A Beautiful Curse

by Kenley Davidson

  “You’re sure?” Cam asked anxiously. “I don’t want to force you into anything.”

  “Are you sure?” Ellie replied pointedly. “You barely know me, after all. I might actually eat spiders.”

  Cam shuddered theatrically. “Very sure,” he said, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “And you can eat as many spiders as you want, my love.” He blushed bright red. “Is it all right if I call you that?”

  Ellie blushed as well, and leaned forward to hide her face against his chest. “You can call me whatever you like,” she said, smiling into his shirt. When he wrapped his arms around her, she sighed and hugged him back. “This is so much better as a human,” she observed thoughtfully, after spending a few blissful moments in his embrace.

  “I’ll say,” Cambren replied, pressing a kiss into her hair. “No more damp spots on my shirts.”

  She chuckled into his shoulder. “Or fish in your handkerchiefs.”

  “Or pond water in my boots.”

  “Then you’d better not jilt me,” Ellie warned, “or you might find yourself suffering from all three.”

  “Perish the thought,” Cam said solemnly. “If you want to be rid of me, you’re going to have to do the jilting.”

  “Then I suspect you’re going to be stuck with me for a very long time.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “I think it’s more of a threat.”

  Their laughter rang out across the garden, all the way over to the pond, where a startled bullfrog leapt into the water and disappeared, leaving only ripples and silence behind.

  Epilogue

  Elisette laid down her pen and breathed a happy sigh as she looked around her at the cavernous room full of books. The collection was nowhere near as large as the Everton Library, of course, but the Royal Anuran Library was now officially catalogued down to its last volume and ready for the public.

  Lady Caro had been obdurate in her refusal to allow Elisette to return to her apprenticeship, citing the sanctity of the library premises and the expectation of peace on the part of her patrons.

  She had not been particularly unpleasant, but she had been adamant, and entirely unmoved by Ellie’s pleas.

  “Does it mean nothing to you that I neither invited these distractions, nor welcomed them at any time?” Ellie had pointed out desperately.

  “I’m sorry,” Lady Caro had replied, “but I must remain firm on this point. You are no longer welcome as a part of our staff.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Ellie told her, “that you are more interested in the preservation of your reputation than the sharing of knowledge, and more concerned with safeguarding the sanctity of silence than in honoring the value of learning.”

  She’d swept out, her head held high, and cried all the way back to the palace, where King Lorne had immediately offered her the position of Royal Librarian and she’d gratefully, though tearfully, accepted.

  She’d spent the last half a year cleaning and cataloging his collection and was now prepared to announce to anyone who would listen that it should be considered the most neatly organized library in the known world.

  Although it wasn’t anything like the quietest.

  Five little girls sat, giggling, at one of the tables, though Ellie was quite certain she’d instructed them to be reading.

  “Girls,” she admonished, “you only have five minutes more. Finish well, and then you can giggle as much as you like for the rest of the day.”

  Giggles turned to whispers which turned to silence, as Ellie smiled fondly at her students.

  Shortly after she and Cambren had announced their more-or-less betrothal, soon-to-be King Eldrick had given her permission to start a school, for any girls of any station who wanted the opportunity to read and learn as much as they liked.

  Ellie adored her students, and while none of them had quite her level of dedication, they were bright and eager to learn, and she hoped to expand her class as more of the city’s residents became used to the idea.

  A throat being cleared behind her recalled Ellie abruptly from happy visions of enormous classrooms filled with studious young women.

  “Oh, it’s you, Farrel. What can I do for you?”

  “Miss Elisette,” the tall man said awkwardly, “I have this week’s loan requests, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  To her delight, King Lorne’s library had proven to have a number of rare books that had no duplicates in the Everton Collection, and once Lady Caro learned of them, she sent Farrel on a regular basis to request loans so that the volumes could be copied.

  Ellie believed too much in free access to knowledge to ever deny them, but she also couldn’t possibly help feeling just a bit smug about the whole thing. And while she considered it a matter of principle not to heap rudeness on the head of the man who had made her life miserable during her apprenticeship, she wasn’t nearly saint enough not to keep him waiting.

  “I’ll get to those tomorrow, Farrel,” she said, accepting his meticulously penned note. “You may return for them in the morning, or send one of the apprentices over.” She did so enjoy it whenever Nelson or Dewey were forced to run errands to the royal library. She could practically hear their teeth grinding the entire time they were in the room.

  Farrel bowed and retreated, while Ellie rose from her chair, walked towards the window and stretched as she looked out over the garden, now bare and brown with the onset of winter. She felt rather cramped after a long day of copy work, but it was finished, and she intended to take a bit of a holiday for the next few days. Cam had been teaching her to ride, as promised, and while she was still not entirely comfortable in the saddle, she very much enjoyed the freedom it provided. She also appreciated Anura’s mild winters, which permitted her to be outdoors even at their worst.

  A fresh chorus of giggles sounded from behind her, and she whirled around intending to be stern. Sadly, she had to admit defeat. Cambren stood between her and the table, looking incredibly guilty, with a book in one hand and a lopsided bouquet of flowers in the other.

  “I… well, I thought you might be finishing today and I wanted to give you something to commemorate the occasion,” he said, with a sheepish smile. “But I just realized that by bringing you a book you haven’t catalogued, I was basically ruining everything.”

  Ellie smiled back. She couldn’t help it. Every time she saw him, she wondered just how she had gotten so lucky.

  In the half year since their so-called betrothal, Cam had continued to be her closest friend, her most loyal supporter, and a compassionate shoulder to lean on whenever she was feeling inadequate or simply missing her family. He was a peaceful, imperturbable presence in her life, one who reminded her to laugh at herself and take time for the impractical. Like flowers, and a new book in a library full of old ones.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the book and the flowers and setting them on her desk with a smile. “You remembered!” Of course he had. Cam seemed to remember everything.

  “There’s one more thing,” he added, taking her hand and holding it between both of his. “I thought since you were finished with this job, you might be interested in another.”

  “Oh?” Ellie brightened. “Don’t tell me there’s another library for me to organize?”

  “No,” he hedged, “but there’s something else I would very much like to give you, and you’re welcome to organize it, clean it, and make it fit for polite company.”

  “Really? What?” Ellie asked suspiciously.

  “Me,” he responded, smiling at her in the warm and tender way she’d come to know and love so much.

  Ellie’s breath caught. Was he saying…

  “I know everyone thinks we’ve been betrothed these past months,” Cam said. “And I’ve considered myself bound to you in every way that mattered—my heart, my honor, and my loyalty have been engaged since the very beginning. But I realized that I’d never done the thing properly.”

  “Cam,” she said, laying a hand on his arm in pr
otest, “you don’t have to do this. It isn’t like I don’t know how you feel.”

  “Oh, but I do have to,” he said. “I don’t want there to be the slightest chance that you’ve misunderstood me, or that you might consider going off to flirt with other princes for the sake of their libraries.”

  “Cam,” she scolded, “I don’t love you for your library.”

  “Well, just in case, I decided it was time to ask you what I should have asked you at the very beginning.”

  Ellie’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered his first, not-quite-a-proposal.

  “Ellie, my love, you’re my very best friend. You’ve filled my life with laughter and joy, given me the priceless gift of your trust, and dealt with me patiently since we first met, even when I was being utterly absurd.”

  Both of them laughed at that recollection.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I find you beautiful, because there isn’t much I can do about it. I also hope you don’t mind that I almost always smell like horse and I will never look good in a formal coat.”

  Ellie shook her head with fond exasperation. As if she cared what he wore.

  “And if that’s the case, I was wondering whether you might be willing to take on the job of being my wife. You see, I love you. And I don’t want any other princes to snap you up, so I needed to make absolutely certain that you’re willing to put up with me forever. Marry me, Ellie?”

  She nodded fiercely and leaped into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself into his familiar warmth with every bit of her strength.

  “Yes. You know I will, you dolt,” she whispered. “I love you and I will marry you whenever you wish, only give me time to write to my family.”

  An adorable riot took place at the table behind Cam, as five little girls began crying and cheering and jumping up and down in their chairs. Ellie was much too overwhelmed to admonish them, even if she’d had the heart to do so.

  “Are you sure?” Cam asked, leaning down and resting his forehead on hers. “You know, Eldrick may abdicate someday and you’ll have to be queen.”

  “Yes, and I might irritate Mortimer again and he could turn me back into a frog,” she retorted. “Anything is possible, but I don’t care as long as I have you with me, best of my friends.”

  “Agreed,” Cam said with a sigh of relief. “And now, I think I’m going to kiss you. Do you mind?”

  “Mind?” she echoed. “I’ve been wondering why it’s taking you so long.”

  “In that case…” Cambren cupped her jaw in one hand, bent down and captured her lips with his, and as Ellie was swept up in the rush of warmth and happiness, she recalled the day she’d left home, longing for adventure, hoping for a friend.

  Thanks to her meddling fairy godfather, she’d found both, along with a love she could never have imagined. Perhaps someday she ought to consider thanking him after all.

  But only if he promised to leave their children strictly alone.

  The Next Tale

  Entwined Tales, Volume 5

  A Little Mermaid

  A Retelling of The Little Mermaid

  by Aya Ling

  All Clio wants is to make her crush—a fellow merman prince—notice her. She isn’t interested in the people on land, much less a certain Prince Lukas, who was stupid enough to fall off a ship on his birthday. But when a bumbling fairy godfather misunderstands her, Clio finds herself in the worst situation imaginable—stranded on land with her tail and voice gone.

  And her troubles are just beginning. Not only must Clio learn how to behave like a human, but she also needs to discover the identity of a mysterious assassin, all while guarding herself against flirtatious advances from Lukas, the very person she wants to avoid.

  Start Reading Now!

  Entwined Tales

  Everyone wishes they had a fairy godmother to make the world a little more magical…

  They’ve never met Mortimer.

  Every good deed merits a reward, at least according to the Fairy Council. But when a kind woodcutter’s family is rewarded with a grumpy, sarcastic, irresponsible fairy godfather named Mortimer, their lives are changed forever… and not in a good way.

  Follow the woodcutter’s seven children as Corynn, Eva, Sophie, Elisette, Martin, Anneliese, and Penelope head out into the world to find adventure, new friends, and their very own happily-ever-afters. Their greatest challenge? Avoiding their fairy godfather’s disastrous attempts to help.

  Welcome to the Entwined Tales—six interconnected fairy tale retellings by authors KM Shea, Brittany Fichter, Shari L. Tapscott, Kenley Davidson, Aya Ling, and Melanie Cellier. Join the fun and enter the brand new world of the Entwined Tales for six enchanting stories filled with humor, magic, and romance.

  Read all the tales!

  A Goose Girl, by KM Shea

  An Unnatural Beanstalk, by Brittany Fichter

  A Bear’s Bride, by Shari Tapscott

  A Beautiful Curse, by Kenley Davidson

  A Little Mermaid, by Aya Ling

  An Inconvenient Princess, by Melanie Cellier

  http://www.entwinedtales.com

  A Special Offer from Kenley

  Download this Exclusive Prequel Novella from Kenley for free!

  The Countess & the Frog

  A tale of romance in unexpected places... When independent and opinionated Lizbet discovers she has an unwelcome suitor, will she be too distracted by her royal nephew's antics to look past what she thinks she wants and find true love?

  Get your FREE Novella today!

  Also by Kenley Davidson

  The Andari Chronicles is a series of interconnected fairy tale retellings that evoke the glittering romance of the originals, while infusing them with grit, humor, and a cast of captivating new characters.

  Traitor’s Masque

  » A Reimagining of Cinderella

  Goldheart

  » A Reimagining of Rumpelstiltskin

  Pirouette

  » A Reimagining of The Twelve Dancing Princesses

  Shadow and Thorn

  » A Reimagining of Beauty and the Beast

  Daughter of Lies (Coming Soon)

  » A Reimagining of Snow White

  About the Author

  Kenley Davidson is an incurable introvert who took up writing to make space for all the untold stories in her head.

  She loves rain, roller-coasters, coffee and happy endings, and is somewhat addicted to researching random facts and reading the dictionary (which she promises is way more fun than it sounds). A majority of her time is spent being mom to two kids and two dogs while inventing reasons not to do laundry (most of which seem to involve books).

  Kenley is the author of The Andari Chronicles, an interconnected series of fairy tale retellings, and Conclave Worlds, a romantic science fiction series.

  She also writes sweet contemporary romance under the pseudonym Kacey Linden.

  kenleydavidson.com

  kenley@kenleydavidson.com

  Acknowledgments

  Last year, I became part of a small group of indie fairy tale authors who banded together for the purpose of supporting and encouraging one another on our writing and publishing journeys. It’s been completely amazing to have the opportunity to get to know five other women who love writing and fairy tales as much as I do, and to have a place where we can all ask our questions, help one other find answers, and cheer for each other’s successes.

  One day, one of us suggested, “We should write a series together!” and before we really had any idea what might come of it, the Entwined Tales were born. It’s been an incredibly fun road, filled with uncertainties, mistakes, laughs, unicorn GIFs and face palms as we tried to find our way through the always crazy process of a joint creative endeavor.

  More than anything, I want to express just how much fun we have had getting to know one another as we created these stories, and how grateful I am to each of the other ladies in this group. Thank you Kitty, Brittany, Shari, Aya and Me
lanie, not only for your commitment and contribution to this series, but for your investment in our little writing community. I’ve learned so much from you, and it is a testament to the grace, kindness and humor of each one of you that we have reached the end of this amazing and sometimes difficult project as better friends than when we started.

  As with all of my books, there are many people to thank for making it beautiful and making sure all of the words are the right words.

  - Janie, my editor, who somehow puts up with me making the same silly mistakes in all of my books without sending me a single eye-roll emoji.

  - Myrrhlynn and Jeff, who designed the beautiful matching covers for the entire series and put many hours into a special website dedicated entirely to the Entwined Tales.

  - Melanie, who found time in her busy schedule to ensure that we kept all of our facts straight across six novellas with numerous characters and kingdoms in common.

  - Tiffany, Larry, Chloe and Mary, my beta readers, who always encourage me to keep writing, even on those days when I’m ready to set fire to all the words and run away.

  And as always, I am so grateful to my readers, who make it possible for me to do what I love. I hope you all enjoy the Entwined Tales as much as I have.