Haint Blue (Fairy Tales of a Trailer Park Queen Book 9)

by Kimbra Swain

  “Please stop,” Levi begged.

  “Yes, he is, if I didn’t want to jerk a wart on him,” I said.

  “What happened to jerking a knot in my tail?” he asked.

  “You equate that with swapping gravy, so I’m changing it. If you find a way to make sex and warts the same thing, I’m disowning you,” I said.

  “You don’t own me anyway,” he sassed.

  “Just makes it easier to get rid of you,” I said.

  “You would never,” Betty scolded.

  Levi opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

  “Never,” I responded. Levi’s jaws clamped shut. He had nothing more to say, but Betty died laughing. “It’s good to hear you laugh. Now I’m going to dare to ask the question.”

  “Where is Luther?” she said for me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She crossed the room opening a curio cabinet. She pulled out a tall bottle with a capped lid. The bulb at the bottom was covered in hand-painted swirls. The deep crimson color of the bottle was accented by gold, white, and orange jewels.

  “Dear God,” I said.

  She uncorked the lid. A dark billowing smoke boiled out of the bottle forming the shape of a man, then it solidified into Luther, the Ifrit. He had told me he was a cursed Marid. I didn’t imagine he had a bottle, but apparently, he did. His Banshee wife owned him.

  “Thank you, my Love,” he said, bending over to kiss her red lips. She turned her head from him, so he planted the kiss on her cheek. “Good evening, Grace. Levi.”

  “Hello, Luther,” I said. “Nice bottle.”

  “It’s cramped,” he said with a smile.

  “Stop complaining. That’s what you get for telling my secret. My secret! The one I should have been given the opportunity to tell,” she yelled at him.

  “I’d rather sleep in the doghouse than that thing,” he said.

  “You keep it up, and Rufus will have a roommate,” I said.

  “Whatever. You love arguing with me,” he smirked.

  I decided not to comment on the truth of his statement.

  “You’re right,” Luther agreed.

  “What am I going to do with you?” she asked him.

  “Whatever you want,” he said.

  “Not in front of the children,” she grinned.

  “No, go right ahead,” I said, smiling at them both.

  “Won’t you consider her offer?” Luther asked.

  “You sit down and hush,” Betty scolded him.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. He sat across from us on a loveseat with a huge grin on his face. I wasn’t sure why he was so happy, but he was. I imagined if my love had the ability to stuff me in a bottle, I’d be happy to be out in whatever circumstances.

  “I’m going to get you a bottle,” Levi said.

  Instead of entertaining his juvenile notion, I turned back to the important conversation in the room. “I don’t have to know the story, but is there a reason why you won’t return to your duties as Banshee?”

  “Yes, and it’s a very good reason. Plus, did you want me to wail for Dylan before he died?” she asked.

  “Why not? I did,” I said. “There were times when I knew inside of me that he wasn’t coming back. Every pore on my body wailed.”

  “People will want to know,” she said.

  “I don’t have to know for myself. As far as that goes, I can order everyone not to ask you,” I said.

  “My family are the people of Shady Grove. I feel their deaths before they come. It aches me to the core, but then not to be able to release it. To put on a happy face and go to the diner. It’s been awful,” she said.

  “Then it’s time to be yourself. None of us will ever think less of you,” I said. “Or Luther.”

  “She’s right. We love you, Betty,” Levi said.

  “Oh, Darlin’, I love you too,” she said.

  Darlin’.

  I sighed, but only Levi noticed. He inched closer to me on the couch.

  “Can I have a little time to think about it?” Betty asked. Luther threaded his fingers through hers.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Thank you for coming by,” Betty said.

  The moment we hit the truck, Levi started talking.

  “She didn’t realize she said it,” he said.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “I know I’m not him, and you know it. That’s all that matters,” he said.

  “It’s not all that matters, but in this case, yeah,” I said staring into the darkness. It seemed abnormally dark. I allowed myself to sink into it as we drove the rest of the way home. When we arrived, the kids were already in bed. I excused myself after thanking Astor and Ella for keeping them. Levi didn’t say anything else to me. I felt his presence there, but he didn’t speak. Which was exactly what I needed.

  After fighting it for so long, I went to the closet. The smell of mint and leather drifted around me when I opened the door. I took the jacket off the hanger, then curled up in the bed with it. It was empty and was missing the warmth of him. However, I needed the comfort of the memory of him. Our memories.

  Levi

  “Hello,” I grumbled into the phone.

  “Levi, we need to talk,” Riley said.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “2 a.m.,” she replied.

  “I can’t leave the house. The kids are here,” I said.

  “Is their mother there?” she asked.

  “What the hell do you want, Riley?” I asked.

  “Just skip to me. Just for a minute,” she begged.

  “No,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  Before I could lay it on the nightstand, it rang again. I turned the ringer off and sent it to voicemail. It continued to ring. Even though it was on silent and turned over, I knew it was ringing. I got up and walked into the darkened hallway. I looked down at Grace’s room. I got a faint whiff of leather. I knew what that meant. She was in a place that I couldn’t help or shouldn’t. More like she didn’t want me to help. Some of this she had to work through on her own.

  “Silence,” I said as the strings of my guitar tattoo let out a silent wave of music. My footsteps drowned in the spell, and I walked through the house like a ghost.

  I reached the fridge, then I took out a can of coke. Even the snap of the can’s lid was silent. Taking long draws of the drink, I felt the harsh cold flow down my throat. It felt good. There was a light tap on the back door. I froze to make sure I wasn’t hearing anything.

  Tap. Tap.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. Well, I tried to mutter, but it was silenced. “Dispel.”

  The silence spell wilted, and I stepped lightly to the back door. When I opened it, Riley stepped inside.

  “Get the fuck out of this house,” I growled at her.

  “No, you listen to me. You hate me all you want, but there is something you need to know. The third ORC is not in Shady Grove,” she said.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Robin is from Summer. I talked to some people from Summer, and Robin mentioned that she was training someone to be her heir. She’s not bothered to bring a child into the world,” she said.

  “Thank the gods,” I said.

  “Right? Well, I’m still trying to find out who it is, but I don’t know yet,” she said.

  “This could have waited until morning or you could have told me on the phone,” I said.

  “Well, I had hoped to see you half-naked,” she said reaching for me in the darkness.

  I backed away from her holding my hand out to stop her advance. “Riley, get out,” I said. “Please.”

  “You remember us, right?” she said.

  “I do. I remember being collared,” I said.

  “You weren’t collared on Valentine’s when you played your guitar for me,” she purred. “You could play your new one for me. I’d love it. You could do whatever you wanted to me. It would just be sex, Levi. Really, good sex.”

/>   “No, Riley, get off me,” I said shoving her away. I backed into the living room.

  “Shh! She will hear you,” Riley said.

  “She already does,” I said.

  A light blue glow floated across the upstairs banister, then down the steps one by one. She was wearing a long white nightgown and a leather jacket. The glow of her skin markings showed through the sheer gown. I gulped watching her move slowly down the steps. Riley backed up into the kitchen.

  “Stop,” Grace muttered. Time stood still, except for me. I could feel the panic rising up inside of Riley.

  She stalked slowly over to where Riley stood in between the kitchen and the living room. I wanted to speak, but I didn’t know what to say. Grace knew I was trying to get her out of the house. She also knew I let her in the house.

  “You’re so beautiful, Riley. You could have any man in this town you wanted, except for the one that doesn’t want you. Yet you continue on. How am I supposed to have faith in your information if you break the laws of hospitality? I could put you down right now. You know that, right?” Grace asked as she floated around Riley. “Oh, that’s right. You can’t speak. It’s no nevermind because I’m not going to kill you. You will continue to get information, but instead of bringing it to Levi, you will report to me. Is that clear?”

  Riley blinked, then the time spell let go. “You can’t make me,” she gasped.

  “It is the task I assign you instead of killing you for coming into my home with my children, uninvited,” Grace stated.

  “As you wish,” Riley said.

  “Hmm,” Grace pondered, then moved close to Riley’s ear and whispered something.

  Riley closed her eyes tightly. “As you wish, my Queen.”

  “Wonderful. Now get out,” Grace said. The order shook the house. Riley turned on her heel and sprinted to the back door. She fumbled with the knob but ran into the night without shutting the door.

  Grace lowered to the floor releasing the power. The blue glow faded as she shut the back door waving her hand on it to restore the ward that was broken when Riley came in.

  I braced myself for her wrath, but instead, she turned around to me a broken woman. Just a beautiful woman in a nightgown and the jacket of her dead fiancé. She already knew that Riley forced her way in the door. I had nothing to explain. Her bare feet padded across the floor to me. Her cool fingers traced the scar on my face.

  “I hope I didn’t wake the kids,” she whispered.

  “We would have heard them by now if you had,” I said.

  She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Get to bed, Levi,” she said.

  “I will as soon as I finish this,” I said holding up the coke.

  “Okay,” she muttered, then slowly walked back up the stairs. Her pace was more of a trudge than the gentle floating way she had descended them earlier. I looked up to watch her walk out of sight. She didn’t look back.

  I wanted to comfort her, but she did not want to be comforted. She wanted to feel the pain and loss. I just wanted to see her happy again. A deep rich happiness that had left her with his death. Everything felt so empty with her now. Her happiness on the surface didn’t reach her heart.

  The heart that mine desired. I wanted to be the one to make her feel again. Grace’s heart had always made her different from the other fairies. She feared now that she would become just like the darkest of them. This display with Riley was just a ghost of her power. Her heart kept her in check. Since she didn’t evaporate Riley on the spot, I had to think she still had that heart. I knew that she did. I shouldn’t question it, but as each day passed, I felt like she was slipping further away from me.

  Beyond anything that happened in the Otherworld, I’ll never forget what Dylan told me in one of his sane moments.

  “Levi, she will be a pain in the ass. She won’t want to give in. You know how she is. Just hang in there, and in the end, she will be yours.”

  I was hanging the best I knew how, but the end seemed a long way off.

  I finished off the coke and decided that I had pondered on this for too long. One of us had to stay positive.

  When I reached my bed, my phone continued to blink. I erased the voice messages that Riley left, but she had texted me as well.

  RILEY: I would do anything to get you back.

  I deleted it and went to sleep.

  Grace

  The door closed once again on the leather jacket. That relapse might have cost Riley’s life. I don’t know what she thought she was doing in my house that late at night, but she clearly had lost her mind. Information or not, I should have known that she would try to go after Levi again. She had remained quiet. However, Levi was resolute. His hatred for her never wavered as she pawed at him.

  I told myself I wasn’t jealous. A fairy queen had issues telling lies, but apparently, I was fine at telling them to myself.

  As I went to bed, I felt Levi fighting his urge to comfort me. Even that was a comfort. He was trying very hard to do the right thing by me and by Dylan. My problem was, I wasn’t sure what the right thing was. For him, he had decided to wait for me. It wasn’t a move I intended to make. He might be waiting for a very long time.

  I turned my focus to the town. I wanted to talk to Nestor to see if he would be willing to confront Mable. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, but I think she really did love him. Her love just conflicted with her agenda to destroy me. If she wanted to destroy me, then she could have taken Nestor out.

  Suddenly, I remembered the fire at Hot Tin Roof after my trial. Nestor was hurt badly in that fire. Surely that witch didn’t set Hot Tin on fire with my grandfather in it! The moment she admitted to it, I was going to rip her throat out.

  There was a knock on the door that broke me out of my fury.

  “Grace,” Levi called out to me. I looked down and my hands were balled up into fists. My nails were digging into my skin. I released the anger, then flexed my fingers.

  “Come in,” I muttered.

  He stepped inside with a worried look on his face. “You okay?”

  “Remember the fire at Hot Tin?” I asked.

  “Of course, we were in the kitchen at the trailer when you saw the smoke,” he said.

  “Mable,” I said.

  “No. You think?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to talk to Nestor. Could you get Winnie ready for school, and watch Ayden until Astor gets here?”

  “Astor isn’t here?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, then a smile crossed my face.

  “You don’t think…”

  “Maybe. If not, they are one step closer,” I said.

  “You would get excited about someone else swapping gravy,” he said.

  “I am excited for Astor because he is a good man. He deserves to get laid,” I said.

  “I’m a good man,” Levi said.

  “No, you aren’t,” I said. “I’ve seen inside your head.”

  “Grace!” he exclaimed.

  “What? You’ve seen inside mine, too,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But I wasn’t trying.”

  “Whatever, Bard,” I taunted him. “I’m going to town.”

  “Someone is supposed to be with you,” he said.

  As I walked past him, I popped him on the butt. “You’re with me,” I said.

  Just as my foot hit the top step, he said, “Not like I wanna be.”

  “I heard that,” I called up to him.

  “Good,” he said.

  It made me smile, and I didn’t do much of that lately.

  Driving to town, I passed the spot where Dylan and I found the older man who had wandered off from his caretaker. It was the same day that we slept together. I remembered that day much differently now knowing his perspective on things. Before he was taken, he and I had a picnic there. I turned the truck around. First, it was the leather jacket. Now it was the picnic spot. I might as well get it out of my system.

  I climbed out of the
truck and pulled my leather jacket which he bought for me closed. A cool wind blew. The clouds covered the sun. Reaching out with my senses, I knew I only had a few minutes before it started to rain. Walking up to the creek, I watched the water rush by in a torrent. We had had some rain over the last few days. Not that I had noticed. The creek jumped over rocks and carried debris from the forest with it. Pinecones, sticks, and leaves.

  The leaves were changing colors. I looked up into the surrounding trees and watched the leaves cascade down around me. The trees were weeping. I walked over to touch a nearby oak.

  It spoke to me of my own sadness. I explained to it the death of my mate. The tree shook, shedding more leaves for me. Leaning forward, I kissed the trunk of it.

  “Bless you. You honor me,” I said.

  When speaking to trees, I get images and impressions, but this tree spoke very clearly, “My Queen.”

  Even the trees were counting on me. No more leather jackets and no more creek side visits. I had a war to fight.

  Entering the nearly empty bar, I walked toward Nestor who plopped a cup on the counter knowing exactly what I needed. Pouring the dark roasted goodness in my cup, I watched the glittering spell shimmer in the liquid. Just the sight of it was as calming as the coffee. I took the seat next to a young man whom I hadn’t met before.

  He had dark hair which had to be almost black, but it was hard to tell exactly in the dim lighting of the Hot Tin Roof Bar. His jawline had a bladed edge that led down to a square chin and large lips. Big kissable ones. When he tilted his head up from the clear liquid in his glass, his eyes flickered yellow then back to brown.

  “Werewolf,” I said.

  “My Queen, it is a pleasure to formally meet you. I’m Dominick Meyer,” he said offering me his hand.

  “Ah, yes, it is nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “I hear the coffee is good here,” he said starting up small talk.

  “It is, but the liquor is better,” I smiled.

  He laughed, “It is good when you need a little.” He picked up his glass and finished off the little bit he had left. Nestor reached to refill it, but Dominick put his hand over the glass refusing another.