Wickedly Twisted: Fairy Tales for Adults Read online

  Wickedly

  Twisted

  Fairy Tales for Adults

  Bearskin

  A.D. Roland

  Pan’s Curse

  Sheri Lyn

  To Steal a Prince’s Heart

  Cassidy K. O’Connor

  Celia’s Connection

  Gracen Miller

  His Big Bad Wolf

  Lia Davis

  The Brothers Menage

  Louisa Bacio

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Artist: Ash Arceneaux

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Bearskin

  A.D. Roland

  ©2016 A.D. Roland

  Chapter One

  Seven years.

  Valdus Cadman shifted his weight on his heels and rocked gently for a moment, trying to restore blood flow to his numb buttocks. The ragged bearskin hung heavy on his back and around his arms. He shrugged his shoulders and stretched his elbows out to get some air beneath the cloak. The Devil’s jacket blocked a lot of the cooling breeze. Sighing, he sat back on the sidewalk, next to a couple of twenty-something transients who thought they were being sneaky huffing their paper bags of who-knew-what.

  Out of seven years, six-and-change had passed. Seven months left until he could shed the bearskin and give the Devil back his jacket.

  He had to live one more year. His fingers crept inside the jacket where the stab wound was crusted over, his shirt stuck to him with dried blood.

  When the homeless man stabbed him in the side a week earlier, he’d poured an entire bottle of peroxide over the puncture wound, marveling at the furious froth that formed on his skin. A wide swath of sort-of-clean skin looked pearly-white. Peroxide didn’t count as washing, did it?

  The Devil made some big promises, six years earlier.

  You’ll have all the money you could ever want. You’ll never be without.

  You’ll find your life’s love and you’ll never be lonely again.

  You’ll have a purpose, soldier boy. You’ll never wander again.

  Val looked down at his hands. Dirt was crusted so thick, the very color of his skin was indiscernible. His nails were ragged, inches long. The cuffs and sleeves of his jacket were fraying, blackened.

  Unshaven, filthy, so crusted with dirt and grime and misery, Val forced himself to his feet and limped down the street.

  What the hell was he thinking, making a deal with the Devil?

  Seven years of misery wasn’t worth an infinite amount of money for the rest of his life…was it?

  Was the promise of true love worth it?

  He sighed. Maybe the most alluring part was the promise of purpose. When he got his discharge from the Army, his restlessness and lack of purpose led him down the path he now walked.

  Seven years. As long as he survived, he’d walk away from the deal with over eighteen million dollars. Every day he deposited thousands into a bank account at the one bank that still let him inside. The tellers had watched him go from a scruffy ex-soldier to what he had become. They didn’t try to make him leave. They waited until they thought he wasn’t looking to Lysol the wads of bills he pushed across the counter.

  His side ached. He felt warmer than usual. Was he running a fever? Was an infection going to kill him a year before his time was up?

  No. He’d find a doctor. Get some help, if it came to it. A hospital would clean his skin, though.

  No washing. No cleaning up. You stay as black as sin. You don’t wash nothing off. You don’t clip your nails or take off my jacket. My jacket leaves your body, I’ll know, and I’ll eat your soul like a whore eats dick, soldier boy. You walk the streets and never spend more than a night at a time under the same roof. You show me you’re worth my money.

  Val rolled the edges of the bearskin away from his shoulders so his arms were free of the suffocating heat. The Devil’s jacket was a thick corduroy garment, but it wasn’t unbearable. Coins jingled in the pocket. He knew if he reached in, he would pull out a wad of cash. Over and over and over again, he could pull out thousands of bucks at a time. Once, in the beginning, he sat and pulled money out until he got bored. The amount never lessened. The weight of his left pocket never changed.

  The Devil was keeping that part of the bargain, at least. The money never disappeared. It never had any strings attached. No weird monkey-paw twists.

  The bridge was just ahead. Once it got dark, he would sleep in Gus Adair’s riverfront back yard. Gus was fine with him sleeping out there, providing Val left a couple handfuls of cash under the rock by the back door.

  The bridge was quiet this time of day. As he started to cross, he noticed a man standing at the rail near the center of the structure, looking down into the water. As Val approached, he lifted one leg over the rail and straddled the concrete barrier.

  Shit.

  Val broke into a run, reaching the man just as he flung himself over the side. He hooked the man’s collar and jerked backwards. A couple of his overgrown nails ripped away from the nail bed. The man flew back over the rail and landed on his back on the pedestrian walkway, staring up at Val with wide, terrified eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “What are you doing?” Val demanded.

  “Why did you stop me?” the man moaned. Still lying on the ground, he covered his face with his hands and sobbed. Val looked around for someone else, anybody. The man curled up on his side, weeping.

  “Um…” Val had no idea what to say. He crouched next to the guy. “I’m not real sure what to do.”

  “You should have just let me jump,” the man replied. Breath hitching, face red, he pushed himself upright into a sitting position. “I’m losing everything. Everything. The only way I can help them is if I’m dead.”

  “Who? What?”

  “My house is going into foreclosure. I had to close my business. My bank account’s empty.”

  “How does killing yourself help anybody?”

  “Life insurance. I have a policy big enough for all three girls to get a share. It’ll be enough for them to get started—” He broke down again. “Jasmine and Sonia won’t be able to make it on that—” He coughed and scrubbed his eyes with his palms. “It’s my fault I spoiled them. I gave them everything they wanted. They’ve never had to work for anything.” He looked up, eyes bright but his mind obviously elsewhere. “I tried to overcompensate for them not having a mom. She died when they were young. They watched her die this horrible death… Maybe Zinnia can hold them together—no, no, they’d eat her alive or drive her off…”

  The money in Val’s pocket suddenly seemed heavier. “How much do you need?”

  The man sobbed out loud and Val looked around, incredibly uncomfortable by the man’s display of emotion. “Twenty grand to keep the house. Sixty grand to pay off my business loans. My car needs a new engine. Zin’s needs a new transmission—she has to walk three miles to a bus stop every day!”

  Val glanced around once more, this time to make sure nobody was watching. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the biggest handful of cash he could. The bearskin fell around his shoulders, protecting his secret from casual observation. He counted o
ut five thousand, then ten thousand, then twenty. The wad of cash was too big to fold. He reached out and shoved it into the man’s tucked in, button down shirt.

  The man stared at him with an expression somewhere between disbelief, and terror. As he realized what Val was doing, he tried to stop him. “What is this? Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t need this,” Val said. “You do. You’ve got kids. If money is what will keep you from leaving them, then take this.” He shoved two more wads of cash down the man’s shirt, and a fourth for good measure. He grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Don’t waste it.”

  “No, no, of course not.” The man patted his stuffed shirt slowly, his face slack with amazement. “Is this real? I didn’t—I mean, I’m not dead, am I? I didn’t hit my head or anything?”

  “Go pay your bills, man.” Val squeezed by him and continued across the bridge. Hand in his pocket, he fingered the soft, thick paper edges of countless more hundred-dollar bills.

  ***

  A week after saving the distraught man, Valdus saw him standing on the bridge again.

  “Really, dude?” he muttered. He contemplated turning back around, but it was getting dark, and he hated being in the city after dark.

  The man looked up and saw him. “Hey! Hey!”

  Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill himself.

  Another thought came to Val. He was probably going to ask for more money. That had happened before; all Val had to do to deter him was act crazy. A filth-encrusted, 6-foot-two crazy homeless guy was usually enough to dissuade even the most determined mooch.

  The guy hurried toward him, a huge grin on his face. The sun bounced off his balding head. As he reached Val, he pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Hey! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I checked all the shelters and churches, and then somebody told me you always head down to the beach at night, so…”

  “What do you want?” Val asked, not unkindly. “You didn’t tell anybody what I did, did you?”

  “No. Of course not. I told them you helped me find something I lost. And that’s the truth. I wanted to thank you again and invite you to dinner with my family.”

  Val cringed and shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re welcome, and thanks for the invitation, but…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please, mister,” the man said. “You did such an amazing, selfless thing for me. I can’t repay you with anything but kindness. Please let me do that.”

  The guy’s sincerity tugged at Val’s heart. Even with all his money, he couldn’t walk into a restaurant and eat. Sometimes he could make it through a 24-hour grocery store in the wee hours of the morning when the employees were too tired to give a shit who walked in. Even soup kitchen and shelters were alarmed by his appearance.

  Six and a half years of crusted-on dirt, talon-like fingernails, matted dreads that fell nearly to his waist, and a bushy beard that hid half his face helped clear pretty much any space. Add in his height and the balding bearskin he wore like a cape, and he was promised as much solitude as he wanted.

  The man pleading for his presence at a dinner, with his family, no less, left him a little disconcerted and uncertain.

  Was he ready for human interaction?

  “I—um…”

  “Please,” the man said. He laughed and held out his hand. “I’m Hugh Marks.”

  Val gazed at the man’s clean hand. Slowly, he reached out with his dirt-blacked hand. He had two strips of grimy bandage wrapped around his index and ring finger where the fingernails had been ripped off below the quick when he snagged Hugh’s collar.

  He expected Hugh to jerk his hand back when he saw how filthy his hand was.

  Instead, Hugh gripped it, tight, and pumped it.

  “My name’s Valdus,” he said. It was the first time he’d spoken his own name in years.

  “Valdus,” Hugh said. “It is a pleasure to know you.”

  Chapter Two

  Jasmine wandered into the kitchen, staring down at her phone. “Zinnia,” she said without looking up. “Dad says we’re having a guest at dinner.”

  Zin sighed. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Get this. Sonia says it’s some homeless dude.”

  “Really? How’d that happen?”

  Jasmine shrugged. “Who knows. He’s probably a drug addict or something and he’s going to rob us once we all go to sleep tonight.”

  “What? No, I’m talking about dad. How’d he end up inviting a homeless guy to dinner?”

  “Not sure on details. Sonia said he helped Dad find something or do something. I don’t know I really wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Oh.” It made more sense. She wasn’t sure what would possess her dad to invite a stranger—a homeless stranger, no less—home for dinner.

  She sorted through the freezer. They had plenty of chicken. She could fry it and serve mac and cheese, broccoli, and make biscuits.

  A homeless guy, huh? Dad was always picking up strays. He had a heart the size of Texas. Unfortunately, a mild case of gullibility came along with his good-heartedness. He wasn’t a dumb man by any means, but he wanted to help people so much that sometimes it overwhelmed common sense.

  Maybe they should eat outside. If he was homeless, he was probably dirty and most likely smelly. That made more sense. Plus the guy wouldn’t be inside, casing the joint.

  You know, he could just be a genuinely nice guy down on his luck. Just because he’s homeless doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. Bad things happen to good people all the time.

  Jasmine was already on the phone with a friend, yakking away about Dad. Zin resisted the urge to yank the phone out of her hand and drop it in the sink where the chicken was defrosting in hot water. Sonia and Jasmine treated their father like he was stupid. Even though cancer took their mother, they blamed him. Their contempt for him grew even greater when he married her mother and treated Zin like she was his flesh and blood. Even though Zin’s mom had bailed a few years back, he made sure she knew she was his daughter in every way that counted.

  Zin seemed like she was the only one of the girls with any respect for him. He worked hard at a job he didn’t like to help them pay for college. He was almost old enough to retire and enjoy his own life, but her selfish stepsisters insisted that he pay for their cars, their phones, and their lifestyles. Zin had a phone that was a couple of years old and had a huge crack down the screen. Her car was ten years old and held together with rust and good luck. She shopped at Goodwill and worked two jobs to save up for college so Dad wouldn’t have to pay. He offered. He showed her the bank account he’d started for her when he married her mom. All three girls had one, but the other two had insisted on using it for everything.

  Once that money was gone, they demanded money from his savings account. More of his paycheck went to paying their car notes and credit card bills than it did into his retirement savings. Their ‘friends’ got in on it, pleading for loans and ‘gas money.’

  She’d worked her way through community college and gotten an associate nursing degree. She paid for it herself, working at McDonald’s and then the Dollar Store. She currently worked part time at a small regional hospital, floating in the ER. It paid enough to pay her bills and stash money away for Dad.

  Once she had enough saved, she planned on whisking Hugh away from his harpy daughters. Hopefully, once he was free of their overbearing demands, he would find his spine and be the man he used to be. He was almost old enough to retire. He deserved a break from the massive amounts of stress his daughters dumped on him.

  Zin cooked supper, watching the sun sink lower in the sky. Florida in the middle of the summer stayed bright until nearly nine. Dad was running later than usual. She had a pulse of fear in her gut. What if the homeless man had hurt him?

  She clenched a dishtowel in her hands and peered out the windows once more. The sun refracted off a vehicle slowing and turning into the driveway. It wasn’t her dad’s car, but he was dri
ving it. A rental, maybe.

  He got out and saw her in the window. He waved. She returned the gesture, trying to see the dark figure in the passenger seat. The door opened and the man slid out.

  “What the fuck?” Jasmine whispered. “Is that a bear?” She snapped a picture with her cell phone.

  “Stop,” Zin said. She recovered from the shock of seeing the tall, thin man draped in what looked like a fur cape, with fingernails so long they looked like claws. Dirt caked his skin so thickly she honestly couldn’t even tell what race he was. If she wasn’t mistaken, blood stained the olive-green jacket he wore beneath the fur cape. The ends of the cape dragged the grounds. It looked wide enough to wrap around three or four men his size “Don’t judge him.”

  Jasmine snorted and ran off, thundering up the stairs to get Sonia so she would have company laughing at the spectacle standing outside their father’s car. Zin bit her bottom lip and wondered just what the heck her father had gotten them into.

  ***

  He didn’t stink, exactly. Didn’t smell like roses, but he didn’t stink. He smelled like dirt, warm from the sun. Musty, like clothes that had been stored in a mildewed closet. The sheer amount of dirt crusted on his skin amazed her. She couldn’t tell what was growths or lesions and what was just hardened clumps of dirt.

  Jasmine and Sonia weren’t shy about their opinions. Their comments escalated from innuendos to outright insults.

  Zin gave her father a look as she heaped food on his plate, one she hoped he understood. Normally, everyone served their own food. Though she was doing her best to keep from casting judgement on the man, she didn’t want his taloned, filthy hands in the food.

  “Allow me,” she said. He nodded, his head down. He’d not looked up after his initial glance around the entryway, living room, and dining room. He nodded, still not looking up. Jasmine and Sonia giggled quietly. “I hope you like fried chicken. Dad didn’t give me much notice.”