He spent a large part of the night mumbling to himself. I could catch the occasional word, and what I did hear was concerning, given it mostly related to weapons and death. But after a while, he settled down…and the deep resonant snores began.
Initially I tried the chair, but it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to sleep upright, and tiredness was in my bones, so I took off my new dress, put the night clothes back on, and got in beside Linton with all the hesitance of a cat on a thin branch.
I was alone in a room with a male I hardly knew. But I was desperate for sleep.
I had no need to worry. Linton snorted and turned over, away from me, to continue with his slumber. Admittedly my own sleepwas fitful and it’s the early hours with grey dawn light creeping through the gaps in the curtains as I lie awake.
Which is when the arm thumps over my abdomen. I turn my head in alarm to find Linton smooshed next to me, eyes still closed and his antennae lifted.
“Kaitlyn,” he murmurs, but he’s clearly asleep.
And it’s then the tear runs from under his lid and down his cheek. I swipe at it with my thumb, and he hums gently, a wing sliding from his back and over us both like an extra furry blanket.
There is nothing predatory in any of his movements. He merely wants to be close to me, his breathing deepening once more as sleep takes him away again.
And, funnily enough, sleep finds me once more because when I wake, Linton isn’t in the room. All there is are his scales covering the bed like iridescent snow.
I clean up in the small attached washing area and pull on my dress before I open the door of our room and peer out.
“Hello,” Linton says loudly.
I think I probably levitate about a foot in the air, grabbing at my chest.
“Don’tdothat!”
“Do what?” he asks, pushing away from the wall where he’s been leaning.
“Scare me.”
“I scare you?” He studies my face, his eyes trailing down my dress to the floor and back again.
“Well, no, not scare as such. Just don’t jump out at me.”
“I do not jump,” Linton says, imbuing his words with a gravitas which would be funny if my heart wasn’t still pounding. “I watch. But today I do it quietly because my head hurts.” He finishes with less gravitas and more of a pout.
“I guess you’ll know better next time than to drink spirits.”
“I like spirits.”
“I thought you could only have blood.”
“I feed on blood. Other foods hold little interest to me,” Linton says, as if this is common knowledge.
“Except spirits.”
“The full moon is coming,” Max says, bustling out of another room and onto the landing. “Mister Linton likes the full moon, don’t you?”
Linton bares his teeth at the friendly warlock.
“Yes,” he growls. “I do.”
“Come for some breakfast, my dear.” Max beckons to me. “Joanna does a wonderful spread.”
Linton continues to growl, but then so does my stomach, and he stops instantly, staring intently at my midriff.
“I’m hungry, Linton,” I say, flicking my hair over my shoulders. “I’m going for breakfast.”
“And what do I get to eat?” he grumbles.
