by Sela Carsen
Javi tried to keep his snort quiet. “Yeah, I think I’ll invite everyone over for beer and cigars on poker night.”
“Some of them would come.” Hank smiled. “I would. No cigars for me, though. And have you tried Bridget’s latest batch of oatmeal stout?”
“Hipster. What’s wrong with drinking beer you can buy at the grocery store?”
“I’m just getting more selective with age. Why drink bad beer?”
They stood and chatted about some of the nearby microbreweries while Javi kept an eye on Medina, nibbling daintily at a tiny sandwich. He admired her ability to blend with these powerful people, but he thought he preferred her getting messy with an egg and chorizo burrito at his kitchen counter while wearing one of his old T-shirts.
He hadn’t realized Hank had stopped talking until the sheriff chuckled. “Ah. I wondered when you’d finally make your move.”
“What?”
“I can smell her on you. Not much. No mating scent, but you’re putting out waves of intent.”
Javi couldn’t take his eyes off Medina. “Not yet. I knew the minute I got to town, but look at her. She’s a princess. I’m a mutt.”
Hank’s eyes crinkled thoughtfully for a moment. “I feel like your grandmother would have something to say about that.”
“My abuela would kick my furry butt to Oaxaca and back if she heard me,” Javi acknowledged.
“Then you’d better get yourself together and go over there. That woman needs someone who can stand beside her, not hide in a corner. Go on, lobo.”
Javi unbent from the wall and pulled his shirt straight. He’d worn a neatly pressed button-down shirt, tucked into jeans, and his good loafers. Medina’s eyes had gleamed with appreciation at seeing him in something other than a T-shirt and sneakers.
And then he’d gone and left her on her own in a room full of strangers. Some mate he was. Lando had taken his cue from his master and stuck tightly to his knee. Javi looked down at his companion and said, “You’re a better friend than I am. We’d better go fix that.”
He nodded sharply to Hank and walked up beside Medina, where she spoke quietly with Elenora Ellingham, the grande dame of this spectacular home and their hostess.
Medina reached for him as soon as he was near, and he twined their fingers together while he was introduced to Mrs. Ellingham. He gently shook her hand.
“Now that you’ve finally joined us,” the older woman said with only a drop of acid, “I think it’s time for us to begin. Shall we sit?”
Lando lay alertly next to the chair Javi picked, and Shura mirrored him on the other side. They couldn’t have looked more different. Lando was all working dog. His ears perked, he was positioned to leap into action at a blink. Shura lounged next to Medina like some elegant silk drape, but everyone knew that no one would get close enough to touch her mistress unless she allowed it.
Danil and Katya Leonov had joined the group, as well as Rodion Czernovitch and his fiancée, Carina Valdis. Danil had information from his brother back in Volshev, and Rodion had been a Border Patrol Guard there. Both men had experience with the particular type of magic that came from the Rus Fae on the other side of the mundane border in the small Texas town.
Katya grasped Medina’s hand but made no sound. The shy woman was overwhelmed by all the people in the room, and they accepted her introverted personality by nodding quietly at her without requiring her to say anything.
“Now that we’re all ready, let’s discuss what’s to be done about this attack on our sheriff,” said Elenora, starting them off.
“Actually, the story starts with Medina. Let’s get her take on it first.” Hank nodded in her direction.
Medina grasped Javi’s hand so hard it pinched, though her face didn’t betray a hint of concern. She took a breath and nodded back. “I suppose I should begin at the beginning and go on till I come to the end.”
“Then stop,” whispered Katya, who immediately blushed at becoming the center of attention. Medina smiled at her like it was a shared joke.
“I’m sure you all know the Theron’s, and you probably know they’re not my blood family. I was approximately three years old when I was found walking along the banks of Wolf Creek, dressed in a formal child’s gown with satin and lace, barefoot, bleeding from a head wound, and followed by my own personal breeze. I was dehydrated and in shock, and to this day, I don’t remember anything that happened before that, or much of anything until a few days later when I was released from the hospital and given to the Theron’s, who fostered and then adopted me.”
The crowd was keeping up with her so far, but this was the first time Javi was hearing the story put together from Medina’s perspective. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.
“Yesterday, a man arrived in my office. A lawyer named Paul Krovatik. He gave me a bunch of papers to sign that were supposedly to hand over some money to me that was also supposedly the remaining property of my birth family in Volshev, Texas. He opened up a potion to make me do what he asked, but Javi came in and saved me.”
He’d do it all again to see the sweet look on her face just then.
“Krovatik disappeared in a cloud of smoke, like some cheesy magic show. We didn’t see or hear from him again until we got to my condo last night and found him inside, tossing the place. Judging by the destruction, he was looking for something he thought I’d hidden, though I can’t imagine what. The only thing I have from childhood is this.”
She pulled the slim necklace out from where it was always hidden under her blouse. At the end was a broken pendant—about a third of a complete circle. Wrought from fine gold, he could make out the head of some sort of bird of prey with one wing outspread. Other than the resemblance to a raptor, there were no other hints of its origin.
Medina took it off, and the piece was passed through everyone’s hands. When it reached a short, cheerful-looking older lady with blue-green and purple streaks in her silver hair, she jolted.
“Basileus,” she whispered.
“What was that, Agnes?” asked Alice Bishop, the most powerful witch in town and leader of the Nocturne Falls coven.
“Basileus. It’s another word for ruler or emperor. This is the double-headed imperial eagle of the Rus.”
Medina sighed. “I suppose I should be surprised, but I’m not. He said my family name is Simyonov, which sounds pretty Russian to me.”
Danil leaned forward, and all eyes went to him. The wizard had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt in two precise folds, and the magical tattoos on his arms peeked out from under the edges.
“It’s very Russian. I had my brother, Gavril, do some checking, and the Simyonov family has been in Volshev since its inception. Their progenitor came over the border with Baba Yaga’s daughter to found the town. But the branch left behind in the Rus is… was extremely powerful until very recently.”
He turned to Medina. “They are royalty. Not just aristocracy, but true knyazya, princes of the Rus. You say you control the winds?”
She nodded, her face pale but steady. Shura lay her head on her mistress’s lap, and as Medina combed her fingers through the familiar’s silky ruff, she calmed.
“You’re a vila. A wind spirit of the Rus. Every culture has some sort of air elemental, but the vila are always women. They help the innocent and punish evildoers. The royal line of vile are incredibly powerful women who always leave a mark.”
That sparked Javi’s memory. “You mean, like a signature on a piece of art?”
“Perhaps.” Danil frowned in curiosity. “Why do you ask?”
Javi willed Medina to look at him. “Can I tell them?”
Her eyes were bright with conflict, but finally, she nodded.
“When Krovatik and I were fighting in her apartment, we knocked over a vase. Something precious to Medina. She gathered up the pieces in a whirlwind and sort of… remade it. But when it was done, it had an eagle on it that hadn’t been there before. Like the one in her pendant, but with two he
ads, like this lady said.” He gestured to the woman, Agnes, who still held the jewelry, then continued, watching Medina. “That’s when he called you printsessa. And what was the other word?”
“Knyaginya,” she whispered. Her pronunciation was perfect. As if she’d learned Russian in the cradle.
Her fingers were chilly, and he could feel a fine tremor in them. Ignoring their audience, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
The heavy weight of the moment lifted, and she smiled at him.
“So. I’m a Rus fairy princess. That’s interesting, but it doesn’t fully answer the question of who Krovatik is and what he really wants from me.”
Rodion Czernovitch stirred in his seat. The former Border Patrol Guard from Volshev still had contacts in law enforcement on both sides of the fae/mundane border there, and he’d used them. “I think I can answer some of that. Krovatik is pretty much what we think he is. A shyster lawyer who takes advantage of people who are in no condition to refuse his schemes. And if he’s got a big enough spell to overpower our sheriff, he’s not someone to discount. But I think it’s just a spell, not necessarily his own power. Otherwise, we’d know more about him by now.”
The witches all nodded in agreement.
“True,” said Miss Bishop, a woman so strong they could feel the subtle waves of magic around her. “Someone has probably given him a spell, which means that it’s limited. He may have used all its power by now, or there may be a little left.”
“If he was running out, he wouldn’t have been so smug when he smoked out of Medina’s apartment last night. He’s not done yet.”
“What now?”
“Now we lay a trap in the spider’s web.”
Chapter Nine
The gathering had largely broken up, witches going hither and yon back to their regular lives. Honestly, Medina thought, it was a bit anticlimactic. No flashy light shows, no levitating punch bowls. It was like a craft meeting. Everyone packed up their knitting and went home, leaving her and Javi grasping at threads.
Hank Merrow stuck around, grabbing Javi for some secret guy conversation that Danil joined in on. They all looked terribly serious until Medina overheard the words, “Did you see that goal?” and they all burst into manly laughter.
She wondered if she could sprain her eyes from rolling them too hard.
While Elenora and Alice had a quiet conversation off to the side, she and Katya knelt by the dogs.
“She seems so much better already, Medina. Her coat has gotten shinier and she just looks happy.” Katya paused. “She is happy. I can hear her.”
Shura wrapped a long tongue around Katya’s wrist and made a little arrooo noise. The women laughed.
“Has she sung for you yet?”
“A little bit when we were at my apartment. It’s beautiful.” Borzois had a reputation for howling so sweetly it sounded like music… to a loving ear. She suspected her neighbors might not be as excited about it as she was, but she’d work on that later. Right now, they had bigger problems.
Katya gasped and clutched low on her belly. The sound was loud enough to attract the attention of everyone left in the room, and they all stepped closer.
“Kotik, what’s wrong?” Danil knelt by his wife.
“My… the foal. The foal is coming. Something’s wrong.” She wheezed out the words, writhing against her husband’s side.
Medina went to work, mentally preparing for the task ahead. Elenora waved them away with good wishes, and Agnes pressed the broken pendant back into her hand on their way out the door. She fastened it around her neck with precise movements, and Javi put his foot on the Jeep’s gas pedal before she was finished buckling up.
Minutes later, they were out of the car and striding into the glamoured barn behind the shelter. Everyone carried a bag from the Jeep—all the emergency medical supplies that she’d transferred out of her truck the day before.
Every animal had retreated into the back of its stall, and the coppery scent of blood stained the air.
Galatea’s thin scream penetrated like a stiletto to the brain. Something was definitely wrong.
Bubba thrashed his mane and stomped at the humans as they approached. His ears were pinned back, his massive teeth bared, and his eyes glowed an Unseelie red. With one snake-fast strike of that head, things could go horribly wrong very quickly.
“We need to get him out of here. He’s not going to let me near Galatea, otherwise.”
The kelpie was in such a panic that none of Katya’s soothing words were getting through to him. Galatea screamed again, and Bubba rose onto his hind legs, screaming with her.
Javi spoke, his face set in somber lines. “I can get him out of here, but he won’t like it. Medina, Katya, stand off to the side, please. Danil, get the doors open wide.”
Medina touched his shoulder. “Javi, are you okay? What are you going to do?”
He brushed a kiss onto her forehead and gave her a sad smile. “I’m going to show you what I really am, querida. I’m sorry.”
Gently, he steered her back to where Katya stood, protected from the path that the kelpie was most likely to take. Bubba pranced in agitation, blowing hard as he watched Javi out of the corner of one rolling crimson eye.
The dogs flanked Javi as he took off his clothes, tossing them to the side in an untidy pile, then, with a couple of clicks, removed his prosthetic leg. Medina watched in fascination as he set the mechanical limb aside, then stripped off the sock-like material that covered the end of his left leg below the knee. It was the first time she’d seen him without the artificial leg, and she rubbed at her chest where it ached a little. The stump was pale and hairless, and she could see the scars of burns and lacerations reaching up his over his knee. But when she looked back up at his face and found him watching her, she couldn’t stop either the smile that stretched her lips or the tears that dripped from her eyes.
Fairy princess or not, she knew when she was standing in front of a true and steadfast hero.
“Go get him, honey.”
He smiled back at her and began the shift.
Medina knew the other shifters in town turned into their animals, large and sleek and beautiful. She found she preferred Javi’s monster, so deeply rooted in the traditions of his culture. As long as he was on her side, nothing would ever harm her. And if anyone tried to harm him, she’d blow them to Oz.
Javi dropped to all four—well, all three limbs—in front of Bubba, and the kelpie shrieked in rage, trying to protect his laboring mate. With the horse focused on the werewolf, though, he’d forgotten about the two dogs that flanked him. Lando dashed forward and nipped at Bubba’s fetlock, just above his rear hoof. When the kelpie kicked back, Lando dodged the strike, letting Shura take the next nip.
Knowing two predators were behind him, Bubba did the only thing he could. He galloped forward, intent on running down the fearsome monster that faced him. But Javi turned and streaked out the wide-open stable doors into the paddock, Bubba hot on his heels. The massive black head was outstretched to take a ripping bite out of the werewolf he chased.
The moment they passed the doors, Danil ran to close them. As soon as they slammed shut, he yelled, “I’ll go check on Javi. See if I can help.” He disappeared, leaving Katya and Medina to finally tend to the unicorn.
Katya knelt by the mare’s head where she lay on her side, her legs thrashing occasionally as another contraction visibly contorted her belly.
“I don’t know what happened. Everything was fine yesterday, and the foal was in a perfect position. Now the little thing has twisted around. We’re going to have a breech birth.” Medina slid her hands over Galatea’s chest and bumped over a red spot that hadn’t been there before.
“Some sort of insect bite here, but I can’t worry about it now. We’ve got to get this foal out.”
The next few hours were some of the most tense of Medina’s career. Every time it seemed she had a handle on the foal’s legs, it would slip out of her grasp. Finally, sh
e leaned back and shoved her hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“I don’t get it. It’s like something is actively trying to thwart me. And we don’t have much time left.”
Galatea’s contractions were getting weaker the longer she labored. Now she barely moved, though she had to be in agony.
“The bite, Medina. Look at how it’s spread. Something got to her because that’s not natural.”
The spot, difficult to see from her vantage point at the back of the unicorn, had grown during the labor. It was larger now, and puffed up with infection. Red lines had begun to spread out from the heart of it, like the legs of a spider. With a quick flick, she cut through the swollen center and it immediately began to drain. The miasma that rose from the gash was foul and familiar. She’d smelled it every time Krovatik made one of his dramatic disappearances.
The moment the wound started to run clear, Galatea’s eyes brightened and her head came up.
“Oh Galatea, I’m sorry I didn’t take care of that before. Looks like we’ve got a second wind to get your baby out. Push!”
Elbow deep inside the unicorn, however, Medina was defenseless when she felt a pricking at her neck, like tiny legs crawling on her nape. Katya was occupied keeping Galatea calm, and Medina could only watch the horror reflected in her eyes. A thin chuckle and that familiar reek invaded her senses.
“Aw. You figured it out sooner than I hoped you would. But while you’re busy, I’ll just take this.”
The gold chain slipped off her neck, and she felt a pang deep in her chest. Galatea’s muscles bore down on her arm and she had no choice but to keep helping the unicorn through her labor.
“I believe I’ll take this. There’s a party in the Rus that will pay dearly to keep this trinket out of the hands of the rest of your family. The last thing they need is some stray orphan upsetting their plans.” Krovatik moved so Medina could see him while she worked.
Medina grunted with the strain. “Don’t know them and don’t care. But that necklace is mine. You can’t have it.”