Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] (21 page)

“I’m starting to think your family had the right idea wanting to sacrifice you.”

They stared at each other. She broke first, showing a half smile in spite of her best efforts to remain stony. “Yeah, well. You fucked that up. In a manner of speaking.”

Shane snorted. “Where have you taken us, you crazy woman?” He tried for nasty, but his tone made it sound endearing. He was failing on every level, and this chick was turning him into a big old softhearted mess. This was terrible.

“We’re near the gateway. It’s over there.” She pointed.

To a Bath & Body Works.

“Are you shitting me?” He stared at her, doubting her sanity. Certainly she was playing a trick on him. Some sort of druid hazing ritual. “You’ve
got
to be shitting me.”

“Sir, I shit you not.”

“I think I hate you.”

Siobhan smirked. “It’s not actually the store. The store is just an entry point.” She took his hand and dragged him towards the building.

“Am I going to throw up again?”

“Probably not.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s comforting,” Shane said with a groan.

“Hey, if you want comfort, get a Snuggie.
Sweetheart
.” She opened the door, and before he could protest she yanked him through.

Instead of being bombarded with the smell of fruit-scented candles and hand sanitizers, Shane walked headlong into a peach-colored fog. His hand tightened on Siobhan’s reflexively, and she squeezed back, passing assurances without words.

The air was warm and glittery, the sparkly haze made him uneasy, but the heat comforted him and cast a drowsy spell over his senses, subduing the edge of worry. The atmosphere itself was lulling him into a false sense of security.

Shane blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings, but as soon as he thought he understood the weird pastel environment, it had vanished. What was on the other side wasn’t soothing at all and gave him no illusions of comfort and safety.

They were on the edge of a circle of elder trees, standing between two of the big trunks and looking into a clearing in the middle where a large stone slab was mounted on two smaller slabs. A group of men in thick black cloaks was struggling with a slender, tall blonde who could have been a Sears catalog model if not for her librarian-style glasses. What was with all the hot virgins? If all the so-called pure girls looked like this virgin sacrifice and Siobhan, Shane would have to reconsider his stance on deflowering them. For the sake of humanity, of course.

“Let me
go
, you freaks.” She wrested one hand free and landed a punch squarely inside the hood of the man nearest her. For such a skinny thing, she had a
lot
of fight in her.

Shane was guessing girls in New York were a lot tougher now than they’d been the last time these guys had tried to sacrifice one. Unfortunately for this spitfire she was outnumbered, and their surprise at her fervor was short-lived. It didn’t matter how tough you were, getting coldcocked over the back of the head with a stone knife hilt was going to knock you out. The girl went limp and was positioned on the large gray slab.

The men set about ripping her clothes off, tossing her jeans and sweater to the ground. Shane couldn’t watch anymore.

“Hey, Red. Got any bright ideas here? Otherwise I’m just going to start shooting them all.”

“You can’t.” Siobhan shook her head, but her gaze was focused raptly on the scene before them.

“I have two guns here saying I can.”

“No, you don’t get it.” She directed his attention to a white ring around the ceremony site. “They’ve already sealed themselves in.” To prove her point she threw a twig at the clearing. The branch bounced off an invisible barrier and came flying back towards them while a wave of energy shimmered in the wake of the assault. “Now imagine what would happen with a bullet.”

Shane whistled.

“So what’s our plan of action here?”

Siobhan looked at him and bit her lower lip. “How much blood are you willing to let me have?”

As far as weird requests went, Siobhan knew this would probably stand out as a memorable one for Shane.

“My…blood?” he asked, his voice quavering. “What are you going to do with my blood?”

“They’re inside an unbreakable circle,” she said.

“And?”

“That circle is directly on top of the gate.”

He looked like he was itching to reach for a weapon. “
And
?” Clearly he was still stuck on the whole
give me your blood
thing.

“If nothing can get in, nothing can get out. Not until the ritual is complete or the circle is broken.”

Shane didn’t bother saying
and
this time.

Siobhan sighed. “They are standing on top of a gateway to a dimension full of monsters. And they. Can’t. Get. Out.”

His eyes widened as he caught up to her thought train. “You’re going to open the gate.”

“Yes.”

“What about the girl?”

Siobhan looked at her replacement who was passed out cold and stripped bare on the altar. “The high council are cowards at the core. They’ll open the circle to save themselves, and if we do this right, we’ll be able to get in and grab her before whatever comes out has a chance to get her first. It’s the only way we’re getting over that line.”

Shane whistled again, a low, impressed sound. “You’ve got bigger balls than I do.”

Pulling her knife out, she tried to lighten the mood. “I think we both know that’s not true.” She held out her empty hand, and he gave her his arm with only the slightest hesitation.

“Try not to kill me,” he warned.

“Try not to die,” she countered before she slit open his arm.

Behind every beautiful shoe is a sexy shoemaker…

Sex and the Single Princess

© 2012 Bonnie Dee and Marie Treanor

Fairytale Fantasies, Book 4

Will Shoemaker works his fingers to the bone to make quality footwear worthy to grace the feet of the king’s six daughters. But recently his one-of-a-kind creations have been coming back to him in tatters.
 

Determined to find out what is destroying his shoes—and threatening his position as royal cobbler—Will follows the princesses and discovers they’re dancing their nights away in a fairy world. The princess with the fastest feet is Iris, whom he has long loved from afar.
 

With an arranged marriage looming in her future, Iris wrings as much pleasure as possible out of her last days of freedom. Yet even as she whirls in the arms of an elven prince, she dreams of the lowly cobbler and fantasizes that it’s his work-roughened hands on her delicate skin.
 

In a magical realm where anything is possible, Will and Iris shatter all barriers between them and find the ultimate fantasy—love—in each other’s arms. But there’s betrayal and treachery afoot...and it’s poised to destroy everything on both sides of the veil. Including any chance of happily ever after for Iris and Will.

Warning: Contains sexy shoe fittings, handsome elf princes and a whole lot of dancing, political intrigue, swordfights and sex. You may never look at shoes the same way again.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Sex and the Single Princess:

Iris wore a gown of her signature deep, iris blue. It was cut low at the neck as was suitable for evening dress, and hung in full, luxurious folds from the gathering under her breasts. She looked more stunning than Will had ever seen her. Distant in her glamorous ball gown and formally dressed hair, as a princess should be, and yet with a glow of excitement in her dark eyes, in the delicate flush of her soft cheeks that made her irresistible. Will couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Her shoes, fine, elegant slippers which he’d considered a masterpiece, were showing sad signs of wear. There was staining at the side, and the heel appeared worn enough to have been danced on for an average lifetime. He’d better have finished the new kid shoes by tomorrow night. If he was still here tomorrow night.

Iris, Dahlia and Rose went to the side of Iris’s bed and, much to Will’s surprise, began to shove at it with all their strength. It was obviously heavy, for it shifted very slowly until the other three joined in as well, and then it slid much more easily across the floor to lie several feet forward into the middle of the room and half across the bed next to it.

Iris bent and felt the floor with her hands until she found the purchase she sought. Then she lifted a floorboard. Will heard the creak of it coming free, though he couldn’t see what she was doing until Pansy moved. Iris stood and pressed on something under the floorboard with her foot.

Before his eyes, part of the wall behind the bed began to disappear. It didn’t make a noise, just slid away with the ease of frequent use. With quick smiles at each other, the princesses walked into the dark hole in the wall.

Will closed his mouth. He’d been right. There really was a secret passage. He rose to his feet, stretching his aching muscles, and emerged warily. One of them could come back. Or he could follow too closely and be seen. On the other hand, he didn’t want the door shutting behind them in case it took him ages to find how to open it again.

He sprinted across the room and followed the princesses into the wall.

Inside, the only light was from the bedroom lamps behind him, and when he rounded the first corner, he didn’t even have that. He had to feel his way around the stone walls of the tunnel, isolated in the enveloping blackness. He had no idea how far ahead of him the princesses were, for they moved silently in their dancing slippers, and for once, they’d stopped talking. Only their perfume wafted back to him. Among it, he was sure he could pick out Iris’s—light, spicy, intriguing.

And then he trod on something that resisted. He leapt back at the sound of a female yelp.

“What is it?” came another voice. “Honey? What’s the matter?”

“Someone grabbed my gown! I felt it!”

“Don’t be silly, Honey,” said Iris’s voice. “You just caught the gown on a rough bit of stone. Come on, hurry! I
really
want to dance tonight.”

Will didn’t allow himself to breathe until he was sure they’d all moved on. Then, determined not to be distracted again, he walked carefully onward. The tunnel wound downward in a spiral shape that left him totally disoriented. Ahead, a creaking sound, like a large hinge, brought him up short. A shaft of moonlight shone into the passage, revealing the outlines of the six princesses ahead of him. Although he flattened himself against the wall, he needn’t have bothered. None of the princesses so much as glanced behind them, just hurried eagerly outside. They didn’t even shut the door.

Will followed more slowly until he too stood outside under the moonlight.

Moonlight. The clouds had been thick and stormy only minutes ago, obscuring pretty much all the natural light of the night sky. He’d noticed from the princesses’ window. So how come the heavens were now scattered with the glow of a million stars and a bright, full moon?

He looked quickly about him. This was undoubtedly the king’s palace, although he’d never seen it from this angle before. In fact, turning, he couldn’t recognize any of the landscape before him. Where were the formal gardens? The distant hills? Instead, there was a path leading to what seemed to be a lake.

No. There was no lake near the palace. There was a narrow stream and an ornamental fish pond, but that was as much water as he’d ever seen within miles of the place.

The princesses were hurrying along the path in the direction of the lake. Something was wrong about that too. They weren’t wearing cloaks, only their thin ball gowns with naked arms and shoulders and chests. They should have been freezing, but their hurry clearly had nothing to do with the cold. Will himself wasn’t cold. This place was as balmy as a midsummer’s night though it was still early spring. And the ground wasn’t damp. It was dry, a little stony in places. It would, he thought, be doing a lot of damage to thin-soled dancing slippers.

Will followed the princesses, keeping well back out of sight. The night was incredibly beautiful, the moon’s rays shining silver onto the tree at the start of the path. But as he drew closer, he realized with amazement that the tree
was
silver.

Pausing, he reached up in wonder to touch the silver leaves. Surely a trick of the light… But no, both branches and leaves were silver, tinkling under his fingernails when he tapped them.

Oh no…

He knew he’d crossed into the magical world. There could be no other explanation for this. He feared for the princesses, for himself. He didn’t want magic touching his life. He wanted to live in his own world, with his own talents, his own drive and hard work. He almost turned back then.

But if he did, he’d never know where the princesses went and what, besides this path, ruined their shoes so badly. He’d never be able to save his position at the court or prove he wasn’t to blame for the princesses’ ridiculously expensive shoe habit.

So, he broke a twig off the tree, running the gauzy, silver leaves through his fingers before stuffing it into his pocket, his proof of the princesses’ nocturnal jaunt, and walked on down the path.