Queen of the Freaks
Chapter 9

I arrived at the park around one in the morning. My earlier nap had given me a bit of an energy boost so I was feeling pretty awake. The party seemed like it happened five years ago. This was definitely turning out to be an eventful night.

This particular park was near the edge of the forest and it was a place where Amy and I used to play when we were children. When we got older we would walk around the park and gossip about boys and make up and how weird our parents were. There were a few park benches and a couple of garbage cans scattered across the wide grassy area, but mostly it was a natural, peaceful area that lead to walking trails into the woods and for some reason it always felt like a safe place to me.

I had to park my Jeep far away from the actual spot, since it was a tourist attraction and technically the park was closed to the public during the night hours. What that really meant was that you couldn’t drive into the park because the gates closed off the roads but you could walk there if you wanted to. It wasn’t like there were security guards or cameras watching over the place.

“Amy?” I called out as I got closer to the edge of the woods. My voice seemed to pierce the quietness of the night air. I walked towards a bench and saw a jacket crumpled up by the armrest. I picked it up and saw that it was Amy’s. My stomach started to feel funny and my heart started to beat a little faster.

“Amy? Are you here?” My voice wavered a little as I walked towards the trees. I saw something glittering on the forest floor about twenty feet away from me. I couldn’t make out what it was but I thought I should go see what it was. I stepped into the forest and my body was filled with a sense of peace and happiness, which was exactly what my brain was telling me I shouldn’t be feeling after replaceing Amy’s jacket on the bench.

I stepped closer to the object that shone out at me, trying to figure out how it was reflecting the moonlight, but then I heard a twig snap. It was like something from a movie, but I knew I wasn’t in a movie.

“Danger. Danger.” The voice in my head wasn’t Ginger this time, but I had a feeling it was from a nearby animal of some kind. The voice confirmed what my instincts told me. I aborted the mission to recover the shiny object and turned around only to be face to face with a very hot guy.

Okay, seriously, where were all of these hot guys coming from? It was like a modeling agency from hell.

This particular one was tall, well over six feet, and had broad shoulders. His straight blond hair was cut in layers and angled over one side of his face. His nose was perfectly straight and his lush lips sat in the center of his very defined jawline. I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, even with my vampire night vision skills, but I could tell they were both fearless and cold. He was dressed in jeans, a tee shirt and a black leather jacket and stood with one thumb looped through his belt loop and the other by his side. I couldn’t see any weapons but there was definitely something very intimidating and dangerous about the man who stood in front of me.

“Hello Tianna, nice to finally meet you.” His voice was deep and quiet. He didn’t sound threatening at all but I still didn’t trust him. “I assume you are looking for your friend Amy?”

I was taken aback.

“Who the hell are you? How do you know Amy?”

One side of his lips went up into a smirk.

“I know Amy because of you. I can take you to her. I promise you she is safe and is excited to see you.”

I felt a bit of the weight come off my shoulders. Amy was safe at least. Or so the stranger in the woods told me.

“You still didn’t answer the first question. Who are you?”

His smirk stayed on his face while he replied.

“A friend.”

“Uh HUH. A friend who just happens to show up out of nowhere in the woods at one in the morning. Sorry but I’m just not buying it. I might be blonde but I’m not dumb.” I crossed my arms and stood my ground.

“Tianna, I mean you no harm and I’m sorry if I startled you tonight. I knew you were searching for your friend and I’m here to help you. She’s in our magical world.”

My mouth gaped open. Obviously this guy was a vamp and Amy was in the magical world that even I, the queen of magical freaks, hadn’t visited yet. Thoughts of Amy wandering around among goblins, gnomes and vampires instantly had me fearing for her life.

“Take me to her.” I uncrossed my arms and watched as his smirk turned into a full smile.

“As you wish my lady.” He gave a slight nod with his head and started walking into the forest. I watched him walk away, waiting for any signs that he was as dangerous as my gut told me he was. I saw nothing that seemed suspicious so after a few seconds started moving forward. I walked past the shiny object laying on the forest floor and realized it was Amy’s watch. I knew it was hers because the strap was pink with a red cherry embroidered on the side. The sinking feeling in my stomach came back.

“I assure you, your friend is in good health,” he didn’t turn around, he just made the statement as he kept walking. I ran a bit to catch up with him.

“How do you know she’s okay? When did you last see her?”

He didn’t stop to chat, he kept moving forward quickly and it was hard to keep up with him.

“I know where they took her.”

Ah, crap. Sinking feeling confirmed.

“So she didn’t just happen to wander into the magical world on her own?” My voice was quiet and faint.

He gave me a look that clearly said “are you insane?”.

“No one can enter our world unless they know the key, surely you know that.”

Silently I cursed Bob for leaving out that tidbit of info.

“Um, right,” I tried to act nonchalant. “The key. Duh.”

The smirk came back on his face and it let me know he wasn’t falling for my act.

“Here we are.” He stopped so suddenly I almost ran right into him. We had stopped in front of a tiny brook that ran down between rows of tall trees. The sound of the water had a soothing effect on my nerves. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, smiling to myself as the night air hit my lungs. I could’ve stayed out all night by the brook. My heart felt like it had wings and I wanted to twirl around and around like a kid until I got too dizzy and—

“Mo chuid fola ea m’eochair, lig dom dul tharat,” His words snapped me out of my thoughts.

“What the fuck does that mean? I don’t speak magical world lingo.”

“It’s Gaelic, and it’s the key to getting into our world. No one can enter unless they say the words.”

Good thing my parents taught me to be hooked on phonics! I quickly took my cell phone out of my pocket and touched the screen a couple of times until the voice recorder was ready to go.

“Can you repeat that little tongue twister for me again?” I touched the record button and looked up at him again. I could sense he was a bit annoyed.

“Mo chuid fola ea m’eochair, lig dom dul tharat,” He repeated, although this time his tone was more agitated. I pressed the stop button and then played back the message was I held up the phone to my ear and repeated the words phonetically. I didn’t care if I sounded like a dork.

“There!” I was proud of myself for that genius idea. “Now I can enter.” I took another step towards him and then asked another question. “What does that Gaelic stuff translate into anyways?”

“It means ’my blood is my key, let me pass through’.”

Oh. Made sense I guess. I was sort of disappointed it wasn’t something more magical like abracadabra.

“So now that we’ve said the words how do we…” My words faded away as I watched the mysterious man walk through what appeared to be a clear jello wall. No really, I watched as his arm went into the see-through jelly and then the rest of him followed and all of him disappeared. When I looked at the spot where he went through the wall all I could see was the forest and brook, exactly as they were before. It was as though he walked into a black hole, only it was like cellophane.

I stepped closer and poked my finger into the spot where he’d dissipated and it felt cold. I watched as my finger disappeared off my hand and quickly pulled my hand back. My finger was still in tact. Whew! The last thing I needed was a missing finger.

I thought I’d be brave and stick my hand forward again and this time the whole hand evaporated and I looked like an amputee. I pulled it back again and once again my hand was perfectly fine.

Well shit. I was just going to suck it up and walk through it like the fearless, independent bitch that I was.

I held my chin up high and walked straight ahead. I walked into a soft, cold wall that made my body feel like it was being squeezed through a sausage making machine. For a moment all I could see was fog ahead of me, but then it cleared and my body felt like it was being pushed into a brightly lit room.

I looked down to make sure all of my bits and pieces made it (they did) and then looked around at the world in front of me. It was still a forest, but it was definitely a different one. It was daylight and there didn’t seem to be a cloud in the sky. The trees were twice as big and the bright green moss on the ground actually sparkled like someone bedazzled them. The brook that was so pretty and peaceful in the other world was simply breath-taking in this world. The water was bright blue and nestled perfectly among the rocks to create a little waterfall, which was surrounded by the prettiest purple flowers I had ever seen. The colors in this world were alive! It looked like the world got taken over by Technocolor or something.

“It’s nice isn’t it?” The mysterious man was leaning against a tree eating an apple. He tossed one over to me and I caught it. I momentarily heard my mom’s voice in my head telling me to never accept food from strangers and looked down at the apple. It looked normal to me. Better than normal actually, it looked perfect.

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice.” I rolled the apple around in my hands. “So, I probably should’ve demanded you tell me this before I stepped into a different realm with you, but what is your name?” It wasn’t that I was scared of him exactly, in fact I was starting to trust him. He had many opportunities to kill or maim me and he hadn’t taken advantage of any of them. Maybe I had read him wrong. Plus, I was in a world where I had no idea why the moss was twinkling at me so I thought that maybe I should befriend him.

“You can call me Stanley.”

“Woah, wait a minute. Stanley? Not Joe or John or Bill? I thought you had to have a boring one syllable name to belong to this club.”

“You can call me Stan if that helps.”

“Yes, that helps. Stan.” I pouted for a moment before taking a big bite out of the apple. “So what’s with the rainbow colors in this world?” I didn’t care that I was talking with my mouth full. “I feel like I’m stuck in a cartoon or something.”

“It’s your fairy blood. It lets you see the world for what it really is, which means everything is brighter and better than it is in the dull human world. Perhaps now you can see why us magical folk don’t venture into the human world very often.”

“I guess so.” I looked around again. It looked so surreal that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Willy Wonka jumped out and told me to lick the trees.

Still, it was very pretty and peaceful. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and breathed deeply again.

“Welcome home!”

“The queen has arrived, the queen has arrived!”

“Peace will come to us once again!”

The voices in my head made my eyes fly open. Sure enough, there was a pure white rabbit hopping by, a bambi-look-alike by a bush and a silver horse by the tree. Wait, a silver horse? That can’t be right. I stepped to the right a bit so I could get a better look at the horse and that’s when I saw the glowing white horn that extended out of it’s forehead.

“A unicorn,” Stan shrugged like it was no biggie.

“No shit,” I gave him an agitated look before I went back to ogling the creature. Funny how I could accept gnomes, vampires, goblins and magical worlds but a unicorn seemed impossible to me. I wanted to go over and visit with it awhile so I stepped in it’s direction with my arm stretched out towards it. Just as I was about five feet away, the unicorn disappeared!

“What the hell?” I was getting really tired of people (or rather, magical folk) just disappearing in front of my eyes.

“Unicorns are solitary creatures. Very powerful. They do not enjoy being approached by anyone.”

Anti-social unicorns. They didn’t teach you that in cartoons. I didn’t want to look offended or anything so I shrugged my shoulders and took another few bites out of the apple. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d eaten.

“So anyways,” I turned to face him again. “Where’s Amy?” I didn’t want to waste any more time chasing rainbows or unicorns.

“Your persistence is an admirable characteristic.” He nodded slightly towards me before turning and walking away.

Okay, this guy was weird. He seemed to be lacking in social skills and had a habit of just walking away instead of answering questions.

I finished my breakfast (or was it dinner? I had no idea what time it was.) and hurried up so that I was close behind him, wondering what his story was. Who was this guy, exactly, and why was he willing to help me?

“So how come you’ve never been to this world before?” His question snapped me out of my own inner questioning.

“Well I was supposed to,” remembering back to what felt like years ago but was really only hours ago. “But plans sort of…changed.”

He remained silent.

“I went to a party instead and then weird things happened and the visit to this world kind of got pushed aside temporarily. I’m sure Bob would’ve taken me here as soon as he could though.”

“Was this Bob the one who also forgot to mention that you needed a key to get into the world?”

I paused for a moment before answering. “Yes.”

“I see.”

“But I know he would’ve told me about it when we got to the entrance.”

“He always told you everything?”

I thought back. Bob did have a way of not quite telling me the entire story, but I knew he always meant to.

“Well…he just didn’t get around to telling me every single detail, but he told me a lot of things.”

“I see.”

Seriously, what was with this guy?

He continued. “Did this Bob character tell you that his cousin was the one trying to kill you?”

“Woah, how do you know about Jimbo? And yeah, he did tell me.”

“He only told you after your life had been threatened, correct?”

“Well, yes.” Geesh, what did this guy have against Bob?

“So Bob shows up one day telling you only select things about the magical world that you belong to. Then he conveniently forgets to warn you that his cousin is evil and wants to kill you. He doesn’t bring you to the magical world, nor does he tell you how to get in, so you have no way to get to safety. He selfishly keeps you in the human world and watches as you lose your job, your social life disappears, you become depressed and confused and your life is put into jeopardy multiple times. Even now, when your close friend is missing, he is nowhere to be found. Interesting companions you keep.”

“Well when you put it that way,” I mumbled as I kept trying to keep up with him.

We walked a little further before he talked again.

“So have you made your decision yet?”

“My decision?”

“About becoming queen or not.”

I actually laughed out loud over that one. “Like I have a choice!” I blurted out while still laughing.

He stopped walking so quickly I almost ran into him.

“Surely Bob has told you that the decision to become queen of this world is yours to make?”

He seemed serious. I stopped laughing.

“He didn’t say I had a choice, he just told me that I was queen and then the weird things started happening. I mean, I have fangs and wings and stuff.”

“But you haven’t actually spoken your true desire to become queen?”

“Well no, I haven’t, like, announced it or anything. I just assumed I had to be.” I was going to strangle Bob when I saw him next. “So you’re saying I don’t have to be queen? Would my life go back to normal then?”

He nodded and started walking again.

“If you choose to reject the position, you forfeit all responsibilities of the world, along with your powers. You would go back to being a normal human being, albeit perhaps an unemployed one thanks to Bob’s goblin cousin.”

Why the HELL would Bob have kept that part to himself? I was so angry with the evil, secret-keeping little gnome that I was actually speechless.

Perhaps realizing that I was fuming and didn’t want to talk about it, Stan moved ahead again. I followed, silently cursing the sparkling moss and butterflies and the entire magical world.

“All is not what it seems. You must keep your eyes open to all possibilities.”

The voice was spoken through my mind so it had to be from a nearby animal. I searched the landscape but couldn’t replace any animal. Not a squirrel or a bird or even a mouse. Glancing at Stan, his face held a serious look that lacked emotion of any kind. I was going to ask him if he knew I could converse with animals, since he knew so much about my life, but something in my gut told me to hold off on that.

Instead, I decided to talk back to the animal. I focused on the voice since I had no specific creature to picture in my head.

“It seems pretty clear to me. I don’t have to be queen, I could go back to my normal life.”

“You were meant to be queen, it’s your destiny. Your old life is in your past.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone who believes in you.”

Um, okay, hold the cheese.

“What kind of animal are you? I know you’re around here somewhere but I can’t see you.”

No answer.

“Hello?”

Nothing. Damn this world, and everyone who ignores my questions!

“Everything alright?” Stan asked as he kept walking, not even so much as glancing at me.

“Everything’s just peachy. So how much further do we have to go to get to Amy?”

“Not much further.”

“Good. It’s been a long day. Night. Whatever the hell it is.”

“Do you need to rest for a bit?”

It was tempting, but thoughts of Amy kept running through my mind.

“No, I don’t need to rest. I just need to replace Amy.”

We kept walking. And walking. And walking. Just as I was about to ask how big this magical world was, Stan started talking again.

“So why did you choose a party over a visit to this place?”

Interesting question. What was he, a psychologist?

“Well, like you mentioned before, my social life has been…not as awesome as it used to be before I had wings and fangs and drank blood. Hey, that reminds me. I haven’t had any blood for hours.”

“In this world you will replace you don’t need as much food, blood or rest to keep you energized. Your energy comes from being in your natural surroundings. It is only when we leave this world and enter the human world that we need outside sources of energy. As you can see, this world is vibrating with a natural life force that is pure, which is why everything looks brighter and better. There is much power to be harnessed from such an abundance of energy.”

He put a little emphasis on the word power and I felt the pang in my stomach again.

“As you can see,” his voice seemed gentler. “Our world is prospering and thriving very well. If you were to make the choice to return to your normal human life, this world would continue as it is now.”

“But I thought I had an important role as the queen and stuff. Aren’t there things I should be doing? Rules to be enforcing and stuff like that?”

He chuckled. “With all due respect, you haven’t been here for the last nineteen years and we have survived just fine. Things have a way of sorting themselves out.”

“I suppose.” He had a point. Everything seemed to be twinkling and sparkling and doing just fine without me.

The anonymous animal’s voice ran through my head again. “All is not what it seems.”

I tried to ignore the voice. That would be one perk to going back to human-land and rejecting my queen status. No more animal voices in my head!

“Do you know why Jimbo wants to kill me?” It was worth a shot. This guy seemed to have a lot of information.

“Perhaps he was scared of a new leader and new rules. I would imagine most of the creatures in this world are not exactly looking forward to having a queen who, no offense, has absolutely no experience in the role as queen. A queen who, until right now, has never even been to the world she’s supposed to rule over. A queen who seems to be following the guidance of a gnome who may not have her best interests at heart.” He glanced over at me again and raised an eyebrow questioningly.

Thoughts of self-doubt and rejection popped into my head. What if the the entire magical world rejected me and wanted to assassinate me? Of course I wasn’t fit to be their queen. Even I would want to rebel against a new, unexperienced leader. I really couldn’t blame them one bit.

My future might turn into a lifetime of running away from dragons and goblins who wanted me dead and hit men hired to take me out.

Which reminded me of another question.

“How was Jim able to cause me so much fucking pain without touching me?”

That made him slow down a bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Well at the party when I was alone with my uber-hot date, I was about to kiss him and then Jim did something with his mind to make me feel the worst physical pain I have ever felt in my life. It felt like someone stabbed me with a knife or something in my chest.”

“That’s impossible.” He stated it as a fact.

“Dude, I felt that pain, it was real.”

“Are you sure you weren’t staked?”

I threw my hands up in the air, remembering back to when Finn asked me the same question. “How dumb do you pretty boys think I am? Why do you guys automatically assume I wouldn’t notice a wooden-fucking-stake sticking out of my chest? Yes, I’m absolutely sure I wasn’t staked.”

He ignored my angry rant, remaining completely emotionless, as though I hadn’t uttered a word.

“If you weren’t staked then there must’ve been fire or iron on you to create to kind of pain you claim to have felt. Unless, of course, you’re exaggerating.”

“As I’ve mentioned before,” I said through clenched teeth. “The pain was very real and very intense. I’d rather have all of my teeth pulled without any anesthesia then experience that pain again.”

“Stakes, fire or iron. They’re the only things that can cause severe pain. Of course we’re not immune to pain, and things like bullets or knife blades would certainly sting you.” He raised an eyebrow up questioningly.

“I did not get shot or stabbed,” I was quickly losing my patience with this guy. “With either a stake or a knife blade. No one held a torch to me and I was in the woods, far away from anything iron, so clearly that means Jimbo tortured me with his mind somehow.”

Stan sighed and started walking again, muttering something about me being naive and stubborn.

I didn’t give a damn about what he thought. Jim clearly had learned some kind of mental torture technique that was new to this magical world and I was the only one who knew it existed.

As we walked further, I began to wonder how Josh was doing. I had probably lost all possibility of ever seeing the guy again. No more invites to his parties for this girl! It was probably for the best anyways. If the guy had any idea that there were evil goblins hanging out trying to kill me anytime he tried to kiss me, he’d run far, far away from me and I really couldn’t blame him.

My mind drifted off to that moment before the kiss that never happened and his muscular body that I wanted to run my hands all over. His luscious lips. Damn, he was hot! I mean his style and looks were so simple yet so attractive to me. Jeans and a white tank that showed off his tattoos and a simple silver chain was all he wore but…wait! Silver chain!

I ran to catch up with Stan.

“Hey! So if, hypothetically speaking, there was a piece of silver laying around that had iron in it and I touched it, what would happen?”

He glanced at me for a second but kept walking. He didn’t answer.

“Helloooo? I’m asking you a question!”

He stopped abruptly again. “And why are you asking this question?”

“I am just um, curious.”

“I have no time for lies!” He charged forward again. What a loser. He seriously needed to get some social skills. Still, I needed an answer.

“Okay, okay!” I yelled out to him. “I think I may have had an experience with iron but I want to make sure.”

He turned to me, looking very annoyed. “As I explained before, iron would cause intense pain. I’m pretty sure you would…how did you so eloquently phrase it before? Rather have all of your teeth removed?”

I rolled my eyes at him.

“This is all information that your good buddy Bob should have told you by the way,” He continued. “It might have been more advisable to warn you about the pain that iron causes before you actually had to experience it. Unless, of course, that was part of his plan all along.”

I did wonder why Bob neglected to tell me about iron, but I was too excited about my latest discovery to think about it too much. Josh’s necklace wasn’t as shiny as silver or white gold, it actually looked dark like it was dirty, so it must have had some iron in it. When he leaned down towards me to kiss me, the chain must have touched my skin. Man, iron was pretty potent stuff.

So how does a girl ask a guy to remove the chain around his neck before he touches her without her sounding slightly insane? That was assuming I’d actually get to see him again.

“We’re here.” His words cut off my thoughts and I noticed that we were in front of a cave. A real, dark, scary looking cave.

“Are there bats in there? Cause I seriously can’t handle flying rodents messing up my hair.”

“Your friend is in there.” He pointed towards the opening with his hand and I noticed he never actually answered my question about bats. He also wasn’t going inside.

“So um, are we going in?” I wished I had a flashlight on me. At least I had my phone on me and it could provide a tiny bit of light. I took it out and turned it on, still waiting for Stan to make the first move towards the cave.

“Nice phone.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are we going in?” He kept staring at my phone. “Dude, it’s an unreleased beta version of the iPhone. It’s cool and all, but right now it’s just a flashlight for the dark cave that we need to go into right now.” I waved my hand in front of his face to make him stop staring at my phone and snap him back to reality.

“Did Bob get you that phone by chance?”

I sighed. Not this shit again.

“Yes, Mr. One-Track-Mind, Bob got me the phone.”

“Have you gotten any strange calls or texts?”

I thought back to the threatening texts from Jim. Or at least I thought they were from Jim. I was beginning to have some doubts.

“Maybe. Why?” How did this guy seem to know everything about everything?

“I’m just…curious.” I didn’t much like having my own words thrown back at me. I frowned and then got back to business.

“I’m going in to look for Amy,” I said. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“Of course I am.” He replied. “Someone has to fend off the bats.”

I gulped. He half-smiled and went into the cave. I hesitated for a second but followed. Why did there have to be bats in a magical world? Maybe if I chose to be queen I could pass a law: more unicorns, less bats.

Between my vampire night vision and the tiny bit of light from my phone, the cave looked surprisingly bright. I looked up but didn’t see any bats. I did see lots of cool multi-colored crystals hanging down from the top of the cave. They looked a bit like rainbow icicles. I was mesmerized by their beauty for a few moments before I remembered that I was in a creepy dark cave with a guy I didn’t know and that bats could possibly fly into my hair at any time. I reached one hand up to cover my head as we walked, just as a precaution.

Soon we reached a large opening that showed just how massive the cave actually was. My eyes widened as I tried to take in the view in front of me. The cave opened up into an entire underground world that had stairways leading to different levels. There didn’t appear to be anyone around, but it looked as though it was well maintained. There were stations set up on the level that we were on that reminded me of a cafeteria. One cart had a sign above it that read “Fresh Human Blood”, and another cart said “Fountain of Youth”. That one intrigued me. I pointed to it and was just about to ask what it was when Stan answered, “Children’s blood,” in a nonchalant way.

I made a face. “That’s fucking disgusting.”

I didn’t want to think about how the Fountain of Youth cart got it’s supply of blood.

“It’s quite a specialty item actually.” Stan said. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried it yet.”

I was about to tell him that I only drank animal blood (thankfully), when I caught a glimpse of Amy out of the corner of my eye. She was on the level directly beneath us and I could just see a part of her face and body through the stairwell. She was sitting in a chair with her hands tied behind her. There was nothing covering her mouth and I didn’t see any blood or bruises, but her eyes were closed and her head lolled to the side. I really hoped she was just asleep.

“Amy!” I raced down the stairs towards her. As soon as I reached her I started to shake her to wake her up. She didn’t react at all. Stan took his sweet-ass time getting down the stairs.

“She’s not waking up,” I said to him over my shoulder. “Come on, we’ve got to untie her and get her home before anyone sees us.” Not that I had seen a single person or magical creature in the cave, but still, logic said that someone had tied Amy to a chair and would probably be coming back for her at some point. I didn’t want to stick around to see who it was.

I walked around the back of the chair and saw that her hands were tied together with thick chains and a lock. I reached towards the lock to see if I could pick it with a bobby pin, or maybe loosen the chains with my vampire strength.

As soon as my skin made contact with the metal I felt it.

“Holy mother-fuckin’ hell!” I yelled as I pulled my hand back and tried to deal with the severe pain that surged through my entire arm. Tears sprang to my eyes and I was pretty sure I would never have a fully functioning hand again.

“That would be iron.” Stan stood with his hands in his pockets, like witnessing my pain was no biggie.

“Thanks for the warning asshole. A little head’s up would’ve been nice.”

“Would you have listened to me?”

Touche. I ignored his question since we both knew the answer.

“So,” I blew on my hand, hoping that the burning sensation would go away quicker that way. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of thick leather gloves on you huh? Or something to cut chains with?” A thought crossed my mind. “Or maybe you could untie her, you’re just a vampire so you can touch iron and you’re stronger than me.”

“When did I say I was ‘just a vampire’?” he kept his hands in his pockets and stood there, calm and collected.

I thought back. I never actually asked him if he was a vampire or not, I had just assumed he was because he had access to the magical world and looked like a human. He clearly wasn’t a gnome or goblin. The funny feeling in my stomach returned.

“You’re a very trusting lady. You never once questioned how I knew so much about you. You followed me into a magical world that you didn’t know how to enter and still don’t know how to exit.”

Shit.

“I told you I was going to help you get to your friend, and I’ve done that.” He continued. “As you can see, my intentions have only been to help you and I have not hurt you or threatened you in any way. I only want what is best for you, and I want you to be happy and safe. That’s why I think you should reject the royal position and return to your normal, carefree life as a human. I also believe you should re-think your friendship with Bob. You’re too quick to trust, and he is obviously withholding very important information from you.”

Well, he had a point. Maybe trusting Bob was the wrong thing to do. Stan seemed sincere with his words but something about him was still making my stomach churn.

“I can help you get your friend home safely, but first you need to decide whether you truly want to be queen of this world that you know nothing about. Do you really want to become royalty and have the safety of your friends jeopardized simply because people don’t agree with you?” I looked over at Amy, who still appeared to be asleep. How many other people would be kidnapped or hurt because the magical folk simply didn’t like me? Would my family be safe? What about Josh or any future boyfriends? Maybe they would always be in danger as long as they were connected to me. How depressing.

“So if I declare that I don’t want the position, you will free Amy and I will go back to my normal life?” I asked.

He nodded.

“But if I choose to accept, what will happen?”

He stared at me and frowned. “Is that really what you want Melanie?”

How’d he know my human name? Melanie sounded so foreign now, after hearing Bob and Finn call me Tianna for so long. The girl who was Melanie didn’t have gnomes popping into her apartment or a talking cat or a hot vampire bodyguard. She was interested in the latest fashion and enjoying her time off with friends and some drinks. The girl named Melanie had rich parents and a good lifestyle and would probably have both a career and a family one day. Melanie had very few responsibilities and led a very normal, very human, life.

But there was something about being Tianna that was intriguing. It was annoying, sure, but I was proud of my tiny sparkling wings. I liked having a cat that could talk back to me, and the lifetime supply of unlimited cash sounded pretty sweet too.

Responsibilities, though? That part I never really took seriously. Stan had opened my eyes to the reality of the job—and that’s what it was—a job. I would be ruling a world I knew nothing of, and become leader of magical creatures I couldn’t even correctly identify much less know what was best for them. God, I hated making decisions.

“How much time do I have to think it over?”

Anger flashed in his eyes and his face twisted into a scary, agitated look, but before he could answer my question I heard a very familiar sounding POOF!