by Kimbra Swain
HOTTER THAN BLUE BLAZES
KIMBRA SWAIN
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Kimbra Swain
Hotter than Blue Blazes, Fairy Tales of a Trailer Park Queen, Book 7
©2018, Kimbra Swain / Crimson Sun Press, LLC
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Book Cover by: https://www.ts95studios.com
Formatting by Serendipity Formats: https://serendipityformats.wixsite.com/formats
Editing by Carol Tietsworth: https://www.facebook.com/Editing-by-Carol-Tietsworth-328303247526664/
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Sneak Peek
A Message From The Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
DYLAN
THE DOOR GAVE way right after we both pounded on it. Rushing into the dark trailer, the smell of anise and fennel filled the air. The walls were lined with shelves full of a green-tinted liquid. I knew exactly what was in the jars.
“Winnie!” I called out to my daughter.
“Daddy!” I heard her scream from the back of the trailer.
“Easy, Dylan. You know this is a trap,” Troy Maynard said. He and I were looking for our children, Mark and Winnie. We had followed their path trail to the ominous trailer that had been sitting in the park for a while now.
“I don’t give a fuck. That’s my daughter,” I said dismissing him. I eased through the walls lined with more absinthe moonshine than Grace had originally produced in the old house that we destroyed. Walking down a long hallway, we came to the first room where Mark was tied up whimpering like a pup. “Get him. I’m going forward.”
Troy grabbed my arm. “No, we go together,” he insisted. I didn’t care whether he went or not, but I wasn’t waiting any longer to find out what was going on.
When I entered the last room at the end of the hallway, the green glow filled the room. The moonshine jars were illuminated by candles which lined the shelves. I hesitated because I knew this was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Welcome, Sheriff Riggs,” Robin Rayburn said. She stood in the back of the room with a hatchet which flickered as the light hit its impossibly sharp edge. The very edge that rested upon my daughter’s throat. Tears streamed down her sweet face, and my heart pounded in my chest. My daughter. The one I wasn’t supposed to have.
“Robin, what’s going on? Could you please let Winnie go?” I asked.
“Winnie is just the bait, my dear,” she said. A smirk crossed her face along with a dark twinkle in her eye. I knew that she would kill Winnie in an instant if she didn’t get her way. I remembered the look in her eyes when she showed her shooting skills at the range. I couldn`t figure out why she wanted to even try out if she had this planned.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You. Of course,” she said. “There is a price on your head. I intend to collect, but not until I’ve done irreparable harm to your fiancée, the Queen of the Exiles.” She scoffed at Grace’s title. Grace told me once that Robin didn’t like her, and she didn’t know why. But we dismissed it, because outside of Tabitha, Betty and Jenny, there were very few fairy women that liked Grace. Whatever this was, she’d reached a whole new level of hate.
“You have me. Now, let her go,” I said, as Troy entered the room behind me. Little Mark was latched to his leg. “Take the boy and get out of here.”
“What is this, Robin?” he asked, ignoring me.
“Outside of Grace, the Phoenix himself commands the highest price. Dead or alive. Preferably alive, but that’s really relative to you, isn’t it?” she asked.
“You have me. Just let Winnie leave with Troy,” I begged her.
She nodded to the table next to her. “Get in the jar,” she said.
“What?” Troy asked.
“Mr. Maynard, if you don’t shut up, I will cut her throat. I already have Dylan. Don’t put Winnie’s death on your conscience,” she said as she stroked Winnie’s hair with her free hand. Winnie trembled, whimpering at the woman’s touch.
“Winnie, look at me. Mommy is right outside. I want you to go to her, okay? I need you to take good care of her,” I said, trying not to choke on my own words.
“But Daddy, we need you too,” she said.
“I know, but Daddy is going with Mrs. Robin for now. I love you, Winnie. Tell Mommy that I love her. Can you do that?” I asked. She nodded as more tears streamed down her face. “Troy take her.”
“Okay,” Troy muttered. He seemed to be resigned to the fact that we weren’t leaving this trailer together.
“Inside, please,” she instructed, as the blade danced so close to Winnie’s neck.
“Swear to me that Winnie goes free if I get in that jar,” I said.
“I swear,” she said with a smile.
I knew that my Thunderbird form could take any size that I wanted. Transforming into the bird, I could shrink myself far enough to get in the jar. My insides churned at the thought of it. If the lid didn’t have holes, I would suffocate and turn to dust. Until the dust was exposed to oxygen, I couldn’t reignite or rise. She had me, and I knew it. My entire focus rested on getting Winnie away from her.
“What do I tell her?” Troy muttered.
“Nothing if you can help it. She will read a lie. But if she pushes, tell her I died. It will be the truth. When Levi gets back, make sure she stays with him,” I said as if Troy was the executor of my last will and testament.
“In! Now!” Robin ordered, as her red cloak flared around her. Troy bared his raw, jagged teeth at her giving her a low growl. “Down, doggie.”
“Enough,” I said shifting into a small black bird. Winnie’s little face wrenched in pain. Even at six years old, she knew what was going on. She’d been exposed to the fairies and lycans now. Steadily, I lowered myself down into the jar. She shoved Winnie to the ground as she clamped the lid down on the jar. I looked up in my bird form. No holes.
Winnie grabbed the jar, shaking me around in it. Robin shoved her toward Troy, extracting the jar from her as Winnie stumbled away. She opened her hand, blowing across it, and a green dust filled the room. Troy and the children started coughing. The kids looked dazed.
“Now, go,” Robin ordered.
Troy helped Winnie up, telling her to run for Grace. She looked back to Robin as she ran down the hallway. My daughter. The one I should have never had. She had now seen two parents leave her life. My heart broke, and if a bird could cry, I did. As the oxygen in the jar waned, I listened
to Robin as she spoke to Troy.
“Don’t even think about it, Wolf, or I’ll fill your stomach with rocks,” she warned. “The children won't remember what happened. My green dust will cloud their memories. It will seem more like a dream than anything.”
The earlier tales of Little Red Riding Hood told a gruesome ending to the wolf who had eaten her and her grandmother. Once the huntsman freed them, they put rocks in the wolf’s stomach so he couldn’t move. He laid there and bled to death. Troy slowly backed away from Robin in full protection mode for his son. She lifted her hand, then a ball of fire appeared above it. She slung it at Troy.
“How about a little fire, Scarecrow?” she laughed. The trailer ignited, spreading green flames all over it. I knew this jar wouldn’t withstand an explosion. If I could keep from passing out until then, I could shift back. If not, I would be exposed to the oxygen after the explosion, then I could rise.
“No need in all of this going to waste,” Robin said, loading jars of the absinthe homebrew into her basket. She picked me up last, tapping on the glass. She giggled and sat me in the basket with the rest of the jars. She picked one more up and stepped forward deliberately. A circle and pentacle were drawn on the floor. A protection circle. She bit her own finger drawing blood, touching it to the circle. The flames spread around us, but she didn’t seem to be in any hurry. The circle glowed with green light as the trailer exploded. We remained untouched inside the circle.
Now, I could see Grace. Luther was dragging her out of the water. She seemed dazed by the explosion. I just hoped she stayed away from Robin, who made it clear that she intended to cause Grace pain. I felt my lungs starting to seize as the oxygen ran out. Amanda stood over Troy, who looked like he was floating in the water face down. She pulled Mark out of the water. He clutched his mother looking down at Troy. Kwaski, one of our old deputies who had turned out to be a were-possum, flipped Troy over. I could see the blood on his face. Something must have hit him from the explosion. Cletus and Tater helped Kwaski by loading Troy on a plastic bottle raft. The water rose quickly around them. It was waist deep and getting deeper.
The red-hooded woman taunted Grace. In my last few moments of life, I saw Grace clutch her stomach protectively. I doubted that anyone else would have noticed, but I knew her. I knew that look on her face. When her palm flattened on her stomach, she circled it in a protective motion. Grace was pregnant.
My child.
My heir.
Everything I’d ever hoped for stood outside the glass of a Mason Jar, and I was helpless to enjoy it. The last look through the tinted blue glass was of Grace, kicking and screaming. Just like the day Levi held her back from me at the courthouse, only now it was Luther holding her firmly.
My sight blurred as my body turned to dust in the jar, and I drifted off into the nothingness that awaited me. I had never been in this place for a very long time. Inside the jar, I might become wild like a trapped raccoon. I just hoped I didn’t gnaw my own sanity off to escape. I had to remain sane for Winnie, Grace, and my son.
THE INCESSANT KNOCKING WOULDN’T STOP, SO I finally crawled out of the bed. Plodding to the door, I swung it open to see the caring face of my grandfather. I was sick of the looks of pity, especially from him.
“What do you want, Nestor?” I asked.
“I know you don’t want to see anyone, but there is a council meeting today. I thought you might want to attend. It is after all your job,” he reminded me.
I hadn’t forgotten my laughable title. The one I had taken when I still had Dylan. The one I had finally accepted when I had a home, a family, and friends. My fiancé blew up in an explosion caused by an enemy I didn’t even know I had. My home sank to the bottom of the abyss created by the explosion. My dog had disappeared. My brother hadn’t returned from the Summer realm. Levi had been taken after he skipped to save me from drowning in the trailer. No one knew anything about him. The man who brought me to this forsaken fairy town died by my own hand, even if it was mercy. The final blow was a parting gift from Stephanie.
When the smoke cleared after she disappeared before the whole town, I found out that Krykos, Rossi, and Associates sent a letter to the Alabama Department of Human Resources saying that I had ignored the quarantine of Shady Grove. That my daughter’s life was in danger because I kept her in the condemned zone. Before I woke up the morning after the sinkhole incident, the State of Alabama took my child away from me.
Remington Blake, my lawyer, and Tennyson Schuyler, my uncle, and mob businessman, were pulling all the strings to get her back. They wouldn’t let me see her. I did get to talk to her on the phone, but it just broke my heart all over again. It felt like I had nothing left. Except for the expanding bulge in my womb who would become a wonderful fairy boy child. Without his father, he would never be a Phoenix. However, he would be the one piece of Dylan that I had left. A painful reminder of his absence, but a reminder that life goes on even after a hundred deaths.
From the first bout of dizziness, I suspected that I was pregnant, but I didn’t want to be wrong. Dylan had wanted a child so badly. To say something without knowing for sure would have been cruel. Especially if I told him I was pregnant and it caused him to shut out Devin who despite my gut feeling might have been his son. I had intended to tell him after Troy and Amanda’s wedding.
Now only a week since Dylan’s “death,” I knew his son grew inside of me. The boy heated my body like his father had. This child caused my body to ache with each expansion. Tabitha examined me daily. She assured me that everything was right on track. I would only have to endure a six-week pregnancy. Fairy babies happily grew quickly. I scolded myself for thinking of him as Dylan’s child because he was my child, too. My blood. And possibly the heir to my throne.
Which I had decided was a joke. That’s why when Nestor showed up at my door telling me that the council was meeting, I slammed the door in his face.
“Grace! You come back here. You promised us all that you would do this. You can’t back out just because things got tough,” he yelled through the door like an angry parent.
I stomped back to the door, swinging it open. “If you think that this is just a little tough, you can go to hell, Nestor. I have lost everything!”
“No, Grace,” he said shoving his finger in my shoulder. “You can’t see the forest for the trees. Everyone in this town supports you. They want to help. I am your blood, and you have shut me out, too. Jenny and Tabitha both say you won’t talk to them. You go ahead and pitch your hissy fit, but then you’ve got to put your big girl panties on and do your fucking job!”
I stepped back from him as his eyes glossed over completely black. I’d never seen even a hint of his kelpie form. His anger flowed off him like waves of humidity over a heated blacktop, burning into my broken soul. Nestor, my grandfather, was understanding and kind. This man, before me, seethed with fury.
I refused to cry. Shedding tears during Winnie’s phone call, I resolved that the only way I’d make it through this pregnancy was to shut my heart off from the world around me. It had shattered into a million pieces just like a teacup now sitting at the bottom of a sinkhole.
My lip quivered, but I sucked in a deep breath. “I quit,” I mumbled, trying to shut the door.
“No, you don’t,” he said forcing his way into the apartment.
Jenny had moved into Levi and Finley’s old apartment, allowing me to take one of the rooms there, since I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Every night, I went to sleep on a bed that smelled like Levi, sandalwood, and orange. I had washed the sheets over and over, but I couldn’t shake the smell. It was manly and fresh. I missed him, and I knew that once Dylan’s child was born that I was going to the Otherworld to get my bard back. Nothing on this earth or below it would stop me. So, I did have things to live for. It just didn’t involve being Queen of Shady Grove.
My reasons to continue on were my family. My daughter. My son. My brother. My bard.
I supposed that included Nestor,
but my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit it currently. Pride and grief.
“All of this is going to work out. Finley will come home. Remy will get Winnie back. You have a child inside of you growing that you worked so hard to get. Dylan would be so happy if he were here. He would want you to do your job,” he said.
“Don’t you dare put words into his mouth. He isn’t here. You don’t know what he would have wanted!” I growled in protest.
He wasn’t backing down. “You read the book, Grace. I knew Dylan very well. He was the kind of man I wanted for you, so I backed him when he confronted Jeremiah for his chance with you. I know exactly what he would have wanted, and it isn’t you mourning him cooped up in an apartment alone with his unborn child!”
“I’m not mourning him,” I said.
“Sure, whatever,” he said, throwing his hands up.
“He isn’t dead,” I said. Since the moment the trailer exploded, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow Dylan had survived. Clearly, Robin Rayburn had trapped him there for a reason. I couldn't believe it was to simply kill him.
The children seemed dazed after the incident. Amanda talked to both of them while Troy was unconscious. She wasn’t able to get much out of either of them, except for it was Robin who had lured them into the trailer in the first place. We thought they had wandered off, but she had done something to cause them to follow her. I wasn’t sure if Robin had drugged them or if they were under a spell. Their memories could have been shadowed by the explosion which affected all of us.
Once Troy had recovered from the nasty gash he’d gotten from flying shrapnel, he interrogated Matthew Rayburn. He brought in Nestor and Tabitha to take a look at him. The poor man had succumbed to the wiles of yet another Summer Leanansidhe. This town seemed to be full of them. The time would come, one day, that I would have a few choice words for Queen Rhiannon and her army of angry slut daughters.
The only thing was, if I wanted an audience with her, that meant I would have to continue to be queen whether I wanted to or not. It wasn’t a good enough reason to continue to fool myself.
