Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (11 page)

I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to carve that on my headstone.” But not for a while, hopefully.

“That means I get to break one too,” he said, and before I could argue, he glanced over his shoulder and shouted. “Nea! Come look what I found!”

A second later, Nea jogged down the steps, followed by Desi and the third female harpy, all missing their jackets. They’d dropped the human disguises in their own home.

“Sabine wants her bauble back, and I think we should let her keep it. But she’s gonna have to leave us something else instead.” Troy stalked toward me, and I looked past him to the stairs. But Nea stood at the base of them, and I’d never get past her.

“Hold her,” Nea ordered, and the two other girl harpies rushed me.

I punched the first one in the gut, but before she even hit the ground, Desi grabbed my other arm and nearly dislocated my shoulder. I can hold my own in a fair fight, but two on one? While the other two had harpy speed and strength, clawlike nails, and jaws that could bite through a human tibia? I should have brought a weapon.

The downed harpy stood, and Troy grabbed my right hand. “I think this little piggy is a fair trade, don’t you?”

“Piggies are toes, dumb-ass,” I snapped.

Troy only shrugged. “Want something to squeeze, for the pain?”

I glanced pointedly at his groin, my heart racing so fast my vision was starting to blur. “How ’bout something to break off?”

He shook his head slowly and squeezed my fingers until I had to bend them or let him snap them. Then he pulled my index finger back up, preparing to rip it off. “Should I count to three?”

But before I could answer, a loud thud came from the kitchen. Something heavy crashed down the stairs, tumbling end over end. Nea jumped out of the way in time to avoid the rolling wooden cart, but the microwave hit her leg when it flew off the top. She went down, stunned, but not out.

Emma ran halfway down the stairs holding the rail in one hand and a steak knife in the other, and I blinked, sure I was hallucinating. I would never have expected fight over flight from her. Did she actually give a damn about me, even after I’d driven her straight into hell? Or did she just want the car keys?

Troy dropped my fist and ran to help Nea. I jerked my other hand from Desi and punched the other harpy. Then I stumbled my way through the piles of junk toward the stairs. But Emma was gone.

Pulse racing, I whirled around to find her in the middle of the basement, buried knee-deep in crap, eyes wide with fear, jaw stiff with defiance. Troy stood behind her, one arm tight around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Just like in Syrie’s picture.

“Em, you okay?” I asked, as the three others gathered around them, heedless of the mess they stood in. All four sets of harpy eyes watched me, shining in the light from overhead. All four bodies looked tense and eager to lunge at me, finger-claws ready to shred flesh.

“Been better,” Emma said, and I was surprised by how steady she sounded. “What the hell is all this?”

“You were supposed to stay in the car.”

She shrugged, the gesture limited by Troy’s grip on her. “I
told
you I had to pee.”

“I think I’d rather have this than your tiny little finger.” Troy stuck his nose into Emma’s hair and she flinched, but remained resolutely, impressively still while he sniffed her. “She looks good enough to eat.”

If I gave her to them, they’d let me go. But though I was a predator, I wasn’t a murderer, and crossing that line would make Nash see me like everyone else did—as a monster. Hell,
I’d
see me as a monster if I left her, especially since she’d come down to help me.

But Em saw my moment of indecision, and that’s when she truly started to panic. “Sabine . . . ?” She struggled against Troy’s grip, but he held her easily.

“Let her go.”

Troy’s mocking smile widened. “But she’s good for several meals, and I swear we’d savor every bite.”

“Get the hell off me, you sick fuck,” Emma spat. And I realized she was going to try something an instant before she threw her head back.

There was an audible crunch, then a screech as Troy dropped her to grip his ruined nose. Emma ran for the stairs. Nea and the other harpies lunged for her. Pulse racing, I spun in search of a weapon and grabbed the only possibility nearby—a human femur.

I turned as the redheaded harpy tripped over a box on the floor and went down hard, and I was already scrambling after the other two, Nea in the lead.

Emma hit the first step and grabbed the rail.

Stumbling over a cracked mop bucket, I fought for balance then swung the bone. The ball joint smashed into Desi’s skull, and I spared a moment to be thankful she hadn’t spread her wings, probably because of the low ceiling.

The redheaded harpy crouched and hissed at me as Nea grabbed a handful of Emma’s hair and hauled her down three steps to the floor.

I swung again as the redhead raked pointed almost-claws toward my face. Her nails scored my cheek. My club—someone’s bone—slammed into her temple. The old femur broke in half, but she was down for the count.

At the base of the staircase, Nea stood with one hand tangled in Emma’s hair, the other around her throat. Emma looked scared, but she was holding it together. I stepped forward, ready to fight bare-handed since I’d lost my club—until something heavy landed on my back.

I stumbled forward, scrambling to regain my balance, and Troy’s screechy voice whispered in my ear. “Shoulda just let me have her. . . .” He threw his weight to one side, trying to knock me off balance. If he hadn’t been light—necessary physiology for anything that flies—that would have worked. Instead, I braced one hand against the wall and reached back with the other. My fist curled around a leathery handful of wing, edged by a long, thin bone, like the elongated fingers that frame a bat’s wings.

I pulled. Hard. Something tore with a satisfying, visceral pop. Troy screamed and when he fell, his wing ripped all the way to the pointed joint at the top. His screech hit notes that would have made a
bean sidhe
wince.

Troy would never fly again.

While he screamed and clutched what he could reach of his ruined wing, I race-shuffled through piles of junk toward the stairs, where Nea had already hauled Emma halfway to the first floor.

I jogged up the steps. Nea heard me and tried to turn, but she was confined by the tight space. I grabbed the base of her left wing and pulled, clinging to the stair rail with one hand. Nea screamed and let go of Emma. I shoved the harpy with both hands. She fell over the rail and crashed into a pile of old-fashioned metal toys.

“Go!” I shouted to Emma, as injured harpies got to their feet below us.

Em bent for something on the next tread, then raced up the last few steps and into the kitchen. On the first floor, I grabbed her arm and hauled her through the house, only pausing for a second when Emma gasped at the sight of Syrie standing in the middle of the living room floor, empty left eye socket aimed right at us, purple pencil clutched in one fist.

Then we were moving again. We ran out of the house, across the yard, and around the side of the store, ducking twice when a harpy lookout dived toward us from the sky. I dug the keys from my pocket and popped the locks remotely as we rounded the corner into the parking lot.

Em pulled open her door while I slid into the driver’s seat, and a second later, she slammed one hand down on her lock. I started the car, shifted into drive, and cut across the corner of the sidewalk, then shot toward the dark road.

“Who was that girl?” Em demanded, panting as the speedometer bobbed toward eighty and I finally remembered to turn on the headlights. “The one missing an eye?”

“Syrie.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. They couldn’t follow us without losing their jobs and forfeiting their lives. But not checking seemed careless. “She’s an oracle. I don’t know where they found her, but they’ve been charging for her services for years.”

“She gave you this?” Emma plucked Syrie’s drawing from the center console, where it had fallen.

“Don’t. . . .” I tried to grab the paper, but she unfolded it, holding it out of my reach.

“Uh-oh,” she said, staring at the image of her best friend.

I shrugged. “From my perspective, it’s more of a ‘Woo-hoo!’ kind of moment.”

“Are you gonna show her?” Emma breathed, and I could feel her staring at me. “Are you gonna show
Nash
?” Then, before I could answer, she gripped my arm. “You can’t tell them. You don’t know that this is really going to happen, just because some half-blind little girl drew it on a piece of paper.”

“She’s never been wrong, Em. Syrie is how I found Nash in the first place.”

“Fine. But you don’t know the context. This could be nothing—unless you make it into something.”

And that was just
one
of the options I’d considered. . . .

“Sabine, if you show this to Nash, I’ll tell him you nearly got me eaten by a harpy.”

“I’m not going to show him.” For now.

“Good. Then I guess I won’t dump this all over you.” She shifted onto one hip to dig in the opposite pocket, then held something out to me. “I found it on the stairs. It’s yours, right?”

I glanced at the vial of liquid envy cradled in her open palm and couldn’t resist a smile. “Thanks, Em,” I said, and she smiled back, like we might actually be friends someday. But we wouldn’t, because we lived in different worlds, and mine wasn’t as simple as black and white, truth and lie.

My version of the truth was that I
wasn’t
going to tell Nash— not yet, anyway. But that had nothing to do with her lame-ass threat and everything to do with not tipping my hand until the time was right.

I didn’t want to win the battle. I wanted to win the war.

Merely Mortal
by Melissa Marr

want
this
.” Keenan stared out at the expanse of snow that coated the lawn of the Winter Queen’s house.
Our house. Our
home
.
Outside of her domain, it was still autumn, but within her immediate area, it was always winter. For most of his nine hundred years, that would have been debilitating to him. Now—because of Donia—he had rediscovered how perfect snow and ice could be.

The Winter Queen came to stand beside him. Without any of the doubts—
maybe a twinge—
that he’d felt with her for decades, he wrapped an arm around her waist. She was the reason for everything he had that was good in his life. During the past few months with her, he’d known a peace and happiness he hadn’t ever experienced. Even if he lived the rest of his life as a human, he was happier than he’d ever been in all of his years as a faery.
All because of Donia.
Unfortunately, the faery who had given him such bliss wasn’t as happy as he was.

“We could stay home,” Donia offered again.

“No. You asked what I wanted.” He turned to face her, studying her expression for some clue as to her mood, as he had been the past few weeks. Her worry over his new humanity had created an unpleasant tension in her, and all Keenan wanted was to erase her worries and fears, and prove to her that they would be happy whether or not he remained merely mortal. “I want to go away with you. Just us.”

“But—”

“Don, it’ll be fine.” He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. “We’ve never taken a vacation.
Ever
. We’ll go away, spend some time together, talk, relax.”

She exhaled softly, her sigh of cold air muffled by his scarf, and then whispered, “It’s so near winter starting, though.”

“And last month it was too warm. I’m
not
objecting to being here at the house or on the grounds with you, but we have a few days between summer ending and winter beginning. It’s a perfect time to steal away. Let’s take time for
us.
” He leaned back and stared directly into her frost-laden eyes. “The world was nearly frozen for years, and even if things do stay warm a little longer, the mortals won’t object.”

Donia turned away, staring past him as if doing so would hide her worry.

Carefully, even though he couldn’t hurt her with his touch now, Keenan threaded his fingers through her hair until she looked at him again. “Come away with me. Please?”

“Maybe we should take a few guards. Cwenhild says—”

“Cwenhild worries because she saw you when you were . . . when you almost . . .” Keenan’s voice faltered at the memory of Donia’s recent brush with death. Nothing had ever terrified him as that injury had.

He kissed her with all of the intensity that the thought of
that
day brought to him. He’d almost lost her.

She was his reason for living; everything that he’d ever dreamed of, perfect in ways that he’d long believed made their relationship impossible. All he had to do now was convince her that whether he remained mortal or tried the admittedly risky routes to regain his faery nature, they
would
be happy.

He felt snow fall around them as she relaxed into the kiss. Big fluffy flakes formed in the air; the brush of each flake was a welcome sensation, proof that she was happy.

Then she leaned away.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Stop kissing me to worry.” He trailed his fingertips along her face and down her throat. “We’ll be fine, and even if we did need the guards, they are only a blink away. You know she’ll send guards trailing after us.” He paused and hid his fear under teasing. “Or is it that have I lost your attention already?”

Donia smiled, as he’d hoped she would, and said, “No. I’m just not as . . . ridiculously
optimistic
as you are about everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m uninterested.”

He widened his eyes and shook his head, hoping that his flashes of insecurity weren’t as obvious to her as they were to him. Whenever she pulled away, he had the irrational fear that she’d decide his mortal state was reason to give up on the years they could have, that his loss of faery strength and longevity was grounds for sending him away, that his change was going to lead to her rejection. Lightly, he said, “I don’t know. You may have to prove it. There was definite wandering of attention.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “very much so.”

Smiling, she took his hand and led him to their room.

Two hours later, Donia was smiling to herself. She watched as he tossed their bags into the trunk and opened the door to let her wolf, Sasha, into the backseat of the Thunderbird. She gave Keenan another kiss and then climbed into the car. With the sort of laughter she’d enjoyed more and more since he’d moved into her house, he spun the car in a circle in the icy drive and zipped into traffic.

As they left Huntsdale behind them, her fears of all the things that could go wrong—the enemies that could break the now-mortal boy beside her, the fear that her own Winter would slip out and injure him—seemed more manageable. They were together; they were taking a vacation; and they were very obviously being trailed by the Winter Court guards.

I could tell him that I
asked
Cwenhild to send guards. I could tell him that his mortal fragility terrifies me . . . but that would lead to talking about his foolish plan to risk taking Winter inside his skin.
He hadn’t brought it up in the past few days, but he would do so again. He had latched on to the idea that he could lift the Winter Queen’s staff, much as she had all of those years ago, and that in doing so, Winter would fill him. He’d even reasoned that it might be painless because he was fey until recently. He discounted the risks: that it would hurt him, kill him. He wasn’t any more willing to bow under impossible odds than he had been when he was a bound faery king.
Or when I was dying.

Donia had tears in her eyes as she looked over at Keenan. He didn’t take his attention from the road but still unerringly reached out and twined their fingers together.

If he knew how much becoming fey could hurt, would he still want to try?

If he knew what it felt like to take ice inside a human body, would he want to try?

Would
I
have decided to risk it if I had known?

“Don?” He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be fine. Whatever it is, it’ll be fine.”

“You’re . . .” She let her words drift away with a cloud of frosty air.

“Relax, please.” He glanced over at her. “Next week we can deal with whatever you’re worried about. Right now, I just want to be together, have a holiday with the faery I love.” He smiled before chiding her, “Remember: you already agreed. Faeries don’t lie.”

“I did agree.” She smiled even as the reminder of faery rules—of the fact that
she
was fey while he was not—made her want to weep.
Faeries
might not lie, but he wasn’t a faery now. He’d given that up to save her life.

She angled her body so that she was staring at him. “And I
am
enjoying the scenery.”

Keenan laughed, but he kept his gaze on the road as she continued pointedly looking at him. Once she’d thought she took pleasure in looking at him because she couldn’t touch him, but now, she realized that it was simply the sight of him that pleased her. His sunlit skin hadn’t entirely faded when he’d become mortal. Unlike the mostly snow-pale faeries of her court, Keenan retained the sun-darkened skin he’d had as Summer King. His eyes were an icy blue now, but they were still beautiful enough to remind her why she’d stumbled over her own name when he’d first approached her almost a century ago—back when
she
was the mortal one.

He was relaxed, and even though he’d shed some of the volatility of the Summer Court, he was still impetuous. He’d been born of both Summer and Winter, so even after surrendering his sunlight and his faery nature, his nature was mixed in a way that hers wasn’t. Although, as he reminded her regularly, Winter wasn’t
only
calm either. Together, they’d found a peace, but it hadn’t dampened their passion at all. If anything, their passion had increased because they understood each other more fully.

Even if I’m not able to be impulsive.

Even if I must worry that I’ll injure him.

As a queen, not merely a faery burdened with the ice, she had control of herself. It was difficult, though, and she understood why Keenan had never lain with mortals. Every time they touched, she worried that she would lose control too much, but then he smiled at her, and she couldn’t say no.

For years, Keenan had made her believe in the impossible; he had made her strong enough to believe she could defeat monsters, to risk everything for his smile, to laugh even when they were facing daunting trials.
Because he is beside me.
She wanted to believe in the impossible now, but it was different when the risk was that she would lose him. Now that he was truly hers, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to risk anything that could take him away.
Is it better to have him for a few years, knowing he will die, or to take the risk that could either give us eternity—or end the years we
do
have?

“Are you with me?”

“I am,” she whispered. “I love you.”

He did glance at her this time. “You too. Always.” He paused, looked back at the road, and asked, “Okay, I give. What’s up? I know you, Don. You have that faraway look again.”

“I was thinking about us and . . . things.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you suggested this trip.”

“And?”

Donia gave him a reassuring smile. “You make me happy, and I want
you
to be happy. So . . . no more worrying. We’re out here on a normal ‘human’ holiday.” She swept her arm out, gesturing at the traffic on the freeway, the roadside advertisements, and the lights of buildings she could see along the exit. “You’re
new
to being human, and it’s been almost a century since I was human. Back then . . .” She laughed at the sudden memory of her father’s scowling face. “Do you remember when you asked Papa to let you walk me home?”

Keenan switched lanes and directed the car onto the freeway exit. “He thought I had impure intentions.”

“You did,” she teased.

“I wanted your heart more, Don.” He said nothing else until he pulled into a parking spot. He turned off the engine and grinned at her before adding, “Of course, I wanted your body too. I still do. I
always
have.”

She laughed. “Likewise.”

Keenan felt tension he hadn’t even realized he was carrying slip away as he opened Donia’s door and took her hand. Traveling with Donia was new. In all of the years they’d known each other, they’d never simply traveled for fun.
Or alone.
In truth, vacation itself was a peculiar experience for Keenan. He’d only ever been away from his court for a few short months in his centuries of living, and even then, he hadn’t been able to step away from the thoughts of the conflict he’d be returning to confront. Now, however, he was determined to enjoy an utterly peaceful trip with his beloved.

“Rest stops,” Keenan said. “I’m not sure about these.”

“You wanted a ‘human experience.’” Donia smothered a smile. “‘Road trips,’ you said. ‘Perfectly ordinary nonroyal travel,’ you said.”

Keenan looked at the litter-strewn ground, tables fastened down, and overtired families who all seemed to have dogs in their cars. With Sasha in the backseat, they almost looked like they fit in.

Nonroyal. Just us.

“You’re right.” He zipped his jacket. “I believe these sorts of trips include nonscheduled diversions too.”

The look Donia gave him was more suspicious than he expected. “Keenan . . .”

“Be right back. You can . . . walk our dog.” He grinned at Sasha, who bared his teeth in reply. Keenan laughed.

Donia and Sasha both watched him with expressions somewhere between bemused and irritated as he went into the building advertising itself as a “Welcome Center.”

Inside, he started gathering pamphlets on everything from wine tasting to caving to antique malls to a “miniature golf extravaganza.” He pulled out one for a hiking trail, another for an indoor racetrack, and several for bed-and-breakfasts.