Rumpel

I sat before my fiery hearth and rolled my tumbler full of whiskey in my hand round and round, watching the flames leap nine feet high. Though the day had been nothing less than a resounding success, the unease that’d plagued me throughout the day would not leave me.

With a heavy sigh, I brought the tumbler to my mouth and ran my tongue along the rim, content to simply taste the essence of burning liquor as it washed over my senses.

Shayera never drank in the previous life. But for some odd reason, she’d always enjoyed running her mouth along the rim after I’d had my fill. I’d found her ways odd and eccentric, but more and more I found myself doing as she’d done.

Being in that room was a good example. Before the curse, I’d never really had cause to come to this quirky little room that’d been covered in dust clothes for centuries. I’d wanted to renovate its peeling wallpaper and yellow-tinted walls, but hadn’t gotten around to it. It’d sat untouched and unused for years, until I’d married Shayera.

She’d taken to this room, I’d thought, because of all its feminine fripperies, such as the crystal chandelier above my head, the Victorian-rose-print wallpaper, and the plush burgundy-wine carpeting beneath my feet.

Every night after tucking our children abed, this was where my little wife had scampered off to. There’d been nights when I’d had to physically cart my sleeping bride off to bed because she’d fallen asleep before the hearth with yet another book upon her lap.

Only after the curse did I finally understand why this room had appealed to her so. Of the hundreds of rooms in my castle, this was the smallest, the most intimate, and the quietest. There were no windows through which to see the thunder and lightning roll daily through our cloud realm. No servants came this way. The children hadn’t even known of its existence. It was in the uppermost tower of the cordoned-off and crumbling right wing.

It was her secret, her quiet place, where she could come to meditate and regain her sense of calm and peace after a long, hectic day of motherhood and dealing with her oaf of a male.

I took a large swig then grunted as the burn slid down my gullet like tiny licking flames scorching the tender meat of my throat. I shuddered, trying to relax and turn off the thoughts, going round and round in my head, that continued to plague me.

We’d kept her safe that day. Danika, Betty... Hell, even Gerard had done his share. But Prince’s unease hadn’t lessened, and neither had mine. We’d both felt a tremor, a disturbance in... The gods only knew what. It could have been the timeline or fate, but I didn’t have a clue. The only thing I knew with any kind of certainty was that the day wasn’t done for me. Something else waited over the horizon. Something... dark.

Rubbing my fingertips along my bottom lip, I tried to remember how she’d caress me so tenderly and softly, as if her fingers were feathers. She touched me as if I was a treasure, her jewel, as though I wasn’t a monster, but an innocent child that no one else in all the worlds saw me as. Shayera had always seen beyond the shell, beyond the hardness, the fury, and the rage, to the vulnerable man beneath it all.

Groaning heavily, I relaxed deeper into the far-too-small lounging chair. Pink and lacy and ostentatiously feminine, it had been hers. It didn’t work for my big frame, and yet I couldn’t find the desire to budge from my spot.

Night after night, I returned to this place, just to remember and to quiet my mind. There, I could release the day’s tension and pain and questions, and always it worked like the very brightest of magic.

But tonight the unease continued, worming a hot hole through my gut like hell worms burrowing through my flesh. The air felt thick and oppressive. The energies of the world felt as if they were in chaos and turmoil.

Destiny had played out, and Shayera had not been changed. Maybe in this timeline, her fate wasn’t to become a slave to the siren’s power. Maybe destiny had turned its sights upon another. Maybe that’s what I felt—perhaps it wasn’t Shayera’s fate, but someone else’s.

I frowned, rubbing the glass rim against my bottom lip over and over and staring unseeing into the fiery red flames within the hearth. But who else in all the worlds could matter to me the way Shayera did? The list was piteously short. In fact, there was only one.

Euralis.

I jerked, sitting forward in my seat and sloshing the contents of the half-empty glass onto my lap. But I paid it no mind. My heart raced a mile a minute as I felt the disturbance ripple like a heated rush of water down my back. My temples prickled as if I’d just been zapped by an electrical current.

“Master.” Giles’ voice interrupted my panic.

Blinking, with my mouth feeling dry and my pulse thundering so hard in my throat that I could almost taste it on my tongue, I turned to the scrying bowl sitting on the coffee table in front of me.

Giles’s worried face stared at me from within the puddle.

“What is it?” I snapped, knowing that what I’d been sensing all night had finally come to pass.

“It is Euralis. You must come. You must—”

Setting my tumbler down, I stood. “I’m coming, Giles.”

~*~

Shayera

I STOOD BY MY PORCH swing the next day with my arm wrapped around the metal chain. Waiting for Prince, I stared off into the distance.

Why isn’t he here yet? Prince was always there, sleeping just beneath my window, waiting for me to awaken so that we could begin our adventures for the day.

I pressed my lips together. The sky was a gorgeous shade of robin’s-egg blue, without even a hint of clouds in it. The woods down the lane beckoned to me. I could not have imagined a more perfect day than this. It practically begged me to go exploring.

I was nine years old and one day, at least officially. Unofficially, I sort of felt like something huge had just come and gone, and though I wasn’t sure what it was, I was antsy about it, even anxious.

Mama had said I had ants in my pants just before she and Papa left to go shopping in the square, leaving me in the care of my Uncle and his girlfriend. I was inclined to believe her. I couldn’t stop pacing the length of the living room as I waited for Prince to appear. Uncle Kelly finally kicked me out of the house three hours later, telling me to get my wiggles outside, where I couldn’t bother anyone else.

I didn’t blame him. I’d accidentally broken one of mama’s favorite vases. I’d dropped not just one, but two glasses of grape juice on the carpet, which had left a terrible stain.

Briley hadn’t felt like doing much of anything that day besides his games, which left me pretty much to my own devices, a far cry from the smothering I’d received the day before. It had been fun, even exciting, but I’d been unable to explore as I wanted to. Having such a careful eye on me all the time had hindered my ability to do any sort of investigating, and I dreamed about the golden light that night. I’d woken up the next morning more curious than ever about it.

Twisting my lips, I debated whether I should even go back to the hidden lake. I was so used to having Prince with me now that it felt foreign to do anything without him. I took a deep breath. Yesterday, he hadn’t wanted me to explore the cave. In fact, he’d made it perfectly clear that he’d probably have bitten me if I’d dared to step foot upon the sandy beach.

Am I seriously contemplating doing this alone? I mean, I’m a big girl now. And I’m strong. Rather than be worried about being alone, shouldn’t I be excited by the prospect that just for once I actually have the freedom to roam, even if only for a short while?

“You should go,” I heard myself say. I frowned at the tight thread in my voice.

It was as if I had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each telling me to do different things. The angel kept saying I needed to wait for Prince. The devil kept saying I’d already waited hours, he’d still not shown and at this point wasn’t likely to.

I bit my bottom lip, worrying it between my blunt teeth. I was always telling my parents that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I didn’t need to wait on Prince to keep me safe. If something happened out there, I had good legs, and I’d just run to safety. That was what Papa had always taught me to do. Run as fast as you can, papillon. Run. Run. Run.

My heart raced so hard that it almost felt like pain in my chest when I finally took that first reluctant step off the back porch. Feeling dizzy and lightheaded, I took another, and then another, and with each step, I began to feel marginally better.

I was being ridiculous. Mama and Papa’s fears were clearly rubbing off on me. There were no bears in that cave. If there had been, Prince would have smelled them. He would have warned me off.

He’d seemed a little skittish, but he always was when I was with him. He growled and barked at everything, even fluffy little rabbits that had the misfortune of crossing our path. So although he’d growled a little, that didn’t mean a whole heck of a lot with him.

I swallowed hard, and that time my next steps weren’t just a walk, but a trot. I picked up speed as my arms began to pump in rhythm back and forth. With my speed came the thrill of discovery. How many years has it been since I’ve been able to ever go exploring anywhere alone? I couldn’t even remember anymore.

I loved Prince completely, but he could be almost as bad as Mama and Papa had been before they’d finally relented and let me play like a normal kid.

After ten minutes, I realized I wasn’t just jogging but sprinting as fast as my bare feet could take me. It was warm, bordering on hot, and I’d dressed accordingly, just putting on a simple pair of white jean shorts and a flowing white top.

I’m sure Mama would freak out when she caught me playing in white, because she hated when I did that. But it was so miserable outside, and I just wanted to feel cool.

Suddenly I was there again, at the demarcation between the grass and the beach. One more step and I’d be further out than I’d ever been before.

My heart banged so hard in my chest that it was hard to take a proper breath. I rubbed at my throat, feeling the flutter of my pulse beating against my clammy fingertips. With one last swallow, I took that step. The sand was gritty between my bare toes, and I grinned, feeling terribly scared and excited and like I might puke, all at the same time.

So I took another step, and another, and then another.

In mere moments, I was splashing through the cool water, sighing heavily as the icy wetness massaged my aching feet. But I barely even felt the pain of running barefoot.

I couldn’t believe I was actually alone to explore and wander. I could laugh like a ridiculous loon at the top of my lungs as I kicked and splashed and put up a huge ruckus without anyone there to stop me or tell me that I needed to act like a proper lady would. I squealed and twirled in delight, flinging out my arms as I kicked the spray higher and higher, challenging myself each time to make a bigger and bigger splash. Finally I was soaked to the bone and laughing as tears spilled out of the corners of my eyes.

“Oh my gods.” I sighed and slapped at my wet curls, shoving them out of my face. My pulse raged, but not with fear or panic or anything else bad, but with happiness, an honest-to-goodness feeling of joy.

Blinking away the mixture of tears and lake water, I searched for the telltale rocky spire that would lead me to the secret cave. I soon spied it, just a few yards ahead. Feeling invigorated and emboldened by my newfound freedom, I marched toward it with a sense of purpose. Normally, I would have stopped myself and questioned whether what I was about to do was the right thing, but that day I was a free spirit.

I didn’t care. I didn’t have anyone there to stop me, to shove me aside, to growl, or to tell me how stupid I was being for just barging into a cave that way. Instead, I turned the corner and navigated the twisty maze of rocky outcroppings until I finally spied the person-sized entrance ahead.

It looked like a doorway had been carved out of the rock itself, and it was dark as the deepest shadows within. A cool draft wafted out from it, flirting with my exposed skin and breaking me out in a sudden wash of goosebumps.

I shivered. For just a second, I experienced the thrill of adrenaline zipping down my spine like a shot of lightning through my veins.

What if I shouldn’t go in there?

The darkness beckoned me, and although I was enchanted by the excitement of adventure, the wariness of what might be inside warred within me. I would probably never again be handed an opportunity like this. It was almost like... “Fate,” I said.

The world suddenly seemed to pause and take a scissoring breath. I thought I must have been going crazy, because I heard the angelic chime of bells in my ears.

But then it was all gone and only silence remained. The fear returned, heavy and brutally sharp. I clamped my hand over my heart and blinked. I had a choice, and the time for dawdling was over. Either turn back and return home and always wonder what it might have been, or...

I growled. No, I wouldn’t allow the voices of fear to dictate to me any longer. “Be brave,” I said, just like my Papa had told me so many other times in my life.

Plastering on a tight grin, I strode forward and entered the pitch-black tunnel. The second my feet crossed the threshold between day and night, a shiver gripped me, and my heart hammered violently in my throat.

Maybe I should turn back now? I’ve entered, after all. I’ve conquered my fears. I’ve been bold and brave, but there is no sense in being stupid.

I was all of ten steps in and was just about to turn and congratulate myself on surviving on my own when a sudden wash of color flooded my periphery. Without thinking, I turned, gasping at the moment I spied the shiny, bright object in a nest. It was what had been responsible for the light from the day before.

It was a perfectly smoothed and massive pearl, easily the size of my fist and glowing in a radiant gold, like a liquid drop of sunshine. It sat within a bed of brownish kelp and dark-green seaweed.

Instantly, I wanted it so I could give it to Mama. It would be a wonderful birthday present for her. Her birthday was only two weeks away. I could imagine her gasp of shock and her pretty face looking surprised and excited. It would be the best birthday present ever.

It took me fewer than four steps to get to the nest. I didn’t stop to think or to wonder how it was that such a perfect pearl could have appeared as if by magic.

It was Kingdom, not Mama’s Earth. Magic lived and breathed in this world. Maybe it was a magic cave that granted whoever found it riches. Maybe a Djinn had forgotten all about it and left it there a long, long time ago, and it had been sitting there forever, just waiting for me to someday find it.

I grinned when I bent over and brushed my fingers over the top of the pearl, astonished to feel its warmth pulse through my fingertips. Just then, a curl of wind whistled hard through the cave, causing tiny bits of stone to break off from the walls and plop into the water below.

I looked around, beginning to feel the slightest bit uneasy about being there. Does this pearl already belong to somebody else?

I glanced into the water at my feet. It only came ankle high, not nearly high enough for sirens to comfortably live in. So it couldn’t possibly belong to a maiden of the sea.

“A pirate. Yes, a pirate,” I said with a brisk nod. It must have been a pirate who left it here. But if it belonged to a pirate, and they were thieves, it meant it really didn’t belong to them at all because they’d stolen it from its rightful owner, which also means it technically didn’t belong to me either.

I almost left it after that, but then I thought of Mama’s happy face when I gave it to her. I was sure Papa would be jealous that I’d found her such a treasure. With one final look around, I assured myself that in no way was I stealing, because there was literally no one there. Surely no one would be silly enough to leave something of such value unguarded.

The angel on my shoulder shivered, telling me to turn around, to leave without the pearl, that we could find something else for Mama’s birthday.

But the devil, who sounded like a husky-toned female, said, “You’ll never find anything that could possibly make her as happy as getting this pearl. Stop being such a baby, Shayera, and take it. Take it!”

I took it. I wrapped both my arms around it like I was hugging it, pressing it tightly to my chest.

The world roared. The ground beneath my feet rumbled. The earth shook violently.

I fell to my butt, plopping unceremoniously into the water that had begun to churn and froth in a torrent beneath me. The pool grew deeper and deeper. The pearl slipped out of my hand, sinking into the water that had suddenly become as infinite as the Seren Seas.

“How dare you steal from me!”

I flailed my arms and kicked my legs for all I was worth, just trying to keep my head above water as I desperately swam for the safety of shore. What kind of terrible magic is this?

No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t move. I was held fast and quickly losing strength. “Oh my gods,” I screamed. “Oh my gods!” They seemed to be the only words I was able to say.

A pretty, luminous, icy-blue face suddenly materialized within the water. It was a woman’s face, and she had soft and tempting elfin features, but there was nothing nice about her. She was glaring at me, her eyes thin slits full of boiling rage.

Panic like I’d never known squeezed my heart in its vice-like grip, choking the air from my lungs. I was going to die. “Help!” I screamed, trying in vain to kick away. “Help me! Please, please help!” It was the end, but I was less scared for me than I was for Mama to find me that way. “Oh my gods!” My voice quivered with terror.

The face laughed, and the sound was terrible to hear. It sent a chill down my spine. “Oh, you’ll get your help, human. A boy comes even now.”

“Help! Please. Please!” I screamed, recognizing in some small corner of my mind that I was completely consumed by fear. There was nothing rational inside of me in that moment. The only thing I knew to do was to swim, but the more I struggled to move, the harder it felt. I grew more and more tired, flailing and kicking. Panic had set in completely.

No matter how hard I tried to move away, I was rooted to this very spot in what now was a lake of water. It was so dark that the terror of being confined in the darkness only added to my consuming panic.

Mama and Papa would weep if something happened to me, and they would never forgive me for sneaking away this way. Why have I done this? Why am I so stupid? My splashing was growing weaker and weaker. I wasn’t a good swimmer. I never had been. What a fool I’d been to go there.

“You’re a thief!” the watery female cried out.

I shook my head. “No. Non! I am not. I did not see anybody here—” Suddenly a powerful wave gripped me and dragged me under. I screamed watery bubbles as I lost the breath I should have held.

Dear gods above, I am going to drown. This crazy siren is going to drown me. All around me I heard the chilling echo of her voice.

“Thieves deserve nothing more than Davy Jones’s locker.” The watery thread of her voice echoed with a chilling fanaticism all around me. Her laughter was insane, terrifying. It turned my blood to ice, and the water that held me fast didn’t budge even an inch.

I was going to have to breathe. My lungs were on fire because there was nothing in there anymore, no air at all. I had seconds, if that, before I would be forced to breathe in, and then I would die. I’d drown for a stupid pearl.

The first twitches took me, and I wanted to scream, but I didn’t dare.

The chilling sounds of her laughter would haunt me into the afterlife, I was sure of it. But then I was rushed to the surface just as I was forced to take that final breath that would seal my doom. My head broke the surface at the very same instant I began to inhale, so I sucked in only a little bit of water, but it was enough to make me hack and sputter and swear that I would never, ever again steal from her.

She was a tower of female water standing before me, with a cruel, cutting smile on her face as she said, “No, human. You will not. You have no idea what you nearly took from me today. You will pay for what you’ve done.”

“Please don’t drown me again,” I sobbed, pleading miserably for her to spare me. “Please. It hurts.”

She laughed, and the sound was chilling and wicked, making me shiver. “I will not drown you. That type of punishment only lasts for such a little while. You are a thief, little girl, and thieves deserve what they get.”

Suddenly the water enveloped me, and when I gasped in surprise, I expected to drown in it, but I could breathe in that water. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The water shoved itself down my throat, bloating my belly until I felt I might burst from it. I screamed, but no sounds came out. The water boiled through my veins, cooking me from the inside. The pain was excruciating. At any second, my heart would stop beating from the shock. Why had I gone after that stupid pearl?

“Now you too shall know what it means to be haunted for your greatest treasure. Never again can you know peace. Never again will you try to harm another. So mote it be...”

All at once the cage of water exploded outward, violently thrusting me through the air and out of the cave entrance. I landed with my face upon the shore, hacking and sputtering the disgusting water out of my mouth as I trembled and shook, wondering what it was the siren had just done to me.

“Girl! Girl!” A man’s voice I did not recognize called out to me. I felt sick and weak, but somehow I managed to push myself to my hands, groaning as fire and pain licked at every square inch of me. I felt different and weird, full and distended with a terrible kind of dark magic. I blinked, trying to tell myself that I was alive, that I was okay, that, for whatever reason, the siren had shown me mercy after all.

Then I looked up, and I noticed that the man—who was youngish, with a thick mop of curly brown hair and dark brown eyes—had stopped moving and was just looking at me with a wild, crazed expression on his face.

I spit the sand out of my mouth and tried to stand, but I felt as weak as a baby chick. My muscles trembled in violent spasms. Deep down, I knew the siren had done something to me, and I was terrified that I might never be the same again.

Do I look like a monster? Did she transform my outward shell so that I’m a hideous demon-hybrid creature now? I wiggled my toes and my fingers. I still had my limbs, but something was very, very wrong. I could feel it. I knew it. I just didn’t know what or how.

The stranger stood upon the shore, but he was still several yards back. His intense look only grew more and more terrifying. And he too was shaking violently. “You’re... you’re a...” he mumbled, but stopped himself short as a terrible sort of groan spilled off his tongue. He grabbed at his stomach. “Oh no,” he whispered, shaking his head even as the vein in his neck throbbed with the stiffening of his muscles.

I heaved for breath, scared out of my mind, but not for myself this time. Finally, I was able to make my way to my knees, and I reached out to him. “What’s, what’s the—”

“Stop! Stop!” He wanted nothing to do with me. It was as though he wanted to be anyplace but here. But rather than leave, he walked toward me. His footsteps were plodding at first, but growing more and more sure with each step. Madness burned in his eyes and the thrill of true and horrifying fear slid down my tongue.

For some reason, I chose that moment to finally look down at myself, expecting to find that I was a monster. It wasn’t a monster I saw, but the lambent glow of pearlescent flesh so alluring, so tempting that even I caught my breath at the sight of it.

I heard the male getting closer and closer, and suddenly I recalled a story Papa had told me only a few months ago about a female, a human, also called a siren. She wasn’t able to manipulate water the way the fae sirens could. The human sirens were cursed to be the physical embodiment of pure lust and desire.

They were made of a lust so potent and destructive that it drove anyone around them to madness with their desire. They would do anything at all to have them. They would rape or kill. It didn’t matter. The only way to tell a human siren apart from a normal woman was the strangely attractive glow of her lambent skin.

I screamed, horror and understanding dawning at once. I was too paralyzed with fear to move. And then the male was on me, shoving me into the sand beneath, gripping my arms as he trapped my legs with his.

Finally, I snapped out of my stupor. I fought him like a devil. I clawed and kicked, but he was overwhelming in strength. Burning with shame and rage at what had been done to me, I sobbed when he kissed my neck.

He muttered horrible words in between the sucks and kisses. “Forgive me.”

“I’m not strong enough.”

“You must die. You must die. You are a monster now. But oh, dear goddess, you’re gorgeous...”

Sickened by his words, fat tears spilled out the corners of my eyes. I raked at his face. I screamed and slapped and kicked at him. I did anything I could do to try and get him off me. But no matter what I did, the male overwhelmed me, repeatedly whispering that he was sorry, even as he disrobed, and even as I felt the hard length of something prod at my inner thigh.

Just as I was sure that I would never again be the same, that after that day I would rather die than live on, I heard a howl the likes of which I’d never heard before in my life. It was throaty and full of demonic fury. And for just a wild, strange second, I could have sworn I heard my name rumble in the thunder. “Shayera.”

Though the blood ran cold through my veins, the man above me did not stop. If anything, he seemed more frenzied and frantic to finish what he’d started. I was outside of myself, aware not of the man above me, but of the one stalking toward me with fury burning like coals through his blood red eyes.

A moment later, the tall, dark, and shadowed man gripped the male straddling me and lifted him high. Rage had twisted the shadow man’s face into such stark and raw wrath that all I could do was stare at him in utter and complete shock.

There were no words exchanged, no declarations of war. The shadow man simply gripped the male by his throat and pulled. Blood, hot and wet and thick, splattered my face, my neck, and my chest. I jerked as I realized that, in less than a second, he’d killed the stranger with his bare hands.

The shadow man stared down at me, breathing like a bellows and looking like he still wanted to kill or hurt something. His hands furled and unfurled, and long, wickedly curved black nails clacked as his fists opened and closed. In that suspended moment in time, I knew exactly who he was.

The Man in Black.

His blond hair was plastered in viscera red. His cheeks were covered in it too.

“You’re a monster,” I said. I didn’t know why I’d said it. Maybe because that’s what Papa had always told me the man in black was. I was ashamed to admit, even in the safety of my own head, that it wasn’t the brutal killing of the other man that scared me. That wasn’t it at all. Truth was, I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling at that moment. Fear, but so much more too.

I clutched at my chest, only just realizing that the male had torn my shirt in half and my chest was showing. The moment I noticed, the man in black must have too, because he shuddered, looking suddenly agonized.

He turned to the side, opening and shutting his mouth and still clenching and unclenching his fists. What is happening to me? Why aren’t I screaming? Why aren’t I running away? Is this shock?

I thought it might be. That other man had almost raped me, and the man in black had suddenly and violently slaughtered him in front of my eyes. I’d never seen anyone die before.

It wasn’t just his death. It was the brutality of it that ate away at me. I looked at the crumpled body lying there where the dark man had tossed it away like garbage. I didn’t have to see his throat to recall with perfect clarity what had been done to him.

That man had come because I’d called out to him. He’d come to save me. To help me. For just a second he’d been a savior to me, until he’d turned into the very same kind of monster he’d accused me of being. I’d led him to his death.

This is all my fault. Every bit of it.

The tears finally came in great, big torrents then and I couldn’t stop them.

The man in black turned toward me with a wildness in his eyes. He was going to kill me too. I just knew it. Oh my gods.

All I could do was curl in on myself, wrap my arms around my middle, and sob as I cried out long and low for “Mama.” Just one word, her name, but I chanted it like a prayer. “Mama. Mama. Mama.” I wanted to tell her how sorry I was for being so stupid. How sorry I was for hurting her this way. For what the man in black was about to do to me.

But then he howled. The sound chilled my soul, turning it to ice in my chest, and I looked up, swiping at my cheeks. The dark man was looking down on me with tortured, glowing eyes. I felt his pain like a blade to my chest. I sucked in a shaky breath as the fire of it ripped right through me, causing my tears to flood down even harder.

“Carrots,” he cried. Then he jerked, and the broken man looked suddenly terrified by what he’d said.

I shook my head, so bloody confused. I just wanted to go home and to wake up from this nightmare.

With another echoing cry that made all the fine hairs on my arms stand on end, he turned on his heels and ran, as though Hades’s killing hounds nipped at his heels.

A second later, I was alone again. The body of the dead man was gone, and only a depression in the grass remained. Maybe the man in black took him away. Would he bury him? Eat him? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. All I knew was he was a very bad man—a terrible, deadly man who had let me live.

I couldn’t stop the tears. I sat there for a long time, alone, battered, bloody, and horribly ashamed of what had been done to me. Finally, I sensed that I was no longer alone.

When I looked up, I spotted Prince. He whimpered in a broken, high-pitched whine from where he hid in the shelter of a scrub bush. I finally got to my feet and ran to him, sobbing openly, grieving for what had been stolen from me that day. I don’t remember getting to his side. I don’t remember wrapping my arms around his shaggy neck. I don’t remember riding on his back toward home. But the next thing I knew, I was on my porch steps, curled in on myself, gripped with heartache, crying the sorts of sobs that came from deep within. I wept, full of pain and the knowledge that I’d just lost something vital to me.

I’d lost my innocence.

Prince whined and wailed, and finally the front door opened. Uncle Kelly’s big, strong arms wrapped around me, and he hissed the second he touched me. Prince growled and snarled, but I didn’t know why, because Prince had always liked my Uncle. Uncle Kelly shook violently, but he took me inside. Only once we got in there did he drop me onto the couch and run off as though I’d burned him.

Then I felt another set of arms, softer, but strong and sure, around me.. Briley whispered to me in his sweet voice, “It’s okay now, Shay Shay. You’re okay.”

I curled into his strong chest. Prince never growled at him. Briley picked me up as if I weighed nothing, and he took me straight to my room. He sat me in my bed, holding me until Mama and Papa came back.

In my head, I heard the devil’s voice repeating one sentence over and over. The same husky female voice who’d told me to take the pearl at the beach said, “It had to be, Carrots, it had to be.”