Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, The

by Crusie, Jennifer; Dreyer, Eileen; Stuart, Anne

  And, of course, if I even tried to have sex with you, I’d turn into your mother faster than you can say Oedipus.

  He stopped in front of each painting. He fingered through the stacks as if checking CDs in a record store. He was silent. Dee waited where she was, her hands twisted together, her chest suddenly constricted with dread. Say something.

  “These are beautiful,” he breathed, turning on her, his hands up as if trying to take it all in.

  “I use acrylics. They’re cheaper, have purer color, and they work faster. I get up before the sun comes up so I can be shifted and anonymous by the time I’m seen. I’ve only been caught once. Fortunately it was a frat jock on the way home from a kegger. Much better than the time in Ames, Iowa, when I got mad at Lizzie’s high school principal and turned into a rottweiler in his office chair. That was the second time we moved. The third was when Mare started her period in the middle of chemistry lab. Everything in the room started flying. She almost burned down the school. Well, we didn’t move because of that, really. It was that Xan smelled Mare’s power coming on and—”

  “Dee,” he said softly as he came up to her. “Shut up.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. He looked down at her as if discovering something amazing. His eyes, like pools at sunset, seemed to glow in the dim light. “You don’t show these, do you?” Not a question at all.

  “Of course not.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re personal.”

  “They’re unique and amazing. You could be famous.”

  Dee scrunched up her face. “Oh, yes. I enjoyed being famous so much I changed my name and moved across the country. I’m happy as I am.”

  Her heart had gone on alert again. She was trembling. He stroked her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing to do, and it took her breath, because it was so alien to her. It made her shoulder flare, as if his fingers had lit that butterfly into sunlight. It made her ache. This was so important. Didn’t he know how important this was?

  “You’re not happy,” he said. “You’re in prison here. You’re dying and you don’t even know it. God,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “I knew you were special, but I had no idea. I don’t think even you have any idea.”

  “I didn’t bring you up here for that,” she protested, suddenly afraid of things she hadn’t even anticipated. Beautiful? They were beautiful? “Weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear how I painted them?”

  “I don’t care if you rode a monkey in a wet suit to paint these. They’re magnificent.”

  Dee was rubbing her forehead again. “I. Shape. Shift. I’m not delusional. I’m not lost in Dungeons and Dragons. When I was thirteen I shifted into a wolverine and treed Mare for two hours when she broke my bike. I do this, Danny. You have to believe it.”

  For a long moment, he just looked at her. Just held her, his big hands gentle on her sore shoulder. Dee couldn’t look away. He was mesmerizing, a phantom in the shadows who dangled terrible possibilities before her.

  “Dee,” he said. “You don’t belong here. You belong out in the world, where your work can have a chance to be seen.”

  “Much tougher to turn into a ferret if you’re famous, Danny.”

  “You can be anything you want. Don’t you get that? This can get you out of the bank and off wherever you want. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  She looked at him a long time. “Does it matter to you?”

  He shook his head. “Dee …”

  She closed her eyes and made a last-ditch grab for courage. “I’m going to have to show you, aren’t I? Oh, this would be so much easier if Mare were here. She’d just hit you in the head with a muffin and be done with it.”

  “You don’t have to do this. I don’t care.”

  “What’s your favorite animal? And don’t make it too big. Or a golden retriever. I have too many breakables in here.”

  “You don’t need to prove anything. I love you.”

  That brought her eyes wide open. Even Danny looked stunned. “I mean it,” he said, and suddenly grinned, hands up in the air. “Good God. In twenty-four hours I’ve fallen madly in love with a four-star, grade-A—”

  “You say ‘shrew’ and I’ll have Lizzie turn you into a wart.” How could he make her want to laugh when she was inches away from losing him?

  His grin softened, and he bent to cup her face in his hands. “Genius. I’m in love with a goddamn genius, and I want to show her to the world. She doesn’t have to prove anything to me.”

  It was almost enough to make her melt. She wanted to close her eyes and lean into him and be comforted. She wanted to meet him skin to skin, clothes tossed in a heap, mouths bruised with the force of their kissing. She wanted to be safe and she wanted to be free, and there was only one way that was possible. She lifted her own hands and laid them over his.

  “I do have to prove it, or I can’t trust that you love met.”

  “Why not? It sure feels like it.” He touched noses, his eyes whimsical. “I thought it was gas, but that would have gone away.”

  “Because you don’t know me. Not the real me. You have to meet her before you can decide. Now pick your favorite animal.”

  “why?”

  She struggled against the tears that crowded her throat. “Because it’s who I am, Danny. It’s inseparable from the rest of me. If you can’t live with it, then you can’t love me.”

  “Hedgehog.”

  She pulled away. “Your favorite animal is not a hedgehog.”

  “Of course it is. It reminds me so much of you.”

  She glared. “Fine.” Pulling out the rubber band, she let her hair loose, shucked her sweater and kicked off her basic boring white tennis shoes. “I’ll be a freakin’ hedgehog.”

  She did a couple of stretching exercises. Hedgehog. Hedgehog. She tried to concentrate, but Danny was standing there with his hands on his hips, a silly grin on his face as if he were waiting for a card trick. She closed her eyes. Hedgehog. The image appeared, a quivering, sharp-nosed little thing. Great. Well, at least it wasn’t a shrew.

  She eased herself down and curled her legs up under her, which saved time when she had to minimize. Four legs, round body, a quiver of bristles. He couldn’t have likened her to a fawn. Maybe a kestrel. The air around her seemed to congeal. Sound sharpened, light intensified, and she could smell the charge of her power as it gathered. Lime. Lizzie got flowers. Mare got candy. She got a garnish.

  Another charge shot along her nerves. Something alien that glittered a dozen colors behind her eyes. Was Lizzie setting something off downstairs? It was distracting her.

  She’d find out later. Right now …

  Hedgehog.

  The tingling began in her chest, a disruption that spread and congealed like the air, so that her blood slowed, settled. Her lungs contracted. Her skin shrank.

  Hedgehog.

  One last push and she should have it. The power coalesced. Her body fizzed and itched, trembling so hard she was sure her cells convulsed. She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, gathered that odd little animal deep until …

  Poof!

  She coughed. She opened her eyes. She found herself waving away the cloud of green fog that filled the room. With hands.

  “Damn.”

  She stared at her fingers as if they’d betrayed her. She hadn’t changed. Something had thrown her off.

  “Dee?”

  “I’m going to try again.”

  She tried three more times. All she got was a lot of fog and a couple of lame snapping sounds.

  “The green fog is a nice touch,” Danny offered, sounding bemused somewhere inside the cloud. “It kinda matches the butterfly.”

  Dee didn’t move from where she was curled up on the floor, her face in her arms. “Green is my color.”

  Silence. She’d exhausted herself with the trying. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to eat chocolate and cry. She didn’t have the luxury. She’d w
asted too much time already on this party trick.

  “I do love you,” Danny whispered, and Dee realized he’d crouched down on his haunches right in front of her.

  She lifted her head, miserable tears sliding down her cheeks. “I love you, too.”

  He looked startled. “Really?”

  She nodded, trying to keep from openly sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”

  He wiped at her tears. “Why?”

  She wailed like a little girl. “Because now we’re going to have to have sex!”

  “God, no. Not that.” He was grinning, the bastard.

  “It’s not a laughing matter.”

  Gently, he reached over and pulled her to her feet. “If we have to have sex, then we’ll just have to take one for the team.”

  “Oh, Danny. You don’t understand. I shift when I have sex.”

  “Well, unless it’s into Jude Law, I don’t see a problem.”

  Dee sighed. “I think you should. And don’t joke about Jude Law. The way Xan’s been screwing with things, he’s suddenly a candidate.”

  He took a second to lift her hair behind her shoulders. “God, I love your hair. I’m dying to see you wearing nothing but that.”

  Dee fiddled with his silver chain. “It can be arranged.” There was a medal on the end that somehow came free of his shirt. “Saint Michael?” It was still warm from his skin.

  “My mother gave me that,” he said. “She said it would keep me safe.”

  Carefully Dee tucked it back inside his shirt and gave it a pat. “Well, for your sake I hope Saint Michael stays on alert.”

  “Does that mean we’re having sex now?”

  Dee shook her head. “I need to eat something,” she said and sat back down to put on her shoes. “Misfires always make me hungry. Since Mare exploded all of Lizzie’s muffins, it’ll have to be something else. Nutritional value is strictly optional.”

  Danny grabbed her shoes before she could and crouched before her. “I know a place we can get all the Nutter Butter bars you can swallow,” he said. Lifting her foot, he fitted her shoe.

  Dee blinked away new tears. He was putting on her shoes. “If you can also score me a giant order of onion rings, you have a deal. Don’t forget to double-knot. I’m tough on my shoes.”

  He double-knotted. Then he brought her to her feet and dropped a kiss on her nose.

  “Thank you.” Her smile was a bit watery.

  He helped her slide her sweater back on. “We also need to call your aunt.”

  She’d been all set to turn off the light. His words stopped her. “You really know how to bring a party to a crashing halt.”

  “You said you wanted to talk to her.”

  “I don’t want to talk to her.” Hitting the wall switch, she stalked out the door and down the stairs. “I want to find her before she finds me.”

  Danny guided her down the stairs. “Then can we have sex?”

  It was overcast and threatening by the time Lizzie made it home, and darker than it should be at two in the afternoon, and she moved fast, avoiding the neighbors. She didn’t have it in her to make cheery small talk. The tattoo was burning against the inside of her ankle. It wasn’t a painful burn, more of a needful throbbing. She didn’t want her mind to go in that direction, but then, life wasn’t going the way she wanted it to.

  The purple satin sheets were still on her bed, and the wallpaper with its splash of flowers had disappeared, leaving the walls a rich, creamy shade, even in the darkness. She reached for the light switch and then stopped, the tattoo burning brighter, the amethyst resting against her heart pulsing with life. She looked down at the plain black Asian-style butterfly on her ankle, and it had turned a rich shade of purple, strong and beautiful, like her amethyst. It was as if the tattoo had claimed her, turning from stark black to the rich violet shade that made her think of endless nights and sex and impossible true love. How could a color mean all that?

  It was dark in the workshop, the only light coming from the candle that sat in the middle of the circle he’d drawn on the workbench. The array was a new one, more complex than the one he’d used originally, and in the light of the candle his eyes glowed with a deep, lavender light.

  He was wearing white, an open shirt and loose white pants, barefoot, watching her, and his dark blond hair was loose around his beautiful face.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back,” she said. And then could have kicked herself. She wanted him back, no matter what she’d said, no matter what she’d told herself.

  The teapot was sitting on the workbench, the porcelain Imari cups beside it. He filled hers without a word and held it out to her. And she knew if she took it there’d be no coming back.

  She took the cup, careful not to touch his hand, and drank. The perfume filled her senses, spreading through her body, and the frantic pulse of the amethyst slowed, calmed, soothed.

  “I put a guard on the door. Your aunt can’t touch any of you.”

  “It’ll keep her out?”

  He shrugged. “Xantippe shouldn’t be underestimated. But as long as the three of you are in this house she can’t touch you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a simple enough protection charm but surprisingly effective …”

  “Not why does it work. Why did you come back and set it?”

  “It’s not something that can be done from a distance.”

  She set her teacup down. “You aren’t answering my question. Why did you come back and set a spell to protect us when you’re the one who betrayed us in the first place? And why are you still here?”

  He didn’t answer her question. Instead he pulled up his loose pants leg. “I wondered if you could explain this? It suddenly appeared on my ankle, and I’m thinking it has something to do with you.”

  She stared down at his feet. They were narrow, beautiful—she never thought she’d be thinking about a man’s feet. And then she saw the tattoo glowing on the inside of his ankle, a match to her Asian butterfly, deep purple and glowing.

  “What’s that doing there?”

  “I thought you might know. You didn’t have a tattoo when I was here earlier.”

  She didn’t ask him how he knew that. She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in the purple nightgown, and she preferred to think it was through magic, not his hands on her. “I just got it an hour ago. But I don’t understand why it showed up on you, as well.”

  “I do.” He put his teacup down, moved the candle to one side, and before she realized what he was doing he’d picked her up and set her down on the workbench, her butt directly on top of the array.

  It was like sitting on a hot burner, the power spiking through her body, turning her insides to molten lava.

  “Oh, hell,” Elric muttered. He was standing in front of her, and he put his hand on her face, pushing her tangled hair back. “Your eyes are purple,” he said, sounding impossibly gloomy.

  “My eyes are blue,” she protested in a strangled voice. She didn’t want his hand to leave her skin—the feel of his long fingers gently stroking the side of her face was a sensation so astonishing that she wanted to cry. “Your eyes are purple.”

  “What?” He sounded appalled, starting to pull away, but she reached up and covered his hand with hers, holding it against her face.

  As if he couldn’t fight it anymore he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. “Doomed,” he said bleakly.

  Horrible things ran through her mind—had his protection spell backfired, infecting them both with some deadly disease? Had Xan done something unspeakably terrible, poisoning them both?

  “Are we going to die?” she whispered, not sure she minded as long as he was with her.

  His breathless laugh was only a slight reassurance. “Eventually,” he said. “Most people do. We’ll just be a lot older when it happens. A lot older than everybody.”

  “Then what’s wrong with our eyes?”

  “Disaster. A fate worse than death. I thought I’d done every
thing to keep this from happening, but my best efforts weren’t good enough. The universe will have its way.”

  He lifted his head and looked down at her, and even in the murky candlelight the lavender glow of his eyes was unmistakable.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This,” he said. And kissed her.

  Had he only kissed her once before? Why did it feel so hot, so powerful, so right? There was nothing tentative about the kiss—his mouth covered hers as his hand cupped her face, and he kissed her fully, holding nothing back, and she felt a tremor dancing through her body, something she’d never felt before. Except in dreams.

  He moved closer, between her legs, coming up against the workbench, and she slid her arms around his neck, opening her mouth for him, kissing him back, and between their bodies the amethyst hummed and pulsed.

  He wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled her off the workbench, and she could feel him, hard and hot against her, and another quiver of reaction danced across her skin.

  He left the candle burning, moving through the shadows back into her bedroom, setting her down on the rich, purple sheets.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said, and the door to her room closed and locked, the clicking sound reverberating in her stomach.

  But he was no longer touching her, and some unwanted but unavoidable doubt had reared its ugly head.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He was stripping off his loose white shirt, and even in the darkness she could see the perfect glow of his chest, the smooth golden skin, the taut musculature. A man shouldn’t be that beautiful—it was unfair.

  “Making a very big mistake. Take off your clothes or I’ll do it for you.”

  She slid backward on the bed, out of reach, suddenly wary. “Don’t make any dire mistakes on my account.” She couldn’t keep the stiffness from her voice, from her body. “I didn’t ask you to come back, I didn’t ask you to kiss me.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. She’d held on to his hand as he’d tried to pull away, and then it had been too late.