Lance found her that way when he walked into the daycare less than two minutes after the last minivan pulled away. He had parked his truck across the street and a few driveways down, and watched, wanting to go in just to look at Glori, and afraid that she would send him away. As soon as the last child climbed into her mother's car to leave, he pulled out into the street and squealed to a stop in front of the gate.
When he opened the door and saw Glori crying, he let out a choked cry and nearly flew across the room to gather her up in his arms. She whimpered and struggled for a few seconds, then let out a wail that threatened his eardrums and flung her arms around his neck.
"Please, honey, don't cry. It'll work out," he said, trying to make his tone soothing. He sat down on one of the children's tables, nearly killing his back with the angle because it was so low to the ground. The plywood creaked alarmingly under him and he scooted over to one end where the legs would support him. "It'll be okay. I promise. Whatever it takes, I'll fix it. Hey, I kept the grumpy ghosts away all night--I can do anything."
Lance had glimpsed a few flickers of ectoplasmic movement in the shadowy corners of the house while he shaved and got ready for the day, but he could ignore that. As long as his ancestors stayed quiet and didn't throw things at him or interfere with more dates and kissing Glori, he would peacefully co-exist with them.
Whatever it took to keep Glori in his life, he'd do.
"You can't do this," she said, her words sounding positively soggy through her sobs. "I'm closing the daycare. I can't do this to my children any longer. I'm no use to you--"
"You're the best thing that ever happened to me."
"Then your life really sucks." She startled herself with such a word escaping her lips.
So startled, her sobs stopped for a moment. She leaned back and blinked away the tears. To her surprise, Lance just grinned crookedly at her.
"Don't leave me, Glori. Yeah, it was rough last night, but I found out I have more power over the grumpy old men than I thought I did. If you can put up with a little spying and yelling once in a while, I think we can make a go of it."
As she started to calm down, Glori felt the heat of his body seeping through her, soothing the ache that had been hiding inside her soul all day. Unfortunately, that soothing threatened to turn into a raging bonfire, thanks to the time bomb of Need.
"I can't help you the way I am," she whispered. If she talked any louder, she knew she'd break into tears again. "I have to go to an Enclave and find a mate and...and get things settled down. Then, when my magic is working again, I'll be able to find a solution for you."
"Live without you and be a normal guy, or live with you and put up with being Squeaker the Mouse two nights a month? Gee, what a choice."
"Is that the curse?"
"Yeah. I get to be a mouse that's so sugary cute, I can kill a diabetic without even being in the same room with him." He grinned when that startled a squeak of laughter out of her.
"Sounds horrid. Humiliating. I have to do something--"
Lance stopped her with two fingers pressed against her lips. Then he shifted her higher on his lap. "I have a better idea." He bent his head so his forehead rested against hers. Glori shuddered with hungry wanting, even as something melted inside at the gentle, intimate, yet protective touch. "How about we work on the things we can handle? I keep working on your bug problem, and you get Matilda to help you take care of the ghosts? I'd rather be stuck in fur and nibbling cheese for the rest of my life--well, two nights every month--than live without you."
"Oh, Lance--" Glori blinked away more tears. She took a deep breath, fighting not to burst out into more wails that would probably bring the roof down. "I love you, too."
She slid her fingers through the thick mane of his hair. Sitting up straighter in his arms, she tipped her head to the side, for just the right angle. Lance was ready for her as she pressed her lips against his. He moaned, his lips parting.
Lightning shot through her from her toes to the ends of her hair. Glori whimpered as their tongues tangled and Lance clutched her close enough, tight enough, she could hardly breathe.
Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids and the ground shuddered under them. Waves of lava and glacial ice washed over her. She clung to Lance, even as she acknowledged the Need that had just blasted off the scale. If she didn't get out of there soon, they would both be in big trouble.
Lance shouted and leaped to his feet, and dropped her. Glori yelped as she landed on the floor. Then she opened her eyes and shrieked and scrambled away from him, crab-style.
His nose elongated, warping his face as his eyes got small and beady black and lavender-silver fur sprouted all over his body. There was a loud crack and he vanished. His clothes hung in the air for half a second, then they collapsed to the ground.
"Lance?" Glori shrieked when a mouse with a corkscrew tail erupted through the neck of Lance's shirt, squeaking in fury. She had never learned mouse language, but she could guess he was cursing up a storm.
Curse?
That was Lance?
Before she could catch her breath, the mouse leaped three feet in the air, writhing and shooting off silver sparks. As he fell back to the floor, he grew. And grew. Until suddenly there was six feet of mouse standing on his hind legs in the puddle of Lance's abandoned clothes.
His voice got lower as he grew bigger, and that was weirder and more frightening than anything she had seen so far.
Until the mouse started morphing, looking like something that was half-Human, still covered in lavender velvet fur, still with that corkscrew tail. Glori felt the magic pressure begin to build. Something was about to explode. Terror got her limbs moving again and she scrambled to get to her feet and run.
There was a loud pop--if a soap bubble twenty feet in diameter with an inch-thick rind could pop rather than explode. Lavender and silver sparks blinded her for a moment, and the force of the blast threw her backwards a dozen more feet. Waves of magic spread through the room. The floor wobbled like gelatin under her. She cautiously opened one eye. The walls were doing the same, everything wavering like an underwater effect in the movies. When she stopped rubbing her eyes, she saw silver-lavender fur everywhere around the room. As if a dozen feather pillows had exploded.
"Lance?" she shrieked. She turned to where she had seen him last, in whatever shape he had been.
Lance crouched on his hands and knees just a few feet away from her, gasping and choking, dripping in sweat and cursing like a sailor.
And buck naked.
Glori fought the urge to just sit there and stare, feasting her eyes on what she wanted more than triple-fudge brownie sundaes, diet cherry cola and satellite feed. She knew if she didn't move, didn't turn her head away, didn't think of something, anything else, Need would overrule every bit of what remained of her good sense.
"Lance?" She got up onto her knees and crept forward. With one hand she reached out to touch his glistening shoulder. She snatched it back. And slapped the foolish hand with the other hand for good measure. "I'll get you something to wear."
Glori congratulated herself for good sense as she dashed into the storage closet where the children's dress-up clothes were stored. She had lots of men's clothes, bought from the Salvation Army store. Whether anything would fit Lance or not, she didn't really care. She just had to get away before she attacked him. It was a relief to close the door between them and nearly dive into the barrels and boxes of clothes. In too short a time, she found a faded denim shirt and a baggy pair of workout shorts that might be too big even for him.
"Nice place," Lance said.
Glori shrieked and turned around so quickly she fell, right into the pile of mats and blankets used for the children's naps. In an instant, Lance was down on his knees next to her, trapping her with an arm on either side of her.
"Let me get this straight." His voice sounded strong and steady, and that frightening pallor and sweat had vanished. He grinned and mischief burned in his eyes.
Or was that something else burning in his eyes? Glori felt an answering heat churn in her belly.
"If we make love while you're in the middle of this change of life thing--"
"It's called the Need," she whispered.
"Sounds good to me." Lance's grin widened, turned wolfish. "If we make love, then you're stuck with me, just as much as I'm stuck with you, right?"
"With Humans, it might be--"
He stopped her words with a kiss that sucked all the thoughts out of her head. Glori didn't even try to struggle for a sense of sanity until she felt the tiny shiver of magic along her skin and her clothes vanished.
"Did you do that, or did I?" Lance gasped, finally releasing her mouth.
"Who cares?" She reached for him, pulling him back down into the tangle of blankets and mats.
"I do." He caught her wrists in his big, hot hands and pinned them. "Matilda said I had Fae blood, and there was magic in me. If I have enough magic to do that, then I'm good enough for you, right?"
"You're too good for me, Lance. Please--" Glori gasped as that moment of reprieve let a little common sense sneak into her head. And other parts of her anatomy. "Lance, we shouldn't. This isn't right. It isn't fair to you."
"What isn't fair is if you don't marry me. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a minute," he growled, and stretched out on top of her.
Glori was a very commonsense Fae and knew when to stop fighting and start enjoying the ride.
It was a wild ride. Sometimes they rolled across the ceiling. Glori had no idea, and didn't care, which one of them did the magic to make that possible. Sometimes they floated amid real fireworks. The sparks ignited nothing in the storage closet, nothing outside their bodies. Inside them... That was another matter altogether.
"Did you ask me to marry you?" she whispered, in the drowsy quiet a long, long time later.
"I demanded you marry me." Lance sighed, the sound rough with a hint of laughter. "You broke my curse, you know. I swore I'd never fall in love, never try to keep a woman in my life, until it was broken. You did that. I'm no idiot. You're stuck with me, woman. Just in case Feathedora decides to come back for part two."
Glori giggled and opened her eyes. "How could I break the curse? You need--"
Her brain started working, jolted with dozens of images and sensations that hurtled through her memory like a freight train.
Lance shouldn't have turned into a giant mouse in broad daylight, before the dark of the moon. Unless the curse was making a last gasp effort to hang onto him.
It happened right after she kissed him.
She kissed him the day the children worked their play magic, turning her into a Fae Princess.
It took the kiss of a Fae Princess to break the curse.
"The kids turned you into a princess?" Lance stared, confused when she explained her theory. "How could they do that?"
"I'll explain later. Let's fix my spells, then we'll go home. My place or yours?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him, prompting a hoot of laughter.
"Your place. I don't want to find out if the ghostly roundup is still around or they got sent onwards, until I absolutely have to know."
"Okay. Then we'll go to my place and celebrate."
"Forever." Lance gathered her into his arms and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him, and captured her mouth for one of those kisses that sucked all the thoughts out of her head.
Glori laughed, sighing, and settled down to enjoy the ride. Just because they had eternity didn't mean they could waste a moment.
She hoped Matilda was right, and all this laughing and playing and passion would put a Halfling bun in her oven. Glori wanted children. Lance's children. She owed her life and her sanity, and her love, to children.
Anybody with any sense at all knows children have a magic of their own.
END