She rinsed the pig off and examined the scratches. “Now see, all your battle scars are shallow.” She sniffled, blinking back the tears that kept wanting to break through her defenses into a full blown deluge. “After I'm done, we'll put some nice poultice on your hide to keep you healthy. And you know, I perfectly understand that you can't comprehend a word I'm saying. I never thought I'd end up in my bathroom looking like this pouring my problems onto a pig.” She paused and stared at it helplessly. “It's just that I have nobody to talk to. And if I don't talk, I think I'll fall apart to pieces. And I don't want to do that, because then my family will pity me.” She reached for the towel. “Let me tell you about Chad. You should at least know who you ran away from. It all started with a sleigh…”
Fifteen minutes later, the pig's wounds were treated with cinnamon-smelling poultice and Alena had ran out of words and began to strip her own clothes off. “I think we'll have keep you in protective custody,” she said, climbing into tub. “Until Chad gives up on his pig-killing dreams. I can probably guilt Father into building some kind of sty.”
She picked up the shower head and turned on the water. “So I-”
The pig jerked. Its brown hide boiled, expanded, twisted, like a rapidly inflated balloon, paled and snapped into a nude man. For a brief moment they stared at each other in total shock. Alena caught a flash of wide shoulders, young face, and dark intense eyes beneath brown eyebrows. The man raised his hand, uttered an incantation, and vanished.
That was too much. Alena dropped the shower head. Her knees buckled. She sat into the bathtub and collapsed into tears.
#
Someone knocked on the door. Alena ignored it.
Mother swung open the door and brought it a tray. “It's been three days,” she said. “I understand you don't want to come down for the family meals, but you have to eat something besides a sandwich a day.”
A sandwich a day had been great, Alena thought. That way she didn't have to field questions from Boris and her sister.
Mother put the tray down and said next to her on the bed. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Alena shook her head.
Mother pursed her lips. “This isn't what your father and I had in mind. Had we known it would turn out this way, I would've never let you out of the house. If it helps, the story hasn't made the rounds. Everybody is talking about how Thurmans are in a heap of trouble. They've managed to offend one of the patrician families, very powerful. Not sure how in the world they would even have come into contact with them – must've been through their bank. Rumor has it, Thurmans have to pay out an enormous sum to avoid a feud. They're liquidating their investments to raise cash.”
Alena looked up from her book. “So the date was completely for nothing?”
“It appears so.”
It figured. Maybe she was cursed.
The door bell rang. “I'll be right back.” Mother pushed the tray toward her. “Eat. Please.”
Alena looked at the tray. French fries and a piece of baked chicken. At least it wasn't a porkchop. She wouldn't touch another piece of pork even if she was starving to death.
Mother appeared in the doorway. “Come.” Her voice left no room for negotiation.
Alena sighed and got up. What now?
She followed mother downstairs to the foyer. The outside door was open. She saw her father on the porch, wearing a plaintive expression she'd never seen before. Her mother pushed her lightly, propelling her out the door into the sunlight.
“Here she is,” she heard Father say and then he brushed past her into the house and shut the door.
Alena blinked against the sunshine and raised her hand to her eyes.
Wide shoulders, dark eyes, and brown hair.
“You're!”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks and she knew she blushed.
He was about twenty and taller than her by half-a-foot. Even with green T-shirt it was plain that he was muscular, but his wide shoulders and powerful chest slimmed down to narrow hips and long legs that looked very nice in blue jeans and boots. He stood with natural poise, light on his feet, and somehow elegant, despite his slightly disheveled hair. His skin was tan, and his face made her blush harder. His eyes were very dark, like bitter chocolate, and smart. He wasn't strictly handsome, but he was definitely attractive and very masculine.
And he had seen her naked. After she chased him half across Old Town, clutched him to her br**sts and carried him around for good fifteen minutes, and then told him her life story.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she echoed, wishing she could fall through the porch and vanish.
He dragged his hand through his hair. “This is really more awkward than I thought it would be.”
He would get no arguments from her.
He pushed his hand through his hair again. Something gleamed on his hand – a ring. Her shocked brain took whole three seconds to digest the significance of the crest on it. A patrician. Oh God. He belonged to one of the magical heavy-weight families.
“My name is Duncan. Would you like to go on a date with me?” he asked.
Alena recoiled. He felt sorry for her. “I don't need charity.”
Duncan took a small step back. “I see. I understand, considering the circumstances. Well, if you do feel charitable, I've left my number with your father…”
“I meant that I don't need you to go on a date with me out of pity,” she said and almost fainted from her own bravery.
“Pity?”
“Yes. I told you everything. You probably think I'm some sort of hysterical dimwit to be laughed at. Actually, it's taking all of my willpower to stand here and speak to you and not run away screaming.”
“It's taken pretty much all of my willpower to ask you on a date,” Duncan said. “I mean, I was a pig. There might be a worst way to be introduced to a beautiful girl, but I can't think of any. If anything, I'm the laughing stock here. I'm a Class II pyro.”
Alena blinked. A Class II pyromage. He could incinerate entire city blocks in a matter of moments.
“I have been properly educated. And I've managed to blunder right into a trap set by three punks whom I should be able to take down blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back. It's good the academy is out for the summer, or my desk would be filled with pig ears.” He growled low under his breath.
“How did you…?”
“A friend of mine had been chased by a pack of wild dogs into a warehouse in this area,” he said. “And then when his family came to get him, they were ambushed. A rabid dog is classified as an imminent danger illusion. It's illegal. I came down to see if any traces of the illusion remained, followed the residual magic, and walked right into a trap. In my defense, it was a very good trap, a military grade short range transmutation mine. I don't know where the hell Chad and his hangers-on had gotten it, but it's illegal to posses it. More, while it's not unlawful to defend a family's territory, setting traps and summoning imminent threat illusions is carrying it way too far. Chad knew what he was doing would land him into hit water, and once they discovered me, he told the smaller guy…”