, bit by bit so the StepBitch and her spawn wouldn’t notice. I decided the chickens and my pet rats were coming with
. No way would I leave them to be dinner and cat food, respectively. But I underestimated Prince Charming.

  The morning that Antonia was supposed to come for me, a carriage pulled up in the yard and who should step out but the Prince and his toadies. Turns out, he had managed to get hold of my shoe. Since the damn thing would only fit the rightful owner, he’d been going door to door, hunting high and low for the ‘girl who won his heart’ blah blah blah, ad nauseam.

  StepBitch hustled her three spawn out, of course, to try on the shoe. I had no plans of joining them, or of even asking to join them, but my father took it into his head to start paying attention to me again, and sure enough, I found myself dragged out in front of the Prince. And let me tell you, the look I got from him was enough to make me want to slap him.

  “You expect to let this beggar girl try on this beautiful shoe?” This, from the Prince.

  “Well, my husband insisted,” the StepBitch said, sounding just about as pleased as the Prince looked.

  “I can go back inside. I don’t have to try it on—really. Honest.” I turned, about to head back in the kitchen when one of the toadies whispered something to the prince.

  “Wait, wait, fair maiden. My comrade here reminds me that all in this kingdom of mine have a voice and a right to strive for the betterment of their situation. Come then, try on the shoe.”

  I wanted to face palm, but regardless of how democratic he tried to sound, the truth was, you defy the prince and you find yourself in the dungeon. Slowly, I stepped forward and offered one foot. He grimaced at the dirt on the bottom of my sole—I tend to go barefoot a lot—and slid the shoe onto my foot. Damned thing fit like a glove.

  The Prince was looking very WTF, but in an effort to be valiant, he gallantly offered me his hand. “You are my mysterious love from the ball. Come with me and be my Princess Fair.”

  I stared at his hand, wincing. It was then that I noticed someone else in his carriage. Antonia. She must have figured out that eventually he would find me and decided to come with him this morning just in case. She flew out of the carriage and over to the Prince’s side, a stricken look on her face.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m in love with someone else,” I blurted out.

  The Prince gave me a skeptical look. “But...you are a cinder maid. How can you...Who would want...”

  “It’s me! I would want her.” Antonia pushed around him. “If you can’t recognize Cindy as the beautiful princess who graced your balls, then you’re an idiot. But I do. She’s the same one who hid in the bathroom trying to get away from you that first night. And after that, she hid out with me because we fell in love. Well, I won’t hide my love any longer. She’s my true love, not yours. You can’t have her.”

  The Prince’s jaw dropped. The StepBitch made a noise that sounded like she’d swallowed one of the chickens whole. My father blinked rapidly, then drifted back inside to read the evening paper.

  The Prince wasn’t taking it very well. “Well, this is a fine mess. What, pray tell, am I going to tell Mother? She expects me to wed this...this...scullery drudge, thinking she’s a fine princess. And then you come along and say that you fell in love with her?”

  I tossed the shoe over my shoulder and raced to Antonia. She threw her arms around me, then kissed me. She kissed me, Arabelle—in front of everybody. She kissed me long and hard, with a passion that ran from the tip of my head through my toes.

  “I’m almost ready. I just have to gather my things and we’ll be off.”

  “What? Where are you going?” Now the prince was sounding downright belligerent.

  “To a place where you’ll never be comfortable. A place where everybody is welcome.” Antonia gave him a shove toward the carriage. “Tell Mother I’ll write to her when we get settled, but that if she wants to ever hear from me again, she’d better get used to the idea that there will be no arranged marriage, that I’m marrying the love of my life, and she’d better accept my wife or she’ll never see me again.”

  With that, she took my arm and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Come with me while I get my things?”

  I led Antonia past the StepBitch, who for the first time in her life was speechless. As we passed the spawn, they sniggered, but then it must have clicked that I wasn’t taking their prince away from them. They descended on him like vultures on carrion. Lastly, we passed by my father. He just gazed at me sadly, then turned back to his paper.

  In my room, I gathered a bag of my best things, and—turning to Antonia—I said, “You’re sure, about this? You’re giving up a kingdom for me. I’m just giving up...hell for heaven.”

  She smiled. “You’re worth more than all kingdoms combined. We’ll make a new home, somewhere between heaven and hell.”

  At that point, my mother’s ghost called out to me. We left through the back door and headed to the graveyard. There, I saw Mother standing near her headstone. She motioned for us to follow and led us into a hidden glen near her grave. There, she pointed toward a rock and told me to look beneath it.

  I pushed it aside, only to see a hole in the ground. Inside the hole was a small velvet bag. I pulled it out and it fell open to reveal a fortune in jewelry. Mother’s jewels.

  “I wanted you to discover a treasure more valuable than jewels before I gave these to you. I wanted you to find your heart’s true mate so that money would not cloud your senses. And so you have found her. Now take these and go light the world ablaze. Love each other, and let that be your guiding force.”

  And with that, Mother vanished from sight forever, to her peace.

  I tucked the jewels inside my pocket. “Antonia, will you marry me and be my princess over a kingdom of chickens and rats?”

  She laughed. “If we can have a cat and a dog, too. And perhaps down the line we’ll have children. There are so many without homes.”

  And Arabelle, that’s how we left for EverAfter. We found a tidy home on Rosebud Lane. EverAfter is filled with everybody who doesn’t seem to fit into Prince Charming’s kingdom or the Land of Prince Darling. And the best thing is? Everyone here is different, and in our differences we find joy. So why don’t you and Beastly move here? You’d be welcome, and that way we could hang out. I’m sure Beastly and Antonia would have plenty to talk about.

  Just let me know when you’re coming—I seem to feel that you will—and we’ll make sure the guest room is ready. I suppose, sometimes we do get our happily-ever-afters. It’s just not always the way we think it’s going to be, right?

  Love, Cindy...and Antonia.

  * * *

  Author’s Note:

  I’ve always been grumpy over fairytales that set the woman’s destiny dependent on the goodwill of a man (a prince, no less), and that suggest she can’t handle life on her own. When I was thinking about the Cinderella story, it occurred to me what if Cinderella didn’t like the prince? What if he was a blowhard who wasn’t worth marrying? What if Cinderella wanted a Princess Charming instead? And somehow, the whole plot fell into place right there. As to the format, I didn’t go in thinking I would write it in letter form, but then the next moment I was writing a letter from Cindy to Arabelle (of Beauty and the Beast), and here were these young women just venting to each other about their odd and quirky fairytale lives—and it seemed natural to make the Beast a shifter.

  And that was pretty much that. :)

  New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn writes award winning paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and science fiction. In the past, she has written paranormal mysteries, and nonfiction metaphysical books. With over fifty books on the shelves, she is the 2011 Career Achievement Award Winner in Urban Fantasy, given by RT Magazine. Check out her new Bewitching Bedlam Series and Fury Unbound Series as well as old favorites like Whisper Hollow and Otherworld. Yasmine lives in Kirkland WA with her husband Samwise and their cats. Yasmine can be reached via her website at http://galenorn.com and you can sign up to her newsletter at: http://galenorn.com/newslet
ter/ to get updates on all her new releases.

  Mad About You - Jennifer Blackstream

  He’s mad. She’s mad. Everyone is mad here.

  “So you want me to give you a potion…to repel a man.”

  The witch’s voice made her dubiousness crystal clear. Alice clasped her white-gloved hands more tightly in her lap, resisting the urge to leap across the small wooden table and throttle the witch. Instead, she wrenched her mouth into her best imitation of a polite smile and nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

  Grey eyes studied Alice over the rim of the old woman’s teacup as she took a rather loud sip. She set the teacup down with a firm clink, and Alice swallowed a snarl of frustration as she saw the question on the old woman’s face before her lips moved to ask it.

  “Are you certain you want him to stop proposing?”

  Battered gloves creaked as Alice clenched her fists. “Let me be perfectly clear—as I’ve been trying to be for the past half-hour. I do not want to marry Jaspar Wellington. I have explained this—many times—to Mr. Wellington, to my mother, and to you. I’m not certain why everyone is so bloody flabbergasted at my decision, but it is my decision and I’ve made it.” The strain of keeping her voice even when she wanted to scream in frustration hurt her throat, and she snatched up her cup of tea to take an agitated sip.

  “There’s no need to get testy.” The witch sniffed with no small amount of indignation and resumed her noisy tea consumption.

  Alice set her cup down with enough force that the tea sloshed over the side to stain the plain, but formerly clean, white tablecloth. Her chair grated over the wooden floorboards as she shoved it back and leapt to her feet before she could think better of it.

  “Testy? Testy?” She threw herself into pacing, quick, angry steps that did little to satisfy her boiling temper. “It’s been months! Months of visits from a would-be suitor, months of listening to my mother go on and on about how I’m being foolish and I should just marry him and be grateful for the life of luxury he could provide me.”