Bearly Accidental (Accidentally Paranormal Book 12) Read online

  Marty hadn’t left Nina’s side since they’d performed what Wanda had said was a tedious surgery. She had a broken arm from the fall, a break so ugly, she’d need pins and physical therapy to regain solid use of it. But worse was what that damn bullet had done. Stas’s bullet had screamed through Nina’s chest, just missing her heart, but the doctor warned their ragged crew, covered in blood and dirt, wet from the snow, that it could be touch and go.

  If Nina made it through tonight, she had a fighting chance.

  And then Marty shook her head as though she’d made a decision of some kind. “You’ll need physical therapy and bed rest and it’ll be a long road to recovery. So you can’t do this anymore, Mistress of The Dark. As much as it hurts me to say that, you can’t keep up with us and OOPS. Look at what happens when you try to keep up! You get your deaf ass shot. Didn’t you hear me howl? Don’t you know I can take a bullet in the chest but you can’t? How could you be so damn stupid?” she hissed at her friend.

  But then her voice softened, her words gentled. “You’re not quick enough, strong enough, yet you’re still the same stubborn pain in the ass you always were. But when you get your cheeseburger-eating, ice-cream-hording ass out of this bed, it stops. No more, because I can’t…I can’t take it, Nina. I won’t take it! I’ll never survive losing you…”

  The heart monitor rang out a steady song, and Teddy was grateful for that. Nina was tough, maybe not vampire strong, but she was healthy and there was no way she’d believe anything other than this woman, this woman with her angry words and fierce loyalty, would be anything other than okay.

  Marty pulled Nina’s hand to her cheek, tears streaming from her eyes, rolling onto Nina’s pale skin and dropping to the sheet covering her. “I begged you. I told you I didn’t give a damn if it got me shunned or put me in werewolf jail or whatever the hell happens when you turn someone willfully. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? Do you ever listen to me? No one had to know. You, with all your in-your-face, no-rules-apply-to-me bullshit, refused. The rule breaker was suddenly a chicken-shit. And now…look. Look at what you’ve done!” she whispered, her voice laced in hysteria, her shoulders shaking.

  Wanda came up behind her friend and gripped her shoulders, her knuckles white from the effort, her face wet with tears mirroring Marty’s.

  And Teddy marveled at these women as tears also streamed down her face as well. Marveled at how true they were to each other. How steadfast. They were more than just family. They were something bigger. Something she had no definition for, no word in the dictionary covered how bonded these women were. How integral each of their lives was to the survival of the others.

  It was amazing and frightening all at once.

  “When you’re done being a sissy-ass, lying around in this bed like some kind of diva, you’re done. No more adventures for you, Elvira. If I have to lock you in a padded room, I’ll damn well do it! You’re not the person you were since the change, Nina. You have to stop pretending you are. Do you hear me in there?”

  Teddy gnawed on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

  “I was so angry with you, Nina Statleon. I kept thinking, how could you not want us to turn you back? Why were chicken wings more important than living out our eternities together? What about Charlie and Greg? Didn’t they matter? How could you go right on being human when you’d eventually die and leave us?” She rasped the words, pressing Nina’s hand to her forehead.

  Wanda grabbed Marty’s free hand and clung to it, held on to it like her life depended on the very contact.

  “Then I thought you were choosing. I thought all the horrible things you always say to us just might have a smidge of truth. Maybe you really were glad you were human again because it meant you didn’t have to put up with us for an eternity. With me. Or maybe you weren’t really as passionate about helping others like us as we were. But that wasn’t it at all. I know the truth now, Nina. Darnell told me tonight. You were too afraid I’d get caught for turning you—that I’d end up punished, maybe taken away from Keegan and Hollis because it was my second infraction, after helping turn Wanda. I didn’t understand it at the time. But you were just looking out for me. Just like always. Please come back, and I swear on every damn eyeshadow I own, I’ll look out for you now. Always. No matter what. For as long as you choose to be here.”

  Teddy stuffed her fist against her mouth to keep from weeping out loud, the hot sting of tears clouding her eyes. Cormac pulled her from her chair and sat, bringing her to his lap, settling her against him. His big hand ran over her hair, pass after pass, soothing her.

  And the night wore on. Long, dark, cold, sterile, with nothing but the glow of monitors and the incessant beep of Nina’s life in green numbers on a black screen.

  She prayed. She made bargains with whoever was in charge. She offered up sacrifices. Whatever it took to keep Nina with them, she’d give it up.

  Marty and Wanda never moved. Clinging to one another, they talked in whispers to their friend, stroked her hair, held vigil. Greg sat in silence, his eyes closed, his wife’s hand at his forehead.

  Teddy and Cormac brought a tormented Carl to the waiting room, where they took turns talking to him, reassuring him. Exhausted, he finally spread his long body over a row of chairs and placed his head on Teddy’s lap, where she caressed the face that had so rapidly become precious to her until he slept.

  Darnell and Archibald had joined them, holding hands, the wide beefy paw of the demon swallowing up the smaller manservant’s fingers. Darnell’s lips moved, likely in silent prayer. Something she no longer found quite so strange.

  Archibald, as perfectly dressed as ever, sat straight as an arrow, his posture impeccable, everything in its place but his tears. They streamed freely from his eyes, plopping to the black linen of his trousers in salty splotches.

  Her brothers had finally arrived, travel-weary, their eyes brimming with worry when they enveloped her in a silent hug then shook Cormac’s hand before they, too, sat to wait.

  Nurses came and went. Doctors on silent feet tended to patients. The day came and went, too, melding into yet another night of waiting.

  No one but Carl slept. No one spoke much. Every ounce of energy, words, thoughts, were reserved for Nina alone.

  The sudden rush of footsteps and carts from across the hall aimed at Nina’s room had everyone sitting up straight and holding their breath.

  Cormac squeezed her hand and she squeezed his back as sheer terror made her tense up.

  So she closed her eyes and kicked her prayers up a notch.

  Please, whoever does whatever when running this big ol’ place we call the universe, get the person in charge. Tell them not to let Nina die. I’m begging you. I’ll do whatever you want, give you whatever you want, but she’s here because she was helping us. If it wasn’t for us, she’d be at home right now eating chicken wings and slugging one back in her kitchen.

  She has a baby. A small, beautiful baby who needs her mother. She has friends who need her. A husband. She counts. Her selflessness counts. Please, after everything she’s done for everyone else, please, don’t let her die.

  Amen.

  The silence from Nina’s room left Teddy the closest she’d come to breaking since this had begun. She clung even tighter to Cormac’s hand, squeezing her eyes shut and willing someone in that room to come out and tell them everything was going to be all right.

  And then the door swung open.

  “I said get the hell off me, Dr. Frankenstein! Jesus. That damn thing is cold. And would it kill you lot to bring me some food? Marty, stop touching my hair! And quit your blubberin’. It makes you look like a blowfish, all puffy and red—”

  Everyone jumped up at once, cheering so loud, the nurse from the station down the hall came running and warned them to simmer down.

  There was hugging, noisy tears, noses blowing, but most importantly, there was gratitude.

  And Nina. Alive. Well. Mouthy as always.

  Cormac gat
hered her in his arms and hugged her tight. “The ex-vampire, she lives to snark another day.”

  She let her head fall to his shoulder and smiled. “Isn’t it amazing?”

  Wrapping his arms around her waist, he rested his chin on top of her head. “Just as amazing as you.”

  “I’m pretty average. Also, I’ve never come back from the almost dead. Or even the undead. Nina wins.”

  “A very fair point. You know, you were pretty badass in that bar last tonight, Teddy Bear. I gotta give it to you for taking on two of them at once.”

  “Dennis is dead,” she croaked, still unable to believe it.

  Cormac stiffened against her. “I had no choice. He would have killed you. No way was I going to let that happen.”

  She shivered when she remembered what Dennis would have done if not for Cormac’s interference. “Thank you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for saving my life.”

  “Well, you helped save mine. Fair is fair, and remind me to never make you angry. The way you were reaming Carmine a new one, waving that gun around? Impressive stuff, honey.”

  “I was so angry at feeling so helpless, I got overwhelmed. It just knocked me for a loop.”

  “It’s over now. All of it is finally over.”

  For the first time in what felt like forever, she took a deep breath.

  Cormac nudged her. “So what are ya gonna do, now that you’re free from a murder rap, Theodora Gribanov?”

  “Go to Disneyland. Duh.”

  “How about maybe we just do coffee over some breakfast? I don’t think I’m up for the Harry Potter ride after last night.”

  “Are you asking me out, Cormac Vitali?”

  “The first of many times.”

  She chuckled against his dirty flannel shirt. “You’re kinda cute, ya know? Wanna be my life mate?”

  “Only if it means I get the right side of the bed. Oh, and that I can leave the toilet seat up.”

  She leaned back in his embrace and tweaked his beard with a grin. “Better hit Craigslist for a new life mate, buddy. Toilet seats are deal breakers.”

  “They have life mates on Craigslist? Shut the front freakin’ door. All this time I thought I had no choice in the matter. I thought it was you or nothing,” he teased, cupping the back of her head to tilt her face upward.

  Pressing her palm to Cormac’s jaw, she winked when she ran her thumb over his beard. “Oh, you have a choice, mister.”

  “Is it ‘bend to my will or die while I dance in your intestines’?”

  Her laughter rang out in the small waiting room. “Well, that’s a choice, isn’t it?”

  Brushing his lips against hers, he whispered, “Then I choose you, Theodora Gribanov. I choose you.”

  And that was all Teddy, the soon-to-be ex-bounty hunter, needed to hear.

  * * * *

  Three months later

  Teddy, Toni, and Cormac sat in the hushed courtroom where Cormac and Toni were preparing to testify at a grand jury hearing to prosecute Stas Vasilyev and Carmine Ragusi for the murder of Mauricio Benneducci.

  After handing over their recorded evidence to the police, and enduring months of questioning, flying back and forth from Colorado to New Jersey to meet with law enforcement official after law enforcement official, an amazing, mind-blowing trip to Shamalot to collect Toni, and a full-on investigation of every detail of their lives, Cormac, Toni, and Teddy had struck a deal with prosecutors for immunity.

  Now all that was needed to close this chapter of their lives was their testimony to put Carmine, Stas, and his crew of foul thugs away forever. That day was today.

  That night in the bar, when everything had finally come to a screeching halt, still came back in fits and spurts in Teddy’s dreams. The screaming, the gunfire, Dennis dead at her feet, the horrifying moment, suspended forever in her mind’s eye, when Nina was shot…all of it stuck to her like static cling.

  But Cormac was also there, soothing her fears, talking it out with her as they helped each other to mend. And they were growing, learning, laughing.

  His reunion with Toni was only one word in Teddy’s mind. Magical. Toni had cried when she’d flung herself at Cormac, cleansing tears of relief. He’d hugged her tight and then introduced Teddy as his girlfriend, and Toni had introduced her fiancé Iver.

  And they’d laughed, cried, talked about their parents, reminisced about when they were kids—healed.

  If in her wildest dreams, she ever thought it possible to step into a fairytale, stepping into Shamalot had fulfilled every expectation. It was all the things little girls imagine and more, and meeting Toni for the first time had been about as perfect as perfect could get.

  She was still adjusting to a giant blue ogre, and Toni’s fiancé, Prince Iver, who made her giggle endlessly with his curiosity about all things Jersey and modern-day contraptions and his pattern of speech, wherein he called her Lady Theodora.

  As the courtroom stirred and the judge took the stand, Teddy gripped Cormac’s hand, looking down at the missing digit—a stark reminder of why they were here to begin with. The last thing she wanted to do was get up in front of a bunch of people and be hammered one more time about the events of that night. But she’d do it because it helped Cormac and Toni.

  Testifying today brought up all her old insecurities, all the old questions about her character and how strong she really was, if she could have stayed with Dennis as long as she had.

  Stas scared the hell out of her in the same way Dennis did, and now the chance to tell the world was at her feet. But she felt intimidated and small. Exactly the way Dennis had made her feel.

  No. She remembered Nina’s words after a long Skype call. That was the way she’d allowed him to make her feel, and she wasn’t ever going to allow anyone a repeat performance. Who was smaller than Dennis, Nina’d asked her? A man who’d verbally assaulted her time and again and then beat the living hell out of her because he couldn’t have what he wanted? Nina repeatedly reminded her she was a strong, confident woman, and no one could take that unless she let them.

  When Cormac was called to the stand, Toni leaned over and winked at her, gripping her cold fingers, her smile warm and so confident when she whispered, “You got this, Teddy. This is the beginning of your future—free and clear. Now, chin up, chest out, head held high. Always be the hunter, honey.”

  Always be the hunter.

  Teddy gripped Toni’s hand and squeezed when Cormac took his place on the stand before the microphone.

  Nina’s words from outside the courtroom just moments ago replayed in her head. We’ll be right outside, Teddy Bear. All of us. You need us, you say the word. But you won’t need us, kiddo. Because you’re a mighty bitch who’s a badass with a dart gun who helped take down a goddamn mobster. Nobody fucks with bitches like that.

  Yeah. Nobody fucks with bitches like that.

  She heard the bailiff swear Cormac in and held her breath.

  “Do you, Cormac Vitali, solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” he said, looking directly at Teddy, his voice strong and clear.

  And that was when Teddy felt the surge of power, the one she’d struggled so long to recapture, sizzling through her veins, spreading through her limbs, re-centering itself right back where it belonged.

  At her core.

  With her chin up, chest out, and her head held high, Teddy prepared to walk into the beginning of her future with Cormac and her new friends.

  Because she always wanted to be the hunter. Strong and sure—with Cormac hunting right beside her—forever.

  Epilogue

  Four months, twelve and counting utterly implausible, zany paranormal accidents gone by—a chicken-wing-loving, beer-guzzling, recuperating-from-a-wound-that-almost-ended-her-life-but-saved-her-friends ex-vampire; a beautiful halfsie with the gift of mediation and an endless supply of eye rolls; a gorgeous blonde werewolf who will never let her bes
tie live down the fact that she took a bullet for her; a cuddly demon who was teaching the sweetest zombie on the face of the planet how to slow dance; a manservant, busily making sure every last detail of his scrumptious buffet was perfect; a gorgeous, fiery-haired almost princess and her handsome Prince Iver; various accidentally turned guests, such as dragons and genies and cougars, oh my; a string of fairytale creatures, like big blue ogres and little old ladies named Roz; one unaware-she’s-about-to-be-ambushed brown bear; and a handsome grizzly in a cheesy blue tuxedo with matching ruffles, gathered for a very special surprise first date at the newly renovated place the new couple called their home away from home…

  “Surprise!” voices yelled from the dark interior of the penguin pool house at Sanctuary, just as muted globe lights popped on and a soft love song began to drift to Teddy’s ears.

  “Happy prom!” Marty and Wanda squealed, gathering her into a rhinestoned hug of blue and gold tulle-covered satin and clouds of musky-sweet perfume.

  Nina held up a dress. A very familiar dress. And she wore a dress, too. Granted, she wore her black hoodie over the top of it and work boots, but a beautiful red dress was beneath the sweatshirt, swaying at her ankles and hugging her long legs.

  “What is all this?” Teddy asked, breathless.

  Nina shook the dress under her nose with the arm not in a sling, and grinned, her white teeth flashing. “Happy prom, kiddo!”

  Teddy smiled at her friend and occasional animal consultant, giving her the hug she knew would annoy her. “Hey, lady! How are you feeling?”

  Nina’s recuperation from the bullet she’d taken was indeed slower than even the ex-vampire expected. Nothing moved as quickly as it once did for Nina, not her healing or her body, and it frustrated her. According to her doctors, physical therapy for her arm was going quite well, despite the names she called her hunky Swedish therapist, who laughed off her ire-filled rants.

  But what Teddy worried most about was Nina’s mind, her emotional state. “So have you given thought to what we talked about?”