accidental 11 - accidentally ever after (24 page)

And that just made everything worse. It was as though he were some figment of their imaginations—as though that long trek they’d just shared had happened with the Invisible Man.

This morning, as she’d risen in her incredible bedroom in her equally incredible bed, her chest was tight, her throat sore from crying, her eyes swollen from a restless night. If Jon had meant goodbye last night, surely he could have had the decency to have been honest about it, rather than say all those pretty things only to desert her in the end.

Okay, so he’d said some things in the heat of the moment that maybe he didn’t really mean. She was a big girl. She could have taken that. But this silence? This deafening no-show? It hurt.

Jerk.

Wanda fluttered behind Toni, wrapping her arms around her shoulders from behind as they looked out the stained glass window toward the bustling courtyard, where the staff of the castle was in high gear with Christmas Eve ball preparations.

She leaned back against Wanda and fought more tears. It was Christmas, for Pete’s sake. These women belonged with their families and their Christmas trees and lights, and Carl deserved a visit with Santa Claus.

Christmas had come and gone for her these last three years since Cormac had been gone—it was just another day where most everything was closed and she’d have to choose between a Salisbury steak TV dinner or boxed mac and cheese.

But these women—these women who’d jumped on the get-Toni-to-the-castle bandwagon or bust—had traditions they’d miss if they didn’t get home tonight.

Nina had told her all about the feast Archibald, Wanda’s manservant, served for their OOPS extended family. At least fifty plates covered a formal table filled with turkeys and roasts and mounds of creamy mashed potatoes and all the trimmings. They toasted their lives together, they laughed, they danced, they had a secret Santa with Darnell playing the starring role.

She wanted them to have this night—or at least to salvage what was left of the season. She
needed
them to have it back, and looking for Jon would keep them from their appointment to go home.

“You three have to go meet the king. But I have to look for Jon and Dannan,” she murmured.

Marty sighed a breathy sigh and smiled fondly. “Ah, love. You’re in love.”

Was this love? Did this gnawing ache in her belly, this panic she felt without him at her side, mean love? “Can I ask you all a question?”

“Always,” Wanda whispered.

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Probably,” Nina agreed with a grin. “But ask anyway. I need some shit to snark while we figure out what to do next, and you amuse me.”

Toni looked down at her hands, fiddling with the front of her dress. “When you first met your husbands, did you see a glow around their heads and hear a harp strumming softly in the distance?”

“Oh, ’tis true love, milady!” one of the handmaidens said on a wistful sigh as she gathered brushes and bows, putting them back in her basket.

“I don’t understand.”

“When a maiden falls in love—
real
love—her true mate presents himself with music and beautiful lights shining down from the heavens. ’Tis how you know he’s the one,” she said on a wink.

“But it’s so soon…We’ve only known each other a little while,” she managed to murmur. Not a chance in hell would she hook up for life with a guy she’d only known a few weeks if she were back in Jersey.

The handmaiden smiled knowingly. “That is what the inside of your head tells you, but the inside of your chest, right here,” she said, pointing to her heart, “it always knows best. For now, I must go tend to the others, but I wish you, your true love and everyone in your party the very best of the holiday season.” She waved and skipped off to the door of the bedroom.

“A harp, huh?” Nina asked. “I saw stars for sure. I think I remember flashing lights, too.”

Marty nodded, a soft smile spreading her lips. “Yeah. No music, but I knew. I just knew.”

Wanda gave Toni a tight squeeze. “I need you to trust me about something, Toni, okay?”

“Okay,” she said with great hesitance.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why no one seems to know who Jon is, but I promise you this—he’s crazy about you, and I think you’re crazy about him, too. I know you’re warring with that notion because it appears he’s deserted you and you want to hate him for making you care. But don’t. Not yet. Your heart is sending you a message your head wants to overrule. But something’s happened with him,
to
him.
Something
, and I intend to find out what that something is. Until then, promise me you won’t let your crazy imagination get the best of you. Jon did
not
desert you. He just wouldn’t do that.”

How Wanda could be so sure baffled her. Maybe Toni was too thick in the mud to see clearly.

Her nod was slow, but she still wasn’t totally convinced. “You know, you once said to me something wasn’t right about him. Should I trust that, too?”

Wanda nodded, her hair never moving. “You absolutely should. Something
isn’t
right. I think I also said I thought he was a good guy or something to that effect. I don’t necessarily think what I said has to do with some kind of deceit that would hurt you. I refuse to believe he’s willingly not by your side. So until we figure this out, promise me you won’t jump to conclusions? Let’s get the entire picture first. Until then, it’s Christmas, for crap’s sake, and I believe in miracles.”

Toni shuddered a breath and prayed for one of those miracles. “We don’t have a lot of time left. Once we see the king and he gives me whatever I’m supposed to get, and you all prove you’ve done your tasks as fairy godmothers, I’m assuming you can leave. At least that’s what Brenda implied anyway. I’m not going to let you waste another second here in this realm if you’re missing the holiday with your families. I just won’t.”

“Then we go find the fuck before we meet the king,” Nina said. “Then I beat Flawless’s ass for ditching us like so much landfill and make him squeal like a girl. And if I find that damn knock-off of Shrek, I’ll beat his ass, too. Can’t believe after all that all-for-one-and-one-for-all musketeer bullshit, he just left us like we didn’t mean shit.”

But Toni offered a sobering thought. “Have you seen the size of this castle? It could take a week to find the kitchen, and that’s if you know where you’re going. How will we find him in this maze in less than an hour? No way am I letting you guys miss this appointment with King Dick. If I’m not going back to Jersey, you three most certainly are. No matter what. Especially you, Nina. You can’t hold out much longer like this without a good infusion of some blood.”

Marty rushed to Toni’s side and grabbed her hand, her blonde hair erect as ever. “No one’s leaving anyone anywhere, honey. We’re a team—Team Toni. Period. Now, I’m not a werewolf for nothing. I know Jon’s scent, and if he’s still here in the castle, or on the grounds, I’ll find him. Nina’s got the same superpower I do, as does Wanda. Our senses might be dulled because of whatever Brenda did and this crazy fairy godmother stint, but I’m pretty sure I could smell a man as fabulous as Jon even without my full werewolf senses. So I say we split into groups of two and we do this. You in?”

Nina nodded, her head’s up-and-down bob sluggish. “Yeah, yeah. Wonder Twin powers activate. Let’s roll before I collapse the fuck all over the floor.”

Wanda nodded her perfectly coiffed head, her wings throbbing a muted whir. “We meet in the ballroom in forty minutes. No longer, understood? We all need to be accounted for before we take this a step further. We’ll regroup then if we don’t find him.”

Toni looked to Carl, who, while considered odd by the castle members, was allowed to stay indoors and wander throughout their connecting rooms. “You with us, buddy?”

Carl stomped his hoof in favor of finding Jon.

“All right, girls,” Wanda said, raising her arm high. “Let’s really storm the castle!”

* * * *

“Who dares to imprison us, Günter? Answer the question!” Jon raged, shaking the bars of the cell he and Dannan were stuffed inside, in the prison below the castle.

But the guard refused to turn and address them, keeping his back to the cell.

Dannan, the top of his head bent sideways with his cheek against the cell’s ceiling, poked him with a big toe to his shoulder blades. “Lad, quiet! I cannot think when yer caterwaulin’ like a woman!”

Jon sneered, gritting his teeth. “We must get to Toni before she sees the king and possibly leaves the realm forever. How else would you have me do that but make demands, ogre?”

If she left the realm without giving him the chance to tell her of his heart, to tell her the truth, he’d never forgive himself.

“Has it helped ye so far? Nay. Now pipe down and let yer old friend think.”

“The women will never find us here in time, Dannan. We must find someone who will listen to the truths I speak. Unlike Günter, who has clearly been ordered to ignore my commands at all costs!” Jon spat.

“Ye should have thought of what the prince would do if he felt threatened. He is not as strong as ye, lad. We are imprisoned because his decisions are based on fear. And ye should have thought to tell yer lady love much sooner, ye fool!” Dannan grumbled.

Jon paced the floor, knowing his friend was right, knowing exactly why he was locked up in this cell. “Aye, but that is done now. I cannot change such. Now we must find our way out of here quickly.” Before he lost the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his days with.

“’Tis good ye are my friend or I would have eaten yer foolish hide by now.”

He grabbed onto the bars again and rattled them, his knuckles going white from the effort. “Damn you, man, you must listen to me!”

But Günter refused to turn, making him a loyal guard to the king, but hellfire and damnation, now wasn’t the time to prove his worth.

“Lad?”

Jon whipped around, and if not for their circumstances, he’d roll on the filthy cell floor with laughter at the sight Dannan made, squished into a corner as though he were a rag doll a child had shoved into her tiny dollhouse. But right now, he was too angry.

“What, man?”

He grinned, wide and mischievous. “I think I have a plan.”

Chapter 14

T
oni latched on to Nina’s arm and pulled her close, growing more worried by the second at the vampire’s paler-than-pale skin. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Get the fuck off me and stop doing the mother-hen shit. I get enough of that crap from Marty and Wanda. Just shut up and keep moving.”

But Toni gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth.

Nina stopped dead in the middle of a long halfway that appeared to go on for a thousand miles with nothing in between the beginning and end. “Now what?”

She lifted a finger and pointed at Nina’s face, her eyes going wide. “
You’re lying
.”

Nina squinted at her. “Did you just call be a liar? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Now Toni narrowed her eyes and shook her finger. “You’re lying about feeling all right. The proof is in the pudding. The pudding being your nose!” She gave the end of Nina’s nose, pushing farther from her face, a tweak, fighting hysterical laughter.

The vampire lifted her hand to her face and snarled. “Goddammit, Sparkly Pants, fix this!”

Toni gave her a look of innocence, throwing up her hands. “I don’t know how to fix it, remember? Now stop bullshitting me and slow down. We need to get you somewhere you can rest with Carl and I’ll go the rest of the way alone.”

Nina grabbed Carl’s harness, pulling him close. “Um, nope. You go nowhere alone, kiddo. We tag team or we call it quits. I’m the muscle, and I always have been.”

“Well, here in the realm you’re not so muscley, now are you? So stop being so damn difficult and let’s find you a place to catch your breath.”

“I don’t breathe, twit.”

Toni rolled her eyes and gave Nina a shove forward. “Then let’s find you a place where you can
not
breathe, Crusty.”

When they finally made it to the end of the hallway, they found themselves at a beautiful balcony, graced with sweeping pine boughs and red silk bows. Holly hung from the strands laden with pinecones and berries coated in glistening white sugar.

Standing on her tiptoes, Toni looked over the edge and inhaled at the sight below her. It was the ballroom. My God, it was amazing. Like every fairytale she’d ever seen come to life on a big screen.

“Oh, Nina, it’s magnificent.”

Tall pine trees decorated identically to the boughs on the balcony lined the entryway, where wide doors made of gleaming dark wood stood wide open. A long red carpet ran through the center of the ballroom, leading to the king’s throne.

Gripping Nina’s upper arm, she led her down the stairs to get a closer look. Guards stood just inside the smaller doorway in suits of armor. Tables with crystalline ice sculptures of Christmas trees dressed the tables. Torches and lanterns glowed from every available corner while a string quartet and a harpist played a soft melody.

The ballroom was alive with energy. Men in crushed red velvet coats, matching breeches and white stockings ran around the ballroom, readying the space. Fluted glasses with the castles infamous thistleberry wine sat upon sterling silver trays, balanced on the hands of their servers.

The white marble floor gleamed, the intricate pattern of Castle Beckett’s crest square in the middle, drawing her eyes upward to the vaulted ceilings, where more swags of pine hung. The wide steps leading down into the ballroom were lined with bouquet after bouquet of red and white poinsettias in silver and gold urn vases, picks of pine sprays gracefully draping from them.

And it was amazing, fabulous, gorgeous. Yet, the beauty was dimmed without Jon to share it with her, dimmer still somehow by the reason she was here. If she wasn’t in such a state of panic that she’d never see Jon again, she would love to soak it all in.

“Kiddo? We need to get ready to meet this King Dick. Look at the clock.”

Toni’s eyes flew to the grandfather clock, standing like some ominous entity just inside the ballroom doors. Five minutes until Wanda and Marty showed up and they had to prepare.