Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (25 page)

Holy crap! Tor came back with me!

I shot straight up to my feet and jumped off
the bed, running over the clothes and shoes on the floor, my head
whirling but I ignored it, praying I wouldn’t pass out.

Of course, I didn’t make it to the door. I
was caught with an arm at my waist and pulled back into a hard
body. I struggled, Tor’s other arm locked around my shoulders and
chest, caging me in and his mouth went to my ear.

“Calm yourself,” he said quietly.

“
Let go of me!
” I shrieked.

“Calm yourself, love.”

“Let… me…
go!
” I yelled, still
struggling.

He let me go but only so he could put his
hands to my hips, whirl me around and step into me in a way that I
had no choice but to back up until I hit wall and then his body
fenced me in.

I tipped my head back to scream in his face
but his tender voice got there before me.

“You’ve sustained a head injury not to
mention a variety of bruises and swelling. You need to rest.”

“And
you
need to step back.”

“Cora, I’ll step back when you promise to
lie down, not get excited and rest.”

“How did you get here?” I snapped.

“I’ve no idea.”

“What happened?” I asked, forcing my hands
between are bodies and pushing against his chest, to no avail so I
gave up and went on. “The last thing I remember is losing
consciousness.”

He nodded. “You did. I picked you up,
carried you to our rooms. Perdita and the women from the kitchens
had come out; they heard us arguing and saw your fall. Algernon was
there as well and I sent him to fetch my physician. One of the
women got you ice for a bump on your head. I was holding you in my
arms and the ice on your head when Algernon and my physician
arrived. The next thing I knew, your entire body was surrounded by
a blue mist, it surrounded mine with yours and then we were in
that,” his head gave a small jerk backwards, “bed.”

I stared up at him. “A blue mist?”

“A blue mist.”

“What blue mist?” I asked.

“I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen anything like
it.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“So we didn’t disappear when I passed
out?”

“No.”

Weird.

I turned my head, looked down at myself and
saw I was wearing the stretchy, cotton charcoal gray nightie with
the dusty pink band at the top that I’d been wearing the last night
I went to sleep in my world.

Then I looked to him. “Where’d you get your
clothes? Did you wake up in those?”

“No,” he gave another jerk of his head and I
saw his clothing from his world, including boots, dumped in a
corner. “These were in your wardrobe which, sweets, is incredibly
small.”

Clothes that fit him perfectly were in my
closet?

Oh man. I didn’t think that was good.

“As is your whole dwelling,” he went on.
“It’s also filthy. You cleaned a cave. How on earth do you live
like this?”

“Well,
Tor,
I haven’t been living in
my
dwelling
for two months, now, have I?” I asked snottily
then demanded, “Move away.”

“Cora –”

I gave another shove of my hands, doing it
with such effort it hurt my head (and my, I belatedly realized,
aching muscles) but he rocked back an inch.

Then he came right back. “Not until you
promise you’ll settle down and rest.”

“I’ll promise to settle down and rest if
you’ll get, the
fuck
, away from me!” I screeched.

His head tilted and his chin went down just
as his eyes closed slowly and, God’s honest truth, he looked in
pain.

It proved to be true when he opened his eyes
and locked them with mine.

Yep, he was in pain. Lots of it.

Ouch.

Man, it totally sucked that I could hate
him, see his pain and hurt for him.

Then his hand came to my neck and I had
nowhere to go so I couldn’t pull away.

“Please, listen to me,” he said softly.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Get it over with so I
can go to bed and let the aspirin work.”

“The what?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just say whatever you
have to say.”

His jaw clenched then his thumb started
stroking the side of my neck. That was when my jaw clenched and I
glared at him.

“Is it normal, in this world, this… travel
between worlds?” he asked.

“No,” I bit out.

“Do you know anyone it’s happened to?”

“No,” I repeated shortly.

“No one?”

“No,” I replied. “Get to the point.”

“Me either,” he said quietly, “until
you.”

Oh shit. I saw his point and that
sucked.

When he said no more, I prompted, “Is that
all?”

“My love,” his thumb moved up to stroke my
jaw as his face got even closer, “it was fantastical what you were
saying. You have to agree.”

“No I don’t,” I denied.

“Put yourself in my place,” he urged.

“Yes, well, sure, for an hour, maybe a day,
I’ll give you a week,” I stated sarcastically. “I can put myself in
your place and maybe the Cora of your world could pull something
like that off for that period of time. I’ll give you that.”

“My sweet –”

“But we had
two months
together. I
saw the damage she wrought on your staff and the entirety of
Bellebryn. I know she was idiot enough to spurn your love. I can
look around my house and see what she’s capable of. But you can’t
tell me that she’s capable of carrying off
that
kind of
deception for
that
long. When I arrived, everything about
her had changed, I hope.
Everything.
Even the way she
slept.
And you cannot tell me that you covered my body with
yours, moved inside me, looked in my eyes while you fucked me and
didn’t know the
bloody
difference.”

Shit. Now I was using
his
curse
words.

But it worked. I scored a hit. I saw the
pain slash through his eyes.

“I wanted to believe –” he started.

“Well, you didn’t. I baked you a
fucking
cake because it was the only thing I had to give you
on your birthday, I wanted to give you a part
of me
and I
got to your study and heard –”

“Don’t,” he clipped tersely.

“Yes, you know what I heard,” I
whispered.

His hand slid up to cup my jaw, his other
hand joining it on the other side.

“Take your hands off me.” I was still
whispering.

He didn’t. He dropped his forehead to mine
and started talking.

“Think about it, love, please,” he urged
softly.

“Think about what? How, while I was falling
in love with
you
, you were playing
me?
”

“You love me,” he told me.

“Not anymore, I don’t,” I returned and I
watched his eyes smile.

“You can’t fall out of love just like
that.”

“Trust me, Tor,
you can.
”

He lifted his forehead from mine and swept
his thumb across my lips. I tried to tear my face away but his
fingers simply gripped tighter.

“You can’t. I know. I fell in love with her
and it isn’t that easy. I know this because I tried.”

“Well, I’m not you,” I spat.

“No, thank the gods, you aren’t.” And his
eyes were smiling as his lips twitched.

I looked at the ceiling then back at him.
“Will you let me
go?
” I demanded impatiently.

“Yes, I will, in a moment.”

“Now!”

“A moment, Cora,” he stated firmly, I glared
and he continued. “I will leave you to rest, you need some time
away from me. I’ll give it to you.”

Really? How was he going to do that? Where
was he going to go?

Oh Lordy, he’d probably walk in front of a
car or…

“But, I’ll leave you with this,” he
interrupted my thoughts. “If you have a twin in my world then it is
safe to assume that there is a man in this world who looks like me.
And if he was in your life, if you fell in love with him the
instant you saw him, if you were convinced by a prophesy written in
the sky that he carried half your soul, just like every prophesy
that came true generation after generation for as long as anyone
could remember… and then he crushed your heart… then I was brought
into this world and I was charming, amusing, seducing you with
every turn of my head, every look, every smile, every move I made,
telling you fantastical stories about how I came from another
world, what would you think? What would you do?”

“I didn’t seduce you!” I cried.

“Cora, love,” he whispered, “you’re seducing
me right now.”

That
shut me up
and
it made my
heart clench.

“Think about that,” he said quietly then he
let me go and stepped toward the door.

I watched him go and I knew I couldn’t watch
him go.

Damn it all to hell!

I turned and called out to him (really, I
had no choice), “Where are you going?”

He stopped in the doorway and looked at me.
“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Wherever my feet take me.”

Shit!

I turned fully to him and crossed my arms on
my chest. “Tor, you can’t go out in my world without me. Things are
different here.
Vastly
different. You might get… hurt, or
something.”

His mouth curved up. “Worried?”

“No!” I snapped. “I just figure you’re
destined to go home soon and I don’t want to deprive Bellebryn of
their ruler.”

“Right,” he murmured and started to turn.
“I’ll be back.”

“Tor!” I cried, taking a step to him, he
stopped and looked at me.

“Take one more step
away
from the
bed, Cora, and I’ll have to be inventive in finding ways to keep
you in it and make you rest.”

I took a step back and glared at him.

“Don’t worry about me, love. I’ll be fine.
Rest, I’ll be back soon.”

Then he went to the dresser, opened a
drawer, grabbed a pair of socks then nabbed a pair of boots from
the floor before he disappeared.

I stared after him. Then I walked back to my
bed and collapsed on it.

Then I stared at the ceiling and muttered,
“Shit.”

Thank God You’re Home

I was pacing my living room and freaking
out.

Tor had to get home and he had to get home
soon.

There were two reasons for that.

One, night had fallen which meant he’d been
gone all day, it had been raining or drizzling all day and, I had
to admit (damn and blast!) that I was worried about him.

Two, I had a strong feeling the Cora of his
world was in some deep shit.

Earlier, after he’d left, I’d laid down and
when the aspirin didn’t work, I picked my way through my (filthy,
Tor was right, there were used takeout cartons, dirty dishes and
other debris everywhere) apartment to the kitchen hoping to make
coffee. However, I found no coffee and not much else except sour
milk in a carton I was pretty sure
I’d
left behind.

I shook the milk out in the sink and threw
the carton away, got some ice water, took some ibuprofen and tried
the resting thing again. Then I couldn’t rest because my house was
so filthy.

So I started cleaning, throwing in some
laundry, removing the sheets, picking up sodden towels, putting
away my clothes and makeup and the other Cora’s expensive clothes
and makeup, not to mention, tidying the glossy department store
bags that still held receipts and seeing just how much money Cora
had spent which nearly gave me a heart attack.

Where had she got so much money?

I found my purse and there was twenty
dollars in it which, if I remembered correctly, was how much I’d
left in it. I went to my computer and logged into my bank account.
All my money was still there. I checked my on-line credit card
statements, all the balances were nil, like I kept them, paying
them off monthly.

What on earth?

I went back to cleaning and when I bent to
put away the scattered DVD cases in the cabinet under my TV,
wondering why on earth she pulled out what appeared to be every DVD
I owned – she must have
really
liked movies… I thought – I
found it.

Money. Stacks and stacks of it. And we
weren’t talking five or ten dollar notes, here. We weren’t even
talking twenties. They were
all
fifties and hundreds.

Holy crap!

I stared at it then sat back on my tush,
slammed the doors shut and stared at the cabinet some more.

Then I went back to cleaning but now I was
cleaning because I was nervous, agitated and trying not to panic
and I was hoping I could concentrate on cleaning and not obsessing
about all the ways Cora could get that kind of cash, every way I
came up with spelling trouble for her and now… me.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

How did she get so much money?

And whose clothes were those men’s clothes
in my closet and, I might add, drawers? There were jeans, t-shirts,
suits, dress shirts, shoes, boots, underwear, the whole enchilada.
Not many but enough to spell trouble.

Something was wrong and I didn’t want to be
home alone without Tor whenever that something walked into my
apartment.

I only hoped that whoever
he
was, he
went with her when she went back like Tor came with me.

I finished tidying, scouring, wiping and
vacuuming and when I finished, I took a shower, lotioned with
my
lotion, blow-dried my hair and put on a pair of jeans and
a University of Puget Sound sweatshirt.

The clothes of Tor’s world rocked but I had
to admit, it felt nice to be in a pair of jeans.

Then I sat down by the phone.

Priorities.

My parents.

“Sweetie!” my Mom cried when she heard my
voice and I was relieved I wasn’t disowned. I was also close to
tears just hearing her voice. I loved my Mom. “My God, where have
you been? The last three times I talked to you, you said you were
in a rush and you had to go, you’d call me back. Why haven’t you
been calling me back?”