Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 4) (35 page)

The wind
picked up, and the tree’s branches blew. A whispering moan filled the air.
Kathleen and Mina didn’t hear the ethereal words whispered into the night, but
Jared did. And he shivered in understanding as the Fae warning raked through
his very core.

This
is not her tale to finish, but yours.

Chapter 2

“We need
to do something!” Mina demanded. “We should have gone back there and captured
her in the Grimoire.” She yanked on the ends of her jacket in frustration.

He sighed
and shifted gears in the car as he sped toward the international district to
take Mina home. Good thing Mina just used the word
should
and didn’t
command him to go back. There was only so much he could do to indirectly
disobey her since she had the Grimoire. If she figured out just how linked they
actually were, then there would be no end to her demands. He would be stuck saving
every lost kitten, dog, and—in this case—frog.

No, it
was better that she never learned this particular secret.
 
Mina needed to believe simply
that he was a Fae and that he was there
to guide her—sort of—
some
of the time—when he felt like it.

“You just
can’t go charging in declaring war on every Fae you don’t like and trapping
them in the book. I hate to use this pun in the situation, Mina, but you really
need to look before you leap.”

“I have
to stop her. That’s my quest. It’s the frog prince tale. I’m sure of it.”

“But how
are you going to stop her? You could have captured her right there and—boom!—quest
over.”

She
turned and gave him an ugly glare. “I would have, if you hadn’t shown up on my
personal stake-out and interfered. Which leads me to my next question. Why in
the world
did
you show up in the
middle of the woods?”

He
gripped the steering wheel and took the right on to Main Street a little too
fast. Mina clutched the door handle until her knuckles turned white. He felt a
little bad and released pressure off of the gas pedal, but not much.

“You saw
what she became. You saw what she did to…to…that young man!” Mina pleaded at
him with her big brown eyes. Gosh, she didn’t know what those pleading eyes did
to him. It made him feel weak, and he hated being weak.

“So what!
Did you even ask yourself if maybe he did something bad and deserved being
turned into a toad?” Jared spat out harshly. A knee-jerk reaction to the way
she was making him feel internally.

Mina
blinked, taken aback by his harsh tone. “No, that never crossed my mind at all,
because she was the one that was the walking-talking toad monster. Not Tom.”

“So now
it’s Tom, is it?” he grit his teeth in anger and actually missed the turn for
her apartment. After a quick U-turn, he pulled in front of the Golden Palace
Chinese Restaurant and checked to see if he could see Mrs. Wong inside. Nope,
the restaurant was as dark and abandoned as the rest of the street. He was free
from running into the annoying woman.

“Mina,
I think you need to keep a low profile for this quest. Let it be.” The words
sounded hollow even to him. Weak and without reason.

“Are you
dumb, Jared? That Fae is turning boys into frogs! She’s worse than Claire and
her thirst for young men. At least,
she
didn’t turn Brody into a frog!”

“You’re
just upset because of how that particular tale ended in response to your love
life. Get over it Mina. Life isn’t a bed of roses. These tales don’t have happy
endings. What makes you think that because you are a Grimm, you’re exempt?
Because you’re not.” The spiteful words flew out of his mouth before he could
stop them, though he didn’t intend to hurt her.

It drove
him crazy how hung up she was on Brody. She needed to snap out of it, because
Brody was a real weakness. If the Story ever saw how much she cared for him,
then he would be a target. It was the same thing with her best friend Nan. It
would be better if she got rid of all of her friends until this was over. It
would be safer. For all of them.

Mina
blinked quickly and looked away from him. Her body stiffened, and he could tell
that she was holding back tears. He hated these human emotions of hers, at
times like this. Too bad she couldn’t be more Fae like.

Jared
unbuckled his seatbelt and turned, facing her. “Get used to the disappointment
and failure because sooner or later, you will fail at the Story’s quest. Where
will that leave you? Or Charlie?”

Mina
jumped out of the car and glared at him. “You know, Jared, Tom doesn’t deserve
to be turned into a toad. However, I can’t say the same for you. You are by far
one of the most selfish Fae I’ve ever met. You’re mean, cruel and heartless.”
She whirled around and headed up the stairs to her family’s apartment.

Jared
slammed his head into the back of the driver’s seat and mentally berated himself
for losing control of his emotions. He’d let his ugly side show through again.
She was right. He was the one making all the terrible jokes and not taking his
job seriously. But how could he, when every step they took together, every
quest they finished was one more step toward the Fae being banished back to the
Fae world and the gates closing forever. It was one step closer to losing her.

His
knuckles cracked when he realized how upset that made him. It ripped him up
inside, this wanting to tell her the truth, about him, about the curse, about
why he couldn’t go back to the Fae world.

Would she
shun him? Despise him? Look at him with hate? He had a problem controlling the
anger that was always under the surface. Whenever Mina got through a chink in
his armor, his rage snapped at her like a cornered animal.

Like
now.
No
, he begged of himself.
Not now.
Sweat trickled down his brow,
and he focused on breathing slowly.

It
couldn’t be helped. His dark half was always there, just a thought away. Their
souls called to each other, constantly searching for each other, never whole
without the other. But he couldn’t give in. He couldn’t cross over to the Fae
plane.

And
he must make sure that Mina never went either. Or all of Fae and humankind
would pay the price.

He pulled
the car around the block until he was in the alley and had a full view of
Mina’s bedroom window. The light flicked on, and he knew she was probably
getting ready for bed. A few moments later the light flicked off, and he felt a
moment’s hesitation about doing this without her.

He pulled
down the driver’s side visor and looked at himself in the mirror. Somber gray
eyes stared back at him, an angular jaw with a day’s worth of light stubble. He
ran his fingers through his dark hair and smiled wanly.

“So,
Jared, ol’ boy. She thinks we deserve to be turned into a toad. Let’s see if we
can prove her right.”

Chapter 3

Jared
hated school, hated the idea of school, and especially hated learning in large
groups taught by an unknowledgeable teacher. Perhaps it was because the Fae
could live for a really long time, and he didn’t need to study for eight hours
a day, or maybe because he had accumulated such a wealth of knowledge over the
years. But there was no other way.

Thankfully,
it didn’t take much to show up at Lincoln Heights High with forged papers. With
a little Fae persuasion, he was enrolled. He’d done it before. In fact, he was
sure Mina was going to question him where he was today, since he was ditching
classes once again. He would rather be in art class with her, teasing her, making
her all red and flustered—enough to smash her next pottery assignment in
frustration—but instead he was here.

At a
different school.

And he
couldn’t tell her why.

Which
made him extremely irritable.

He
walked down the pine-scented hall with his class sheet. He ignored the piece of
paper and his locker assignment completely. Studying wasn’t his goal. Hunting
the rogue Fae was. Jared found what looked like the central hallway of Lincoln
Heights, and he leaned against the wall, studying the students, searching for a
particular reddish blonde.

His ears
picked up whispering, and his nose picked up a particular scent that he knew
quite well—fear. He noticed a large corkboard to his right—with
barely an inch of cork showing. It was plastered with posters. One for a
missing poster for Kevin Sanders, who’d disappeared three weeks ago. There was
another one for a Mitch Trujillo, who had been missing for two weeks. Jared
carefully lifted the top posters and saw that there were more missing boy
posters underneath announcements and ads that dated back to over a year ago.

And not
all of them were from this school.

This
was a very serious problem. If someone didn’t handle this Fae girl, then the
humans would eventually find her…and all the Fae would be in danger of being
revealed.

He
shook his head angrily and went back to search for her. It was a good thing she
had popped up on the Fates’ radar. He didn’t necessarily thank the Story for
its added requirement of his personal involvement, but he knew it had to be
taken care of.

After
the first two periods of class he still hadn’t found the frog girl and he would
have almost missed her, if she hadn’t stopped to take a drink at the water
fountain right in front of him.

Kathleen
and spent a very long time at the water fountain. In fact, so long, Jared
thought maybe she was frozen. Nevertheless, after a full minute, her red-blonde
head popped up and politely apologized to the boy waiting behind her. She wiped
her mouth daintily and headed down the hall away from him. It was a good thing
she couldn’t sense
him
.

Jared
didn’t need prodding. He moved away from the wall and followed her into the
classroom. With a bit of Fae magic he changed his class schedule to Journalism.

 
The room was filled with old computer
cubicles and computers. Every wall was covered with newspaper clippings and
past issues of the Lincoln Heights Journal. A large table at the back of the
room had a collage of action shots of the football, basketball and track teams.
The teacher introduced him to the class, and he watched as the boys in the room
glowered at him. The girls visibly brightened at the prospect of a good-looking
new boy. He made his way to an open chair and sat down, being careful to act
like he wasn’t interested in anything anyone was saying. He wasn’t here to draw
attention or make friends; he needed to keep it on the down low.

The
teacher gave instructions to the class, and Jared was assigned to a small group
that would report on last week’s football loss to none other than Mina Grime’s
own school Kennedy High.

They
moved to a large table, and Jared listened to a discussion on stats between Mark,
who had dark caramel skin and a thick, pleasant South African accent, and Adam,
a slim brown-haired boy with glasses. Lucy, the only girl in the group, had
sandy blonde hair in stark braids. She wore glasses and a blue chevron sweater.

“So, have
any of you seen Tom this morning?” Lucy whispered to their group during a lull
in their writing. Her pencil tapped her notepad nervously. Jared listened
carefully but didn’t chime in on the conversation.

“No, but
he’s probably in class,” Adam answered.

“I waited
out in the parking lot, and he never showed,” she insisted.

“Whoa,
have you become a stalker?” Adam scoffed.

Lucy shook
her head. “No, I’ve just started paying close attention to who Kathleen Donovan
has her sights set on.” She leaned in close and whispered, “It seems to me that
all of the boys that have gone missing over the years were attracted to her.”

Mark
glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Kathleen, who happened to glance up at
that moment. She turned her nose up at him and went back to work. He swung back
around and gave Lucy an annoyed look. “Aw, not little miss sunshine over there.
Are you sure you’re not letting your jealousy get in the way? She’s cute—and
harmless.”

Lucy’s
cheeks flushed an angry red, and she pulled out a notebook and flipped it open.
It had every missing boys name in one column on the left and a column of dates
and notes and initials on the right. It was obvious that there were a lot of
K.D.’s in the right-hand column.
 

“The
disappearances started occurring shortly after she transferred here last year.
She’s never outright dated anyone who’s asked her, but she’s pretty enough to
date anyone she wants.”

“Lucy,
you can’t convict someone based on the fact that they’re single. If that’s the
case then you might as well charge me with all the missing guys,” Adam scoffed
and held up his hands.

She
started to flick her pencil faster and faster on the notebook. “No, but see
that’s the point. Look here.” She pointed to the dates. “These are all the
dates on which the boys broke up with their last girlfriends, and she was seen
with all of them in the days following—before their disappearance.”

Adam
stared at Lucy hard, before shaking his head. “Who are you—Nancy Drew?”