Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 4)

The black form darted toward Nix from a different direction, releasing no warning growl.

“Nooo!” Mina screamed, releasing the power she’d gathered to herself. A flash of lightning came out of the night and struck the ground inches from Nix. The startled wolf flew off of the Nixie, landing on his back. A second bolt of lightning struck the wolf, burning off a patch of fur and searing the skin, filling the air with the smell of burnt flesh. The wolf yelped in pain and disappeared into the night. This time he did not return.

Nix blinked his eyes and looked at the scorched earth inches from his prone body. “Well, I’ll be. I thought lightning never struck the same place twice.”

“It doesn’t usually.” Brody answered, coming to survey the damage. His right arm had some nasty cuts, and the teeth marks had gone deep.

“Well, thankfully, mother nature was on our side tonight.” Mina shivered as she struggled to release the energy zinging through her fingertips back into the atmosphere. She had saved them—she knew it. Mina wasn’t sure how, but there was no denying that she was the one who called down the lightning. It had struck exactly where she’d wanted it to.

Nix stood up and eyed Mina suspiciously. “Yeah, when you see her next, tell her thanks from me.”

Mina ignored him and went over to Brody, who was staring off into the night where the wolf had disappeared.

“Let’s get inside.” He turned and put his hand on Mina’s lower back, ushering her up the porch steps in front of him.

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” Nix scampered up the steps and into the house before either of them reached the top step.

“We should call animal control,” Brody said as soon as the door closed. They latched the lock.

“And tell them what exactly?” Mina did not want to be the one to call attention to her family.

“That I think a large rabid dog is on the loose.”

“A dog? You think that was a large black dog?” She asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know. I could have sworn it was a wolf, but then when it attacked me, I saw its eyes. Wolves don’t have blue eyes.”

“How do you know they were blue? It was dark. You could have been mistaken.”

“I’ll never forget those eyes. They were so blue they looked human.”

Mina’s stomach dropped. She’d thought the same thing. She would never forget that shade of blue either, because it haunted her every night in her dreams.

Chapter 7

Never in her wildest dreams would Mina have thought Brody Carmichael would be sitting shirtless on her bathroom counter. Of course, as dreamy as this was, his bare muscled chest was the last thing on her mind. Okay, maybe it was the second to last thing on her mind.

The first was applying hydrogen peroxide to the long cuts on his chest. Nix was taking care of the more serious injuries on Brody’s arm. He’d already cleaned up most of the blood with a clean towel, being careful of the torn skin surrounding the bites.

“I think I can make a salve for this,” Nix said after evaluating Brody’s arm. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.” He may have actually skipped on his way to the kitchen.

“What’s with him?” Brody hissed in pain as Mina used a cotton ball to dab at one of the scratches. The clear liquid immediately started to bubble as it cleansed the wound. After a few seconds, Brody released the breath he was holding.

“He’s obsessed with Leave it to Beaver lately.” Mina placed the cotton on a larger cut. Brody inhaled quickly. “Oh, Brody. I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal. It’s just cold and it tickles.”

Mina put the swab over the lid of the brown bottle and turned it upside down, trying to stay focused on the white fuzzy cotton ball instead of how near he was. “No, not about the antiseptic. About what happened in the yard. With the wolf. It’s all my fault.”

Brody gently grabbed her hand with the swab in it. “Mina, that had nothing to do with you.”

She couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, I think it does. I think everything weird that has ever happened to you, and so much more that you don’t remember, all happened because of me.”

“I don’t understand.” Brody dropped her hand and pulled back to look at her.

It was the moment of truth. “Falling from a catwalk, waking up on the floor of an abandoned building, fighting a man in a dark alley.”