Chapter Twelve

" M om is going to disown me. I just want you to know that. You can have Dad's framed Jimi Hendrix tickets and the fringed vest he signed. Carter can have the autographed Reggie White helmet."

"What did you do?" Cal barks.

"You knocked up some girl!" Carter flops back onto his bed, eyes wide, toothbrush still in his mouth.

That's right. I'm calling an emergency "brothers only" meeting on video chat as I follow Marina around from apple tree to apple tree.

Yes, she is working on Saturday morning, even with only two hours of sleep and the traumatic events of last night. And yes, she is wearing one of my shirts and a pair of my shorts, both knotted up and belted so they have a prayer of staying on. She looks like she's wearing parachute pants—and it's utterly adorable.

"Met a girl. Want to marry her someday."

"What?" Carter shrieks. " Marry ? Oh, well, wait. You're old. Mom won't care."

I glare at the "you're old" remark. "Um. She might."

"Is she white? Because if that's why you think Mom's going to disown you, your head is up your butt," Cal says succinctly.

"It's because I've only known her for just over two weeks, but I feel like I've known her my whole life."

"Sex must be amazing."

"Stop talking like that, or I'll let Marina handle you. She judo-flipped some handsy guy like Catwoman on steroids. Mhmm!" I can't help but twitch at the memory. My voice is a sappy sigh. "She's amazing."

"Oh, hell. He's serious."

Cal gives me the no-go sign, arms crossed in an x. "You can't tell Mom yet! Wait until Thanksgiving."

"I will. She doesn't have any brothers to look out for her, and she's been in some real bad situations. Like—the worst you can think of." I lower my voice and move away from the tree where Marina is working, making sure I still keep her in sight. "I'm talking about Lifetime documentary levels of shit."

Faces sober. Mouths silence.

Carter sighs. "She activated your savior complex, bro."

"So what if she did? It's not a complex if someone actually needs to be saved."

"Objection," Cal calls, one hand raised.

"What'd you do, switch to pre-law?" I snap. "Besides, there's not a thing I can do to help her except be there." My eyes find Marina's shapely legs on the top rungs of a ladder. "I'd do that anyway."

"If it's a big secret, why are you telling us?" Carter groans. "Mom might use the potato salad treatment on us. Or worse, the deviled egg treatment."

My jaw clenches. No one, possibly not even a hardened FBI interrogator, would keep his trap shut when faced with my mother's deviled eggs. Monks with lifelong vows of silence would break out in hallelujahs after one bite. "Well... She's not gonna travel with a bunch of deviled eggs. We won't be in deviled egg range until Thanksgiving, and I'll have told her about Marina by then. I mean, she knows about her. She doesn't know how serious I am. I just wanted to tell someone." In case I lose her. In case something bad happens—the thing I can't think about. They say better to have loved and lost... I don't want to lose her, and the hopelessness in her voice was so hard to hear...

"Kev? You okay?"

"I just... I really love her." I cough and squint at the perfect, cloudless blue sky.

My brothers, Knuckle and Head, are totally somber when I look back at the screen.

"Can you put her on the phone," Cal says simply.

"We have to have a discussion with her." Carter makes air quotes with his fingers.

"She's working. She works part-time at a farm. Picking apples."

"White people, mountains, and picking apples. How much plaid is in your wardrobe now?" Carter cracks a tiny smile.

I match it with a sighing "Shut up."

"I can take a little break, darling." Marina is suddenly beside me. "I would love to meet your brothers."

Girl must have sonar. I was at least twenty feet away, and my voice was low. "They want to meet you, too."

IT IS MADNESS. MAYBE I am trying to pretend Koshchei isn't looming, every hour bringing him closer.

Or perhaps, just for a few weeks, I want to pretend I'm part of a loving family, a family of good men, smart, kind, funny, and athletic men, according to Kev. He's the jewel in that crown, yet sometimes when he talks, I get the feeling that he's been overshadowed by his twin brothers and their achievements.

At least they aren't trying to murder each other. That's a step up from my "father" and sisters.

"Hello, boys!" The seductive note creeps into my voice automatically, and my insides twist in guilt. It's hard to turn it off, but I'm still ashamed it came out with Cal and Carter. What's more—it reminds me of the fear I can't shake.

The fear that Kev doesn't love me. He's seduced by my rusalka charms, under my "spell," and it will only last as long as I'm around him, giving him my attention and sharing his energy.

"Hi!" Cal sits forward on his bed and hops to what I assume is his laptop, face close to the screen. Up close, he's a younger version of Kev. "What are you doing with the grumpy professor, and what'll it take to get you to try out the newer model?"

Kevin mutters something threatening and rolls his eyes.

I lean against his chest, looking into his phone as he holds it above us, unwittingly sharing a perfect pose. "I only want this particular model." My hand pats the space above his heart, wishing I truly owned it. "I prefer quality over quantity," I wink, looking at the two nearly identical faces on the split screen.

"Oooh, you got burned," Kev gloats, laughing and kissing the top of my head as his arm tightens around me.

Those little gestures, the hand holding, the way he wraps his arm around my waist in his sleep, the way he kisses my head... They're not sexual. They're affectionate. Loving, even. My eyes well up with no warning. "Your brother is wonderful and very stubborn."

"Now who's roasting?" Carter jeers, but all the teasing is good-natured.

I try not to think of Darya's sneering voice when she confessed that my sisters murdered Gregor. I try not to remember the crunch of her bony neck under my sharp teeth.

"You have such a happy family. Thank you for introducing me. I should get back to work."

"Oh? Kev's hogging the scenery for himself," Cal teases. "Have you been with him when he's been on a fish taco binge and needs a whole bottle of Pepto?" Carter demands.

"Foul! Time out!" Kev barks.

"My intentions are that he lives a long, healthy, happy life. If I had one wish, I would share it with him," I say simply. "Things like tacos and the contents of his medicine cabinet don't matter to me." I look up at Kev, ignoring the faces on the phone screen. "I was lucky to have met him." Even for a little while.

Kevin's brothers don't speak.

Kev clears his throat, a hint of mirth in his voice. "You silenced ‘em. I'm pretty sure that only my mom, Meemaw, and Aunt Laverne have ever managed that. Guess you're officially in the family. Boys? Objections?"

"Overruled," Cal pipes up. "We'll see both of you at Thanksgiving, right?"

My throat is tight. I would gladly say yes—but I doubt by then I'll still be free. I won't submit to Koshchei, so I'll probably be long gone. "I would love that so much. Do you think your mother would like me?"

Carter advises, "Tell her she's a goddess in the kitchen, ask for seconds, and pretend you like Patti LaBelle."

"I do like Patti LaBelle! I saw her in concert once."

"Will you let her babysit?"

"Will you pretend the Eagles are the greatest football team ever created?"

The questions come rapid fire, back and forth like a runaway ping pong ball. The only way I can keep track of who is speaking is by looking at the tiny names in the corners of their pictures on the screen.

"I prefer swimming and hockey—but I'll learn to like football," I say quickly. I'm glad that they don't press about the babysitting.

Kev deserves a family of his own.

And they don't have adoptions in Pine Ridge? You know they do. You know there are families without kids. Family is not one size fits all.

Neither is love.

"Naw, boys, you might have to let us be the fun auntie and uncle." Something subtle in Kev's tone warns them not to ask, and they don't.

My sweet man. He thinks he's boring. He just doesn't realize how quietly commanding and powerful he is. There's power in steadiness. Unshakability.

I picture him beside me, facing Koshchei, the Bone Lord, the Demon King of the Rusalka—and he doesn't run.

He should run. He'll be killed if he doesn't.

"I have to get those baskets on the truck. It comes through each hour," I murmur. With a fleeting smile and a peck on Kev's cheek, I slip away.

My thoughts stay with Kev as he talks to his brothers. I hear him say, "When you meet the one, you'll want to tell the world—and you'll probably start with your dumbass brothers."

Me. I'm the one. His one. The one he told his mother about, the one he let his brother meet. I'm invited to Thanksgiving.

My hands fly through the trees, ripping and twisting off the red and gold fruits, heedless of the yellowjackets that buzz around me jealous that I'm stealing their sweet, ripe apples.

Kev can't see me for what I am, even when I try to show him. There will be no mistaking Koshchei, one of the old ones, one of the ones meant to reside below. I have to make Kev see that I'm a danger before the true danger arrives.

Love is blind, but for once, I wish a man could see me for the monster I am.

"IF YOU'RE DRAGGING me into that big barn for hanky panky, I'm not going to say no—but hay is prickly, and I think that term ‘roll in the hay' is vastly overrated."

"We're not going to the barn, we're going past it. Onyx Stream. It's a little strip that joins the big river, my river. The river in Pine Ridge splits off from the Susquehanna in the south and feeds into the Chenango in the north," I pant. The sun is surprisingly hot, and I want to slide into the cooler water like a drowning man wants his next breath. The soak in the bathtub and the quick shower I had this morning aren't the same as swimming in nature, or absorbing the river and the sea into my veins.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." I shed my borrowed clothes in the shade of the line of windbreak trees that separate the river from the cornfields. Kev's startled yelp echoes in my ears as I break into a run—naked body flying over rocky ground and mossy grass before I slide into the water like a penguin off a glacier.

Beneath the water, I take in long, shuddering breaths, cold water filling my lungs and passing back out easily, a simple in and out, air and water equal to my kind—at least up to a point. My skin smooths. It prickles and tingles as my "second skin" forms—the long white dress that's meant to be see-through, that's meant to show my curves and hidden places. It's a "covering" when dry, but when wet, it's every man's temptation.

"Girl, I thought you were skinny dipping! Not that your dress is hiding anything." Kev crouches by the water's edge, shaking his head. "Where'd you pull that from?"

"It's my second skin. It can form at will." I'm honest.

He thinks I'm teasing. "Fine, fine, a magician never reveals her secrets." his voice drops as he leans over and strokes my wet cheek. "But if you've got any magic handcuffs back at your place, I wanna know about it."

I bite my lip, insides tight, mind momentarily distracted from my goal of making him leave, save himself. "Who would be wearing them?" I whisper. I assume it would be me. All shackled. Spread. At his mercy. I feel the slickness that's wetter than water slide along my pouting lower lips, begging him to split me, to fill me...

In a few weeks, Koshchei could do so much worse, and it wouldn't be in a fun way.

Kev smirks. "We can take turns—as long as you're into it."

"I'm into everything with you—but you shouldn't be with me. I... My culture is different than yours."

Kev nods seriously. "I know, baby. There are bigots in this world who will say we shouldn't be together, but skin doesn't matter. Ancestry and heritage don't matter—I mean, they're important, but they shouldn't separate people. They should share their differences, and make new traditions that combine in beautiful ways. I'm a medical man. On the inside, we're all the same—even with bio-individuality. We bleed red. We have bones and organs. Our experiences may never be the same, but we can learn from each other. We can love each other." He shifts to sitting cross-legged and bends to take my hands. "If we want the world to be a better place, we can't let those idiotic voices that separate people by their colors win. Different but equal is a thing, baby."

"That's beautiful and noble—and not what I meant. Look, I... The women in my family use men. Kill them, in many cases." I wait for him to flinch. He doesn't. "I seduced you. You are not feeling love, you are feeling desire."

Kev shrugs. "Both. Girl, I loved you when you were Venus in a little white bathing suit and I loved you sticky and covered in pansy root."

"Tannis root," I correct, but then shake my head. "Being seductive is not something I can turn off!"

"Good! I like being under your spell." Kev cocks his head and narrows his eyes. "You want me to leave? Tell me. Say, ‘I don't have feelings for you, and I want you out of my life.' And don't do that noble shit where you're trying to save me from making my own grown-ass mistakes or decisions. You are not a mistake." His tone is playful but turns severe. "And don't you lie to me."

"I—I want you to be safe more than I want you in my life. That's true."

"Well, I want you in my life more than I want to be safe." For a moment, he looks shocked by his own admission. "Damn, that's not something I usually say."

"It's the spell," I mutter in a mournful tone.

"You're not a witch!"

"No, I'm not, but—"

"Do other men resist you? That Minegold guy? What about the friend you mentioned, Calder?"

"Yes, but—"

"Science time! Your seductiveness can be resisted or turned off, whatever. There is evidence. Two instances of proof. I'm sure there are more. We passed a dozen dudes in the orchard, and none of them followed you around with their tongues hanging out like some lovestruck cartoon. I know this Big K messed with your mind and taught you that you're just a sex symbol—sex toy, even, but I would be with you even if I was blind."

My mouth pops open to protest—and closes in shock. "Wait, you would ?"

"Why wouldn't I? Seeing you doesn't change how I feel about you. Oh, it's a big bonus, baby, but it's not the only thing I like. In fact," Kev scratches his slightly stubbled chin, "it's actually pretty far down on the list. It was the first thing I noticed, but not the only thing."

Well. This is new. My assumptions are dented, and I like it. I look up at him from the water's edge. "What do you like?"

Kev sighs and rolls to his stomach, elbows in the grass. "Your voice. The way you smile at me when we meet up. The way you fit in my arms."

Ah. Still physical things.

"The way you talk about all the places you've been. Quick with your comebacks. The way you treat me. That badass streak you've got—and the way you can take a guy out, but you still curl up on me like I... like I can help." Kev's hand reaches into the water, softness in his eyes.

I take his hand and lay my cheek in his palm. So many times before Gregor, this is where I'd end my game, my seduction of a lone fisherman in his boat, my night-long seduction of a sailor on watch. When a man proffered his hand to pull me aboard, I'd pull him into my watery bed, his icy grave, instead. "You don't believe me when I say that I'm a monster, my love," I whisper, looking up at him. I bare my teeth, running the sharp edges across one of his fingers before I suck it into my mouth, long tongue made to scoop out a soul sliding in tight circles down the length of his hand.

He'll see it now, he must.

Kev shudders at the sensation of my tongue, then lets his eyes fall closed. "What kind of monster? The rusalka thing you mentioned?"

"Yes. Bad mermaids," I whisper, releasing him.

"You don't have a tail," he chuckles.

"I don't need one."

"No, you don't." He slides into my arms, legs on the bank, shirt getting soaked, some symbol of a man straddling two worlds and he doesn't even know it.

"Why can't you see it?" I whisper, my lips almost brushing his.

Kev sighs. "Because I'm too busy looking at you ." He taps his chest, then his temple. "I don't care what people call you, or what you ‘are.' To me, you're my queen, and I love you. Now, shut up and kiss me?"

I should argue. Try harder. But I don't.

WHILE MARINA'S DOING stuff for work, I grab a spare shirt out of the gym bag in the back of my car. Walking back to her, I pull out my phone and search "rusalka."

Folklore, cryptid, myth, whatever you want to call it, Google has info about it. Rusalka are beautiful, deadly creatures. They live in the water and lure men to their deaths. I figure this Koshchei bastard must've called his trafficked women by this name, shaming them, selling them, using them to hurt his rivals, maybe. I've watched late-night crime dramas. I know humans can be crazy evil. Hell, I didn't have to watch television to know that. All I have to do is look back at history (one reason it's not my favorite subject) to know that monsters are real.

And most of ‘em are human.

Little pieces of information start to swarm my brain like the wasps around the overripe fallen apples I pass.

Her body. The way it's different. The textures. The "pocket" that reminds me of a perfect circle of suction—like the sucker on a tentacle, maybe. That tongue. If I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I can separate the overwhelming feeling of pleasure into actual concrete sensations.

Her tongue wrapped around my cock. From tip. To base. That's not something a human tongue can do. Not a normal human tongue.

The word "mutant" starts to tease me.

Monster starts to make sense.

I don't know what kind of unethical, unlicensed shit Big K got up to. I'd already considered some kind of surgery, but now I'm wondering about genetic alterations.

Marina... Marina could be some kind of altered human. She could be what some would call a monster or a mutant.

My shoulders snap back and my chest heaves forward like someone just replaced my spine with steel.

And she thinks that her genetic issues and her body differences make her less?

Oh, hell no. Generations of my family, my race, have experienced similar prejudice. The world still has pockets of bigotry in it, weak little people hiding behind their definitions of superior, as if a skin color, or nationality, or a piece of DNA would ever mean a damn thing.

When I come up behind Marina, she's taking cash from one of the men in the orchard truck and saying her goodbyes. Her head turns, and her smile widens as she sees me, a light glowing through her, a mixture of pure joy and relief.

No one has ever given me that look.

Maybe no one has ever been in love with me like this. Maybe because she's the one, and no one else has been or ever will be.

Only fools rush in, that old song says so.

But another line says something about "some things are meant to be."

"Hey."

"Hi." Her voice is shy.

"You're a monster? A mutant?" I drop the words like feathers, nice and soft, floating down without any harshness behind them.

Startled, she backs up a step, then nods. "I don't think mutant is the right word. Just monster. Rusalka."

"Okay. That's what you are. Not who you are." I slip my arm over her shoulders, and we fall into step, heading out of the orchard. "I'm about who you are. Okay?"

There's a long, long pause. "Okay. But—"

"The only butt I'm interested in is your adorable little ass. If I hear one more word about how you want me to run and leave you because you're a rusalka, I'm smacking it."

"Ooh." Marina doesn't sound too put out by that idea.

"We good now? You drop all this ‘I'm a monster' shit."

Her foot stomps down and it actually shakes me enough that I have to lean on her. "I am a monster."

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter ."

"It's... It's my heritage. Culture."

"I'll respect it." I frown. I don't fully know if that's the right term or if there's a language barrier thing here. Maybe she means heritage like it's her past. Or culture, because it's like how she was raised, how she and her sisters were brought up. "I think we should put that aside for now. Didn't you say this Russian dude is coming to town? We should focus on dealing with him first."

Marina nods, lips thinned together as we reach my car and I walk her to the passenger side. "There might be a way to make him leave me alone. You'd have to understand something of the... rituals of my people."

"Like, there's something that would make you unclean or off-limits to him?"

"Yes. Something like that."

"Then let's do it!"

Marina puts her arms around my neck and hugs me tight. "I'll explain it, with all the risks. Then, if you want to do it, you have until the 16th of October to make up your mind. I would never blame you for saying no, or even just walking away."

"That isn't going to happen." For once, I'm not twitching under the burden of being the "steady one", the "responsible one." It seems good. Not boring. "I'm the Rock of Gibraltar, baby. Going nowhere."

One more tight squeeze, and she sits in the car, a look of exhaustion on her pretty face.

I hear her whispering, "The only thing that erodes the mountain is the sea..."

"Okay. Maybe. But it takes a long, long time. Hundreds of years. I figure I have sixty or seventy left." I start the car and roll down the windows. We drive off, September breezes and the scent of apples in the air, her hand in mine. I steal a look at her as we leave Onyx Farms.

Do you want this girl beside you for the rest of your life?

Yes. I think I do.

I know it. Don't know how, just know it.

"Are you free for the next sixty or seventy years?" I ask, voice casual.

Marina gasps, "Kevin!"

"Just think about it."

"Oh. I am."