His eyes soften. “I’m not surprised you attained that level of acclaim. Your music is truly magical.”
His words send a thrill through me, which I attempt to ignore. “I had opportunities coming out my ass,” I say. “But I guess the prospect of success made me stupid. I had an affair with one of my teachers… and ended up pregnant. He wanted me to have an abortion, and I was ready to. Having a baby would derail my career, my life. Everything I’d worked so hard for. But on the day of the appointment, I couldn’t go through with it. I stayed at school as long as I could while pregnant, but then my grandfather died and I knew it was all coming to an end. My life, my dreams. Everything.”
I swallow my tears along with more whiskey. “And then she was born and I looked into her perfect elfin face and I knew I’d made the right choice. I would give up everything for her. Everything.”
I glare at Rune fiercely. “She is mine to protect. She is mine to raise. And that is non-negotiable. But I don’t expect you to understand.”
I turn away, overcome by my own emotions, hating myself for talking tough about my parenting moments after my baby was stolen from her room.
Rune reaches for my hand. “Bernie, I would like to show you something, with your permission.”
“Show me what?” I ask, returning my gaze to his.
“Close your eyes,” he says, as he places his hands on both sides of my face and leans in until our foreheads are touching. The gesture feels deeply intimate, and I inhale his scent of wildflowers and cinnamon. “I understand more than you know.”
His fingers heat up against my skin and my inner mind glows silver, then everything changes.
I am standing in a forest at night, a gentle breeze tickling the hair on my neck and swaying the branches around me. Dozens of small glowing bugs buzz in the air, casting silver light against the iridescent flowers spread over a vast valley that starts at the edge of the trees.
The sound of insect life scurrying under layers of leaves and mulch fills my ears, and when I inhale, I smell a faint sweetness from the flowers and the musky scent of the rich green foliage surrounding me.
Everything feels so damn real, it’s like being in the most advanced, futuristic virtual reality game.
“Come this way,” Rune says, startling me with his presence. He reaches for my hand and a spark of energy dances on my skin when our palms touch.
He looks down at me, a look of surprise and something else… on his face before he schools his expression to neutral.
Our fingers link and I let him lead me through the trees towards the sound of running water. Of waterfalls and rushing rivers.
A man stands at the edge of the water, placing flowers into a narrow boat.
I gasp, tightening my grip on Rune’s hand when I realize the man we are watching… is him.
He leans to whisper into my ear. “This is the night my wife and child died. I am saying goodbye.” His voice is choked with emotion. “She was the last of our kind to get pregnant and give birth. We hoped it was a sign that the plague on our people was ending. That the prophecy we feared wasn’t coming to pass. That perhaps our combined royal lineage could break this curse. But alas, the child came early, and was stillborn. The birth took her life in the process, and there was nothing I could do with any of my magic to save either of them.”
We watch silently, our grip on each other’s hands tightening, as the Rune of the past pushes the boat into the water. Once it’s moving down the river, he raises an arrow and lights it with a blue fire, then draws his bow and releases. His aim is true, and the boat alights in glowing flames that fill the night sky. He falls to his knees as his wife and child sink, his cries of anguish raw and visceral.
The Rune by my side looks down at me again, his silver eyes glistening with emotion. “I know your fear. Your pain. Your worry. It is mine as well. It is what brought us all here.”
He holds up a hand before I can say anything. “I’m not trying to justify taking your child from you. I just wanted you to understand why.”
There’s an argument to be had, but I see the point Rune’s making. It’s just… not a conversation I know how to have right now, after what I just bore witness to. So, I change the subject.
“I know so little about you three. Can you take me back further? To your time with Darius and Zev?”
A fleeting smile passes over the fae’s face, quickly replaced by a look of longing.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes glistening with unshed tears as he stares into a past I cannot enter. “I’m afraid my heart cannot bear revisiting the memory of another loved one lost to me.”
There are times to question and times to be silent, and I know this is the latter. As much as I want to know more, and even as much as I feel I have the right to know more, sometimes we must choose to be kind over being right. I give him what little solace a squeeze of my hand can provide.
I’m pulled out of the trance by the sound of the bar door slamming open, my heart heavy and my mind thick.
Rune is now sitting next to me, just as he was. But his eyes are still full of the pain I just witnessed. As powerful as our moment was, my mind switches gears immediately when I see AJ race in, a small bundle in her arms.
Darius follows, dragging a man with a hood over his head and his hands tied behind his back, a large white wolf nipping at his heels.
“Rain’s okay,” says AJ, handing my child to me. I grip Rain so tight, probably squeezing air out of her tiny lungs, but I can’t help myself. Now that she’s back, I finally let myself consider the thought I pushed back against so hard--I might have never seen her again.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I say to her. “Mama won’t ever let you go again.”
“And this,” AJ says, reminding me there’s more to this story, “is the bastard who took her.”
I glare as she pulls off his hood... and then I gasp.
“Karl?”
The deadbeat who’s always passed out in my bar? The man who’s known my family for years? That’s the person who kidnapped my baby?
What the hell alternate reality have I stumbled into?
Chapter Nine
I stare into Karl’s familiar face, snow sticking to his ever-present stubble. His large hazel eyes are full of fear and confusion. The fear I understand because he should know he’s about to die; the confusion doesn’t make sense, because there should be no question as to why he’s about to die.
“Karl…” I let the word hang, carrying all the weight of a full sentence.
“Bernie...” Karl responds in kind, and I listen closely to his tone, hoping it will explain his inexplicable behavior.
It doesn’t.
Darius, lacking the patience to read the man’s facial expression, slams him against the bar, holding his face down on the copper surface.
“Who are you?” Darius snarls, his sharp teeth centimeters from Karl’s pulsing jugular vein. “Who sent you for the child?”
Karl keeps his eyes trained on me, ignoring the vampire’s questions.
“Bernie, you know me.”
“I thought I did,” I snap back. It seems like he’s got some point to make, something to say in his defense, but he’s not getting there fast enough.
“These guys, they aren’t what they seem.” If Karl thought that generic understatement was going to win any points, he’s sorely mistaken.
“Neither are you!” My yell startles Rain and makes her cry, but AJ is at my side immediately with a blanket. In a surprisingly swift motion, I wrap the baby, pop out a boob, begin to feed and then return my fiery stare to Karl. I strut toward the bar, feeling incredibly emboldened with these three powerful men backing me up.
“Have you been plotting this? Pretending to be passed out in my bar so you’d know when the baby came?”
Of course, the answer will be no. Karl’s too much of a deadbeat drunk to formulate a plan and then carry it--
“Yes.”
The word doesn’t come from Karl’s mo
uth, but rather from Rune’s. The two look at each other, reading one another’s faces and movements, before Karl looks back at me. His silence confirms the fae’s assessment.
“You don’t understand, Bernie.”
Another cliche one-liner, but he’s not wrong. In a day where every single thing has been strange and stupefying, this is somehow the most unexpected event so far. A regular at the family bar for years, a guy who could never manage to drive himself home at the end of the night, a person everyone in town knows, stole my baby. From my window, on the second floor, in the dark, in a blizzard.
“I’m trying to help you,” Karl says earnestly. “We’re trying to save your baby.”
“Who,” Darius asks, stepping menacingly close to Karl’s face, “is we?”
Zev circles around the captive man, sniffing. Rune grabs Karl by the wrist, inspecting his hand. I’m not sure what answers they’re looking for, but they’re looking intently.
Suddenly, Zev growls. At first I think something about Karl has angered him, but then I see his wolf eyes have moved to the front door. I follow his look and seconds later, the doorknob starts to turn. Jesus, who’s here to steal my baby now?
The door opens about an inch, then slams shut and locks itself. As my frazzled brain tries to remember if the bar door has always made its own decisions, I see the vampire’s hand extended in that direction and realize he did the closing and locking. It’ll take a while for me to get used to all the magic.
AJ moves quietly to a window at the front of the bar and peeks out. “It’s Joe and Frank,” she says, then adds with a smile, “they brought flashlights so you can’t make them leave when the candles burn out.”
“Don’t let them in,” Darius says. “There are too many bodies in here as it is.”
He makes a good point, but sending these guys home almost guarantees they’ll come back fifteen minutes later with Frank’s wife to check up on me. And if she shows up and starts talking, I doubt the most powerful magic in the universe could get her to stop.
“They won’t go without a fight,” I explain.
“Bernie?!” A voice comes from outside, right on cue. “You okay in there? It’s Joe and Frank, we brought some baby toys, pacifiers and shit.”
Sweet, stupid, drunk old men.
When I look back to Darius, he’s gone. As is Karl. And yet I still hear his voice as if he’s inches away.
“Where can I take this intruder?” the invisible Darius asks.
“Wait,” I interrupt, too confused to let this go. “Where are you?”
“He’s right where you last saw him.”
Rune places his hand gently on my shoulder as he speaks, washing that wave of calm over me. God, I need him touching me always.
“I’ve created an illusion along the back of the bar. Darius, gag him now while we let these people in.” Rune looks at me with a sweetness in his eyes, and I’m truly starting to feel he’s on my side. “We’ll run business as usual, if that’s what you think is best. Though, may I suggest closing early so you can get some rest?”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” the invisible Darius says. “I’m going to stitch this cretin to the ceiling upstairs.”
I don’t really know what that means, but I’m also sure he isn’t lying.
“Bern?!” Joe calls again from outside. It would never cross his mind that the bar might be closed, especially because my grandparents had the place open every day except Christmas.
Rune takes a seat at the bar, assuming the role of a customer, I guess. AJ comes over and takes the now-sleeping Rain, who fell asleep while feeding because she’s just so goddamn cute. I walk over to the door, a little jealous I can’t just unlock it from thirty feet away like Darius.
I open up and present Joe and Frank with a big, fake smile, even as a gust of cold nearly knocks me on my ass.
“Hey, guys! Sorry, the wind blew the door open earlier so I locked it. Come on in!”
I turn away to lead them inside, but don’t hear footsteps behind me. When I look back, they’re still frozen in place, staring at the far end of the bar. I follow their eye line and quickly realize the hesitation.
“Oh yeah, that. Ummm… I got a dog.”
I wish I’d had a conversation with Zev about how to explain his presence, but it’s too late for that. Now I’m a dog owner. When people come to my bar, I have a husky the size of a small horse. What a great way to drum up business.
“Where… where’d you get it?” asks Frank, looking legitimately afraid to step foot in the bar. “Cuz that ain’t no dog. That’s a wolf.”
“Maybe it has some mix in it, but he’s totally tame,” I say, as Zev looks up at me and growls under his breath. I want to kick him as a reminder to watch his manners, but that would definitely look bad. “As to where I got him, it’s a long story, Frank. Now, get your ass inside so I can close the door, and I’ll tell you once you’ve had a beer and loosened up.”
They do as they're told, giving me a few seconds to start thinking of a husky-the-size-of-a-huge-wolf buying story that can’t be verified. Fortunately, by the time they reach the bar, they see AJ and what she’s holding. Joe spins back toward me.
“Whoa! Bern! Holy shit! Your baby!”
Holy shit indeed. It’s like every time someone notices Rain, I remember that I’m a brand new mother who should be asleep constantly.
“Yeah, that’s baby Rain,” I say, walking back behind the bar to get her from AJ. “She arrived last night with the help of this guy. Rune.”
Rune has been sitting at the bar, doing his best to be ignored, but I figure it’s less suspicious to open up the introductions now than it is to wait for the guys to ask questions.
Joe and Frank size him up. Normally they’d make fun of a clean man with a handsome face, but Rune’s obvious size and strength keep the jokes at bay. Plus, they take kindly to anyone who helped me out.
“Oh yeah, you were here last night,” Joe says. “Are you a, uh, you know, you a…”
My tired brain is about to answer, “a fae,” but fortunately AJ steps in to save me from myself.
“He’s a doctor. He and another doctor friend are passing through town, thinking of opening up a practice somewhere in Mass. Couldn’t have timed their visit to Morgan’s any better.”
Solid work, AJ. She’s clearly better than me at lying on the spot, which makes it even more important to have her around.
“Where’s the other doctor friend?” Frank asks. “And wait, weren’t there three guys here last night?”
I look down at Zev the wolf, wondering how to answer this question. He returns my gaze, and I get a very strange feeling sharing a look with a wolf who I know is not just a wolf.
“No, just the two guys that I remember,” I answer, unwittingly locking Zev into wolf form whenever the bar is open.
“The other guy, Darius, he is…” I launch into this sentence before I have any idea of where it’s headed, but the bar door swings open and finishes my story for me.
“He is here!”
Darius enters casually, giving me a slight nod and taking a seat by Rune. I watch the two lock eyes briefly and I’m positive they just linked brains, filling each other in on everything missed. When they finish their mind gossip, Darius turns to Joe and Frank, offering a forced smile.
“Do you gentlemen know Karl? I was speaking with him last night. He said he… had some lodging recommendations.”
Joe and Frank start laughing immediately as I put my hand over my eyes. I’ve never seen someone so bad at lying to small town folk.
“Talking to Karl?” Joe says with a chuckle. “He must have been sleep talking, drunken fool.”
“Of course we know Karl,” Frank adds. “Grew up with his dad, our grandpas went to war together. Known his family for generations.”
Joe nods, not going into his family history, even though I’m sure it’s similar.
Rune and Darius share a knowing look and probably a little mental dialogue that I wish I cou
ld hear, despite my earlier insistence that they stay out of my head.
With Rain asleep in my arms and my own eyelids feeling like they're made of lead, I decide this is as good a chance as any to duck away for sleep. AJ’s quick enough on her feet to answer questions, Rune can create an illusion if necessary, and as long as Darius doesn’t lose his cool and rip someone’s throat out, we should be fine.
I bid my goodnights and grab a candle as I head for the backdoor. Before I can leave, I sense the familiar feeling of another’s words penetrating my mind.
I’m sorry to enter your thoughts and break my promise, Bernie, Darius says, but I want you to know the intruder is bound to the kitchen ceiling with unbreakable ropes. You’ll be safe upstairs, but perhaps avoid that room. Zev will join you.
It’s a fair warning, as I for sure would have shit myself if I walked into the kitchen and saw Karl magically roped to the ceiling.
I look back at Darius, who now has his eyes trained on the wolf. After a few seconds, Zev rises and clambers up the stairs. I turn back to Darius.
Thanks, I think, guessing at how telepathic communication works.
You’re welcome, I hear in response.
I pat Joe on the shoulder, kiss AJ on the cheek, and head upstairs, baffled and amused at the state of my life.
My dreams are full of Rune. We’re standing in the snow, but everything feels warm. His hands touch every inch of my skin, starting at my shoulders, stroking down my arms, then moving to my torso, rubbing my back at first, then turning me away from him so he can caress my stomach and breasts. I feel him pressed against me, and it’s clear we both enjoy the feel of each other’s skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers in my ear, over and over. I’m in the state of sleep where I know this is a dream, and yet it’s as vivid as any I’ve ever had. His breath tickles my ear, sending shivers down my spine and raising goosebumps on my sensitive flesh.
When I turn back to face him, he’s naked, his body chiseled and smooth. As I reach down for him, he puts a hand on my shoulder, stopping me.
A Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Fae Walk Into a Bar Page 8
