Snake in the Grass (Fairy Tales of a Trailer Park Queen Book 3)

by Kimbra Swain

  “Nevermind. How long can you hold him?” I asked.

  “Not much longer. He’s fighting it,” Levi grunted.

  Releasing the icy power inside of me, my tattoo turned silver and blue. Silvery swirls ran up my arm and around my neck. My glamour dropped as I reached out to touch the demon. When my fingers brushed his neck, ice covered his body from tip to toe. Horn tip to hoof actually. “I’ve got him, Levi.”

  Levi groaned as he released his spell. The dancing lights of power returned to my vision as I examined the horned demon before me. “Oni,” Levi said.

  “Still curious that such a creature would be so far from its native area,” I said. “Demon, were you brought here by Stephanie Davis?”

  “He can’t talk. You have him frozen,” Levi said.

  “Seriously, you think I didn’t know that?” I said. I heard Dylan chuckle.

  “She did not,” a deep voice reverberated in the room.

  “What the hell?” Levi said.

  “Demons aren’t of this world. They don’t need lips to speak. His life force is trapped in that body, but his being is not,” I replied. “I did assume this was the case even for a Japanese demon.”

  “Why do you know more about demons than fairies?” Dylan asked.

  “Ugh. Long story. I’ll tell you when we are done here,” I said. “Who summoned you?” The thing about demons, that I had found, was that they hated to be bound. This could go several ways, but I was hoping that the demon would give me the information I needed, then skidaddle.

  “I cannot say,” the demon replied.

  “Hope you like life as an Onicicle,” I replied. “Come on guys. Load him up in the truck. He will make a great lawn ornament for the trailer.”

  “Krykos,” he replied.

  The Greek fiancé of Stephanie Davis summoned a Japanese demon to pretend to have a child by Dylan Riggs. It was the most creative plot I’d ever heard, but it seemed like there was a piece missing.

  “Why?” I asked.

  A low rumble rattled the walls. “I told you the name. Now release me,” he said.

  “Why?” I cooed.

  “Let. Me. Go.” He protested making the walls shake. I was sure that the Sheriff had already been called.

  “Wrong answer,” I replied.

  A noise I can only describe as sandpaper grinding on sandpaper filled the room. The demon was grinding his teeth. “I owed him a favor,” he replied.

  “You owed a fairy a favor?” I asked.

  “He is no ordinary fairy,” he provided.

  “What is he?” I asked.

  The demon’s laughter filled the room. “Time to let him go, Grace,” Dylan said.

  “Why?” I asked, as I heard the sirens outside. “Oh. Yes, well, Mr. Oni, you are no longer welcome in Shady Grove. If you leave now, there will be no repercussions of your actions here. However, if I ever see your face again,” I said, lifting my hand towards the glass of water on the bedside tray. It froze instantly. With a jerk, I made a fist, and the solid ice block of glass and water shattered into a thousand tiny specks of water.

  “Agreed. I never want to see this hell hole again,” he said.

  “It may be a hell hole, but it’s my hell hole,” I replied, waving my hand to release him. His laughter rumbled the walls as he turned to swirling black smoke and dissipated into nothing. “Sorry, Darlin’, no more kiddos for you today.”

  “Winnie is enough,” he smiled. “For now.”

  “I wonder what else stupid could happen today?” I asked.

  Famous last words.

  Biting down on the apple, I paused to think about the stories of Snow White. Not that I was a princess, hiding with a bunch of little people, trying to find my prince, but the thought crossed my mind that Stephanie might try to poison me. “Where did you get these apples?” I asked Levi out of paranoia. We had picked up Winnie on the way back to the trailer, and they were coloring at the new kitchen table.

  “At the Food Mart,” Levi said. “I went to the store and picked up a few things yesterday since you haven’t done any shopping.”

  “Sorry,” I replied.

  “What’s wrong with the apple?” he asked.

  I leaned on the counter, lolling my head around like I was going to faint. As I rolled my eyes back in my head, Levi jumped up. Dylan smirked, then Levi realized I was pretending. “Thanks a lot, Dylan.”

  “Just keeping you honest,” he replied as he returned to his newspaper.

  “You must tell the truth, Aunt Grace. We learned that in Sunday School,” Winnie supplied.

  “You are right, Winnie. I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t apologize to me,” she said. “You have to apologize to Jesus.”

  Dylan muffled a laugh, and Levi looked away from my gaze. “I’m sorry, Jesus.”

  “No, Aunt Grace, you have to pray and ask forgiveness,” she said.

  “Oh, my bad, well, I can do that when I go to bed tonight,” I replied.

  “Where is Rufus?” she asked.

  “He’s at Dylan’s house,” I said. “We need to go let him out.”

  “I’ll go do it,” Levi said. “I need to run a quick errand, anyway.”

  “What kind of errand?” I asked, chomping down on the apple.

  “None-ya,” he replied, meaning it was none of my business.

  I rolled my eyes. “Alright. You coming back here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, probably,” he replied, as he took off in a hurry.

  I wondered what got into him. Looking out the window as he left, I saw Cletus and Tater working on that hunk of junk they called a car. It was a 1987 Cutlass Supreme. It was silver, but the hood was brown covered in duct tape. It was their way of “Rednecking it up” they told me. If that meant looking ridiculous, they hit the nail on the head.

  “Can I watch cartoons?” Winnie asked.

  “Sure,” Dylan said, as he clicked the television to one of those all-day cartoon channels. He got up from his spot to stand with me in the kitchen. I offered him a bite of the apple. “Why would I want a poisonous apple?”

  “Because I offered it,” I said.

  “The last time mankind did that they got themselves in a hell of a lot of trouble,” he said.

  “Good thing you aren’t human,” I replied.

  He took a huge bite out of the apple, leaving very little for me. He wrapped one arm around my waist, pulling me to him. When his lips met mine, the tart juice of the green apple combined with the heat of his mouth sent my hormones into overdrive. Hungry for him, I pressed myself to him harder trying not to moan as his lips worked with mine. When he released my lips, he said, “You taste like sin.”

  “Keep it up and we will both need to ask Jesus for forgiveness,” I smiled.

  “I think we are past that point,” he said.

  “If not, we need to try harder,” I said. For a moment, the blue fire of desire burned in his eyes. If it weren’t for the child on the couch, we probably would have christened the kitchen counter. I looked back at Winnie who was enthralled by the television. “It’s tough being parents.”

  Dylan released his grip on me allowing the cool air between us to quench the flame between us. “Now or later, doesn’t matter. I will have you,” he said. Shit. When he said things like that, I had no response. My brain melted, and I couldn’t think of a witty remark. He knew it too. The devious light in his eyes betrayed him. Instead, I settled for poking him in the ribs. He caught my hand before I could do it, bringing it to his mouth he sucked my finger. My mind flashed back to Malcolm using the same gesture. Dylan did it so much better.

  “Oh, shit, you gotta stop,” I managed to whisper while fighting back the driving need to let him have me.

  As I made the move to the bedroom to give in to Dylan, Levi pulled back up outside. He hadn’t been gone long enough to go feed and let Rufus out. He surged in the front door out of breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Dylan asked. Winnie stared at him with wide eyes. He looked
positively wild.

  “You have to go to the town square. Right now,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They are going to burn it,” he said.

  “Burning the town square?” Dylan asked.

  “No. You,” he said looking straight at me.

  Dylan clamped down on my hand, pulling toward the door. “Winnie, we will be right back,” I said to her.

  “Go! I’ve got her,” Levi said with fear in his eyes.

  We jumped in the Camaro. Dylan drove like a maniac. I gripped the door, trying to breathe. As we approached the town square, it looked like someone had started a bonfire near the gazebo in the center of town. Dylan parked a half block away. “Stay with me,” he ordered me with a gruff tone.

  He locked hands with me. We approached the flames to see that it wasn’t a bonfire. It was an effigy of a woman with long blonde hair. The image was made of straw, and it burned quickly. It looked like the hair was made of yarn. Clearly, it was me. There were a few people standing at a distance as we approached the flames. I heard sirens in the distance. The fire spread across the dead grass heading toward the gazebo. Pulling power from my tattoo, I thrust my hands toward the flames. The fire extinguished leaving a blackened carcass. A charred sign sat at the base of the image.

  Dylan squatted down, wiping across it with his hand. Soot brushed away to reveal a shocking message. “Death to the Queen.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. The square filled with sirens, and the on-lookers dispersed. Dylan looked at me with pure fear in his eyes. “It’s a joke. Not a big deal.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Grace,” he said, rising to face me. “This is going too far. Even if she didn’t do this directly, she’s got people in this town thinking about killing you.”

  “I’m like you. Not so easy to kill,” I said.

  “You can be though, and if anyone knows how to do it, it’s her,” he snarled as Sheriff Troy Maynard approached us.

  “Jesus,” he said, looking at the sign. “Grace, you need to go back home.”

  “I’m not running from this,” I said defiantly.

  “How did you know about it?” he asked.

  “Levi came home in a tizzy. Talk to him to find out what he saw,” I said.

  “I’ll talk to him, and call you,” Dylan told Troy.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “We will get this cleaned up. Who put out the fire?”

  “I did,” I replied. “It was getting close to the gazebo. It’s not a big deal.” I tried shrugging it off, but inside me, a fear grew quickly. I looked around the square to the firefighters who had arrived, along with the cops. Meeting each set of eyes, I saw fear. The fear in me reflected in them. I couldn’t let this consume me. People looked to me for guidance, and if I was afraid, they would be too.

  Dylan tugged on my hand to get my attention. “We need to go,” he said softly.

  “Look at them. They are afraid,” I said.

  “They should be. This is serious. You should be, too,” he said. The strong façade I’d tried to present was working. No one could see my fear. Not even Dylan who pleaded with me to leave. “Let’s go home. Troy can handle this.”

  I nodded looking back at the firefighters who jumped to work once we started moving away. Troy retrieved a camera from his cruiser. As I lowered myself into Dylan’s car, Troy started taking pictures of the remains. Dylan climbed in with worried eyes. “It’s okay,” I said.

  “No, it isn’t, Grace,” he muttered, cranking up the car to rush us back to the trailer.

  When we got there, Levi had put Winnie to bed in her new room. He shoved his hands in his jeans. “Well?”

  “It was burning when we got there,” I said.

  “Who did it?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. It all leads back to her,” Dylan growled. “What did you see?”

  “A couple of people in masks. When I saw the sign, I didn’t care about what was going on there. I turned around to come back here as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Do you still need to go run your errand?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter now. But I’ll go get Rufus,” he said, grabbing his jacket.

  “Keep an eye out, Levi,” Dylan said.

  “They aren’t after me. They are after her,” he said.

  “And if something happened to you, do you think it wouldn’t bother her?” Dylan asked.

  “Hey, I’m right here,” I said. Dylan turned to me with fire in his eyes. I backed down. The fight in me was gone. The tension in the room sucked the air out making it hard to breathe.

  “Go and come right back. Take the truck,” Dylan said.

  Levi nodded, then headed out the door.

  “This is serious, Grace,” Dylan turned on me.

  I dropped my head. His warm hands cupped my cheeks dragging my gaze back to him. I swallowed at the fear in his eyes. “I know,” I muttered.

  “I see it now. You are afraid,” he said. “You hid it very well.”

  “Yes,” I gulped.

  Opening the door to the bedroom, he guided me inside. “She will stop at nothing. I’ve seen it before. She’s destroyed people over nothing. Maybe there is more to this than just trying to break us up. I need to do some more digging.”

  “She can’t be allowed to win,” I said.

  “What do we do though? It’s not worth me losing you. Shady Grove can go to hell as long as I have you,” he said.

  I made a promise to the people here. Abandoning them now wasn’t an option. I couldn’t turn tail and run. Looking into Dylan’s eyes, he knew the struggle inside me. “You have me forever,” I said. He groaned pushing me back against the wall. His kiss devoured my mouth. It was hot and forceful. Hot hands traveled up my sides lifting my shirt over my head. His lips traced a line from my mouth to my neck to my shoulder. I looped a finger through his belt to pull him closer to me.

  He stopped the barrage of kisses to pull his shirt off over his head. Then his mouth collided with mine as if his kisses could keep us safe forever. Considering the fervor of his efforts, I could believe in that safety. The sweat of his bare skin pressed against mine. Warm and wet. This wasn’t angry sex or postponed desire. He held on to me with uncertainty as the driving force. For me, I knew he was my forever, even if that meant only a few more hours to my long life. For him, I was his right now with a maybe of forever. Not because he didn’t want me for that long, but because sometimes life doesn’t give us the time we want.

  With smooth movements, he had my jeans unbuttoned and down in an instant. “I won’t let you go,” he whispered in my ear. “Even if I have to take you away from here. Grace, I can’t live without you now.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” I said, looking into his eyes. He grimaced as if I didn’t understand his desperation. I did understand it, but he managed to prove his concern by the heat of his love making.

  “I’m postponing my stuff in Montgomery tomorrow. I’ll finish the paperwork later,” he said, laying next to me after he had made desperate love to me.

  “Levi will stay with me. It will be fine,” I said. “You’ve wanted this for so long. Please don’t let me be the reason you don’t get what you want.”

  “I don’t trust Levi to keep you safe,” he said.

  “Trust me to keep me safe. Levi is back-up,” I smiled. He didn’t. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Most of the day. It can wait,” he said.

  “No, you are going,” I said.

  “Grace,” he protested.

  “No more sex until you go to Montgomery. So, if that’s tomorrow, great. If not, guess you will be waiting a while,” I teased.

  He groaned, putting his forearm over his eyes. I didn’t realize the threat would be so painful. I didn’t even mean it as a real threat, but he took it like that.

  “Don’t do this to me,” he begged.

  “I was joking,” I said. He lifted his arm, and I saw the light in his eye. He knew I was joking. “Assho
le.”

  “Yes, but I’m your asshole,” he said.

  “No thanks, I’ve already got one,” I replied. He laughed loudly. I placed a finger over his lips. “You will wake the child.” I climbed over on top of his body looking down at him as I shifted my hips grinding down on him. He latched his hands on my hips.

  “Good god, woman,” he moaned.

  “You are going to Montgomery,” I said as I ran a fingernail down his chest.

  “Yes, whatever you say,” he gave in easily.

  Leaning down over him, I kissed him. “You didn’t fight me,” I whispered, kissing his neck.

  “There’s no need. You are too damn stubborn, plus I can’t handle you naked on top of me teasing like that. Now you know my weakness,” he said, as I kissed lower and lower on his chest to his navel.

  I looked back to him meeting his eyes. “I already knew your weakness,” I said, moving down between his legs.

  “Oh, God bless me,” he moaned.

  My life would never be the same because of Dylan Riggs. He awoke feelings inside me that I didn’t know existed. From the earliest flirts between us, I told him I didn’t have a heart. With every kiss, every touch and every time we made love, he proved to me how wrong I was. Nothing could break me. Nothing, but him.

  I should have known that she would try something else. Dylan’s insistence had driven home the idea that Stephanie was a determined individual. She would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. The question was, what did she want? I stared at her across the room as I walked into Dylan’s house.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but this was my house once,” Stephanie said.

  “You need to leave,” I quickly responded.

  She laughed. “How do you think I got in here?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. Just leave,” I said exasperated. She’d tried every way she could think of to separate Dylan and I. Finding her in our home pissed me off to no end. She had no boundaries. No reservations about ruining our lives. I had no idea what her hidden agenda was, but I seriously doubted at this point it was because she wanted to be Queen of the Exiles. As good as Dylan was in bed, I could almost believe it was just a ploy to get him back, but even then, I really felt there was more to the story. Perhaps it was the more to their life that Dylan refused to tell me. The moments it was mentioned he flared with anger, shoving off all my inquires. There was more to this. There had to be.