Faeries, and an Obnoxious brother by Tara Zlick (ebook reader macos txt) 📕

but it was too late to back out now.

2

At first, I thought the spell had failed utterly, and my heart sank. The bear remained sitting on the shelf where I’d left him, though I could tell that the magic had moved away from me because the prickling sensation had faded to a more comfortable level. I opened my mouth to make some self-deprecating remark to Dee Dee when suddenly the bear stood up.

I gasped in surprise, staring at the teddy bear that now stood impossibly on its hind legs, button eyes scanning the room until they locked on me. The mouth, which was nothing but a length of yarn sewn into the faux-fur, opened, showing a set of very convincing-looking teeth.

“Oh, shit,” Dee Dee and I said together as the bear launched himself off of the shelf toward me.

I screamed and dove to the side. Yes, the bear was sort of following my magical command, but no, it didn’t look like it was coming for a cuddle. Not the way it was baring those impossible teeth.

The bear landed on the bed, right where I had been, and I heard the snap of its teeth coming together as I leapt to my feet. It turned to me and snarled.

“A little help!” I gasped at Dee Dee. I was trying to call the magic back, but it was a feeble effort. If it was more magic than I could hand, then it was probably more magic than I could un-handle.

“I’m trying!” Dee Dee said, her face white and her eyes wide. Then, “Look out!” Her gaze was fixed on something behind me.

Instinctively, I ducked. Something sailed over my head, and when I looked up, I saw that three more bears had joined my mother’s teddy bear on the bed, none of them looking even remotely cute or cuddly. They leapt at me again. I dodged wildly and slammed into the front of my dresser hard enough to rattle the collection of perfumes I kept on its top. I let out a startled shriek, because although none of the bears had hit me head on, one had managed to rake its claws over my arm, and it stung like hell.

Dee Dee had plastered herself against the wall, looking. Don’t ask me why--it wasn’t like the bears were attacking her. Maybe she was still trying the corral her magic, maybe not. Either way, she didn’t look like she was going to be any help.

One of the bears had landed on my desk, and with a snarl he knocked my laptop into the wall, the impact so hard the plaster cracked and the laptop ricocheted to the floor. Small or not, the creature was powerful, and I was in a shitload of trouble.

I looked frantically from side to side in search of something I could use to defend myself. The only thing that looked like it might be even vaguely helpful was a padded lap desk, which I snatched off the floor and held in front of me like a shield.

As soon as I grabbed the lap desk, my mother’s bear charged me again, leaping high, its claws and teeth aiming straight for my face. It was Dee Dee’s turn to scream. I didn’t have time for anything more than a gasp. I swung the lap desk hard, hitting the bear and swatting it away from me. It twisted in mid-air like a cat, so that when it hit the full-length mirror on the back of my door, it hit with extended claws.

3

The mirror shattered with the impact. The bear on my desk was still busily knocking things off, concentrating on those things that would most easily break. Another of the bears was on the duvet, raking his claws over the fabric, then grabbing out big mouthfuls of stuffing, interrupting its work only long enough to growl at Dee Dee when she dared to move.

My mother’s bear sat on the floor in the midst of the mirror shards, eyeing me with predatory calculation. It grabbed a shard as large and sharp as a kitchen knife, giving me a teeth-baring grin as it pulled back its arm to throw. Meanwhile, the fourth bear, who wasn’t occupied with destroying my room, readied itself to pounce. I knew that both attacks were going to come at the same time, and that I could only deflect one.

Whimpering from somewhere deep in my throat, I kept my eye on the mirror shard, figuring if I didn’t deflect that, it could be a fatal error.

My mother’s bear was just about to let loose with its weapon when my bedroom door burst open, knocking the bear to the side.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Ethan yelled as he stepped in the door.

I was too busy deflecting the other bear’s charge to answer his question. Not that I could have given him a good answer if I’d tried. Failing to execute the spell was bad enough, but this unmitigated disaster elevated me from miserable failure to a menace to society. To have Mr. Magical Perfection witness my massive screw-up was almost unbearable.

Ethan took in the scene with a sweeping glance as all four bears once again set their sights on me, perhaps sensing that they were running out of time. Ethan is an arrogant bastard who annoys the crap out of me, but one thing I’ll say for him: he’s a good ally to have in a fight. He must have been pretty damn startled by what he saw, but he reacted with lightning reflexes.

The bears all charged at once, their most coordinated attack yet. There was no way I could block them all, and even if they didn’t manage to kill me, they were certainly going to hurt me pretty badly.

Suddenly, the level of magic in the room intensified, the air thinning as if it was being crowded out by the magic. It was more power than I’d ever felt Ethan pull before, and if I hadn’t been so scared of the damn bears, the power itself probably would have terrified me.

“Undo!” Ethan bellowed, emphasizing the command with a sweeping arm gesture.

The bears simply . . . exploded in mid charge. Every seam in every bear split wide open, the stuffing falling out. Eyes dropped off, as well as plastic noses and yarn mouths. When the magic cleared, the bears were nothing but indistinct piles of fabric, plastic, thread, and stuffing. It was only then that I realized I was shaking like a leaf, my knees wobbly and knocking together. I lowered myself to the floor and sat before I fell.

4

What Ethan had just done should have been impossible. I was willing to bet my life that he hadn’t trained up a tear-apart-teddy-bears spell before he stepped into this room. To craft a spell like that should have taken hours of trial and error, but Ethan had done it in a matter of seconds. Across the room, I could see Dee Dee staring at him like he was the Second Coming. If he’d wanted to show off his amazing powers, I doubt he could have manufactured a better way to do it than what I had just given him.

“Everyone okay?” he asked, coming quickly to my side.

I was too humiliated to say anything--even thank you--as he peered at the slashes the bear’s claws had made in my arm. Magic tingled over my skin as Ethan whispered a spell and the wounds closed up, the stinging pain vanishing as if it had never existed.

“How did you do that?” Dee Dee asked, sliding off the bed and still looking at Ethan in total awe. Notice how she wasn’t asking if I was okay. It was like I’d ceased to exist once he’d walked into the room. This was what I call the Ethan Effect, when perfectly sensible girls’ brains turn to useless mush. Human girls swoon at his feet because he’s good-looking, but it takes more than good looks to catch a Fae girl’s eyes. After all, a touch of glamour can make a troll look like a prince, so beauty really is only skin deep. But even when he isn’t doing magic, there’s an aura of power and confidence around Ethan that draws Fae girls to him like ants to a picnic.

I should have been grateful to Ethan for coming in and saving the day. After all, if he hadn’t shown up, I would have been in bad, bad shape by now. And maybe later, when I’d calmed down a bit, I’d find the grace to thank him. But not only was I completely humiliated by how horribly wrong my spell had gone, having Ethan have to come in and save me added a huge dose of insult to the injury. I have never been the picture of grace under fire when Ethan’s around anyway, and with Dee Dee giving him goo-goo eyes like that, I just couldn’t contain myself.

“What are you doing home?” I asked my brother, more to remind Dee Dee that I still existed than because cared. I knew from experience that trying to warn girls off never worked, but that didn’t stop me from trying. “Shouldn’t you be off shagging the flavor of the week?”

That got Dee Dee’s attention, but not for the right reasons. She looked at me in horrified shock. Then her face set into a scowl, as if I’d just insulted the love of her life.

Ethan shook his head at me reproachfully. “It’s that time of the month again?” he asked in mock surprise.

Dee Dee giggled, as if he’d said something remarkably witty and clever. I rolled my eyes and wished I were an only child. Obviously, my magic lessons were over. Yeah, I know, they probably would have been--and certainly should have been--even if Dee Dee wasn’t already succumbing to the Ethan Effect. But I couldn’t help feeling that Ethan was about to steal my friend when he’d already long ago stolen my pride.

You see, the fact is, I’d never really expected my lessons with Dee Dee to suddenly make me into a competent spell caster. I’d had hopes, of course, but that hadn’t been the point of the lessons. The point had been to spend time with one of my classmates, to try to make a connection and have a real live friend. Believe me, that’s hard to do when you’re a fifteen-year-old college freshman.

Ethan gave Dee Dee his God’s-gift-to-women smile, and it made me want to puke. I swear, he’s never met a girl he didn’t immediately want to shag. She, of course, ate it up, blushing and batting her eyelashes at him.

“Do I even want to know what the two of you were up to?” Ethan asked Dee Dee while giving me a sidelong look that said he knew perfectly well that whatever had gone wrong was my fault.

Dee Dee smiled at him. “Probably not.”

I sighed, knowing a lost cause when I saw it. Ethan was going to make a play for Dee Dee, and by the time he was done with her--which with his track record would be in a couple of weeks--she was going to hate me by association. I tried to tell myself it was good riddance. After all, if she were really good friendship material, she probably wouldn’t start ignoring me the moment she caught sight of Ethan. Not to mention that she hadn’t even tried to help me when the bears attacked. If they’d attacked her, you can bet I’d have done something more useful