Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince Read Online Free

climb up the blanket, fingers and toes sticking to the cream colored silk. He pulled himself up onto the surface of the bed, finding himself by the woman’s foot. He pressed his overly long toes on her ankle and peeked up the length of her body. It was hard to determine her build or how tall she truly was in his current state. The one thing he was sure of was that she was a beautiful creature.
    Her light brown hair was a mass of springing curls around her face. Sharp cheekbones, a slightly pointed chin, and a patrician nose. She had one of those duck mouths, the upper lip much plumper than the bottom. There was a small birthmark next to her right eye and he couldn’t help but notice how long and thick her lashes were.
    He wanted to kiss that mouth, touch the smooth, rich chocolate of her skin. He could imagine the husky voice that he’d heard before coming from a body like that, and the sensation the knowledge caused, the fire in his veins, was both unfamiliar yet strangely anticipated. He found himself walking along the hills and valleys of her body. Higher and higher until he reached her face. He stared down at her from less than an inch away and croaked, pleased to be so close. So surrounded by the warmth and smell of her.
    She wasn’t a corpse. Just a sleeping woman, and watching her in slumber reminded him of his own exhaustion. He’d been relentless in his travel, and hadn’t slept peacefully even when he did sleep at all. Something about her soothed him, and he croaked again before settling down in the crook of her neck and going to sleep.
    ***
    The morning sun slanted through the windows and warmed the side of Christopher’s face. He groaned, pressing his face against the curve of the woman’s neck against which he slept. He opened his eyes groggily, jerking back in surprise when he realized that he was human once again. He hated this twixt and twain nonsense. From midnight till noon he was human. Then from noon to midnight he was a frog. It made making long term commitments difficult, but it was better than the alternative. Which would have been living full time as a damn frog. A puny one at that.
    Sometimes Chris wondered if his consternation over his curse had to do with the fact that he couldn’t shift into anything cool. He may have enjoyed the little quirk in his character if he could have been a bird of prey, or a white tiger, or maybe a Puma. Or an Orca. Basically anything other than a tree frog would have been preferable. Now, a man once again, he stretched his arms above his head, enjoying the pull of his muscles as he got to his feet. Though naked, he wasn’t especially concerned about the woman in the bed waking up. She was under a sleeping curse after all. She hadn’t moved an inch the entire time he’d been there, and he would have continued believing her to be dead if he hadn’t spent the whole night listening to the gentle beat of her pulse in his ear.
    He went to the window, hoping to see what the world looked like from so high up. But as soon as he neared the glass the flames outside pulsed and grew larger, momentarily blocking out the sky until he stumbled away with a curse. The room heated and he heard a strange growling that made the floor shake. His eyes narrowed. Chris hadn’t been able to close the door the night before and now he took a step towards it. Squinting at the darkness he could see just beyond the open crack. There was something…
    The growl sounded again and a hot, rolling cloud of smoke slipped into the room. Chris cursed and lunged forward when he realized that the darkness wasn’t a shadow, but the dark iris of a creature. A monster with scales and a huge snout that he was about to use to push the door open even wider. Chris shoved the heavy mahogany shut, his back against it and his breath coming heavy. More smoke rolled in and his bare skin turned bright red from the heat. The door shook on its hinges, and for a moment, Chris was worried that the dragon would