Three Burning Red Runaway Brides

by Kevin James Breaux

  “Ambition.”

  Skipper smirked; the elder vampire was right, she was full of ambition.

  “Whatever you are thinking of doing here, copycat, do so with total conviction and trust it is the right move.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it is,” Skipper said. “And I get the feeling it’s exactly what you want too.”

  Dunyasha turned to Peter’s house suddenly. Then, in a blink, she disappeared over the side of the cliff. Her burst of speed startled Skipper, but the appearance of someone—something—was exactly what she had hoped for.

  Okay, Dunyasha, you’ve made this much easier.

  “Miss? Excuse me, miss?” a man shouted as he approached from Peter’s backyard.

  Came to investigate the flashes of light, hmmm? Well, you want flashes, pal, you’re in for a real show.

  Unlike Sabrina, Skipper could release and instantly withdraw her wings in a way that set off a tiny explosion, creating a flash-fire effect at her back. This detonation would not burn her but could hurt anyone within several feet. Some fire fairies used it as a warning, others as a signal of distress, others still in mating rituals. But Skipper, she just did it for the attention.

  As the man approached, speaking words she could not entirely hear over the wind, Skipper untied her string bikini and quickly ignited and dampened her wings.

  FZZZ-POP!

  You feel me yet, asshole?

  “What in His name was that?” the man shouted as he covered his eyes.

  “What was what?” she giggled as she retied the strings.

  A second voice emerged from the darkness—a squawk and distorted sound. The man who had approached rubbed his eyes and fumbled his cell phone.

  “There were flames,” he said and then whispered a prayer in Latin.

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  “What happened? Is it her?” the cellphone screeched from the ground.

  “Miss Sabrina? Sabrina London?” the man asked as he stepped hesitantly closer.

  “At your service.”

  “Good. Very good. My boss has been waiting for you.”

  “Has he?”

  “Yes. For quite some time.”

  “Then we best not keep him waiting.”

  “Please follow me inside.”

  Skipper tried not to gawk. She tried not to sneer or give away her disapproving thoughts, but her face clearly told a story for Peter’s servant.

  Peter Rubie’s house was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Words like extravagant and opulent rang in her head, but so did useless. Entirely useless.

  It all seemed impractical. Marble statues, ancient vases, gold and platinum records—these things had little value to Skipper. Had this place been a fortress—it was large enough—and had the walls been covered in weapons, then and only then would she have valued it.

  Fluff. All fluff. No wonder Sabrina loved it here. Wait, is this guy undead? Did Sabrina forget to mention that detail? Only a vampire would live in such an ostentatious place.

  “Peter is in his library.”

  “Which way is that again?”

  “Please follow me.”

  “Thank you, Marco,” Skipper said as she patted her growling stomach.

  “I am sorry, but Marco left Mr. Rubie’s services a few months ago. My name is Anthony.”

  “Oh, wow. I don’t know where my mind is.” Too many mistakes would cost her. “I must be starving. Does his library have any food? Like cheese? Some fresh fruit maybe? I didn’t see a garden outside.”

  “I will bring you some fruit. Would you care for some wine too?”

  “That sounds perfect. Thank you.” Skipper smiled. “I’d love some pineapple.”

  “Here we are,” Anthony said. “I must warn you. He remains on a portable oxygen concentrator and is very weak. If you are here to…to…romance him, might I suggest another time?”

  “Romance him? You mean fuck him? No, Anthony, trust me. I’m not here to fuck the old guy.” Skipper paused. Her attitude had clearly been infected by the place. “I mean the nice old guy.”

  With that, she pushed open the door and came face-to-face with another man from Sabrina’s past: Peter Rubie.

  “Hello, Peter.”

  “Sabrina,” Peter said with a gasp. “You look like an angel.”

  His servant had been right to warn her. Peter did not look well at all and was not the handsome, suave man Sabrina described him as. Seated in a wheelchair, he looked as if she had lost half his body weight. Skipper had only seen what cancer did to humans in the movies and TV shows Sabrina made her watch. Those were all fake; this was real. Maybe it was only Dunyasha’s words that were playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn she could smell his illness. Peter was dying—she was sure of it.

  Skipper did her best to summon her Sabrina personality and roll with it. “Peter,” she said solemnly as she approached. “I came as soon as I could.”

  “I’ve waited.”

  “I knew you would,” she said as she stepped closer.

  “I’ve searched.”

  “I knew you would, Peter.”

  “What happened after…after the explosion? Where…where did you go?”

  “I’ve been on the run. Those things have been hunting me.”

  “You came here? Why? For my protection…or to say goodbye?”

  “You have no idea what I’m up against, Peter. How could you protect me?”

  “I’ve had time…time to research them. I discovered something in my books.”

  “What?” As Skipper stepped closer to Peter, the house began to shake. Too late. They found me.

  “Peter, look at me.” Skipper spun around slowly, making sure to give a little bounce-and-jiggle show to her audience of one. “After all that’s happened, I need you to tell me something. Am I still the beautiful woman you remember walking into your office months ago? Or has the trauma of…of all this reduced my looks?”

  “I daresay…you are even more beautiful.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear.” Skipper smiled. “Thank you, Peter.”

  The shakes grew worse. Skipper could see the fear on his face.

  “A-another earthquake?”

  Skipper shook her head. “No.”

  “Is it them? The Tainted?”

  She knelt before him, placing her hands on his bony knees. “Yes, Peter, it’s them.”

  “Then go,” Peter said, caressing the side of her face. “Save yourself. Get to the ocean.”

  “I intend to.” Skipper looked up at the stained-glass skylight. “Wow, just like she described.”

  “What? Like who described?”

  Skipper drew a deep breath and made eye contact with Peter one last time. “Before I go, there’s something I want to show you.”

  “What?” His voice cracked before he sucked air from the mask of his oxygen tank. “What do you want to show me, Sabrina?”

  “This.” Skipper stepped back and unleashed her wings—her true wings. They crackled into existence and lit the room in a warm orange glow.

  He wheezed. “What-what are those?”

  “My wings.”

  “But your wings…”

  Skipper rose with several flaps. “Are those of royalty, Peter. And did you know what fairy royalty can do? We can summon elementals.”

  “Sabrina…” He gripped the armrest of his wheelchair. “Go. Fly out of here…fly out of here now.”

  “Air fairies, they summon their elementals from the very air we all breathe, water fairies from the water that surrounds us: lakes, rivers, clouds…hell, even tap water can be used. Earth fairies, well, obviously, they have plenty to draw from too. But fire fairies, we don’t summon from the flames. No, we create flames. We create life.”

  The quake grew suddenly worse.

  “Go, Sabrina.”

  Skipper looked up at the skylight before snapping her fingers. A spark launched from her fingertips and caught as soon as it landed on one of the throw rugs underneath her. As s
he rose higher toward the skylight, the fire elemental beneath her took shape.

  Peter coughed and pulled oxygen from his mask. “The hell…the hell is that?”

  Skipper did not answer. She simply hovered by the skylight until the fire elemental spotted her and threw a fireball at her. She easily dodged it and redirected it into the skylight, shattering the glass.

  “Goodbye, Peter.”

  Skipper sailed up, out of the mansion, and high above it. She could see the building shake, the ground move, and the cliff crumble below.

  “Dunyasha?”

  The elder vampire’s portal opened above her, but not before she heard a hiss and pop from below.

  “Good work, copycat.” Dunyasha’s voice entered her mind.

  “Did you hear that, Duny?”

  “The explosion of an oxygen tank.”

  “Yep,” Skipper laughed. “Pop goes the weasel.”

  Past Perfect

  The throne room was empty. Sabrina preferred it that way when not conducting some sort of royal business. The stillness allowed her an escape, a chance to slip her headphones on, listen to music, and close her eyes.

  She never fell asleep; she only daydreamed. She imagined a world where she was no longer Otherworld royalty, no longer hunted, and, sometimes, no longer recognized at all. A place where she was entirely anonymous, just an everyday, normal girl.

  However, when a song came on, one she enjoyed signing to, she wanted to scream. Her past would bubble to the surface, a past she so desperately wanted to go back to. She even knew the exact moment she would return to—the day she performed for Peter Rubie and RCA. To go back to that day would be perfect, but there was no going back. There never was.

  She hated hindsight; it made her past look so much brighter than her future.

  Today, Sabrina breathed slowly and tried to govern her anger until her body felt numb. Things had been extra busy as of late. She felt barraged. She felt like everyone around her wanted something. But not now—now she was the one who wanted something from someone. She wanted sex.

  She hung one leg over the side of her throne and slid up her gown. The fabric was soft and flowy, and it tickled her knee as she pulled it up.

  Sabrina had never been attracted to other fairy-kind, at least not the men. Skipper was right; they were pretentious moths. It had been several months, since the night she had had sex with Jackson in the limousine—the night she fled to this very spot. The memory of Jackson inside her still made her tingle, her desire increasing with each second she relived of that night.

  It was days like today she wished she could run off, meet a cute guy, and, like some sort of Taylor Swift song, dance and make out in the pouring rain. But unlike Swifty, Sabrina needed more than that; she needed to get laid.

  Sabrina had often considered asking Lara Leeds to spend the night with her. Lara was her type, and also bisexual, but something about the timing always seemed off. Lara was always traveling back and forth from the mainland; she was just as busy as Sabrina, and their downtime rarely matched up.

  Sabrina ran her hand down between her legs and softly rubbed herself over her panties. She thought of past lovers, the ones who were there for her when she felt the most alone, steamy memories that made her smile.

  “Mira…” she sighed. “Where the fuck are you?”

  Her friend was still missing. And when she thought of Mira, her smile turned to a frown. She and Mira had had sex several times. Sabrina had never found their lovemaking passionate, only mechanical, a means to an end—her orgasming.

  Mira was willing to do anything for her, even die, and when Sabrina looked back at the time they spent together, she feared her friend had done just that.

  “Weston, you motherfucker.”

  She was loathed to admit it, but she had used Mira the same way she had used her former bodyguard. Yet, as ashamed as she was, she blamed Weston more. She had come to realize he had used his charm to take advantage of her—and she enjoyed it.

  Sabrina missed Mira; she was a good friend, a great bodyguard, and the only one who could fill her almost as well as Weston…almost.

  After a grunt, Sabrina shoved all frustrating thoughts aside along with her panties. Once again, she was forced to take care of business herself. That was how most things got done here.

  “Jackson…” she moaned, upon returning to thoughts of that night.

  She hoped Lara found him. If he was alive and well, Sabrina fantasized about setting another trap, and this time, she would be the one who seduced and fucked him, while Skipper watched.

  With two fingers, she gently played with her wetness and began to glide it around her folds.

  There was one last option.

  “Cade Robert Lawton.”

  Sabrina’s plans were to send Skipper to find and seduce Cade next. To truly trick the vampire, she would have to give him her all…all but her blood. The only way would be to distract him with such pleasures of the flesh that he would forget to sink his teeth in. Hmm, Sabrina wondered, what if I go along on that trip?

  She imagined just how thrilled Cade would be to have a threesome with two of her. He might just die. She giggled. He might just…actually…die.

  But the risk was too great. She knew she had to stick to her plan—or was it Dunyasha’s plan? The two plans had blurred together now.

  Dunyasha, she thought. Would she…? No, better to risk the Tainted finding and killing me, than trying to seduce an elder vampire.

  “What am I thinking?”

  A green speck of light appeared in the center of the room, and like a lightning bug, it hovered a moment and then vanished. Sabrina knew what it meant. She’d seen it plenty of times before. It was akin to a knock right before a door was thrown open.

  Sabrina covered her eyes before the bright-purple flash hit, which allowed her a rare glimpse of the great, swirling mouth of light and energy that opened next. Then, before she could focus on the sight, a whoosh of air blew through the throne room and extinguished nearly all the lit candles. Dunyasha was back.

  Sabrina still didn’t understand how or why she had command of such a power. Dunyasha only hinted that it was somehow linked to her curse and what she used to be.

  Sabrina pulled her dress back down and sat up, but she knew by the look on the vampire’s face that Dunyasha recognized what she had been doing, and like a child being caught by their parents, Sabrina was mortified.

  “Duny, I was just—”

  “You owe me no explanations. I know of your lust—your kind’s lust, young fairy queen,” she said. “Admirable…although ill-timed.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “The Tainted—Pollution came and destroyed everything.”

  Sabrina gasped. “What?”

  Dunyasha turned her head and gazed back where the portal had been. “Not long after we arrived. Their spies—”

  “Destroyed what, Duny?”

  “Everything.”

  “Where is she?” Sabrina demanded, fear making her breathing shallow.

  “Safe,” Dunyasha said with a flourish of her hands that Sabrina could not interpret. “I rescued her before the estate sunk into the sand and sea. I placed her on your beach. She needed a moment to gather herself.”

  Sabrina took three deep breaths and then spoke. “The estate? Peter’s home? Peter?”

  “All gone, Sabrina. Must I repeat myself?”

  Sabrina placed a hand over her mouth and mumbled, “My god.”

  “You were right to assume the Tainted would be watching that spot.”

  Sabrina muttered. “Weston’s dead. Peter’s dead. Jackson’s… We…we have to do something.”

  “We are.”

  “No.” Sabrina shook her head. “I mean we have to stop. Stop this. Stop what we’re doing.”

  “This cannot be stopped, Sabrina,” Dunyasha said flatly. “If nothing is done, your fate will be sealed.”

  “I—”

  In a burst of motion, Dunyasha was standing bef
ore Sabrina. Startled, she jerked back in her seat.

  “Pollution or wraiths, Sabrina? Take your pick.”

  “What?”

  “Choose the means of your destruction.”

  With a sneer, Sabrina replied, “Duny, really? Choose the form of your destruction? What’s next? Gonna tell me to not cross the streams? Because I’m getting confused.”

  “There is no time for this childishness.”

  “No time?” Sabrina stood and poked Dunyasha in the chest with her index finger. “You have all the time in the world.”

  “And you have none.”

  “And I have none,” Sabrina repeated. “Well, I guess I’m done. Done leading. Done following. Done trying. Guess you’re done too.”

  “No. You still have to—”

  “Yeah.” Sabrina had felt this way before—hopeless and used. “See, you’re not done with me yet. You haven’t finished yet. There’s still time to fuck good ol’ Sabrina up the ass once more before you go, huh?”

  “Listen to me, child.”

  “No, you listen to me, Dunyasha. You came here to help, but not out of the goodness of your black-souled heart. You said you needed help too. You need a powerful fairy king to undo what was done to you.”

  “Something akin to that.”

  “Well, I’m getting fucking stronger every day. I have the might of the most powerful elemental kingdom coursing through my body. You’ll get what is owed to you after the final test. After Skipper returns from her visit with Cade.”

  “Do not forget who you are talking to, sprite.”

  “You don’t forget,” Sabrina’s voice rose. “Like you said the other day, I’m the motherfucking Queen of the Water Kingdom now, and I can do whatever the hell I please.”

  Dunyasha stepped behind Sabrina and placed her palm squarely between her shoulders. “Yes. I feel your power, Water Queen.”

  “Good, then quit questioning my decisions.” Sabrina lowered her voice. “We go back to the original plan.”

  “The Tainted will have questions…”

  “Fuck them. Skipper’s not ready for Raion.”

  “I think she is.”

  “No. Not until after she faces Cade. Jackson and Peter, they were never a threat to her…me. But Cade—Cade, that ruthless fucking bloodsucker—he would see me dead, although for different reasons than the Tainted.”