Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 4) (4 page)

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mina lied
uncomfortably, not willing to share that the flares of power had been coming
and going around her. They scared her.

And why was she only just finding out
about her house having artifacts inside it?

Constance closed the lid over the piano
keys with a click. She ran her hand over the wooden cover softly and gave Mina
a small chiding smile.

Suddenly, Mina felt overwhelmed. There
was simply too much mystery—and too much out of her control. “I don’t
know what to do. I feel alone, and I need help.” She rubbed her palms on her
legs in an attempt to keep her focus.

“You have help. You have us.” Mrs.
Colbert answered adamantly.

“I want my friends.”

“Well, that’s—”

“No,” Mina interrupted. “No more messing
with their minds. I want Nan and Brody to be protected from the resets.”

“Mina, I don’t think that is possible.”

“Yes, it is. When the fairy-tale quest is
over, and everything goes back to normal, all of the Fae retain their memories,
and I do. Why not my friends?”

“Well, you’re a Grimm. Your protection is
in your blood. Same with Charlie.”

“What about our mom?”

“She’s only Grimm by marriage. She’s been
allowed to retain her memories so she can protect you.”

“How?”

“Well, we help with tokens and such.”

“The charm bracelet that she always
wears. This morning I saw that you’ve added another charm.”

“Yes, that one was created for the sole
purpose of helping her forget about Charlie’s kidnapping and staged death by
the Stiltskin. She needs to keep some of the Grimm memories so she can do her
duty in protecting her children, but she doesn’t need to hold on to the
worrisome ones.”

“So now you’re playing God and getting to
choose what memories my own mother gets to keep. You’re getting as bad as
Teague,” Mina argued.

“Now that’s a little harsh. We’re doing
what we need to do to protect ourselves.”

“Well, I want you to create more of these
protection charms.”

“They do nothing against physical
attacks. They are only strong enough to protect the mind.”

“Exactly. Right now, my mind is my greatest
weapon, and I need my friends’ minds too.”

Constance closed her eyes and sighed
loudly. “I’ll see what I can do about getting the Guild to allow a protection
charm for your friends.”

Mina nodded. At least Mrs. Colbert was
going to try instead of saying no. “Oh, um, there’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“This morning, my brother was playing
with items in a suitcase, and I swear he disappeared right before my eyes for a
split second. Does this have anything to do with what happened to him on the
Fae plane? I have to admit, I thought maybe it was something he touched but I’m
not sure. Can you ask around as see if there are any after-affects to staying
over on the Fae plane for too long?”

Constance looked worried and pulled out
her cell phone. “I’ll have the Guild look into it. We will try and find you
answers.”

“Thank you.” Mina felt relieved.
Hopefully, she was wrong about her brother and what she saw. Maybe she could
write it off as her being overly stressed and plagued by nightmares.

Chapter 4

Once she was home, Mina began tearing the
house apart, looking for the dagger. In desperation, she pulled all of the old
books off the bookshelf and felt along the back for hidden compartments. Nothing.

Seeing Teague had been no fluke. He would
certainly be sending a quest after her and soon. Especially if she didn’t find
the item he was asking for.

Life was so unfair.

The rain that started this afternoon at
school still hadn’t let up, and now and again lightning lit up the sky followed
by thunder. The pelting of water on the roof and windows was unnerving,
especially when she was all alone.

Leaving the piles and piles of books on
the floor in the library, she turned her attention to the walls and picture
frames. Wasn’t that how it was in the movies? Pull on a sconce and a hidden
room opened up? Or a safe appeared behind some old portrait of an aged,
overweight smiling millionaire? Of course it couldn’t be that easy either.

Mina wasn’t worried about the mess upsetting
her mother or Charlie since they had gone out to see the new animated Disney
movie. She’d politely excused herself with a ruse of a headache and too much
homework. That was partially true. She did have lots of homework—sort of.
If you counted that it took work to tear their home apart.

She glanced at the clock and counted down
the minutes in her head before her mom and brother came home. It took twenty
minutes to get to the theater, wait in line, order popcorn, fifteen minutes of
previews, an hour and a half movie, and the return trip. She’d been banking on
two and half hours, and she was down to an hour and a half left.

Mina was underneath the study desk when a
loud knock at the front door startled her, causing her to bump her head on the
bottom of the desk. Funny, she hadn’t heard a car pull up. And no one other
than Nan came to visit her old creepy house. Crawling out from underneath, she
grabbed a fireplace poker and slid to the window, being careful to not pull the
curtain too far. Nothing. The library window didn’t give a clear view of the
front porch without her leaning farther out. She heard gravel crunch and ducked
back behind the safety of the dark drapes, right as someone else pressed their
face to the same window and looked in to the room.

Mina gasped, her heart pounding, and
debated her options. She could open the door screaming like a banshee, and
chase the intruder away with the fire poker. Or she could cower on the floor
and call the police. Her imagination running wild, she didn’t stop to think
whether she’d locked the front door. And then she couldn’t remember. She kept
low and crawled to the door of the library. Just on the other side were the
foyer and the front door. Four more steps and she could turn the deadbolt. She
was about to make a run for the lock when she heard it.

The loud squeak of the rusty hinges from the
screen door. Usually, she complained about the annoying noise.

All alone in this house, that simple
sound was terrifying.

Her heart thumped loudly, and all she
could do was plead in her mind.
No no no.
Don’t try the door. It’s locked. Nobody’s home.

But all her inner dialogue did nothing to
persuade her visitor. Too late. The old metal knob jangled and turned.

Utter silence followed as the well-oiled
inner door pushed open.

Frozen, she had to make a completely illogical
decision.

Attack!

Chapter 5

Mina rushed around the wall, poker raised
above her head in the most intimidating pose she could muster. She closed her
eyes and swung at the dark figure invading her foyer—there was a whoosh
of air followed by a gasp and a thud on the floor.

Still in a state of panic, she opened her
eyes. Nix lay sprawled out on the ground and staring up at her, his hands
protecting his red head from being decapitated. A pair of shocked green eyes
greeted her.

When he recognized her expression, his
turned amused. “Honey, I’m home,” Nix quipped, mimicking one of the old TV
reruns he’d been obsessed with lately.

“Nix, what in the world are you doing
sneaking into my house?” Mina said, still brandishing the poker over her
shoulder like a baseball bat.

“Careful, Lucy, I’ve brought company.”
Nix said still lying on the floor. He gestured with his laughing eyes to the
doorway.

Mina looked up in confusion to see Brody
filling out the doorframe very well. He appeared entertained at the situation
and the fire poker in her hand. She let out a small gasp and dropped the poker.

A soft thud and a yelp told her she
dropped it on Nix’s foot.

“Serves you right,” she muttered under
her breath. “For breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t break anything. You, on the
other hand, could’ve broken my head if I hadn’t ducked. Besides, I knocked. You
didn’t answer,” Nix whined, as he sat up and nursed his injured leg.

“That’s because nobody’s home.”

“Of course you’re home. I saw you walk by
the window.”

“Maybe I didn’t want company, did you
think of that?” she mumbled between clenched teeth.

“Why wouldn’t you want company? Now
that’s just dumb. No one likes being alone.”

Mina sighed loudly in frustration. Nix
still didn’t understand human etiquette. Since Nixies didn’t have doors on
their underground caves, they were used to just letting themselves into each
other’s dwellings. And since Nix only one of his friends and family that hadn’t
disappeared or turned into an evil Sea Witch, being alone was a terrible thought.

“Well, I happen to like being alone,” she
answered.

“Being alone isn’t good for the soul. It’s
not healthy. I should know.”

“Nix, this isn’t really the time to be
debating this,” Mina hissed under her breath as Brody just leaned against the
wall and watched the whole exchange with a bemused expression.

“And you,” she turned on Brody. “Were you
going to let him just walk into my house?”

Brody shrugged his shoulders and started
to chuckle. His hair was slightly damp, and his shirt clung to his shoulders. He
seemed wetter than he would have been from walking a few feet in the rain from
the car to the house. They must have driven here straight from water polo
practice. Over the last few weeks, Brody and Nix had bonded over their love of
water sports. “When he gets his mind set on doing something there’s hardly a
way to stop him,” he answered and motioned to Nix. “It’s way more fun to sit
back and watch.”

Mina rolled her eyes and picked up the
poker from the floor, stashing it in a corner of the room.

“Yay, the weapon of decapitation has been
dispensed with. Now we move onto business,” Nix said happily.

Mina put her hands on her hips and tilted
her head. “What are you talking about?”

Nix started toward the open doors that led
into the library. When he saw all the books on the floor, he looked surprised
and entered. He began to pick up random books and flip through them, ignoring
her question.

Brody followed Nix into the library and
looked at the mess. “Got something against reading?”

“No, I’m just alphabetizing,” Mina
answered quickly, knocking a pile of books over. The pile fell sideways, and the
top one slid across the floor into Brody’s foot.

They both reached for the book at the
exact same time, and their hands touched. She inhaled deeply and held it as a
whiff of his shampoo washed over her. He smelled so clean. Her heart pounded in
her chest. She had almost forgotten what Brody smelled like.

“I’ll help you.” He pulled gently on the
book, and she let him have it. He walked over to a semi-empty bookshelf and placed
the book upright.

Nix flipped his book closed with a loud
thud, looked between Brody and Mina, and announced loudly, “I’m hungry. Anyone
want any food? No?” He answered for them before they could respond. “Good, ’cause
I wasn’t going to make you anything anyway. So if you’ve got something to say
Brody, you should say it now. Before I finish eating whatever sandwich I can
make out of their leftovers.”

Brody’s cheeks flushed. Was Brody here to
see her? Was this
his
idea? For some
reason, she’d believed Nix was the one behind their sudden arrival on her
doorstep.

Brody looked even more handsome when he
blushed. Was that because of her? “Uh yeah, so about the real reason I asked
him to come here with me.” Brody scratched the top of his blond head, messing
up his sun-kissed locks.

“Why did you need Nix to come here with
you?”

“To be the first through the door, if you
decided to attack us when we broke in, of course.”

“Of course.”

“No, I only asked him because you two
seem to have grown close. And he swore up and down that you two weren’t an
item. When he heard my plan, he said he would come with me just in case you
turned me down.”

“Your plan?”

“Yeah. There’s this thing at my parents’
country club.”

“I like things.” Mina rushed the words out,
anticipating where the conversation was headed, then inwardly groaned at her
childish answer.

Brody laughed. “I’m glad you like
things
. I like these things well enough,
if someone I like is willing to go too.”

“And you think this person that you like
would
like
going to this
thing
?” Mina asked coyly. She chuckled
at their verbal game. Flirting with Brody Carmichael was thrilling.

“Yeah,” he breathed out softly, stepping
closer. “That’s why I’m here. To ask this person that I like to go to this
thing
.”