Maybe it was the enormous gray stone castle and drawbridge off in the snowy distance, or the ornate, carved carriage with white horses. Or maybe even the quaint cottages with thatched roofs and men dressed in roughly sewn breeches and matching vests, all staring down at her from a safe distance as though she’d just dropped out of the sky.
Wait. She sorta had just dropped out of the sky.
Oh. My. Hell.
Toni sat up fast, making her head swim. She scurried away from the warm lump beneath her and rose to her haunches, letting her head hang between her knees.
That was when she noted her breasts felt like two freshly popped cans of dinner rolls, squeezed to maximum capacity. Not to mention, her ribs were surely in a vise of some sort.
A vise made of the most beautiful silver taffeta with the prettiest lavender undertones she’d ever seen.
Her hands flew to her chest, feeling for her nametag and the buttons of her pink jacket from the store. But they were gone, replaced with yard after yard of material whispering across the tops of her feet.
“Oh, save us all—she’s killed her!” someone shouted.
Someone British—maybe Welsh? Toni’s head popped up to find a long, thin finger pointing down at her with accusation. She slammed her eyes shut as small feet scuttled away.
Huh.
“Is she dead?” another voice cried, evoking a round of loud gasps.
“Brenda’s not going to like this!”
Toni looked again at the shiny material and gulped. Why did this scenario seem so eerily familiar? And who the hell was Brenda?
Dropping down to the cold earth because her thighs were killing her, she opted out of giving any more credence to the billowing silver tulle beneath the shiny fabric bunched between her thighs.
Then Toni felt a hand at her back, easy yet insistent. “You’re the salesgirl from the store, right?”
The voice sounded as though it came from the woman named Wanda. She couldn’t be sure because there was no exuberant squeal to her tone like there’d been when she found the scarves for sale.
Toni nodded her head, forcing her eyes back open, but she kept them at ground level, risking only quick glimpses because if she looked up, and allowed her brain to register what she thought she’d just seen, she’d lose her mind.
“I don’t know what happened. I heard you all screaming and I went to investigate. The next thing I know, I fell into something. A hole or a vortex…or a vacuum that felt like a Dyson was sucking the organs right out of me or…I think—I don’t know—and then I landed here on top of…something…”
“I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson. What’s your name?” she asked, the beautiful, shiny wings between her shoulder blades softly pumping.
Wings. This woman had wings. Genuine wings.
“Your name? Talk to me so I know you’re coherent.”
“Antonia Vitali. Toni is fine, though.”
“Do you want to know what you landed on?”
She stared hard at the snow beneath her feet. “I want to know a lot of things. Like why you have wings, and hair so big I don’t know how you’re still holding your head upright. But for the moment, I vote we wait. I’m sure that’s cruel and callous, because I’m thinking it’s not a stretch to say it was a person I landed on, but I can wait on confirmation if it’s okay by you.”
“You’re in shock. I get it. So for now, give me your hand, Toni. Let me help you up. It’s cold down there on the ground and your new outfit, while absolutely stunning, definitely is not suited for this kind of weather.” Wanda’s voice was warm and reassuring and tinged with kindness, making Toni suspicious.
No one had ever been this nice to Toni Vitali. Not in a long damn time.
They’d just fallen into Cinderella’s lair—was it called a lair? No. It was a forest, wasn’t it? Did Cinderella have a forest? She shook her head. One of those God-awful princesses, with the lush hair swinging around their waists, trust issues out the wazoo and a lack of fortitude, had a forest. She just couldn’t remember which one. Either way, who remained calm and reassuring at a time like this?
Wait. Had Stas sent these women? Had that maniac and his crew finally found her? Had they drugged her back at the store? Given her some kind of hallucinogenic? Was she really in some padded cell back at Stas’s House of Horrors and she was just under the influence of drugs?
“Promise I won’t hurt you, Toni. Take my hand.”
Toni did so, but with great reluctance. Wanda snatched her shaking fingers and yanked her up, gripping her shoulders. “Look at me, Toni.”
She did as Wanda demanded, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings in slow increments. Snippets of the big picture flashed to her brain then retreated due to their surreal nature.
No. Effin’. Way.
Then some of it began to sink in. Okay, so thus far she seen a castle far off in the distance and snow-covered trees and a crooked signpost she couldn’t read without her glasses with the name of wherever they were, down at the end of a broad, muddy road winding endlessly into the surrounding forest.
There were horses tethered to wagons, cottages with thatched rooftops, and people all milling about in a cautiously wide circle around them, dressed in outfits right out of the Renaissance fair.