Mal gave Clayton a wink. “Your wish is my command.”
Chapter
Thirty-One
HOLLY
What the actual fuck had she gotten herself into? Twenty-four hours earlier, she’d been exhausted from drifting back and forth between shopping malls, high-rise buildings, and the airport, looking for a place she could steal an occasional meal and find a safe spot to catnap.
Now she was well-rested, well-fed, and leading an attack on a horde of elf pirates with two children and two very short, purple-spotted adults. Oh, and, apparently, she had magic.
Holly didn’t know what had inspired her to follow Mal. He hadn’t been kind or encouraging in any way. He’d even ditched her the second he’d gotten the chance, so why had she hunted him down and shoved herself into his life?
It wasn’t something she could explain. Maybe it was because she’d never asked him to help, but he’d done so without asking for anything in return. Mal didn’t seem to like her at all, but he’d still helped.
It was miles beyond the fake smiles and deceitful words the grown-ups around her used like weapons to pin her into a little box so they could check her off a list and move on to the next troubled teen.
In all truth, Holly didn’t think it was anything specific Mal had done. All she knew for certain was that the moment she’d laid eyes on him, her heart had shouted,Mine!Since it had never happened to her before, she ran with it.
Holly followed her heart’s call all the way to a dilapidated boat that had no business floating. When she barged inside, her heart bellowedMINE!!with everything it had.
It was a done deal for her. Clayton and his stupid heart, open for anyone to take advantage of. Merry, cautious, but wanting desperately to be loved. Tommy, loving everyone on the boat with his whole chest every second of every hour. And Eira and Grampy. Apparently, they weren’t human at all, but they’d dragged her into their home and loved the shit out of her without question.
As she’d fallen asleep in the little bed Eira had offered her freely, Holly felt something inside her sink down into the bones of the boat and settle deeply.
This washers. Nothing and no one was ever taking it from her.
And Mal? That fucker wasn’t shaking her, ever. He was stuck with her. He was an asshole, and he needed another asshole to manage him. Clayton seemed up to the task, but Holly would make sure Mal didn’t run roughshod over him.
Holly swore she would be the last person to ever take advantage of Clayton’s goodwill.
“Eira,” Holly called through the open door on the deck leading to the living area, “how are those crumpets coming?”
“They’re right here!” Eira appeared at the door, pulling herself through with one arm while cradling a plastic container full of blackened, questionable breakfast goods. When she finally made it out, she ran toward Holly as fast as a person could across a boat deck that had tipped twenty degrees to the right.
Shortly after Clayton and Mal had left, the boat had been stolen away while Holly had been telling Grampy how to make jam and crumpets. They didn’t have butter or rings, but Grampy had jumped on making them regardless.
When the boat had made an alarming moan and tipped over on its side, everyone dodged shifting furniture and scrambled awkwardly to the deck to see what had happened.
Everyone but Grampy. He’d stayed in the kitchen and continued to cook, seemingly unaware that anything had happened.
Holly stood on the deck, frozen in terror, staring at the impossible scene before her. Where there once were poncy little boats bobbing in a fancy marina, there were now cave walls and something horrifying beyond all reason lurking in the shadows. While Eira did her best to herd the children back inside, Holly watched as dozens of elf-pirates threw themselves at the boat, only to bounce off something invisible and fall flat on their backs.
Something waterlogged and ancient slithered along the cave floor and whispered incoherently. When she tried to listen, she found her body straining toward the creature. She had a foot on the railing, ready to leap over the edge of the boat, when the creature hit the invisible boundary. There was a brilliant flash of blue light, and the creature sizzled and shrieked in pain.
It skittered off to the dark edges of the cave, but Holly knew it was still there.
It hadn’t deterred the pirate elves. Wave after wave of them came, and time after time the invisible barrier held them back. But it was evident that after each successive wave, the elf-pirates didn’t bounce off quite as hard the next attack, and that the barrier was slowly creeping toward the ship.
“Don’t you dare fail,” Holly had growled at the barrier. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”
Her nails had dug into the railing, and blood dripped down, covering the wood as she willed the barrier to continue to hold. And miraculously, it stopped shrinking.
Grampy came out to offer her a snack, seemingly unaware of the battle around him. Holly took one look at the disaster on the plate in front of her and cringed. His attempt at making her jam and crumpet recipe was a thing of nightmares. She’d thanked Grampy and ‘accidentally’ knocked the plate overboard directly into the face of an elf-pirate. The ensuing scream caught her attention, and she saw the jam-covered crumpet eating away at the man’s face.
“Holy shit, Grampy,” she’d yelled. “Give me everything you have. Make as many as you can! Don’t worry about the baking time, we’re not looking for perfection. Just get them out here as fast as possible!”
Then she’d rallied Eira, Merry, and Tommy to her side and had them carefully launch every item of food Grampy made at their attackers.
