The Lightning-Struck Heart (25 page)

“The youth of today,” he said, shaking his head. “With your bows and arrows and magic fingers and attitude. I worry about the future, especially if you’re all going to be so indifferently bloodthirsty.”

“Uh, guys?” Ryan said.

“Bloodthirsty?” I said to Gary. “If I’m that way, it’s only because
you
made me that way.”

“Seriously. Guys?”

“
Me
?” Gary said. “If anything, I am the sunlight in your otherwise darkened world. I bring you the light to chase away the maelstrom that is your soul.”

“Pretty sure the tree is taking me away.”

“Sunlight?” I laughed. “Please. You’re so lucky you have me. I tell you sex puns, which everyone knows are the highest form—”

“Uh, newsflash, Sam.
No one
thinks they are the highest form of humor.”

“Yes, the tree is definitely taking me into the forest. Don’t know why. It would be nice if someone acknowledged me. Is this wind-rape? I feel like this is going to be like wind-rape.”

“Hi, Ryan!” Tiggy called out.

“You
lied
to me?” I screeched at Gary. “All this time I thought I was being humorously sophisticated and you were
lying
?”

“Tiggy! Thank the gods. This tree is trying to pull me into the Dark Woods. I can’t get loose. Tell Sam to pay attention.”

“Hi, Ryan!” Tiggy waved.

“You should see your face right now,” Gary said to me. “You look like a tomato with a hole in it. Because that hole is your mouth. And it’s open. And you’re red. Okay, that wasn’t the best analogy, but it was the best I could come up with and the tree is kidnapping Ryan.” He looked over my shoulder with wide eyes.

“What?” I turned around. Sure enough, the tree was pulling Ryan into the Dark Woods. “What are you doing?” I shouted after him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Seriously?” he snapped. “I’m getting molested by trees and you’re
yelling
at me?”

“Hmm,” I said with a sniff. “No need to be all sensitive about it. It was just a question.”

“Hey, Sam?” Gary said. “I’m pretty sure the mushrooms around Tiggy and me are moving.”

“They’re what?” I asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just eat them? Gary, I told you that you can’t go around eating whatever mushrooms you see. That’s what happened last time and you were tripping balls for a week. You got into a fight with an imaginary duck named Hector who you said was homophobic.”

“He kept calling me a
fruitcake
!”

“He wasn’t
real
and now my mushrooms are moving.” And they were. The fairy ring around my feet was shifting. The mushrooms had uprooted themselves and were
hopping
toward the forest, keeping the circle perfectly intact. I felt the edge of the circle at my back and tried to press against it to keep the mushrooms in place, but the magic in them (
earth
and
forest
and
green green green
) was overriding my own, pushing it farther and farther down. I pushed my back against the invisible wall behind me. My feet skidded in the dirt. There was no give. The circle never faltered. The mushrooms kept moving into the woods.

“Well, shit,” I said. “I am truly annoyed now.”

“Yeah,” Ryan called from farther in the woods. “So sorry for you. I’m pretty sure this tree is passing me off to another tree that is not as discerning about personal space. I don’t know that I’ve ever been groped by a forest before.”

What made that
truly
bothersome was the sharp little curl of jealousy I felt at that. Yes, I can freely admit that I was jealous of a tree bad-touching Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart.

Gary said, “Doesn’t that happen pretty much wherever you go?”

“I don’t ask for it,” he said back. “People just… touch.”

“Maybe you should ask it to buy you dinner first,” I sniped.

Gary knew me well enough. “Sam, it’s just a
tree
.”

“Shut up, Gary!”

“No, tree!” Ryan suddenly shouted. “You
don’t
get to touch that!”

The blood rushed in my ears. I wanted to touch that.

“Thank the gods we got nonsexual mushrooms,” Gary said.

“No bad-touch,” Tiggy said, frowning down at his fairy circle.

“Okay, the next tree isn’t touching my junk yet,” Ryan said.

“We don’t need a play by play,” I said hoarsely.

“You okay, Sam?” Gary asked evilly. “You sound out of breath.”

I tried to call upon my magic to light Gary on fire, but the fairy circle was too strong. Maybe if I was as old as Morgan or had more control than I did, I’d be able to do something about it.

And, of course, that traitorous little voice in my head said that maybe if I had my
cornerstone
well in place, this wouldn’t be an issue. That was a thought I banished to the farthest recesses of my mind.

“What
is
this?” Ryan said, sounding closer than he had before. I looked over and could see him through the forest, arms still above his head, tree limbs groaning as they moved him slowly forward.

“Dimitri,” Gary sighed.

“Who is Dimitri?”

“Ha-ha,” I said weakly. “So, funny story. There are fairies? In the Dark Woods. And I
might
have pissed off their king.”

There was silence. Then, “Of course you did.”

I scowled at him even though he couldn’t see me. “It wasn’t my fault! He wanted to marry me and I told him I didn’t see him like that and he got mad!”

“Yeah,” Gary muttered. “Because
that’s
the whole story.”

“Close enough!”

“Everything wants to have sex with you,” Ryan said in disbelief. “Literally
everything
.”

“That tree didn’t,” I reminded him. “That was all you. Way to go. You got wood.”

“Ha!” Tiggy said. “Puns.”

“Not funny,” Ryan said. “I’m still traumatized. There were…
leaves
. Near my…
you know
.”

“Your cock?” Gary asked. “Dick? Your dong? Man tube? Baby maker? Your balls and chain?”

“Gary!” I said as I stepped over a fallen tree.

“Sorry. Your
penis
. Jeez. Prude.”

“Just how mad is this Dimitri?” Ryan asked.

Oh. That. “Um. Very? Like, I might have led him on in hopes of escaping? And then left him at the altar?”

“What?” Ryan said.

“Fairy weddings work very fast,” I said. “One minute I was minding my own business doing absolutely nothing in the Dark Woods and the next I was wearing flowers in my hair while a fairy named Harry was asking me to recite my vows.”

“Your vows,” Ryan said and
great
. We were back to that
repeating
thing again.

“I forgot about those,” Gary said with a snort. It came out as purple this time, but was muted because of the fairy ring. “You made them up off the top of your head while trying to figure out how we were going to get away.”

“It lovely,” Tiggy said. “Pretty words.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Ryan said. “You entered into the Dark Woods again, knowing that Morgan told you to avoid them. You’ve been attacked by Dark wizards in said woods and now you are telling me you almost got gay fairy married to a fairy named Dimitri by a fairy named Harry. And you still go into them.
All the time
.”

“Yes. But, to be
fair
, all those other things happened way on the other side of the Dark Woods, so you really can’t fault me for thinking they wouldn’t happen here.”

“I’m coming under the impression that these things happen no matter where you go.”

“That’s… pretty much true,” Gary said.

“Shut up, Gary,” I growled.

“Mean. Just for that, I’m going to recite your wedding vows.”

“Oh my gods.”

“Dearest Dimitri. I’ve known you but for three minutes, but my heart beats in my chest just for you.”

“Gary, I swear to the gods, stop talking.”

“Gary, please continue,” Ryan said, and I
despised
him.

“You are a fairy and I am a man. A wizard, but a man nonetheless. Our worlds couldn’t be more different, but please believe me when I say I love you just as much as I love standing here against my will.”

Ryan choked out a laugh, and I wished a tree would bad-touch him again.

“All my life I’ve searched for someone like you. Only you’re better. Because you have wings. That are shiny. So. Good job on that. Your parents must be proud. Oh? What’s that? Your parents are dead? And they died horribly just three months ago? Oh. My bad. Dude. Seriously. So my bad. That was not cool. Can we go back to the love part?”

I buried my face in my hands. How he remembered this word for word, I’ll never know. And why did
everyone
who did impressions of me do my voice so shrill? It was
insulting
.

“The love part. Here we are. Together. You and I. And we’re getting dude-hitched. To each other. Because this is my life. And I couldn’t run away. Even if I wanted to. So I guess this will be a thing. Forever. Lucky me. I’m not stalling, I just have so many words to say to you. Like, you are fun. For someone who took me prisoner and is now forcing me to marry him. So fun. I have to wrap it up? Rude. Okay. In conclusion, I’m super happy about this. And you are awesome. And I’m so glad Gary is laughing at me. The bastard. Tiggy, you are my only favorite. The end.”

“Gary?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Your death will not come easy. There will be pain as I choke the life out of you.”

“Kinky. I’m down.”

“How did you get away?” Ryan asked.

I shrugged. “Gary got free and kicked some fairies, and we ran.”

He gaped at me.

“It was daring,” I said.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Ryan said. “I don’t even know what to say to any of this. You and I have been talking,
actually talking
, for a little over three weeks. And in those three weeks, we’ve been attacked twice, a dragon came to the city and knocked you through a building, and now we’re going to meet your ex to whom you almost gay fairy married. How are you even a real person?”

“Hey,” I growled. “He’s not my
ex
. And you didn’t talk to me for like two of those three weeks, so you can shut your mouth. And it wasn’t a
building
. It was a
shed
.”

“I was
busy
.” The trees were bringing him closer to me. He was scowling. It was unfair how hot his scowl was. When I scowled, I looked constipated.

“Yeah, that
must
be it. Busy like a
champ
.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“
You
don’t even make sense!”

“I hate it when Mommy and Daddy fight,” Gary said to Tiggy.

The trees stopped moving Ryan when he was three feet away from me.

“Who Mommy?” Tiggy asked, eyeing us both.

Gary rolls his eyes. “Duh. Ryan. Obviously.”

“Ha!” I crowed. “You’re the mother!”

“Whatever,” he muttered. “I’d be a great mom. I’d mom like a champ. Wait. What the hell?
How do you get me involved in these conversations
?”

“Uh, easy? You open your mouth and respond. Not a hard concept. Even for a meathead knight like yourself.”

“You just wait until this tree lets me go. I’m so gonna—”

And I never really got to find out how he was going to finish that sentence. In my deep and disturbing fantasies, he was so gonna fuck me into next week and we would have babies and buy a farm in the country, and I’d get to wear a really big sunhat while I plucked vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden.

But he never got to finish that sentence because we were surrounded by fairies.

“Balls,” I muttered, watching my dreams of a sunhat disappear in front of me.

“Sam?”

“Yes, Ryan?”

“Why is there a six-inch-tall angry naked man with wings flying in front of your face? And why are we surrounded by even more tiny fluttering naked men?”

I sighed. “Because this is what my life has become. Ryan, meet Dimitri, king of the Dark Woods fairies. Dimitri, this is Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart.”

Ryan’s eyes bulged. “
This
is your ex?”

“He’s
not
my ex,” I grumbled. I looked up at Dimitri. He really was tiny. And naked. It was so very awkward. His wings fluttered rapidly, and his creamy skin was flushed with anger. He had a shaved head and the tiniest mustache in the world. He would have been delightful if not for the fact that I was pretty sure he wanted to murder me. “Heeeeey, Dimitri. Long time no see. How you been, buddy?”

“Sam,” he said stiffly, and I’d forgotten just how high-pitched his voice was. It sounded like he was squeaking. I tried to keep my lips from quirking because he was angry and it sounded hysterical. “How nice it is to see you again. And you are so my ex.”

“Oh my gods,” Ryan gasped, like he was trying not to laugh. “This is amazing. I am having such a good time right now. Huzzah. Huzzahs all around.”

Dimitri and I both glared at him.

He didn’t look repentant in the slightest.

“What brings you to these parts?” Dimitri asked me.

“Your magic mushrooms,” I told him. “They sort of forced us here. Except for Ryan. Ryan was flirting with the trees.”

“I was
not—
”

“Is he always this loud?” Dimitri asked, frowning at Ryan. “He seems loud, even for a human.”

The other fairies grumbled their agreement.

“He’s usually pretty loud,” I agreed. “He has to be. He’s a knight commander. It’s dashing and immaculate.”

“Oh?” Dimitri asked. “So
he’s
the reason you couldn’t get married.”

And what the fuck? “That is so not even close to being a real thing.”

But Dimitri ignored me. He flew up to Ryan and hovered near his face. Ryan arched an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve heard of you,” Dimitri said, poking Ryan in the cheek. “You are supposed to be some big to-do. I’ll be honest. I’m a little disappointed.”