Dangerously Charming (11 page)

“I don't think so,” Barbara said in a thoughtful tone, shaking her head. “I get the feeling you two should stay together.” She tapped one finger on the table. “A rather strong feeling at that.”

“Those feelings are sometimes called premonitions,” Babs told Jenna solemnly. “It is not a good idea to ignore them. Especially when Barbara has them.”

“Oh,” Jenna said. “I guess we're stuck together, then,” she said, looking at Day from underneath those long, dark lashes. “I mean, if you're still coming.”

The walls got even closer and Day stood up from the table with a scrape of his chair legs against the wooden floor. “It would seem that is what the universe has in mind. In which case, I think I should go back to Saranac Lake, where we left the bike. I can stop by my cabin and pick up some things and then ride the fast way here, since you won't be with me. I can be back by later this evening and we can get an early start in the morning.”

He tried not to hyperventilate, but he could feel his chest growing tighter, as if he couldn't draw in enough air, no matter how hard he breathed. “I'm sure you'll be safe enough until I return.” Day walked to the door and looked back at Barbara. “If I could trouble you to open the passageway in the Airstream, it would be a lot faster than walking back to the Adirondacks.”

Barbara gave him an inscrutable look and followed him down the path to the barn, easily able to keep up with his current rapid, almost-running pace because of her long legs.

When they were almost to the hut-turned–silver trailer, she said, “Jenna was right. You
are
rude now. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.”

Day stopped at where the door to the Airstream would be if it wasn't hiding. Out in the open, away from Jenna, he almost felt as though he could breathe normally. Almost.

“I'm doing the best I can,” he said, gazing at the ground.

Barbara rolled her eyes. “I know you're having a tough time, old friend, although frankly, I think you're being way too hard on yourself. But it is clear to me that you are involved in this situation up to your neck, and the sooner you face up to that, the easier this will be on everyone.”

When Day opened his mouth to argue, she added, “Jenna is no evil and insane Baba Yaga trying to lure you into danger. She's a nice girl who got dragged into a fairy tale through no fault of her own. I like her. She has backbone. You've had enough time to lick your wounds. It's time to pull your head out of your ass and get back to living your life. It seems to me that this is as good a place to start as any.”

“That's a little harsh,” Day said, taken aback.

“Harsh or not, it has to be said, and apparently no one else is going to say it.” Barbara shook her head. “Of course, the fact that you're avoiding everyone who knows you might have something to do with that. Either way, we have known each other long enough that you shouldn't be surprised by my bluntness. Or be foolish enough to mistake it for lack of caring, when in fact, it is exactly the opposite.”

“I'm doing the best I can.”

“I don't think you are,” Barbara said. “I think you're wallowing. I get it—a horrible thing happened to you, Alexei, and Gregori, and you feel guilty. Did it ever occur to you that Beka, Bella, and I feel guilty too, because we didn't find you faster? Especially Bella, since she tried to rescue you and actually fell into Brenna's trap too.”

In fact, it hadn't. Not for a minute. “That's not her fault! Brenna was an evil, cunning old woman. I had a lot more years
of experience dealing with her than Bella did, and I still fell for her lies.”

“My point exactly, Mikhail.” Barbara patted him on the shoulder, perhaps a tad more assertively than she'd intended to, since he rocked back on his heels from the strength of it.

“It doesn't matter what happened. What's done is done. What matters now is what you do with the rest of your life. Not being immortal anymore means you don't have time to waste sitting around beating yourself up. Maybe it is time to get back to the land of the living and do something with a little more purpose than self-flagellation of the soul.”

“I swore I wasn't going to rescue any more damsels in distress,” Day muttered.

To his surprise, Barbara gave him a lopsided grin, banging on the side of the trailer to make it produce a door. “What makes you think she isn't rescuing you?” she asked, and stomped inside without a backward look.

*   *   *

“ARE
you sure about this?” Liam asked Jenna as they sat down over dinner. He gave her and Barbara equally dubious looks while simultaneously pouring Babs some more milk. “I mean, I realize that it sounds like the answers lie through the doorway, but aren't you worried about what being over there without a Baba Yaga or a talisman might do to your baby?” Then he said, “OW,” as Barbara kicked him under the table with a heavily booted foot.

Jenna smiled at Barbara. “Thanks, but it's okay. I did think of that on my own.” She curled one hand protectively over her belly. She turned to Liam. “I'm worried about that possibility, too, but I think the alternatives are worse. If I don't go, then Zilya takes my baby. I know she swears she gives them good homes, and maybe she even does. But they're raised in a strange land by people who aren't even Human. I don't want that for my little girl.”

Babs gave her a wide-eyed look and nodded without saying
anything, most of her attention seemingly focused on the fried chicken on her plate, which she was devouring with single-minded determination.

“Besides,” Jenna added. “This damned curse managed to make sure I got pregnant, no matter how careful I was. How am I to know that it wouldn't somehow make it impossible not to have a second child, another girl to keep the curse going? No. This thing stops with me, one way or the other.”

Liam chewed on a hunk of crusty bread thoughtfully. “I see your point. Besides, you'll have Mikhail with you. If anyone can keep you safe, he can.” He winked at Barbara. “I mean, if you can't have my wife.”

Jenna shook her head. “I'm not sure Mick wants to go. He's been pretty adamant about not wanting to get involved, no matter how much Barbara talks about fate and destiny.”

“I like Day,” Babs said in a gloomy voice. “What happened to him was bad.”

“Yes it was,” Barbara agreed, sounding much the same as her small adopted daughter. “It was bad and unfair.”

“What happened?” Jenna asked. “Does it have anything to do with how he lost his immortality and why he is living up in that cabin in the middle of nowhere?” She added, “If you don't mind me asking. He's nice to me, in his own crabby way. I like him.”

“A bad Baba Yaga put him in a cage and tortured him so that he bled and bled,” Babs said. “She hurt his brothers Gregori Sun and Alexei Knight too. They were hurt very much for a long time. It made them broken. It was very horrible. Now Day is all better, but he is still sad.”

Jenna was taken aback by both the information and the fact that it was recited so matter-of-factly by a seven-year-old. “That's terrible,” she said. “No wonder he wants to hide away in the mountains by himself.”

Liam smiled at her, having caught her aghast look, no doubt. “You probably think we should have kept this kind of brutal reality away from Babs until she is older, but she had
a difficult and unusual upbringing and she is a lot tougher than she looks.”

“Besides,” Barbara said, “she is a Baba Yaga in training, and part of that training is exposing her to all that a Baba Yaga might come into contact with, good and bad. How else is she going to learn?”

Jenna felt completely unequipped for parenthood as it was. She couldn't even imagine trying to raise a child to be a powerful mythical witch. She had a sudden fervent desire to see what her own little girl would grow up to be, a yearning so strong it made her heart spasm until she gasped.

“Are you okay?” Liam asked. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I'm fine,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I don't need a doctor. I need a miracle.”

Barbara gazed fondly at her husband and adopted daughter. “Lucky for you,” she said. “Around here we're kind of in the business of miracles.” She gave Jenna one of her small smiles, barely an upward curving of the edge of her lips. “Plus, I think I have some motorcycle gear that will fit you if I take up the hems on the pants a bit. If you're going on an adventure, the least we can do is see that you're properly dressed.”

DAY
was inside the cabin, throwing clothes and supplies into his saddlebags, when he thought he heard a noise outside. He swung the door open and peered out into the dimming light of early evening, but all he saw was the Yamaha, sitting in all her gleaming white glory in the clearing out front. The single bulb overhead barely reached that far, but Day's eyes were pretty good at night and he didn't see anything but some branches swaying in the wind.

He grunted and shut the door, going over to kneel in front of Jenna's duffel bag. He didn't feel comfortable rooting around in her things, but she was going to need clothes and her toothbrush and such for the trip, and he couldn't bring the entire bag. He pulled out a couple of pairs of pants and some shirts to go with them, then hesitated before reaching in to grab some surprisingly sexy underwear and bras. Somehow he hadn't envisioned her wearing such frilly, silky things. Now, of course, it would be hard not to. Dammit.

It was tough enough ignoring her luscious curves and all
that flowing straight dark hair, which he could easily imagine spread out over him as they lay together. Not that they ever would. But still, he didn't understand what it was about this woman that so intrigued and attracted him. He hadn't been even vaguely interested in anyone—Human or Paranormal—since things had gone to hell in several handbaskets and a hot air balloon. Maybe that was it. Maybe it had just been too long between lovers, and it had nothing to do with Jenna's feisty determination paired with her softness and vulnerability. Sure. Deprivation. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

The blare of a horn split the silent night, startling him into dropping the froth of underthings back into their bag. Had the bike still been an enchanted steed, it would have been an equine bugle of outrage and warning; in its metal form, it still sounded much the same.

Without thinking, Day raced out the door, a low growl forming unnoticed at the back of his throat. As he neared the motorcycle, he caught a glimpse of a thin, weedy form slinking off into the nearest stand of trees. Day chased after it, an atavistic roar pouring out of his chest and making small nocturnal animals run in the opposite direction.

After a moment, though, he came to his senses, at least enough to realize that chasing some unknown creature through the woods at night while leaving his cabin alone and unguarded was probably a bad idea. He stalked back to the motorcycle, patting her seat and talking to her as if she were a living thing. Which, in her own way, she was.

“Are you all right, my treasure? That nasty slinker didn't do anything to you, did it?” He checked her over, but everything seemed okay. “What do you think, old girl? Just some random Paranormal critter wandering around where it wasn't supposed to be, or some kind of trouble sent by our unfriend Zilya?”

Frankly, he suspected the latter, although with any luck the bike's alarm had scared it off before it could do whatever
damage it had intended. Or else
he
had, with whatever
that
was. He'd never been in the habit of roaring and growling before, that was for sure.

“Do you suppose my eyes were glowing, the way Zilya said they did when I stepped in front of her magic?” he asked the bike, not really expecting any answer. But her engine purred a bit under his hand, even though technically, she wasn't turned on. Magical motorcycles rarely conformed to any technical limitations, in his experience.

“Yeah, I don't know if it matters either,” he said, turning around to finish his packing, perhaps a little faster than he'd been doing it before. “It's still damned odd. And I'm not sure I like it.”

*   *   *

“YOU'RE
back late,” Barbara said softly from the shadows. Day didn't jump. Much. “Everything okay?”

Day slung his leg over the side of the bike and grabbed the saddlebags before walking over to where she was standing, next to the darkened house.

“I think so. I caught something slinking around the motorcycle, but as far as I can tell, it didn't do any damage. My guess is that Zilya sent it; not sure what the thing was supposed to achieve.”

Barbara shrugged, not moving from her position leaning against the yellow-painted wood. “Maybe it was just checking up. From what you said, Zilya had to promise the Queen not to go anywhere near Jenna. I'm guessing that she's not going to find it so easy to just stand back and do nothing. I'd keep your eyes open, if I were you.”

“I will,” Day said, leaning against the wall next to her. “Can I ask you something?'

Barbara didn't move, but he could feel her entire attention focusing. “Sure. Is this about Jenna?”

“No,” he said. “It's about me. Something . . . strange . . . is happening. I can't explain it. I feel like something inside
me is shifting. Like there is something moving under my skin. There have been a couple of odd incidents.”

Barbara turned toward him, her eyes gleaming in the darkness and her expression calm and nonjudgmental. “Go on.”

“Did Jenna tell you what happened when Zilya showed up looking for her at my cabin?” Day asked.

“I don't think so,” Barbara said.

“You should have seen her,” Day chuckled. “Jenna, I mean. She was like a wild thing; she shoved Zilya out the door and then tried to brain her with a big stick. It was epic. Alexei would have loved it.” He fell silent for a moment, thinking of his brother and their long years together.

“Sounds like my kind of party,” Barbara said. “Then what?”

“Once Zilya recovered from the shock of being attacked by a mere Human, she went after Jenna with magic—threw something at her that was supposed to both lay claim to the baby and cause Jenna a fair amount of pain in the process.”

Barbara winced. “Sounds about standard for a pissed-off faery. What happened?”

Day gazed out at the sky, where a shooting star was winging across the heavens. “I stepped in between Jenna and the hex. I wasn't even thinking; it was just instinctive.”

“Of course it was.” Barbara gazed at him fondly. “You may think you have changed, but your gallantry was never just for show; it's part of who you are.” She sighed. “That hex must have smarted, though.”

“No, it didn't,” Day said, still not looking at her. “It just . . . fizzled, I guess, and disappeared. I didn't feel a thing. Unless you count rage and a primal need to defend Jenna. I think I even growled. I know that Zilya said something about my eyes glowing, although I discounted it at the time.”

“Huh.” Out of the corner of his vision, he could see Barbara looking thoughtful. “That shouldn't have happened.”

“No.”

“Anything else?”

“When I chased that creature into the woods earlier tonight, I felt . . . different.” Day didn't have the right words to describe it. “It's like I was me, but not me. Maybe it was because I'd been packing up Jenna's, um, intimate items, but somehow it felt like the thing was a threat to her and I wanted to tear it limb from limb.” He turned to face his old friend. “Do you have any idea what's happening to me?”

“I'm afraid I don't,” Barbara said with regret. “Maybe it's just a reaction to everything you've been through. Although that doesn't explain why Zilya's magic didn't affect you. Now that you're not a Rider, it should have. Maybe even if you still were one.”

Day tried to pretend that phrase,
not a Rider
, didn't pierce him through the heart. There had only ever been three Riders to help the Baba Yagas of the world—him and his two half brothers. Now the Babas had no one to come to their aid, and neither he nor Alexei nor Gregori knew what or who they were without that title. Sometimes he thought it would have been better if the old witch had killed them, and finished the job she'd started.

“I don't suppose either of my brothers have mentioned anything unusual happening to them?” he asked, trying to sound casual. He doubted he fooled Barbara, but at least she would likely play along.

She patted him on the shoulder, her equivalent of most people's full-body hugs. “I'm sorry, Mikhail. I haven't seen either of them since I came to visit you all in the Otherworld while you were healing. They haven't been feeling any more sociable than you have, apparently.”

“Oh,” he said, hollowness echoing through his chest. He'd asked because he wondered if they, too, were experiencing something strange, but also because he missed them badly, and had hoped Barbara had some news of them. Of course, he could seek them out himself, but he wasn't quite ready for that.

Barbara pushed off from the wall. “Let's go into the house.
You've got a long ride ahead of you tomorrow, and I have some leftover chicken in the fridge with your name on it, if Liam hasn't gotten to it first. If you're really nice, I'll let you read a bedtime story to Babs. I'm pretty sure she's still awake, waiting for you to get back.”

“And Jenna?” Day asked, trying not to care.

“Poor thing. She was exhausted. She conked out in the guest bedroom around nine, about a half hour ago,” Barbara said. “If it's any consolation, she was worried about you.”

“Huh,” Day said. “She shouldn't have been.”

Barbara opened the front door and half guided, half shoved him in. “I love you, Mikhail Day, but you're an idiot.”

“Why? What did I say?” Day asked in an indignant whisper.

“Never mind,” Barbara said, turning on the hall light with a click of her fingers, despite the fact that they were standing right next to the switch. Some habits die hard. “About the unusual things you've been experiencing . . . have you considered that it might be your maternal heritage coming through?”

Day stopped cold. “What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “Well, I don't know much about your parents, of course. Your background was always sort of mysterious and vague. But Gregori said something to me once, years ago, about how your father's influence had been pretty powerful, overwhelming anything from your various mothers' sides to mold you into being the Riders. I just wondered if, now that things have changed, maybe your maternal side was somehow coming through more strongly. Of course, you'd know that better than I would. It's just a thought.”

She steered him into the kitchen and pulled a plate of cold chicken out of the refrigerator. “Mind you, it could just be an unexpected side effect of the huge dose of the Water of Life and Death I had to give you to save your life. Even the Queen said she couldn't predict what that might do to you further down the road.”

Day gnawed absently on a chicken leg, pondering her
words. “If it
is
the Water of Life and Death, what do you suppose it is doing?”

Barbara pushed back her cloud of dark hair with both hands. “Honestly? I have no idea. It could be releasing some gift we never knew you had. Or it could be starting to slowly kill you. No one has ever had that big a dose, so it's really hard to say.”

He put the chicken down, appetite suddenly gone, and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Thanks, Baba. You are always such a comfort.”

She gave him a wry look. “I know. I've been considering becoming a counselor. Or possibly a nurse.”

Day shook his head. “If I were you, Baba Yaga, I'd stick to your day job.”

“You know, that's what Liam said too.” Barbara gave him one of her half smiles. “I do know something that will make you feel better. How do you feel about
Winnie-the-Pooh
? I hear the bear wins.”

*   *   *

BY
late afternoon the next day, Jenna was starting to wish she'd taken that plane after all. Mick's bike might be magical, in that it never needed gas and he never had to worry about a flat tire or mechanical problems, but that didn't make it any easier to sit on for hundreds of miles over bumpy roads. Even with frequent stops so she could pee and stretch her legs, Jenna's butt felt like someone's punching bag, and her back ached from the base of her spine to the top of her neck.

Also, it was raining.

She'd never really thought about the difference between driving through rain when you were in a car and when you were on a motorcycle. In a car, unless it was one of those rare torrential downpours, rain was simply a minor inconvenience. On the back of a bike, even a fairly light rain trickled in through every opening in your clothing, leaving you damp
and cold. And then the breeze created by your own passage made you even colder.

“How many miles did you say it was to Fredericksburg?” she shouted in Mick's ear. That was the other thing about riding a motorcycle. It made casual chitchat pretty much impossible.

“About two thousand, from Barbara's house,” he yelled back. “Why?”

Jenna leaned in closer to his strong back, less so he could hear her better and more for the warmth. Mick's large body gave off heat like a pile of smoldering coals. It was about the only thing keeping her going right now. “Just wondering,” she said. “Also, sorry, but I kind of need to pee again. Can we stop soon?”