Beka snorted. “I don’t think so, although the thought has certainly crossed my mind. The Riders are here now—two of them, at least—and with their help, I’m sure to be able to fix this mess before the High Queen loses her patience.” She hoped so, anyway. The Queen wasn’t known for her tolerance of failure.
“The Riders are here? How nice to know.” He gave her a smooth, sweet curve of the lips, and held out a morsel of succulent lobster. “You have a great deal to do, my darling. You must keep your strength up. Drink some more of your lovely champagne and try a piece of this rare blue lobster. I caught it for you myself, just this afternoon.”
The moonlight seemed ensnared by his glinting eyes, captured and reflected in a distorted double vision of matching crescents as sharp as knives. Beka blinked, thinking he was right. She really needed to keep up her strength. Smiling, she opened her mouth and took a bite.
* * *
KESH FOLLOWED BEKA back home, pausing at the edge of the clearing where the bus was parked to ponder the evening’s conversation. He was tempted to go closer and look through the windows to see if she was working on some new magical experiment, but he did not wish to attract the attention of the Riders or that cursed Chudo-Yudo. For some reason, the monster had taken against him. Suspicious beast.
Of course, he was poisoning the dragon-dog’s mistress, and plotting to kill her, but his charm always worked on stupid animals, paranormal or otherwise. And it wasn’t as though Chudo-Yudo had any way to know what Kesh was up to. Thankfully, that charm still seemed to be working on the Baba Yaga, although she mysteriously continued to refuse his romantic advances. Something to do with that damned sailor, no doubt, although why anyone would choose a coarse Human fisherman over a refined Selkie prince was beyond his comprehension.
He pouted into the darkness, annoyed by the way her stubbornness had forced him to change his plans. It seemed that Brenna’s attempts to discourage Beka had failed. And now the Riders were here. That truly was unfortunate. He might be able to take advantage of Beka’s relative youth and inexperience, along with her idiotically trusting nature (so un-Baba-like), but the Riders would not be so easy to fool. Nor were they likely to be willing to join in his efforts to torment the Humans who despoiled his ocean.
No, it was time to move on to his end game. Ahead of schedule, but what was one to do? And there was one bit of good news amidst the bad: that the Queen was actually considering giving Brenna back her position as Baba Yaga if Beka could not prove herself capable of doing the job. Kesh thought it was easily possible that the Queen had never intended to follow through on the threat, but nonetheless, Brenna would be very pleased to hear of it.
Almost as pleased as she would be when her adopted daughter was dead and unable to thwart her plan to return to the power and influence of being a Baba Yaga. With an ally like Brenna, Kesh could not fail to win.
Such a pity about Beka, but all wars had their incidental casualties. And she would only be the first of many.
TWENTY-ONE
WHEN THE MUTED rumble of a vehicle came in through the open window the next morning, both Beka and Chewie’s heads swiveled in that direction.
“Now who’s here?” Beka exclaimed in disbelief. Normally she could go months without anyone coming near her bus. Lately it seemed like Grand Central Station. Of course, it didn’t help that she could tell from the sound that it wasn’t Marcus’s Jeep.
“Maybe I should put in a revolving door and start selling tickets,” Chewie muttered. “At least it would pay for more chocolate and marshmallows.”
Beka moved to open the door, and what she saw made her feel better than she had in days.
“I don’t believe it!” she said, running down the steps and over to the large silver Airstream. A tall woman with a cloud of long, dark hair climbed out of the passenger side of the silver Chevy truck pulling the trailer. She moved with the dangerous grace of a panther. Or a Baba Yaga.
“Barbara! What are you doing here?” Beka asked, screeching to a halt with Chewie on her heels. “You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.”
“I am on my honeymoon,” her sister Baba said with a wide smile. “We just happened to be in the area and I thought we’d stop in and say hi, since you couldn’t make it to the wedding.”
A slim, attractive man with sandy brown hair came around from the other side of the truck, followed by a small, solemn-looking pixie of a child who peered at Beka from behind his long legs.
“This is Liam,” Barbara said, putting one proprietary hand on his arm. “And this is Babs, my adopted daughter.” Her pride in them both softened her usually severe countenance in a way that Beka had never seen before.