Betty’s eyes bugged and she twirled around, making the room spin for a split second and giving herself a wicked case of vertigo. She grabbed her stomach and couldn’t even squeak out a sound at the sight of a doll sized woman hovering in front of her.
Her hair was blonde, piled in large curls atop her head and threaded through with a string of... well, it looked like dew. Like perfect miniature dew drops shimmering in mother of pearl. Her wings were a see through, blue-tinted gossamer color. Reminding Betty more of dragonflies wings than a butterfly’s. She had an open face, not breathtakingly gorgeous, but friendly.
Betty rubbed her eyes. “I know I’m not that drunk.”
The fairy-- who’d been tapping her blue star tipped wand in into the palm of her hand-- lifted a brow. “Oh is that it? Well, I can fix that right up.”
Before Betty had a moment to gather her thoughts in protest, pink lightning arced from the wand and encircled her head. Her heart raced as she breathed in ozone tinted air, the breath burned her nose with mini volts of shivering current. And like a balloon popping, the wine laced stupor she’d been in vanished in an instant.
She yelped and scooted to her feet. “Gerard!” She screamed. There’d been no thought to call Gerard, pure instinct drove her to yell for him, wanting him suddenly near her. “Come here. Come quick.”
The fairy grinned. “First name basis, already? How splendid!” She rubbed her hands. “I knew you were the one.”
“What?” Gerard’s thick burr snared Betty’s gaze, she pointed at the fairy, ready to demand if he saw her too or if she’d totally lost her mind, but the words died.
“You’re...you’re--”
Water puddled at his feet. His very bare feet. She licked her lips, mentally chanting at herself not to look up. Black springy hair covered extremely muscular calves, and his thighs... she gulped, like a cedar trees.
Even the girlie pink towel he’d wrapped around his waist could not detract from the sheer male beauty of him. Something thick and halfcocked bulged from behind it and her stomach flopped.
“Cherie?” he questioned again and she jerked, realizing she’d been gawking like an awkward teen. His eyes glimmered with a knowing light and when he bit his bottom lip, she knew he knew what she’d been peeking at. “Say the word, love, and the towel comes off.”
Her cheeks flamed.
“Oh gods,” the bell like voice dripped disgust, “you are a fine piece of work, Gerard. Does that ever work?”
His body tensed and he shoved off the wall. “Fee, you damn...”
The fairy circled in front of Betty and wagged her finger. “Uh, uh. Mind your words, mon ami.”
His mouth snapped shut, but his eyes narrowed into twin slits. That’s when Betty knew she wasn’t nuts. Either they were having a shared hallucination or this fairy was real.
Betty’s smile faltered when the fairy turned toward her.
“Well, what do you think?” she pointed at Betty while talking to Gerard, “beautiful like you like them. She can string a sentence together, and best of all she knows nothing of your colorful past.”
“Fee,” Gerard snarled, cutting her off. He sauntered into the middle of Betty’s living room, one hand gripping the edges of the towel together, the other flexing like he wanted to strike something.
The dichotomous image of a hulking man wrapped in fluffy pink made Betty want to laugh, even while she also wanted to drag him to her bedroom and scratch the itch he’d started the moment she’d spotted his cocky self lounging in her library.
“Wait,” Betty pinched the bridge of her nose, “what’s going on here? Who’s that?” She pointed to the flying fairy and jeez... that sounded weird just thinking it.
“That’s Danika--” Gerard said.
“Fairy Godmother Extraordinaire,” the fairy said with a snap of her head.
“I’ll be honest,” Betty chuckled, “this is so not what I expected when I brought you home with me. I’d swear you laced my brownies with weed, except we didn’t have any and could somebody please explain what the heck’s going on here!” Betty did always tend to talk too much when she got nervous, and right now she was about as nervous as she’d ever been.
Danika took a deep breath, her friendly smile growing even wider, which was just creepy as hell. In theory coming face to face with a doll sized fairy seemed cool, in reality... not so much. Betty had no desire to go through pink electroshock 2.0, thank you very much, once had been more than enough. The thing might be small, but she packed a punch.
“My dear,” the fairy’s voice filtered through the room like a choir of bells, “I promise to answer all your questions, but first I must needs speak with Gerard. If you could give us some privacy please?”
Betty’s eyes bugged. Was she freaking kidding? A stranger-- fairy or no-- coming into her house and asking her to leave? Yeah-freaking-right. She crossed her arms.
Gerard shook his head. “Her house, she can stay.” His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of nerves Betty had never heard from him before. For reasons unknown, her stomach sank with a horrible sense that all was not well.