He nodded once, lowering his head deferentially. "As you wish."
"Torrie, I'm not going to dance around the reason why I'm here or waste anyone's time with playing nice. As you and I both know, you hid out in my human house as a demon, possessing my mother's boyfriend Rick, for at least a year. And during that time, you tried to rape me."
He cleared his throat, but he didn't argue.
My ears were burning hot, and it was highly possible there was actual steam coming out of them, but I pressed on. "When you were a demon, you told me that there was a prophecy that said if you conceived a child with me while I was a virgin—and by the way, that whole needing to be a virgin thing is total bullshit…I mean, what difference does it make? But anyway, as I was saying, this prophecy seemed to be a big deal to you, since you let Leck kill my mother to get me to come there, and you said that if we had a baby together, that baby would bring the end of the world. So what's up with that? Did you do it?"
"Did I do what, Mother?"
"Ugh, do not call me that." He did not have the right to refer to me that way as far as I was concerned.
"I'm sorry. I beg your forgiveness."
"No. You can't have it, even if you beg. Just tell me: did you rape me when I was in that mental facility?"
He frowned. "What mental facility?"
"You know what mental facility I'm talking about!" If he thought he was going to get out of this by playing dumb, he was totally going to lose his nuts. I was not there to play. I'd sliced off a set of 'em before, and I'd be happy to slice another set off too. "I time-slipped. I was sent back to my old life with you living in Rick's body. You grabbed me and sent me to a mental hospital run by Malena. And you guys used drugs to knock me out." I moved closer to him, bringing a ball of fire into my hand. "Did you rape me? In other words, did you have sex with me without my permission?" My temper was rising rapidly, as was the temperature in the room.
"Jayne…easy, girl," said Tim from somewhere behind me. "Don't set the compound on fire. Juuuust notch it down about tweeeenty degrees."
Torrie was sweating like crazy. "I'm sorry, but I have no memory of ever being near you in a mental hospital." He dropped his head. "But that doesn't mean it didn't happen."
"Explain yourself!" I didn't mean to yell, but I couldn't seem to manage being reasonable in front of him. World leaders, yes. Demon rapists, no.
"Time-slipping is a complicated business. It creates an…alternate universe…that can run parallel to the one we're in now. The universe I was in, that I can recall memories from, was different than the one you describe. There was no mental hospital. Your mother and I…Rick…had talked about putting you in a residential treatment program, but you never came home from school the day we planned to take you, and so it was never put into play."
The fires of my anger banked just the slightest. "Sooo…you're saying that when there were two of me, there were two of you?"
"I don't know what you mean about there being two of you," he said. But he'd explained enough.
"Tim!" I yelled.
"Yes, my liege!" he yelled back, appearing over my shoulder. "Want me to dust his sorry butt? Just say the word. I have enough body dust to send him right back into hell."
"Your butt dust is too good for him. Come on." I spun on my heel and left Torrie to wallow in his awfulness behind me.
Tim flew next to me, throwing his arms all around. "Jayne, I've told you about fifty times now, it's not butt dust. It's body dust. How are the pixies ever going to gain the respect they deserve if our own Mother continues to mock our greatest power?"
I stopped at the door before throwing it open. "Are you serious? I can't have any fun around here anymore, is that what you're saying?"
"At my expense? No! Yes! That's what I'm saying! No fun! No more butt dust!"
I opened my mouth and shouted as loud as I could, "Buuuutttt duuuuust!!!!" I pointed at him and kept shouting. "You have buttttt dusssst!!!"
He looked at me with a bored expression, his arms folded across his chest. "Are you done yet? Do you feel better?"
I grinned, feeling strangely euphoric. It was so freeing to confront my demons. Like, literally confront them. "Yes, actually, I am done now. And I feel awesome, thank you very much."
"Fine. Come on. I made you a prenatal doctor's appointment. And there's probably going to be blood taken and possible anal probing as well, so you can wipe that silly smile off your face right now, young lady."
"You did?" It seriously pulled my heart strings to know that he cared so much about me that he'd make a doctor's appointment for me and the babies. My eyes filled with tears. Then I thought a little harder about what he said. "Anal probing? What's that all about?"
"Of course I made you an appointment. I am the godfather after all. I have to take care of my second-in-line-for-the-pixie-throne children."
I laughed and partly choked on that idea. "Godfather? Pixie throne?"
"Come on," he said, gesturing for me to follow him down the hall. "I don't have time for your tomfoolery. Those clinic doctors get cranky when fae are late for their appointments. Let's fly."
He zoomed off in front of me, and I jogged to keep up. It felt good to be running through the hallways of the compound while everyone else was taking care of the difficult business of planning our world's survival out in the meadow. I loved not being responsible for everything.
I yelled at the top of my lungs the entire way to the clinic, making up a song as I went. "Buuuuuttt duuuuusst, my roomie has buuuuutt duuuuusssst, the most powerful, awful, and incredibly sparkly buuuuuttt duuuuusssttt…!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I PUSHED OPEN the door to the clinic and found the place pretty much a ghost town. Brad had graduated to resting in his room, so all the beds were empty. The only fae there was the same healer who'd been on duty when Tim had needed his blood drawn so the Dark Fae could use it to heal Chase from the pixilation he'd suffered.
"Oh, ho, ho… and so we meet again," Tim said, flying right up to the guy's face. "Not so tough when you don't have a steel lance in your hand, are ya?"
The healer backed his head up into his neck as far as he could and then closed his eyes, letting out a long-suffering sigh. "May I help you?"
I leaned in and quickly brushed Tim out of the way before the guy could open his eyes again, and plastered a huge smile on my face to help ease his mind. When he lifted his lids, he quickly looked around the room, trying to locate Tim.
I waved to distract him. "Hi there. I'm here for a pregnancy visit or whatever you call it."
He focused on me. "You're the patient?"
I nodded. "Yep. Me and these guys." I pointed with my two first fingers at my belly button.
"Not the pixie?" he asked in a quieter voice.
"Not today."
He rolled his eyes in what looked like relief. "Excellent. Step into that cubicle there and take off your clothes." He turned around to open a cabinet and started taking things out.
"Uh…what?" I pulled my cloak tighter against me.
He spoke without turning around. "I said take off your clothes in that cubicle."
"That cubicle right there? The one that's totally open on the end here, with just flimsy curtains on the sides?"
"Yes. That cubicle."
"And you want me to take off my clothes? You mean my cloak, right?"
His shoulders drooped and he sighed loudly. "I mean your clothes. Cloak, shirt, pants, bra, underwear, moccasins, socks, and any weapons you might also be wearing. Take it all off."
"Aren't you even going to buy me a drink first? Geez…" I could feel my face burning over the idea of being stark naked in front of this stranger.
He turned around, confusion written all over his face. "Pardon me?"
I waved him away. "Never mind. Do you at least have a paper gown or a sheet or something I can use to cover up with?"
"No, I don't. We don't really do modesty here." He went back to messing around in his cabinet.
/> Must be a French thing. "Fine." I said fine but I didn't feel fine. I never got naked around anyone but Spike and Tim, and Tim only because he was up my butt all the time and would never go away when it was time for me to shower. I always figured, what would Tim do with a set of boobs big enough to smother his whole family? Nothing. So he was easy to get naked in front of. But this fae doctor guy? Not so much.
"What's the matter, Big J? Feeling a little shy?" Tim giggled as he sat on the papered exam table inside the cubicle.
"No." Yes. I started peeling off my layers. I was working in slow motion, trying to talk myself into being cool about the fact that anyone could walk into the clinic at any moment and catch me in the buff. Good thing they were all busy in the meadow.
I finally got down to my birthday suit and grabbed my cloak, wrapping it around me like a towel before I sat on the exam table. The healer turned around, wheeling over a silver tray with lots of scary looking instruments on it.
"What are those?" I asked. I was pretty sure I hadn't asked for major surgery, but it sure seemed like that was what he had in mind for me. I'd thought Tim had been joking about the anal probing thing, but now I wasn't so sure.
"Speculum, ultrasound wand, and other things I might need to take some samples and run some tests."
"A wand? We're using magic today?" That made me feel better. Maybe I wouldn't even have to spread my legs.
"Not that kind of wand. This is ordinary human equipment I'm using today."
"Oh. That's weird."
He chuckled. "Humans do have their uses, one of them being as inventors of devices that sometimes make our lives easier." He gestured at the table. "Lie back and put your robe down. It's going to get in my way."
I reclined, but my hands wouldn't do what he wanted them to. I just couldn't let the cloak go. The more I worried about it, the hotter I got, too.
The healer pulled his shirt collar away from his neck as sweat started to trickle down his temples. "Warm in here today."
"You have no idea," I said. It was taking some serious concentration not to throw a wall of flames up between us.
He looked annoyed, wiping the sweat off his brow. "Come on, now. I don't have all day. Trust me, I've seen everything you have. This isn't my first day on the job." He reached up and grabbed my cloak, pulling on it.
I held on tight. My hands wouldn't let go. My temperature rose.
"Uhh, Jayne, you should probably just let this happen," said Tim, flying down to float next to my face. "The more worked up you get, the higher the temperature gets, and I'm not sure that ultrasound machine is liking it very much."
The distant sound of beeping filled my ears. I realized I was about to break the machine that was going to tell me if my babies were okay.
I forced my hands to let go of the material I had knotted in my fists, and the cloak flew off me. Apparently, the good doctor had been putting a lot of muscle into his efforts to take it from me, so he went flying backwards with it, ass over teakettle, sending his stool shooting off in the opposite direction.
My body was revealed in all its naked glory, but it was completely on fire, bright red and orange flames dancing over every square inch of it.
"Well," said Tim, chuckling uncomfortably, "that's not something you see every day."
The temperature in the room had gone way down. I couldn't figure out how it could be working that way when I was literally the size of a very large beach bonfire. I'd finally stopped sweating, though. Weird, weird, weird. Fire that didn't burn was strange for sure. But it was pretty cool too.
The healer got to his feet, dropping the cloak on the floor next to him. He approached me slowly, staring at my body as he dragged his stool back into position. "What…is…happening here?" He held out his hands like you would toward a campfire and then he smiled. "Fire without heat. Fascinating."
I wiggled a couple fingers at him. "Hey. Eyes up here, buddy." I pointed to my face.
He looked up. "Yes?"
"Can we get a move on?" I said, gesturing at his tray of torture devices. "I don't have all day for this."
He pointed at me. "But…you're on fire."
"Just ignore it. It's fine. It won't burn you."
Tim sat down on the pillow next to my head as I reclined all the way back. The sounds of instruments rattling around told me that the healer was starting his process.
"You know…I don't think you get enough credit for your ingenuity," Tim said. "You didn't want to get naked, but you had to, so you improvised and came up with a solution. You still look naked but you don't feel naked. It's a perfect Plan B."
"Thank you, Tim. That was very kind of you to say that."
"One should never underestimate the power of the prude," he added.
"What?"
He gestured at the flames. "Well, let's face it. This is all about you being afraid to be seen without your clothes on. Necessity is the mother of invention; that's what my father always used to say. You didn't want to be nude and now, voilà, you are not exactly nude, are you? But you are, because I can see everything."
"I'm not afraid to be naked, I just don't feel comfortable throwing my hoo-hah around in everybody's faces." I looked away from him to the tray that had just gotten wheeled closer to my crotch.
"Put your feet in these stirrups," said the healer.
Oh boy, here we go. I followed his instructions, exposing my nether regions to the entire clinic in the process. I prayed no one was going to walk in. Thank the sun, moon, and stars that the entire fae community is out in the meadow.
Tim was laughing. "Throwing your…what? Who is having your hoo-hah thrown in their face?" He paused to take a look at what the healer was doing, cringing a little. "Well…who other than that guy down there."
I tried not to grimace at the things that were happening to me, but it was impossible. The person who invented the heated speculum one day was going to make a billion dollars, minimum. "Shut up," I said, partially grunting the words. Talk about uncomfortable. Holy crap. Get this over with already.
The sound of voices and commotion came to my ears, and I clamped my legs together.
"Um, hello! Not done down here!" said the doctor.
"Someone's coming!" I whispered desperately.
Dardennes' voice came through loud and clear as the door opened and he stepped inside. "And this is our clinic, where our healers work tirelessly to keep our population healthy and ready for anything the human world might throw at us." He chuckled at his little international relations joke.
I lifted my head in time to see the entire world-leader delegation staring at my fire-crotch. Dardennes' jaw froze in the open position as his face turned perfectly white.
I fell back onto the bed and sighed. "This is my punishment for something really terrible that I did to someone somewhere that they totally did not deserve. I know it is. I just wish someone would tell me what it was and who I did it to so I could go apologize."
Tim started laughing so hard, he farted eight times in quick succession. Eight times. So I not only got to suffer the humiliation of showing off my flaming hoo-hah to the entire world, I also got put in the gas chamber while doing it. Yeah. Karma hates me that much. "You are so going down when I get out of here," I said to Tim.
He tried to answer, but he was laughing too hard to speak.
The room had gone silent, so the only sound I heard after Tim's gas attack was the door shutting quietly. I lifted my head once more to confirm we were alone. Then I addressed the healer. "So, what's the scoop, Doc? We all good down there?"
He pointed to the monitor next to my bed. "See for yourself."
There was a black and white fuzzy image on the little flatscreen TV next to the exam table. Then it became clearer.
"Meet your children, Baby A and Baby B." He used a laser to point them out. They looked like tiny, hairless troll dolls dancing around inside two sacks. "Good heartbeats, good measurements, everything looks excellent."
"Are you sure they aren't tro
lls? Or gnomes? They look kind of lumpy."
He chuckled. "No, I'm pretty sure these are normal, human-like fae we're looking at."
The door opened again, and I didn't even bother to see who had entered the room. What did it matter? I was naked. No big. All I could do was stare at the creatures that I had created with Spike and maybe Torrie.
Someone took my hand.
I looked over and saw the edge of a tattoo on that hand touching mine and then smelled the scent of Spike. He leaned over to give me a kiss. "Is that them?" he asked.
"Yep." I was crying, and I hadn't even realized it.
"They're gorgeous. That one looks like you," he said, pointing to Baby B.
I laughed and cried at the same time. "And the other one looks like you," I whispered. Then I looked at Spike. "I'm so sorry." My heart was hurting so much. This should have been an amazing moment for him, but I'd screwed up.
He frowned. "For what?"
"I'm sorry that one of them might not be yours." I could barely get the words out. I knew it wasn't my fault that I'd been molested, but maybe if I'd done things differently, I might not have been time-slipped and given that demon the chance to do the bad thing he did.
The wrinkles of worry on Spike's face relaxed as he smiled. "Don't be silly. They're both mine and they're both yours…no one else's."
"But…" I thought he didn't understand. I was going to tell him what Torrie had explained, about how it was very likely that the Torrie in the alternate universe I'd been running around in had accomplished his evil agenda and gotten to me before I could get back to Spike.
Spike put his hand over my mouth and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. None of that matters to me. What does matter is that you're my girl and those two babies are mine and ours together. I'd never want to wish one of them away. I love them both already. No one else is in this picture of ours. It's just us here. Just the four of us." He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
I cried silently in both joy and fear. He was such a good person, such a good fae. I really, really hoped I would be good enough to deserve him one day. And I wished Tony were there to celebrate with us, too. He would have been so excited to be an uncle, and he would have made the very best uncle in the entire universe. I spoke to him in that space in my mind where I sometimes compelled fae, angels, and demons. Take care of my babies, Tony. Watch over them and lead them in the right direction. We need you. I didn't hear anything back, but I was sure he'd heard me. Tony would never totally abandon me.