Page 2 of Beyond the Cottage (After the Fairytale #1)

Chapter 2

W hen the clock in Ansel’s office chimed ten, he yanked off his spectacles and tossed them on the desk. He’d been sitting there since early afternoon, and in that time, the invoices and correspondence piled around him seemed to have bred, multiplying by the hour.

He pinched his eyelids into the bridge of his nose.

The cost of antibiotics had gone up—again. Clients complained about his product quality going down—as always. The last batch of hypodermic needles had come in rusty, and if his supplier didn’t replace them by the end of the week, business would come to a standstill.

Let it. You’re sick of this shit, anyway.

Soon. In a matter of months, maybe a year, he could light the paperwork scattered across his desk on fire.

Ansel put his spectacles back on and removed a logbook from a cluttered shelf. With a hand shoved in his overgrown hair, he dipped a pen in ink and started adding up columns.

A glowing green blob dripped from the ceiling, landing on the page. He dabbed it with his cuff. Everything in this damned facility was wet, slimy, or decomposing, and keeping up with repairs was more futile than patching a sinking ship with chewing gum. He put an empty coffee mug under the drip and continued scrawling.

Two raps came at the door, and his cousin entered without waiting for an invitation.

Ansel didn’t lift his head. “If you don’t have the needles, don’t bother coming in.”

Jonas tossed a package on the logbook and settled into the battered chair across the desk. The package bore the stamp Montel and Co. Medical Supply. Ansel tore it open to find a box of gleaming steel needles. Satisfied at least one problem was solved, he tucked the box in a drawer.

“How did the rest of the run go?” he asked, sifting through the mail Jonas had handed him.

“…Fruitful.”

“Yeah?” Ansel flipped open the newest edition of Phlebotomy Quarterly. “I hope that swindler Carmichael didn’t try to take us for a ride again. I have no problem finding another grocer.”

“Flour went up a little. And sugar. Other than that, prices were the same.”

Ansel grunted. “Bring everything to the pantry. I’ll look it over tomorrow.” When Jonas remained seated, Ansel looked up. He frowned at his cousin’s wry smirk. “What?”

“I got something else while I was in town. Something that wasn’t on the list.” Jonas scratched the back of his beefy neck. “Not sure how you’re going to feel about it.”

“What.”

Jonas slapped the armrests and got to his feet. He left the office and returned with a lumpy burlap sack draped over his shoulder. Wearing a shit-eating grin, he dumped the bundle on the floor.

“ Jonas . What is it?”

“Open it up.”

The unease in Ansel’s gut warned him he did not want to deal with whatever was in that sack. Surprises from Jonas usually carried the risk of a long-term prison sentence, and their legal standing was gray enough as is.

He opened another periodical. “Get rid of it. Neither of us has time to fence stolen garbage.”

“At least look at her.”

The page Ansel had been turning froze in place. His head came up slowly. “What?”

“I said at least look at—”

“Tell me you aren’t that deranged.”

Grin widening, Jonas tugged the sack off the bundle. Ansel hurried around the desk before faltering to a stop. His cousin was, indeed, that deranged. On Ansel’s floor, in the middle of his goddamn office, lay a petite woman with a long, brown ponytail.

An unconscious woman.

Panic climbed Ansel’s chest as he crouched beside her. He tamped it down. Now wasn’t the time for one of his episodes, he needed to think .

“Is she injured?” he demanded, feeling around the woman’s scalp.

“Nah. Just dosed.”

Ansel checked her vital signs. Strong pulse, steady breath. Assured she wasn’t gravely damaged, he looked the woman over.

She seemed young, probably mid-twenties. She wore a loose, high-collared tunic over snug breeches. A belt cinched her waist, and a strange collection of braids dangled from it, nearly obscuring the dagger strapped there.

Her clothing told him little about who she was or where she came from, but the knife told him plenty about how she’d react upon waking.

“This is thoroughly demented,” Ansel said. “Even for you. Explain.”

Jonas crouched next to him. “I followed her off the strip. She was alone and seemed pretty tanked, so I kind of just…took her.”

“ Why ?”

“She’s a pixie.”

Ansel glanced over the woman’s trouser-clad legs. “That’s not a pixie. She’s armed, for godssake.” He leaned in and cringed at the aroma coming off her. “And she reeks of booze.”

Jonas spread the woman’s collar and yanked it down her shoulder. The epithets Ansel had been about to spew never made it past his lips. Because there, in the shallow valley between her neck and clavicle, was the most exquisite volatus he’d ever seen.

Usually, they were anemic pink, resembling small birthmarks. Hers was the color of ripe berries. It was flat and smooth, delicately ticking with her pulse, demanding to be tapped. Ansel brought his face to it, and through the liquor fumes, he caught the strawberry scent of pixie dust. His body jerked.

All pixies smelled more or less the same, but the delicious perfume coming from her neck hit his brain like a narcotic. It…eased him. Flooded his synapses with comfort and pleasure. He got in closer, and the odd sensation intensified.

“Incredible,” Ansel murmured.

“An ounce of her dust will be worth a year’s harvest.”

Ansel ran a finger over her neck, and it came away smelling of strawberries and lemons. She must possess some genetic mutation. The color, her scent…

What she produced was sure to be exceptional. Perhaps even worthy of a bidding war?

Ansel sank back on his heels. He’d intended to close his shitty business soon, and the proceeds from her dust would put him months ahead of schedule. There might even be enough left over to get his real work off the ground. He’d spent years researching spellwork, and his project was nearly complete, but starting a new business required a significant infusion of capital.

Had his idiot cousin fucked up any chance the pixie might do business with him? While the intra-species sale of bodily secretions was technically illegal, Ansel’s other donors came willingly and were paid for their contributions.

He side-eyed Jonas. “Why didn’t you offer her our standard contract?”

“I tried, but she pulled her knife on me.”

“And your solution was kidnapping ?”

“Hear me out. We’ll tap her while she sleeps. I can get her back to the city in two hours tops, and she’ll never know she was here.”

Only half-listening to his cousin’s lunacy, Ansel inhaled her scent again. It bloomed in his brain like spring flowers, drawing something familiar, yet indefinable from his subconscious. It made him want to gather her in his arms and carry her someplace safe.

Do not let her go…

Ansel pulled back to clear his head.

His cognitive reaction to her scent fascinated him. He’d never harvested pixie dust with psychotropic properties before. Studying it tempted him nearly as much as selling it.

Was his cousin’s idea truly so ludicrous?

Ansel watched her chest gently rise and fall. A strand of hair fluttered off her lips with each breath, and he barely resisted tucking it behind her ear.

Fascinating .

If Jonas had already done the damage by bringing her there, how much worse would taking a sample be? Without her dust, she wouldn’t be able to fly for a time, but she’d otherwise remain unharmed. Ansel would take her back to Antrelle himself, and she’d wake with little more than a headache. He’d even fill her pockets with the same cash he paid the other pixies.

Ansel ran a hand over his face.

He was deluding himself, of course. If he did this, he’d be truly irredeemable. He already fell somewhere on the spectrum between no-good trash and emotionally stunted bastard. Stealing her dust would make him an unequivocal villain.

But did it really matter if he became a villain? What would it effectively change? His record was hardly spotless to begin with.

The pixie made a quiet humming sound as her sleeping face tilted toward him. She looked so innocent, like a baby deer who’d lost its mother. Like she needed protecting.

Numbing himself to the bizarre effect she had on him, Ansel stood. “What did you dose her with?”

“Somnia tincture.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple hours.”

They’d be cutting it close. He needed to work fast.

“Take her to the tap room,” he said. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”