Free With a Kiss (Twisted Tales) by Stephanie Fowers Page B

away and knocked my elbow against the wall behind me. The baby tugged the stuffed Peep off the desk and started to gum it to death. “You want to try?” Hobs asked.
    “Try what?”
    “To break the curse. It only takes a kiss.” He looked at me like he wanted to go for it and I scowled at him. His lips turned up and his eyes probed mine as if he were trying to figure me out.
    I refused to move, knowing exactly what would happen if he tried to kiss me. I’d smack him a good one. I had enough of faery kisses. “Oh, no you don’t. Kisses are deadly.”
    “Not all the time. I’d say the kiss of the faery queen brought you back to life.”
    “I wasn’t dead.” My voice cracked when he gave me that smile of his and I groaned. Of all the people to tug at my heart strings, he shouldn’t be the one.
    “You were dead,” he said, “in a matter of speaking.”
    The baby lost interest in the stuffed animal and grabbed at the chain around Hobs’ neck. Maybe it would choke him, but of course, it didn’t. He stuffed the toy back into Babs’ hands to keep her busy, but it was too late. My attention had been drawn to the medallion. It looked like a charm or a talisman. Is that where he held his power? I was close enough to find out, and without asking, I tugged it my way so I could inspect it. He got into my personal space, I’d get into his. Only he didn’t resist. I turned the medallion over in my hand. It was round and silver and still warm from his skin. There was writing engraved on it. It wasn’t just warm—it was hot. I yelped and dropped it. “That burned me!”
    He smirked wryly. “Try wearing it.”
    I swiveled back to my computer, typing Hobs in the search engine and got kitchen hobs . My nose wrinkled. C’mon, who was he? After a moment of hesitation, I put in Puck . A huge number of complaints popped up. Devil, Pan, imp, pagan trickster. Hmmm, apparently Shakespeare wasn’t the only who had trouble with him—the Germans and the Swedish couldn’t stand him. I raised an eyebrow at him. “You get around,” I turned back to read his online record, “. . . in more ways than one. You blow out candles and kiss girls in the darkness?” After reading that, I snickered, “Who would think it of you?” He didn’t have the grace to flush and I smiled, feeling tired. He was crazy like me. Was that why I liked him? Maybe there was something to say for the bad boys—as long as they weren’t real.
    “Yeah, but look what a good protector I am.” He lifted his chin, indicating the screen. It was clear by his calm look that he didn’t agree with anything that was written about him, though according to the latest site, he was a good faery to have around . . . when it suited him.
    I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I just wished I could find something more reliable than these foggy rumors lost in biased history. “If I could get hold of some old Irish manuscripts,” I said. Of course, no matter how speedy the delivery, I’d be dead by the time it got here. Three days’ time was nothing.
    “What do the Irish have to do with this?” Hobs asked.
    I felt like stomping my foot. “How else are we going to travel to . . . uh,” for lack of a better word, “. . . to faeryland?”
    “Faeryland?” Just as I expected, he laughed. “That sounds as dumb as people-land. It’s the Sidhe. Get it right. You’re going to be spending a lot of time there.” He plopped Babs on the floor with a blanket, and after reading the tabloid headlines about the suspected Skinwalker peeling off his face at a golf course, he chucked that aside. “Useless, but this . . .” He pulled out the faerytales he made me buy. “This is all about the Cloan ny Moyrn .” His eyes sought mine. “Children of Pride,” he explained. “Don’t worry. It’s just a euphemism. If I used the name of our real race, you’d invoke all the faeries down here at once. Then you’d see a real battle.”
    I sucked in my breath at the thought.