- TWELVE #2
I took a deep, steadying breath, dropping a shield over my thoughts and slowly building my fireworks shield around my body.
I wasn't quite so helpless anymore. So long as the fae couldn't like do that luring magic thing, I would probably be okay.
My confidence slipped with every step I took.
I climbed up the crumbling penny brick steps and raised my hand, forcing myself to knock quickly three times.
I counted to twenty.
Hearing nothing, and almost relieved at that, I turned and started to walk away.
But then the door opened.
--
Jasper
"Wake up," Doyle shouted, kicking my feet hard, making me jolt awake. His tone was nearly hysterical. Doyle was never hysterical.
"What? What's wrong?" I asked, squinting at the painful morning sun. How the fuck long had I been sleeping?
"She's gone," Doyle said, pacing, running a hand through his hair. "Cece is gone."
The words hit me, the sensation like taking a fucking Semi truck to the torso. I shot up to my feet, looking around as if it was possible that Doyle had just overlooked her somewhere.
"She was here around midnight. I heard her crying in her sleep. It woke me up."
"Why didn't she come over to me?" I asked, straightening fully, feeling the cuts on my back pulling painfully, straining against the motion, trying to heal.
"I told her to. She was being stubborn I guess. I figured she would calm down and do it anyway so I went back to sleep."
"It's not your fault," I said, my voice firm.
It was my own fucking fault. If I hadn't been such a dick to her the whole day before, she wouldn't have even hesitated.
She would have been cuddled into my side, pretending like she wasn't thinking about the night before when I'd had my fingers in her sweet pussy.
She'd have failed and shit would have happened again.
That was exactly why I had been being a fuck to her.
We couldn't have that complication on top of everything fucking else we had going on.
Did I want her? Fuck yeah. Did she want me too?
There wasn't even a shadow of a doubt about that.
But that being said, we were in the goddamn Green where she was apparently catnip to every malicious fae around. We were on the run from my parents. Doyle was losing control of his urges with each passing day. We had to go into the Dark realm to find Jade.
It was the worst time imaginable to give into an attraction.
We both needed to keep sharp, to focus on what was at our heels and awaiting us ahead.
We couldn't afford to be sneaking off behind trees for a quick fuck or being lost in thought about doing one of those things and walking into a shitty situation.
It was better for the both of us to push her away.
As much as I hated that.
"Jasp..." Doyle said, tone low and worried.
"What?"
"It had to have been a Will-o'-the-Wisp..."
I closed my eyes, trying to think of any other explanation. Anything that didn't involve a spellbinding light that led helpless humans and fae into danger and often, death.
Anything but a goddamn Will-o'-the-Wisp.
"I told her never to..." I started.
"She wouldn't have been able to control it," Doyle reminded me, reaching to grab his backpack.
I sighed. I should have told her about Will-o'-the-Wisps. Maybe if she knew what to look out for, she would have fought it harder, would have tried to grab our attention before she got led off.
"Where would it have taken her?" I asked, looking around, trying to remember the geography of the land, but the years made it blur the specifics a bit.
"That's the worst part," Doyle said, hanging his head. "In this part of the woods, there's only one place it would have led her."
"Where?" I asked, spine going pin straight, shoulders strained. If carefree Doyle was freaked, it had to be bad.
"Baba Yaga."
"No," I hissed, shaking my head. Fuck to the no. I refused to accept that. There was no way we were anywhere near her cottage.
"The cottage is about a half an hour walk that way," Doyle said, waving his hand out to the right.
"Fuck," I said, rubbing a hand across my brow.
"I can't go there, Jasp."
"It's Cece..." I tried to reason.
"I know," he said, tone sad. "I know it is. And I know she saved you and you owe her. And I know that she would have gone back into your parents' dungeons to get me back out too if I was down there. She's braver than she realizes. I just... it's Baba Yaga, Jasp. I can't. It's too dangerous."
It was dangerous. It was the most dangerous place a male fae could ever cross into.
The old crone witch was known for taking in scorned women and casting all kinds of unconscionable spells on the men who had disappointed them.
There were endless tales of castration in new, imaginatively awful ways.
Then there was impotence, paralysis, nightmare-inducing flesh eating viruses.
Uninvited men (and all men were uninvited) who happened onto her land, no matter how innocently, were strung up and torn to pieces. The limbs were left hanging, rotting until the birds and bugs and animals got to them, as a warning to all others.
Baba Yaga was one of the very few that my father had taught me to stay away from. He told me that all others could be reasoned with, bribed, blackmailed, or killed. But there was no way for a man to one-up Baba Yaga.
Doyle's fear was reasonable. I felt it myself, settling into my bones and splintering outward. It was a suicide mission. There wasn't one historical tale of a man living through an encounter with the witch.
I didn't blame Doyle for backing out. The biggest part of me wanted to as well.
But I couldn't. It was all my fault in the first place. If I hadn't been treating her so badly, it never would have happened.
"I have to save her," I said, the words heavy.
Doyle nodded. "I know. I'm sorry I can't go," he added, sounding ashamed. "I'll go on," he said, as if the deal was already sealed, as if I was already a dead man. "I'll find Jade. I'll do whatever it takes to get her out and back to safety."
I looked at Doyle, his face earnest and determined. I knew that if there was anyone I could trust with that task, it was him.
Doyle walked over, extending his hand to me and shook mine roughly. "Take care of yourself," he said in a heavy tone that suggested we would never see each other again.
"You too," I nodded, moving to walk away, my feet feeling like lead.
"Jasp..."
"Yeah?" I asked, looking over my shoulder.
"Maybe Baba Yaga won't want her," he reasoned, sounding hopelessly hopeful. "She only takes in scorned women. Cece isn't scorned."
I gave him a curt nod and turned back, walking away, faster, more determined.
Doyle was right. Baba Yaga preferred women who were scorned. She liked women who had been cheated on by lovers, who had been beaten by husbands, women who had their fortunes stolen from them, or just plain old women who had been hurt or disappointed by men they had trusted.
But Doyle was wrong too.
Because Cece was scorned.
And I had been the one to do it.