“Because if you want to save his life, you must wear it at all times.”
Betty wanted to refuse. But she shoved her hair off her shoulders instead and tensed as the necklace wound around her neck as if by invisible fingers. The moment it settled against her chest, warmth flowed from the pendant through her skin. Her entire body throbbed with liquid heat, from the tips of her pinky fingers to her toes. It was hard to describe, but it almost felt like the gentle swell of an ocean tide lapping against her breast. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted in an ‘o’.
Danika patted the pendant and sighed.
A rush of dizzying euphoria took hold of her, drove Betty to her feet, and she paced back and forth with restless energy. “I don’t want this. I’ve been burned. I don’t want to deal with another egotistical jerk and what... Oh no, wait a second.” She stopped on a dime, as another thought become painfully obvious. “He’s gonna have to stay here with me, isn’t he?”
“Well--” the fairy wheedled, eyes scrunching in her face.
“Oh jeez. Just wonderful.” Betty shook her head.
“Get to know him, lass. If anyone can bring out the best in that man, it’s you. It’s there, just hidden. Make him see you.”
“Why? What if I don’t want to?” After James, Betty had zero desire to begin another romance. She was tired of dating, tired of men, and so far Gerard had done very little to make her feel in any way romantically inclined toward him. The man could kiss like nobody’s business, but that was just sex. Betty wanted all or nothing, and refused to ever settle again.
“Because you are his perfect match. Only you can awaken the shriveled mess of his heart, only you can break the curse Galeta planted on him.”
Betty shook her head. What did the fairy possibly see in her to even make her think that? She and Gerard were oil and water. They didn’t mix, barely even got along. There was nothing there, chemistry maybe. But anything of any substance-- not a bit.
“I can’t keep him here,” she crossed her arms.
“He’s got no place else to go. Betty, you are it. His last hope. Love, that is the most powerful magic of all.” As she said it, her body began to grow translucent. “Love, it can move mountains.”
She was fading, and Betty was still confused, still full of questions. “But what Galeta did. How do I break that?” she yelled at the barely there shadow.
“Love conquers all...” The last words quivered on the air like the silken strand of a spider’s web.
Chapter 8
A knock sounded on the bathroom door. Gerard didn’t move off the toilet seat. “What?” he growled.
“Gerard, its Betty,” her soft voice made his heart clench.
“Go away.” He glanced back down at the dragonfly rug on the floor, dizzy with the reality of what’d just happened.
How could Galeta have neutered him? Being bound to a woman was punishment enough, within the month they’d learn she did not love him and execute him posthaste. But now, now he’d never again know the pleasures of a woman’s body beneath his. Galeta might as well have killed him now.
Galeta had warned him years ago, after he’d rebuffed her advances, that she’d make him pay. And she had. First with the twisted parody of ‘his’ story and now this. The muscles in his forearms locked with the strain of holding himself back from punching a hole through Betty’s wall.
“Gerard, you need to come out. I think we should talk.”
Women-- a pox on them all.
He eyed the door and shot to his feet, slamming his open palm against the white paneled wood. “Come to gloat, to demand your due? What? What do you want from me?”
His blood rushed hot in his ears. Gods the humiliation. Forced to do her bidding, knowing he could never feel another moment of pleasure again unless with her, and only if she fell in love with him. As if that could ever happen. She hated him already.
Gerard pressed his forehead to the door. A sound, like the tapping of her fingers grated in his ears.
“I’m sorry.”
His fingers twitched. Why would she apologize?
“Open the door, please.”
He didn’t know what possessed him to open the door, but he flung it wide and her mouth parted on a wordless scream as she fell forward.
Grabbing her under her arms, he righted her, and then glowered. “You asked me to open, you should have been prepared instead of tripping into me like a drunken whore!”
Betty blustered, shoving strands of hair out of face. That’s when he noticed her spectacles. They were tipped at the corners, reminding him of cat eyes. Hideous things, but on her they looked adorable and he was shocked to note his pulse racing. That’s also when he realized he did not become hard, and the anger returned, sizzling hot through his gut. Growling, he walked out, forcing her to press up against the wall so as not to be run down.