Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 4) (2 page)

Glaring, he stomped his foot in
challenge. He widened his stance and wiggled his fingers over his holster, inches
from the toy gun. The last thing she wanted was to play along, but she would do
anything right now to keep him away from a repeat of whatever had happened
before, and that meant she needed to keep him away from the closet.

Mina frowned, pretended to dip her
imaginary hat in acceptance of the duel, turned around, and placed her back
against her brother’s. One step at a time, they each took five paces toward their
end of the hall.

Charlie’s boots clicked on the hardwood.
They paused.

Mina spun around, her finger held out.
“Bang!” she yelled, seconds before Charlie’s toy gun was pulled from the
holster.

He gripped his side in mock injury, flung
the plastic revolver to the side, and crumpled to the ground in one of the most
dramatic death scenes a nine year old could muster. Right down to the twitching
right leg and the hand splayed out in a final act of farewell. When his
breathing stopped and his eyes closed, Mina used the chance to escape by
jumping over Charlie’s prone form and running for the front door.

But he was too fast. He magically sprung
to life and lumbered after her in a very zombie-esque fashion.

“Uh-uh,” she said, laughing. “You haven’t
been dead long enough. Plus, you were shot. You’re not going to reanimate as a
Zombie unless you were bitten by another Zombie.”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders, held his
arms out in front of him, and headed toward the kitchen, dragging one foot
slightly behind him.

Mina knew where her brother was heading,
and seconds later she heard her mother scream in fright. Charlie was the master
of the sneak and scare.

“Ouch, Charlie! What are you doing? You
bit me!”

Chapter 2

Mina tried to strike the suitcase from
her mind, but it kept haunting her all through her English Lit. She barely paid
attention as student after student went up and gave their five-minute oral
report. Brody stood up and spoke for minutes on something. Even his tanned figure,
sun bleached blond hair, and blue eyes didn’t distract her from her inner
turmoil for more than a moment.

What was it that caused Charlie to
flicker out like that? Was it something in the suitcase? Was it a sickness? Oh
goodness, she really hoped not. Maybe it was all a figment of her imagination.
Yeah, that was easier to believe. She’d just chalk it up to the extra stress
she’d been under.

Nix sauntered from the back of the room
and paused for a second by her desk to gently place a small rounded piece of
sea glass on her book. It wasn’t Nix’s first token of thanks. Every few days
he’d discover something different, unique, and wonderful about the human plane,
and he’d leave little gifts for her to find on her desk or in her locker.

Mina smiled and picked up the smooth bit
of glass. It was dark green and probably at one time part of a beer bottle, but
Nix didn’t need to know that. She remembered his home on the Fae plane and how
there were tons of crystals placed in the wall. She had a feeling that here, in
her world, Nix might become a bit of a hoarder if not properly immersed in the
culture.

But it seemed that Ever had taken care of
that, or was at least trying. She’d become his sponsor, like a guardian to Nix,
helping him to adapt and fit in with the social norms of a teenager. Currently
though, he was living with the other Fae at the Godmother’s Guild.

Ever wasn’t a fan of the place and didn’t
really like being near the Godmothers’ home, but she did what she could when it
came to Nix.

Nix went to the front of the class, running
his hands through his tumbled red hair in nervousness. He took a deep breath
and smiled, making those Fae green eyes twinkle mischievously and the female
classmates sigh. He seemed to take everything that was new to him in stride and
with enthusiasm. He had never been to school before and didn’t quite understand
the logistics of homework, or the need for it, but his personality and
contagious enthusiasm helped him get out of loads of trouble. That or there
could have been a little of the Nixie charm still in his blood.

“Ahem,” Nix cleared his throat, looked
over at Mina, and winked. “Dr. Seuss was a man passionate about animals and
clothes. He put hats on cats and socks on foxes. He was always losing his
Things so he took to numbering them. I think he may at one point have lived on
a mountain as a hermit who didn’t have a heart. And the people in the village
didn’t know Who they were…uh…the end!” Nix said with enthusiasm.

The students had giggled throughout his
presentation, but as soon as he was done, the room erupted. T.J. and Steven
started hooting loudly and gave him a standing ovation. Nix’s face turned red,
but he bowed and jogged through a gauntlet of high fives, receiving numerous
pats on the back as well.

The teacher just stared after Nix with a
look of utter confusion on his face. Luckily, Ever and Mina were able to
convince the school that Nix, or Nick—his new human name—was a
foreign exchange student from some far off land. Ever had to pick a country so
small no one would even know about in the hopes that it would explain his lack
of knowledge in modern culture. Up to this point it had worked, because the
teachers had been extremely helpful and lenient toward him.

Nix’s survival of the trip to the human
plane had been a godsend, because it was the one thing that brought Ever and Mina
back together. Ever had been five shades of furious over Mina’s error in being
tricked with the Grimoire and losing Jared to Teague. She had actually still
refused to talk to her until she learned Charlie and Mina saved Nix’s life by
bringing him over. Ever had a few choice words about how dangerous and stupid
it was, but she understood. And as Mina was trying to explain the school bus to
Nix—how it
wasn’t
a giant
yellow beast devouring a sacrifice of young children—Ever finally took
pity on her.

T.J. returned to his seat amid laughter
and a few claps. Mina had missed the entire thing, remembering. She’d need to
pay better attention.

“Nan Taylor?” Mr. Morris called from his
desk.

Mina craned her neck, surprised when her
best friend popped up from the back corner of the classroom. She had thought, since
the desk next to her was empty, that Nan hadn’t come to school today. Quite
possibly though, she wouldn’t have recognized Nan with her bottleneck glasses,
crazy ratted hair, and dark robe even if she were beside her.

It was apparent from her dress, Nan was
trying to make a grand entrance. Her normally beautiful blonde hair was
disguised beneath a very large witch hat. Her mischievous blue eyes were hidden
behind thick glasses, which Mina could only assume were impossible to see out
of. Mina’s assumption was proven correct when Nan banged her knee against a
desk.

Once she reached the whiteboard, Nan
turned up her iPhone, and familiar mystical music floated through the air. She
always did prefer the dramatic approach to… well, everything. Nan decided to
take a simple oral presentation and dress up as a character from the Harry
Potter series.

Nan’s presentation was highly
entertaining and informative, and she received bonus points from their teacher
for taking the presentation one step forward with such creativity.

Mina’s heart sank when her name was
called to do her presentation. Her hands clutched her paper, which was only
slightly
wrinkled from being folded and
unfolded a hundred or more times in the last thirty minutes.

She desperately wished she had her best
friend’s confidence in front of a crowd. Mina’s feet felt like they were
encased in cement, and her heart pounded so loud and fast, she could hear it in
her head. Why did she have to be so nervous? She happened to look out the
window and saw that the clear sky had turned a dismal gray—which mirrored
her feelings of distress.

She trudged up to the front of the room,
desperately wishing for a giant crater to open up in the ground in front of her
and swallow her whole. Or a meteor to come crashing into the school’s football
field and cause a big huge distracting thing, so she could duck out the back of
the room. But luck wasn’t on her side. Luck was never on her side. In fact she
was pretty sure it avoided her at all costs.

She was standing in front of the class
and she was now out of time. A small cylindrical object weighed heavily in
Mina’s pocket, and she felt her hand gently brush against the seam ripper, its
magic powerful enough to rip through the physical plane to the Fae plane by
creating a door between the worlds. Oh, how she wanted to use it.

Her teacher Mr. Morris gave her a small
smile of encouragement, and she felt her gumption leave. It was a bit ridiculous,
if she thought about it. She could fight off bears, wolves, sea witches, Stiltskins,
giants, ogres, and snakes, but she couldn’t handle standing in front of her
peers and giving a dumb speech.

Her stomach dropped and a bitter acidic
taste rose up in her mouth. Oh, Heaven Almighty, help her! She was going to
puke. Was her face turning green? Isn’t that what happened right before an epic
expulsion of bodily fluids? Or maybe her face would turn white.

Her curiosity got the better of her and
she turned her head to try and see if she could tell from her reflection in the
window. In the middle of the afternoon, she shouldn’t have seen anything, but
the sky’s dimming its own sickly green made a reflection possible. A few
seconds’ glance told her that her face was white.

She didn’t look well at all.

“My report is on Joseph and Wilhelm
Grimm, otherwise known as the Brothers Grimm. Joseph and W-Wilhelm traveled the
world collecting all of the various Fae—ry tales for their own records.”

Her hands began to shake. She saw that
Nix had caught her blunder and quick recovery. Nan was smiling at her like a
goon, trying to encourage her to keep going.

Mina smiled back and continued with her
report. When her eyes flickered to Brody Carmichael, she started to stumble over
her words again. Brody was leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his
chest with his head cocked ever so slightly to the side. He gave the impression
that he was studying something of interest, and that something of interest
happened to be Mina.

What had she just said? She’d been
talking about their volumes of tales and then she lost her train of thought.
Brody’s chair tipped forward and then gently settled on the ground again. With
its impact, her thoughts scattered like cockroaches in the daylight. But it
wasn’t Brody’s striking looks that distracted her; it was the person standing
just behind him against the back brick wall.

He was wearing a long, dark jacket with a
high collar, and his hair looked almost black. There was no mistaking the intensity
of the hate rolling off of him in waves. But he wasn’t focused on Mina at the
moment. Teague was glaring at the back of Brody’s head with enough hate to bore
a laser hole through it—which confused Mina. Why would Teague hate Brody?
Teague was the one responsible for Brody falling unnaturally in love with her
and then promptly making him forget her. What was with the ire?

“Is that all Miss Grime?” Mr. Morris asked.

Apparently, she was so shocked by Teague
in the room that she had completely stopped talking. Mina chewed on the inside
of her cheek as she tried to retrace her steps and think of where she had left
off.

“Um…um…” She faltered and shot Nan a
desperate look, unwillingly casting another worried glance to the back of the
room.

Nix frowned and followed her gaze. As
soon as he saw the Fae prince, he turned around and slouched low in his desk,
trying to hide from his prince—who may or may not recognize the Nixie in
his human form.

“I uh, I’m…” She glanced down at her
cheat sheet, but she could no longer read the words written across the plain
notebook paper. They were simple bullet points, and facts about the brothers,
but the script staring back at her wasn’t her own.

Careful
what words you utter. For they may be your last.

Mina was careful to keep a neutral face
as she read the threat. Instead of causing her to become scared, the words ignited
a fire within her. Schools should be a safe zone, free from Fae
influence—at least from the bad kind. There were too many innocents at
risk: Nan, Brody, and Nix to name a few. And here Teague shows up and tries to
intimidate her.

Nan noticed Mina staring and turned to
follow her friend’s line of sight, but it was obvious from her confused looks
at the brick wall that she couldn’t see Teague. Even though Nix could.

In fact, it seemed that most of the room
couldn’t see Teague, so that eased her fears. But only a little.

“Mina, do you need a minute to regain
your thoughts?” her teacher interjected.

Mina’s eyes never left Teague. He was now
giving her his full, undivided devilish focus. Those blue eyes bored into hers
with a clear challenge. Everything about him screamed Jared except for those
blue eyes.

“No, I don’t need another minute. I’m
fine,” she answered. “I’m almost done.”