Spilled.
Everywhere.
She also wants to know WTF is up with this guttersnipe and her amazing warrior-like skills. Where did she learn to do battle with such adeptness? Who is her sensei?
Why isn’t he working as one of the queen’s masters in weaponry?
And where did she get those fabulous shoes? Oh, the sparkle—it makes her giddy.
The queen’s beside herself now that our bedraggled band of realm-hoppers is almost to the castle. But she’s decided, rather than bring the battle to them, why not let them bring the battle to her? Why not wait until the much-touted Christmas Eve ball and really turn it into a party chock-full of blood and gore?
Why not let them all believe they’ve made it to safe harbor, and then take everyone out in one deliciously fell swoop? King Dick and his precious son Prince Iver Daring for dumping her beautiful Resplendant, this misfit pack of wanderers who talk too much and have managed to escape her wrath, and Toni of the fiery hair and sparkly shoes?
None of the particulars mattered anymore. All that mattered was everyone had to die on a night that would go down in infamy as the night King Dick would always remember crossing Queen Angria was unacceptable.
In fact, why not make it a double coup—like an all-out massacre—and steal the castle and the kingdom while she’s at it?
The queen’s decided this could be LOL hilarious—a way to make her mark and force the inhabitants of Shamalot to bow down and worship the very ground she walks upon.
And she likes that. She likes that a lot.
Then there’s our rugged, chivalrous Jon Doe, falling head over heels for a woman he might have to part with. Torn between two worlds—the one to which his fair maiden must return to possibly reunite with her beloved brother, and the one where he has many obligations.
Because our Jon has a secret. One I’m quite confident you’ve figured out by now.
However, it’s the journey, not necessarily the destination, yes? Plus, for Nina—this entire tale in a yellow dress, bluebirds singing above her head—retribution can be good for the soul. Just ask this storyteller.
Anyway, there’s a battle looming—filled with potential death and despair, and as we rejoin our band of misfits, everyone appears to be blissfully unaware…
* * * *
Toni was the first to hit the top of the cliff overlooking the castle, her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the beauty sprawling before her. Snow-capped mountains surrounded the gray castle, their majesty rising into the low clouds above.
Stained glass windows in the shape of elongated ovals, glowing with candles, spanned the high towers, preparing for the coming night. Neatly trimmed, tall hedges nestled along the endless miles of the castle, almost glittering in the freshly fallen snow. People milled about the small knoll in front of the steps dressed warmly, selling goods and fresh market fare.
Carriages bustled in and out of the square in preparation for the coming ball, weaving in and out of trees glistening with some kind of green fruit that appeared to have been dipped in sugar like the leaves in the Garden of Wings.
Water swelled below them in ripples of ebony and frothy white, crashing against the boulders near the shore. The salty spray made her heart beat faster. They were here. They were finally here.
She grabbed Jon’s hand as he came up behind her and tucked her to his chest.
“It’s magnificent, milady, don’t you agree?” he said at her ear, making her shiver.
She sighed against him, stealing yet another moment where she could be close to him. “I’ve never seen anything quite as beautiful.”
“I have,” he admitted in husky tones. “You, last night, with the fire gracing your perfect form and the serenity upon your face as you slept beside me.”
“It had to be the pillows. It feels like a hundred years since I slept on a pillow,” she teased, closing her eyes and smiling.
“Naturally, it had nothing to do with my quick aptitude at beginner’s bedsport.”
“Bedsport? I forgot all about that,” she joked, nudging his ribs with her elbow.
He turned her in his arms with a chuckle. “Tell me something, milady.”
Toni rolled her eyes at him. “Are you going to make me rate your bedsport performance on a scale of one to ten?”
“Nay,” he muttered, his eyes serious. “I’d like to ask you a graver question.”
“Rating the bedsport isn’t grave?”
“Toni…” he warned, letting her know he was done indulging her.
“Okay, fine. Ask away.”
“If it ’twere possible, would you live with a man such as myself—one without riches, in a small cottage in a clearing without phones or intor-nets or coffee spouts, and help me raise reindeer? Could that make someone like you, from a vastly different world, happy?”
Resting her cheek on his chest, she smiled against the hard surface. “Coffeepots. Not spouts. And yes…I think I could.”
“This is good to know.”
“Hey, are we doing the regrets thing? I thought we made a pact?”
“Nay, milady. I simply ask in order to stroke my vast ego,” he said on a rumble of laughter.
She laughed as her cheeks flushed despite the bitter cold. Lifting her head, she gave him a soft kiss, fighting the butterflies in her belly. “No regrets, right?”
“Not a one,” he said against her lips.
They’d decided to see what they could see rather than focus on when or if this would all end. Nothing was set in stone at this point. The king and this happiness she was supposed to find hadn’t been handed down yet.
She gnawed on her knuckle, thinking.
“What troubles you, Toni?”
“Just a feeling, I suppose. Here we are, finally at the castle, and this Queen Angria still hasn’t shown up. Why is that? You’d think after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to kidnap me, we’d have run into her by now.”
“Nay. The queen does not dirty her hands with such matters. She leaves that to her henchmen.”
Something just wasn’t sitting right with her. “Okay, so did she just give up? Call it a day? Realize there’s nothing I have that she wants?”
“This I do not know. Not even with all the asking I’ve done around the forest. However, you are here now and safe, and no one will harm you in the king’s care. This I know.”
“You keep saying that like he’s an old friend. Do you guys do lunch on occasion? Hit Happy Hour at the Stool and Gruel once a week?”
Jon smiled as he looked out over the ocean’s vastness. “I only know the kind of ruler he’s been in my thirty-five years. Fair, kind, if not a bit eccentric. He would never allow a faithful subject to be harmed. There has been peace for many years between him and Angria. I imagine once he finds she’s sent men for your capture, he will be quite displeased. Please trust this.”
She took a deep breath and tried not to allow her jitters about her fate to take over. “Okay. I trust you.”
“Now, I must go prepare for our crossing, milady. Sit tight,” he said, dropping another breath-stealing kiss on her lips before taking his leave.
Nina came up behind her, the bluebirds now contentedly sitting on her shoulder, still whistling their happy tune. “You ready, kiddo?” she asked, placing a hand on Toni’s shoulder.
She wanted to say yes. She wanted to be brave in front of Nina because that’s what you did with the biggest badass in the land. So she nodded. “I think so.”
“Bullshit.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yep.”
“If I go back to Jersey, if that’s where this happiness I’m supposed to be granted is, can we text each other sometimes, maybe? Call or something?”
“Are you gonna wanna do lunch? Shop or some bullshit? Get our hair done?”
“I’d rather have my throat punched.” She paused a moment, fighting the swell of loneliness she’d staved off every day and night for three years.
She’d always thought of
herself as independent, capable of handling anything. But this loneliness, the empty nights with nothing to look forward to but a cheap TV dinner, being without her brother, had seeped into her bones.
As though a fog had lifted, being with these people had reminded her that she’d been doing nothing more than surviving. Yet, she wanted more, and if Jersey was where her happiness was, she wanted to have a life again. She wanted friends and maybe a hobby—something to fill the void she was so afraid of slipping back into if she had to go back.
Clearing her throat, she asked, “So maybe we could see a movie—your choice, of course. No rom-coms. Or just have a conversation sometime? I’d like to keep in touch with Carl, too…”
Nina nudged her shoulder. “I’m kidding, Princess Sparkly. Of course we’ll text and hang out and do all the fun shit we paranormals do. Christmas and Easter and effin’ Groundhog Day included. There’s always something to celebrate with this lot. Because that’s what we do. I’m not talking about the vague, empty promises people make when they say those words, either. We really do this shit. Besides, Carl would miss the crap outta ya if you didn’t keep in touch, kiddo. Since Quinn became Aphrodite, she’s been crazy busy making matches and hasn’t had a lot of time to read to him. He loves your stories—even if you can’t remember Sleeping Beauty didn’t have seven dwarves and a fucking library the size of NASA.”
She fought the lump in her throat, keeping her eyes down so Nina wouldn’t see her cry, and whispered, “Thank you.”
“You do know you’ll never be alone now, right? We’ll always be there, Princess. Sometimes you won’t even have to call. We’ll just show the hell up with some crappy casserole Marty baked that I can’t eat, or extra fresh loaves of bread hot out of the oven from Arch, who doesn’t know what to do with them, and who you haven’t met but will make you what I hear are the best chicken wings on the planet. Like I’d fucking know, right? You still need to meet Darnell, because who the fuck wants a day to go by without a bear hug from our favorite escaped demon? We’ll Skype you, and text you, and in general torture the living shit out of you every damn time you think you might be safe from us bunch o’ nutbags. Most of all, we’ll protect you—”
Toni lunged at Nina, stopping her words, words she so needed to hear. Wrapping her arms around the vampire’s waist, Toni buried her face in her shoulder.
Nina thumped her on the back with an awkward pat, letting her chin rest on the top of Toni’s head for the briefest of moments. “No one will hurt you ever again. Count on that crap.”
“Group hug!” Marty called out, wrapping her arms around them, with Wanda right behind her.
Dannan joined in, too, sheltering them with his big body as he pulled them all close and purred a grumble.
“Princess thought if this King Dick says she has to go back to Jersey, she’d be rid of us. Now get the fuck off me and tell her we’re framily. You know, the friends-and-family shit, and then tell her ditching us just won’t fly.”
“How could you ever think something like that, Toni?” Wanda asked, tugging a length of Toni’s hair. “Who else understands you and what you’ve been through better than us?”
“I said that shit,” Nina groused, rubbing her knuckles on the top of Toni’s head.
Marty brushed Toni’s tears away from her cold cheeks and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Aw, is Nina being reassuring again? God, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, huh?”
Nina flipped her the middle finger. “Fuck you, Marty.”
Marty swatted her with the furry muff Flauta had given her to keep her hands warm for the last leg of their journey. “That’s so mean! Take it back.”
“Okay, unfuck you, Marty.”
Toni laughed, wiping away her tears and squaring her shoulders. “Okay, enough of the girlie crap, let’s get this show on the road. We have a ball to attend and we need to get you guys back home so you don’t miss Christmas with your families.”
“About the castle,” Jon interrupted them, clearing his throat.
“What about it, Flawless?” Nina asked, her eyes wary.
Jon gave them a sheepish glance. “We have a small problem.”
Alarm skittered up Toni’s spine. “Which is?”
He sighed, his wide chest puffing outward. “The mote below us and no boat to take us to the land’s edge. They must have taken all the boats inland after bringing the guests from the surrounding mainland for the ball tomorrow.”
“Is there no way to send a signal, lad?” Dannan wondered.
“Who would be in the towers now, my friend? The drawbridge is up. Everyone is preparing for the ball. No enemies dare interfere. You know the king and his parties. Even some of our least supportive wouldn’t dare miss it.”
Toni’s feet began to tingle as she looked out over the cliff. “So you just need someone to put the drawbridge down?”
“Well, yes. And I also need someone to magically produce one of your planes to transport me back and forth from my world to yours. It is not so simple, milady,” he said with sarcasm.
She fought a girlish smile at the thought and asked, “Is it hard to put the drawbridge down?”
Jon looked at her as though she’d sprouted two heads. “No. It’s quite simple, though it takes some strength. But what does this have to do with getting to the drawbridge, Toni? It is there,” he pointed to the distance, “and we are here with no transportation.” He then pointed to his feet as though she’d missed the class on logistics.
“Yeah, yeah. I get that.”
“’The water is too cold to swim the mote to get to the drawbridge for us humans. We would freeze to death, and though the ladies are the logical choice. I cannot risk their health with their powers depleting. I will not chance this.”
Toni nodded. “I get that, too, I was just asking a question.” But why are you asking the question? her brain wondered.
Nina scowled, placing her hands on her hips. “Damn Brenda the Flaky Witch. If she’d left GD well enough alone, I could fly the hell over there—”
Toni backed up and got a running start at the edge of the cliff, jumping off the rocky surface with a piercing yelp of surprise.
As she shot toward the murky-cold water, she felt no fear. None. Not an ounce. It was as though she’d been doing this all her life.
As she screamed toward the water, her dress billowing upward like some reverse parachute, she clenched her eyes shut and hit the water like a cliff diver who’d just executed the most beautiful swan dive ever. With grace and speed, the impact almost nothing.
Her legs shifted, she heard the crunch of bone in her head, felt her lower body streamline, felt her feet all but disappear. She tumbled under the water, forcing her eyes open to encounter her lower body.
She had a tail. Shut the front door!
Or more appropriately, a tail scaled in the most beautiful purple and silver. Her fin swished in the water, swirling around and chasing away smaller fish.
What the hell?
And then it struck her. Somehow, after her battle with Pricilla, she’d inherited a tail. That was the only logical explanation for her new appendage.
Remember when I said I was done with you? That you were dead to me? Now you’re more than dead to me. You’ve reached moronic levels here, dummy. You’re going to freeze your ass off in this water and die. You came all this way just to damn well die right before you find out what the hell is going on? No can do,” her brain complained.
But her body? It said, Swim, bitch, swim, like the mermaid you’ve become! Work that fin, honey!
Toni forced her way to the surface, gulping the air and looking over her shoulder where everyone waved frantically to her to come back to the bottom of the cliff. Yet, she knew she could do this.
She was going to let that drawbridge down so they could attend this ball and get on with it already. As she sliced through the water, riding each wave as she swept upward for air, the name Flipper came to mind. She felt a lot like what she guessed
a dolphin must feel as he soared through the air, skipping over the ocean with abandon.
The water didn’t feel cold at all—in fact, it gave her life, purpose, a freedom she’d never known. It felt as much her home as the land did.
Rising to the surface to pinpoint her location, she saw the shore, where small boats decorated with ropes of pine and red bows lolled at a dock.
Flapping her fin with furious strokes, she pushed the last few yards to the water’s edge and prayed when she got to shore, she’d have feet again.
Shooting herself over the last leg, she rode a wave in, hitting the rocky shorefront with a grunt as the stones scraped her chest and face.
Toni dragged herself over the uneven surface and spat water from her mouth, using her forearm to wipe her long strands of hair from her face. Gazing around, she noted it was deserted. Clearly everyone really was off to prepare for the ball tomorrow night.
Looking down the length of her body, she was relieved to see she did indeed have feet again, the shoes still firmly attached. Gathering her soaking gown, she hopped up and made her way toward a long stone tunnel, dimly lit with fiery torches, that led to a small courtyard, festively decorated for the holiday.
So where would one hide a drawbridge opener anyway? As she crept along the wall and into the courtyard, dripping, her teeth chattering, she spied a huge wheel attached to pulleys and weights with thick chains.
With shaky hands, Toni went for it. Grabbing the handle of the wheel, she jumped upward and gave it a hard yank, knocking snow and leaves down onto her head.
She heard the creak of the chains, cringing at the thought someone might catch her, but she managed to get it moving with a slow groan.
As it lowered, Toni fought the butterflies in her stomach. For all Jon’s reassurances about how she needn’t fear the king, she feared.
Big time.
How would Jon—a commoner, if one went by fairytales—know anything about the king and whether he was a standup guy, anyway? Did the king mingle with the little people? Was his opinion based on general Shamlotian opinion?
Or maybe she was just being a totally pessimistic bag o’ dicks based on her own experience with American politics. Maybe King Dick was a decent guy who ran Shamalot fairly, a guy who was an interactive king, so to speak, and she was just cranky because she was soaking wet and she’d battled half the inhabitants of Not So Sherwood Forest to get here to return a pair of shoes that had apparently helped her absorb her foes’ powers.
Accidentally Ever After (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 11) Page 17
