You have the best wizard-dad ever. He lets you have the tallest tower with the best view of his territory, gives you all these big dragons as pets, and keeps you safe from the outside world. So why are these strangers trying to take you away and calling him “evil”?
The boy sort of…freezes, his arrogant jaw slackening and dark eyes pinning her in place. “Kidnap you?”
He sounds baffled, which is far cry from his earlier brusque demeanor.
“Well, what else would you call it?” Reena demands, yanking again at the braided length of cloth binding her wrist to his. It’s a brilliant knot, impossible for her to unwind from her end but easily undone by her ignoble captor if he so desires.
Of course, the binding isn’t protected against magic. More fool him, it seems.
“I’m rescuing you,” the boy says slowly, elongating the words as if the problem was her comprehension and not the content of the sentence itself.
“From what?”
“From—” With his free hand, the boy gestures irritatedly at the receiving room of her tower, crammed full with bookshelves after their contents had escaped the confines of her bedroom. What, does he think she’s horribly messy? “From being stuck here!”
Stuck?
Reena straightens, eyeing the boy with even greater disdain. “This is my tower,” she enunciates. “And I have no intention of leaving. So use that pretty head and release me!”
“You’ve obviously been enchanted,” he grouses to himself, utterly ignoring her. She’s jerked closer by the tug of their bound hands as he cups his palm under his opposite elbow, thinking.
“Hey!”
“So sorry, princess,” the boy says, cocky smirk back in place. “But it seems I’ll have to beg your forgiveness later, once you’re more of a mind to grant it.”
Before she can figure out what in the skies that means, her fury distracting her from the work of untying the knot, he pulls her close and presses his lips to hers.
Darkness crawls over her vision like the creeping tides. There’s the slick press of the boy’s mouth, something almost sweet on her tongue, and then everything—the boy, her tower, the pulse of magic skittering down her spine—fades into oblivion.
—in which our princess in the tower isn’t very interested in being rescued, thank you kindly, and our prince charming could use a bit more practice with the charming part
