by Rita J Webb
“Angelina, don’t—” His voice breaks. “Please don’t. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Mix the blood with the catnip and the frosting and put it on the cake. Then you will eat it.”
“All right. All right.” He grabs the vial of blood off the floor and looks around. “Um, the catnip and frosting?”
She points at three carefully stacked storage containers on a table. Opening the smallest, he sniffs—“Catnip.”—and pours the blood into it.
“You got anything to stir with?”
“Of course, there’s spoons, spatulas, and forks in my bag. Down there by the leg of the table.”
He retrieves a plastic bag and fishes out a spoon, which he then uses to stir and then pour the mixture into the container of frosting. Then he spreads it over the cake.
He pauses before cutting the cake and taking a bite.
“Jason, no, I’m not worth it.”
“Shut up.” She thunks the gun on the still throbbing spot on my head where she hit me before. “Eat it, Jason, or I kill her.”
Jason takes the bite.
“Eat the whole cake.”
He obeys.
My heart sinks into my feet. The one person in this world with an indomitable spirit. Now broken and tamed all because my sister hates me.
Leaving her post beside me, Angelina saunters across the room to him. I grab the chair and slam it across her back.
She cries out and stumbles to her knees. I hit her again. And again.
Until she slumps to the ground.
I check the pulse in her throat, thrumming steadily beneath my finger, and relieved she’s still alive, I run to Jason, grab his hand, and dash out the door and into the dark labyrinth of rooms beyond.
I can hear her moan and get to her feet, and I drag Jason behind a desk.
His hand cups the back of my neck and he pulls my face to his.
Oh no, I thought I was saving him. Instead, I traded one disaster for another.
Chapter 9
~ JASON ~
“NO, NO, NO. You can’t fall in love with me,” Emma whispers in my ear.
“Too late.” My lips find hers, and I scoop her up and drag her onto my lap. She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me back, her lips so soft, her teeth hard as she nips my lower lip.
She lets out a small sob and then a moan, and I pull her tighter.
Gripping my shirt, she pushes me back. “Jason. Stop. You’re not yourself. You don’t know what you are doing.”
“I always know what I’m doing.”
“Jason. Please.”
I snag her lip with my teeth, but she pulls away from me and buries her face in my chest.
I want her so bad.
Wrapping my arms around her, I hug her too me and nuzzle my face into her neck. She smells like sugar.
“Emma, would you . . . ? Could we . . . ?”
The sound of a footstep in the doorway, and Emma places her hand over my mouth. A light scans the room, casting a shadow of the desk we’re hiding behind against the wall, and then the footsteps recede.
“Emma—”
“Shh,” a ragged voice hisses behind us.
The chimera—half wolf, half bird—steps out of the shadows and crouches down beside us, behind the desk we are hiding under.
Emma turns bright red and tries to scoot off my lap, but I hold her tight. I strain to listen to the faint sound of tiptoes in the hall.
The light scans the room again, and Angelina sighs in the doorway. With a quiet cuss word, she stomps back the way she came.
When I met her this morning, I thought something smelled funny. Something felt . . . off. All these years, my eyes were so focused on Emma that I never noticed Angelina. We had thousands of tricks to ditch Angelina whenever their mom insisted we bring her with us.
Angelina would cry if her dress got torn or if she got mud on her shoes. She was a sweet kid, still is, and pretty, but kid is the operative word here.
I want more than a good, little girl who bakes cookies and looks good in a dress.
Emma, on the other hand—there’s nothing childish about the way she makes my blood pump. The way she makes my soul come alive.
I love every quirk of her mouth, the way she pinches her lip when she’s thinking, how she fights back with everything she’s got. She soothes whatever non-human side of me breaks loose, the part of me that I’m afraid could tear the world apart.
Angelina’s steps disappear down the hall, and I hear her kick a wall and then say, “Ouch.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
The wolf sneezes and a cloud of dust billows.
“Quiet,” I tell him.
“You were the one making all the noise.”
“Why are you still here, wolf? Your contract with us ended when we found the girl.” I crawl out and stand up, keeping Emma’s hand in mine.
He stands on his hind legs and looks down at me. “Curiosity. You aren’t like the rest of your kind. Dalliances with humans. Too undisciplined to ignore the call of a siren. You even ate the love potion to save a mere girl.”
“What are you trying to say?” What I want to ask is what kind am I.
“Now you owe me a favor.”
“You stayed of your own free will.”
“I untied your girl’s hands. Saved her life. How much is that worth to you.”
A lot. A whole damn lot. Everything.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“When I am in need, I can come to you, and you will help me.”
I nod.
“Say it.”
“Fine. I owe you a favor.” I know I don’t need to demand that this favor won’t hurt anyone or be dishonorable. He’s part wolf. Honor is in his blood. To suggest otherwise would be an insult he would need to draw blood to avenge.
“I will draw the girl off your trail. You can escape back the way you came.” He disappears into the shadows.
I look down at Emma. Her hair is messier than normal. Her lips are redder. And I want to kiss her again.
“You don’t look like you’re suffering from the love potion. Aren’t you supposed to be brainlessly in love with me?”
“It wore off. There wasn’t a whole lot of blood in that vial.” And I’m immune to it because I’m already in love.
She stares at me.
“Don’t tell me you’re disappointed.” I grin.
She punches my arm. “Get over yourself.”
“That was a very nice kiss.”
“Jason. Don’t make me kill you.”
She spins on her heel and heads out the way we came. I grin, watching her for a moment before I follow.
If I want to catch my prey, I have to be patient and wear her down.
“You ready to go back to the circus?” I ask when I catch up to her.
“What’s going to happen to Angelina? Should we call the cops?”
“What would we tell them? She kidnapped a siren, tried to kill her by draining her blood, and then make a love potion to enslave me? It’s over, Emma.” For now.
“I can’t believe my sister, the sweet, never-does-anything-wrong angel, was behind all this. I think the world has turned inside out.”
Chapter 10
~ EMMA ~
THE SIREN IS back—the collar in place and the iron door sealed shut—when we make our way to her circus tent. Hands holding the bars, she presses her face against the cage. She stares at me, her eyes boring into me.
“So how did you do it?” Gruff asks.
I shrug. “By the skin of my teeth.”
Gruff grumbles something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“I said, I wish I could have been there.”
“You like watching humans get their asses kicked?”
“I like good battles.”
“If you want a good battle, you should be around next time Jason pisses me off.”
He stares at me. His eyes are green as the grass on an Alaskan meadow. I can even see f
lecks of red and gold to mimic the wildflowers.
He grunts. “I still don’t like you. I expect you next week to clean my stalls.”
Taylon clears his throat, and I turn to find him holding a vial of purple liquid. “I’m sorry about your hair.”
“I’m getting used to it.” Actually, I kind of like it.
“I made this for you. It should turn your hair back.”
“Should?”
“My research indicates it should work.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
His face falls and he takes the vial back from me. “All right.”
Shoulders sagging, he shuffles toward the door.
“Okay, fine. I’ll try it.”
I unstopper the lid and drink back the liquid. It tastes like lighter fluid and charcoal. I cough and wheeze. I sound like Mama Maria, checking out her maybe-poisoned goop.
Great. I’m turning insane too.
Everybody—Jason, Gruff, Taylon, and the siren —stares at my forehead. Their eyes grow big until the whites of their eyes show all around the iris.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I thought it would work.” Taylon tugs his braid.
“Mirror.” I hold my hand out.
Taylon shakes his head. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Mirror!”
He produces the mirror with a wave of his hand and a spark, and I look in the mirror.
My hair is still pink. Still curly. But now it has purple streaks through it. And it has grown so big that it is twice the size as my head, sticking up all over.
“Uh . . . Can I kill him now?” I turn to Jason.
“I said I was sorry.” Taylon pales.
I clench my hands at my sides. He’s just a goofy kid. I can’t hurt him. Closing my eyes, gritting my teeth, I chant it in my head ten times: He’s just a kid; I can’t hurt him.
And as soon as I stop chanting, I haul off and hit him. Well, not really, he disappears before my fist hits and reappears behind me. Far behind me.
“I think I owe you a unicorn ride.” Gruff scowls.
I grin.
Jason puts his arm around my waist, looping a finger into my belt loop, and an electric shock races through my body. My face burns and my lips tingle. I remember the feel of his lips on mine.
I step away and shrug his arm off. I’m hoping he forgets that kiss. Maybe the potion will wipe his brain . . .
. . . but the memory will keep me up at night.
I remind myself we’re just friends, and we’d kill each other if we tried to be anything more.
“No reason to be so jumpy. I was just going to tell you I think she wants to talk to you.”
“But she can’t. Not with the collar.” I think for a moment. “Not without the collar either.”
Taylon clears his throat behind me, when I turn, he holds out his notebook at arm’s length. “Use this, human—what’s your name again?”
“Emma.”
Taylon writes in his notebook, flips the page, and then holds the book out to me. When I take it from him, he jumps back. Through the paper, I can see the letters “Ema – human” along with a description of me and a word-for-word account of our entire conversation earlier today.
“What do you want to tell me?” I hand her the notebook.
She writes and then holds it up. “Thank you,” the note says.
“You’re welcome.” I wish I could do more for her. Set her free of her prison. Let her find her people.
She cocks her head, studying me, and then scrawls across the page again. “I like it here. For a moment, I can rest and sleep. In quiet.”
And there I see that haunting pain in her eyes again. I wonder what it would be like to be forced to sing all of eternity. Never dying. Never resting.
“Why?” I reach out and touch her hand gently.
“The magic—the curse—will never let me go,” she writes.
I smile sadly and give her hand a squeeze.
THE LIGHTS DIM and the crowd hushes. Holding my breath, I sit on the edge of my seat and lean forward. Enchanted music full of the spice of India plays; the lights brighten slowly, casting a rosy gleam across the center circus ring. A nagini coils in the center of the stage. From the hips down she is a snake, green and blue scales glinting in the rosy light, but the top half of her, clad in something skimpy, is voluptuous woman. I’d give my favorite snowboard to have curves like that.
She rises higher, dancing to the rhythm. The music surrounds her, and she squirms and twists, more graceful than any ballerina, more seductive than any belly dancer.
I watch in wonder, my own body wanting to move and dance, the music deep inside me calling to some deeper nature that I never knew existed.
The lights dim and then brighten again, and seven white unicorns canter into the ring. On their backs stand tall, thin people with pointed ears. One of them is Taylon.
Long blue hair, the braids undone and his hair now flowing down his back, Taylon is dressed in a dazzling green outfit, something Peter Pan or Robin Hood might have worn, complete with a feathered cap, and he carries a bow. Leaping into the air and flipping high, he fires a shot at a target hanging in the center of the ring and lands on the horse behind him.
The audience claps as the arrow lands in the center of the bull’s eye.
“Elves have great aim,” Jason whispers.
“I figured that out.”
He nods but doesn’t glance at me—his gaze transfixed on the ballerinas before us. A pang of jealousy pierces my heart, but I push it away. I remind myself that kiss didn’t mean anything. He was love-potioned and didn’t know what he was doing.
In the ring below us, Taylon drops his bow and lifts one of the girls by the waist; she flips herself up and lands on his shoulders. Her pink tutu flounces as she pirouettes again and again without faltering.
As she lands, her foot slips; the audience gasps.
She wobbles before catching her balance.
The audience cheers.
The unicorns and ballerinas prance and dance and perform astounding tricks, and then the lights dim again.
When the lights brighten, the ring is dominated with a cage containing a creature with a lion body and a man’s head.
The manticore roars, the sound ripping through my skin, tearing at my ears, and leaving me breathless, and the audience falls silent. As one, we lean forward, holding our breath. My own heart hammers painfully in my throat as if it could leap through my mouth and run away in fear.
Tall and thin, skin stretched tight over his pale face, the lion tamer cracks his whip, and the manticore stands up on his hind legs. He must be at least three stories tall.
“What a sweet pussycat.” The lion tamer curls his long, thin mustache around his finger.
The crowd laughs.
The manticore’s tail flits from side to side in the standard cat-language way of saying, “I’m about to pounce.”
But the manticore does nothing. He watches the whip and the lion tamer as if he wants to swallow them in one gulp.
“The Ring Master says, Kneel.”
The manticore kneels; the crowd claps.
“That’s the Ring Master?” I aks. “He looks so weak. Like he’s about to fall apart. Or drop dead from fatigue.”
“Don’t let him fool you. He’s a sorcerer and likely sold his soul for his power.” Jason’s arm moves behind my chair. “You were brave. I still can’t believe how you wacked your sister over the back with that chair.” He leans in close and glances at my lips.
Remembering that kiss, I lick my lips. If my sister and the wolf-bird hadn’t shown up, I’d have lost my ability to ride the unicorns.
Right there in the middle of the broken factory.
I’d kill him within a week if I ever dated him, I reminded myself. His wandering eye alone would be enough to cause me to war with him. Not to mention how annoyingly stubborn he can be.
But a kiss like that whenever we make up w
ould be worth it.
Ignoring that foolish voice inside me, I lean away from him and strain to look around the tent.
“What are you looking for?”
“Harry Potter.”
“Honey, I hate to tell you this. I know you’ve been in love with him since sixth grade, but he’s fictional.”
“And what would you call all this?” I gesture to the room.
He shrugs. “This? This is life.”
I didn’t realize how true his words were. Or how much they would change mine.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to TJ for the snuggles and the inspiration, for the endless rounds of edits and the tough criticisms, for the encouragement and the kind words. I couldn’t survive without you.
Thank you to my writing friends and beta-readers. Because of you, my story has grown better.
Thank you to my cover artist. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful cover for this book.
I appreciate every one of my readers. You make the pursuit of my dreams worthwhile.
Most importantly, I thank God for putting this story in my heart.
Author’s Bio
Leaving the house to go to school, I had schoolbooks spilling out of one hand, the other holding my place in a Nancy Drew novel, and bunny slippers still on my feet. My mom was a wee bit upset.
I haven't changed much. Still always have a book (or two) in my hand or creating stories in my head, and although I don't have any bunny slippers, I love writing in my jammies and snuggly slipper socks.
When I grow up (maybe a hundred years from now), I'd like to be a superhero, but for now, saving the day, one page at a time, suits me just fine.
With my husband TJ (my own cuddly werewolf), I home-school our three girls, who keep us busy with art, science projects, books to read, dance classes, and walks about the park.
Other books by this author:
Daughter of the Goddess
Tears
Transcendent: Tales of the Paranormal
Unlocked: Ten “Key” Tales
