Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) (6 page)

Becca threw her hands out toward him. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, she had a vague thought of hurling the magic wall at him. And it sort of worked.

The magic flew out from in front of her, hitting the beast full in the face. He roared again. Becca had been hoping for sounds of pain, but the roar sounded more irritated than pained. She searched around inside herself looking for more pure magic, but all she could feel flowing through her was her seething hatred. It would have to do. She grabbed onto it and tried to add it to the power flowing out of her. The magic sparked with darker purple, and she made the throwing motion with her hands again, sending the magic splashing against the beast’s front. This time she was rewarded with what sounded like a yelp of pain as he rolled away from her.

Becca paused. She had wanted to hurt Nicholas—the beast, she reminded herself—but now that she heard the pain-laden yelp and saw him recoiling, she floundered for just a moment, wondering if she had hit him too hard. The flow of magic to her protective wall stuttered as she stood, uncertain.

The beast took advantage of her indecision. As her magic wall flickered, he launched himself forward, head bent down. This time he didn’t stop and taunt her. Instead he hit her full in the chest. Becca felt all of the air leave her body and her tenuous grasp on her magic snap as she fell toward the floor.

The beast fell with her, landing on her with a thud. The only thing that saved her from being rendered unconscious was that one of his arms had ended up between her head and the floor. As he fell onto her, Becca wondered if it was possible to have the breath knocked out of you twice in less than a second. There was no air left to knock out. Her lungs struggled to inhale, but the weight of the beast on top of her was crushing. She was seeing stars, her vision blackening at the corners.

Becca heard the beast’s low, rumbling laughter. “So easy to deceive.”

She tried to struggle, beating her free hand against his broad chest, but the need for air was becoming desperate. He was everywhere around her, she couldn’t seem to get any purchase against the floor. The beast pushed himself up off of her, pulling her up with him by her arm. Becca gasped in air and her vision cleared, but all she could see was the beast’s hairy chest.

He was taking her somewhere, she could feel herself being moved, her arms pushed behind her. Her arms were twisted in an uncomfortable, though not quite painful, way. She could feel cool metal closing around her wrists. Becca fought for another lungful of air. He had handcuffed her!

“What the hell are you doing?”

“You won’t leave on your own, God only knows why, so I’m going to assist you, and I don’t want you throwing your stupid magic at me,” he growled as he stood on his hind legs and slung her over his shoulder. He started toward the large wooden door. Becca realized he was going to take her through to the front of the house and dump her outside.

“I need to get my stuff,” Becca protested as he loped through the house and down the hall toward the front door.

He laughed again, and Becca could feel it rumbling through him. “Should’ve thought of that before you meddled in things that aren’t any of your business.”

Becca rolled her eyes skyward, which was actually not skyward, but toward the floor. The blood was rushing to her head because of how she was draped, her bound arms jostling against her back. Her arms. She turned her attention to the handcuffs restraining her. She could feel the metal humming against her wrists; they were steel. It would have been easier if they’d been gold. She had an easier time with gold, and as she was currently dangling upside down, her concentration was a bit off, but she supposed it was too much to ask that the beast have a pair of solid gold handcuffs laying around. She concentrated on the cuffs, letting her mind wrap around them, encouraging the steel to talk to her.

The metal hummed, burning hotter and hotter against her wrists, and then she felt the click as the handcuffs opened. Becca grinned to herself. Nicholas had
so
underestimated her.

Becca waited until the last possible second. As the beast reached out to open the front door, she took advantage of the fact that one of his arms was otherwise engaged and the slight moment of imbalance as he reached out to push the door—she lifted her leg up as far as she could, and delivered a kick to his chest. She felt his intake of air as she connected with what she thought was a rib. The arm around her waist loosened for a split second and she leapt up, vaulting over his shoulder and scrambling down over his partially bent back—and ran. She could hear him growling and cursing behind her, but she didn’t stop to look over her shoulder. She could hear him coming after her.

Becca skidded to a halt in front of a sliding glass door that led out onto a patio and then onto the manicured lawn. She could see the garage and its flower-filled planters. She turned to face the beast.

He was crouched a few feet away from her, glowering at her from under lowered brows.

“What are you waiting for? Just leave me in peace.”

“I’m really getting tired of this whole “poor me, leave me alone” act of yours, Nicholas. You don’t deserve my help, but you’re gonna get it.”

“Why? Why not just go?” he growled.

“Because, I’m apparently a nicer person than you. Trust me, it has nothing to do with your charming personality. If I was more like you I suppose I’d just leave you here to rot.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing? Leaving?” He tossed his head, mane shaking wildly around him, toward the open sliding glass door.

“Nope,” Becca flashed him a smile as sardonic as any he’d ever bestowed, “what I’m doing is kicking your ass.”

The beast looked surprised, then crouched to spring at her again. As he leapt through the air, the violet plants tumbling into the room from the patio caught his hind legs, pulling him down. He only had time to roar in surprise as Becca’s flowers buried him, leaves and roots twining into a net around him.

He lay still on the floor, new blooms still unfurling all over the mass of plants that covered him. Becca walked up to the pile and nudged it with toe of her Converse. “Still alive in there, beast formerly known as Nicholas?” she asked, fake sweetness dripping from her voice.

The only answer was a low growl.

“Hmm. Well, this brat is going to go watch TV. I’m sure you’ll work yourself out of there eventually. You don’t want my help. I don’t honestly want to help you all that much, but I’m not going to let you, or whatever dark magic you brought with you, hurt me or my friends. Try to throw me out of this house again and I will make you extremely sorry. Do you understand me?”

This time there was no answer. Becca nudged the pile again, perhaps a bit harder than was strictly necessary.

“Fine,” he muttered.

“Have a good night, Nicholas.” Becca tramped over the mass of violets—there was no point in denying she wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible, though she doubted her weight was really hurting him—and headed off in the direction of the television.

~ Chapter Five ~

B
ECCA SPENT MOST
of the next morning rifling through the rest of Nicholas’s office. Her search yielded nothing other than an envelope with handwriting she recognized. Next up was the bedroom where she’d found his wallet. Either he hadn’t been living here long or he had strangely minimalistic taste.

A quick tour of the kitchen revealed mostly barren cupboards with only a few cans of soup and tuna, so around noon she ordered a pizza. She thought about driving out to get a burger but she though Nicholas would probably use the opportunity to try to lock her out again.
Not that he could,
she thought with a smirk.

She left the front door open as she trudged back down the long driveway. Hopefully the pizza guy wouldn’t stick around to watch her squeeze back through the iron gate, pizza in tow. That could be an awkward conversation.

She knew it was cold inside the house, she’d been wearing her hoodie all morning, but being outside brought home the stark difference in temperatures. While she waited for the delivery guy, she took off her hoodie and tied it around her waist. By the time she had her personal-sized pizza and twenty-ounce soda in hand, she was sweating. The soda didn’t even last the entire walk back to the house.

The cold air in the house felt good on her overheated skin for about the first two minutes, and then she started shivering.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered to herself as she slammed the pizza box on the kitchen counter. The temperature control unit on the kitchen wall stated it was fifty-five degrees. Becca put the temperature back at seventy-five. The house immediately got quiet—the air conditioning hadn’t been making all that much noise, but now that it wasn’t pumping out an arctic blast, even the steady hum was gone.

That much quiet was just too much quiet. Becca took her pizza into the media room. She found the game show network and settled into the large leather couch with her food. She knew she needed to call Alex and let her know where she was. But she’d been putting it off all morning; it couldn’t hurt to put it off until after she ate.

Unfortunately her pizza only had four small slices, which meant that “after she ate” was sooner rather than later. Becca pulled her phone out of her back pocket and stared at it, mentally preparing herself to call Alex.

“Hey, it’s Becca. No big deal or anything, but I found Nicholas and he’s been magically turned into some kind of creeptastic beast,” she muttered. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think this is going to over well.”

She groaned and tossed her phone to the other side of the leather couch and stared up at the game show. “What is quartzite?” she yelled at the blank-faced contestants.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she felt the well of magic inside her fizz to life before she heard the soft tread of Nicholas’s paw on the hardwood.

“You’re still here?” he growled.

“What is Dublin?” Becca didn’t look away from the television. “That seems obvious.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Nicholas toss his mane in what she took to be frustration.

“It really seems pointless to keep having the same conversation over and over.” She looked at him with a raised eyebrow before returning her attention to the TV. “What is Mohs scale of hardness?”

“Stop turning the heat up.”

“Turning the heat up? Are you kidding? I’m turning the air-conditioning down. There’s a forty degree difference between inside and outside the house.”

Nicholas bared his teeth, but she pretended not to notice. “And it’s
my
house. You won’t leave; would you at least stop messing with the air?”

“Dude, I’m cleaning up on Jeopardy right now. Can we save your king of the castle routine for later? What is
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
?”

“
All’s Well that Ends Well
,” Nicholas bit out.

Becca blinked at him. “What?”

“‘It were all one / That I should love a bright particular star / And think to wed it. He is so above me.’ It’s Helena speaking about Bertram in
All’s Well that Ends Well
.”

Becca’s mouth gaped open. “Oh, I was guessing Helena about Demetrius in
A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream
. I got the character’s name right at least.”

“You lost six hundred bucks.”

“
Pfft
. I killed all the questions in the Rocks & Minerals category. I’ve got thousands in the bank.”

Nicholas tossed his mane again. “Are you going to answer the question?”

“Which question? You’re talking over Trebek; I missed the last one.”

“About messing with the air.”

“I dunno. Give me a good reason to stop messing with it and I will.”

“I don’t need to give you a reason for anything! You’re in my house against my wishes and you’re acting like a brat.”

Becca whipped her head back around to Nicholas. “And here I thought I was trying to help you. In spite of your crappy attitude and behavior.” The power inside her chest was starting to simmer.

“You break into my house, screw around with my things, and you’re questioning
my
behavior?” His voice was outraged.

Becca jumped up off the couch, fisting her hands on her hips. “Of the two of us, I’m not the one who’s behavior got them turned into a beast.” Her magic was now boiling over from her chest and flowing through the rest of her body. She could actually see lavender sparks flitting through her vision. Why, why did she have to needle him? And why did she have to get such a perverse pleasure out of it?

“I should toss you out.”

Becca laughed at him. The power was roaring in her ears now. “I’d like to see you try…again.”

“Or maybe I should just call the school your little princess goes to and tell them she’s committing identity fraud.”

Rage raced through Becca. Her power seemed to feed off it and she had to struggle for a moment with control. “I could just as easily pick up a phone and have the police out here in two minutes. Don’t you think they might be interested if I mention there’s a…wild animal…running around the premises?”