by LETO, JULIE
“Yes, sir. She went home,” Boudreaux replied, casting an enigmatic glance into the darkness. “Luckily for you, son, I know where that is.”
NO CHEMISTRY.
Tatiana yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth. Since she’d returned to Elatyria, she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. She needed to talk to the fairy council about replacing her bed. Honestly, who could expect even an enchanted mattress to last four centuries?
“Okay, enough!” she said.
The prince and princess huddled in conversation on a gilded settee across from her broke apart. The girl, poor dear, looked utterly confused. But the prince’s expression communicated a clear and righteous, “I told you so.”
She floated over to the princess, whose pretty green eyes were glossy and, bless her, a little vacant. “It’s not you, dear. It’s him.”
“Wh-what?”
A single tear slid down the girl’s cheek. Very convincing, this one. Probably thought her whole world was going to fall apart if she didn’t get a marriage proposal from Prince Ruprecht this very evening. But it obviously wasn’t going to happen. While Ruprecht wouldn’t confess, Tatiana suspected he had someone else on his mind. Probably a commoner of some sort. His royal mother clearly possessed great influence and power if she’d convinced the fairy council to grant a godmother to a prince. In all her many lifetimes, Tatiana had never served the male side of the royal equation before.
She patted the princess’s shoulder gently. “Okay, how do I put this? He’s just not that into you.”
From the girl’s confounded expression, Tatiana realized that the phraseology she’d picked up somewhere (she couldn’t quite remember where) had no effect—and she could see why. In Elatyria, dreams and wishes came true on a regular basis. Princesses such as this one had been raised to be wholly unprepared for disappointment. Well, that was her fairy godmother’s problem. On this case, Tatiana was working for the other team.
Tatiana flicked her wrist and her wand appeared. She waved the star-topped baton around the girl’s head, creating a sparkly mist that engulfed her head. “You’re going back to your kingdom now. You’ll forget all about Prince Ruprecht. Study French. It’ll improve your vocabulary,” she proclaimed, and then, with a second flick, the princess disappeared.
“Thank you!” Ruprecht said, throwing himself back dramatically.
Tatiana tilted an eyebrow. Why so many princesses wanted to fall into bed with this joker was beyond her. He was cute, she supposed, and not as anxious as some of the other princes she’d met to bed his prospective wives before he declared them unsuitable for one stupid reason or another. In fact, the guy seemed utterly disinterested in women all together. He’d even been unimpressed by her. While she couldn’t remember noticing before, Tatiana now realized that she was hot. She had not been aware of her own attractiveness for a very long time and couldn’t quite put her finger on why that had changed.
It certainly wasn’t because of any reaction on Ruprecht’s part. He probably wouldn’t notice if she had a wardrobe malfunction and flashed a breast or two. At least this explained why the queen had called in the big guns.
Only, Tatiana wasn’t feeling much like an omnipotent expert on matters of the heart at the moment.
“Are we through here?” she asked.
“Please!” Ruprecht replied. “I told you she was all wrong for me.”
Tatiana floated to the settee and sat beside him.
“You had no chemistry,” she concluded.
“You’re telling me. But how do you know about chemistry, anyway? I thought fairy godmothers weren’t allowed to experience feelings of passion.”
“How do you know that?”
The rules of the fairy world weren’t exactly common knowledge.
He shrugged, the gilded epaulet on his shoulder brushing against a surprisingly smooth and pale cheek. “I had a very unhealthy interest in fairies when I was younger.”
“Okay,” Tatiana said. “I’m so outta here. I’ll come back when I’ve found another princess for you to reject.”
“That’s the spirit!” he said, sarcasm ringing.
She liked Prince Ruprecht. Liked him a lot—in a friendly sort of way. He was funny, handsome, quick-witted and completely disinterested in choosing a wife. Sounded an awful lot like a man she once knew, a man who was haunting her dreams—but one she couldn’t quite identify. Only this man was large and tough and—
The door to Prince Ruprecht’s room burst open. A hulk of a man tore inside, slammed the entry closed and slid the cross bar into place.
“Finally!” he said, staring directly at Tatiana.
She met his rich, dark-chocolate gaze and for a brief moment, her entire body tingled.
“Who are you?” she asked, brandishing her wand at him.
The dark-haired man the size of three Ruprechts made eye contact with the prince. For a moment, the royal’s gaze darkened with interest unlike any she had seen in him before. But then he frowned and sighed.
“All the good ones are taken,” the prince declared, then stood wearily. “I suppose you want me to disappear?”
“If you would, your highness,” the stranger answered, a bit of a stutter in his voice, before he managed a wholly unpracticed bow.
“No problem,” he said.
“Don’t you dare!” Tatiana declared. “I don’t know who this man is or why he’s here!”
“Unfortunately,” Ruprecht said, “he’s not here for me. Go with the flow, Tatiana. At least you might end up the one having your dreams fulfilled tonight.”
Ruprecht ended his confusing statement with a saucy wink, then approached the stranger, whispered something in his ear and disappeared into an antechamber hidden behind a tapestry, leaving her locked in with this towering, exceedingly handsome man.
Well, not literally locked in. She could poof herself out if she wanted to.
But strangely, she didn’t want to.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
He took a step nearer, but she poked her wand forward, stopping him. “My name is Jack St. Cloud.”
Jack? Jack St. Cloud? Was that supposed to mean something to her? She supposed it should, judging by the expectant look he gave her. But while the name didn’t sound completely foreign, she couldn’t quite place it, either.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
“No, I don’t. I mean, not really.”
A grin spread across his face that was nothing short of devastating. She couldn’t resist lowering her wand. He seemed so pleased by the fact that she had not dismissed him outright. Something about him was familiar. Deeply familiar. Sensations not unlike a fizzing of magic skittered over her skin.
“Are you a wizard of some sort?” she asked.
“No,” he replied, stepping nearer.
This time, she allowed it.
“I’m just a man. Boudreaux warned me that you might not remember who I was, that once you stepped back into this world, your memories of the other would fade.”
“Other?”
He closed in on her, but instead of feeling threatened or alarmed, her entire body was engulfed in warmth. She was suddenly aware that she was hovering with anticipation, so she fluttered to the ground.
She landed unsteadily and the stranger took the opportunity to catch her by the arms.
“Let me go,” she said, unconvincingly.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love you,” he said. “And you love me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Give me a second to reintroduce myself.”
And he kissed her. He tugged her forward and pressed his mouth against hers. The flavors were intriguing and she didn’t fight when he coaxed her mouth open with his tongue. Flesh to flesh, something stirred within her—but she wasn’t sure it was any sort of recollection. It was more like a fire deep in her belly. Maybe deeper. Like her soul.
“Now do you remember?” he asked, though he’d barely broken aw
ay and his words were like another layer of kisses against her lips.
“Not really,” she said.
He took her wand from her hand and flung it onto the settee. Then he hooked one arm around her waist, slipped the other behind her neck and pressed her whole body tight to his. He kissed her again, this time with just enough savagery to burn away the fog that kept her from placing precisely how she knew how to hold him, how to touch him, how to respond to the blaze that now burned full-force within her.
Jack.
Suddenly, her body felt heavier. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the sparkle and flash of her wand going up in flames. Yeah, she knew how it felt. She was about to burn from the inside out because Jack St. Cloud had come for her.
She wrapped her leg around his calf and pressed tighter, reveling in the feel of his erection against her. Yes! She remembered everything! Her decision to cross out of this world. Meeting Harper. Catching sight of Jack. Learning about the joys of sex and intimacy first on her own and then, gloriously, with him. But when she remembered their fight over Harper’s future, and her desperation for him to understand why she’d contradicted him, she pulled away.
She’d run from him. She’d chosen to return to her servitude as a fairy godmother rather than deal with the heartbreak. Her abject sorrow had allowed her to return to Elatyria even though the moon cycle was wrong—a secret she’d learned from Paul Boudreaux, who, mysteriously, had known quite a bit about her world.
“Why are you here?” she asked, breathless.
“Because I love you,” Jack said. “I should have listened to you, even when the things you said made me think you had lost your mind. I should have trusted you because I loved you, just like I should have trusted Harper for the same reason.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to keep her tears at bay. God, she’d been so lost when he’d told her to leave. Lost and frightened and devastated beyond measure. She hadn’t experienced such emotions since her parents had turned her over to the fairies. She’d gone back to the house long enough to leave Harper a note and then she’d run away, unsure about where she was going, but certain that she had to leave.
“How did you get here?”
“Boudreaux told me,” Jack explained. “Said his family has lived in the bayou long enough to know about the portal between the two worlds. He told me that if I wanted you back, I had to wait until the waxing moon and damn it, Ana, it was the longest five days of my life. I crossed over the minute darkness fell and I’ve been searching all night for you, trying not to think that Boudreaux’s moonshine was causing an epic hallucination. But now I’ve found you and I’m begging you to come back with me.”
He dropped to his knees.
“I can’t come back with you, Jack. I didn’t make Harper’s wish come true!”
“Yes, you did.”
And as he explained all that had happened since she left, Tatiana fell to her knees, too, her legs no longer able to support her weight, and her wings, she noticed, now long gone. His crossing over, coupled with the truth of her success with Harper, had freed her at last. She threw her arms around him and kissed him again. As if she weighed no more than an enchanted feather, he lifted her into his arms and whooped as if he’d just scored one of those touchdown things he’d told her about.
Prince Ruprecht pushed through the tapestry and fumbled for his sword until he realized that his fairy godmother—former fairy godmother—was not in danger.
Tatiana laughed. “You were eavesdropping?”
“I’m a die-hard romantic,” he replied.
Tatiana, utterly confused, decided that Ruprecht’s problems were no longer hers. She wished the prince luck in finding a princess, then snuggled into Jack’s arms as the giant stole her out of the castle and carried her all the way to the forest, through the smoky barrier and back up to his tall house in the bayou.
Fog had settled on the clearing that surrounded the house, making it look like a castle in the clouds. Tatiana might have believed that this was all a dream, but the sensations and emotions coursing through her were incredibly real. Jack didn’t put her down until they reached his bedroom. He left her alone long enough to ensure that Harper was still asleep, probably dreaming of costumes and orchestras and audiences. Then he returned, stripped himself out of his clothes, and took very little time removing hers.
They stood across from each other, naked and bare, as the breaking sun flooded light through the windows. High on the top floor with the pink sky on the horizon, steamy mist below and the man she loved holding out his hands to beckon her to bed, Tatiana could hardly breathe.
“This is like a fairy tale,” she said.
Jack laughed, lifted her one more time into his arms and carried her to the bed. This time, when he set her down, he pressed gently on top of her, torturing her every nerve ending.
“I don’t know much about fairy tales,” he admitted. “But I do know that I love you. You’ve given me everything I ever wanted, even though I didn’t know I wanted it. Someone to share parenting duties with. Someone to share my bed with. Someone to share my heart with.”
She shifted beneath him just enough to elicit his groan of pleasure. “Wish-granting was my job for a very long time.”
His dark gaze brimmed with desire. “But now it’s my turn to bring your fantasies to life, Ana. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you, Jack. Right here, right now.”
Jack might never have been sold in servitude to the fairies, but when it came to fulfilling her request, his special brand of magic made every single one of Tatiana’s wishes come true.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4262-7
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Copyright © 2009 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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INTO THE WOODS
Copyright © 2009 by Julie Leto
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