Wanda’s warmth and compassion were almost more than she could bear.
“Why are you being so nice to me? You should be pretty angry—and even though it was an accident, resentment is still up for grabs.”
“Because I get the feeling you haven’t had nice in your life for a long time, Toni. Everyone should have some nice to offset the unpleasant.”
No truer words. But she wanted the focus off of her and the lack of nice in her life. She didn’t know these people, and for all their goodwill—well, except for Nina—she wasn’t a sharer. She kept things close to her vest for a reason. Because you never knew who was listening.
She’d learned that the hard way.
“What do you think’s going on back home right now? Are your families calling the police, sending out search parties? They sound like a pretty tight bunch.”
Wanda grimaced, tucking her chin into a pelt of fur Jon had given each of them to keep them warm. “That’s the one thing that pains me most. Not being able to let my husband Heath know I’m all right. But I can’t fret over what I can’t change, honey. He knows me well enough to know I’m pretty tough. Besides, who’s to say the passage of time is the same here in Shamalot as it is in Jersey? Isn’t it always topsy-turvy in a fairytale? Anyway, enough about me. What about you? Any family who’ll be worried for your safety?”
A tear stung her eye, and she’d like to think it was the harsh wind that had picked up as they curved along the snow-covered path and entered a small patch of what looked like toadstools straight out of a cartoon. But it wasn’t the wind.
Still, she shook her head. “Nope. No one will know I’m gone. Except Bree, and my landlord when rent time rolls around. Wow, am I ever going to get my ass handed to me for this. I’m guessing a pink slip will be waiting for me when I get back.”
“Bree can stuff those damn scarves and her power trip up her tight, perky ass,” Wanda said on a demonic chuckle. “If your happily-ever-after involves going back to Jersey, I think Marty might be able to help you with a job if you’d be willing to relocate to Buffalo.”
Something lodged deep in her heart shifted a centimeter or two. Just enough to be noticeable. “You’re doing that nice thing again. You don’t even know me. Why would you consider me worthy of a job?”
Wanda shrugged her shoulders and smiled again. “It’s just a vibe I get. No one’s fooled me yet.”
“So what’s your vibe on Jon?” And she didn’t mean the sexy-smexy one. He had more than enough of that to go around. God, he was so delicious she’d considered reconsidering her vow never to become even remotely involved with a man again.
Wanda expelled a long breath, her eyelashes fluttering. “Oh, that man. He’s enough to make me reset my moral compass. If there was no Heath in the picture, I just might feign virginity and throw myself as tribute at his feet. Phew, he’s pretty phenomenal to look at, huh? But I haven’t figured him out yet, to be honest. Something’s just not jiving for me.”
A shiver of fear slithered along Toni’s spine. “Do you think he’s a bad guy?”
“Nope. Not necessarily bad. Not bad at all, in fact. His intentions all outwardly appear to be good. He’s a good host, if you could call whatever it was he cooked up in that big cauldron being a good host. He’s well-mannered and his cottage was adorbs…there’s just something. But don’t worry,” she said on a confident wink. “I’ll figure it out.”
“I have ears, milady Wanda,” Jon joked, slowing his pace to fall in step with them, his strong thighs eating up the distance they traveled. “I’m saddened you didn’t enjoy the toadstool soup. I let it simmer all day, too. I do not know where I’m going wrong.”
“Crow’s feet, lad. Ye must always use a healthy batch if ye wish to impart a hearty, savory flavor,” Dannan offered helpfully, brushing away snow like a plow as they continued to press onward.
Jon nodded his dark head, playfully knocking Dannan in the stomach with a light rap of his knuckles. “Of course, my friend. I should just hire you as my chef.”
Dannan’s tiny chuckle trickled to her ears. “Ah, lad, that would require roots. I’m footloose and fancy free, as ye well know. No ties bind ol’ Dannan.”
But Jon and Dannan’s good-natured chatter became muffled as a low voice calling her name caught Toni’s ear. She fell behind the group as they continued to talk, stopping in the middle of the clearing they were passing through.
Tree stumps sprouted everywhere, a light film of snow covering them. The trees surrounding the perimeter sparkled in the sun, ice dripping from the branches like glassy talons.
Colorful toadstools bowed in the wind, their multicolored, broad tops bending forward then back, as though waving her toward an enormous tree with a hole carved in the center of its base.
Now here’s where she should seriously rethink letting everyone else get so far ahead of her, but come on. Since she’d long passed fear and was well on her way to curious, she wanted to see all these amazing wonders that were things she’d only seen in movies.
If she stopped to think about this, really think about it, being here in Shamalot was every childhood fantasy fulfilled. Magical and serene. So she decided to take a quick peek and then she’d catch up with the others.
As she made her way to the snow-covered base, the scent of something familiar tweaked her cerebral cortex. Toni squinted at the tree, with its long, craggy limbs, and then she squinted again.
Was that a tendril of steam wafting from the tree?
It damn well was. And the scent drifting toward her nose, filling it with caffeinated bliss?
It was the scent of the nectar of the gods. The scent of a Starbucks white-chocolate mocha, extra whipped cream, please.
No. That couldn’t be real.
But a hand, supple and smooth, slithered from behind the tree, holding something. Something in a white paper cup with a label Toni knew well.
As she got closer, she saw a name in bold, black print on the cup. Just like the nice Starbucks barista Anthony would write on her cup every week when she treated herself to a grande on payday.
Shut the front door. What sorcery was this?
She almost couldn’t contain her joy when a weak voice said, “Toni?”
Oh my God, the voice even sounded like Anthony’s!
You’d think that should have been her first clue. But no. She wasn’t into clues or ominous warnings, like that gut feeling briefly reminding her this was too good to be true.
She tamped that bitch back down where it belonged with all the other warnings and fairly skipped the remainder of the way to the hand—because it held the fruit of the gods.
The moment she reached for the cup, a full body appeared, popping out from behind the tree. The torso belonging to the body had on a pink jacket just like the one she was forced to wear at the outlet mall.
Toni snatched her hand away and looked upward.
“Bree?” Wait. Why did Bree sound like Anthony?
Worse, had she followed them down that crazy rabbit hole, too? Leave it to her to screw up a perfectly legit free pass from that hellhole by showing up just so Bree could hound her about improperly folding the new batch of winter scarves—in another realm, no less.
Goddammit.
Maybe Bree could take the shoes to the castle. If anyone needed some happiness in her life, it was shallow, self-centered Bree. Where was Brenda when you needed her pearls and life lessons?
Toni stopped dead in her tracks, forcing the hand that desperately wanted to snatch that coffee cup away to her side. “Bree? What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
Bree smiled her aggravatingly phony smile and straightened the hem of her jacket with her fingers. “The same way you did. I was going along, minding my business on my coffee break and checking the dressing rooms for leftover clothes from the customers, and wham! I fell down that hole just like you and those other ladies and the creepy kid did. Where are we, Toni?” she asked, her eyes wide, her lower lip trembling.
Bree’s shiverin
g got the best of her softer side. She yanked off her pelt and wrapped it around Bree’s slender shoulders. “We’re in Shamalot. It’s a long story best told by the people who live here. I bet Brenda’s going to be here any second to give you your job and read your aura—or however that works. Suffice it to say, you’re going to have to do something you probably won’t want to do.”
Toni hoped that involved folding millions of stupid scarves with the folded edge facing outside.
“Like what?” Bree asked, giving her Thumper eyes as she pulled the pelt over her nose to warm its red, pert tip.
“I don’t know. But if it sucks as much as my job, you’re in for a real treat.”
“I’m sorry I was so mean to you, Toni. But I’m really scared. Please take me with you. I’ll share my coffee if you do.”
And again, Toni heard warning bells. When had Bree ever spoken to her as though she was anything more than her peon? Never. That’s when. But those bells weren’t loud enough to talk her out of a cup of steaming paradise.
Once more, Toni reached for the coffee, her frozen hands grateful for the warmth of the paper cup. Bree was just a kid. How could she say no to her when Toni had people helping her and Bree had no one? “That’s really nice of you, Bree. Thanks.”
Putting the tips of her fingers under the cup, she encouraged, “Drink up, Toni. It’s freezing here. Much colder than Chersey.”
Just as the tab opening was positioned at her mouth, Toni paused and frowned. Chersey? She moved the cup from her lips and looked hard at Bree. Really hard. Maybe she’d just heard her wrong?
So she decided to test her. “Shamalot’s nothing like Chersey.”
Bree nodded her blonde head, the curls as bouncy as ever. “So I see.”
Damn. Damn. Damn. This wasn’t Bree. Which was crazy and creepy, but likely no less nutty than the fact that Nina was a vampire and Marty was a werewolf and she was in a magical kingdom. But, dear God, why couldn’t the warning bells have been about anything else but the coffee?
Just as she was about to confront faux Bree, Jon’s big frame flew into view and he roared, “Drop that, milady!”
All Toni saw was the shiny blade of his sword as he sliced it through the air and knocked the cup from her hand. Landing in front of her, he pushed her behind him in a protective manner and demanded, “Reveal yourself or feel the sharp tip of my sword through your gullet! Who sent you, miscreant?”
Goosebumps swept along her arms. Wow, he was dreamy. Chivalrous to a fault, handsome, hot. Just his hand at her waist was enough to steal her breath. And she’d love to linger and enjoy his chivalry.
But something strange was going on.
Toni’s feet began to tingle and twitch in her shoes. Suddenly, her feet didn’t hurt quite the way they had as they’d walked through the forest in the cold snow, with her toes mashed together in shoes that were like medieval torture devices.
No, in fact, they felt like a part of her, as if they were made specifically for her feet. They were no longer clunky and awkward…almost as if they weren’t there at all.
She was so busy focusing on her feet, she almost forgot Jon and Bree.
“Who sent you? Answer me or die!” Jon demanded once more, waving the sword under Bree’s nose, its sharp tip poised at her nostril.
Faux Bree didn’t appear to like that at all. She wrinkled her nose before she pushed the sword out of the way with a forefinger—and then began to melt right before their eyes.
Toni gasped when, without warning, her feet forced her to move, propelling her forward toward Bree with an alarming speed.
But Bree’s body was no more. The puddle of pink and blonde colors blended and shifted like gel then began to slither upward, the image distorting, twisting, changing.
Green scales began to form all along Bree’s ever-growing arms and legs, and then this thing she was becoming fell forward onto four legs, making the earth quake and crack, sending fissures throughout the forest floor. It sprouted loudly flapping wings in shades of emerald and blue, whirring them in mad thumps.
As Toni slammed into the belly of the beast and fell backward, it lifted its mammoth head, rearing its long neck upward and opening its mouth wide to reveal a forked tongue, slithering directly toward her.
A dragon. She was staring a bona fide dragon right in the face. This was really happening.
Toni scurried backward in a crabwalk as fast as her hands thrust deeply in the snow would allow. Panic seized her chest, fear and disbelief immobilizing her.
Jon’s sword rose high, arcing in the dwindling sun as he rushed at the beast, but just as he bellowed a rebel cry, Toni’s feet virtually lobbed her upward, thrusting her full throttle toward the stream of fire faux Bree spewed.
But in that moment—a slow, painful moment, where she was literally looking down the throat of a dragon—her body began to react in ways her mind disagreed with two million percent.
As her mind screamed, are you fucking kidding me? You can’t take out a dragon with the thump of your fist, Toni Vitali! You can’t even make it through an entire Zumba class without clinging to the ballet bar, begging that sadistic instructor Dominic to end your life, her body did just that as she landed on the dragon’s back and it took flight.
Midair, she raised her fist high and brought it down on the dragon’s snout, making him rear backward and howl his displeasure so loudly, snow fell from the trees in clumps.
“Milady Toni, no!” Jon hollered, waving from the ground just as the tail end of the dragon thwacked her like a tennis ball.
Her mind said, drop like you’re hot, dumbass! Curl up in the fetal position and pray for death!
Alas, her body entirely disagreed again as she grabbed on to the dragon’s thorny tail and clenched her jaw while, hand over hand, she climbed her way back atop its body, headed for its Mothra-like wings.
Again, her mind interfered. You’re a certifiable nutbag if you try this, Toni. If you do, I’m done with you. You’re dead to me. But before I write you off, look down below. This thing’s eyeballin’ that huge hole in the ground.
Her eyes briefly caught the image below, a hole, probably the size of the alleged hole in the ozone with nothing but blackness along the interior. But her body pressed forward and latched on to a wing, fighting the cutting wind and the almost ear-shattering screech of the incensed faux Bree.
The dragon began to weave frantically, waffling in and out of trees like a stunt aerialist until it soared higher. From her position at the tip of his neck, Toni saw Nina, Marty, and Wanda below, screaming something she couldn’t hear and waving their arms.
Marty began to literally climb up the side of the tree where Toni met faux Bree, using her arms and legs in rapid motion, with Wanda hot on her heels, their fairy godmother wings swatting the air.
Nina flashed into her vision briefly, the bluebirds still circling her head though more anxiously now, chirping above her as she used her long legs to launch herself into the air, wobbling slightly.
However, Toni was already where she needed to be.
She knew she was, and she didn’t even stop to think that was odd. It just was.
Pressing one of her heeled feet to the middle of the dragon’s wing, she latched on with both hands, her eyes stinging with tears from the cold, and yanked backward with everything she had in her.
Once more, her mind revolted. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Crouching Tiger? Have you suddenly become some mythology slayer? You’re on the back of a dragon, twit!
Ah, but her body fought back as she broke the dragon’s wing and he began to nosedive toward the ground, screeching and blowing a stream of orange-and-blue-tinted fire.
Her mind was back again, and this time, her body mostly agreed with its assessment. Knock-knock. Brains here! You do realize you’ll be a grease spot when this bad boy hits the ground, right? With the speed this dragon is racing toward that hole, you’re stewed, Vitali. Nice knowin’ ya.
“Milady! Jump!” Jon yelled as he
ran alongside the dragon, his hands cupped over his mouth, his long legs pumping. “I’ll catch youuu!”
Fingers grabbed her newly acquired length of hair, shoring the strands upward and effectively plucking her from the back of the dragon as it careened in a spiral down to the pitted depths of the hole below them.
Toni heard a grunt in her ear as she slammed into a drift of snow with a bone-crunching smack.
“Ugh!” Nina yelped, keeping her arm securely around Toni’s waist and rolling with her down a bumpy hill. They tumbled and sputtered like a half-human, half-undead snowball, kicking up snow and dead leaves in their path until they came to a full stop.
Toni groaned, flopping to her right side, forcing air into her lungs with loud rasps.
There was the thunderous sound of Dannan’s footsteps and the cries of Wanda and Marty off in the distance, but she was too dizzy to lift her head. Instead, she let it loll to the side, ignoring the brittle, wet snow.
“What the fuck just happened?” Nina muttered, pushing the soaking-wet hair from Toni’s forehead.
Nina’s hands were oddly soothing as she ran them over Toni’s shoulders and face, checking her eyes and nose, her cheekbones and arms. “Jesus and a snow cone, why the hell did you wander off?”
“Starbucks,” she muttered. It was all she was capable of saying.
Nina bracketed Toni’s head with her hands and stared down at her, sunglasses concealing her eyes. “Really, Looney-Tunes? Are there barista’s aplenty out here in One Hundred Acre Woods?”
She didn’t have time to answer as Jon plowed through the snow and dropped down beside her, pulling her from Nina’s gentle hands and lifting her in his arms. “My lady, you’re freezing. We must warm you or you’ll catch your death.”
Maybe on the outside she was freezing, but her insides would beg to differ as Jon carried her, tucked to his wide chest, toward the very tree that had started all her trouble.
His chest heaved against her left breast as he huffed for breath, creating all sorts of imagery in her head—images she had no business dreaming up when she was in such a pickle. Still, they assaulted her, making her skin tingle and her heart race, and if she had an ounce of energy left, she’d wrap her arm around his shoulders just to see what it felt like. But she was depleted.
Accidentally Ever After (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 11) Page 6
