“No, that’s not—” He started, but she cut off his words with a wave of her hand.
“Not that I’ll be losing any sleep over it. You’re going to be on your way, aren’t you? Something about a goose?”
“Phoebe.” He frowned, still dissatisfied with her assessment of him. For all that he liked to be alone and played into his reputation as a frightening giant to achieve that peace, he didn’t actually want to be cruel.
“Fee what?”
“My goose—her name is Phoebe. I’ve had her with me since she was a gosling.”
She tilted her head to one side, considering him. “Huh. I wouldn’t have pegged you as a name-the-goose type of man.”
“What kind of man would you have called me?” Atlas discovered that he was strangely invested in her answer.
“The kind that manhandles women when they don’t get their way,” she deadpanned.
“I said I was sorry!”
She lifted a brow.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before amending, “I mean, Iamsorry. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
“Thank you,” she answered primly.
“In my defense,” he began, and she threw her hands up in exasperation and stalked to the rocks at the water’s edge. She pulled a pair of shoes from somewhere in the shadows and tugged them on as he pressed on. “In my defense, you weren’t being very communicative and kept getting in my way.”
“Which should havecommunicated to youthat I didn’t want you over there!”
“I’m looking for my goose.”
“And I’m trying to keep the swans alive long enough to break their curse. For all I knew, you were here to take advantage of the situation. The only one around here allowed to wring their necks is me.”
There was too much information spinning around Atlas’s brain to make sense of it all. “I thought you were trying to breakthe curse?”
“I am.”
“Then why are you talking about wringing their necks?”
“I didn’t say I would,” she muttered darkly. “Only that I’m the only one allowed to do it.”
“I see.” He didn’t really, but nodded slowly as if he did, anyway. “Are they…friends of yours?”
“No.” She smiled that sweet, fake smile again. “They’re my sons.”
Chapter Six
LINDY
“Yoursons?” The giant’s words came out as a half-strangled cry, and the shocked expression on his disconcertingly handsome face was delightfully amusing. “But they’re…you’re…”
“A caring and devoted mother,” Lindy said, pressing a hand over her heart.
The giant—Atlas, if she remembered correctly—shook his head slowly in disbelief. It really was entertaining watching him flounder, and his uncertainty made him much less alarming. If she had to guess, he was over seven feet tall, and she could still feel the phantom sensation of his large hands wrapped around her wrists. He had held her prisoner as easily as if she were an annoying bug, and she was sure he could have snapped her bones as easily as she could have broken Corbin’s neck earlier.
Guilt plagued her at the thought, whispering that she ought to apologize for threatening the prince when the scales were so unevenly balanced in herfavor. She couldn’t even lie to herself and claim that she felt threatened.
Compared to what she had faced growing up, an angry bird—even one as big as he was—was nothing.
He’s a swan. The most he could do is make himself a nuisance and bite me. I have the power to end his life, and I held it over him. I wanted to feel powerful. I wanted him to fear me.
