Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

  “Oh, no!” the leader protested. “No, no, boss. Nothin’ like that, I swear!”

  “Please don’t use no more words on us!” one of the other men pleaded, his piggy yellow eyes growing wide with alarm. “Please don’t!”

  “I don’t need words of power to deal with the likes of you.” O’Shea took another step forward and the three small men skittered backwards like frightened cockroaches when someone turns on the kitchen light.

  “Please no, my lord Spell-singer! Please,” begged the leader and began to cry, breaking out into loud, squealing sobs that sounded like a pig being killed. Behind him, his two cohorts started to squeal as well.

  Cass wondered what the word “Spell-singer” meant. Was it some kind of a title? But she didn’t have time to wonder for long. O’Shea was looking at the squealing men like they were the lowest form of life, which for all Cass knew, they might be in the Realm of the Fae.

  “If I had more time I’d give you something to cry for,” he said. “Go back to your barrows and never let me catch you soul-napping again. Do you understand?”

  “Oh yes! Yes, boss! We’ll turn over a new leaf terectly!” All three of them bowed and scraped, the leader going so far as to kiss the pale pink marble in front of O’Shea’s highly polished black shoes.

  The elf looked down at him, disgust written plainly across his dark face

  “Very well, I release you,” he said.

  Once more, Cass felt a rush of some kind of power leave him and the three men who had been trying to drag her into the alley abruptly turned on their heels and ran away as fast as their short stumpy legs could carry them.

  Six

  “Well, you certainly have a talent for trouble.” O’Shea seemed to shrink back to his normal size, which was still quite large, after the three small men that had tried to abduct Cass ran off.

  The crowd around Rory and the wounded phooka horse had dissipated, Cass saw, and the normal ebb and flow of pedestrians had resumed. But people still stepped around her and O’Shea as though they were standing inside an invisible bubble.

  “While you were playing games, your sister had been forming a most imprudent alliance,” he continued, frowning at her.

  “Playing games? Are you serious?” Cass said furiously, or rather whispered because her voice had still not returned. “Those men asked me if I was human and—”

  “And what did you say?” O’Shea asked sternly.

  “I said yes, of course. What was I supposed to say? And what’s wrong with my voice?” Cass put a hand to her throat and glared up at the big elf.

  “You should have told them you were part fairy and they might not have been so eager to take you. Only pure humans can be turned into changelings,” O’Shea said, frowning.

  “Changelings?” Cass whispered.

  “Humans whose souls have been taken for use in the Realm. Sometimes their bodies are returned to the human world and sometimes they’re simply discarded.” He shrugged as though it was no big deal. “Most are taken as babies but soul-nappers like those trows don’t care about age. If they see an opportunity, they take it.”

  “That’s horrible,” she tried to say, but her voice still came out as a hoarse whisper. “My throat,” she said again, looking up at O’Shea.

  “One of the trows that tried to take you probably cast a voice-loss charm on you.” He was taking off the immaculate pinstriped navy suit jacket he wore as he spoke. “Don’t worry—it should wear off in time. Here.” He held out the jacket to her and Cass looked at it in confusion.

  “Why would I want your jacket?” she asked in an indignant whisper.

  “I have no time to argue with you. Take it and put it on,” he said, frowning at her. “You can’t enter the court exposed as you are.”

  “Exposed?” Cass looked down at herself and realized that the leader of the little men O’Shea had called ‘trows’ had ripped her nightshirt completely open, right down the middle. The ragged ends of the white T-shirt fabric hung on either side of her, framing her bare breasts and the sexy red lace panties she had on.

  Since she mainly wore black jeans and T-shirts, fancy underwear was Cass’s one clothing indulgence. But she had no intention of showing her panties or anything else to an arrogant prick like O’Shea.

  She snatched the tattered remains of her nightshirt closed, aware that her nipples were hard from being exposed to the cool outside air. Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment. How could she have not noticed that she was practically naked?

  Her body had been in flight or fight mode when the trows were trying to take her, Cass reasoned. The adrenaline pumping through her system had kept her from noticing anything but the menacing mouth of the dark alley.

  She looked towards it now but the sense of menace was gone and it was just a shadowy place between two tall buildings. Could she have been imagining the thing made of blackness that she had felt in the dark place?

  “Here, we don’t have time for you to daydream.” O’Shea broke into her train of thought by draping the large navy-blue jacket over her shoulders. “Try to keep yourself together, Cassandra.”

  His words were rough but his actions were gentle as he leaned down to button the front of it closed. She noticed that the jacket smelled like the blue smoke he had appeared in back in the living room of Nana’s house—like leather and some kind of dark, masculine spice. And there was something sharp in the inside pocket that pricked against her left breast. She adjusted the jacket impatiently until the pricking stopped.

  Cass knew she should be grateful to her rescuer but the embarrassment of having just flashed their court-appointed elf with her bare breasts and lacy red panties made her feel more defensive than thankful.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to use my first name,” she said indignantly, and realized that her voice was finally beginning to come back a little. “If I’m one of your clients you can damn well call me ‘Miss Swann.’”

  One corner of O’Shea’s stern but sensual mouth went up in obvious amusement.

  “You act like a child so I’ll treat you like one, Cassandra,” he said, deliberately baiting her.

  Cass felt her teeth grind together. What was it about this big elf that got on her nerves so much?

  “All right then, since we’re on a first name basis, you won’t mind if I call you…what the hell was your first name again?” she demanded.

  “Jacobin,” he said, taking her arm and beginning to lead her back to where Nana and her sisters were standing.

  “Too long,” Cassandra decided. She still sounded terribly hoarse, but at least she could speak loud enough to be understood—barely. “How about if I just call you Jake?”

  O’Shea frowned.

  “That isn’t my name,” he pointed out stiffly. “I don’t appreciate being called something incorrect. Names have power here in the Realm.”

  That’s right, Cass thought. The power to annoy you, apparently.

  Aloud she said, “Well, that’s tough, Jake, because your other moniker is too much of a mouthful. You can feel free to call me Cass, though, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “It does not.” O’Shea gave her a threatening frown which Cass returned with a glare of her own. He might have saved her from the trows, but that didn’t give Jake O’Shea the right to talk down to her and treat her like a little girl who had been naughty. After all, it wasn’t like she had asked to be dragged away and almost kidnapped.

  He held her eyes for a moment and then shook his head.

  “Come on. We don’t have time to walk so we’ll have to take a flyer.”

  “Take a what?” Cass asked but he was already moving ahead to where Nana and Phil and Rory stood waiting in a huddle on the sidewalk.

  The large black horse, now fully healed, was standing quietly beside Rory with its chin resting on her shoulder. She had one hand on its neck and was stroking it protectively as though she could keep the huge animal safe just by touching it. When she and O’Shea got t