Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince (6 page)

Rachel saw it then.

It had become an expression she’d been able to recognize in an instant as a result of her years around Alex. Back then, Rachel had simply thought that dead eyed devotion that filled the eyes of most men when they came in contact with Rachel was just further proof that the male population were sex-crazed idiots, but ever since her run in with
Zaran she’d begun to understand that Alex hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d claimed that her influence over men was a curse. Chris had the same expression on his face as countless men before him, but Rachel knew that unlike Alex, the mermaid had purposefully set her talons into Chris. A suspicion that was confirmed when the mermaid grinned wolfishly at them both, rows and rows of razor sharp teeth a testament to her capacity for destruction and violence. Then, without a sound, the mermaid sunk beneath the surface of the water, disappearing from sight.

“Shit,” Rachel cursed as she lunged forward, her heart in her throat. She grabbed Chris by the hair and jerked him away just as the mermaid broke through the water. Her teeth snapped on empty air rather than Chris’s head. Rachel swallowed a scream as the mermaid snarled at them before flipping back beneath the waves, her tail sending up a plume of water. Rachel could see the surface of the water rippling outward in rings as the woman swam in circles about their lily pad. Circling them again and again, like a bodacious shark. Rachel turned Chris so that he could look at her. His face was still slack and dreamy and she cupped his cheeks between her hands and shook him, glancing nervously over her shoulder every other second to try and keep the mermaid’s location in the forefront of her mind.

“Chris,” she said, clearing her throat when she realized just how strained and panicked she sounded. “Chris? You need to snap out of it,” she told him fiercely. He grinned at her like an idiot and Rachel felt her frustration spike. She didn’t plan on kissing him. It just happened. She couldn’t think of anything else to do, and before she could order her body any differently, she was pulling him forward and capturing his lips with her own. The first thing she noted was how good it felt to taste him. To slide her tongue between the firm line of his lips and pull him flush against her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her back arched into his chest as she pressed into him. Angling her head so that she could enjoy the heated strength that seemed so much a part of who he was. Honestly, she forgot why she’d been kissing him until he started to respond to her advances.

One second, he was a statue against her and the next, he was consuming her and growling so that she tasted his hunger like candy on her taste buds as his tongue thrust deep within the cavern of her mouth. Her body grew hot and fevered and her arms tightened around
his neck. But then the lily pad began to rock dangerously beneath them. Rachel pulled away from Chris’s touch just as the mermaid rocketed into the edge of the lily pad like a torpedo. Flipping their craft over onto its side and sending the both of them beneath the cold, wet depths.

Rachel had only learned to swim because someone had teased her once about how no black person could. She’d been offended by the assumption that she was falling within some type of stereotype and had set out to prove the assertion wrong, but she had never liked being beneath the water.
Had never liked the idea of the ground being so far out of her reach. As a result, she could swim, but not well. There was still a sense of panic about the process that made her flounder when she should relax. Immediately after they were capsized, she found herself spinning beneath the water like a top. Unable to tell which way was up and which was down. Terror seized her and she twisted before she remembered to follow the trail of the air bubbles.

Rachel broke the surface with a gasp, legs moving furiously to keep
herself afloat. She   could see Chris floundering a few feet away and she swam towards him. Her hands brushed his before ropy strands of green hair slithered around his throat and pulled him under the water. Rachel took a deep breath and went in after him. The water stung her eyes, but didn’t prevent her from seeing the mermaid in all her fury. Her hair had come loose from its braid and Rachel reared back as the strands whipped through the water. Not hair, but a writhing mass of snakes, their eyes just as black and pitiless as those of their mistress. They wrapped around Chris, dragging them in the mermaid’s wake as she swam deeper and deeper. If Rachel didn’t act quickly, Chris would be dragged into the black depths and there would be no saving him.

Rachel swam to him, dodging the coiling green snakes that bit and hissed at her as she fought to get past them. One of them managed to bite her and she cried out before she remembered that she couldn’t afford to lose the air. She slid past the scaly guards and grabbed
onto Chris just as the mermaid’s momentum would have pulled him past her. Wrapping her legs around his waist freed up her hands so that she could try and pull the snakes from around his neck. Her nails bit into their thick skin, and she gritted her teeth and tugged with all of her strength until she’d managed to drag them away. The problem was that as soon as she got rid of some, dozens more would swoop in to take their place. Rachel could feel her lungs straining as her air began to run out and her struggle with the snakes became frenzied.

Chris managed to work one of his arms free from the serpents that had coiled around his waist, and he helped her as best he could, but it was all too obvious that they wouldn’t be able to fight them all off. Not before the mermaid managed to pull him to the floor of the lake. Not before
they both ran out of air.

Not before they died.

She should leave him.

There went that thought again.

It would be the sensible thing to do. The mermaid didn’t seem interested in her, after all. She could just float back to the surface and get away while the creature was distracted with Chris. But the same thing that had kept her with him so far kept her right where she was.

Black spots danced in her vision and she almost missed the look of horror that crossed Chris’s face as he looked over her shoulder. Rachel turned to find that the mermaid had turned to investigate. Her face was twisted in an inhuman rage and she reached out
taloned claws for the two of them as she covered the distance. She must have realized that something was trying to help her prey get loose, so she’d glanced back to see what was going on. Feeling desperate, Rachel reached into her pocket. Their pack had been tossed into the water and had sunk to the bottom a long time ago. She didn’t have a weapon on her and her hands wouldn’t do much good against the butcher knives mer-girl was sporting as nails. So, unable to think of another alternative, Rachel grabbed for the fairy dust in her pocket. 

She struggled with the string closing the pouch for precious seconds, and just as she felt claws brush through her curly mass of hair, the leather sack parted and glittering particles drifted up from its mouth to surround her in a cloud. Her lungs, already pushed past their breaking point, finally gave up the ghost and she opened her mouth in an instinctive search for oxygen. Instead water rushed in. Darkness stole over her and Rachel knew no more.

***

When Chris finally opened his eyes he was glad to find the water gone as well as all the creatures that had
come with it. The maze was back to normal, if much soggier than before and he groaned as he sat up, his back wet with mud. His body ached like a bitch and he glanced over to find Rachel passed out face first in the dirt. He cursed softly and went to her, turning her over onto her side. He lifted her arm over her head to help her breathe easier and after a few strong pats of his hand against her side, Rachel choked as the water she swallowed came back up in a rush. She turned over to vomit up the remaining contents of her stomach. Chris’s eyes went to the pouch she still clutched and his mouth tightened. Given their earlier conversation, he had a suspicion about what might be in the small bag. But he couldn’t think of how she could have possibly gotten her hands on fairy dust. Especially such a generous amount of the stuff.

Unless she wasn’t the victim she’d made herself out to be. She could be an undercover Widow.
Or even under contract with a demon, selling her soul in return for a handful of wishes. He couldn’t come up with another reason why she would have an item used primarily by black magic users. She didn’t seem evil, but Chris had been tricked before. When his stepmother, Danielle, had first come into his life he’d thought her a good woman. And what had he gotten in return for his blind faith?

A dead father and a curse he couldn’t break.

Common sense told him not to trust her.

Experience told him not to trust her.

But somehow…he did.

It was strange, stupid even, but he couldn’t help himself. How could someone who smelled so sweet, who tasted so good, and fit so perfectly against him, be evil? It didn’t add up. He should be able to taste the rot in her soul on his tongue when he kissed her, but the only thing that came to mind when their lips were
pressed together was how hungry he was for more. For all of her.

Maybe evil had always felt that good. He’d just never had a chance to find that out until recently. Until he knew what sort of game she was playing, he’d have to be on guard. If she was a Widow, then chances were good that she was working with Danielle somehow in a bid to get him back. A convoluted plan, but not so much so that it was beyond the realm of possibility. He couldn’t think of a reason why another Widow would want to get their hands on him, but he couldn’t ignore the idea. Either way, he was stuck with her until they escaped the maze. The trip would allow him to keep an eye on her until he knew her motives. At least that way she wouldn’t be able to betray him when his back was turned.

His hands were gentle as he helped her get to her feet. He found his fingers lingering when they shouldn’t have, his mind going back to the kiss that had pulled him from the mermaid’s thrall. It was enough to make him cup her chin in his hand, his eyes searching her face as his thumb passed over the line of her jaw. She looked bedraggled, pale from hacking back up all of that water. He thought she was lovely. His head lowered and his blood began to rush and her eyes widened in panic before she took a step back. Distancing herself from him in more ways than one as she dropped her gaze and folded her arms before her.

“We should go,” she said abruptly.

“But-” Chris shook his head. She was in no shape to travel, but if she wanted to be stubborn he’d let her. For now. “Fine.”

He spotted their pack a few feet off and went to pick it up. They’d ended up in the
center of the circular clearing. All around them were different corridors, and Chris picked one at random with a shrug of his shoulders. He could hear Rachel panting as she tried to keep up with him, and despite his irritation with her, he slowed his long legged stride to something she could match.

“It’s really impressive,” she said after a moment.

“What is?”

“That you can remember the way back,” she chuckled softly. “I would have ended up lost long before now.”

Oh. Shit.

“Yeah,” he began. “About that…” His voice trailed off, but when he looked at her she didn’t look surprised.
Simply smug.

“I knew it.”

“Well at least we’re getting somewhere,” he told her.

“But where?” she stressed. “We could be heading deeper into the maze for all you know.”

“Labyrinth.”

“What?”

“Technically, it’s a labyrinth.”

“Is David Bowie going to swing his hips and sing to me?”

“Uh…no?”

“Then it’s a maze,” she said, an air of finality to her words that made him wary of questioning her on the point any further. “It doesn’t really matter what we call it,” she continued, “We’re still lost.”

“What are you getting at?”

She stopped in her tracks, and Chris came to a halt as well, eyeing her suspiciously.

“How long did it take you to get through the first time?”

“A month,” he answered. She winced.

“Well, we could wander aimlessly for another month, or we could cheat a little and save ourselves some time.”

“How-?”
His mouth snapped shut when she sent a significant look towards the walls.

“No,” he said bluntly and Rachel snorted, walking over to the nearest behemoth as she answered.

“Why not?”

He didn’t respond and she could only assume that he didn’t have a comeback.

“Toss me some of the clothes from the pack,” she said, eyeing the wall and deciding that the climb wouldn’t be as bad as she’d imagined. Some of the vines were as thick as tree trunks while others were as thin and delicate as shoelaces. Without the flames engulfing them they seemed lifeless and cold, though the thorns that stuck out from every side provided their own level of threat. Chris pulled out a shirt he’d grabbed from one of the spare chambers in the castle and ripped it in half. She didn’t protest when he insisted on wrapping the material around the palms of her hands. It was nice being close to him. When he treated her so carefully, it was hard to forget that she had to keep her distance from him. As soon as he’d finished tying off the strips of shirt, Rachel licked her lips and turned to the wall.

She’d climbed walls before.

It had been a part of her regimen at the YMCA whenever she went to exercise. She was good at it. At least, she had been. If the last 24 hours had taught her anything, it was that she had lost a significant amount of stamina and muscle strength thanks to that damned spell. The wall wasn’t that high, she thought to herself. The only reason it looked taller was because the clouds were obscuring the top. She could make a climb like this in her sleep.

“What are you going to do once you get up there?”

“Wait for you.”

His brow rose. “Excuse me?”

“Look. Why travel down here when we can just walk along the top and find our way that much faster?”

He looked doubtful and she turned away from him in exasperation. Her plan would work. It had to. She wasn’t about to spend a month taking wrong turns only to end up god knew where. Moving forward, she gripped the first row of vines and pulled herself up off of the ground. She climbed
steadily, hand over hand, feet sliding into crevices and body straining.

“Rachel!” Chris’s voice reached her and she paused, looking down at him over her shoulder. “Come down from there!
Now!”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed at his tone, but when she tried to lift her leg to move higher, she found that she was
stuck. Rachel tugged at her leg, glancing down to see what she’d been snagged on. Only to realize that vines had begun to grow up around her leg. Yelping, Rachel fell back. The vines released her just as her fingers lost their grip and Rachel screamed as gravity took over and drug her down. There was a burst of sound, and then Chris was there, catching her in his arms. He landed in a crouch, clutching her close and she wrapped her arms around his neck as her heart beat a panicked rhythm.

“Did you just-?”

“You can take the man out of the frog, but not the frog out of the man,” he said mildly. Rachel laughed nervously, burying her face against his chest as she collapsed in a shaking mass of adrenaline in his arms.

***

They used the torn pieces of shirt from her hands to wrap up her leg where the thorns had torn into her skin through her jeans. The wounds were superficial, but Chris seemed reluctant to leave the small punctures alone. Something about not wanting the smell of blood to get into the air.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “It’s probably nothing, but that mermaid didn’t pay us a visit until after I snagged my finger on the vines.”

“It was just a coincidence,” Rachel told him weakly.

He eyed her as he continued wrapping her leg. “Maybe. But better safe than sorry.”

Rachel allowed it, a small smile blossoming on her face as she watched him fuss over her leg. It was as if he thought she was made of glass or something. His hands were so big.
Strong looking. There was something undeniably erotic about someone with his kind of power choosing to treat her with kindness rather than brute force. Or maybe she’d just gone to long without sex. When he’d tucked in the last half inch of material, he ran his hands down her calf and his touch made her shiver. He met her eyes from beneath his lashes and heat speared through her like a knife. She pulled her knees up to her chest, effectively taking her leg back, and he smiled slightly before getting to his feet.