Still, in a couple of minutes, Terry and Bob were standing in front of us, naked as they were, presumably, at their moment of birth. I removed Terry’s jeans, which I’d been wearing under my dress. Ben, who’d packed the rest of the werewolves’ clothes on the coach, walked over and tried to hand them to me. I shook my head, really hoping NOT to see Bob and Terry’s naked bodies.
My sweet husband chuckled over that and took the clothes, tossing them into Terry’s hands to be sorted between the two wolves.
“So shy. I love it,” Timothy said, dabbing a kiss on my forehead.
It had been a couple of days, due to my kidnapping, since we’d been together, and I felt the urge to grab him tightly and secure a proper kiss, but I ignored that flash of hormones and looked down so he wouldn’t see my lustful eyes.
I should have known. Of course he would read the desire in my mind. “Soon,” he whispered.
Meanwhile, the queens were getting tired of waiting for us. Queen Beatrice tisked making one of those old-fashioned and properly bred kind of aunt noises. Her bracelet made a slingy-snaky sound, which drew my eyes. I’d never noticed her wearing it before, so, of course, I studied it a moment. It wasn’t anything beautiful. The silver links were plain, no jewels, no bling at all. In fact, it suddenly occurred to me that the bracelet was probably some kind of enforcement piece, as in Fae hand cuffs?
Queen Moragana shifted in her position next to Queen Beatrice, then ordered, “Enough of this. It is time to enter the palace now.” Without saying anything else, she did an elegant body twist that not only turned her in the direction she wished us to go, but set her in motion toward it.
Previously, my senses had been inundated by the smell of pine trees and the acidic smell of lemons found on a solitary bush next to the path, but as we trudged toward the palace, the fragrance of the climbing roses perfumed the air to the point of nausea, rather like an overly scented female on the city bus who had apparently poured on the perfume rather than merely dabbed it on chosen body places.
My feet stumbled, and I felt dizzy. Timothy bolstered me with an arm around my waist. I continued on, but I wondered if it was like in the Wiz where heavily scented flowers induced sleep over anyone passing by. Unfortunately as we grew closer to the climbing blooms, I increasingly felt the need to lie down on the path and take forty winks, as my grandmother used to put it.
I guess my resistance was low. At one point, Timothy swept me up in his arms and simply carried me the rest of the way into and through the fancy wooden doors of the queen’s palace.