by Kathy Lyons
“I am the Grand Cheesy!” he said, stomping his little foot.
No one seemed to care, least of all his fellow cheeses. Worse, they started echoing Brie’s squeals of joy. Every “whee!” had a fairy chorus complete with clapping of hands and stomping of tiny feet.
And that was when the Grand Cheesy got really angry. His face scrunched up and his moldy bits turned black. But he didn’t yell at his fellow cheeses. Instead he looked at Bruce, then at Laddin and everyone else in the field.
“You will pay me the forfeit.”
“Shit,” Yordan mumbled. “This is gonna suck.”
“Answers! Now!” He pointed at Bing, who began talking in Chinese. His eyes widened and he apparently struggled to keep silent. It didn’t work, and the strain had him dropping to his knees. Yordan dashed to the man but was caught by Cheesy’s finger-point next. The big guy managed to make it to Bing’s side but then started saying something about someone begatting someone else. Bruce recognized the phrases as Bible verses, and Yordan looked completely horrified by the words spilling from his mouth.
Nero was next. He’d been running forward, probably to tackle Cheesy, but Bruce already knew that wouldn’t work. Just as he got near enough to slam his fist down, his body lurched as he started listing stats from personnel files. He started with Josh, talking about his academic accomplishments and family tree.
Meanwhile, Laddin started shaking in Bruce’s arms. He moaned “no” in such a despairing whisper that it wrenched Bruce’s attention away from everyone else. “No,” he repeated. Laddin was terrified of repeating what he’d just escaped. His body shook, his eyes were wild, and he rocked back and forth while whispering no over and over.
This man, who had been nicknamed Mr. Happy by his teammates, was completely undone. If he started listing more explosive facts, it was going to break him. Bruce knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Even if they found a way out, it would destroy Laddin.
So he made the only decision he could. “Grand Cheesy,” he said. “I will bargain again. I’ll give you something you really want.”
Josh was holding Nero, and he glared at Bruce in fury. “Haven’t you done enough?”
Bruce ignored him, though the words hurt. He was doing the best he could. It wasn’t like anyone else had better ideas.
“What do you offer?”
“I’ll make you big,” he said. He pointed at Bilious Brie. “Maybe as big as him.”
“You can promise this?” Cheesy asked.
Bruce wanted to say yes right away, but he’d learned that there was always a loophole, always a problem. So he asked the smartest guy he knew if his logic was sound. Looking at Josh, he spoke quickly.
“When the fairies came out of me yesterday, they didn’t come back big, but when Brie went through Bitterroot, he came out huge. That’s because Bitterroot is made of fairy magic, right? Brie absorbed that magic and became large.”
Josh frowned as he thought things through. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s hard to say—”
“Good enough for me.” He turned back to Cheesy. “I can promise to make you bigger. If I succeed, you will let all of us go and you’ll never bother us again. If I screw up and it doesn’t work, then you still let them go. You don’t fucking touch any of them.”
Laddin looked up, his eyes huge. “No, Bruce—”
Bruce kept going. “But you get me as your slave. Whatever you want.”
“For a day!” Josh bellowed. “Just for a day.”
“For your lifetime,” Cheesy said. “Or I stay with what I have.” He pointed a finger at Laddin. Jesus, he was going to hit Laddin next.
“Okay!” Bruce screamed. “I agree!” Then he reached out his hand. “You win, Bitterroot!” he bellowed into the air, knowing that the fairy prince was likely listening. “I’ll eat it.” Then, for extra emphasis, he repeated the asshole’s name three times. “Bitterroot, Bitterroot, Bitterroot!”
“What?” Josh gasped. “Don’t be an idiot!”
Bruce shot his brother a look of disbelief. Why couldn’t Josh see that there weren’t any other options? Then Mr. Salad Fairy appeared directly between him and Josh, and Bruce held out his hand for the apple.
“Standard terms?” Bitterroot asked.
“Yes. Fine.” He rushed out the words before they could choke him. At this point he didn’t care what the terms were. It was worth it if the others went free… if Laddin and Josh stayed safe.
“Done.”
The apple plopped into Bruce’s hand, and he didn’t waste any time. He bit down into the red, juicy fruit, and he loved every damned bite. The tingle, the taste, even the smell was divine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a butterfly drift away on the wind, but it was a vague impression drowned out by the feeling of the power that started flooding his system. The more that Bitterroot had promised. His body strengthened as exhaustion disappeared. His mind thought ten times faster. A hundred times! He scanned the field and caught details he hadn’t noticed before. Stupid things, irrelevant things, but he noticed them nonetheless. He saw that Josh had burn scars on his ankles, that Bilious Brie had a pasty white exterior but that the inside of his mouth was that sickly green color, and that Laddin had finally stopped shaking but was now holding on to Bruce like he had last night, with need mixed with tenderness. That, plus a healthy amount of terror.
And when the apple was all done, Bruce did an experiment. He was supposed to be more of whatever he focused on. He tightened his fist and brought it down on the dirt right next to Cheesy, all the while thinking about how his strength needed to be more.
It was. He smashed into the dirt as if he’d used Thor’s hammer. Cheesy and the other cheeses didn’t even blink, but everyone else did. And Bruce knew that it had worked.
That meant it was time for the yucky part. And it really sucked, because he still had that glorious taste of apple in his mouth. Fuck, he really didn’t want to do this.
“Okay,” he said to Cheesy. “Come on. Let me eat you.”
Everyone else looked disgusted, but no more than Bruce felt. It was Cheesy who brushed a lumpy bit of feta off his arm and said pompously, “That is not dignified for a Grand Cheesy.”
Bruce gaped. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“If you wish to transfer magic to me, you can simply touch me.”
Really? Well, thank God, because he didn’t want to eat the guy anyway. Especially if it would save him a five-minute fart. So he took a deep breath and focused on giving more to Cheesy. More magic, more size, more whatever it was that had made Brie into a six-foot-tall walking nightmare. And he prayed with everything he had that this would work.
It didn’t. At first.
There were long agonizing seconds when nothing seemed to change. But then the Grand Cheesy began to swell. Just like Brie, he started out the size of a finger, then quickly expanded. Hand-sized, kid-sized, five foot… five-foot-six….
Bruce stopped.
It was childish of him. He was pretty sure he could have gotten Cheesy up to the same size as Brie. But he was pissed, and he’d only promised bigger, not as big as. So there. He’d done as he promised. And though Cheesy looked at him and demanded, “More! Bigger!” Bruce flipped his middle finger at him.
“That’s all you get. Now release them.”
Cheesy looked like he wanted to argue, so Bruce pushed it.
“I did as I promised. You are bigger. Now release them”—he gestured to Nero, Bing, and Yordan—“or I claim you as my slave for the rest of your life.” Not a bad choice, given that the fairy was immortal.
Cheesy grimaced and flicked tiny pieces of feta off his body at each of the men. One by one, they stopped speaking and dropped in exhaustion as they breathed in heavy gasps of relief.
Then the large fairy turned to the others and stomped his fetid foot. “I am the Grand Cheesy!” he bellowed.
Bilious Brie stopped spinning, and the other cheeses stopped as well. In fact, all the little cheeses seemed to hover in place, their gazes going bac
k and forth between the two oversize fairies. Apparently they couldn’t decide whom to follow, especially as Brie held up his hands and bellowed, “Whee!” But it wasn’t in a joyful way. It was more like a challenge.
Cheesy answered with his own raised hands. “Grand Cheesy!”
Bruce swallowed, seeing what was coming. “We need to get out of here before they start wrestling.”
Nero nodded. “Copy that.” He grabbed Josh, and they hauled each other to their feet. Bruce did the same with Laddin while Bing and Yordan echoed their movements. Then Nero snapped, “Haul ass.”
They did. They didn’t slow until they were halfway home and the alternating “Whee!” and “Grand Cheesy!” argument had faded. By the time they made it to the barn, everyone was gasping for breath. But they’d made it safely, which was a big win in Bruce’s book.
Every fire you walk away from was a win. That was in the firefighter’s manual. Problem was, these guys weren’t firefighters. So while Bruce was still thanking God they were all alive, Nero grabbed him by the shoulder and slammed him against the barn wall.
“And now, Mr. Apple, we’re going to have a little chat.”
Great. It was just an hour past dawn, and this day kept getting better and better… not.
Chapter 16
THE MIRACLE OF A HOT SHOWER
LADDIN FELT completely useless. He’d run back to the house as if Satan himself was chasing him, and in Laddin’s mind, that wasn’t far off. He couldn’t shake the horror of speaking compulsively, unable to stop, unable to drink or swallow, just rasp out word after word of nonsense. He’d tried everything, but he’d lost control of the one thing he’d thought was wholly his own: his voice.
He still couldn’t believe what he’d said. He’d given a master class on demolitions, and who the hell knew what the pixies would do with that, or if they even cared? But that made it even worse, because he didn’t think the magical creatures needed an education on blowing things up. What they’d done to him was out of simple spite. And that filled him with a sick nausea he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to shake. Right now his thoughts and his body felt like stone—inert things that no longer functioned. It was as if he had died back at the tree but was somehow still moving and breathing.
And in the midst of that, Nero had shoved the man who had saved them against the barn wall and demanded to have “a little chat.” Then he’d dragged Bruce into the house, threw him into a chair, and was now grilling him as if Nero were Jack Ryan and Bruce the key to a terrorist plot. It was awful, and everyone else let it happen.
Though Laddin still felt like he’d had his insides scooped out, he shouldered his way forward and tried to use his voice for something good. “He saved our lives!”
“He risked our lives first—” Nero said.
“No!” Laddin cried, though his voice came out as a heavy rasp. “I risked our lives. This was my screwup, and he saved us.”
That should have meant something to Nero. The guy was fair-minded, for the most part. But he shook his head at Laddin. “You fucked up, but everybody does when they first meet fairies—”
“Exactly—”
“But I know your motives.” His gaze turned dark and angry as he looked at Bruce. “I don’t know what’s driving him—”
“He came to save my ass—”
“And I know this wasn’t his first fairy rodeo.”
There was silence as everyone stared at Bruce. He had dropped into the chair and was waiting with a bored expression on his face. Laddin knew him well enough to understand what Bruce was doing. He was pretending not to care when he obviously did. A lot.
“He gave up his firstborn child to Bitterroot,” Laddin said softly. “That’s the standard fairy deal.”
Josh paced around the kitchen island. “And how the fuck could you do that?” Josh exploded. “Give a kid to that asshole?”
Meanwhile Bruce jolted with equal shock. “What? No! I asked him that specifically.”
Laddin blew out a breath of relief, but Nero didn’t let it go. “And what did he answer—specifically?”
Bruce frowned as he thought back. “He said that they revere human children. Oh shit.” He grimaced and glared into space. “Bitterroot, you fucking asshole, what did I promise you?”
Everyone waited for the fairy. He didn’t show. Instead, a piece of parchment appeared on the kitchen table. It was the fairy contract, and right there in bold letters it read In return for More, Bruce Collier will give his firstborn child to Bitterroot. Simple. Bold. And though there were lots more words, those were the important ones.
Laddin read it and sank onto the floor. The idea of losing a child gutted him, and it wasn’t even his. But that was what Bruce had given up for him—to save him and fix his screwup. The knowledge tore at him.
Meanwhile, Bruce leaned back with a sigh. “It’s okay,” he said out loud. “I don’t have a kid.”
“Yet,” Nero said.
“Never. Dad saw to that when I was sixteen.”
Josh whipped around. “Bullshit.”
Bruce shrugged, but his eyes were bright with emotion as he looked at Josh. “Remember when Dad caught me making out with Mary Beth Davis? Well, he had me at a doctor the very next day. He said he didn’t want to chance me having another you.” The hatred inherent in that statement made everyone flinch, Josh most of all. But Bruce didn’t stop. “He never said you were a werewolf. I have no idea how he knew what you were. Are. But he chopped my nuts rather than risk me making another one of you. His words, not mine.”
Josh stood there, his skin pale, his mouth clenched hard. Nero was shaking his head.
“No clinic is going to cut a sixteen-year-old kid.”
Bruce’s gaze went to Nero. “It wasn’t a clinic. I don’t even know if it was a real doctor. All I remember is Dad handing me my usual morning smoothie, then waking up on a table in a place I didn’t recognize. I was hurting like hell, and beside me there was a guy explaining that I’d need to ice my balls for a couple days and there’d be no football until Monday.”
Josh shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re his favorite. It’d be his fucking wet dream for you to make a dozen little Bruces to entertain him in his old age.”
“I had it checked a few years ago. I was dating someone, and she wanted kids.” Bruce shrugged. “I’m so mangled up with scar tissue that reversing it is out of the question.”
Laddin stepped forward. “Not in the normal way of things, maybe. But with magic—”
“It’s not reversible,” Bruce repeated firmly, his jaw hard. “Because if it was, I’d have to give my kid to that asswipe fairy.”
Right. No kids. Ever.
Meanwhile, Josh was still pacing. “He never clipped me. He didn’t touch Ivy. Why would he pick you?”
Bruce shrugged. “You ran faster? She’s a girl? How the fuck should I know?”
Laddin frowned, looking between the lines. “Did they run faster? Or did you run interference to protect them?” Everything he’d seen of Bruce told him that the guy protected people, even at the cost of his freedom. That had been the forfeit he’d agreed to with the Grand Cheesy, if things hadn’t worked out. Bruce had offered himself up as a slave.
“No,” said Josh as he continued to pace. “This is all bullshit. You hated me when we were kids. You tortured me.”
“Yeah,” Bruce said, his voice thick. “I did. I fucking loved hurting you. Because in my head, you were the reason I’d had my balls chopped. I blamed you because I was a stupid kid and because Dad cheered every time I knocked you down.” He straightened up in the chair, leaning toward his brother. “But I’m not that dumb kid anymore, and I’ve been trying to make it up to you. For years. But you wouldn’t return my phone calls and never came home so I could talk to you face-to-face.”
Josh rounded on his brother. “Why would I? Why would I believe a word you say?”
Bruce didn’t have an answer for that. Neither did anyone else. So the silence hung dark
and heavy in the kitchen while all Laddin could hear was the rasp of Josh’s breath and the hard beating of his own heart.
“He just saved our lives,” Laddin inserted into the silence. Why didn’t anyone remember that? Why wouldn’t anyone listen to him?
“And he ate a fairy apple,” Nero said softly. Then he reversed a kitchen chair and straddled it. It was a casual pose, but no less intimidating as he faced Bruce. “We need to know everything. From the beginning. What did Bitt—you know who—offer, and why did you take it?”
Bruce nodded, but his gaze was on Josh. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
And he did, starting with a salad fairy offering him a cherry, which he refused until Bitterroot threatened Josh. Then he explained the cheese fairies, the regular fairies, and the fire, all the way up through this morning when they’d all been there. And he explained that the apple would give him more, though he had very little idea what that meant.
By the third time through, Laddin had had enough. “He saved our lives, Nero. All of us. Say thank you and be done with it.”
Nero rubbed his hand over his face. “But what is he leaving out? What isn’t he telling us that will come back and bite us in the ass?” Then, before Laddin could argue, Nero held up his hand. “I’m not saying he’s hiding anything on purpose. But every detail counts with the fae.”
“There isn’t anything more,” Bruce said wearily. “I’ve told you everything.”
“Not by half,” Josh said from his place next to the kitchen island. “You didn’t tell us why you ate the cherry in the first place.”
“I did tell you,” Bruce said, irritation finally leaking through his tone. “He said he wants to enslave you. I was trying to stop that.”
“And suddenly you’re acting like a big brother? Now, when I don’t need you at all?”
Laddin saw the impact those words had as they hit Bruce. He didn’t know if anyone else saw the guy flinch or notice that his gaze dropped to the floor, but Laddin sure as hell saw the way the man’s hands tightened into fists and then slowly, carefully released. So Laddin said what Bruce wouldn’t.
