Beka rolled her eyes. “What the hell do you know about cute? You’re a dragon.” She resolutely tore her gaze away from the sight and went to flop down on the futon instead.
“I know that you hardly ever pay attention to men, even when they treat you a lot better than that guy did,” Chudo-Yudo said, opening the mini-fridge with his teeth to fetch out his latest bone. “And I also know that you hardly took your eyes off that one the whole time he was here. Hence—cute.” He crunched on the bone loudly.
Beka would have argued, but what would be the point? It was true. There was something about the man that pulled at her core . . . despite the fact that he was cranky, unpleasant, and couldn’t stand anything about her. Thank goodness she was never going to see him again.
Chudo-Yudo lifted up his head and a second later, a knock on the door made her heart skip a beat. But something told her it wasn’t a stick-up-his-butt fisherman, coming back to borrow a cup of sugar.
In fact, when she opened the door, her visitor was revealed to be a slim, dark-haired man clad only in a pair of shorts. He dripped wetly on her doorstep, smelling faintly of salt and sea and mystery. When Beka came down to meet him, he bowed low in respect, his pale form bent almost to the ground. A ragged piece of seaweed was caught behind one ear like a ribbon, tangled in his ebony curls.
“Baba Yaga,” he said, his tone formal as he handed her a roll of something that wasn’t quite parchment, but still looked ancient and weighty, for all that it, too, dripped salt water on the ground beneath. “I bring you greetings and salutations from the Queen of the Merpeople and the King of the Selkies. They hope that you will meet them this e’en at tide’s turn, down upon yon beach.” He gestured gracefully toward the ocean that waited just across the highway, its heartbeat as dependable as the waxing and waning of the moon.
Damn, Beka thought. So much for staying out of trouble.
“I see,” she said to the messenger, although clearly she didn’t. “Please tell them that I will be there.”
She’d spent the last two years avoiding anything that would call for her to draw on her powers as Baba for anything more urgent than averting the occasional tidal wave or quieting an earthquake, so she could be sure of not screwing up. Something told her she’d finally run out of time.
FOUR
A LOW MOON hung over the deserted beach, casting eerie shadows over windswept sand. A few days past full, its pallid globe danced in and out of scudding clouds, playing at hide-and-seek with a group of friendly stars. A little way offshore, a whale breached, sending a spume of water into the sky to add to the fun.
The night air held a tiny bite of cold as it crept in off the water, and elusive scraps of fog wandered to and fro as if looking for the party. At her feet, a crab edged sideways toward a safer section of sand. Beka wished she could do the same.
The moon hid its face for one long moment, and when it returned, a half a dozen figures had materialized out of the frothing surf. They walked out of the sea as if they strolled out of another world, one of mystery and magic and strange enchanting beauty. Which was more or less the truth of the matter, as it happened.
The two in front had the kind of presence that caught the eye without intending to; an upright stance, a high-held head, a regal stare that said, Look, these ones are important. Special. Do not presume to bother them.
It wasn’t anything they did or said, simply who they were. The guards who walked behind each of them were nothing; a habit, perhaps, a display of power, or merely the caution of the long-lived. But the two in front . . . it was just as well that the beach was empty at this late hour, because no one seeing them could have mistaken them for anything less than what they were: royalty out of legend, risen up upon a shore not their own.
On the left, the Queen of the Merpeople wore a gown of green and blue that swirled around her ankles, the pointed tips of the hemline dragging over her bare, slightly webbed feet as they slid effortlessly across the crusted sand. A silver belt entwined her slender waist, and a bejeweled diadem twinkled atop the crimson flame of her hair.
To her right, the King of the Selkies strode in muscular grace. His attire was more muted: brown and gray with tiny glints of light from layered scales, as though his pants and tunic had been crafted from some exotic deep-sea creature whose subtle armored shell could be formed into everyday attire. No crown sat on his straight black hair, but he carried a scepter in one hand with a large emerald at its tip.
Beka took a few steps forward and executed a sweeping bow. Strictly speaking, a Baba Yaga didn’t need to bow to anyone except the High Queen of the Otherworld, before whom all paranormal beings bowed (at least, all those with any sense of self-preservation). But as her mentor always said, it never hurt to be polite.