Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (26 page)

“
Charlie!” Mina called out
to him through the smoke and flame. She could barely see him
through the wall of fire. She had to defeat the Stiltskin, and then
she had to save her brother and find a way back to her own
world.

She grabbed the shard of glass and ran back
to the Fae book. Teague had left the book unattended as he fought
the giant. Her eyes looked for him in the room, and she realized
that Teague as a Royal had morphed into a giant saber-tooth tiger
and was slashing the giant across the chest with his large claws.
The giant let out a long, painful roar, and she was distracted once
again. There she stood in front of the Fae book and she had it in
her hands, but she couldn’t pull herself away from the giant’s
plight.

The giant reached out and grabbed the
saber-tooth by the back of the neck, and flung it across the room.
The cat nimbly landed on his paws and then shape-shifted back into
the young handsome Teague, who looked winded and had a smear of
blood coming out of his mouth.

“
Very good, brother. I am
impressed. You have gotten stronger, but you are not strong
enough.”

Brother? The word made Mina’s knees weak
with relief. It couldn’t be—could it? He said he would never come.
That he couldn’t come. She couldn’t help herself; she yelled out
his name. “Jared!”

The giant’s head turned to her, his eyes
looking very human and every ounce Jared. He had one hand over a
deep wound in his side, and he was slowly falling to his knees. She
heard him call out her name—“Meehna!”—and then he fell forward onto
the marble. But when he finally crashed into the ground, he was
completely human and injured.

Teague danced over to his brother’s body and
kicked him in the stomach. Jared curled up into a ball, and then,
slowly, ever so slowly, he got back up to his feet. His hair was
tousled, his clothes torn, and even in his human form, the injuries
translated into large slashes crisscrossed across his chest and
face. And even though his brother taunted him, Jared never took his
eyes off her.

Her heart soared! He’d come for her! He
hadn’t abandoned her. She was going to have quite a few angry words
with him later, but for now, since her Jared was here, she knew
they would be all right.

Jared’s hands going up in the air and his
eyes widening in fright were Mina’s only warning that something was
wrong. She turned just as Temple’s ungloved hand reached for her
arm.

Her arm swung up, and she stabbed Temple in
the palm of the hand with the piece of the glass knife. Temple
screamed and stepped back, holding his bleeding hand. He stared at
the golden glass in horror and then at the blood that dripped from
the wound. It was first red, and then slowly, drip by drip, it
turned to gold. He pulled out the glass and dropped it in
shock.

“
No! No! What have you
done? How did you know?”

Mina stared at him without any sympathy. “A
deal made in blood that can only be broken by blood. Yours.”

“
How could you have come
by my blood?” He groaned in pain, trying to use his power to
reverse the effect of the magic that was turning his arm and
shoulder into gold. He was able to change it back for a second, but
then he would be overwhelmed and lose the ground he’d gained. He
was sweating and fighting it so hard. Mina knew he would lose the
battle.

“
You gave it to
me…freely.”

“
I would have done no such
thiii—” And he was gone. The most powerful Stiltskin encased in his
own golden curse. And she’d done it without the
Grimoire.

A loud screeching noise
came from the ceiling, and the phoenix flexed its wings and flew in
a giant circle.
Thank you for freeing
me
, the voice echoed in Mina’s head. The
bird flew over her head, making Teague duck for cover, and in a
wink of an eye, all of the flames in the room were gone. The bird
came to light on Teague’s book and looked at Mina with large solemn
eyes.

“
You’re welcome, but now
can you help me?” Mina turned to point to Nix, whose shoulder had
turned a deep purple color. He was gasping for each and every
breath. “They say that a phoenix’s tears can heal people. Is that
true?”

“
Yes, but even if I heal
him, he will still die on this plane.”

“
So there’s nothing you
can do?” Mina cried out. A warm arm wrapped around her shoulder,
and she could feel Jared coming to aid her.

“
No, there’s nothing I can
do. I am truly sorry,”
the bird said,
using tones of her mother’s anguished voice.
“But I thank you again for our freedom.”

“
Our?” Mina looked around,
confused.

“
Your bravery not only
freed me, it freed all of those entrapped by his malicious
deals.”
The phoenix’s voice became deeper,
more masculine. The timbre of the familiar voice made Mina go weak
in the knees. The voice of her father. The bird looked toward the
Stiltskin, who was surrounded by gold orbs that grew and grew until
they took the shape of their true form.

A small gold bubble phased into a young tree
nymph who looked around the room and took off running down the
hall. An even larger orb phased into a dazed and confused griffin.
Another released an ogre, a small fairy. One after another,
hundreds of orbs shifted, and Fae of all races and sizes began to
walk among each other, hugging one another and rejoicing in their
freedom. Then the most amazing thing happened as each and every one
of the freed Fae bowed toward Mina in respect.

Teague walked back and forth, his anger
spilling off him in waves. “No, no, no! You shouldn’t be bowing to
her—I’m the one who freed you. I sent the Stiltskin into her world
so she could defeat him. I’m the one who instigated the quest! You
should bow to me!”

The menagerie of freed slaves ignored Teague
and departed through all available exits, out of the broken
windows, the destroyed walls into the courtyard, and even into the
palace itself, eager to leave and not be enslaved again. The
phoenix called out to her in one truly earsplitting scream of joy
and then vanished into the night.

But there was one golden orb left. It was
the last to be released and the slowest to be freed. The final orb
floated farther away from her, to the middle of the floor, and
slowly phased into the form of a man who looked familiar. It
couldn’t be…could it?

He looked confused, dazed, and stumbled over
a broken column. His dull brown hair and small moustache couldn’t
hide the wide fear-ridden brown eyes as the man stared at the
Stiltskin statue in horror.

“
No, it can’t be,” Mina
choked out and froze, her hand going to her heart as she tried to
call out his name. She hadn’t seen him in almost nine years, so she
couldn’t be certain, was too scared in case she was wrong. Mina
tried to say something, but his name died on her lips, barely a
squeak. “Father?”

But he was gone; he made his escape, like
the others, into the night. She was about to run after him into the
Fae world, but she couldn’t—not yet. She had a duty here…now. A
quest to finish, and she couldn’t be sure it was him. Maybe she
only imagined it was him because the phoenix had just spoken to her
using his voice.

“
Come on, Mina,” Jared’s
soft voice whispered into her ear. His arm wrapped around her and
she buried herself in his embrace.

“
You came?” She started to
cry soft, silent tears.

“
I’m not supposed to come
back. My mother the Queen forbade it—she said it was too dangerous
for me here. So I was banished to your world, never to cross over,
for fear of my life.”

“
Why did you come? I-I
thought you were angry at me for coming, and you said you wouldn’t
follow.” She started to hiccup.

Jared’s gray eyes bored into hers. His face
filled with emotion, and his own eyes looked to be just as
tear-filled. “Do you really not know the reason why I came? I came
back for you. I’ll always come back for you.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. His
nearness tickled her senses, and she couldn’t help but hold him
even tighter. Jared gently tipped Mina’s chin up, and he leaned
down to press his lips to hers in a soft kiss that quickly turned
into desire. So many pent-up emotions and unsaid words spilled out
between them in a kiss to top all kisses. Never before had she lost
all sense of time and place as her lips sought after those of her
protector, her friend and her Fae prince. All thoughts of Brody
disappeared as her world encompassed Jared and Jared only.

He pulled away, and he was visibly shaking
from the intensity of their kiss. “Mina, I want you to know that
I’ve felt alone for a very long time. I was incomplete, and nothing
could fill that void. Until I met you. I’ve known for a long time,
but I wasn’t sure how you felt about me. At times I thought you
hated me, but I wanted to tell you that I, uh, Mina, I
lo—aaaarrgh!”

Jared’s body tensed up in pain, and he fell
away from her. Mina tried to grab him and pull him close, but
something stabbed her in the side. She looked down and saw her
torso covered with blood, but it wasn’t hers. She looked up to see
a large knife sticking out of Jared’s stomach. Teague stood behind
him with his hand wrapped around Jared’s throat, his eyes
glittering evilly.

Chapter 26

Jared’s eyes were squeezed shut in pain, but
he refused to make a noise.

“
Teague, no, let him go,��
Mina begged. Jared’s eyes opened wide, and he shook his head from
side to side, telling her to keep quiet.

“
That’s right. Mother
dearest sent him to the human world to keep him from me.” He still
had the knife inside Jared, and he hadn’t pulled it out yet. That
knife was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out. “She knew
how much I needed him,” Teague raged wildly.

“
I don’t understand!” Mina
cried out, her hands clenched at her side in anger.

“
It’s easy, Mina. I want
power! I want you to finish more quests so I become more powerful.
Use the book. Use my book to entrap them all.” Teague giggled
madly. He was becoming unstable. She could see him flinching and
blinking like an addict searching for his next fix.

“
I can’t,” she
whispered.

“
Yes, you can. It’s easy.
It’s the same as your book. Just open its pages and finish the
tale.”

Mina slowly walked through the rubble of the
room, toward the podium. She kept glancing between Charlie, who was
being very brave and watching from inside his cage, to Jared, whose
face had now broken out in a sweat. He was doing his very best to
stay calm and not worry her, but his eyes kept flicking to her
brother.

Why would Teague want to hurt Jared? Why
would he need her to use the Fae book? Was it all part of his giant
plan to gain more power? Why was Jared so worried about
Charlie?

“
Not until you release my
brother,” Mina said firmly. She knew that no matter what happened,
he needed to be safe.

Teague’s eyes narrowed, and he wiggled the
knife inside Jared, who groaned and bit his lip to keep from crying
out.

Mina stood tall, the tears still coming, but
she refused to waver. “LET MY BROTHER GO! I defeated your quest! I
want my brother, now!”

“
Very well.” Teague waved
his finger, and the lock clicked off Charlie’s cage. The small boy
ran to Mina and clutched her around the waist. Mina knew that now
was not the time to be distracted again. She pulled Charlie with
her and looked upon the Fae book for the very first
time.

She had been told that at one time there was
only one book, and that a Fae had split the book in two: one with
the power for good, the other for evil, and that whatever quest or
tale the Grimms completed on the physical plane, it would magically
appear in the Fae book. Here she had the chance to look upon it
with her own eyes, and she gasped.

The Fae book was definitely filled with the
same stories as hers, but this one was filled with picture after
picture of Jared. She couldn’t help but flip backward a few pages
and see magical images come to life: of Jared defending her in an
alley. Sitting in art class with Mina, spinning on the pottery
wheel. There was another one of Jared by the lake, teaching her to
fight. Jared and her in the storage room, laughing, before their
tickling fight. She flipped forward and saw the last page filled
with a motion-captured image of Jared and her sharing a kiss.

“
What is this?” There was
something terribly wrong, a feeling deep in the pit of her stomach
that this wasn’t right. It wasn’t the same as the pictures in her
Grimoire.

“
Use the Fae book and
finish the quest, Mina. Or I’ll kill Jared.”

“
Mina, don’t do it. Just
take your brother and run,” Jared hissed as his brother squeezed
more tightly around his throat.

“
I can’t get back, Jared.
I never figured out how to get back on my own.”

Jared’s gaze flickered down to his pocket,
and one hand slowly reached down to pull something out of it. It
was small and silver, and it fit in the palm of his hand. “I had to
go to the old biddies and have them fix it, but it’s yours. It
should have always been yours.” He flung the seam ripper as hard as
he could toward Mina, and he screamed as Teague pulled the knife
out at the same time. Jared collapsed on the ground, holding his
side, and slowly his fingers turned red with blood.

The seam ripper came to rest by her boot.
Charlie picked it up in his hands and stood protectively by Mina’s
side.