The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale by Jill Myles

attitude and reached for my hand again. "What I meant was that you don't like leaving yourself vulnerable to anyone. You wear your lace-covered dresses and your jewels like armor."
    Reluctantly, I extended my hand when he gestured at it again. His thumb brushed against my palm as he flipped my hand over and uncurled my fingers. Aleksandr began to gently wash my skin.
    It tickled. A funny quiver worked over my skin as he stroked the cloth over my hand - part of me wanted to giggle, and part of me wanted to snatch my hand away and demand that he never touch me again. I felt exposed and open, and I wasn't sure I liked the feeling.
    "You're glaring at me," he commented as he stroked the damp cloth over my hand.
    "I am not," I snapped, then winced at my tone. "I just don't see why I can't take care of it myself."
    "You cannot, because I enjoy doing this for you," he said in an entirely reasonable, cheerful voice. "Other hand, please."
    I held it out to him.
    "Still glaring," he commented, cleaning my other hand for me with gentle, sure strokes. He didn’t look at me as he worked, which helped alleviate some of my anxiety. “You know,” he said after a moment, “I think you are being very brave.”
    A compliment? No one ever complimented me. Some of the stiff anger in my body melted away. “Why do you think that?”
    “This is a lot to take in,” he said, the cloth stroking across my palm in a ticklish, distracting motion. “You’ve been married and taken away from your home, and it’s obvious you’ve never been in the wild before.”
    “Don’t forget that you’ve given away all my worldly possessions,” I added caustically, but my anger toward him was softening. At least he somewhat understood what I was going through.
    He glanced over at me and gave me that half-smile that made him look so boyish, and my heart gave a tiny flip. Why couldn’t Aleksandr have been a prince instead of a poor man?
    My good feelings toward him soured in the next moment, when Alek grinned at me and held his sword out, flipping it in a casual manner until the hilt extended in my direction. “And since you’re experiencing new things, I want you to learn how to defend yourself.”
     
     

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    I clasped my hands behind my back, eyeing the sword like I would a snake. “I really don’t see why this is necessary. You are here to defend me.”
    That was the wrong thing to say – his normally cheerful face darkened and he strode toward me, grabbing my hand in his free one and forcing the two apart. “This is necessary,” he said in a low, succinct voice. His accent – always present – was now thick with anger. “Perhaps you weren’t paying attention when we came across the remains of the battleground earlier? Were you not paying attention when I said they were captured?”
    “I’m not a soldier–”
    “Yes, and they were ,” he replied, his voice firm. “Which is why you need to learn to defend yourself. Your life is in my hands. We are both in danger.” His blue eyes flashed down into my own, hard with resolve. His hand wrapped around my own, forcing it around the sword hilt. “If I could take you back to your Father’s home in safety, I would. But you cannot go back there. Do you understand?”
    I stared at him, mute with pain. My father would not let me come home. He hadn’t even let me back into the castle to say goodbye to my sister Imogen. Aleksandr was all I had for now…and I needed him to get me to the king of Lioncourt. I shrugged his hand away and grasped the hilt. This was a mistake – I was not particularly skilled with coordination, and his sword looked sharp and heavy. Fine then. If he wanted to continue on with this ridiculous idea, I’d play along.
    Giving him a sour look, I grasped the sword handle and hefted it. To my surprise, it was lighter than I’d anticipated – though the blade was over two feet long and curved, it didn’t feel heavy at all. I gave it an experimental