Villainess to Sheep Goddess

"Have you ever woken up inside a romance novel… only to discover you're the villainess who's supposed to die?" "My name is Evelyn Rosewood. In my previous life, I was an ordinary girl who loved fantasy novels, warm bread, and sleeping in on rainy mornings." "Then I opened my eyes and found myself in the world of my favorite novel, The Duke's Frozen Heart." "Unfortunately, I wasn't the heroine." "I was the wicked villainess who tormented the female lead, betrayed the crown, and eventually met her end at the hands of the terrifying Duke Adrian Frostbite." "Let me get this straight. I'm destined to die, the duke has the emotional warmth of a frozen brick, and the original plot refuses to change?" "Nope!" "If the story wants a tragic villainess, it can find someone else." "I have a better plan." "I'm going to fake my death, run away, buy a little farm, and spend the rest of my life surrounded by fluffy sheep!" "Honestly, that sounds like a much better romance." So I did it. The faking-your-death part was embarrassingly easy once you stopped caring about being polite. A carriage "accident" on the cliff road. A body double who owed me a favor and looked enough like me from a distance. A grave in the capital cemetery with my name carved into it. The Crown held a funeral. The heroine cried on cue. The original plot moved on without me. I took the little gold I’d hoarded, changed my name to "Adora," cut my hair, and ran north. Far north. Past the capital. Past the duke’s territories. Past anywhere anyone from The Duke's Frozen Heart would think to look. I bought a broken-down cottage and ten acres of rocky, stubborn land on the border of Frost Hollow. The villagers thought I was a widow. I let them. Widows got left alone. That was six months ago. Now my life is embarrassingly domestic. I wake up at dawn because the chickens don’t care about my sleep schedule. I feed them, collect eggs, milk the goat who hates me, and pretend I don’t see the way Biscuit judges my life choices. Biscuit is an 80-pound sheepdog with the emotional range of a tired father. He runs the farm. I just live here. After chores comes the good part: the sheep. I have forty-seven of them. Lady Fluffernutter is pregnant and dramatic about it. Sir Baa-Baa The Third has a superiority complex. And Marshmallow — my favorite — is two hundred pounds of white fluff who still tries to sit in my lap. I named every single one of them because “they’re too fluffy not to.” The villagers laughed at first. Now they just ask me to name their lambs too. My days are: shear sheep, bottle-feed lambs, mend fences, bake bread. My nights are: tea, a book, and sleep without nightmares. The cottage smells like hay and cookies and lavender soap. There are no ballrooms. No poison. No scheming. No Duke Frostbite. For six months, it worked. The plot forgot me. I was healing. Until this morning. It started with Biscuit. Biscuit doesn’t bark for fun. Biscuit barks like the world is ending. I was elbow-deep in bread dough when the first round of frantic woofs started. "QUIET!" I yelled, wiping flour on my apron. Biscuit did not get quiet. Marshmallow answered him. That was worse. Marshmallow only makes noise when he’s decided someone is a problem. Marshmallow is two hundred pounds. When Marshmallow decides you’re a problem, you are a problem. I walked to the gate, still floury, still barefoot, still stupidly hopeful that it was just a traveling merchant. It wasn’t. At the end of my dirt road stood a man on a black horse. Black coat. Black gloves. Black everything except for the frost in his eyes and the mud on his boots. Behind him, four guards who looked like they’d been dragged through a snowstorm to get here. In front of him, Biscuit, Marshmallow, and me. Duke Adrian Frostbite. The man who was supposed to kill me in Chapter 47. The man with the reputation for executing traitors without blinking. The man who, according to the novel, had never smiled, never laughed, and had definitely never touched a farm animal in his life. He was staring at me. I was staring at him. Biscuit was growling. Marshmallow was staring too, with the intense judgment of a sheep who pays rent. My brain was very helpfully screaming: HE’S HERE TO KILL YOU. HE’S HERE TO KILL YOU. HE’S HERE TO KILL YOU. My mouth, betraying me as always, said: "Can I help you?" Bright. Cheerful. The voice I used when I was twelve and had definitely not eaten the last tart. "I’m here for the wool contract," Duke Adrian said. His voice could freeze water. It was low, even, and completely devoid of anything resembling warmth. Which was accurate to the book. What wasn’t accurate was the way his eyes did a full sweep of me. Flour on my cheek. Calluses on my hands. The way I was standing slightly behind Marshmallow like he was my bodyguard. He was inventorying me. And I was pretty sure he was finding discrepancies. "Come in!" I said, because apparently my survival strategy was baked goods. "I have tea! And bread! It’s still warm!" Because if I was going to be arrested, I was going to be arrested with chamomile and carbs. He dismounted. Slow. Every movement was precise. He followed me into the cottage. He sat at my table like it might explode. He didn’t touch the tea for ten whole seconds. "Your name?" "Adora," I lied. "Just Adora." "Adora," he repeated. Like he was testing how it felt in his mouth. We signed the contract. I expected him to underpay me. This was Duke Frostbite. He paid double. He didn’t explain why. He stayed for exactly one cup of tea. He left without looking back. The second his horse disappeared down the road, I slid down the wall and breathed for the first time in ten minutes. Because he didn’t call me Evelyn. Because he didn’t arrest me. Because maybe, just maybe, I had gotten away with it. Outside, Biscuit stopped growling. Marshmallow went back to chewing grass. The farm was quiet again. The bread was still in the oven. The sun was still out. I was safe. I was wrong. Because three days later, a cart arrived with no sender. And inside were twenty bolts of fabric in the exact colors I’d been eyeing in town. Blue. Cream. Green. All soft enough for winter cloaks. All at the exact weight I needed. There was no note. There didn’t need to be. The terrifying Duke who was meant to kill me Had just sent me fabric. And he still had absolutely no idea what to do with a sheep.