Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince

by Adrianne Brooks

  “A pocket,” Rachel said softly. “What is this place?” she demanded, a sense of urgency filling her at his words. “Where are we?”

  The old man smiled, and it was as if he pitied her.

  “This is where fairytales, where stories, go to die.”

  Dread was a cold ball in the pit of her stomach.

  “We don’t belong here,” she told the old man, getting to her feet and trying to keep her legs from shaking. “We have to go,” she nodded in farewell, but before she could leave he’d grabbed her arm, his age-riddled hands dug into her skin, the bones in his hands painfully prominent.

  “You can’t,” he told her, his earlier geniality fading beneath viciousness. “The stories? They hide in the hedges. Waiting, hungry and alone. Afraid of the fire. Of the witch and her wrath. But she has no time for us anymore and the dragon is gone.” He nodded and his nails bit so deep that Rachel was afraid that they’d draw blood. “The dragon is gone, and the chains are broken. But the cage? It’s still locked, little miss. You can come in, but there is no getting out. Not for us. We can’t risk bringing our magic into the world.” His eyes narrowed slyly and he grinned, displaying a row of crooked teeth. “Your Toadstone on the other hand…”

  The man stiffened suddenly and Rachel managed to drag her gaze away from his long enough to realize that Chris was standing behind the stranger. He had broken off a thorn from the wall, and since it was the size of a butcher knife, he was able to wield it like one. He pressed the wicked looking point to the old man’s neck and his voice was cold when he spoke.

  “You have three seconds to let her go before I do something you’ll regret.” Chris whispered, and Rachel shivered at the repressed menace emanating from him. The man released Rachel’s arm and she clutched her wrist to her chest, backing away as Chris circled around to meet her.

  “Can we go now?” he demanded. She could tell by the stiffness of his stance, the hard gleam in his eye, that he was less than pleased with the situation. Though whether he was more irritated with Rachel for starting the whole thing in the first place or the old man, was unclear.

  Rachel nodded, her head dropping.

  He gripped her hand and pulled her down the closest path. It didn’t matter where it led. They’d never find their way out no matter how many right turns they made.

  “Call for me, little miss,” came the old man’s booming cry. “If ever you need a hand, or a sympathetic ear, or a shoulder to weep prettily upon, call for ol’ Rip Van Winkle. He’ll take care of you.” It was a long time before they were far enough that Van Winkle’s laughter didn’t ring in their ears like the tolling of a death bell.

  Toadstone.

  She mouthed the word silently, and despite her better judgment, suspicion began to fill her as she eyed her scowling companion.

  What the hell was a Toadstone?

  ***

  There was a girl sitting on a hill before them. They had to pass directly by her to continue on, and Rachel found herself eyeing the child as suspiciously as Chris.

  “What do you think is wrong with this one?” she asked in a whispered aside.

  He glanced down at her and shrugged.

  “No telling.” They found each other’s hand by rote, and while the path was wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, Rachel let herself lag a bit behind Chris. He walked briskly, head down, shoulders stiff. Everything about him screamed “Warning: Do Not Engage.” Rachel was only able to follow his example for so long before curiosity got the better of her. She eyed the little girl from the corner of her eye at first. But the longer she stared, the more confused she became. The child wore a flounced dress, with a ruffled white lace underskirt that peeked out along the edges. Lovely, spiteful lace too severely starched to even so much as ruffle in the wind. Her yellow dress matched her yellow hair, pigtails hanging over either shoulder. She had a bowl in her hand and she was eating something. Humming under her breath and swaying back and forth with every spoonful she took.

  The closer they got to her the colder Rachel became, and by the time they had stepped even, she was pulling on Chris’s hand to try and drag him away, but by then it was too late. There was a chittering noise, like a thousand pebbles dancing around in a tin can, and the grass behind the child buckled as the spider lifted the rest of its body from the hole it had dug in the ground. Rachel reared back violently and her spine connected with the wall and vines bit deep into her skin. She was impervious to the pain, because she was too busy gaping in horror at the thing before them to even give notice to her wounds.

  The spider was the size of a truck, every organ and limb grotesquely engorged. The thing they’d thought was a child was actually a part of its body. In fact, even as the spider reared up on four of its hind legs and roared at them, the limbs of the “child” were still moving, still making it appear as if she were sitting in her pretty dress on a nice summer’s day and eating calmly. The rocking motion Rachel had noticed before was simply the sway of the animal’s body as it shifted from one leg to the next, and the next, and the next.

  When she thought about it logically, it was really very clever. An angler fish. Only with humans and a giant man-eating arachnid. The spider ran forward, its many legs kicking up dirt, its fangs dripping poison. Rachel’s thoughts scattered and she screamed, turning to run only to realize that the “path” they’d been on was nothing but a dead end. She turned again, only to run face first into a thick, sticky substance that pulled her from the ground. She struggled there in midair, mind going blind with panic when she realized that the spider’s web had been designed in such a way that it camouflaged the wall of thorns hidden behind it.

  She couldn’t see the spider approaching, but she could feel it in the vibration deep in the ground. The way each of its footsteps made the web tremble and bounce. The world got just a little colder as the spider’s massive body blocked the sun from her and she pressed her face into the vine wall and screamed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What did you do to it?”

  Chris glared at her.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Fairly,” she answered and he grumbled in exasperation and began circling the body of the spider. The thing lay on its back, legs stiff, and each one of his hundreds of eyes glazed over with death. “I didn’t do anything,” he was saying. “It was coming for you and I jumped in front of it. Then it bit me.” He grimaced and rubbed his forearm. Either he’d healed super-fast, the spider hadn’t actually bitten him, or he had skin like teflar. She hadn’t been able to see anything, but she doubted she would have believed it even if she had. She was just grateful he’d managed to get her down from the web. After she’d stopped struggling, he’d managed to use the thorn he’d broken off earlier to saw through the thick cord holding her immobile.

  “So it bit you,” Rachel repeated slowly. “Then it just dropped dead.”

  “Looks like.”

  They stared at one another across the length of the spider before Chris’s eyes narrowed in thought.

  “So…just how hungry are you?”

  “No.”

  “I bet she tastes like chicken.”

  “Is that supposed to be cute?”

  “Rachel.” His gaze was intent, his voice solemn. “You have to eat. Even if I bring the rain, it won’t do you much good if we’re stuck here for too long.”

  She frowned at his wording.

  “Don’t you have to eat too?”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “Not necessarily. I think it’s the curse. It makes things like hunger and thirst almost…obsolete.”

  “But why?”

  He smiled sardonically and finally replied, “Because she wouldn’t want her pet dying of starvation before she could show him off at parties.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rachel demanded, coming around the spider to stand at his side. “Who is ‘she’?”

  “Nobody,” he said, turning away.

  “Chris-?”


  “She’s nobody!” he roared, turning on her in a fury. With his chest heaving, his face flushed with color, and his eyes overly bright, he was more frightening than the spider had been, and Rachel found herself taking a stumbling step back. At the look on her face, his eyes widened and he paled. Shaking his head, he rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

  “How many legs did you want?”

  She blinked. “One should do it.”

  He nodded, and grabbing the all too handy thorn, he began to cut.

  ***

  They settled down for a few hours to make a fire and cook the meat Chris had carved up. They couldn’t use all of it, and since they weren’t sure when they’d next run across food, Rachel ate her fill. She was pretty traumatized about chowing down on Little Miss Muffet, but couldn’t see any help for it.

  Surprisingly enough, it did taste like chicken.

  “So what’s her name?” she asked, in between enthusiastic bites of thorax. She knew she’d won when he sat the leg he’d been chewing on down very carefully and folded his hands in his lap.

  “Danielle.”

  “Huh,” Rachel said musingly. “That’s the name of my friend’s mom.” She swallowed and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. Hard to be dainty when she was currently sitting on the skull of a giant insect. “Is she the one who cursed you?”

  He frowned. “Your friend’s mother?”

  “No. This Danielle chick.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why did she curse you? There must have been a reason.”

  “If there is one, I wish I knew what it was.” He looked so sad that she wanted to reach out and touch him. “Sometimes I think I would have been better off if she had just killed me.”

  She hadn’t wanted to say anything aloud, but she’d been thinking the same thing. Why curse someone to a lifetime of this unless you were sick in the head? What sort of spiteful, crazy, she-bitch from hell would…

  “What’s your last name again?” she asked suddenly. It was ridiculous, but she only knew one woman named Danielle who would have done something like this. She’d had both the power and the lack of conscious to do the same to Rachel after all. But what were the odds that they were the same wom—

  “Greyson,” he said, looking both confused and alarmed by her rising color. “Christopher Greyson. Why?”

  “So Danielle is your mother?” She already knew the answer, but she needed to confirm it while the bombs were busy going off in her head.

  “Stepmother,” he said automatically, as if used to making the distinction. “How did you know?”

  Rachel started to laugh. This was just too good to be true. She wondered if they would classify as The View material because of the long lost sibling factor, or if the pure bitchiness of Danielle Greyson would shove them across the border into Jerry Springer land.

  “Mind telling me why my last name is so damn funny?” He didn’t seem pleased with her in the least, and she leaned forward to pat the back of his hand in understanding.

  “Danielle is the same person who cursed me,” she explained. “She also happens to be the mother of that friend I was telling you about.”

  A myriad of expressions crossed his face in that moment, but the one that dominated all the rest was hope, underscored by an awed kind of wonder.

  “Little Alex,” he said, and he ducked his head as his eyes glistened. “I never thought…I’d forgotten…” His voice trailed off and Rachel squeezed his hand to make him look back up at her.

  “She’d love to meet you,” she told him. “I think you two would like each other.”

  “I don’t have to like her,” he said simply, his shoulder lifting and falling in a shrug. “I already love her. I have since the moment she was born.”

  Something about that confession, about the truth that rang so sweetly within his words, had emotion clogging her throat. As an only child, Alex was the closest thing she had to a sister and she knew that Alex felt the same way about her. Now there was another musketeer to add to the group, another fairly-merry man. Personally, Rachel couldn’t wait to see the look on her friend’s face when she finally introduced her to Chris. Rachel could milk something like this for years.

  Alex can you pass me the remote?

  Don’t wanna.

  Oh that’s alright. I only reunited you with your BROTHER. No need to show any gratitude or anything.

  Or.

  Hey Alex, can I borrow that black dress? The one with the spaghetti straps?

  No. You still haven’t returned the purse I lent you.

  True…I was too busy giving you back your BROTHER. I’ll prioritize better in the future.

  Oh yeah.

  This was going to be sweet.

  Rachel didn’t realize she was rubbing her hands manically together until Chris ducked his head to look into her eyes.

  “You cold?” he asked, clearly upset by the possibility.

  She grinned.

  “Nope. Just happy.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He scowled, and he was so dour, gruff, and angsty that she leaned forward and kissed him. It didn’t seem possible, but somehow kissing him now was even sweeter than all the other times before. There was a sense of familiarity in the way their lips met, a sense of ownership in the way he claimed her mouth and slipped his tongue inside. Adrenaline had her blood rushing and her fingers tingled. Electricity danced through her veins and the sound of her own heart was a cacophony in her ears. She pressed forward, hungrily, wantonly, to press her breasts against his chest. Hoping he could feel her heat and the rise of her nipples through her clothes.

  Rachel had always been a free thinker.

  She didn’t like to think of herself as promiscuous, but she wasn’t shy about getting what she wanted when she wanted it. Sex had never been a big deal to her, after all. It had always been fun, something to explore and enjoy to the fullest like your favorite dessert. Her vagina didn’t exactly say hello to every Tom, Dick, and Harry it passed by, but it was friendly when the situation called for it.

  She wanted to be friendly with Chris, and she made sure he could feel it in the way she kissed him. In the way she dipped her fingers into his curly hair, the way she angled close, sliding into his lap so that they were groin to groin. A delicious meeting of throbbing, hard flesh against the wet heat of her sex.

  She hummed in the back of her throat, pleased by the contact and wanting more. But just as she reached down to unbuckle his pants, he grabbed her wrist and pulled away from their kiss. He eyed her, breathing fast and hard, eyes turbulent and dark, and then shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. I-I can’t. Not with you.” He shook his head again, more vehemently and cursed beneath his breath before picking her up by the forearms and setting her aside. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. Then, getting to his feet, he turned and walked away from her.

  Rachel stared after him, disbelieving.

  Not with her.

  The sun had set an hour or so ago and soon he was lost in the darkness beyond their campfire. When she was sure he could no longer see her she raised an arm to sniff at herself. Finding nothing too offensive, she held the palm of her hand an inch away from her mouth and blew. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. Could he have some hang-ups about the fact that she was black? She’d run into men like that before. Who were attracted to her as a person, but who couldn’t get past the idea of sleeping with a black woman. Or who thought having sex with a woman of color was some sort of novelty or strange fetish that only certain men could appreciate. Growing up in the south, she’d had the dubious pleasure of coming across all types of thinking. Some men didn’t care, some chased after her for the bragging rights, and some found her physically repulsive. In fact, there was a woman at her job that refused to look her in the eye or let their hands touch. Rachel had seen her furiously scrubbing her hands in the bathroom sink one da
y after she’d handed over a file and their fingers had accidentally brushed.

  Over the years, she’d grown used to it.

  Which wasn’t to say that some stuff didn’t bother her. She just knew not to take offense when no offense had been intended. Some of her sweetest, and gentlest lovers had been men most would classify as rednecks. She’d even had a lovely weekend with a debutant a year back, and that girl’s momma had hated blacks with a passion that bordered on frightening.

  If someone were to describe her, they’d say that Rachel was one of the most open-minded people that there was. If Chris couldn’t bring himself to touch her, that was alright. She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t angry. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt, and a little disappointed, by the rejection all the same.

  ***

  Chris had always suspected that he might be an idiot.

  The last five minutes had just confirmed it.

  “What is wrong with you?” he muttered, striking the wall before him before turning and stalking back to where he’d started. He couldn’t go very far. He was afraid of leaving Rachel by herself in this place. He could still see their fire and Rachel’s form hunched before it. Something about her hunched shoulders and bowed head made his stomach clench. He’d hurt her. He had seen it in her eyes as he’d turned away. But it had been too late to take it back.

  He certainly hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded.

  He’d just meant that…that…

  He growled beneath his breath and scrubbed his hands down his face as if he could physically scrub away the memory. Chris wasn’t afraid of sex. He even knew what it was. The problem was that he had never actually…done it. When would he have had the chance to after all? Between being trapped as a frog until his mid-twenties and then escaping from Danielle, there had been no time, or desire, to rectify it. The idea of doing that with Rachel did something strange to him. It wasn’t just excitement. It was something deeper. Primal. With anyone else, it may not have mattered. He could have just done the deed and seen what all the fuss was about. But with Rachel, he was afraid that it would actually, you know, matter. He could already feel her worming her into his heart. His mind. If they slept together it would simply cement her there. He’d never be able to shake her.