Damsel Under Stress Read Online Free

Gemma. He never took his eyes off her, he appeared to listen to everything she said, and he was incredibly attentive in every little gesture toward her. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to notice that and acted more and more put out toward him. It looked like she was in danger of losing a great guy simply because they were from different eras and had different ideas of what made a good courtship. If anyone needed the help of a fairy godmother, it was them.
    But if I protested the interference of a fairy godmother, I knew Gemma would reject it outright, if she even let herself believe in such a thing. Meanwhile, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to be meddling in my friends’ relationships, not when my enemies were at large and, come to think of it, I had the distinct impression that I was being watched.

 
    Two
    I f it had been summertime, I’d have suspected that a bumblebee was hovering nearby. There was definitely a buzzing sound, like tiny wings flapping at high speed. Since it was below freezing, I could be fairly certain that it wasn’t any kind of insect that was stalking me. I immediately went through my mental catalog of magical creatures. The problem was that my exposure to magical creatures was still pretty limited, and besides, Idris seemed to have a fondness for creating new ones.
    I lagged behind the others at the entrance to the subway station, pretending to have to search for my MetroCard, so I could get a better look at something I was sure they couldn’t see without being too obvious about it. It took me a moment or two to spot the tiny thing hovering over my shoulder, and when I did, I relaxed considerably. It was a male fairy—or sprite, as they preferred to be called, as they had issues with being called “fairies.” Go figure. I hadn’t realized they could shrink that small, but then I remembered Tinkerbell. Yeah, that’s fiction, but I was learning that a lot of things I thought were just stories were real, so why not that, too? The sprite saluted me, and I figured he must have been my current magical bodyguard. With the threat from Idris and his people, I was almost always tailed by someone in the MSI security force.
    That made me hesitate about going out with my friends. With my enemies on the loose, did I really want to put myself out there in public around my friends? I didn’t think Idris or Ari would hesitate to try to at least embarrass me, if not outright harm me or them. In the middle of Rockefeller Center, there were all sorts of magical disasters that could happen. “I just remembered something I need to do,” I said. “Y’all go on and have a good time. I probably wouldn’t have skated anyway. I’ve never been on skates before in my life, since we don’t have a lot of ice in Texas that’s not in drinks, and I’d rather not spend Christmas in traction.”
    “I bet I know what you have to do,” Connie said. “You have to find a gift for the new boyfriend. That’s the problem with starting to date someone so close to a major holiday. You suddenly have to come up with a gift that’s meaningful as well as appropriate for where you are in the relationship.”
    I was perfectly willing to use the excuse to get away from them, but thinking about what Connie said set off a panic attack. I’d already given Owen a gift, but that was only because I was his secret Santa at work. I hadn’t considered that I’d now need to come up with a gift for him on a personal level. “What is appropriate this early in a relationship?” I asked.
    “Well, it needs to be personal enough to show your feelings, but not so personal that it presumes something that may not be there yet. Nothing too expensive, but possibly something that will go on to be meaningful if the relationship lasts.”
    “No pressure there,” I said with a snort. “I guess this is where you’d give a girl a cute stuffed animal or a pretty candle set. But what do you give a guy?” I thought I heard a high-pitched,