Magic's Crown

by Sela Carsen

  The thin man moved toward the back door of the barn, a strained smile on his skeletal face. The newly spelled medallion was using the defenses the coven had given it. The further away from her the pendant traveled, the heavier it became. Another few steps, and it would seem as if he was hauling around a small car. But he hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Medina couldn’t keep her focus on the horrible man, distracted by another contraction, working to reposition the foal so it could be born quickly.

  “You can’t stop me. Farewell, printsessa.”

  A low growl followed his words.

  No, not just one. A chorus of them.

  Shura had re-entered through the barn doors and stood at the forefront, head down, eyes focused on Krovatik like a hunter on its prey. Lando echoed the sound just behind her. And from the back came Javi.

  His eyes glowed with an unnatural hunger, his jaws open as he drew in the scent of his quarry. Long claws made a scraping sound with every tread—a smooth glide over the missing step. Only a fool would have assumed the absent leg was a weakness.

  Krovatik was no fool.

  With one hand, he fumbled in the pocket of his cheap, dusty suit jacket until he found a vial similar to the one he’d used in Medina’s office. But instead of letting the potion out to poison the air, he drank it back, shaking the last drop onto his tongue.

  In utter horror, they all watched as the already lanky man became something insectoid.

  Something arachnid.

  His body shrank into itself, yet his legs and arms remained long and spindly and sprouted more appendages on each side of his torso.

  That was how he’d escaped before. The smoke was simply trickery, but the real magic was that he became something the human eye rarely sought out. A simple spider, lurking in the shadows until he was able to crawl out of his hiding places, unobserved. He could climb out windows and down tall buildings. The gross and creepy version of Spiderman.

  He grasped her pendant in one crooked, hairy leg, and a stream of silk shot out of his… back… rear… area. Medina didn’t want to think about where that silk had come from. He flung himself into the air to swing away from the onlookers.

  The weight of the pendant slowed him, but none of the people in the barn had time to capture the criminal as he struggled to carry his treasure.

  The firebird swooped out of the rafters and with one swift peck, Krovatik was no more. Medina wasn’t sure if she’d heard a teeny, tiny “Help me!” from the bug, but it was too late. The leg holding the pendant was still sticking out of the bird’s large beak and dropped to the dusty floor with a soft clang.

  The firebird swallowed.

  No more lawyer.

  Chapter Ten

  The foal nursed hungrily, his little legs wobbly and splayed as he worked to stay upright enough to eat his first meal.

  The ill effects of both the spider bite and the long labor didn’t seem to leave any lasting problems for Galatea as she stood patiently, nuzzling her mate over the stall door. Javi leaned against a post and watched with everyone else as they all got to know the new addition.

  “What are you going to call him?” he asked.

  Katya looked almost as gleeful and exhausted as the new mother, and she beamed at him. “Carran. It means ‘little black one.’ It seemed fitting since he came out the same color as his father.”

  “Except for that white star on his forehead,” said Danil, holding his wife close. “I think he might take after his mother once he’s grown a little more.”

  Medina approached, damp and a lot cleaner than she’d been after getting the unicorn and her baby sorted.

  Javi held out his arm, and she tucked herself into his side as neatly as if they’d been doing it for years. His mate stood by him, strong and sure, and she didn’t care how many legs he had. His life may not have turned out quite the way he’d planned, but it looked pretty good from where he was standing.

  Lando and Shura were busy pouncing and playing with each other until Bubba shook his mane at them. They approached quietly and touched noses with the big horse.

  When the pack of dog, familiar, and werewolf had herded him out of the barn earlier, Javi hadn’t been sure they’d all survive. The kelpie was quicker than anything he’d ever seen, and more than once, they’d all been grazed by one of those murderously sharp hooves.

  It had taken time to calm the horse down, with Danil doing his best to cool his temper. By the time Bubba had gotten himself under control, it had been just quiet enough to hear Krovatik’s voice through the barn doors.

  Javi wouldn’t have minded killing the man. The beast inside him wasn’t so interested in laws and morals and ethics. If it threatened his mate, he’d kill it and eat it. Simple.

  In the end, that hadn’t been necessary. He shuddered. He never thought he’d see a man go out like that, though.

  They didn’t linger, however, and were soon back at his place. Both too exhausted to eat, they fed the dogs and trudged to the bedroom to stare at the single, large mattress.

  Medina looked at him and shrugged with a tired smile. “Can I borrow one of your shirts?”

  He tossed her another one of his old uniform shirts and while she went into the bathroom to change, he stripped down to his boxers. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared down at his leg. The door opened, but neither of them said a word for a while.

  Finally, she said, “Is everything okay? I can go back to my apartment, if you want.”

  Javi jerked his gaze up to hers. “No!” He cleared his throat and looked away before he gentled his tone. “No, that’s not what I want at all. I like you near. It’s… it’s probably stupid.”

  She waited.

  “I don’t want you to see it.” He felt like an idiot even saying the words. This was a terrible idea, but he’d already started. Might as well see it through.

  “See what?”

  “My leg. I know you were there when I shifted, but it’s even uglier up close.”

  She walked up to him, her smooth, pale legs bare under the shirt that reached almost down to her knees. When she got to him, she knelt and placed her hands on his knees. He couldn’t avoid meeting her mismatched eyes.

  “Show me.”

  It took all the courage he had left to unfasten the leg, then roll down the liner.

  There it was. His ugly, scarred, broken stump of a leg. Burn slicks and long marks from surgeries lined up over his knee, and the sparse hair he’d had was mostly rubbed away.

  With a delicacy he should have expected, her fingers began to roam over his leg, touching everywhere. He had no sensation in some places, but in others, even the hint of her skin on his left a trail of fire.

  “Looks like they did a good job, but you’ve been on it too much lately.” She reached over to his nightstand and grabbed the tube of medicated gel he kept there. Spreading some on her hands, she rubbed it lightly over his truncated limb until it absorbed into his skin.

  Then her hands wandered. Before he completely lost the ability to speak, he stopped her stroking fingers. “You’re sure this doesn’t bother you? I mean, you’re Rus royalty. I’m just some one-legged desert stray.”

  “No, you’re the man I want to be with. The werewolf, the everything.” The pendant she wore fell out of the loose neck of the shirt and glimmered in the soft light of lamp on his nightstand. “Is the princess thing really too much for you?”

  Javi’s fingers tightened on hers. “Are you kidding? You’re a dream come true. Even if you are a little cranky sometimes.”

  “We’re going to start calling that royal privilege, thank you very much. And right now, I think my royal privilege is to get into that bed with you and fall asleep.”

  Javi leaned his prosthesis against his nightstand and pulled up the sheet so she could crawl in beside him.

  In moments, they were spooned up together, her leg resting over his while he combed bits of her flyaway hair out of his face. She wrapped her freezing toes around his calf and sighed
as he pulled her closer.

  The dogs were already snoring at the foot of the bed, though Javi knew they’d be up there with them by morning, all in one warm, furry pile.

  “We did good work today, Princess Boris. Real good.”

  She murmured sleepily, and he closed his eyes.

  When he opened them, he thought he was still dreaming. His arms were full of sweet, soft woman, and one of her sharp elbows was digging into his ribs. She definitely snored. It was cute. When he tried to shift her arm out of his soft spot, she woke and turned, swiping her arm over her head to tame her hair back away from her face.

  “Morning, princess.”

  “Morning, wolf.” They grinned at each other and decided there were more interesting things to do with each other than smile like lunatics. It was nearing noon by the time he strapped on his leg and they wandered to the kitchen for an early lunch.

  Javi leaned over to peer into the refrigerator, and he was pretty sure he could sense Medina’s eyes checking him out from behind. Not a bad feeling.

  He was planning on doing something about it when the doorbell rang.

  Both dogs went completely insane, barking and scrabbling at the possibility of a serial killer on the other side of the door, and only went silent when Medina yelled. For such a tiny woman, she had a lot of volume.

  He sighed and opened the door. He was still in his boxers and hadn’t bothered with a shirt, but he was a little irritated that anyone was bothering him today. He figured they deserved an eyeful for being so intrusive.

  Three people stood on the other side. Two were slim, expensively dressed, rather older than he was, and gave off an air of aristocratic elegance that said they’d be right at home in Elenora’s manor.

  The other was an elderly woman with nut-brown skin so wrinkled it looked like well-loved linen. Her black hair was shot through with broad bands of gleaming silver, and up in a grandmotherly bun. She peered up at him through thick glasses and smiled broadly.

  “Javi! You finally got yourself the right woman!”

  The moment Javi opened the door, Medina had scurried to slide on a pair of his jeans rolled at the waist and at the ankles, but there was nothing she could do to feel less scrubby in the face of all these strangers.

  They all stood around Javi’s living room awkwardly until Queta, his grandmother, ushered him into the kitchen. “We have to feed everyone, mijo! Better get started.” With a squeeze of her hand, he followed, leaving her behind with the other guests.

  The man stared at her, peering into her eyes as if he could see her entire life in them. Medina forced herself not to blink until the woman cleared her throat. “Vasily, that’s enough. You’re being rude.”

  Immediately, he pulled back. “My sister is correct. I apologize.” He drew himself up tall and executed a precise bow that wouldn’t have been out of place at Buckingham Palace. “I am Duke Vasily Simyonov. Your uncle. And this is my sister, your aunt, the Countess Zoya Simyonova Desyanich.”

  The woman nodded her head regally.

  “Your father was our younger brother,” Vasily continued. “He dearly loved your mother, whom he had met on a trip over the border from the Rus into Volshev. She was also from a well-established Rus family. You were their golden child.”

  He paused and Zoya filled in. “Then we lost all of you.”

  Her parents had come over from the Rus to visit old Dorotea, as well as her mother’s family, but they never made it to town. There were whispers of evil deeds carried out by the dark Brotherhood of Mysteries and curses laid by Koshchei the Deathless, but in the end, no one was ever able to learn what had happened to them. They had searched, but the connection to Medina’s appearance halfway across the country had never been discovered.

  The investigation by the Nocturne Falls coven had uncovered more of Krovatik’s paperwork in his office back in Volshev. There was evidence that one of the Brotherhood had found the child still alive, and rather than murder her in cold blood, he had sent her through a tiny portal he was able to open into the only other magical town he knew of. The man had kept a portion of the medallion Medina wore, and it had only been located after his death. The other portion had been found in the wreckage of her parent’s car.

  Zoya held out the two pieces, and when Medina brought hers close, they all snapped together with an audible click. As if they’d only been waiting for the other pieces to become whole again.

  “This is yours. It was your father’s, and he gave it to your mother. Now it has come to you. You are Printsessa Natasha Simyonova, a daughter of the Rus.”

  Vasiliy held out a beautifully embroidered handkerchief, and Medina sobbed into it gratefully as she mourned her parents and realized that she had more family than ever.

  When she went into the bathroom after a while to splash some cold water on her face, she looked into the mirror to see Javi leaning against the doorframe.

  “You okay, Boris?”

  “They’re going to think you’re making fun of them if you call me that while they’re here.”

  “I know.” He winked a warm, brown eye at her. “But they’re not in here right now. And I want you to know—whether you decide to go back to the Rus with them, or back to Volshev, or if you stay in Nocturne Falls—how much I care about you.”

  “Oh, Javi.” She walked into his open arms and breathed him in. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I care about you, too.” She could feel a little stiffness in his spine and she drew back to look at him.

  He inhaled and blew it out, obviously gearing himself up to ask something. “Enough to consider staying here while your apartment is being renovated?”

  A day or so ago, she’d been a woman alone. No pet, no lover, and the few friends she had she was alienating with her growing bitterness. It was amazing what a little magic could do to change a life.

  Medina launched herself at him, and he caught her firmly in his strong arms. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

  “And what about after your place is finished?”

  “The lease is almost up for the year, but we’ll figure that out when it’s done. But I get the feeling you might want to make some room in your closet.”

  “I’ll free up a hook by the door for Shura’s leash.”

  “Perfect.” She nuzzled into his neck.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Epilogue

  Bubba watched his foal wobble around after his dam on the banks of Wolf Creek and decided to go for a swim. The weather was getting cool, but he’d been born of a freezing Scottish burn. The water here was merely refreshing.

  He waded in up to his hocks and turned around to see little Carran stand at the edge of the water. The foal splayed his front legs out to dip his nose down and immediately overbalanced. He tumbled into the stream, and Bubba snorted in fear as he rushed to get to his offspring.

  He needn’t have bothered. Carran got his feet under him almost immediately and stood strong in the slight current. A small bit of pondweed stuck in his scrubby little mane, and as he turned to whinny at his parents, Bubba swore he saw a tiny glint of red in his son’s eye.

  His herd was in Nocturne Falls to stay.

  Not Quite the End Yet…

  Final Epilogue

  The Next Beginning

  A man, or what had been a man far too long ago to remember, stood at the top of a tower in a stone fortress deep in a frozen forest.

  He had nearly made it across the portal once, but it had cost him dearly. He would not risk it again, but he needed to find someone he could trust to complete the task he set.

  A lean, hungry wolf prowled in the shadows, its golden eyes glittering with malevolence as it hunted for its next meal.

  The man smiled, lipless over the cadaverous hollows of his skeletal face.

  A servant stood in the open door and bowed deeply. “You called, Lord Koschei?”

  “Tell Vadim the Simyonov’s are of no importance anymore. Our business in Nocturne Falls is finish
ed. I have a new challenge for him in Volshev.”

  * * *

  More Rus magic to come in 2019!

  Author Note

  The inspiration for this story came from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale called “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” The elements of the one-legged soldier, standing and adoring the beautiful paper ballerina from afar, and their love thwarted by an evil troll gave me the ideas I needed to turn that little tale into something with a much happier ending.

  You get personal bonus points if you can find the “Hamilton” and the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” references.

  I’d also like to give a shout out to the wonderful organizations out there that train service dogs for veterans and first responders who deal with PTSD. Got Your Six Support Dogs is one such organization that does this work, and they’re spectacular. Many of our veterans return from active duty and find it difficult—for many reasons—to transition back to civilian life. Too many of them don’t make it. If a trained support dog can help, that’s worth the investment. Thank you.

  Thanks and dedications:

  Writing this final entry in the Nocturne Falls Universe is bittersweet. I’ve had such a wonderful time exploring Kristen’s world, but like even the best stories, it’s time to turn the page.

  I want to thank Kristen and Melanie for their incredible patience and unbelievable organization in developing the NFU for all of us—authors and readers alike. Thanks also to Rebecca Poole, who has made such fun, bright covers for me; to B.J. Harrison who brings these stories to life in the audio versions; and to my editor, Theresa Cole, who not only puts all my commas in the right places, she makes the stories better.

  My family is, as always, my real, everyday inspiration.

  And to my readers: I do this because I hope I bring a smile to your face with every story. Thank you.