“I will be.”
His hand slipped quickly behind her neck, dragging her to him as he kissed her hard on the mouth.
Chapter 9
AMBROSE
Ambrose had never been brought so low in his life.
Literally.
The thought kept occurring to him as he scampered across the forest floor, his new black-furred belly beneath him.
One moment, he had been standing in the orchard, plucking an apple for that sharp-toothed Charming, who kept rubbing his paws together. The next moment, he had found himself bowled over, a piece of golden fruit shoved behind his teeth while Charming clamped his jaws together and forced him to swallow. Charming had stamped his clawed foot on a vaguely depressed piece of dirt, and traps had sprung up around Ambrose’s arms and legs, clamping him into place.
Charming shouted triumphantly, “That’s it! There’s the ticket! Just one little bite, and I’ll be you and you’ll be me and everything will be such glee!”
Ambrose struggled against him, but Charming was almost preternaturally strong. Flung off from his arm, his horse cloak struggled to move closer, declaring:
Have a care for my master!
“Oh, no.” Charming laughed. “Honey Badger don’t careat all! I’ve been stuck in this miserable form for too long!”
I’ll—I’ll fight you!the horse cloak declared.
Ambrose’s lungs strained. He had no choice. He swallowed the fruit whole.
Heat wound down from his throat and spread through his ribs. His hands seized up, fingers curling tightly toward his palm. Ambrose started to thrash wildly. In front of him, Charming started to grow and transform. His narrow snout pulled downward, his black eyes took on a gray hue, and thick spurts of dark hair tufted out from his ears.
“Yes!” Charming yelled. “YES! Finally!”
Light burst around him. Ambrose was free. Free in the sense that he was no longer restricted by the traps.
“Sorry about all that, pal.” Charming-Turned-Ambrose straightened his sleeves. “You know how it is. And I’m sorry about this next part, too, but I really can’t have you trying to reverse the spell on me. It’s gotta hold until I kiss my fair bride.”
Charming winked at him with Ambrose’s eye. Gold glinted about his neck, and Ambrose realized he was wearing a necklace with a heavy pendant shaped like an apple.
Charming snapped his now-human fingers, and a trail of flame burst up around the apple tree.
“See ya!” Charming strolled forward without a backward glance.
The flames gathered, swirling around Ambrose and trapping him on all sides. As a badger, his pulse felt erratically quick, as if he were being hunted. He scuttled backward, paws skidding on the slick leaves beneath him. And then—
There was a swooshing sound as the horse cloak came to the rescue.
I’ve got you, master!
The horse cloak squirmed and writhed on top of him, and smoke filled Ambrose’s lungs as the cloak’s sudden embrace snuffed out the fire. Ambrose rolled away, now neatly sidestepping the traps that Charming had set. He coughed, gasping for air.
“Thank you,” he said.
But it came out as a high-pitched squeak.
It didn’t seem to make a difference to the horse cloak, though, for its hem gathered like a loop and then folded down, like a head bent in acknowledgment.
As a trusty steed, I am always by your side.
“We have to get back to Imelda!”
