Once Upon a Fairy tale: A Collection of 11 Fairy Tale Inspired Romances

by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney

  Ivan shook his head. “No. But she turns up with every move I make. I had hoped to avoid meeting her.”

  “No, you are fated to visit her. How else is she involved?”

  Ivan told Wolf the story of Marinka and how Koschei was born, including the assistance given by Baba Yaga. He also told him that he had been told she alone could provide information on how to kill Koschei.

  “If you knew she was the only source to kill Koschei, how did you think to avoid seeking her out?

  Ivan shrugged. “I don’t have to kill him. I can drain his magic and imprison him, removing him as a threat.”

  Wolf jerked, his eyes rolling back into his head before he collapsed to the ground.

  Ivan moved quickly to Wolf’s side. He ran his hands over Wolf’s body, searching for any injuries. He frowned, letting his fingertips flow over bone and muscle. Wolf’s heart beat strongly, his lungs moved his chest. There didn’t seem to be a physical problem.

  He gently lay Wolf down and reached for his pack. He didn’t know if an apple would help, or even if he could get Wolf to swallow while unconscious. If Wolf wouldn’t eat, Ivan would crush the apple with water and force it down his throat.

  Ivan sat next to Wolf on the ground. Even as he reached for a blade to cut off a piece of apple, he felt Wolf move.

  It wasn’t much, just a shudder, but it was the first sign of wakefulness. Ivan hesitated to use the apple if it wasn’t necessary, they might need it later. Instead, he waited, watchful.

  Ivan moved back, allowing Wolf more room. He didn’t want to crowd Wolf as he surfaced.

  Wolf’s muscles twitched, causing his fur to shiver in a ripple of silver. His amber eyes flew open and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He’d leaped to his feet in a blink, alert and ready to face a threat.

  Ivan understood that feeling completely. Hadn’t he been pulled into consciousness in just that way with just that reaction?

  “Easy, Wolf,” Ivan said softly. “There is no threat here.”

  Wolf narrowed his eyes, lifting his muzzle to scent the air. After a long moment, he lowered his head and shook it. “What happened?”

  Ivan shrugged. “One moment I was explaining why I didn’t think I had to kill the Deathless, and the next you were on the ground. I don’t mind saying it was disconcerting.”

  Wolf l lifted a paw and scraped it down his muzzle. It was an oddly human gesture.

  “I remember now. When you said there was a way to drain his power without killing him, it was like an enormous bell. The sound was so loud, but it was inside my head. It hurt, inside my head, and then it all went black.”

  Ivan blinked. That was interesting. “It almost sounds like a tripwire. I know of some sidhe who use them.”

  “Explain,” Wolf demanded, beginning to pace.

  Ivan raised his eyebrows at the tone. It was rare that anyone other than his father spoke to him in that tone. Given the circumstances, he chose to give Wolf a pass. “Think of it as a kind of warning system. Sometimes it is used to alert the individual to a behavior they want to change. A training tool, if you will. But sometimes it is used to wall off memories or thoughts. Our mind-healer Vreyana can do this. In our court, it has been used for those who have suffered a trauma so great that remembering it could cause a catastrophic breakdown. Sequestering the memories helps them function. Any mention of those things, though, can cause great pain. Vreyana calls it dissonance.”

  “So you think someone has been messing in my head to cause this?”

  Ivan shrugged. “Perhaps. It isn’t my area, so it could be something else.”

  Wolf sat on his haunches. “Why?”

  “If I were to guess, I’d say it has to do with your curse. You said you have no memories from before the curse. A wall would cause that.”

  “How do I get rid of it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can ask Babushka when we see her.”

  Wolf bared his teeth. “I don’t want to know that badly.”

  “But we’re going anyway.”

  “Yes,” Wolf said. “I offered the stallion as a replacement to you because the golden stallion is a better mount than the one I…took. But it isn’t only that. The golden stallion is a being of magic. You told me that when the Rus fought the Deathless on the battlefield, he used the very ground against them. It swallowed up men and horses alike, binding them into the soil. If we are to avoid that fate, a steed which is immune to such magic is useful, indeed.”

  Ivan rocked back. He hadn’t considered it that way. Wolf made a good point. The horse might be more than simply a means of transport, it could be a way to avoid some of Koschei’s traps.

  “Good, Wolf, very good. So, one way or the other, we must see the Babushka.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to bunk down in one of the hovels. It will be easier for me to make safe. I have food enough, but you may wish to hunt.”

  Wolf looked away. “I am fine for this night.”

  Silence stretched between them for a moment before Ivan heaved a sigh. “I cannot blame a predator for following his nature. You have offered me fair repayment. So long as you keep to your terms, we have no trouble between us.”

  Wolf nodded shortly. It still threw Ivan off to see such human gestures in a wolf.

  “If you wish to sleep, I will take first watch.”

  “Do you expect attack, Wolf?”

  “No, but there is no reason not to be cautious.”

  “I appreciate caution. Tonight, however, I can protect us well enough using magic. The road tomorrow is long and we can both do with the rest.”

  After a brief hesitation, Wolf nodded.

  Ivan didn’t want to examine too closely why Wolf’s agreement pleased him so much. It wouldn’t do to become too attached to a creature obviously caught up in a cursed enchantment.

  Chapter Six

  ‡

  It was becoming easier to find him in dreams. She didn’t need the apple to make the connection anymore, thought the apples were everywhere in her dreamscape now. Vasalisa wasn’t sure if that was a good sign. Certainly it meant she was growing closer to him, creating a bond between them separate from the initial connection. That shouldn’t surprise her after their last meeting. If they hadn’t been interrupted, they’d have made love.

  She had no illusions here; it wouldn’t have been just sex for her. The connection was too strong, too tied to magic and fate, to be only sex.

  The question was whether she wanted to pursue that bond. No, that wasn’t the right question. She knew she wanted him. That wasn’t at issue. What she didn’t know is if it was safe for her to do so. She wasn’t free to follow her desires. She couldn’t find him in the physical world, and she ran the real risk of endangering him if Koschei discovered his existence.

  But she’d dream walked other places last night when she couldn’t find Ivan, and what she’d discovered shook her to the core.

  She was going to die.

  Vasalisa had managed to connect to her aunt in dreams, though her aunt didn’t know it. Usually connecting to Alina was restful. She thought of nothing beyond her own pleasures, whether in the form of jewels or pretty courtiers. Such dreams were easy, with no challenge and little to concern Vasalisa.

  But last night had been different. Last night, her aunt dreamed that there wouldn’t be any more smooth young men in her bed, wouldn’t be beautiful stones to decorate her pretty person. Alina dreamed that the harpies laughed at her and her own court vilified her. She dreamed of being cast out, her rule overturned because she wasn’t able to pay the tribute owed to their overlord.

  The most recent of her searchers had returned empty-handed. The harpies had fled Rus, and none could locate them. Alina’s advisors grew restless, and whispers of overthrow had grown so loud even the queen could no longer ignore them.

  Vasalisa had broken free from Alina, retreating and rising to consciousness. It had taken some time for her to sort through the jumble of Alina’s dreaming, but she’
d gotten the picture clearly enough. There would be no tribute this year. In little more than a handful of days, Vasalisa’s life would be forfeit.

  Ivan might be her only chance at happiness before Koschei let his sick urges loose on her body. Without the leash of his oath to the Rus, he would make her body a temple to pain. Vasalisa had no illusions about how she would die. Hadn’t he forced her to watch as he’d consumed the last of the Evenki royals? She had begged Koschei to simply end it, but he had laughed. She hadn’t understood then that he enjoyed her horror almost as much as he had enjoyed the Evenki’s pain.

  If it came to it, she would tear her own soul from her flesh and throw it into the dreamscape rather than give her powers to Koschei. She would not be the instrument used to spread his evil more completely.

  In the meantime, she must decide about Ivan. If she continued to go to him in dreams, her last days might include pleasure in addition to the pain Koschei was certain to cause. Was it selfish to want something she could enjoy in her last days?

  Maybe, but just because it was selfish didn’t make it wrong. She had given up everything for her people. Her very life was now forfeit for them. Every day she could hold out against Koschei on the torture table was a day for her people to find a way to defeat him. The stronger she was, the happier she was, the better chance she gave her people. That was a worthy goal.

  Vasalisa laughed at herself. Her laughter echoed back to her in the dream ether.

  Of course, she could be deluding herself. Simply justifying what she wanted to do. But, really, what did it matter?

  And then there was the matter of Ivan himself. Was it fair to him to meet him in dreams, to make love and throw herself into the relationship only to die on him? It wasn’t clear that he’d have the same emotional involvement she would, but he was clearly as physically attracted as she. Plus, the magic between them wasn’t something that could be discounted lightly.

  Vasalisa sighed. Too many variables she couldn’t predict, too many things to which she had no answers.

  It came down to the simple question of what she was going to do. Pick up the apple, be with Ivan. Walk away, leave him to his own dreams. Two choices, regardless of the reasoning.

  “Hello, Prince.”

  Ivan whirled to face her. “I had begun to think you were not coming this night.”

  Vasalisa smiled. He sounded so put out, it lifted her mood. “And who was it that was not in the dream world last night, Prince?”

  He scowled. “The other night, when you threw me back, it was because something attacked my horse in the night. A beast.”

  Vasalisa’s smile disappeared. She read the anger and loss on his face. “The horse did not survive.”

  “No, he didn’t. I walked through the night and most of the day. I took my sleep in the afternoon when the sun was high, then moved on. I did not dare risk sleeping during the night in those woods.”

  “I suppose not. Yet you are whole, uninjured. The beast was satisfied with the horse?”

  “The beast, or rather, the wolf, was waiting for me at the edge of the forest. Instead of challenge, he sought to pay me back for the horse he killed.”

  “That is very odd. How were you able to discern this? Do you have the gift of speaking with beasts?”

  “No. The wolf speaks.”

  Vasalisa stared at him in shock. “Speaks?”

  “Yes. It was something of a surprise to me, as well.”

  “How can that be? I have never heard of a wolf who speaks. There are beings from the Vukari, but they are of a different plane, and are not proper wolves.”

  “Vukari? That is not a term I know.”

  “You know there are portals to many other realms. In the realm of the fae, most portals lead to the human realm. There are even fae who can call portals to that realm at will.”

  “Yes. And there is the realm of the feeders, the Vampyr. Thankfully, few can open portals to that realm, and the Vampyr have not yet perfected opening them to our plane.”

  “Exactly. Another realm is that of the Vukari. They are a kind of wolf-man. What the humans call werewolves.”

  “Seriously? There are actual werewolves?”

  Vasalisa raised a brow at him. “Yes. You have never seen such in your homeland?”

  Ivan shook his head. “No. I thought werewolves true myth.”

  “The human version is a myth. Vukari are not turned humans. They were never human, they are something different, and cannot shift to wolves.” In fact, the representatives she’d met from the Vukari had been fascinated by the wolves of the human and fae realms. They called them kindred but not kind.

  “Are you certain this is true?”

  She closed her eyes. He didn’t know her, didn’t know much about her kingdom. The kingdom Alina was evidently running into the ground. She needed to be patient. “I am certain. One of the few portals between the Vukari plane and the fae is near the palace. We have had some dealings with them, primarily trade, since they aren’t interested in the fae. Magic, and sidhe magic particularly, make them nervous.”

  “Do they shift?”

  “They have a…humanish form, but also a beast form.”

  “Wait. Tell me of this beast form. The wolf with me has a beast form and a true wolf form, but no human form.”

  Vasalisa frowned. “I know of no creatures like that. Perhaps he is a shifter and merely hides his human form?”

  “No. He’s been cursed into this form. Do the Vukari have witches or sorcerers?”

  She considered that for a moment. “I haven’t heard of such. If he is cursed, I’m more likely to believe a fae did it.”

  Ivan shrugged. “It matters little for now. He has scrying magic and that aids me in my quest.”

  “I’m certain it does.” She didn’t want to talk about this. “Tell me, Prince, are you focused solely on your quest?”

  His lips turned up. “When I’m awake, yes. But I seem to be distracted in my dreams.”

  Vasalisa laughed. It felt good to laugh. She didn’t get to play. She missed playing, missed flirting.

  “You find me distracting, Prince?”

  “Very. I keep remembering how it felt to touch you, to kiss you. I keep thinking how much I want to do it again.”

  Vasalisa sucked in a breath. He’d gone from flirting to seduction in one smooth step. Her brain struggled to catch up, but her body was already there, heating and softening with interest.

  Still, it didn’t sit well to keep the truth from him. She knew she was risking her one chance at pleasure to tell him of the situation with the Rus, but he deserved to know.

  “I want you, as well,” she told him. When he reached for her, she held up a hand. “But there is something you need to know first.”

  He stopped, his brows drawn together. “What? What is it?”

  “I went dream walking in my aunt’s dreams.”

  “Is that safe?” His demand was urgent, full of concern for her.

  It warmed her to see his response, but it also cemented her determination to tell him. He did have feelings for her, even if they were only friendly.

  “It’s perfectly safe. She didn’t know I was there. It wasn’t like when we dream walk. But it wasn’t like it usually is when I dream walk with her. Usually she is very placid and happy in her dreams. This dream was not like that.”

  Ivan cocked his head to the side. “No? Is she still angry with me for forcing her to pay reparations?”

  Vasalisa rocked back in shock. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You stopped me before I told you, but your aunt offered my king, my people, and myself such an insult that I was within my rights to demand a duel to settle my honor.”

  Vasalisa sucked in a breath. No wonder Ivan had such a poor opinion of Alina. “You would have won a duel. Why give her the option of restitution?”

  “Even if I’d left her alive at the end of the duel, her position would have been weakened beyond redemption. I have no desire to take your thr
one from you, nor do I have any intention of creating a power vacuum and making things easier for Deathless to overrun the Rus. This was a way to avoid those problems, though it took Stribog, Manzayuna, and a prophecy from Gamayune to make it work.”

  Vasalisa sat on the edge of the bed in the dream version of her room. It made a sick kind of sense, given what she knew from her aunt’s dreams.

  “Alina hates to make decisions. She doesn’t want the responsibility, and to my knowledge never wanted to rule. I don’t doubt she loves the trappings of being queen, but she doesn’t want the responsibility.”

  “That is consistent with my experience with her.”

  “She doesn’t want to decide how to deal with Koschei. I think she might have been trying to shed the crown so she could give the responsibility to someone else. Another royal, one who is the heir to the Northlands? That would seem like the ideal solution to Alina. She doesn’t think things all the way through and wouldn’t see the difficulty it would create for me, for our court, or for you and your court.”

  Ivan stared at her.

  “Gods. I missed that completely. But would she risk death? Why not simply abdicate the throne?”

  “She can’t. Since she assumed it as regent in my place, she can’t abdicate as a queen might normally do. And I don’t think she thought you would kill her. That may, in fact, be why she was so resistant to allowing you to avoid a duel.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face. “I hate to say it, but that makes sense. She was so angry that I cornered her into the reparations. I thought it was because she didn’t think they were necessary, but you could be right.”

  “She won’t make the reparation payment this year. I saw that in her dreams. She knows that I will die at Koschei’s hand, and she doesn’t want to be responsible for either my death or the war that will inevitably follow.”

  Ivan’s pupils dilated wildly. “You won’t die. I won’t let you.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Prince. Truth is one of the few inviolable commodities of the fae. There will be no carrion ooze to stay Koschei’s hand. When the Rus fail to provide it by the full moon, Koschei will be released from his vow, and he will kill me.”