Sweet Nothings Read online

  Chapter 17

  Popo blinked and purred as Tad sat on the floor of the library reading to him from a book of love poems.

  “Perhaps you and I might get on after all. Only don’t tell Claire.”

  Popo did not answer.

  “I think Roselle will enjoy some of these, once I’ve put my own special touches on them, of course.” Tad looked into the beast’s round eyes. “Do you suppose Claire has any romantic sentiment at all? She did get all weepy over you, so maybe…”

  Speaking of which, he needed to return the baby roc to its nest. He pushed to his feet and slipped the volume into his favorite bookcase in the library. Really it was the only bookcase he knew the contents of by heart.

  “Well, that was an exhausting case,” Nan’s voice called out.

  Tad spied the she-bird perched on the table to his right. “Yes, why can’t true love ever be simple? And why couldn’t Avery and Arabella have meet sooner instead of us having to force them together?”

  “Avery told us the answer to that. He expected to have to sail the seven seas before finding his ladylove. In his case, his heart’s expectation forced him to navigate a course that drew him away from Arabella before he could be moved toward her.”

  Tad shook his head. Nan had probably been spying earlier when he and Claire watched Avery and the princess in the globe. “What about the Lady’s arrow? Isn’t that supposed to draw true lovers together?”

  “It does, indeed, but the heart must be prepared before true love can take up residence. This is the reason those who do not deeply desire true love will never be bothered with it. Nor can they even believe it exists.”

  Tad drummed his fingers on the bookcase. “What would you say would be a good gift for a certain lady who might perhaps have been offended by an accidental gifting of a treasured companion to another lady?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Where are the others?”

  “Keeping an eye on things, as you instructed, although Pip has been love potioned half a dozen times.”

  “All is well, then.” Tad looked at Popo clinging to his shirt. “Time to get you back to your mistress, but first I will show you the second way to a woman’s heart.”

  Tad magicked himself and Popo to the village, where he entered the bakery and selected a charming gift tote and the most expensive assortment of goods to go in it. Popo he had to reprimand repeatedly for attempting to eat everything in sight. “Your tummy will become distended again,” he warned the baby roc as it devoured a heap of glazed confections.

  This did nothing to remedy the situation so he at last switched to sweet words, which charmed the beast until he sat very respectably in Tad’s left pocket gnawing on a piece of hard candy.

  The baker passed them both a frantic look but Tad paid for the damages caused by Claire’s miscreant pet and moved out with a basket of goodies.

  Claire had not appreciated the roses he had offered her, probably because she preferred some scientific gift to a beautiful one. So Tad inquired of the florist about the hardiest variety of hanging plant, which turned out to be a bushy thing that had a sort of subdued charm and looked rather useless. It was the perfect gift for a scientist, and Popo seemed to approve.

  Tad was halfway to Tante Iezavel’s lair when his arms grew tired under the heavy load, so he plopped himself down on a respectable doorstep to rest.

  Popo eyed Claire’s basket and gave Tad an imploring look.

  “These are not for you,” Tad said. The beast’s eyes swiveled back and forth between Tad’s face and the basket. “If we eat them all, there won’t be any left for your lunatic handler.”

  Popo purred at him. His eyes got bigger.

  “Fine, but just one.”

  A gluttonous mouth unhinged, revealing a cavernous throat with rows of teeth all the way down to oblivion. Tad drew back a little but plucked a small pastry from the basket and gingerly flicked it into that bottomless gullet. He jerked his hand away as Popo’s jaws clamped shut. The beast wriggled and looked at the basket again.

  “No more.” Tad licked the sweet, white powder from his fingers and closed the lid. He tried to ignore Popo’s many silent pleas for just one bite of the dwindled remnants of Claire’s gift basket, but at last decided to reason with him. “How am I to resolve the problems you’ve cause for me with Claire if you eat the entire assortment of sweet things I need to lure her back into some semblance of sanity?”

  Popo’s expression said that he failed to appreciate this argument.

  Tad gave him a stern look. “Ladies can’t resists fried things with sugar, except my Roselle. Sadly, she has not yet learned to enjoy anything except a plain breakfast tart and the occasional croissant. That will all change when she admits she’s in love with me and I teach her a thing or two about fine cuisine.”

  Two eagle eyes blinked repeatedly at him.

  “What is that look for? Possibly you don’t know anything about romance since you are only a beast.” Just as the words came out, Tad shook his head. He was losing his mind, and Claire was surely responsible. “Time to deliver you so I can get back to important things,” he declared to Popo and resolved never to hold a conversation with the creature again. A man in possession of his rational faculties could do no less.

  Tad drew in a deep breath as he approached the orange door. He knocked three times and stood there on Tante Iezavel’s doorstep listening to his heart pound.

  The door opened and Claire’s face appeared.

  Tad shoved the basket at her. “These are for you.”

  Claire’s eyes turned up at him, a grimace etched just beneath those blue-green lenses.

  “They’re from the bakery, special order. And I have been assured this plant is lovely as well. I thought you might enjoy them as consolation for my being right about the case.” He set the basket on the ground and withdrew the lump squirming around in his pocket. “I almost forgot, he came back all on his own.”

  Claire snatched the mongrel Popo to her bosom. Her fingers scratched under his chin and rubbed his little head.

  Tad belted out a string of love poems, all his own work. Popo purred and flopped onto his side.

  Claire observed the beast in her arms with a puzzled expression.

  Tad shrugged. “Apparently he enjoys sweet anything. You can feed him sugary dishes or sing or recite lovely words, and he gets all goo-goo-eyed. It doesn’t seem to matter what you offer him as long as it’s sweet.”

  “That is highly improbable.”

  Tad picked up the basket and held it and the plant out to her again, but she spun away. “Don’t forget your desserts. He likes them.”

  Claire whirled around and grabbed the basket, only to whirl around again and start to close the door. Just as she did, she spun once more and snatched the plant. Popo purred against her neck as she gave Tad another one of her angry looks. “I suppose I have to accept these. It would be rude of me to refuse. But you can mark this down in your book of badly-written poems. I’ll have the desire of my heart. And you, these pastries, and your romantic sentiments will have absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  She turned and slammed the door in his face.

  Avenged Fairy Tales Series

  Avenged Fairy Tales is a true serial read for fans of true love, frivolous things, magical mysteries, and happily ever afters. Each case is resolved in a single book but Tad and the gang continue their adventures from story to story.

  At First Sight

  Megala

  Sweet Nothings

  A Thousand and One

  My Fair Slave

  Lumpy

  Notorious

  Shifting Tides

  Hot Lips

  Awkward

  Crystalline

  Perfectly Innocent

  Avenged Fairy Tales Series Page

  For more adventures dealing with mischief and magic, see the Wings series, a collection of standalone stories that take place after Tad receives his happily ever after and further e
xplore the mysteries of magical hierarchy.

  Next in series, A Thousand and One, a bow to Arabian Nights and Rumpelstiltskin.

  A Thousand and One Preview

  “Some witch told you that! Some witch told you that!”

  “Did not. Now, about my three wishes.”

  The imp’s face twisted into a heap of wrinkles. “Three wishes, three gifts.”

  “But that’s not what—”

  “Three wishes, three gifts. The witch should’ve told you that. She should’ve told you that!” He stomped his stockinged foot.

  “Very well. What do you want?”

  “Necklace, ring…”

  “But these are my—”

  “Simpletons! Fools! Humans cannot calculate!”

  “Fine, take them. And the third item?”

  “It is the greatest.”

  “Be it anything but my soul.”

  “Do you swear it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you swear it on your third toe?”

  “Er…Sure, I swear it on my third toe.”

  “Do you swear it by the hairs of your chinny chin chin?”

  “Yes, already, I have sworn to you thrice.”

  “Sure?” The imp’s rosy cheeks glowed, his plump face crinkling. “No takebacks, no substitutions.”

  “Whatever you like. As you see, I have given you all but my very soul, the garment barely clinging to these shoulders, and the tattered things strapped to my feet that I like to call shoes. You’re welcome to any of my worldly possessions that please you.”

  Two golden eyes twinkled. “In that case your third gift to me shall be…” He beckoned with his crooked finger. “Come near, come near and I will tell all.”

  A few hesitant steps and the imp was only a breath away, cackling and crackling as an old crone. He smelled of pickled eggs and straw as he leaned forward and whispered three unfathomable words.

  Go to A Thousand and One on Amazon

  Visit the author website at dariadoshrelli.com