Hex on the Beach

by Melissa Marr

  Chapter Twelve

  When we returned to Elphame, my husband was standing there looking far-from- cheerful. His gaze took me in, which was fairly normal. Pre-matrimony, Eli had stitched me up so often that I thought he’d earned an honorary field medicine degree.

  “Geneviève.” He bowed his head to the king then. “Uncle.”

  Marcus looked at me. “Someone’s apparently in trouble.”

  “Did no one think it prudent to notify me that my wife and my king were off in a skirmish?” Eli’s formal tone said more about his mood than anything else could. He reverted to increasingly fae mannerisms when he was upset.

  “It was six draugr.” I gave a little twirl. “Barely a scratch.”

  Marcus met Eli’s gaze. “I do not twirl.”

  Then the king bowed to me. “You are a worthy warrior, Death Maiden.” He paused, eyes still holding mine, and added, “Do not forget our conversations.”

  Without another word, the King of Elphame departed, his soldiers dipping their heads to me as they trailed the king.

  When it was just the two of us, Eli sighed. “Bonbon. Really? Even at a spa in a draugr-free city?”

  I shrugged. “They came out of the ocean, apparently.”

  We walked to the house. Our house. And I tried not to smile at the sheer joy I felt. Successful battle. Magic back. Husband here.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Sera and Christy are on a beach, and when I left them, Allie was trying to convince a kelpie to give her a ride.” Eli sounded amused, so I figured that despite their reputation for being monstrous, the kelpies in Elphame were not murderous water horses.

  “The king thinks he’s going to marry her.”

  “A kelpie?” Eli stopped mid-step. “Because you certainly cannot mean that he wants to wed the widow Chaddock.”

  “Destiny,” I offered as we reached the cottage. I stripped outside the door, leaving my pile of toxin-covered clothes on the ground to be destroyed. It was a casualty of the job, but I still frowned at losing another pair of reliable boots. “I really liked those boots.”

  Eli said nothing as we walked to the shower.

  “I spend an awful lot of time cleaning away my work,” I muttered.

  My husband held his words, simply looking me over as if I’d hidden injuries. As the grime washed away, as the flecks of blood washed away, Eli relaxed. “You are uninjured.”

  “I am.” I softened as he visibly relaxed.

  “Geneviève . . . you weren’t here. You had no magic. And my uncle, who has not left Elphame in at least a century and change, was in San Diego. I was . . . alarmed. What foe would be so fierce that the king himself would take up arms? What danger were you, without your fierce magic, facing?”

  He stripped as I stared at him, understanding dawning on me. I hadn’t realized exactly how serious it was that the king had joined me.

  “My magic is back,” I whispered, summoning it to my will to touch him without moving a muscle. The very air stiffened into intangible hands that brushed along his bare chest, marveling that a man like him was mine forever.

  “Shouldn’t I want you less now that we’re an old married couple?” I whispered.

  Eli laughed. “Never. I think my need and love grow stronger by the day.”

  I nodded, words failing as he stepped into the shower with me. His hands were curled around my hips, and finally we were kissing.

  It had only been two days, but just then, two days felt like an eternity.

  When he pulled back, I teased, “I have it on good authority that Girls’ Weekends often include someone ‘hooking up’ with a gorgeous stranger . . .”

  “Hello, I’m Eli. We’ve never met before, but would you mind if I ravished you now?”

  “Yes, please. I’m . . .” I managed to whisper as he parted my legs. My attempt to role play failed instantly as he slid two fingers inside me. “I’m . . . I’m yours, Eli.”

  * * *

  After our not-really-make-up sex, Eli left me there with my friends for the next two days to enjoy a proper Girls’ Weekend. Wined, dined, and sun-soaked, my friends were relaxed. Although after the first twenty-four hours, we’d all given up on convincing Allie that the fact that magical creatures suddenly obeyed her was because Marcus told them to do so.

  “Did you know that if a kelpie chooses to do so you can breathe under the sea?” Allie was explaining.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you know that the village for mortals here is just . . . basically . . . like a big artist colony?” Allie was carefully packing a blown-glass kelpie in her luggage.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you know that know that Marcus says I can just pop in here whenever I want?” Allie paused, fidgeting with an embroidered linen dress.

  I glanced at her. “Did he offer that to the others?”

  She shook her head.

  “I see.” My faery bargain was making my tongue feel twisted. There were things I wanted to say but couldn’t.

  “You think he likes me . . . ” Allie held my gaze. “Why aren’t you saying anything, boss?”

  “You’re very likeable,” I said, sounding as cheery as her.

  And the often-underestimated Alice Chaddock crossed her arms and pronounced “You know something.”

  I’d been thinking on it since the conversation with Marcus. I could not tell her the bargain, his interest, or that he’d made a bargain with me. I could, however, think like the fae and talk around it.

  “Do you recall how I ended up married?”

  Alice’s eyes grew comically wide.

  “And do you know how sometimes an eternal being . . . like say my grandmother can be clever and outwit mortals?”

  Allie nodded.

  With carefully chosen words, I warned, “It’s wise to be careful, Alice Chaddock. I am, and yet, I have been accidentally married to a faery. . . and probably manipulated into going to San Diego to kill off draugr who were behaving badly but out of Beatrice’s reach.”

  Allie looked around as if there were potential spies, and then whispered, “So you think Marcus has plans to manipulate me?”

  It was far too direct of a question, so I looked at her, hoping she was clever enough to hear what I was really saying, “I cannot say, Alice. I simply can not say. But”—I shrugged as if was no big deal—“I know I ended up where I am because I made faery bargains with Eli.”

  “Well, I won’t be doing that.” Allie hmphed, and I repressed a sigh. She wasn’t getting what I was saying, and the bargain prevented me from outright telling her—or anyone else. It wasn’t my future on the line, but I wasn’t going to let Allie stumble into something she didn’t want.

  Later, when I was back in New Orleans, I’d come up with a plan to help her without breaking my faery bargain—right after I went to see my great-times-great grandmother Beatrice and pointed out that I wasn’t a hunting dog to be sent out at her will.

  “Gen?” Sera called as she came into the room. “Alice, come on! Pack later! Drink now!”

  “Coming!” I grabbed a parasol, another of the things Allie had stocked up on, and Allie and I headed outside to join Sera and Christy for a glass of faery-made whisky or two at the firepit. It might not be the spa weekend we’d planned, but we were together, and laughing.

  Christy looked up from her lounger. “Fruit bowl for you on the table . . .”

  Then Sera added, “And a beautiful shawl for you, Allie.” She pointed to the delicate pink thing. “Just you.”

  The shawl was in a box with a tag in what looked like calligraphy but was probably just Marcus’ handwriting. “To Alice, for cold nights when you are far away.”

  Alice looked at it, looked at me, and said, “He like likes me, doesn’t he?”

  I couldn’t reply because of the faery bargain, but Sera and Christy simply said “yes.” And I took a long drink to cover for my silence. After all the faery bargains that I’d made, this one was proving more complicated than
I expected.

  “I made some ice for you.” Alice plopped several blood cubes in my whisky before settling in with her drink in a chair beside Sera.

  We weren’t living in a perfect world, but I realized I’d lucked out on friends. I lifted my glass and said, “To sisters!”

  “To sisters!” Sera, Christy, and Allie echoed back at me.

  We drank, relaxing until Alice said, “So is it weird that you and Sera used to boink? But you’re like sisters?”

  “Not literal sisters, we just--” Sera started.

  “Shut up, Allie,” Christy interrupted.

  And Alice grinned at us as she settled back with her drink.

  “I love you people,” I added, looking at them one after the other. “Best Girls’ Weekend ever because you were with me.”

  Maybe Alice’s influence was wearing off on me because I sat back with my drink and relished the stunned looks on all three faces. I could totally be sappy if I had to, and honestly, if it shocked everyone that much, I might just do it more often.

  Our weekend was a little off plan, but it truly had been exactly the beach trip I’d needed. I felt ready and able to handle whatever challenges life threw my way next. Good friends, good booze, and the occasional beheading were my sort of weekend.

  Epilogue

  I left Elphame and returned to New Orleans with a bounce in my step that I attributed to the holiday as much as the return of my magic. It was evening, so Christy and Sera headed to their jobs.

  Allie and I exchanged a look, but she didn’t ask any awkward questions.

  “Can I borrow a car to go to the Outs?” I asked Allie. My first order of business was visiting my grandmother.

  My assistant gave me another odd look, but she handed me her keys. “Try not to break it. I’ll get Tres to fetch me so I can go home.”

  I nodded. I hated keeping the secrets I was—not just about Marcus’ interest in her and what that meant, but the Chester situation, too. Hopefully, no one would need to know about the odd man, but if so, I’d tell them when it was necessary. Not today. This was my work: figuring out threats and handling them.

  As I drove toward what was once called Slidell, I tried to think of ways that the Chester situation wasn’t alarming. There weren’t many. He was a stranger who knew far more than he ought to about me.

  When I arrived at the castle that Beatrice called home, I stepped into the familiar humid air, loud with the chorus of frogs singing and mosquitoes buzzing.

  “Lady Beatrice is expecting you,” my gran’s assistant said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Eleanor was maybe fifteen upon her death, and she was dressed in her usual Renaissance garb.

  Inside, Eleanor guided me to a library where Beatrice was standing in front of a giant fireplace. She didn’t turn to face me even as she greeted me: “Geneviève. Daughter of Mine.”

  I was usually patient with her, attempting to forge a relationship. She was, after all, my ancestor and one of only two blood relations in my life. Tonight, though, I was tired of etiquette.

  “Did you know about the spa?”

  Beatrice didn’t insult me by pretending not to understand. Her back was still to me. “I did.”

  “And you didn’t think to warn me?” I asked.

  The fierce ruler of the fanged monsters that plagued my city--my world in fact—finally turned to face me. Her eyes were swollen and blackened. Her lips were bruised and cracked, and her left arm dangled at an angle that was far from natural.

  “I could not,” she said.

  I was across the room in a blink, flowing to her. Gently, I steered her to a chair. “Who did this? Did you kill them? If no I w--”

  Her hand covered my mouth, stopping the word. “I am fine. Healing. Chester was most upset that I ruined his little seaside venture.”

  “Who is he?”

  Beatrice offered me a terrifying smile. “My creator. The one who saw fit to hand me to a group of draugr to create a hybrid.”

  I froze, pondering the appearance of humanness in the suit-clad man. He had seemed innocuous. Human. Weak. Uninteresting.

  “He did this?”

  She gave a single nod. “He’s the oldest living human, Daughter of Mine. An alchemist who made a crossroads deal if you ask him. I don’t honestly know, but I know you need to stay away from him. If I’d known that it was his business . . . I didn’t though.” She took my hand in hers. “Please, Geneviève, heed me on this. The last person to cross him was Iggy. And he died for it.”

  Iggy. The Hexen I’d restored to life.

  “Please?” she repeated. “I’m fine. Healing . . . I was simply not expecting him. Chester brings up difficult memories. You must stay away from him, Geneviève.”

  “I hear you.” I felt a wave of tenderness toward her. Sure, she was a monster in her own right, but she was my family, too.

  “I’ve asked Lauren to stay with me,” Beatrice mentioned, tone falsely calm. “You and Eli, Alice, you’re all welcome here. Tres is watching over Allie for now, but . . .”

  “I’ll talk to Allie. Is Mama Lauren here?” I sat on the floor at Beatrice’s feet.

  Beatrice, again, smiled, but this—despite the bloodied mouth—looked happier. “She’s working on a hydroponic garden I started. She’s been crafting herbal drinks to heal me.”

  I nodded. If there was a garden, it was because Beatrice knew it would entertain my mother. And if there were herbs to heal the already-dead, my mother would find them.

  “So . . . aside from the Chester issue, tell me about the trip,” Beatrice invited.

  “Worst. Spa. Ever,” I started, offering her the distraction we both needed. “Shoes made of leaves. Pink mist. No booze.”

  “I’d heard it was hellish, but it was a dry spa?” Beatrice grimaced.

  “Completely.”

  “Eleanor!” Beatrice called out. “Daiquiris? And the gifts?”

  I regaled my great-times-great grandmother with tales from my trip as her assistant brought in a tray of Blood Daiquiris. Alongside them were two daggers that looked to be the length of my forearm.

  “Magic imbued,” Beatrice said as if such gifts were minor. “For any future needs. One for you. One for Eli.”

  I accepted them with the same casual tone. “Daiquiris and daggers? Maybe I ought to visit more often.”

  “I’d like that,” she said, and we left it at that. I may have no choice. For now though, we did as one must when disasters always lurked: we shelved it and shared a drink.

  Later we could figure out the looming disasters, but for the moment, I was rejuvenated, magic-wielding, and my friends and family were secure. All was as well in the world as it could get.

  * * *

  The End

  A Grave Girls Getaway

  A Night Huntress Novella

  * * *

  By

  * * *

  Jeaniene Frost

  Chapter One

  I was not spying on my daughter. I wasn’t.

  Sure, I was flying to the spot in the woods where Katie was, but that wasn’t to avoid her hearing my footsteps. It was just…convenience. If you came from a line of flight-capable Master vamps like I did, would you dirty your shoes by trudging through the dirt and leaves?

  And sure, I was avoiding branches that would snap in a telltale way if I got too close, but that didn’t prove anything. Why ruin the natural sounds of the forest?

  Okay, fine, my slowing down and ducking behind a tree when I glimpsed Katie was incriminating, but why couldn’t a mother enjoy a few private moments admiring her recently discovered daughter? Katie was lovely, with auburn-colored hair, the same dark gray eyes as mine, skin like sunlight on snow, and an uncommon gracefulness that was on full display as she danced among the trees.

  If I still breathed, my breath would have caught as I watched her. I’d had her in my life less than three years, so I didn’t have the memories most parents had of watching their babies coo in the crib, or laugh for the first time, or take t
heir first steps, but I could watch Katie dance now, and it was indescribably beautiful. No prima ballerina had Katie’s grace, precision, or speed.

  And that was why we still had to keep her hidden. Those traits would reveal that Katie wasn’t fully human. Mixed species people might be legal now, but Katie’s particular blend of species had almost caused two undead wars before.

  I was about to call out to her when she suddenly turned a pirouette into a roundhouse kick that leveled a nearby birch tree. Another spinning combination took out a larger spruce to her left, and then a ferocious roll-and-kick combo felled three evergreens in a row. As the coup de grâce, she ripped the stump of the nearest toppled evergreen out of the ground, and then held it up by its roots as if the stump were a decapitated head.

  Dammit! Katie wasn’t out here secretly dancing. She was practicing killing. Again.

  I knew something was up with all her recent “walks.” That’s why I was spying on her—and yes, I had known all along that I was spying. Don’t judge; motherhood was still very new and overwhelming to me. Hell, I hadn’t even known I was a mother until a few years ago, when I found out that—while I was unconscious—my eggs had been harvested, fertilized, and implanted into a surrogate. Sound impossible? So does a half-vampire working for a secret branch of Homeland Security that polices murderously misbehaving members of the undead society, but that was my old job. Unbeknownst to me, I’d also been a guinea pig for a shadowy government official who’d been trying to create a paranormal super soldier. He’d succeeded with Katie, and though she was only ten years old, all the growth hormones they’d pumped into her meant that she looked several years older. The worst part, though, was by the time I found her she’d already racked up a body count that would do a hardened mercenary proud.

  I’d spent the last few years trying to undo the brutal tutelage Katie had received when she was the government’s secret weapon, hoping that with time, she would forget much of her early years. My husband, Bones, and I had given Katie as normal a life as we could, especially considering that we were both vampires hiding out from the vampire world because of Katie’s unique combination of species.