Free Horns for the Harem Girl by Lynn Red Page A

them, one of wine and one of beer. Her sisters and she shared the wine, but the beer was all for her father. Apparently.
    After the first night, he swore over and over that he’d never drink again, but on the second night of the unexpected feast, he was back at it, singing and laughing and hooting like the old days. A handful of friends joined in the second night, and for the first time in her life, Helena was invited to the party that lasted until dawn came and the men and all of her sisters had to sadly disband to sleep, or work, or go back to wherever it was they needed to go.
    It wasn’t so much that she was home – although that was certainly part of it – no one could believe the fortune that her father and sisters had somehow fallen into. At the same time, no one seemed to question it, or her connection to the prince, and why a royal would deign to do so much for a girl who was really just as common as common came.
    That is, until they all woke up on the third day to find the family’s cellar filled with preserves and salted lamb, pork and goat.
    “Either you have a djinn watching your back, or you have managed to get in good with someone very rich, sister,” Alara said, ever doubtful of anything slightly unbelievable. “Which is it? And you know that no one’s seen a djinn in the kingdom for at least a hundred years, so I doubt they made an appearance just for you. What have you done?”
    Helena, still half asleep, just frowned and looked at her sister for a moment, trying to decide how much malice there was in her question. Whether or not it was there wasn’t the issue. With Alara, there was always malice in her questions.
    “Why are you so sour?” Helena asked.
    “I’m not, I’m just concerned. News came of the fires in the city. I know you told Papa that the harem was evacuated because of some emergency, but you didn’t bother listing the reasons for the fires. So either a djinn set them, giving you a holiday from the harem, or something else is afoot. And since djinns aren’t usually known for delivering people on the back of a horse and then delivering entire herds of livestock without,” she paused, “I don’t know, stealing a baby or something, I’m guessing it’s something different.”
    Helena exhaled a long puff of air, blowing the long tendrils of curled brown hair out of her face, and with it, any semblance of civility. “What does it matter?” she asked with a curl of her lip. “We have food, you and father and mother get to enjoy life a little more, have less worry. And all you can do is act skeptical and jealous?”
    “Jealous? Oh sister, you don’t know the first thing about me if you think this is jealousy. I’m worried that you’ve got us all into something with your impish, childlike stupidity.” Alara bit her lip. “That was a little stronger than I meant to come across.”
    Her anger boiled inside her for a moment before Helena had to admit, first to herself and then to her skeptical sister, that maybe there was something to that worry. She still felt like she had to defend herself, her decision, but for some reason, she didn’t bother. She knew that with Alara, she was as transparent as a plate of glass.
    “I don’t know,” she finally said. “It all happened so fast that I never had time to think, I just listened to my heart. It was going a lot faster than my brain had time to adjust to.”
    Alara smiled. “So it’s the djinn, then?”
    Helena laughed. For all their differences, she and the decidedly bossier one of the twins had always shared a special bond. Alara was reserved, analytical and intellectual. Helena was... none of those things. Her heart drove the bus, her mind often played second, third, or sometimes fourth, fiddle.
    “Sometimes it feels like he’s a djinn,” Helena said. “What with the secret meetings, the schemes and the plotting. I don’t know, it all just seems so exciting and wonderful. And oh my, the way he kisses, the way he smiles