Froggy Style

by J. A. Kazimer

  Chapter 17

  I tapped lightly on Beauty’s bedroom door. The soft sound of snoring greeted my knock. Well, she was still alive. That counted for something, right?

  Sighing, I took a step into the bedroom, my eyes sweeping the shadows for any sign of danger. On the far side of the room sat a window with cheerless curtains pulled tight against the afternoon sunlight. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  My bride lay on her back, her kinky blond hair spilling across her pillow and framing her pale face. Silken sheets were pulled past her chin, obscuring most of her face. Her breathing sounded harsh, as if she’d run a great distance. A soft snore escaped her lips, followed by a louder snort.

  Dark eyelashes flickered in her sleep, sort of like a hushed little baby swinging from a treetop. I stopped just inside the doorway, my heart in my throat. This was the woman I would marry. The One. My one. The woman I would spend the rest of my days with. Lying there, against the silken sheets of her bed, Beauty looked as innocent as freshly fallen snow.

  I never liked the snow.

  My eyes locked on the nightstand by Beauty’s bed. A half-empty box of nighttime cold medicine sat next to a vase filled with wilted flowers. No wonder she slept a lot. FairyQuil was known to knock out an elephant.

  On the opposite side of the room stood a dresser with a large jewelry chest and an array of framed photographs on top. I tiptoed my way toward the dresser, careful not to wake the princess sleeping mere feet away.

  “Frog!” I yelped as my little piggy, the anorexic one, caught the edge of the dresser. I jumped around on one foot until the pain went from blow your house down to merely a huff and a puff.

  Marvin, the butler, burst into the bedroom, a bat in his hand. He glanced around as if searching for a threat. “Sir? Did Princess Beauty call out?”

  I blinked away unshed tears.

  “But I heard a loud girlish scream.”

  “Manly,” I corrected.

  “What?”

  I exhaled loudly. “A manly scream. You heard a masculine scream. Sort of like a wild beast.”

  “No, sir.” His eyes darted around the room. “The scream I heard resembled that of a little girl.”

  My fists clenched, but my voice stayed calm. “Whatever. As you can see, Lady Beauty is just fine.” I rubbed my toe through the leather confines of my shoe. The throbbing eased a bit.

  Marvin glanced at my future wife and then to me, his forehead wrinkled. “Well, then, since Lady Beauty is in no immediate danger,” he stressed the word “immediate,” “I will return to my duties.”

  My eyes narrowed. Was Marvin referring to Spindle? Or was Beauty in more danger than I suspected? Before I could question Marvin, he tipped his bat my way and left the room. When the door closed behind him, I glanced at Sleeping Beauty. A string of drool slid from her lips, dribbling down her silken sheet.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. I was being paranoid. Because, really, how many assassins could one tiny and tired princess have? The number twenty-eight popped into my head, the number of jilted fiancés, to be precise.

  Speaking of fiancés, I noticed the sparkle of diamonds winking out from the wooden jewelry crate on the dresser. Since I’d yet to slip a ring or anything else on my intended’s finger, again my cat-killing curiosity got the best of me.

  Sitting among piles of gold chains, strands of roping pearls, and expensive jewels in a rainbow of colors shiny enough to make Ali Baba and his contingent of thieves jealous were rows and rows of engagement rings in various shapes and colors. Forty-carat diamonds mixed with emeralds and the occasional ruby, each tagged with a handwritten number. One through twenty-eight.

  I picked up a ring labeled with the number seven. A big diamond encrusted with sapphires. Pretty perhaps, but not Beauty’s style. In fact, none of the rings in the box seemed right for my future wife. One was too big, another too small. None fit her just right. No wonder she’d never married any of those guys. Not that I was husband material either, but I wasn’t nearly as clueless as fiancés one through twenty-eight.

  “Fools,” I whispered.

  “You got that right,” someone said, the voice too soft to pinpoint its location, let alone the gender of the speaker. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

  I spun toward the bed. My bride looked as peaceful as she had when I first entered the room. Her eyes closed, her breathing even and deep. My eyes scanned the rest of the room, finding no one other than my sleeping bride. Maybe I was losing my mind like Lollie had predicted.

  Turning back to the jewelry box, I set number seven’s ring back in its rightful place and closed the lid. My eyes locked on a framed photograph sitting next to the jewelry box. A picture of Beauty, age seven or eight. She smirked at the camera, a toothless grin, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, and yet, her lollipop eyes told a far different tale, one of loneliness and longing. In the background, Handsome stood next to his father, the king, and a fresh-faced four-year-old Pretty as well as a shadowy figure barely in the frame.

  I peered closer at the picture, unable to make out anything other than the outline of a child. Was this a long-lost Vaniteuse relative? Not that it mattered. The picture was worth a thousand tales, none of them the happily-ever-after kind. All the children held ice cream cones in their hands, while Beauty’s hand was suspiciously empty. Perhaps my bride was lactose intolerant? But I had my doubts.

  In another picture, one with a thumbprint obscuring the left half of the frame, the family sat at a long table, each smiling and happy expect for Beauty. She sat a few seats away, her head in her hands, her sad eyes locked on her happy siblings.

  For a kid who grew up without much in the way of parental love and with a pair of frog legs to boot, I understood the yearning in her gaze, the need to be a part of something, to be loved. For all Beauty’s faults, and apparently there were quite a few, she deserved better. What the hell was wrong with me? I was the Frog Prince. A man women loved to love. Hell, I’d kissed more princesses than Rapunzel had split ends.

  The stress of the wedding was getting to me. That was all this sudden girly, emotional crap was. I didn’t care one iota about Beauty or her upbringing, as long as she said “I do.”

  I set the photograph down on the dresser. A speck of paper on the back of the frame caught my eye. I peered closer. Someone had tucked a piece of paper between the picture and the frame. Carefully, I tugged at the note, inching it until the paper worked its way free. Thick block letters formed the words:

  A pin-pricked finger

  Will sleep eternal

  Until his true heart Be

  “What the frog does that mean?” I said, but deep down I knew the answer. I rubbed at the B-shaped birthmark on my chest. “B” for “Beauty.” One more sign that Beauty was my One. My fate was sealed by a benign, disfiguring lesion. Figured.

  My sleeping bride mumbled something in response, something I couldn’t quite make out. I moved across the room, to her bed, and leaned in. Beauty’s breath tickled the ten-in-the-morning stubble hugging my chin.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  The vase next to the bedside, an inch or two from Beauty’s head, exploded, showering us in glass, water, and flower shrapnel. Velvety petals flew in all directions.

  Beauty shot straight up, her eyes wide. Without thinking, I yanked her from the bed and onto the floor, covering her body with my own. My heart slammed wildly in my chest. Frog! Spindle and, very likely, the lying Lollie Bliss were outside, waiting for a chance to blow Beauty’s tiny little brains out.

  Silence reigned in the large room. Water from the fatally injured vase pooled on the floor around us, soaking into my pants, water that could’ve just as easily have been my intended’s blood.

  Anger exploded inside me. That damn Spindle. I vowed to stop him. Any way I could. No more Mr. Nice Frog Prince.

  I glanced down at Beauty. Her hands covered her face in an expression of surprise. She stared up at me for a long moment. “Jean-Michel?” she sa
id, her voice husky with sleep.

  I brushed her hair out of her grape-colored eyes. Tenderness and something quite foreign, almost like decency, rose inside me. Twenty-two years ago, Sleeping Beauty had saved me from my curse, albeit accidentally, now it was my turn to return the favor and save her from a killer, albeit one I’d accidentally hired to kill her. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I won’t let anyone hurt you,” I vowed.

  Sleeping Beauty’s lips curled into a frown. “In that case,” she said, “get off me, you’re crushing my spleen.”

  Chapter 18

  Ten minutes later, Beauty safely tucked back in bed, her curtains drawn, and Marvin standing guard outside her door, I slowly walked down the hall, a litany of complaints following me.

  “Great. Now my room smells like hair products and musty amphibian, thanks to you, Jean-Michel,” Beauty called out.

  I rolled my eyes and kept walking. My mind swirled with a jumble of emotions. Until a few minutes ago the threat to Sleeping Beauty hadn’t seemed real. Not truly. Yet, as a bullet flew past my head, the reality of what I’d done slammed into me with the velocity of a sniper’s shot. This was my fault. All of it.

  Well, three-fourths at least.

  Half if you considered I was drunk at the time.

  Okay, one-third seemed more realistic. After all, I’d tried to stop Spindle. Now that I thought about it, this was far more the responsibility of Ms. Lollie Bliss. Damn her and her sexy, ink-covered body. When I got my hands on her...

  “What are you doing here?” Handsome, Beauty’s stepbrother, growled from the top of the stairs. A lock of dark hair fell over one of his dark eyes, giving him a rakish appeal that drove princesses crazy. His muscles were gym sculpted for much the same reason, as were the strategic bulges in his freshly pressed uniform, the tin star on his shirt nearly blinding in the sunlight.

  What a tool. I could out-handsome Handsome any day. “What’s it to you?” I said, my tone as cold as Jack Frost’s frigid wife.

  “Beauty’s too good for the likes of you,” he sneered.

  “Good” wasn’t exactly the word I’d have used. “Listen, I get it. You’ve got a thing for your stepsister. Creepy, sure. But it’s not going to happen. Beauty will be my wife. So give it up.”

  Handsome’s handsome face crumpled a bit, but he quickly recovered. “I don’t have a thing, as you put it, for Beauty. I love her. Truly love her. Can you say the same?”

  “Of course,” I lied.

  “Then say it!” He smashed his fist on the banister.

  I tried to form the words in my mouth, but no sound emerged. What was wrong with me? I’d said “I love you” a million times to a million different women. Granted, I was now telling it to some guy with perfectly waxed eyebrows, but still....

  “That’s what I thought,” Handsome said with a sneer. “If you know what’s just, you’ll leave her alone.”

  I grinned. “Is that a threat?”

  “No,” he said, his eyes blazing with fire. My nose wrinkled. The overwhelming scent of Old Spice and pissed-off stepbrother filled the corridor between us. “It’s a promise,” he said. “You will never marry Sleeping Beauty. I’ll see her in hell first.”

  “Did you tell Sleeping Beauty the truth?” Karl asked as we drove away from the palace and down the winding canyon road. Hot desert air and the smell of day-old prince wafted throughout the limo. I shut my eyes, allowing fear to surface for the first time since Beauty’s shooting. I’d almost lost her, and therefore, my only chance to end my curse once and for all.

  “Sir?” Karl prompted. “Did you tell Princess Beauty her life is in danger?”

  “Of course I did,” I lied.

  In the rearview mirror, I watched as Karl’s eyebrow rose.

  I rolled my eyes in response. “Okay, maybe those weren’t my exact words.” I grinned, picturing Beauty’s startled face as a barrage of bullets slammed into the wall above her bed. “But I’m sure she got the gist.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I was about to tell her when . . . well . . . the shooting started.”

  “What?!” Karl’s face paled. “Shooting? Is the princess all right?”

  “Seemed to be,” I said. In fact, five minutes after nearly dying, not to mention cursing me out, Sleeping Beauty had fallen right back to sleep without a care in the world, leaving Marvin and me to station two guards outside her room, and two more below her window, as well as an hourly patrol around the perimeter of the palace.

  Killing Beauty wouldn’t be easy. I’d make sure of it.

  I stared out the window of the limo, noting the swirl of orange and red in the sky as dusk fell on the desert. Our limo sped down the valley toward the city, the sun glinting off the windows like the reflection in a pond.

  We flew past palace after palace as their occupants prepared for nightfall. Lights came on. Kids came home after a long day playing hopscotch. Old couples walked hand in hand. On the side of the road a lone woman leaned against a motorbike.

  “Stop the limo!” I yelled.

  Karl did, with amazing speed. The limo skidded to a halt, tires screaming against the pavement. I leapt from the vehicle and ran down the street toward the woman leaning so innocently against hundreds of pounds of steel and chrome.

  “You!” I pointed an accusing finger in the direction of Ms. Murderous Bliss. She looked as good as, if not hotter, than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head, leaving small curls to frame her face. Her dark eyes softened in the twilight, appearing almost amber in color.

  Attempted murder seemed to agree with her.

  I swallowed a wave of lust, disgusted with my reaction. Less than an hour ago, she and her lover had nearly killed Beauty, I reminded my penis. Unfortunately, that failed to cool my ardor. However, her next words worked wonders for my rising libido.

  “Sorry I missed you, Kermit.”

  “What?” I grabbed Lollie’s arm, jerking her from the bike. She tried to pull away, but I held tight, resulting in a human tug-of-war. In the end, Lollie won, after kicking me in the shin with her biker boot.

  “Ow!” I yelped, rubbing at the fresh, very large bruise growing on my leg. For her smallish size, she had extremely big feet. Which came as a sort of surprise, but then again on our last two encounters, I’d paid far more attention to other areas of Lollie’s anatomy.

  “What’s your problem?” she screeched, her face pinched with anger. “I apologize for missing you at my shop this morning, and you manhandle me? What do you do when someone offers to buy you dinner, punch them in the nose?”

  I straightened. “What?”

  “Don’t you ever listen to anyone but yourself?” She blew out a harsh breath. “I said, I was sorry about not being at the Rose this morning when you came by.” She stopped, the annoyance on her face replaced by relief. “But I’m glad I caught you. I have something for you.”

  “Perhaps an apology for bashing me in the head?” I took a menacing step toward her. “Or maybe you’d like to say you’re sorry for trying to kill my fiancée?”

  “Are you crazy?” She tried to push me away, but I stayed firmly in front of her. “Why would I try to kill your fiancée? I don’t even know her. If anything, I feel sorry for the poor girl.”

  “What about your lover, Lollie?” My tone grew soft. “Are you helping him? Is that why you’re here?”

  She chuckled. “I’m here, as you put it, because I had a job to do.” When my eyes narrowed, she added, “A tattoo job. Up the canyon. Hence the ink stains on my tank top.” She pointed to a red splotch right below her breast.

  I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Her words sounded right, and the ink stain was real enough, but I’d fallen for her innocent act before, and it had cost me, namely my favorite pair of pants. Not to mention a lump on the head the size of Wee Willie Winkie after a dose of Viagra.

  “Well, Kermit,” her lips curled into a smirk, “don’t you want to know what it is I have for you?”

&nb
sp; I nodded, slowly, unsure.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, her tone filled with laughter.

  I nodded again.

  Lollie reached into the black leather saddlebag behind her.

  A gun emerged.

  A gun aimed at my heart.

  Her finger flexed on the trigger.

  Chapter 19

  A stain of red spread across my chest, growing larger and darker as seconds passed. Lollie dropped the gun, the smile leaving her face. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said, dabbing at my sweatshirt.

  “What the frog?” I glared down at the cherry-colored ink on my now-ruined sweatshirt, and then back at Lollie. “What’d you do that for?”

  “I . . . ah . . . it was an accident,” she said, motioning to the tattoo gun on the ground. “I meant to grab these.” She reached into her black saddlebags again. I took a step back, my hands out in front of me to ward off another inky attack. But rather than another tattoo gun, Lollie removed a pair of grimy Levi’s from the leather tote, the same pair I’d worn last night.

  “Here,” she said, holding the Levis out to me.

  Taking the jeans from her ink-stained hand, I quickly checked the pockets. My wallet and p-Phone sat tucked where I’d left them, but the matchbook as well as the rose petal, my only pieces of evidence against Lollie, was missing.

  I thrust the jeans her way. “Where are they?”

  “What?” she repeated, her black eyes staring innocently up at me. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Really? I find that hard to believe.”

  She gave me an eye roll.

  I decided to let it go, for now, and focus on a more important issue, like why Lollie had my jeans in the first place. So I asked a question I’d never expected to ask a woman in this lifetime. “How’d you get my pants?”

  “I did not smash you in the head!” Lollie yelled.

  I raised my eyebrow. “Then who did?”

  “How should I know?” Her eyes smoldered, turning jet black in color. “You probably have a hundred people willing to smash in your head. Mostly women would be my guess.”