“Come,” he said, guiding me across the room with that same light touch that simultaneously steadied me and set me on fire. He sat me on the couch like I was precious cargo, then crouched in front of me, one hand braced on the cushion beside my thigh. “What do you want to eat?” The question had me grappling with reality for a second. Eat? Oh, right… My stomach rumbled on cue. Dinner. Food. You know, basic human needs, those things.
“I...uh...something,” I managed. “I don’t care.” Who thought of food at a time like this—when he had his hand so close to my jean-clad thigh that I could feel heat thrumming like a pulse between my thighs: inappropriate, sensual, intense.
He arched a brow as if this were a perfectly normal question and I were the one acting strange. Maybe I was, but I could not forget how blatantly he’d admitted to being insanely attracted to me. This throbbing need that pulsed in my flesh, it was not one-sided. “Risotto? Truffle pasta? Carpaccio?” he listed, his voice dark and sinful, as if he were uttering dirty promises instead of dinner options.
I stared at him, licking my lips. He followed the movement of my tongue with avid eyes that were anything but cold right now. I couldn’t help it: my eyes dropped from his face, slid along his chest, and down to his groin. His slacks were stretched as he crouched, but a helpful, or perhaps very unhelpful, shadow fell across his thighs. “I would honestly be thrilled with a sandwich,” I whispered. Or more of that scorching kiss he’d surprised me with in the library, butthatI didn’t dare say out loud.
“That won’t do,” he said, far too dismissively for someone who was leaning over me like the hero from a gothic romance cover. Then he rose and swept toward the small kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Read.”
The single word curled around me like a command, and I felt it low in my spine. I glared uselessly at his back, then looked down at the book, determined not to think about how my body still thrummed from his touch. Focus, Jade. Words. Pages. You know how to do this.
I opened the book and promptly forgot how books worked. It looked like a history, but not of the world I knew. The index alone listed kingdoms I’d never heard of and spoke of battles with names I couldn’t pronounce. A quick flip through the pristine pages made my gaze land on things that were fantastical and impossible: battles fought with magic, creatures that belonged in fantasy novels, not… not here. Not real life. This had to be some kind of joke, an ancient first attempt at a fantasy story.
Luther had given me this book for a reason, though, as a way to introduce me to his world, his secrets. He’d dared me to find the answers in the books in the library but denied me access to the supposed hidden collection in the basement. My questions about Belfry had remained unanswered, but they were a hint. My head spun as I flipped carefully through pages describing alliances between sorcerers and winged beings, whole sections on blood rites, wards, things that should have been entirely made-up. There was even a chapter on the history of familiars, with beautifully drawn images of bats and black cats, toads and owls.
When I lifted my head, heart racing, I froze. Luther had set a table, an actual, honest-to-God candlelit table. White tapered candles flickered softly, while red roses in a slender vase leaned toward the glow. And the plates… the food… everything looked like it belonged in an expensive European restaurant, not in a small apartment above a suspiciously well-stocked general store.
He stood beside the table, hip against the dark wood, holding a glass. Deep red liquid swirled inside, reminding me of the expensive red wine from last night. Wine made sense, he was a man of taste, even if that fancy wine had been a bit rich for my blood. Oh… what if that wasn’t wine?
My mouth dried instantly, and my gaze dropped to the book in my lap, fingers carefully flicking back to the index and scrolling past the many chapters it contained. There, right there, staring me in the face. I wasn’t ready to go to the chapter and read it, but that ever-present curiosity… “What are you?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
He didn’t answer; at least, not directly. Instead, he lifted his glass, the light catching on the rim, and his voice wrapped around me like silk. “Come here,” he said softly. “And find out.”
The words tugged at something inside me, something helpless and wanting, and completely beyond reason. I rose, carefully set the book aside with shaking hands, and walked toward him like a moth courting its own doom.
Chapter 16
Luther
I pulled out the chair for Jade as though she were made of glass, but that was just my old-fashioned manners kicking in. She looked anything but fragile, anger flashed behind her brown eyes too often for that, but tonight her edges seemed softened, and a little cautious. I liked seeing her in my home; the lamplight gilding her hair, and her scent lingered on my furniture. “Thank you,” she murmured as she sat and demurely folded her hands in her lap. Her brown eyes shimmered golden in the candlelight, they were also huge.
I poured her a glass of sparkling white wine and watched the bubbles race upward. I’d picked it because it paired perfectly with the meat, but also because it couldn’t look more different from the deep, viscous red in my own glass. Let her notice. Let her wonder. That’s what she’d been asking for, hadn’t she? I tried to ignore how that made nerves spark like the bubbles in her glass, inside my veins. I had only had this talk once before in my life, with disastrous results.
My mind flashed with images of flames, and my chest burned as it recalled the smoke that had filled my lungs when I awoke from a deep slumber. The woman I thought loved me was gone, missing, and danger crackled with greedy tongues through the rafters of my home. No. I took a deep breath, settling my churning thoughts. That was then, the times were different, and this was now. Women in this day and age could dye their hair blue if they felt like it and not be branded a witch. Teenagers swooned over the phases of the moon and novels with titles tomatch. Surely… I tried not to feel too hopeful and felt dread again instead.
Her attention shifted from the glass of pale wine I’d poured for her to the food I’d arranged on the fine bone porcelain plate. “This looks incredible,” she said primly, and that shook me from the darkness lingering in my thoughts. Jade was not Ilse, and this mild-manneredness was just an act—a test, perhaps—biding her time until she could pierce with her brightly inquisitive questions. I relished the prospect.
“It should.” I set the bottle down on the counter and came to take my own seat across from her. The salmon looked beautiful, as always, and it would be a lovely palate cleanser after the venison from yesterday. “Arden caught the salmon this morning,” I added conversationally. This wasn’t what I really wanted to talk about, but it was a far safer topic. The troll was an avid fisherman and much happier now that his stream had thawed and his bridge cleared of snow with the spring melts.
“Who’s Arden?” she asked, leaning in as though she were uncertain she’d heard correctly. Her head was cocked at an angle, strands of her brown hair sliding over her shoulder. She might as well have been wearing a silk and chiffon evening gown rather than a plain T-shirt and jeans. That’s how alluring and beautiful she looked to me.
“Arden lives by the bridge to the north, passionate fisherman.” I nodded at the enticing pink bits of fish in her salad. “Somehow, he always gets the best catch in the region.” A little troll magic, that, but I didn’t say so. We’d get over the hurdle of my particular quirks first.
She dug in carefully, the way she did most things, as though she took pride in precision, and I found myself holding my breath. When she tasted the first bite, her eyes widened with genuine pleasure. “Oh my God. This is perfect.” She took another, faster. “Luther, this is… wow.”
Before I could respond, Belfry swooped down from the rafters, landing on the table with the swagger of a creature ten times his size.You’re showing off,he chimed in my mind, his voice dripping with mischief.Pouring wine, serving salmon, why don’t you just present her with a diamond necklace and confess your undying love for her?He snickered as if he’d just thought of something really funny, and then he added,Literally in your case. Get it?
Jade snorted a laugh, covering her mouth. “You do realize I can hear that, right?” she pointed out to Belfry, and while I fought to get my temper under control, the bat had the good grace to bow his head in shame and shuffle his wings awkwardly on the pristine linen tablecloth.
I shot Belfry a glare that made him wither even further against the table, a splotch of black and red against the ivory of the cloth. “You are insufferable,” I told him, but my voice was filled with a hint of a laugh I couldn’t quite quench. He meant well, after all, and it was making Jade smile, which was a lovely sight.
“He’s right, though,” she said, her amusement bright as the sparkles in her wineglass. “Are you trying to improve your standing with me before I ask whether that’s wine or blood in your glass?” Her gaze settled boldly on the crimson liquid in my hand. She wasn’t trembling, and she definitely wasn’t recoiling.No, impossibly, she was teasing me; I felt a slow heat curl in my chest.
“I’ve always admired your way with words,” I said, my voice lower than I intended. “And your mouth.” Heat sizzled through my veins, and my fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. The blood inside it was not half as enticing as the siren across the table from me. She blushed, lovely and sweet, heat streaking across her cheeks.
Belfry made a scandalized little squeak.Oh, good heavens. If you and your girlfriend start flirting any harder, I’ll melt right off the table, Luther.He made the most disgusted noise, a cross between a hiss and a belch, and the fur on his head stood on end. He even drooped his impressive set of ears back as he gave me a glare of his own.
I gestured at him with my fork. “Perhaps you should go find one yourself. Or at least harass someone else over dinner.” Who knew what kind of havoc the little fellow would unleash with that kind of permission? At least I knew no one in town would hurt him, even if he could be a little in the way. The truth was, I stayed out of the city for Belfry’s sake as much as for my own. He didn’t mix well with the haughty familiars we’d known in our last city coven. I rather liked that he had all the freedom he could ever want out here, and friends to boot, even if most were goats that couldn’t talk back.
