by P. C. Cast
“If you don’t take him,” Evie said, “I will.”
“Hunter,” was all Glory managed to get out.
“He’s only good for the night. Maybe I’m looking for a day man.”
Glory elbowed her sister in the stomach.
Evie backed off, taking Godiva with her. “Come on. Let’s give the lovebirds their privacy and listen from the kitchen where Glory can’t assault us.” Footsteps echoed.
“I love you, Glory.” He dropped to his knees. “Please, say something to me. Anything.”
Could he truly love her? Her? Could he live with a witch and not fear for his life? She studied his face. Lines of tension edged his eyes and mouth. His lips were drawn tight. He was pale. His hair looked as if he’d plowed his hands through it for hours.
He really was worried she’d say no.
“Last night wasn’t enough,” he rushed on. “Forever probably won’t be enough. You’re all I can think about, all I crave. I’m addicted to you. I know you’re scared, but I vow to you, here and now, to protect you, cherish you, trust you. I know you aren’t evil. That’s something you don’t have to fear. I know you’re good and pure and—”
“I love you, too,” she finally said. Making a leap, trusting him like he was trusting her.
He was on his feet in the next instant, jerking her into his arms. “Thank God. I would have had to write you into another scene if you’d rejected me.” He placed little kisses all over her face. “Not that I would have minded.”
She laughed as she wound her arms around his neck. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’ve never been surer about anything in my life. You’re my witch, and I love you. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to ever push you away.” Grinning, he spun her around.
Her head fell back, hair flying, and she laughed again, joyful, content.
He stopped, peered down at her, his grin melting away, burned as it was by desire. “Okay, now I’m turned on. That laugh of yours . . .”
“Come on,” she said, leading him to her bedroom and earning winks from her sisters, who stood in the kitchen entry. “I have the perfect spell for that.” She shut the door, then proceeded to work her magic all over his body.
IT’S IN HIS KISS . . .
(Title hummed to the tune of Cher singing “The Shoop Shoop Song”)
P. C. Cast
To Gyna Snowater
with love from P. C. Castwater.
We rock when we team up, baby!
One
“All right, we’re going to start a new unit, so get out your folders and get ready to take notes,” Summer said in what she liked to hope was her best Teacher Voice.
“What’s the new unit, Miss S.?” called a male voice from the rear of the class.
Summer frowned. Was it disrespectful to call her Miss S.? Oh, Goddess! Another question she’d have to ask her sister on the phone tonight. She cleared her throat and tried to look severe and ten years older. “Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.”
The girls in the class sighed and looked dreamy. The boys groaned.
“Hey, I hear there’s sex in that play,” came the same voice from the rear of the class.
“Well, yes. Actually it’s a play about star-crossed lovers whose families won’t let them be together,” said Summer.
The girls smiled. The boys rolled their eyes.
“So that means there’s sex in it. Lots, actually,” Summer said before her mind caught up with her mouth.
“Cool!”
“Of course, it’s all written in Elizabethan English,” she hastily amended, reconnecting with the excellent control she usually had over everything she said or did.
“Sucks fairy butt,” said a surly voice from the other side of the room.
“So we won’t get it?” asked a cute blonde in the front row who wore a short, pink cheerleading uniform with FIGHTING FAIRIES emblazoned across her perky bosom.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get it,” Summer said.
“Awesome!” chorused several annoying male voices, accompanied by giggles from the girls.
“Hey, Miss Smith, can we watch the movie?” asked the cheerleader.
“The one that shows Juliet’s boobs!” called the irritating male voice. Which kid was that, anyway? Maybe she should move him up closer. (As if she wanted the annoying child closer to her? Ugh.)
“I’ll think about the movie,” Summer said firmly. “What we are going to see is an art exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite paintings that features Ford Madox Brown’s famous Romeo and Juliet balcony scene.”
The classroom went dead silent. Finally a pleasantly plump redheaded girl who sat smack in the center of the class smiled up at Summer through extra-thick glasses and a face full of unfortunate zits and said, “You mean we’re taking a field trip?”
“Yes, we’re taking a field trip. Tomorrow.”
There was a general class-wide sigh of relief and several high fives accompanied by murmurs of “Dude! That means no class tomorrow!”
“Okay, don’t forget to work on the Shakespearian vocab I gave you at the beginning of class. It’s due the day after tomorrow, and then we’ll begin—” Summer was saying when—thank the blessed Goddess—the bell rang that signaled the end of the period as well as the end of the school day.
“High school sucks,” Summer muttered to herself as the last pubescent boy filed out of her classroom, almost running into the door frame as he tried to keep his eyes on her cleavage as long as humanly possible. When the coast was clear, she dropped her head to her desk, and with a satisfying thud began to bang it not so softly. “I’m not a fool for teaching high school. I’m not a fool for teaching high school . . .” she spoke the litany in time to her head banging.
“Oh, honey. Just give up. We’re all fools. That’s one of the things that makes a truly great teacher: foolishness. The second thing starts with a W.”
Summer looked up to see a tall, slender woman dressed all in black. Her acorn-colored hair was shoulder length and wavy in a disarrayed I’m-so-naughty style. She offered her hand to Summer with a smile just as the door to her classroom opened again.
“What?” The tall, slender woman whipped around, skewering the hapless teenage boy with her amber eyes.
The boy’s eyes flitted from the scowling woman to Summer, and back to the scowler again.
“Mr. Rom? Isn’t that your name?” asked the slender woman in a no-nonsense voice.
The boy nodded nervously.
“And what is it you wished to bother Miss Smith with?”
The boy’s mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “I have my journals to turn in. The ones that were due yesterday,” he finally blurted.
The amber-eyed woman glanced down at Summer. “Do you take late work, Miss Smith?”
Summer swallowed. “No. I mean, isn’t that the English Department’s policy?”
“Of course it is.” The slender woman raised one arched brow at the boy and trapped him with her sharp gaze. “No. Late. Work. Means no late work. Now, go away, child, before you truly anger me.”
“Y-yes ma’am!” the boy’s voice broke as he backed hastily from the room and then scampered away.
“How in the world did you do that?” Summer said, gaping at the tall, young woman.
She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Jenny Sullivan, your across-the-hall neighbor and fellow English teacher, as well as a Certified Discipline Nymph. Sorry, I would have introduced myself last week at the beginning of the semester, but I was on that delicious staff development trip to Santa Fe.” Summer blinked blankly at her, so Jenny hurried on. “You know, Discipline in the Desert 101. Goddess! There are just so many applications for desert discipline in the high school classroom.” She shook herself. “Anyhoodles, just got back today and heard that you’d taken your sister, Candy Cox’s, place on our staff, and thought I better welcome you.” She paused and glanced at the closing door after the student. “I see I arrived just in time.”
“What’s the thing that starts with a W?” Summer asked.
“Whips?” Jenny said hopefully.
“Whips? We can use whips here? Candy never told me that.”
“Wait—wait. I think we’re having a communication difficulty. You asked me for a W word and, naturally, I thought of whips.”
“Okay, no. Let’s start over. You said foolishness and something that starts with a W make us great teachers.”
“Oh!” Jenny brightened. “Sadly, the answer to that is not whips, though it should be,” she finished under her breath.
“Then it’s . . .” Summer prompted.
“Whatever.”
“Pardon?”
“The other thing. It’s the Whatever Factor. Honey, I can already tell that your problem is you give a shit too much about what the hormones and germs are thinking.”
“The hormones and germs?”
“Aka teenagers.”
“Oh.”
“Darling Summer, you need to understand that teenagers rarely think.” Jenny patted her arm. “Come on, let’s lock up, and then I’ll treat you to a drink at Knight Caps.”
Summer started to grab her keys and her purse, then her eyes flitted to the clock on the wall. “Uh, Jenny. It’s barely three. Isn’t that too early to drink?”
Jenny hooked her arm through Summer’s and pulled her toward the door. “When you teach high school, it’s never too early to drink. Plus, rumor has it you ate lunch in the vomitorium. You’ll need a good healthy dose of martini to cleanse your system of those toxins.”
“Vomitorium?” Summer asked as Jenny took her hand and led her toward the door.
“Just another word for the cafeteria. And, yes. You should be afraid. Very afraid.”
“Wow. Teaching is so not like I imaged when I was in college.”
“Darling, nothing is like you imaged in college. This is the real world,” Jenny paused and then snorted. “Okay, well, Mysteria isn’t actually part of the real world in the reality sense, but you know what I mean. College is college. Work is work. Teaching is work.”
Summer sipped her sour apple martini contemplatively. “Teenagers are a lot more disgusting than I thought they’d be.”
“Preaching to the choir here,” Jenny said.
“I mean, Candy told me to change my major to anything that didn’t involve teaching, and I just thought she was, well . . .” she trailed off, obviously not wanting to speak badly about her sister.
“Here, let me help you. You thought Candy was just old, burned-out, and disgruntled. And that you, being twenty-some-odd years younger and ready to take on the world, would have an altogether different experience with touching the future.” Jenny said the last three words with exaggerated drama while she clutched her bosom (with the hand that wasn’t clutching her martini).
“Yeah, sadly, that’s almost exactly what I thought.”
“Until your first day of real teaching?”
“Yep.”
“And now you want to run shrieking for the hills?”
“Yep again.”
Jenny laughed. “Don’t worry. A few short lessons in discipline from an expert—that would be moi, by the by—and another martini or two, mixed with one of Hunter’s excellent five-meat pizzas, which I’ll split with you, will fix you right up.”
“Okay, except I never have more than one martini, and, well, I’m a vegetarian.”
“One martini? Sounds like you’re a little tightly wrapped, girlfriend.”
“I like to think of it as maintaining a healthy control.”
Jenny rolled her amber eyes. “In my professional Discipline Nymph opinion, I might mention that ‘healthy control’ is often an oxymoron. And you’re a vegetarian? Really?”
Summer chose to ignore Jenny’s comment about control and said, “I’m really a vegetarian. I don’t eat anything that had a face. Makes me want to throw up a little in the back of my throat even to think about it. So get my half with cheese and veggies.”
“Cheese and veggies on your half it is.” She motioned for one of the fairies to come take their order and then frowned when the pink-haired, scantily clad waitress ignored her and instead giggled musically at something a werewolf at the bar had said. Jenny lifted one perfectly manicured finger and started swirling it around in the air. “Looks like girlfriend over there needs a little discipline lesson. She needs to learn it’s best not to ignore me when I—”
Summer grabbed Jenny’s finger. “Do. Not. Use. Magic!”
Jenny yelped in surprise and put her finger away. “What gives?”
“Did Candy never mention what kind of, ur, magic I have?”
Jenny’s frown deepened. “Well, no. Candy didn’t have any magic, or at least she didn’t until she hooked up with that handsome werewolf of hers. I think she felt kinda weird that everyone else had some sort of magic, so she didn’t talk much about it. Plus, you know school’s supposed to be a Magic Free Zone. There was no need to go into it much. Why? What’s your magic?”
“Opposite.”
“Huh?”
Summer sighed. “My magic is opposite magic. Any spell worked around me instantly turns opposite, or at the very least becomes totally messed-up and twisted around. That’s another reason I decided to teach.”
“To really fuck with the teenage mind by screwing up all the furtive little magics they attempt at school?”
“No, though that does sound like it might be a fun by-product. The truth is that I wanted to get a job back home in Mysteria. I really like it here. While I was in college, I missed . . .” She hesitated, trying to decide how much to say. “Ur, I uh, missed the people who live here,” she finally decided on. And it was true. She had missed the people—some of them more than others. Actually, one of them more than others. “Anyway, I wanted to live in Mysteria, but I didn’t want to constantly be messing up people’s magic.”
Jenny’s expression said she knew there was more to the “Ur, I uh, missed the people who live here” nonsense, but the only comment she made was, “Oh, I get it. So working in the high school, a Magic Free Zone, sounded perfect.”
“In theory,” Summer said, mournfully sipping her martini.
“Hey, cheer up. It could be worse.”
“How?”
“You could be teaching at the grade school. At that age they touch you and pee in their pants.” Jenny shuddered. “Yeesh!”
Summer sighed. “This might fall under Emergency Procedures and require one more drink.”
“Of course it does, and of course you do. I’ll get it and order our pizza.” Jenny slid her lithe body from their booth. “I’ll go to the counter and order it. Although I do wonder what would happen if my kick-the-flirting-waitress-fairy-in-her-lazy-ass spell went opposite.”
“You don’t want to know. It’s always a true mess and—”
A gale of giggles and the door opening caused Summer to lose her train of thought and glance over her shoulder at the entrance to the bar. Then she sucked air. Her face blanched white and then flushed a bright, painful pink.
“Oh, Goddess!” Summer whispered. “It’s Kenneth.”
Two
“Yeah, it’s Kenny the Fairy. So? What’s the big deal?” Jenny was saying when the gaze of the tall, blond, male fairy in the middle of the new group of laughing girl fairies lighted on Summer and, smiling, he hurried over to their table.
“Hey, Summer! You’re back!”
“Hi, Ken,” Summer said, managing to stiffly return his hug. “Yeah. That’s me. Back. For a week.” And she blushed an even hotter shade of pink.
“Come on Kenny-benny! You promised to buy us mushroom pizza and those fizzy blue hypnotic drinks,” pouted a pair of identical twin silver-haired, gold-winged fairies.
Kenny gave Summer an apologetic smile. “Sorry, gotta go. I’ll call you later, okay? Is your number still the same?”
“Yeah. The same. Still.” Summer tried to smile, but her face ended up looking more like an enthusiastic grimace.
“Oh, no no no. This is so damn sad. You have a crush on Fairy Kenny,” Jenny said when they were alone again.
“Shhh!” Summer hushed her. “He might hear you.”
“Oh, please. He’s too busy with the slut sisters and their trampy friends. Hang on.” Jenny turned, faced the counter, and nailed the giggling pink waitress with her stern gaze. Her voice carried easily across the bar, slicing through the chattering fairies like a saber through a butterfly-infested flower garden. “Esmeralda, we need another round of martinis and a veggie pizza. Now. And do not make me repeat myself.” The waitress gulped, nodded, and scampered off to place their order. Jenny briskly brushed her hands against one another, as if pleased at a job well done, then she sat back in the booth, turning her full attention on Summer. “Okay, give. Why did you turn into the Incredible Cardboard Woman the instant Kenny-benny spoke to you?”
“I like him,” Summer whispered, upending her martini and patting on the stem as she tried to coax the last of the liquid from the glass.
“Yeah, so? That doesn’t explain the stiffness.”
Summer sighed. “He and I grew up together. We were best friends, or at least we were until we hit puberty and I realized how gorgeous and perfect he is. Since then things have been kinda awkward between us.”
“Kenny’s been through puberty? Who knew?”
“Stop it! He’s cute beyond belief. Don’t you think he looks just like Legolas?” she said, shooting furtive glances at Ken.
“I guess so, only gayer. If that’s possible.” Jenny shrugged. “But whatever floats your boat.”
“He definitely floats my boat,” Summer said.
“Does he know that?”
“Huh?”
“You said you guys grew up together, and then things changed when you started crushing on him. Maybe you should let him know why things changed.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m not very good at—”
“Here are your drinks, ladies. Your pizza should be right out,” gushed the waitress as she sloshed their new martinis down on the table in front of them.