Americana Fairy Tale (8 page)

The confession hit Taylor in the gut. “What do you know of my brother?” he asked timidly.

“That’s not important right now,” Corentin said while unlocking his truck. “What’s important is we have to save him before Charles Archer figures out how to get his claws into him.” Corentin pulled the passenger door open and gestured for Taylor to get in.

Taylor decided something about this was bullshit. He didn’t have the blind Enchant trust to see the good in all people at all times. He’d liked Corentin for about an hour, and now the idea of getting in this truck with a guy he knew all of
an hour
seemed pretty sketchy. None of this made sense. Nothing in his crazy magical world made sense anyway. He would have his answers and he would have them
now
.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Taylor asked. “Charles Archer is a
Curseless
idiot. He wouldn’t know the first thing about how to hurt Atticus. My brother can kick any man’s ass. And how do you know Charles?”

Corentin sighed and ran a hand through his hair, tugging on the roots. Taylor tilted his head to study the strange ragamuffin prince.

Ringo poked Corentin in the hip with a tiny finger. “Make it happen, boyo.”

“Charles wants me to kill you,” Corentin muttered in the direction of the pavement.

Immediately Taylor scrambled back three paces. “
Kill me
?” he yelped in disbelief. “But you’re a prince. Princes don’t kill!”

Corentin remained silent as Taylor watched him make a pitiful hangdog face.

Ringo took the lead and tried to broach the topic. “Uh… Taylor… he never said he was.”

Taylor slowly shook his head right, then left and watched Corentin lean on his truck without making any threatening gestures.

Corentin pointed to the passenger seat. “We can talk about this on the road,” he said softly.

Taylor stood his ground. He stubbornly set his jaw and tried to assert his dominance over the much taller and broader-framed man. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Taylor snapped. “How do you know Charles? Why does Charles want you to kill me?” His hands balled into fists, and he spat. “Are you a fucking huntsman or something?”

Corentin glanced to Ringo, who remained in his pocket. Ringo shrugged. “I didn’t say I wasn’t,” Corentin said in an even tone.

Taylor’s eyes widened. He had to get away. And he had to get away
now
. He frantically tried to think of escape plans, and his mind was a muddled mess. It had taken him a couple of weeks to plot escaping his wedding. Trying to escape a huntsman’s grasp was another matter. “Goddammit, Ringo!” Taylor bellowed. “Why the hell aren’t you helping?” He danced back in his flip-flops, the foam sole folded under his foot, and he tripped over himself.

Ringo shot out of Corentin’s pocket and flailed at Taylor. “Calm down,” he said urgently. “You’re not in danger. You have to trust him!”

Taylor howled in indignation. “Like hell,” he cussed his fairy godfather and pitifully shambled into a run.

“Christ, Taylor,” Corentin growled, covering the distance in six steps and grabbing Taylor around the waist. “Just come with me. We’ll fix this.”

Taylor squirmed in Corentin’s grasp. He stamped his heel into the steel toe of Corentin’s boot and only succeeded in crunching his own foot. Taylor flung his head back and cracked his skull square into Corentin’s nose. There was a satisfying pop and squish with the defending blow. Corentin dropped Taylor with a snarl and gripped his nose. Taylor grinned, turning to Corentin as the adrenaline surged in him. He didn’t even notice the hot pavement on his bare feet. His vision tunneled on Corentin, and he knew then he was capable of almost anything. He could do this. He had this. Sure, Corentin had at least seventy-five pounds on him, but Taylor wouldn’t let that deter him from his objective to make him
stop moving
.

Taylor lunged forward, tucking his fist close to his body. When he reached striking distance, he snapped his fist upward, aiming to crack Corentin in the chin. Corentin swayed out of reach, countering by catching Taylor’s wrist. As Corentin went through the motion of twisting Taylor’s arm behind his back, Taylor retaliated with a knee to Corentin’s kidneys.

Corentin fumbled again, and Taylor’s heart hammered in his ears. He could do this. Not even a pathetic huntsman could stop him. He would get away. Right after he made Corentin
stop moving
.

Corentin was no longer a person to Taylor. He was a
thing
. An object. An
obstacle
.

As soon as Taylor’s objective solidified in his mind, his head felt fuzzy. He swayed drunkenly and fought to keep standing. “What’s… wrong with me…?” Taylor asked sleepily and dropped to his knees.

Ringo fluttered to Taylor’s level, and they met gazes. Taylor saw the confusion in Ringo’s eyes. “Where the hell did you learn that, kiddo?” Ringo asked.

Taylor snorted a lazy chuckle as spots danced in his vision. “Bruce Lee movies.”

He wobbled again, and Corentin scooped him up easily. “Should we do this?” he asked Ringo.

Ringo and Taylor watched one another, and Ringo then nodded at Corentin. “I hope you know what you’re doing….”

Taylor’s vision went dark, but he still picked up bits of the conversation.

“Hopelessly outmatched,” he caught Corentin saying.

“Charles will kill us all,” he heard Ringo possibly say.

As Taylor drifted off, the last thing he heard was the comforting growl of a hemi-powered engine.

H
IGH
IN
THE
T
OWER

Hatfield Plantation, Atlanta, Georgia

June 6

P
HILLIPA
TESTED
the edge of her hunting knife. Distractedly, she glanced toward the window of the guest room of the Hatfield home. Sunflowers sprouted in the oak-lined lane. The tall, joyous flowers were Charles’s doing as he enacted his magic to keep outsiders from intervening in his scheme. The sooner she left, the sooner she’d be free of the disturbing feeling that now haunted the plantation.

She sucked in a quick breath when her distraction cost her a nick on her thumb. Phillipa made a fist, trying to stop the bleeding. When she unfurled her fingers, she was greeted with the damning reminder of her curse. A rough black paw pad rose from under the surface of her skin. With the new beastly skin, the wound sealed and then resumed as the thumb of a human girl. She shivered. As she checked over her blades once more, Charles’s shadow crept into the room, and he materialized with it.

“A beast going after a hunter,” Charles said with a sickle grin. “Such a turnabout.”

Phillipa bristled, zipping her satchel. “Don’t flatter yourself on your rapier wit,” she said. “I hunted him once. I can do it again.”

Charles crossed his arms, contemplating her openly. His expression made her skin crawl. “You still don’t trust me?” Charles said, and Phillipa regretted he could so plainly read her expression. “After all I’ve done for you. Taken you from that cage. Made you….” Charles raised his hand, gesturing to the contours of her body. “By the Storyteller That Be, darling, you’re a true beauty if I ever saw one.”

Bile rose in Phillipa’s throat. “We know very well I’m not the beauty you see. And the longer you make chitchat, the longer Corentin is out there somewhere.”

“You are a bit preoccupied with him, aren’t you?” Charles crossed the floor to the window. He smiled. “The sunflowers are growing quite lovely. It’s been some time since I used that spell. Positively
enchanting
.”

Phillipa chose not to respond. Instead, she busied herself with lacing her hiking boots. The minutes of silence passed between them. Phillipa knit her brow, anxiously awaiting Charles’s orders but predicting he would delay her even more.

“Do you think he will?” Charles asked while still staring out the window. Phillipa didn’t need to guess which
he
Charles meant.

“I hunted him once. I can do it again,” Phillipa repeated, this time with a measure of venom in her voice. Corentin Devereaux was a difficult subject to understand. He and Phillipa were predator and prey, prey and predator, a constantly shifting yin and yang. She admired him in the same way he reviled her. Two sides of the same story from different books. Phillipa cleared her throat. “Your orders, Your Majesty?”

Charles gave a half chuckle. Phillipa was aware he read her discomfort. “I’m baking a cake.”

Phillipa faltered. “A
cake
?”

He nodded. “It’s a special cake.” He gestured to the sunflowers outside, wafting in the breeze.

“His Majesty will have to forgive me, but I’m missing the point of a cake.”

“Of course you wouldn’t understand,” Charles snapped. He sighed. “I can mold you from the malformed clay into a masterpiece, but I still can’t instill you with intellect.” He turned his hands upward, as if begging the heavens. “I apologize for my failure, Mother Storyteller,” he said in a prayer to their goddess.

Phillipa gritted her teeth. It was useless to retaliate. Charles had more power than a whole Light Brigade could take on. History held the tales of the last charge of the Light Brigade and their unwavering loyalty to their captain, even when they faced their demise.

Charles pointed a finger and grinned brightly. “Follow me, dear,” he said. “I’ve placed a spell on Corentin with the impulse to do harm to Taylor at every opportunity. He believes if he kills Taylor, he will be free to go.”

“But he never will be.”

“Correct.” He took a moment to check his watch. “My cake will be done soon. You’ll need a piece of the cake,” Charles said. “When you eat a crumb of the cake, it will lead you directly to them. You will make sure Corentin delivers on his promise. But lose that piece of cake….”

“And I’ll never return,” Phillipa said. “I got it. Same typical legalese.”

Charles stepped toward the door. He hesitated for a moment. “Phillipa.”

“Yes?” Something about his tone was curious yet disturbing.

“You’re a prince,” Charles said. It came out as if he were stating a fact.

The term sent a flush to Phillipa’s skin. “Many try to forget that.”

“If you fail, people will burn your lineage from our history.”

Phillipa’s heart thumped with a beat of regret. “I
will
find him,” she said with anger rising in her features. She remained silent and let the words hang between them. She meant every syllable of her words to portray the gravity of the statement. Phillipa would hold out for eternity against saying Corentin’s name. To say his name gave him power over her, and she would fight it tooth, claw, and knife.

Charles’s watch beeped. “Ah!” he said, brightening. “I have a cake.” As he hurried out the door, he called absently behind him, “It would have been such a disaster to have it burn like a book!”

Phillipa watched Charles take three steps into the hall and then fade out of existence. He was trying to get to her, and it was working. Every jab, every jeer, stirred the beast within her. Charles was trying to call the creature forward to do his bidding and didn’t trust her to do much of anything. Phillipa slammed her fist into the wall, an inch from the doorframe. Cracks flowered in the drywall, and the door casing splintered away from the point of impact. The rage trembled through her.

Charles laughed about how he molded her from nothing and how he made her a useless beauty.

She would show him what kind of beast she was.

T
HE
NUMBER
of agents Charles had among the wedding party came as an unfortunate surprise to Atticus. Even now, he fought and struggled in vain as two ogre guards hauled him by his upper arms down a corridor of his own family’s home. The Hatfield Plantation was his home, and now it was his prison. The warty, slobbering ogres still wore their enchanted tailored suits that disguised their appearance in the wedding until just the right moment. Atticus was still figuring it all out as he went.

If Taylor hadn’t run away, would Charles have killed him on the spot once he wed Phillipa? Would Charles then turn his ancient magic on
him
? Atticus had been told as a child that his title not only made him dangerous, it made him a target. There was much evil that would take any opportunity to rid the world of Snow White. Atticus learned very quickly he had to be dangerous instead. But as a soon-to-be college grad and naval officer candidate, there weren’t enough Krav Maga lessons in the world that could prepare him for witches, wicked queens, and evil stepmothers.

The heavy weight of the target on Atticus’s back crushed him.

“And here we are, Your Highness,” the wartier of the two ogres rumbled. He kicked open the door of Mrs. Hatfield’s most feminine guest bedroom—lilac canopy bed, delicate white furniture, baby blue floral wallpaper. Atticus knew an emasculating insult when he was bluntly clubbed over the head with one.

Without any sense of grace, the ogres flung him into the bedroom that would be his cell. He tripped forward, trying to catch himself, but only succeeded in tumbling onto the bed. The pillows bounced and puffed a vanilla scent. The ogres burst into gales of laughter as Atticus struggled to stand.

“Sorry to offend your…
delicate sensibilities, Princess
,” the opposite ogre said, slurring Atticus’s title as if he were slurping on it like a bone.

Atticus’s face flushed with a mixture of indignation and anger. He sprang to his feet and then charged forward at the foul creatures. They stood still and seemed to eagerly await Atticus running into their arms. Atticus, on the other hand, collided head-on into a magical barrier set up in the door frame between him and the ogres. Before he could comprehend, he was flung back onto the carpet, and the ogres carelessly tossed his fairy godmother, Honeysuckle, into the room. She bounced across the floor, squeaking like a toy with each impact. The ogres once again burst into laughter.

Honeysuckle lay still against the armoire and held her middle, and Atticus scrambled to her on his hands and knees. He scooped her up and cradled her to him.