“We can do this every night,” I whisper back, twisting her golden hair in my fingers. “If you stay at Black Crag with me.”
“As your fake-fiancée?” Her voice is slurred as sleep begins to pull her under.
I pause, terrified to say what I’m about to confess. “As my everything.”
But Winnie doesn’t answer. She’s sound asleep.
Everything about this night is perfect.
Even the exquisite torture of it – the night willend, and unless I can convince her otherwise, after the ball Winnie will return to London and I’ll never see or taste her sunshine again.
But at least there are no secrets between us anymore … save one.
That I am hopelessly in love with Winnie Preston, and the monster in me wishes for an eternity that can never be.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ALARIC
“It’s perfect,” Winnie says as she watches Reginald set down his enormous cast-iron pot and fiddle with the knobs on the portable stove. I set down a cooler of ice, which Winnie suggested in case people want their chocolate cold instead of hot. “We’ll be the most popular booth of the Midsummer Festival,” she announces.
“As I feared.” I glare at Reginald, who is pointedlynotlooking in my direction. He’s been avoiding me ever since he agreed to Winnie’s crazy suggestion. I could not refuse either of them, especially not with my mother watching our every move.
She hasn’t spoken to me since she left the dining room, but I overheard her and Perdita while they were on their evening walk. Perdita is growing concerned that I am too soaked in perversion to be a good fit at court, and that the proposed marriage may have the opposite effect than her mother wished. “I can’t risk the future of the Blood Chastain on Alaric’s unpredictable nature.”
“I thought the Midnight Queen sought to be more progressive?” My mother’s smile could shatter bone. “Improve our relations with humans?”
“Indeed. But I think this would be a step too far, even for her.” Perdita paused. “And for me. I think you are right,Callista. I renounce my claim on Alaric, and I shall attend the ball as a representative of the queen to observe our new allies at work.”
Winnie’s crazy plan is working. If only I could find it in me to feel pleased. But every hour closer to the ball is an hour closer to putting her in danger, and another hour closer to Winnie inevitably leaving Black Crag.
Callista and Perdita are here tonight, dressed in their finery with no heed for the heat the humans feel in the air. They wander slowly around the village green, chatting with Gideon and his friends and clients. I wonder if among the crowd who flutter around Gideon like carnivorous butterflies is Danny’s killer.
I wonder if they’re whispering about Lord Alaric Valerian out in public with an un-Thralled human. I wonder if they all know aboutcontraception.
Seeing me and Winnie together, openly in love, will make them even more excited for the ball. More fodder drawing the husker into the light.
Winnie is, of course, oblivious to the bloodsucker politics swirling around her. She affixes her handmade sign to our booth and declares us officially open for business. A small crowd has already gathered on the green to peruse the stalls and put their orders in at the pub.
“Why is the iced hot chocolate so expensive?” a grey-haired man complains as he squints at Winnie’s handwritten sign. I wonder what he’d taste like drizzled over ice cream.
“Because you get a handmade ceramic mug with it, and you get to keep the mug,” Winnie smiles, undeterred by my future dessert’s rudeness.
“Oh, how fun! I’ll have mine hot.” A woman selects a mug with a speckled green glaze from the stack I’ve laid out on the table and hands it to Reginald. He fills it to the brim with hot chocolate, drops in two homemade marshmallows, and passes it back to her.
“I guess I’ll have one, too. Iced, thanks.” The man choses a dark blue glazed mug with two handles and reluctantlyhands over his cash to Winnie. But when he takes a sip of Reginald’s chocolate, his whole face lights up.
“Pearl!” He waves at a lady over at the tea cosy stall. “You have to try this!”
Soon, we have a crowd of people around our table, exclaiming over the mugs as they choose their favourites. Warmth fills my chest. Reginald beams as they praise his chocolate, and Winnie is in the centre of it all, matching mugs to people’s outfits and using words like “bespoke” and “artisanal”. Two old ladies even come back for seconds.
“You must be Winnie, the newest member of the Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven.” One of the old ladies with blue-rinsed hair and a large carpet bag slurps her chocolate happily. “I’m Mabel Ellis, honorary lifetime member of the coven. I haven’t been able to get to any meetings lately, thanks to this bung hip, but it won’t stop me enjoying the festival. Oh, I must go, there’s Mina and her lovely man, Heathcliff. I bet he’ll want to say hello.”
A line quickly forms at our booth. Reginald is pouring chocolate over ice as fast as his human arms can ladle and Winnie is so busy dealing with cash and dishing out marshmallows that people start askingmeabout the cups. Winnie promised me that I wouldn’t have to talk to humans if I didn’t want to, but I find myself picking up pots and showing off my favourite details.
I haven’t shown another soul my work apart from Reginald and Winnie since I left the Midnight Court. It’s quite intoxicating seeing humans enjoying my art without the promise of bloodthrall.
Notquiteas intoxicating as Winnie’s strawberry scent swirling around me or the bright smile she flashes me every time she catches me looking at her. Even as sated as I am by that taste of her blood, I find myself always turning back to her, as if she is my true north.
