Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #4)(74)

He gasped and sat straight up.

Jacob grabbed her from behind and tried to yank her away.

“No! Not yet.” Wilhelm cried out and his other hand reached out and grabbed hers, keeping them pressed against his chest. A few seconds more, and he took a deep breath and smiled. “I can breathe. The pain’s gone,” he said in heavy accent. “You are angel.”

Mina smiled and reached out to give him a very special hug. “No, you’re my angel. I’ve so much to tell you, but there’s so little time.”

A loud noise came from the gate. Mina looked over in horror as a long black robed hand stretched through the glowing hole reaching out as if testing what was on the other side.

“A Reaper!” Mina grabbed the chair Jacob had just vacated and hurled it at the hand and through the gate. The hand disappeared, but the hole still remained open.

“I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I pulled power from the Fae plane to help you and I think it’s linked the two worlds. The gate is not closing.”

“What is coming through?” Jacob asked. She would have thought he would be terrified by what he was seeing. Instead he looked eager. Wilhelm crawled from the bed, invigorated, and stood before the portal in his pajamas. He picked up an umbrella and held it in front of him like a sword.

“Fae,” Mina answered.

“Fae? Like in the stories?” Wilhelm looked over to his brother and his face mirrored Jacob’s. Excitement.

“Yes, just like the stories.” The room filled with glowing, moving fireflies and Mina realized that they weren’t little bugs at all. The shoes were sparkling. Her darned slippers chose this moment to send her home. “No, not yet.” She grabbed a pitcher of water and smashed it over the next monstrous hand that tried to crawl through the portal. It looked like a troll’s. The hand quickly jerked back into the gate.

“Wilhelm. Jacob. Listen. There are good and bad Fae on the other side, and Teague will continue to send Reapers here to the human plane to hunt me down. But not only me—all of the Grimms and our kind for future generations.”

Jacob looked to his brother and nodded before he turned to Mina and asked, “What will we need to do?”

“Stop them.” The flickering was coming faster, and they were all retreating into the hospital hallway. “Here, you’ll need this.” Mina pulled the Grimoire from her dress pocket and gave it to Wilhelm. “Use it to capture the Fae within the book.”

“What happens to you?” Wilhelm asked. He tried to reach for her, but she backed away.

“I told you. I’m your granddaughter. I must go home now. But you can help me—by living. Survive today and all of the rest just like this one. Don’t give up.”

Jacob wrapped his hand around his brother’s shoulders and gave him a reassuring hug. “We won’t. We have waited for this adventure for a lifetime. This is after all, a librarian’s dream.”

She didn’t get a chance to tell them how to use the Grimoire before she saw both brothers rush back into the hospital room to battle the Fae that were coming through.

There was only a bright flash of light as she felt herself pulled away…into a bright tunnel.





Chapter 31


Mina’s body was on fire, her joints and every nerve in her zinging with pain. She was back in the parlor where she had left Brody, but the lights were off. The room was empty.

She stood but felt the crunching of glass as the slippers crumbled beneath her feet.

“Ouch,” she cried. She hobbled back over to sit on the sofa to pick the pieces of glass out of her bare feet. The pain only intensified as guilt finally assailed her.

It was her. It had always been her.

Something pressed against her hip and she felt through the dress and pulled out the knife. In the light of the moon, she could see the word Erjad engraved into the blade itself. Erjad—Jared.

The door opened, and she quickly hid the knife in the folds of her dress.

“Mina, is that you?” Brody called into the darkened room.

“Yes, it’s me,” she whispered softly.

“Oh, thank God.” He left the door open and rushed in. He wrapped his arms around her, fell onto the sofa, and pulled her onto his lap. He noticed her bleeding feet. “What happened?”

She sniffed. “My shoes did that.”

“Your shoes? I’ll never understand women and what they’ll do for fashion.”

Mina laughed. “Believe me, this is not a fashion statement. More like an understatement.”

He looked her over and frowned in confusion. “You changed?”

She glanced down at the dress she was wearing. It was still lavender in color and still had floral petals, but instead of Fae-made it looked man-made. She wasn’t upset. After all, she arrived in one piece and wasn’t covered in blood. “In more ways than one.”

She sighed and wrapped her arms around him, seeking a long hug from him, which he obliged. She held on and silently cry her heart out.

When her soft hiccups stopped, Brody pulled away from her and said, “Come on. The night is almost over, and I don’t want to see you sad.” He lifted her up in his arms and carried her through the door and into the ballroom.

Her bare feet touched the floor, and she only winced once from the pain in her foot. The rest was quickly forgotten, as she was safe and sound, home, and in Brody’s arms.