Page 2 of Wind and Water (Reign of the Witch Queen #2)

Chapter One

Wren

I t’s bad luck to go on my dream vacation and break a tooth. My Aunt Dot used to say that if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. She was a peach, old Dot was.

Still, even with a broken tooth and lying back in the dentist’s chair, I’m in London, and Momma is with me. Life is pretty good.

The polishing tool buzzes. “Just about done here.”

I adore Doctor Emmit’s accent.

“What do you have planned for the rest of the day, Miss Martin?”

He stops polishing long enough for me to respond. “Momma and I are going to tour Westminster Abbey and take one of those double-decker bus tours.”

Both the doctor and his assistant give me a fake smile before focusing on my incisor.

After a minute, Doctor Emmit lifts the dental tool and pushes the overhead light back.

“There…” He freezes with his arm in an awkward upturned position and his other hand halfway to the console where he’d replace the tool.

Confused, I look to the assistant for some explanation. Maybe the guy has a condition. Hands reaching toward me, a warm smile plastered on her face, and her brown hair no longer falling forward from her ponytail, she has stopped moving as well.

“Is this a joke? Some bit of English humor to unsettle the American?”

No reaction.

A sound that reminds me of a tornado chugging closer begins, and the papers on the tray next to me blow around the room. My hair and the bib I’m wearing fly over my face.

Tearing the bib off, I push my curls out of my eyes and slip from the dentist’s chair. I back up to the closed exam room door. The sheet I filled out with my medical history heads toward my face and I bat it aside.

“What in holy heck is happening here?” Maybe I’m dead, and this is the afterlife.

Except that my mouth is still a bit numb, and why would that be the case if I’m dead?

Plus, where is my body? I look at the empty chair with Doctor Emmit and his assistant still hovering over it. “Momma?” I grab the doorknob.

A spinning hole opens up in the wall in front of me. There had been a painting of an old-style dentist chair in the center of the wall, with transom windows at the top letting in some light from the drizzly London day. The hole widens and brightens while a figure grows larger in the center.

I should run, but I’m mesmerized by the fact that this is happening, and neither of the other two people in the room seem affected or aware.

The man who jumps down from the vortex is tall and broad.

Wearing a blue uniform of some kind, he has long, dark-blond hair bound at the back.

He has a pack on his shoulder, a sword hangs in a scabbard at his side, and another knife hilt pokes out of his tall black boot.

He winces before straightening and looking right at me.

“Wren Martin, by command of Elspeth Riordan, you must come with me.”

“Who or what are you?” I’ll admit, he’s beautiful. I mean, like a movie star but with a keen gaze and a roughness that is more military than Hollywood.

His eyes are sapphire blue, and they narrow as he steps closer. “I am Liam. Come with me now.” He holds his hand out.

I stare at his open palm, then look him in the eyes. “No. Get away from me.”

Jaw ticking, He closes the few feet between us and hovers over me. “I don’t have time for this. You will come with me now.” He touches my shoulder.

Instinct takes over. Still holding the doorknob, I kick between his legs as hard as my five-foot-two-inch body can. I connect squarely and jerk the door open.

With a yelp, he crumbles to the floor, holding his crotch.

The wind from the vortex pulls papers from the administration desk outside the exam room.

The young man who checked me in is pointing to something on the computer screen while a woman with graying hair and kind eyes looks over his shoulder.

Neither move. A woman in a white coat is holding a chart on a metal clipboard across the desk, her mouth open, as if in mid-sentence.

Pink, yellow, and white papers fly around them, but none of them move.

Rushing past, I find my mother with four others frozen in the waiting room.

One man is near the door leading outside.

A woman with a little girl in her lap reads a children’s book, but no words leave the woman’s open mouth and the pages are flapping.

An overweight man in a business suit looks as if he’s dozing off with his head back and mouth agape.

Other than hair flying along with paper and magazines, no one moves or even blinks.

Taking my backpack from the floor, I grab hold of my mother’s hand. “We have to go.”

“She can’t hear you.” Liam stands in the archway between the administration desk and the waiting room. At first, I didn’t notice, but now I can hear that he sounds more Irish than English.

“Momma, you need to wake up, and we need to go. There’s a madman.” I shake her arm. When she doesn’t move, I grab the lamp from the table and raise it above my head while facing Liam. “Let her go.”

He limps one step closer but stops when I raise the lamp higher. “I’m not doing this. It’s the magic that pulled you and me out of time. No one can hear or see us until the spell is through. I really must insist you come through the portal with me, Wren Martin. This is your destiny.”

It isn’t nice, but I get a bit of satisfaction from his limp and the fact that I could knock down a big man with one kick.

“Stay away from me. I won’t hesitate to bash in that pretty head of yours if you come near me or my momma.

My destiny is to enjoy a nice vacation before returning to Texas and my work. ”

Holding up his hands, he backs away a step. “The oracle of Domhan sent me to get you and bring you back so that you can save our world.”

“I’m a jewelry maker, not a soldier. I’m small and can’t do a single pull-up.

What exactly do you think I can do to save anyone, let alone a world?

You should go back to wherever you came from, and I’ll pretend none of this ever happened since no one will ever believe me anyway.

” Keeping an eye on him, I shake my mother’s shoulder. “Wake up.”

“I don’t make prophecies, Wren. I follow orders. I was sent to find you and bring you home.” He strides toward me.

I smack him with the lamp. “If your orders include forcing me to go anywhere I don’t want to go, you had better rethink your career choice.” I hit him again and again.

He deflects the blows with his arm and hands, but there’s still a gash on his wrist and one above his right eye.

Stumbling backward, he touches the cut and then studies me.

“You act as if forcing you to do something is a simple matter, though you’ve made it quite obvious that’s not the case.

” He passes his hand over the wound, and the flesh mends back together in an instant.

I have a lot of questions, but none of them matter. “Momma, wake up.” I touch her cheek and pray she comes back to me.

My mother blinks and stares at me. “What’s wrong?” She grips my hand.

Liam says, “That should not have been possible.”

“It’s difficult to explain, but we need to get out of here.”

Momma stands and gapes at the statue-like people around us. Her gaze lands on Liam. “Fairy folk, just like Grandma always said.”

Liam cocks his head and studies her. “I’m an elf, not a fairy. Have you heard of my kind?”

Before Momma can go into the details of my great-grandmother’s stories, I tug her out of the dentist’s office. “We need to get away from that…um…man.”

“Why? He’s easy on the eyes.” Clutching her oversize black handbag, she stumbles after me, looking over her shoulder at him.

There’s no arguing with the fact that he’s very handsome, and if it weren’t for his pointy ears sticking out, he would be a hunk of a man. However, he tried to abduct me, and that’s a big red flag. “He just tried to get me to go through a vortex without my permission, Momma. We have to go.”

The cars on the streets of London are all stopped, as are the people.

Some are mid-stride, and others are sitting across the street on the bench in Hyde Park.

A woman is gesturing, and her mouth is open as if she’d been talking to the man beside her.

For his part, he looks bored with whatever she was saying.

Momma pulls her hand free. She turns right, then left. “What is going on?”

I turn to respond, but Liam has followed us out of the office, and my mother is directing her question to him.

“We are out of time with your world until the portal closes. I am Liam Riordan, and my orders are to bring Wren Martin back to my world, as she is part of a prophecy.” His voice is smooth and commanding.

Offering her hand, Momma smiles. “I’m Birdie Martin, and you can’t just take a woman with you because you have orders, Mr. Riordan.”

Taking her hand in his, his full lips tip up in something close to a smile, but without letting go of his soldierly sternness.

“My mother is the rightful queen of Domhan, but a witch displaced her, and soon my world will be covered in darkness.” He shifts his gaze to me.

“I concede your point about my methods for accomplishing my goal. Clearly, Miss Martin is not a woman to be bullied.”

“Kicked you in your tender bits, did she?” Momma shakes her head and draws a long sigh. “I raised her to be a lady, but also to protect herself. My grandma spoke of fairy folk who lured women away with their good looks and flowery words.”

He winces, and so do I. “I don’t know many flowery words, I’m afraid.” Turning back toward me, he stares for a long moment. “Is there any way I can convince you to come through the portal with me?”

A loud, piercing screech forces me and my mother to hold our ears.

Liam says something in a language I don’t know, but I can gather from his tone that whatever he said was a curse.

“No.” I take my mother’s hand and step toward the street.