Her One Wish

by Marie Hall

  With a jerk of his foot, Robin rolled his brother. Crispin flopped over like a long-dead fish, his arms flung out haphazardly, his mouth hanging open wide. Nixie could only hope that blow would keep him down for the next few hours.

  “Now you must all go.” Robin turned to his men. “I must do this alone. Except for you.” He looked at her.

  One by one the men faded off, without question, without anger, simply following his rule to the letter of the law. Except for John, who lingered on the fringes.

  The great, yawning desolation of what came next very nearly crippled her. Now he wished and she would be forced away from him.

  John frowned, staring down at Robin’s hand. There was a question burning in his eyes.

  “Trust me, my friend,” Robin said slowly, though his grip on Nixie’s arm never relented.

  “Always.” John’s deep baritone was a comforting and familiar shiver of sound.

  At night, when she fell asleep ten years from now, she hoped she would dream of this place. Of these men, of how they’d embedded their way into her heart and that at least in sleep she could take comfort from these precious moments.

  Robin and John clapped forearms and shook on it.

  She now finally understood John’s fanatical regard for Robin, and why he’d follow him anywhere he went. Because she felt the exact same, but it was more than mere charm or charisma that made her want to go where Robin led, it was the deep-down certainty that regardless of the thefts, and the brutality he’d sometimes be forced to exhibit, beneath it all, he was a true man of honor and character.

  John’s heavy footsteps slowly faded away, blending into the shadows all around them. The men were all skilled fighters and trackers, and she knew deep in her heart that they would live well and safe for many years to come.

  Though her heart was heavy, she still managed a soft smile at the thought.

  Kneeling, Robin took Crispin’s hand in his and tugged at one of the fingers. Then he quickly did the same to himself. He was swapping out the rings.

  The moment he slipped the ring on his hand, Robin’s image wavered. From the blue-eyed, blond-haired Brad Pitt to the green-eyed brunette his brother had pretended to be.

  Nixie took an involuntary step back. In her head she knew it wasn’t really Crispin she was looking at, but the body laying on the ground looked so much like her Robin, and her Robin looked nothing like himself.

  Robin shook his head. “It’s just me, pet.” Then walking up to her, like one would a cornered, terrified animal, he kept whispering, “it’s just me.”

  She shook her head when he grabbed her elbow. Not like she’d tried really hard to get away, but she knew what came next and it killed her to even consider it.

  His thumb traced her quivering lower lip. “Robin, I…I…”

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  She blinked. Can’t what? Can’t listen to her? Can’t let her say… “What? You can’t what?”

  “I can’t let you go. I can’t make this wish.”

  Her heart leaped into her throat. Though she hardly recognized his face, his touch and his smell, was all him. All Robin Hood. Her body turned to liquid in his arms. “But Crispin? What about—”

  “He can rot in Hell for all I care. We’ll figure out a way, my beautiful dark genie, nothing says when I have to make my next wish. I can wait until the final moment of your curse to do it. But I cannot lose you.”

  He’d called her beautiful before, but the way he said it now, the way it rolled off his tongue with his strange, wonderful accent, like he was fully claiming her, it made her body spark like a flame.

  This could work. It was crazy, and ridiculous, but he was right, there was no time limit on a wish. This could work. Where before there’d been an overwhelming feeling of pain and loss, now there was the euphoria of blinding joy, it almost made her want to dance with it.

  “For the next twenty years, we can’t be together. Could you really live with that?”

  He pressed her tight to his chest, flattening her breasts almost to the point of pain, but she didn’t care. Not even a little. She wanted his touch all over her. Wanted his hands. His body. Whichever way she could take it. She wanted him, all of him, forever.

  The breeze picked up. No longer soft and balmy, it whipped and gathered around them, coiling in a tight band, just as it had the first time they’d met. Like all of Kingdom waited with bated breath for them to make their vows.

  And only three words kept echoing in Nixie’s head.

  This. Is. Legend.

  “If the alternative is losing you forever. Then aye, I can wait.” He lowered his face, lips moving in slowly, and it was like watching a movie in slow motion.

  She closed her eyes and wet her lips, waiting for the first brush of him.

  “Genie.” The word was spat out like a humorous slur.

  Immediately Robin shoved Nixie behind him and rushed up to his brother, shoving a knee into his spine as he made to rise.

  “So this was the plan, then, eh, brother? Oh, it was a good one. How many wishes did you use to get to me?”

  “Shut up!” Robin roared, yanking a fistful of Crispin’s hair into his hands before shoving his face back into the dirt. “You do not even look upon her. Do not think about her.”

  But Crispin didn’t sound afraid.

  Nixie felt trapped, captured in the gaze of a man who looked so much like the one she was falling madly in love with. But the evil spilling off his tongue, the malevolence of his gaze, it was not Robin at all.

  Her skin prickled with fear as she rubbed a hand down her arm.

  “Go ahead then, wish me gone.”

  Robin sneered. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

  Nixie knew Robin wanted to go for his blade, wanted to rip it out and drive it through his brother’s heart. She sensed the barely checked violence brewing inside him, saw the tension lining his shoulders. The rigid posture of his body and the glowering set of his jaw.

  “But I’ll not be using that final wish. I know exactly where to put you.”

  Crispin’s grin was huge, and though his fate was sealed, he didn’t seem scared. “Go ahead then. Lock me up in a tower. I’ll only escape. Without the power of a final wish behind you, you know I’ll get out. And when I do, it won’t be you I’m going after. To the ends of the Earth, breather.” There was a strange inflection to the way Crispin said brother, one Robin had noted immediately, because all the blood drained from his face when he’d heard it. “Oh, aye, you thought yourself immune from me, but bonds of blood reach deep.” His lips curled even higher. “But you’re wrong. For I am stronger than you. I always was. Make your wish and see me gone, or I shall never stop.”

  Pain glinted through Robin’s eyes as he stared at her and all the joy she’d felt only moments ago vanished.

  “It’s okay, Robin.” A tear slid down her face. “We both knew this could never really happen.” She clutched her chest.

  He shook his head as his throat worked violently, and finally he whispered in a shattered, broken voice, “He’ll never stop. And I could not do that to you.”

  “I know.” Her grin—that she did not feel—wobbled precariously.

  “I promise you. I promise you, this will not be the end. I’ll find you, Nixie. I’ll never stop searching.”

  “Twenty years—you’ll never find me, Robin,” she sniffed as the tears came out harder.

  His fingers jerked on Crispin’s hair even harder. His brother still wouldn’t stop laughing, because even though he’d been caught, he knew he’d won. Crispin’s final act of vengeance was to take away any joy from Robin’s life.

  “I’ll never stop looking. I vow it upon pain of death.”

  The wind that’d calmed for a moment now picked up violently, whipping around them, between them. Tossing up stones and twigs, lashing her in the face, but she didn’t dare move or blink.

  “I love you, Robin Hood.” She whispered the word that’d been imprinted in her
heart from the very beginning of eternity.

  “And I you, my beautiful Maid Marian.”

  Like a cannon had shot off, the world exploded with one final pounding clap of thunder, shaking the ground beneath their feet.

  Her heart exploded with joy and wonder.

  “Two souls—” she whispered.

  “—have now become one,” he finished for her.

  A love that transcends the stones…

  Nixie finally understood. They’d not needed the trading of Veritas Stones for Kingdom to bind them.

  A legend had just been born.

  “What is your heart’s wish?” Robin’s voice was a tender caress.

  The woods came alive with the sounds of men’s shouts and the clanging steel of swords. Clearly the knights had found them, and come in search of their king.

  “To never be used again.”

  Soon the knights would be upon them. Time was swiftly running out for them.

  “Then my final wish—”

  Nixie’s body flooded with the genie power, fueling her limbs, her blood, making her body snap and crackle with energy.

  “—is that until your curses release, you would never be found by another…again.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath as the power surged through her, coursing like ten million volts of lightning. Her hair stood on edge, her dress whipped violently around her ankles as the lamp he’d hidden within the folds of his pocket rose slowly in mid-air.

  “Robin.” She reached for him with fingers that’d grown translucent. His blue eyes gleamed like unholy fire.

  “I love you,” were the last words she heard as she was snatched, with the incredible speed of an arrow shooting out of his bow, back into her lamp.

  Chapter 19

  Nixie blinked, gazing at the world around her. She knew she was in her lamp. But there was no darkness this time. It was sunny and beautiful. The world sparkling and dancing with a dazzling array of colors.

  A glistening field of poppy flowers danced in the gentle breeze. Their lush red color sparking like jewels amongst the velvety blue of the horizon and the jade-green blades of grass.

  Ancient looking trees rose up like steeples all around her. The air was redolent, and even shivered with a trace of magic that made her skin prickle. A few feet in front of her was a placid pool with water so clear it looked to sink down into eternity.

  The golden flecks of fish scales flashed by, cattail reeds swayed back and forth with a rhythmic, watery motion upon its bank, and there were even several dragonflies and lightning bugs dancing above its surface.

  “Where am I?”

  Because always her lamp conformed to her mind, to places she’d been. She’d never seen a place quite like this before. It was lovely and surreal and—

  “His home,” Danika’s voice intruded on her thoughts.

  Nixie twirled in surprise, heart banging hard against her ribcage to see her friend fluttering inside her lamp.

  “A little warning might be nice,” Nixie said with a stuttery laugh. “Just about gave me a heart attack.”

  Danika grew from fairy size to woman, landing gracefully on her feet. She wore a gown of orchids painted a colorful yellow and pink. On her head rested a hunter-green laurel wreath. Her nut-brown curls cascaded like a waterfall down her shoulders.

  Nixie raised a brow, giving the fairy a knowing grin. “You’re looking very pretty today, Dani. Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that it’s a full moon out, would it?”

  She tried hard to keep the jealousy out of her words, because she was happy for her friend, but right now all Nix wanted to do was to get back to Robin.

  The blue-eyed fairy touched the nape of her neck. “Perhaps. And just so you know, I love you dearly. That I would take even a second of my precious time away from my husband to stop by here and speak with you.”

  Nodding as the last traces of humor left her, Nixie sighed. What was Robin doing now? What had happened to Crispin? Had the guards caught them? Those thoughts came rolling in like a flood. “I’m sure you want to be with him.”

  With every step Danika took, blooms of wildflowers sprouted up. The fairy touched Nixie’s hand. “He is well, lass.”

  Her gaze jerked to Danika’s, never swerving or blinking as she asked, “How do you know? Did you see him? Is that how you knew I was here?”

  “Breathe, child.” Danika held up her palm. “I can answer all your questions, only breathe. One. I saw him. Two. That is not how I knew you were here.”

  Nix frowned, wondering how Danika had realized where she actually was, but much more concerned with how things had gone for him. With heart in her throat, she flicked her wrist. “Well? How is he?”

  “Well.” Danika bent at the waist, plucking up a daisy from beside her shimmering pink slipper and began to toy with the petals. “Well, as well as could be given the circumstances, I suppose.”

  Nixie’s eyes widened.

  “No, don’t fret, wee one. He is fine, as I said. Robin is a smart man; he managed to secure Crispin’s mouth shut before the knights arrived. And somehow that man, with his silver tongue, was also able to convince them that Crispin was in fact the bandit Robin Hood.”

  Grabbing on to her head, Nixie wrinkled her nose. “Let me get this straight. Robin switched places with Crispin?”

  “Aye, that’s about the gist of it.”

  “So that means he’s—”

  Danika nodded. “A king. As he should have always been. Yes.”

  She was happy for him. She really was. He’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted. And yet the thought of it made her heart bleed.

  “His wish, lass, his final wish. He sent you to me.”

  Nixie looked up at her friend. “To you?”

  “Aye. For safe-keeping. A fairy has no use for a genie. You’re as safe here as if you had no power at all. Ye’ll never be found. You can live your next twenty years as you wish it.”

  “But that’s now how this works. You have to make wishes.”

  Danika’s smile was swift. “No, I don’t, lass. You’re lamp is sheltered on fairy ground.”

  Nixie’s wasn’t exactly sure why that should make a difference, but it obviously seemed to.

  “Trapped inside my bottle.” She couldn’t help the bitterness from shading her words.

  “Look around you, Nixie, this is his home. Explore this world that he’s built for you. Learn the man, for I feel that is why he’s created this.”

  She hugged her arms tight to herself. “I learn him, and I fall even deeper in love. But twenty years, that’s an eternity here in Kingdom. As I learn him, he’ll forget me.”

  “No.”

  Squelching the hope that suddenly wanted to burst through her like a fist to the gut, Nixie cocked her head. “How? No?”

  Danika’s smile grew beatific. “Fairy lands and Kingdom operate under two different types of laws. Here, we can bend many rules. Not all, mind, but…many.”

  “The wishes being one of those rules?”

  Danika didn’t answer that question, but lifted her brows with a “now-you-got-it” look on her face. “But other rules as well.”

  Nixie was having a hard time keeping the hope contained. “What exactly are you saying, Danika?” She clutched at her chest.

  “That I am married to a man who controls the night. And that if I asked him to perhaps create a portal for a king—”

  She felt like she could hardly draw a proper breath, her eyes widened as her pulse raced.

  “—a portal that could take said king anywhere his heart desired from the moment the sun went down till the moment it rose, he could.”

  Nixie raced up to Danika, wrapping her arms around the fairies slender waist. “Yes. A million times, yes!” Tears were streaming down her face as she said it.

  “There are limitations,” Danika said softly after Nixie finally released her from her death grip.

  The fairy’s dragonfly wings zipped in agitation.

&nbs
p; “And they are?” It filled her stomach with nerves at the sound of it, but at least she’d get to see Robin, at least she’d get to touch him and hold him and—

  “Robin would merely be a shade of himself. He would not be here in body, but in spirit.”

  “Spirit…” The word came out a sad echo. “So I can’t touch him?”

  “No. But”—Danika’s smile was soft—“in every other way, he would be real. You would hear him. You would know him. Not physically, lass, but I’ve told ye before, love isn’t always physical. I was without my Jericho for hundreds of years, no contact at all, and yet we managed. You can too, child. This may not be ideal, but—”

  There were two options as she saw it.

  Keep away from him indefinitely, until her time expired. Or see him every night. Learn his soul. What made him smile. What made him tick. When she thought about it like that, it wasn’t a big deal at all. Never seeing him again, that was the true torture.

  “Have you talked to him about this?”

  “Aye.”

  “And?” She hopped onto the toes of her feet.

  Danika rolled her eyes affectionately. “Do ye honestly think I would have come to you about this if I wasn’t already sure of his answer?”

  A thrill of excitement blazed down Nixie’s spine. He wanted to see her too. She almost couldn’t contain her excitement. Her heart fluttered in her chest with the expectation of getting to see him soon.

  “Well then.” The lovely fairy dusted her hands off. “I’d say my work here is done. Enjoy your…”—she glanced around, eyes twinkling merrily—“incarceration. Though I’m not sure this is at all what the genies had in mind. But they should know better than to mess with a fairy godmother.”

  Her laughter filled the winds with the tinkling of bells.

  “Danika?” Nixie made a grab for her just before she vanished.

  Her friend turned inquisitive blue eyes toward her. “Hm?”

  “It was real. Wasn’t it. That intensity. You didn’t lie to me, did you? I really am his Marian.” Nixie didn’t phrase her words like questions, because they weren’t.