“Did I just drink the fat?” he asked.
“You just drank so much fat we’re going to have you checked for cholesterol.”
Then she was kissing him. Soft lips captured not just his mouth, but also his heart. He breathed in the citrus of her skin, laced his fingers through the softness of her hair. She curled into him like she wanted even more than this.
When he broke the kiss, they were both panting with desire.
“This is just like A Christmas Carol,” she said. “Except with superheroes. You’re Scrooge. Pippa is the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“I hope you’re Christmas Future.”
“Christmas Yet to Come is Carmina. I’m Christmas Present.”
“Best Christmas Present ever.”
Sadie ran her fingernails over the nape of his neck, sending sex signals to his groin. “I love you.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, that’s a relief.”
She jumped out of the chair, determination suddenly hardening her looks. She started to pace like a general planning a war. “Okay, we’ll get your father here and I’ll show him my Talent and then he’ll re-inherit you.”
He opened his mouth to interrupt, but she went on. “Gray, you big alumnus, drinking the fat is just saying you’re sorry, not giving up everything you believe in. I know how important the Gray House is to you. We’ll fix it.” A blush crossed her face. “This is partly my fault. I wanted to make you miserable so you’d apologize. I never imagined you’d take it so far.”
She took a deep breath. “I was thinking about a lot of things as I was running over here. I mean, your family is hard on you and makes it difficult for you to do things you think are right. Well, I was hard on you, too. I could have made this a lot easier. I could have just told you about my Talent in the first place. Look at my past relationships—I’m good at playing the martyr, Gray. I did it for too long before I found a lamp. Then I did it again with you. ‘Poor me, the man who loves me wants his kids to have superpowers and everything would be fine if I told him about mine, but I won’t.’”
He stood from the chair, catching her hand and putting it on his back, near his shoulder blade. “Notice anything?”
He felt her fingers poking around his muscles. “Where’s your stress knot?”
“Gone. And I don’t miss it.” He turned to her. “I have an idea. Let’s stop being so hard on each other. And ourselves.”
Her chocolate brown eyes went melty. “You’re so smart. How’d I get so lucky?”
He was feeling pretty lucky himself. “Sterling’s the heir now. But it’ll be different for him—he’s got you.”
“He’s got us,” she said, stressing the last word.
He shrugged. “I’m no good at the emotional stuff.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you keep saying that? You’re great at the emotional stuff.”
The idea made him laugh.
She cocked her head at him. “Most of the time, kids don’t need to discuss their feelings; they need to play tiddlywinks. You dropped your entire life to come here to help Sterling with his homework. Do you know how amazing you are?”
He opened his mouth to argue, but then he remembered playing tiddlywinks with Pippa. Maybe... “It was here or Switzerland,” he said. “I didn’t just pick Sterling over Argent because he’s older. I flipped a coin. I’m going to enroll Argent here next year.”
“Against Gray House rules.” She tsked, jutting her hip.
“What are they going to do? Disinherit me?” He put his hands on Sadie’s slim waist and pulled her against him. “As long as Strange Academy’s magic circle is strong, there’s no real danger. And I doubt his parents will even notice.”
“See.” She ran her hands up his arms to rest at the back of his neck. “You’re great with the emotional stuff.”
“Do you remember when you told Sterling and Argent they had a magic circle? Can we have one?” he asked.
“You want to be brothers?” Mischief lit her chocolate eyes.
“I had something with a little more hot sex in mind.” He glanced at the desk. “That P.A. system isn’t still on, is it?”
“Yes,” she said. “To the hot sex. No, to the P.A. system.”
“I’m going to break you out of here, you know.” At her confused look, he went on. “The spell that means you lose your memory if you cross the magic circle. I’ll make it so you can leave.”
She drew back from him, and rested her hand lightly on his chest, as if to reassure herself that he was real, that this was truly happening. “I’ve spent all my life trying to fit in somewhere and changing myself to hide who I was just so I could. Now I’ve found this place. I can be myself here, and I fit in just fine—now that I don’t really care about that anymore.” She looked at him from under thick dark lashes. “I guess what I’m saying is that I’m okay here. I like it here. I haven’t learned how to properly use my powers yet, and until I do, I’m not going to put Strange Academy in danger by risking leaving.”
“Sadie...”
She seemed to understand the question he couldn’t put words to. “I’m not just making the best of a bad situation. Have you seen Pippa’s cottage? I went there when I was quarantined. It’s fantastic, like something out of a fairy tale. It’s on the lake. And because of the ghosts, I’ll never be lonely here, even in the summer when the kids are away. My sister says she’ll bring my niece for a holiday. I know you’ll be away sometimes, doing your demon-hunting thing. But it’ll be okay, won’t it?” She toyed with his silk tie suggestively. “And imagine what it’ll be like every time you come back.”
As good as that sounded... “You’re a Meta now, Sadie. It’s not fair.”
She blew out a breath, and it lifted a strand of hair that had fallen over her eye. “Gray, I put my sister and Pippa through a lot of bad stuff. Maybe this is my penance. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I’ve fallen in love with the place and these kids. Anything else seems empty. I want to be here for Sterling and Carmina and Regina and Nikkos—and I have a lot to learn before I can do that.”
He didn’t bother pointing out that she’d probably already rescued Sterling from becoming a self-loathing adult who believed he was evil. The thought sent a tremor through Gray, made him tighten his grip on her. Thanks to her, Sterling would get the help he needed, both to forgive himself and to control his Talents. But what could have happened drove home the many ways he needed Sadie. They belonged together. “Fallen in love with the place, huh?”
She laid a delicate hand along his jaw. It was smooth and cool against his stubble-grained skin. “I’m sorry we can’t get married in London like you wanted.” Her voice darkened and her eye twitched, just once. “And no woman wants another woman’s wedding dress, alumnus.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get married in London. I wanted to marry you as soon as possible. Our wedding would have been next week. I was excited, Sadie—I am excited about our wedding. It wasn’t because it was convenient, it was because it was soon.”
“You called it ‘our wedding.’ Twice. Not ‘Sadie’s wedding,’ like you did with April.” Her face slackened, as if she was getting it. “You’d marry me next week, then?”
He huffed. “Not anymore.”
Sadie’s eyes narrowed in silent warning.
“We can’t get married next week because we don’t have enough time to plan. I want everyone there so I can show you off,” he said. “I’ve left the Gray House, but I won’t slink away into oblivion like I did something wrong by choosing you.”
She closed her eyes and her lips trembled. For just a second, he wondered what he’d said wrong. But then the corners of her mouth tipped up and a noise came out of her that was half overwhelmed sob and half joyful laughter. It was a beautiful sound that made warm pride rise in his chest.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad at the emotional stuff after all.
He took her face in both hands, framing it and bringing her forehead down to touch his own. The i
ntimacy of sharing the honest gaze was nearly unbearable. And he never wanted to stop. “Sadie, I’m sorry I let unimportant things matter. They don’t anymore. They’re outside the magic circle. But say you won’t leave me again.”
“Oh, Gray,” she said, with a glint of light in her dark eyes. “Nevermore.”
Excerpt from Over my Dead Body: A Teen Urban Fantasy
From Teresa Wilde, a new teen urban fantasy, now available on Amazon.
Merit Boatman has gone to a better place. Or has she?
When sixteen-year-old workaholic and Tic Tac addict Merit Boatman bites the dust in a freak traffic accident, the last thing she expects is evil Viking god Loki to show up to threaten her afterlife. According to Loki, she’s the only one who can figure out why souls are disappearing before getting to their final destination, and if she doesn’t do it in seven days, he’s got a special place in Hell reserved just for her.
This wasn’t exactly on her To Do list.
Neither was working as an undercover ghost in an office of Death Gods whose job it is to transition souls to the After. Or falling for a certain three-hundred-year-old samurai with a talking dragon. Or making best friends with a valkyrie determined to send her off to Valhalla.
With Loki’s deadline looming, Merit has to face the ultimate challenge—putting her afterlife on the line for her friends, and for everyone on Earth, by facing down an invisible monster who considers her soul a tasty afternoon snack.
Life’s a bitch. But for Merit Boatman, death might be even bitchier.
One: The Late Gunilla Merit Boatman
For some people, death comes like a thief in the night. For me, it came like a car crash at noon.
Picture it: a sixteen-year-old girl, pedaling down busy Michigan Ave in downtown Chicago on a hot July day in business casual capris, weaving through the congested traffic like a bike courier on a mission. A fringe of dark gold bangs peeks out from underneath her stylish blue bike helmet. She has switched out her kitten heels for the sneakers she keeps beneath her desk. Better to bike in. Her jacket is stuffed into her backpack. She smiles, thinking about the kudos she just got from her boss, the assistant manager of auto claims at Geneva North America Insurance.
He noticed her work for once. Maybe her summer job (temporary assistant to the assistant manager) will turn into something better. Maybe she’ll have a position waiting for her when she finishes college. She wants the stability to take some risk out of her future.
To celebrate, she’s going to eat her peanut butter and jelly on the lawn of Millennium Park and smell the fresh-cut grass.
As she comes up to the hectic intersection, she has the right of way. Let's be clear about this; she has the right of way.
The happy girl on the bike? That was me, ten seconds before the screech of tires and the hideous crunch of metal on bone. Before the disturbing flip through the air followed by a short battle between asphalt and flesh. Asphalt won. Helmet didn’t even have a chance.
In a fraction of a second, I stood outside myself. My body lay at my feet. I felt no connection, no pain. Just surprise and sympathy for the broken shell lying on the pavement.
Dark liquid oozed out of parts of the thing that used to be me. But everything seemed distant and unimportant, even the screaming and crying coming from the stunned people near me.
Car horns blasted. People yelled. I heard someone nearby on a cell, calling 911 for a fatal accident, shouting the names of the cross streets.
Traffic stopped. The lights went on in their rhythmic cycle as if nothing had happened.
Numb, I lifted a hand and looked through my fingers, and I do mean through my fingers. They’d turned into a translucent window. On the other side of them, water spouted from the mouth of the video face of Crown Fountain’s blocky monolith.
“I’m dead,” I said to no one—so I flinched in surprise when someone answered.
“Definitely dead.” The voice mixed vodka-marinated femme fatale and Inga the Swedish Stewardess. It wouldn’t have been out of place in a Roger Moore Bond movie.
I turned to the right and saw an eight-foot tall warrior maiden with beefy thighs standing there in shining armor putting the “breast” in “breastplate.” Golden braids hung down from under an enormous iron helmet with bison horns. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d burst into Brunnhilde’s aria straight out of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung.
“Gunilla Merit Boatman?” Brunnhilde asked, folding her arms across her considerable bosom.
I cringed. Only Mom used my full name (my younger twin brothers had long since learned better). And she only used it when I pissed her off, which wasn’t often. “Just Merit, please.”
Brunnhilde scowled. Few people can scowl better than a gigantic woman holding a twelve-foot spear topped with a neck-chopping axe-head. “Gunilla is a good name. It means ‘warrior maiden.’ Your parents must have loved you very much to have given you so glorious a name.”
My parents. Something inside me stung. The dad I’d lost, gone since I was a kid. Mom, the woman who worked hard to take care of me even though the twins demanded more of her time. I’d done my best to help, being the reliable one she could depend on ever since the day Dad went to bring her and my new baby brothers home from the hospital—and never came back.
Who would Mom count on now?
Farfar, I guessed. My father’s father. The man who stepped into our family after Dad died. The winking, devious patriarch who had a way of making everything better.
I tried not to shrink under the valkyrie’s glare. “Merit’s a good name. It means... you know, ‘merit.’ It’s Swedish, too,” I pointed out.
The Brunnhilde clone waved a hand as if batting my opinion out of the air. Then she patted herself down like she was searching for her car keys. As she searched, I watched the scene of the accident out of the corner of my eye. People gathered around the corpse in a distorted circle.
Nearby, stopped in mid-intersection at the end of a skid mark, sat a crimson Audi. I walked over to the open driver’s-side door. A man, maybe forty-five years old, with deep lines at the corners of his mouth, sat sideways with his head in hands and his feet on the pavement.
“She came out of nowhere,” he said, and for a moment, I thought he said it to me. “She came out of nowhere.”
But he wasn’t talking to anyone. He just shook and stared at the pavement between his shiny brown loafers.
“I had the right of way, jackass,” I said, without much conviction. I think I’d left a few of my emotions behind in the body lying on the street. The truth? I kinda felt sorry for him. In the coin toss between dying instantly and having to live another thirty years knowing I’d killed somebody, maybe I got heads.
“Gunilla Merit Boatman.” Brunnhilde’s voice boomed over the distant sound of sirens.
“Over here.” I waved my hands to get her attention. Anything to keep her from using the G-word again.
The crowd didn’t notice her as she clanked over. Obviously, no one else could see the eight-foot giantess in full armor. Or me, either.
“That’s the man whose car you ran into,” she pointed out.
I tried to keep my teeth from grinding. “I had the right of way.”
She gave me the hand-wave again.
“You know,” I told her, “I feel like I should be freaking out right now, but I’m not.”
She shrugged. ‘You’ve thrown the spoon and left your body behind. If you’re numb for a while, it’s to be expected.”
The “thrown the spoon” thing put me off kilter for a second before I remembered one of Farfar’s thick-accented friends using the saying when someone died. Some Swedish idioms just don’t translate.
“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Even if her voice reminded me of an Ikea commercial, Brunnhilde’s presence had a comforting effect. Then reality intruded, and so did panic. “Crap! My Tic Tacs.”
Brunnhilde kneeled right where the package of my favorite addiction had tumbled out of my backpack. A crack m
arred the plastic case. Tiny white ovals sat on the dark gray asphalt like orphaned children.
“These are important to you.” The way her sentence ended on an up-tilt, it sounded like a question. All her sentences ended that way. She picked up the case. Five minty treats still rattled inside.
I didn’t go into my pack-a-day habit. “Can I have one?”
“I doubt it.” She stuck the package down her cleavage. “I’ll take them with us if it makes you feel better.”
Oddly enough, it did. “So I suppose you’re here to take me to heaven?”
She thumped the butt of her spear on the ground, and the tremor it created hit a six on the Richter scale. The people around us cast nervous glances at the skyscrapers on Michigan Avenue. Maybe they could feel her, just a little. Her knife-sharp cheekbones reddened with rage. “No, you’re a good Swede. For your After, you’ll go to Valhalla.”
Not quite what I expected. “I always thought I was Lutheran.”
“Valhalla,” she repeated. “This is clear as sausage water.”
Uh, from the Mount Rushmore set of her face, sausage water was pretty clear.
My paternal grandfather, Farfar, had fed me Viking mythology with my Cheerios. I knew the tales of Odin and the Norse gods like I knew my Sunday school stories. And, of course, he made sure I knew how to swear in Swedish. “Förbanna.” Damn. “Isn’t Valhalla just for warriors?”
She spelled it out for me as if she was dealing with a dense child. “You’ll go to the hall of Odin, through the sacred gate Valgrind, where you’ll be greeted by the bearded god Bragi, lover of poetry.”
Didn’t sound too bad. I nodded.
“There, the great warriors wait to fight once more, with Odin the All-Father, at Ragnarök, the end of days, on the plain of Asgaard. Until that time, they train themselves by day. By night, in the hall of Valhalla, they feast on roast boar and drink ale by the barrel, toasting the bravery of their comrades and the fellowship of brothers—”
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