“I have noticed you humming ‘Hakuna Matata’ lately.”
“He loves to sing along,” I grumbled a weak protest then perked. “Where did the cake smell come from?”
“I wondered when you would work your way back around to that.” He lifted a hand, and Marit patted the arm of the muscular gwyllgi beside her. Jack, her boyfriend, turned his back to me while everyone shuffled aside. “What do you think?”
When Jack turned around, he held a board with a four-tiered cake decorated with a speckled cream cheese frosting that smelled like cinnamon and sugar. Churros stood like candles along the edges of each tier, dozens of them, and the whole thing was topped with two churros piped to make a giant heart.
Esteban followed the cake on its march to me, and I hugged him tight, breathing in his confectionary scent.
“You’ve outdone yourself.” I stole a churro and shoved it in my mouth, fully intending to still blame it on pregnancy in some fashion. “Oh, my goddess.” I swayed on my feet. “This is amazing.”
“You ruin the presentation with your snacking.” He tsked at me. “There are alternating chocolate ganache and caramel cream layers between each cake. You must eat a full slice for the full effect.”
“I am more than willing to suffer for the sake of your art,” I said solemnly as Linus took LJ from me.
“It will be a good hour before the steaks are done,” Lethe chimed in. “Let the woman have her treat.”
“Thank you.” I swept out my arms. “Cake for all!”
Proving these were my people, no one said another word about eating dessert first. As a matter of fact, I saw an eager gwyllgi dive into the coolers and produce vanilla and cinnamon ice cream while a few more scattered to locate the plates and utensils.
Napkins could wait.
We had priorities.
Leaning in, LJ sleeping against his chest, Linus nuzzled the column of my throat. “Happy?”
Gazing out over the lawn, at the faces of everyone we loved, I didn’t have to stop and think about it.
“Yeah.” I shivered as his cool lips skated over the shell of my ear. “I am.”
“Me too,” he murmured against my skin. “You’re my everything.”
Pressing my mouth to his, I tasted the sweetness of his smile when I said, “And you’re my always.”
New Series Alert!
Perfumed with bleach, dressed in dark leggings and a long-sleeve shirt to hide my healing wounds, I climbed into a bed fit for a fairy princess and kissed Ash on her puckered forehead. Kids are smart. They pick up on cues far better than we give them credit for, but I knew one sure-fire way to distract her from the bruises and cuts I earned every day on the job.
The job I had on paper anyway. What I did off the books wasn’t a topic for young ears.
Reclining against her pillows, hissing when the scabbing furrows a wendigo raked down my side pulled, I played with her silver-blonde hair. The silky texture reassured me ten times over that the bright pain was worth the risk of cracking open a client’s safe at the start of my shift in order to memorize the ten bold digits scrawled on a wrinkled corner of stained paper. Ten little numbers that might change all our lives. Forever. “Do you want to hear the story?”
A slight hesitation telegraphed her indecision. To act too cool, or not to act too cool. What a question.
Lately, she had been putting aside childish things. Those included bedtime stories. No, The Story. I could read to her all I wanted, but she was approaching the age where fairy tales held little appeal, and that’s how she viewed the cautionary tale that was my childhood—as make-believe.
“Yes,” she decided, snuggling into my side. “You tell it better than Dad.”
Yes, well, her dad hadn’t lived it. There was something to be said for firsthand accounts.
“Once upon a time, in a trailer park outside Prattville, Alabama, there lived three magical children—”
“Triplets,” Ash corrected me in the superior tone only eight-year-olds can master. “They were triplets.”
“Once upon a time, in a trailer park outside Prattville, Alabama, lived the Theron triplets.” I narrowed my eyes at her, daring her to interrupt me again. “Their father was a fae prince, his beauty as sharp as a blade, and it cut all who looked upon him. Their mother was a daemon princess from a land far, far away whose power was as brutal as she was—”
“I get it.” She rolled the clover-green eyes she had inherited from her grandfather. “They were both model levels of hotness and belonged on magazine covers.” Ah, beauty. The curse of being fae. Or blessing. Perspective made all the difference. “You’re not even trying. Even Dad can do better than this.”
“Ouch.” I clutched at my chest. “Did anyone catch the license plate on the knife that stabbed me in the heart?”
Soft laughter intruded as the bedroom door opened to reveal a man whose presence never failed to cut me like the blade from the story.
“Give Auntie Elle a break,” Ben chastised his daughter. “She just got home from work, and she’s tired.”
“Sorry, Auntie.”
“Why don’t I finish here while you grab a shower?” The brotherly affection in his gaze curdled my stomach. “Dinner’s in the microwave when you’re ready.”
Grateful to escape the suddenly crowded room, I bolted before my niece mounted an argument.
Thanks to the split floor plan, I had to cross the entire house to reach my room. I had offered Ben the master suite when he and Ash moved in with me, for the times when my sister was home, but he chose to stay in the guestroom across from his daughter. Nights like these, I was grateful for the distance.
Halfway through the kitchen, a white doe crossed my path, and I yelped. “Butter biscuits.”
Eyes glinting with amusement, Tess flicked her ears forward to ask if I was okay.
“You scared ten years off my life.”
Three taps on the tile from her front hoof conveyed apology.
“Ben is picking up where I left off with story time,” I told her. “Hurry, and you’ll catch the end.”
Ears pivoting forward, she ambled toward the room I had just left and the family that would never be mine. I was a stand-in, and maybe if I kept reminding myself of that fact, it would sink in one day.
“Mommy,” Ash squealed behind me. “Will you sleep with me tonight?”
Quiet stretched for a long moment where I imagined Ben and Tess exchanging a wordless glance.
“Sure.” His false cheer made my back teeth ache. “I’ll make her a pallet on the floor.”
Nine years since he locked eyes with his forever. Five years since the curse took her away from him. Three years since I opened my home to what remained of my family.
You would think, after all that time, it would hurt less. But every day he and I shared a home, a life. Every day, we went through the motions. Every day, it sliced a little bit deeper, until the blade scraped bone with each new cut.
After reaching my sanctuary, I shut the door then leaned against it, tipping my head back and closing my eyes. Memories still painted the backs of my eyelids, but they faded to blessed darkness when I squinted hard enough.
Moist cold brushed the back of my hand, and I glanced down to find a snow-white buck with almost luminescent fur nosing me. His blue-gray eyes saw too much. There was nothing animal in them, only a fathomless sadness that radiated through our sibling bond.
“It’s been five years and two weeks. Ash was three when she lost her mom.” I picked a spiny bur from his ear. “Do you think she remembers Tess? Or does she think all little girls have a doe for a mother?”
Ben homeschooled her. That was his full-time job. That way, she never had to learn she was different, that her life was anything but ordinary, that her family was other than normal. Plus, it made it easier if we had to run, and in the end, we always fled.
Will stared at me through liquid eyes, but they held no answers.
“Are you on your way out?”
He tossed his head toward the sliding glass door leading onto my patio, indicating the edge of the dark forest.
William kept to the woods whenever Tess came home. He couldn’t bear to see the reflection of his fate, and the feeling was mutual. Even Ben, the kindest man I had ever known, found it hard to look at his brother-in-law. That left me the sole anchor for Will, and I hated I wasn’t allowed to be angry with him too.
But it wasn’t his fault the girl he had been dating turned out to be a witch with a flair for curses. Breaking up with her had been the right thing to do. After he found out the truth, he had no other choice. Too bad she hadn’t seen it that way.
Brianna had been convinced he was dumping her for another woman, and Will’s reputation hadn’t done him any favors in that department, but that didn’t excuse the way Brianna stormed into his yard that miserable day to find him swimming laps in his pool while a blonde in a bikini sunned on her stomach on a lounger. Or how she cursed them both into their wylde fae forms as punishment for their imagined crimes.
Thanks to a flat tire, I arrived late to the planning party for Ash’s upcoming birthday. Because of that, I escaped the curse. Because of that, they didn’t. Because, if Brianna had spotted me sunning too, she might have hesitated long enough to get an eyeful of our faces. She might have remembered he was a triplet. Or, as my best friend was quick to point out, she might have cursed all three of us out of spite.
Until I found Brianna, or a way to give them back their lives, I would never know if I had been saved or cursed in my own way.
“See you in a few days then.” I kissed his soft forehead, right between his antlers. “Be careful.”
I owned enough land now that my siblings could roam without stumbling across hunters, or each other. Humans had been known to cross property lines after glimpsing their extraordinary fur, but it’s amazing how much hurt a paintball gun can inflict when you know where to aim, and I hit the range two days a week.
With a slight inclination of his head, he turned and walked into the yard, disappearing into the gloom. I watched him go, rubbing my throat like that might help me swallow the lump forming there.