Wish Bound (A Grimm Agency Novel Book 3) (15 page)

I DIDN’T SPEAK.
Couldn’t speak. Liam continued to move until the bar no longer stood between us. “Where is Marissa? Are you the other handmaiden?” His voice deepened, the curse speaking through him. “I’ll
cull
you now if you are.”

“It’s me.” My own voice sounded foreign. More musical, less whiny. “Marissa.”

Liam shook his head. “Sure, and I’m the King of Jersey. If you’ve harmed her, I won’t leave enough of you to feed a cat. If you know where she is, now would be a good time to say so. While you still have a tongue.” He picked up a meat tenderizer off the counter and advanced on me.

I held up my hand, to show him the handmaiden’s mark, and his engagement ring. My skin, smooth and tan like it had never been, bore no scares. My fingers were bare. “Grimm!” I shrieked. “I need you.”

He burst into the living room mirror, a look of horror on his face. Then he looked to Liam. “Stop, Mr. Stone.”

Liam wavered, his gaze flipping between Grimm and me.

Grimm shook his head. “You don’t want to harm your fiancée.”

“That isn’t Marissa.” His gaze roved over my body again, fixating on my face. “Is it?”

I went to the mirror, and Grimm faded out, letting me see. The person who looked back at me had brown hair, true, and brown eyes. Her hair hung past her shoulders, silky, with gentle waves in it; her complexion looked like the one I’d always wished I had; her eyes normal sized instead of part bat. The person who stared back was me as I’d always dreamed I might look. “What happened?”

I touched a hand to my face, making sure my cheekbones really did angle out like that.

Grimm reappeared, alternating between rage and frustration. “It is a lie. My daughter’s talent at work, lies so real you can scarce tell them from the truth. Lies that become real, if embraced. Mr. Stone, take Marissa’s hand. I will do what I can to unravel the web and prove who she is. If Arianna were available, she too could confirm Marissa’s identity. Her spirit sight would not be fooled by such trivial changes.”

I watched Liam approach from the mirror, the look of confusion on his face as he reached for my shoulder. “I’m ready.”

Grimm’s power surged out like a river, swirling around me, buffeting me like a hurricane. The woman in the mirror flickered. Vibrated. Split, like double vision, until both of me looked back. My face, as I always knew it, and the one she’d given me.

Liam spun us around and wrapped me in his arms, nearly crushing me. “I couldn’t tell.”

I looked over his shoulder at Grimm. “You said you would protect me from her changes.”

Grimm shook his head. “I
am
protecting you. Your personality is mostly intact, with a minor influx of bloodlust. Such illusions, however,
you
must reject to prevent them from becoming real.”

The problem was, it didn’t feel like a lie. Different? Sure. But maybe good. “I found the missing souls.” I waited, but Grimm seemed neither surprised nor impressed. “And Kyra. She’s killing the princes.” After I recounted my experiences in the old castle, Grimm remained silent, lost in thought.

My thoughts, on the other hand, fell to the man right in front of me, and the way he looked at me, almost frightened, or excited. Liam let me go, just a little, and put one hand beside my face; with the other he traced my nose and lips, his eyes wide with wonder or fear.

I batted my eyes at him. “Am I beautiful?”

“Always. Still.” Liam closed his eyes and leaned in to kiss me, and it hit me that he didn’t have to lean so far. I was at least three inches taller. His lips brushed mine, and I drank in the heat that radiated from him, kissing him back the way I always did. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

I peeked open my eyes to see Grimm gone from the mirror. On any other night, we’d have Svetlana sitting on the couch, watching us with Olympic-class boredom. With her still locked in her fruit smoothie spa treatment, we could relax.

I pulled Liam toward the bedroom, eager to hold him in my arms. With both hands, I shoved him backwards into the room, showering his face with kisses, but found my mouth didn’t fit—to kiss his ears and jaw, I had to bend my head until my neck hurt, and his attempts to kiss me back had him licking my nose or my chin, until I bit his lip ever so gently.

His hands roved over me, exploring curves I’d always wanted but never had. The frustration mounted, as I attempted to take off my shirt, only to find it stitched to the skirt Isolde transformed my clothes into. I tossed Liam’s T-shirt onto the fan, and fought with the laced front of what might have been an attractive top three hundred years earlier.

The tension in Liam’s body grew like a spring as we fought with the clothes, until I shoved him onto the bed. “Give me a moment.” I dashed out into the kitchen to the silverware drawer.

After a few moments, Liam joined me, stripped to the waist, and used a steak knife to saw the lacing on my top apart.

And walking hurt. Every step, as my breasts bounced, pulling the skin on my shoulders tight. We sat on the bed, and I bit my tongue as his sandpaper-like hands traced my nipples, which never seemed to react like that before. Where before, the trace of his thumbs around my nipple sent electric chills from my chin to my pelvis, now his fingers reminded me of dragsters with snow tires making laps. I finally understood the term
aching nipples
from those vampire romance novels Ari loved, and the term would never conjure the same image for me. I slid Liam’s hands to my hips and pulled his jeans down, as he thrust his tongue into my nose for at least the tenth time.

As his hands traced my hips, they rose. A murmur escaped my lips, and a clink sounded from my crotch.

Yeah, that definitely put the lovemaking on hold. I reached over and switched on the lamp, wriggling out of the skirt bottom. The panties, definitely fur on the inside, had woven chain mail, with a tight metal cord at the top sealing them on.

“Oh, come on.” Now it was my turn to be frustrated, as I fought to slide the formfitting steel panties past my hips.

Liam stood up, a frustrated snort escaping him, and marched out in his underwear. A few minutes later, he returned with pair of bolt cutters. “I got them from the building superintendent. Suck in your stomach.”

He slid the bolt cutter in at my navel, making me tremble for all the wrong reasons, and flexed his gleaming muscles. When he pulled back the bolt cutters, a gasp of relief wracked me. I yanked the chastity panties off, yelping as the frayed wire scratched me.

Finally, I could take Liam to me, his powerful body gliding over me, just as he always did, ramming my thighs. The noise I made wasn’t a moan of pleasure, I’ll tell you that for sure, but by now I’d become so frantic I didn’t care. Liam smoked, his sweat boiling from his body, and only the asbestos weave in my sheets kept the bed from catching fire as I forced myself on him.

Twenty minutes later we lay in a puddle of sweat and fire, nursing bruises and scratches.

“That was—” I searched for words.

“Painful. I think I bent something.”

I had bruises of my own and no sympathy. “Well, if you’d stop imitating a jackhammer you’d feel different.” Faint bloodstains marked the edge of the asbestos sheets. “Are you bleeding?”

“Your nails are like daggers. You know you don’t have to carve me like a goose.”

I sat up, frowning. “Well, I’d like to remind you that big breasts are still attached breasts, despite your attempts to pull them off.”

“I was trying to arouse you. And what’s with the noises? It’s like being in bed with a pack of Chihuahuas.” Liam sat up in bed, putting his arm around me.

“Says the man who oinks at the end. I thought you were part dragon, not one of the three little pigs.” The moment I said it, I regretted it. Truth was, I’d seen less fumbling at a Jets game sponsored by Astroglide. Sex was something learned, that grew. This was more awkward than the time Grandma got up on the Thanksgiving table and did a striptease, begging us for tips.

“I’m going to take the bolt cutters back.” Liam steamed as he put on a bathrobe and stomped out. I searched without success for a bra that would fit my new body, stretching my sports bra until I looked like a sausage about to burst.

When Liam came back, I was waiting in the living room. “I’m sorry.”

He wouldn’t look at me. I put one hand on his chest, careful not to scratch him. “We’ll get better.”

“I loved you the way you were.” Liam looked up at me, biting his lip.

“And now?”

“I still love you. I may not be able to wear briefs for a couple days, but I still love you.” He followed me back to bed, where I spent the night discovering I couldn’t roll onto my stomach anymore. So I spooned him, feeling the pulse of his heart.

THE NEXT MORNING
I went shopping before going to work. Forget underwire—I went with under-girder, and found a set of black blouses that didn’t strain to restrain me. I made it into the Agency, rode up to the front door, and walked into a mutiny.

In the lobby, on crutches, stood Rosa, surrounded by our cargo workers and most of the Agency temp staff. Grimm stood in the lobby mirror, his hands folded behind his back, a look of concern knitting his brows together.

Rosa looked at me, and her eyes widened. “Out.” Rosa swore at me in Spanish, her face turning red along with the normal brown. “Get her out.”

“Do we have a problem?” I took a few steps toward Rosa, suddenly appreciating how the sway of my hips kept eyes focused on me.

Rosa couldn’t hide the fear on her face. The tremble in her hands or the way she glanced to Grimm as if he’d help her. “I won’t work with her anymore.”

Grimm spoke quickly in fluent Spanish, his Rs rolling like the purr of a cat.

I’d taken Spanish lessons for the last four years for a reason. I kept my gaze on Rosa. “Of course I’m not dangerous. You trust the Fairy Godfather’s judgment, right?” The thought of finally slapping her rude face made me smile. The thought of what my nails might do made my smile a grin.

The look of fear on Rosa’s face spread, like a contagion, through our staff, faster than the flu. Rosa always treated me like rotten fish, but the others—I signed their payroll checks on time and we got along. The staff door opened, and Mikey emerged from the back, standing a head taller than everyone else.

He walked around the crew, sniffing the air. “I knew I smelled fear. That or too much cardamom in my stew. What’s everyone afraid of? Marissa’s fine by me.” He leaned down and sniffed me. “You smell different. You get a haircut?”

Before I could berate him for not noticing that my hair was the
least
of my changes, someone else spoke. “Working with a handmaiden of the Black Queen is suicide. I’m off the job while she’s on.” Big Bill, our head hostage negotiator. And a chorus of other echoes as the people I’d taken care of turned on me like a pack of wolves. I could deal with wolves, with only a flamethrower and a clip of silver bullets. The clamor rose until Grimm reached forward, clawing his nails along the mirror.

The shriek that came out made me wince and grind my teeth, and I took it better than most of them. “That is enough.” Grimm crossed his arms before him, his eyes flashing with rage. I waited for him to start transforming dockworkers into frogs. And waited. He glanced to me and nodded. “Marissa, would you mind going to Arianna’s house and checking on her?”

“Yes. I’d mind a lot.” I put my hands on my hips. “Rosa, I’m sick of your attitude. I’m sick of you treating me like elf-droppings, and I’m sick of you threatening me. Get the hell out of my Agency. You’re fired.”

“It’s not yours.” Rosa limped toward me, raising a crutch like a club.

“Really? Did I ever sign it back to Grimm?” I looked over to Grimm, catching the surprise that washed over him. Rosa, on the other hand, should’ve known better. She helped me sign the ownership papers while Grimm was unavailable. “Get out.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Rosa wasn’t a very good liar. She looked through the crowd, then whistled.

The crowd of dockworkers slowly parted, not the flee-in-fear reaction of people who’ve found something deadly in their midst. The what-in-Inferno-did-you-roll-in response to something that smelled like a demon in a Dumpster.

Two people in filthy bathrobes walked forward. “We’re here to, ummm, curse you if you don’t leave voluntarily.”

“I remember you.” What I remembered was that their magical prowess left everything to be desired. “Those are Agency robes you stole, aren’t they?”

“Would everyone please stop?” Grimm’s mirror surged with light, flashing the room white.

I opened my mouth to tell him to go visit the Adversary, but the ringing in my ears grew louder. He’d killed all sound.

“Rosa, there is a call waiting on line two I want you to take. Enchanters, if you leave the building immediately, I won’t transform your underwear into poison oak. Michael, I want express shipments out within the hour. Everyone else, return to your stations or clear out your desks.”

The crowd began to shuffle out the doors, while Rosa dragged her fat, wounded ass back to her corner counter.

“Marissa, I understand your sentiment, but now, more than ever, it is vital that the Agency continues to operate. I’m offering you personal leave until I’ve dealt with my daughter. When she is gone, you may make any changes you desire.” He looked to Rosa as he spoke.

I stormed toward the Agency door, so angry I couldn’t have spoken even if Grimm had let me.

On the ground floor, as I dashed out of the building front door, I ran into Liam and Ari, who kept Wyatt huddled between them. Liam had gashes on the side of his head and blood running down the front of his shirt. He caught me by the wrist, and without thinking, I tripped him, sending him face-first into the pavement. Only after he crashed to the ground did my actions register. “Oh no.” I held my hand over my mouth.

The result of a moment of rage, a flash of frustration, and a decade of training. Liam pushed up off the floor, blood welling from his mouth. He didn’t say a word. The silence hurt worse than any words.

Ari stepped between us. “Wyatt, go with Liam, give him your handkerchief for his nose.” Ari shoved her boyfriend away and took me by the arm, staring at me with witch eyes. “Grimm told me you had a spell cast on you. He didn’t say it was this. This is awful.”

She looked back to Liam and Wyatt. “Keep out of trouble. I think I can help.”

“I want to go to work.” I tried to shake Ari’s hand off and she crackled with static electricity as though shocking me had become a viable option.

Ari shook her head. “Not like this. This lie wrapped around you, it’s getting comfortable. Settling in. Grimm may be the Fairy Godfather, but this is mostly Seal Magic.” She ran her eyes over me again and clucked her tongue. “This is how you wanted yourself to look?”

“No.” I swallowed, remembering how I felt when I first saw myself in the mirror. “Maybe.”

Ari didn’t answer. She just put one hand on my shoulder and pushed me out the front door. We walked for blocks in silence, the dense crowds having enough sense to get out of my way. “I didn’t ask her for this.”

“Please, Marissa. I’ll bet you didn’t need to ask. Don’t you always say you are happy with who you are?” Ari and I reached the waterfront and began the trudge toward the gates.

When we arrived, Ari grabbed her bracelet, the only thing keeping her mother’s banishment at bay, and took my hand. She surged forward, dragging me into High Kingdom.

This time, instead of a parade, people drifted away from me. Talking beasts fell mute as I passed. After we’d walked several blocks, I had a feeling I knew where we were headed. “Tell me we’re going to a doctor.”

“Not exactly.” Ari crossed the street, cutting off a Kingdom policeman on horseback without so much as an “excuse me.” The Isyle Witch’s shop lay a few doors down. The occasional passerby reached out to run fingers along the red brick replacing the ruined doorway.

Standing in front of the shop, Ari stopped and looked both directions. Like anyone could tell if someone was watching in the middle of the crowd. The rush of magic into her left frost on the concrete.

I wanted to take Ari’s hand, but past experience said interrupting her while casting a spell was a great recipe for getting knocked on my back.

I didn’t even notice when the spell started.

Ari always favored lightning bolts, fire, and frost. This magic reached out, gently, subtly. The crowds passing by shied away, completely oblivious, even though they pushed and shoved like a kindergarten class chasing a gerbil made of sugar.

“Hold on.” Ari seized my arm, then yanked me forward, straight into the brick wall.

My head jerked back, like I’d slammed into the actual wall, and the world spun. Ari kept on pulling, nearly wrenching my shoulder off, and I slipped through the wall. All in all, the experience was no different from all the other times I’d been buried in wet concrete.

We emerged in darkness, to the sound of scampering paws and slithering scales. I meant to reach for my gun. Instead I picked up the thorn sword, awkward as always.

“Be,” Ari whispered, and a burst of light lit up the room, causing a dozen nightmares to retreat to their cages. “I told Grimm this wasn’t closed down right. All of you, back in your cells.” Ari went around the room, latching cages, closing doors, until she looked around and nodded, as if to herself. “Let’s see what I can do.”

“You’ve been here?”

“It’s where Grimm took me to train yesterday.” Ari sat the witch’s cauldron upright and shuffled through the ingredients on the back shelf, seeming to toss them at random over her shoulder. “We’ll start with the balance statement from my credit card bill. Nothing says the truth like facing the music. And this, this is skin from a supermodel the morning after a shoot. Pure truth.”

Ari turned and pointed under the counter. “Hand me that bag.” After I did, she opened it and took out a plastic stick. “Positive pregnancy test. No way to lie your way out of that one. This won’t be easy.”

“Is anything ever?”

Ari spun, her hair wheeling out from her head like red spokes. “Listen to me. Grimm told you the lie would become true if you didn’t reject it.”

“Yes.” I remember him saying that. I also remember being so eager to try out the new me I didn’t care.

Ari left the cauldron and walked over, appraising me like a chunk of ham. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Reject it.”

And the feeling inside me, the sick sadness, said everything. Because part of me liked the way I looked. It hurt like hell, and I felt like an alien in someone else’s skin, but at least part of me liked the skin. “I don’t know if I want to.”

“Liam doesn’t care what you look like.” Ari kicked over a cage, sending leathery bats squealing, and sat on the cage side.

“I do.” I spent the first six years working for Grimm alongside a woman so beautiful she stopped hearts or tore them out, often literally. I spent six years knowing I was
never
the most beautiful woman in the room.

Ari turned and hit the cauldron with a blast of ice three times the thickness of anything I’d ever seen her produce, then followed it up with pure hellfire, leaving the cauldron boiling. Waving her hand, she stirred the brew until it steamed. “That should do it. You know there’s no magic in the ingredients, right? They just help me fold and sculpt the spells.”

She rose and walked back over to the cauldron, and beckoned. “Come on, M.”

I went, begrudging every step.

“Here.” Ari stood across the cauldron from me. With a wave of her hand the water became still. Ari’s reflection showed her dimpled chin, her red hair in ringlets.

And me. Not just one of me; three of me. The me inside, the plain girl who never turned heads, she stood in the middle. On one side, the handmaiden me, lovely and elegant, stacked like a pile of pancakes, with lovely eyes and hair like brown honey. The third me made me ill, a gross exaggeration of both of the others. The third me had filthy brown hair, squinty eyes, bulbous breasts, and teeth like crooked tombstones.

Ari pointed to the third. “That is the lie she wrapped you in.” She took a silver ladle from beside the cauldron and dipped it into the real reflection. The liquid came out amber, scented like honey, smoke, and cupcakes. “Drink this and reject it.”

I closed my eyes, my hands clenching the sides of the cauldron, and opened my mouth. Like a sick child being force-fed castor oil, I waited till the ladle brushed my lips.

The lie smelled like happiness, but tasted like the bitter bile of failure and held the cloying stench of death. I forced my eyes open and clasped the ladle, gulping the vile brew out until it was gone.

In the cauldron, regular me and beautiful me were gone. Only the lie looked back at me, blinking when I did not, grinning a toothy grin.

“I reject you.” I spat the words out, letting tears join them as I refused the Black Queen’s offer. The lie screamed, clawing at the surface of the water. I jerked away. Could it break the surface?

“Hurry,” Ari hissed. “I can’t hold it long. Choose the truth, or live someone else’s lie the rest of your life.”

I put my hands on the cauldron and leaned over, staring back at it. “I reject you. You are not me, or any part of me.” In my mind, I forced memories of my true face. My true eyes and ears and lips.

As each took form, the lie shrieked again like I’d stabbed it with a fondue fork. It thrashed, making the surface of the cauldron bubble and boil, but the longer I held to the truth, the weaker it became. I shut my eyes as the false image of me began to bleed into the cauldron, staining Ari’s brew a foul crimson.

“That’s it.” Ari put a hand on me, and I opened my eyes. The cauldron showed a ragged, bloody lump of flesh, like a placenta, writhing at the bottom. Then I caught a glimpse of myself, the outline.

I hadn’t changed back.