Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 4)

“Brody what happened—what has been happening—it may continue to happen to you, to me, to others.” She swallowed nervously.

He stiffened and sat up on the counter and pulled away from her. “No. Nobody should have to live not knowing if what they experience is real or not. I know I can’t.”

“Then you have to stay away from me. Stay as far from me as you possibly can, and maybe you won’t be sucked into my curse.”

Brody’s eyes flashed and he looked at her possessively. “Never, now that I know we really had something. I’m going to continue to pursue that. I won’t let anything come between us.”

Mina’s heart soared before it came crashing down to earth, shattering in a million pieces. “Can you fight your shadow? Something that you can’t see or understand? What I’m in the middle of—this fight—is something that’s been going on for hundreds of years. People get hurt, become pawns, and get tossed aside. Especially those closest to a Grimm.”

“Grimm? You mean like the two brothers?”

Mina nodded her head. “The very same. They were my ancestors.”

“I seem to remember you studying a bunch of books by the Grimm Brothers…at a library…right?” He looked at her expectantly.

Mina smiled. “Yes.”

“Go on…” he waited.

Mina’s eyes drifted to his chest and then to his injured arm that was turning an ugly purple. “Not now. First we need to worry about this.” She stepped away from him, which was harder to do than she thought. She opened the bathroom door and pointed with her head for him to precede her.

Brody slid from the countertop, picked up his bloody and ruined shirt, and walked into the hall. Mina brushed all of the cotton balls into the garbage and screwed the lid back on the disinfectant before walking him to their kitchen.

He probably could have found the kitchen without her based on the horrid smells wafting down the hallway. Mina found Nix wearing her mother’s flowered apron as he hummed and stirred a cast iron pot full of boiling green liquid.

The kitchen was an epic disaster. It looked like Nix had raided the cabinets and left all the cupboard doors open. He was currently going through the spice cabinet, taking the lid off every available jar of natural herbs to smell them. Most he discarded quickly, making a face and shoving them to the right. He did set two or three in a different group. But then he reached farther back, and slid out a few glass jars sealed with wax.

Mina didn’t recognize the unlabeled jars as belonging to her family. Well, not her immediate family. They could very well have been put there by her father—or even her grandfather.

Nix seemed pleased with what he’d found and added them to the boiling concoction. The way he mumbled to himself, tossing herbs in, made him look very much like he was boiling and toiling up some trouble. The brown terra cotta pot that sat in the corner by the kitchen table had been stripped of all of its leaves. She had no idea what the plant was—it had already been in the house when they moved in—but obviously Nix knew.

“Take a seat. The doctor will be ready in a moment,” Nix said, chuckling.

Brody sat on a chair facing Nix, who started straining the foul smelling broth into a teapot. He kept the spices, leaves, and who knew what else and threw them into another pot, crushing the remains with a potato masher until it took on a pulpy texture. It looked horrible and smelled worse. But Nix scooped the paste into a small bowl and stood over Brody.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Nix grinned happily. He was clearly in his element.

“Not on your life,” Brody said, holding his hand over his nose. “That stuff can’t possibly help.”

“Arm,” Nix demanded, eyeing the wound that was starting to ooze again.

“You don’t even know how to work a toaster. I’m not letting Betty Crocker go all Florence Nightingale on me.”

“Who?” Nix asked and looked to Mina.

“Exactly!” Brody pointed toward Nix. “You agree with me right, Mina?”

Mina had to cover her mouth as the laughter just spilled out. Amid all the stress, these two could still make her laugh. When her giggles stopped, she finally choked out, “No, he knows what he’s doing, Brody…trust me.”

Brody looked at her like she’d grown horns. “No.”

“Why not?” Mina frowned.

“Not until I know for sure that you’ll go with me to that thing.”

“Are you really going to deny being treated until you have an answer? I thought I already said yes.”