For Whom the Spell Tolls (31 page)

“Then it’s decided,” Knight said at last.

“What’s decided?”

He chuckled at my inability to follow the conversation. “You are moving in with me and, to that end, I also already recommended Christina for the position as second in command to Caressa.”

“And?”

“And Christina accepted it.” He wore an amused smile. “Apparently, Quill accepted a position to work at the ANC in the Netherworld, as well.”

I felt my eyebrows reaching for the ceiling. “When did this whole dating thing happen between the two of them?” I asked, shaking my head. “Because I totally missed it.”

Knight shrugged. “It seems to have taken everyone by surprise.” Then he paused for a few seconds and studied me. “Are you … okay with it?”

“Okay with it?” I repeated, like I was amazed he would even ask. “Of course I’m okay with it. I think Christina is great for Quill and vice versa.”

I rested my head against his chest again, savoring his warmth as it seeped into me. I watched the throngs of couples surrounding us talk amongst themselves and hold one another, just as Knight and I were. Rachel and Mike moved past us; she was dressed as a bride and he as a groom. When she caught my attention, she smiled and I returned it. I couldn’t help but think about how incredibly lucky I was to hold the man of my dreams while an exciting future awaited us.

“Hey, Dulce?” Knight asked softly.

“Hmm?” I answered.

“One thing I never could figure out,” he started, clearing his throat as he smiled down at me. “How were you able to come back after your father shot you? I felt for your pulse, but you didn’t have one.”

My mother’s image flashed into my mind and I felt myself smiling inwardly. It took me a few seconds to answer. “Oh, you know, it’s one of my fairy abilities,” I answered nonchalantly, even adding a shrug. “Stick around and you might find out what else I’m capable of.”

Knight chuckled and pulled me closer into him. “Oh, I plan to, Dulcie O’Neil, do I ever plan to.”

THE END

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Quill:
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Bram:
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Sam:
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COMING SOON FROM HP MALLORY...

Book 1 of the Lily Harper series

(Continue on for Chapter One)

“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, For the straight foreward pathway had been lost.” ~ Dante’s Inferno

ONE

The rain pelted the windshield relentlessly. Drops like little daggers assaulted the glass, only to be swept away by the frantic motion of the wipers. The scenery outside my window melted into dripping blobs of color through a screen of gray. I took my foot off the accelerator and slowed to forty miles an hour, focusing on the blurry yellow lines in the road.

Lightning stabbed the gray skies. A roar of thunder followed and the rain came down heavier, as if having been reprimanded for not falling hard enough.

“This rain is gonna keep on comin’, folks,” the radio meteorologist announced.  Annoyed, I changed the station and resettled myself into my seat to the sound of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons, Summer.”
Ha, Summer…

The rain morphed into hail. The visibility was slightly better, but now I was under a barrage of machine-gunned ice. I took a deep breath and tried to imagine myself on a sunny beach, sipping a strawberry margarita with a well-endowed man wearing nothing but a banana hammock and a smile.

In reality, I was as far from a cocktail on a sunny beach with Sven, the lust god, as possible. Nope, I was trapped in Colorado Springs in the middle of winter. If that weren’t bad enough, I was late to work. Today was not only my yearly review but I also had to give a presentation to the CEO, defending my decision to move forward with a risky and expensive marketing campaign. So, yes, being late didn’t exactly figure into my plans.

With a sigh, I cranked up the heat and tried to enact my presentation in my head, tried to remember the slides from my PowerPoint and each of the points I needed to make. I held my chin up high and cleared my throat, reminding myself to look the CEO and the board of directors in the eyes and not to say “um.”

“Choc-o-late cake,” I said out loud, opening my mouth wide and then bringing my teeth together again in an exaggerated way. “Choc-o-late cake.” It was a good way to warm up my voice and to remind myself to pronounce every syllable of every word I said. And, perhaps the most important point to keep in mind—not to rush.

This whole being late thing wasn’t exactly good timing, considering I was going to ask for a raise. With my heart rate increasing, I remembered the words of Jack Canfield, one of the many motivational speakers whose advice I followed like the Bible.

“’When you've figured out what you want to ask for’, Lily, ‘do it with certainty, boldness and confidence’,” I quoted, taking a deep breath and holding it for a count of three before I released it for another count of three. “Certainty, boldness and confidence,” I repeated to myself. “Choc-o-late cake.”

Feeling my heart rate decreasing, I focused on counting the stacks of chicken coops in the truck ahead of me—five up and four across. Each coop was maybe a foot by a foot, barely enough room for the chickens to breathe. White feathers decorated the wire and contrasted against the bright blue of a plastic tarp that covered the top layer of coops. The tarp was held in place by a brown rope that wove in and around the coops like spaghetti. I couldn’t help but feel guilty about the chicken salad sandwich currently residing in my lunch sack but then I remembered I had more important things to think about.

“Choc-o-late cake.”

The truck’s brake lights suddenly flashed red. The coops rattled against one another as the truck lurched to a stop. A vindictive gust of wind caught the edge of the blue tarp and tore it halfway off the coops. As if heading for certain slaughter wasn’t bad enough, the chickens now had to freeze en route. My concern for the birds was suddenly interrupted by another flash of the truck’s brake lights.

Then I heard the sound of my cell phone ringing from my purse, which happened to be behind my seat. I reached behind myself, while still trying to pay attention to the road, and felt around for my purse. I only ended up ramming my hand into the cardboard box which held my velvet and brocade gown. The dress had taken me two months to make and was as historically accurate to the gothic period of the middle ages as was possible.

I finally reached my purse and then fingered my cell phone, pulling it out as I noticed Miranda’s name on the caller ID.

“Hi,” I said.

“I’m just calling to make sure you didn’t forget your dress,” Miranda said in her high pitch, nasally voice.

“Forget it?” I scoffed. “Are you kidding? This is only one of the most important evenings of our lives!” Yes, tonight would mark the night that, if successful, Miranda and I would be allowed to move up the hierarchical chain of our medieval reenactment club. We’d started as lowly peasants and had worked our way up to the merchant class and now we sought to be allowed entrance into the world of the knights.

“Can you imagine us finally being able to enter the class of the knights?” Miranda continued. Even though I obviously couldn’t see her, I could just imagine her pushing her coke bottle glasses back up to the bridge of her nose as she gazed longingly at the empire-waisted, fur trimmed gown (also historically accurate!) that I’d made for her birthday present.

“Yeah, we’ll have way better costumes, that’s for sure,” I said as I nodded.

“And maybe Albert will finally want to talk to me,” Miranda continued, again in that dreamy voice.

I didn’t think becoming a knight’s lady would make Albert any more aware of Miranda but I didn’t say anything. If the truth be told, Albert was far more aware of the knights than he ever was of their ladies.

“Okay, Miranda, I gotta go. I’m almost to work,” I said and then heard the beep on the other line which meant someone else was trying to call me. I pulled the phone away from my ear and after quickly glancing at the road, I tried to answer my other call. That was when I heard the sound of brakes screeching.

I felt like I was swimming through the images that met me next—my phone landing on my lap as I dropped it, my hands gripping the wheel until my knuckles turned white, the pull of the car skidding on the slick asphalt, and the tail end of the truck in front of me, up close and personal. I braced myself for the inevitable impact.

Even though I had my seatbelt on, the jolt was immense. I was suddenly thrown forward only to be wrenched backwards again, as if by the invisible hands of some monstrous Titan. Tiny threads of anguish weaved up my spine until they became an aching symphony that spanned the back of my neck.

The sound of my windshield shattering pulled my thoughts from the pain. I opened my right eye—since the left appeared to be sealed shut—to find my face buried against the steering wheel.

I couldn’t feel anything. The searing pain in my neck was soon a fading memory and nothing, but the void of numbness reigned over the rest of my body. As if someone had turned on a switch in my ears, a sudden screeching met me like an enemy. The more I listened, the louder it got—a high-pitched wailing. It took me a second to realize it was the horn of my car.

My vision grew cloudy as I focused on the white of the feathers that danced through the air like winter fairies, only to land against the shattered windshield and drown in a deluge of red. Sunlight suddenly filtered through the car until it was so bright, I had to close my good eye.

And then there was nothing at all.

###

“Number three million, seven hundred fifty thousand and forty-five.”

I shook my head as I opened my eyes, blinking a few times as the nasal-toned voice droned in my ears. Not knowing where I was, or what was happening, I glanced around nervously, absorbing the nondescript beige of the walls. Plastic, multicolored chairs littered the room like discarded toys. What seemed like hundreds of people dotted the landscape of chairs in the stadium sized room. Next to me, though, was only an old man. Glancing at me, he frowned. I fixed my attention on the snarly looking employees trapped inside multiple rows of cubicles. Choosing not to focus on them, I honed in on an electric board above me that read:
Number 3,750,045.

The fluorescent green of the board flashed and twittered as if it had just zapped an unfortunate insect. I shook my head again, hoping to remember how the heck I’d gotten here.  My last memory was in my car, driving in the rain as I chatted with Miranda. Then there was that truck with all the chickens.
An accident—I’d gotten into an accident
. After that, my thoughts blurred into each other. But nothing could explain why I was suddenly at the DMV.

Maybe I was dreaming. And it just happened to be the most lucid, real dream I’d ever had and the only time I’d ever realized I was dreaming while dreaming.
Hey, stranger things have happened, right?

I glanced around again, taking in the low ceiling. There weren’t any windows in the dreary room. Instead, posters with vibrant colors decorated the walls, looking like circus banners. The one closest to me read:
Smoking kills
. A picture of a skeleton in cowboy gear, atop an Appaloosa further emphasized the point. Someone had scribbled “ha ha” in the lower corner.

“Three million, seven hundred fifty thousand and forty-five!”