ELEVEN
It was not to be, Bianca found when she reached home. Her sisters were already in the dining hall, studiously ignoring a new adventurer whose eye-watering pink robe fit so badly Bianca wondered whether Efe was trying to blind them.
The new man was well into his cups when his eyes fixed on her. "Well, aren't you a pretty one?" he slurred. "Mayhap I'll take you to wife, so I can see if you're as pale under that robe as you are above it."
Bianca was too tired to be courteous to this buffoon. "I assure you, I am not. Beneath this robe, I'm covered in thick fur like one of the bears from the mountains. I must shave my face every morning to stop the fur from growing. And cut my claws, lest I disembowel someone by mistake." She curled her fingers into claws and bared her teeth.
Hazel
