Dangerously Charming (25 page)

JENNA
screamed, barely able to comprehend what she saw. She and Gregori would have rushed to Mick, but Zilya stepped forward and put one booted foot on the feathered end of the arrow where it stuck up out of Mick's chest. He lay still, sprawled awkwardly on his back with his arms spread out as if trying to break his fall. Jenna couldn't even tell if he was breathing, but she could see an ominous trickle of bright red blood sliding from the corner of his mouth.

“You
bitch
!” Jenna said. “Get away from him. He never did anything to you. How could you shoot him?”

Zilya shrugged. “He got in my way. Literally.” She looked from Mick, lying at her feet, and then back at Jenna. “So that is how it is,” she said with a smirk. “That makes things even simpler. Put that medallion over your head, Jenna, or I will shove this arrow the rest of the way through his chest. Day is not immortal anymore, is he? He can die as quickly as any other mortal, without his magical healing to help him.”

She smiled, and it was not a pleasant sight.

“The choice is up to you, Jenna Quinlan. Allow me to claim your unborn child. You can see how happy your brother is; his foster parents have given him a pampered and privileged life where he wants for nothing. Give me the child and Day lives. Or at least, he
might
. Refuse me, and he has no chance at all.”

Gregori glared at Zilya. “The Queen will have your head for this.”

“Not if you both swear to keep your silence, in return for Day's life. This is the Otherworld, after all. You know such vows have power.”

Gregori scowled, but Jenna noticed he didn't argue with her.

They both heard a low groan, coming from where Day was lying. At least he was still alive. For now.

“Why didn't he change into that creature?” Jenna asked Gregori in a whisper. “Why doesn't he change now? Wouldn't that make him stronger?”

Gregori's lips thinned into a straight line. “He has only changed forms when you were in danger, right?” She nodded, not taking her eyes off of Zilya, who was waiting, one foot still poised above Day's wounded body.

“When he charged at Zilya, he was only trying to protect your heart, not your life,” Gregori said. “Perhaps it wasn't enough to trigger the transition. And he still can't change at will, as far as I know.” His deep eyes were sadder than she'd ever seen them. “I thought that perhaps the solution to his condition lay within the riddle, but since we never solved it completely, there is no way to say for sure.”

Jenna brushed away tears, unable to look away from the tableau in front of her. “What should I do?” she asked Gregori in an agonized whisper. It felt as though her heart were being torn in two. It had been a difficult enough decision to make when the choice had been between her unborn child and a boy she'd never met but knew to be her long-lost brother. To choose between the baby she carried and Mick? Impossible.

Gregori gazed at her steadily with grief in his dark eyes. “I cannot tell you what to do. Only you can make this choice, Jenna.”

“Don't do it, Jenna.” Mick's voice was weak and laced with pain, but she could hear the determination in it even so. “It isn't worth it. I'm not worth it. I forbid it.”

“The only one forbidding things here is me,” Zilya said with a sneer. She nudged the arrow with her toe, forcing it in another quarter inch. A muffled scream made it out past Mick's tightly clenched teeth, although Jenna could see how hard he tried to stop it.

Next to her, Gregori's hands rolled into fists, and Jenna could tell he held himself still through strength of will alone.

“Make up your mind, Human,” Zilya said. “I will not wait much longer.”

Jenna caressed her belly. She didn't cry. There were not enough tears in either world for the choice she had to make now.

“I'm so sorry, baby,” she said softly. “I've never even met you and already I love you so very much. But this man wouldn't be here if it weren't for me, and he has been brave and strong and kind and true. I love him, too, and I can't let him die. I hope you have a wonderful life with whoever is lucky enough to get to raise you. I'll never stop fighting to get you back. I promise, someday I'll come for you.”

She lifted the medallion and put it over her head in one swift motion. As it came down, it brushed the Keys that already lay there and three pure, chiming notes rang out in unison. When the sound finally stopped, the thin chains that held the Key of Merlin, the Key of Solomon, and the Key of Zoroaster had vanished, and the three shining stones they'd held could be seen aligned in a single row across the front of the medallion. The new amulet glowed with a soft green light.

“No!” Zilya screamed, her face twisted with fury. “That is impossible!” Incandescent with rage, she raised her foot to slam it down on the arrow.

Gregori yelled, “Change, Mikhail! You can control it now! Change! Change, dammit!”

Jenna held her breath as across the clearing, Mick's fallen figure shimmered, glowing with the same color as the amulet she wore. A bellow of pain and triumph mixed together echoed through the space, and then the man was gone and a massive green-furred beast reared up off of the ground, pulling the arrow out of its chest with a claw-tipped hand.

It growled at Zilya and she growled back, raising hands that dripped with caustic magic, gathering it into a ball of deadly intent that she aimed directly at his head.

Before she could throw it, Mick sent the arrow, still dripping with his own blood, winging through the air. It hit Zilya so hard, she flew backward and was impaled against a tree, where she hung, cursing bitterly, until the light faded out of her eyes and her head fell forward onto her chest. All that could be seen of the arrow was the feathers at its far end, buried to the hilt in Zilya's breast like some bizarre form of jewelry.

It was over. The faery who had cursed her family was dead.

Jenna couldn't quite take it all in.

What she did take in was the sight of Mick, still bloody but clearly much stronger and already partially healed, changing back into his normal, insanely attractive self and running over to embrace his brother, and then, after a moment's hesitation, Jenna. Who hugged him back so hard it threatened to reopen his wound, to make sure he got the message that she didn't care what form he took, as long as that form was alive and well.

“I don't understand,” Jenna said, staring from Mick to Gregori and back again. “What happened?”

Gregori's smile was practically luminous with relief. “You solved the riddle,” he said. “It was always all about the last two lines: A magic key to a gift divine. True love must merge when stars align.”

“Jenna's riddle was about my new powers?” Day said,
sounding as confused as Jenna felt. She was glad she wasn't the only one. “That doesn't make any sense.”

His brother snorted, an unusually undignified sound for him. “It's a fairy-tale riddle, Mikhail. They never make any sense until they've been solved. It was your willingness to sacrifice everything for each other that broke the curse, melding the three magical Keys with the talisman intended to claim the baby for Zilya. Instead, you two claimed each other, and the strength of your love not only ended the curse but also enabled Mikhail to be able to control his transformation.”

Jenna shook her head. “Does this mean that if my parents had been willing to stand up to the curse and sacrifice everything to break it, the riddle would have somehow worked out for them too?”

“Who knows,” Gregori said. “It is the nature of such things that they work out the way they are supposed to. Perhaps it was always meant to end like this.”

Jenna had a sudden longing for the simplicity of the Human world, with all its own insanity. Celebrity marriages and political wrangling somehow seemed almost sane. Okay, not really. But they still made more sense than fairy tales and the Otherworld. “Hey,” she said as a thought hit her. “Does this mean that the medallion now has control over Mick? If so, then he should have it.”

She held it out to him, but he just shook his head.

“Keep it,” Mick said. “I have already trusted you with my heart. I might as well trust you with my body too.”

Jenna didn't know how to respond to that. She was distracted for a moment by activity down at the bottom of the hill. The boy's parents had obviously heard the commotion and come out of their house; they stood next to him protectively, staring up at Jenna and the two former Riders up above. Jenna raised one hand hesitantly and the little boy waved back.

She took one step forward and then stopped as a powerful ripple flowed across her belly, almost making her fall. “Oh,” she said. “And ow.” Another ripple quickly followed the first.

“It might be best to leave family reunions to another day,” Gregori suggested, putting one hand on her back. “It would appear that we have more pressing issues.”

“But . . .” Jenna looked longingly down at the dark-haired child, then clutched at her abdomen, which suddenly seemed to have dropped two inches. “Holy crap, OW.”

“If you want your baby to be born in your own world, you and Mikhail had better make tracks for the door you entered through,” Gregori said in a firm tone. He and Mick helped her up on Krasivaya with some difficulty and no small amount of awkwardness, even after the horse bent its forelegs down to make things easier, and Mick swung up behind her.

“What about you, brother?” Mick asked. “Will you come with us?”

“Not right now,” Gregori said. “I will go to the Queen and report all this, then join you as soon as I can.” He winked at Mick. “After all, family is important.”

He strode over to where Zilya's still form hung from the tree and yanked the arrow out with one decisive motion. Then he threw her body over his horse's withers, mounted up, and rode off in the direction of court.

“You know,” Jenna said between gasps, “I really like your brother.”

“I am quite fond of him myself,” Mick said, urging Krasivaya on toward the doorway to the Human world. “I can't wait for you to meet Alexei.”

“I think I have someone else to meet first,” Jenna said, feeling the contractions gripping her more strongly with every step the horse took. “Do you think we could go faster?”

Then all she could do was deal with the strange sensations that seemed to possess her body until it was no longer hers. In between the rippling contractions, she focused on Mick's strong arms, holding her steady and safe as they moved from the Otherworld into the caves they had entered a lifetime ago. As they rode through the sparkling lights that marked the
boundary between the worlds, Jenna found herself sitting atop a Yamaha motorcycle instead of a white horse.

“I'll never get used to this magical stuff,” she muttered as they came out into the bright radiance of a Texas day. And then she was too preoccupied with labor pains to care about anything other than the fact that it looked like she was going to give birth to her baby in the middle of an empty road surrounded by rocks and sand and dust. There was no way she could ride any farther on the motorcycle, no matter how tightly Mick held on to her.

Suddenly, something blocked the light and Jenna looked up to see a silver Airstream pulling to a stop in front of them. Barbara hopped out of the driver's seat of the silver truck at its head, with Chudo-Yudo and little Babs following on her heels. Babs looked different: a bit older, with her choppy brown hair grown out enough to be tied up in a lopsided ponytail on one side of her head. Barbara, on the other hand, looked exactly the same, all black leather and toughness, with a cloud of ebony swirling over her shoulders.

Mick helped Jenna get off the bike, although it was more of a slithering
thump
than a graceful dismount, then held her upright as they greeted the others.

“Hello, Day. Hello, Jenna,” Babs said gravely, giving Jenna's greatly expanded belly an intrigued examination. “Is that your baby in there? Before I could not see it was there, but now it is much larger. How is it going to come out?”

“With great discomfort and right away,” Jenna said through gritted teeth.

Barbara chuckled and put one arm under Jenna's shoulder so that she and Mick could half walk, half carry Jenna into the Airstream.

“Not that I'm not glad to see you, because, great gods, I am,” Mick said to Barbara. “But what are you doing here? Your timing is impeccable, even for you.”

“Interesting thing, that,” Barbara said as they lay Jenna
down on Barbara's bed. “Gregori sent me a message saying that he thought it would be a good idea for me to be here on this date at this time. He said he had a feeling I would be needed.”

“Really?” Mick said. “We just left him.”

“That's the interesting part,” she said. “He sent me the message six months ago, right after you went through to the Otherworld.”