He was right again. The two of us shared a smile at the thought of the old man, and then my brother shook his head.
“Don’t blame me for this,” Finn said. “This was all Owen’s idea.”
“Oh, trust me, I haven’t forgotten that.”
I turned to look at the other man in the room. He too was dressed in costume, although his was far more subdued: a black silk shirt under a dark gray leathervest, along with matching gray leather pants and black boots. Like Finn, he was also wearing a hat, but his was much simpler, a black leather cap with two long flaps that covered his ears, along with most of his black hair.
Despite the costume, the sight of his strong, muscled body and handsome features, including his slightly crooked nose and the scar that cut across his chin, made my heartskip a beat, especially when he fixed his violet gaze on my gray one.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Owen Grayson, my significant other, rumbled. “I am but a humble blacksmith today, remember?”
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. Instead of being intimidated by my continued grumbling, Owen stepped forward, grabbed my hand, and dropped to one knee in front of me.
He grinned.“Although this humble blacksmith is always happy to serve his lady, the Spider, a fearsome pirate queen assassin and the purveyor of the finest barbecue in all the realms.”
I huffed again at his cheesy words and theatrics, but I couldn’t help but grin back at him. “You are getting way more into this than I expected.”
Owen flashed me another grin, then climbed to his feet. He was still holdingmy hand, and the warmth of his skin soaked into mine. “Oh, come on. It’s not every day we get to dress up and go to a renaissance faire.”
“Especially one called Winter’s Web,” Finn chimed in. “How perfect is that? Why, it’s like they picked an icy spider theme just for you, Gin.”
I gave him a sour look, but I couldn’t argue. The name was right on the nose, especially given my moniker as theSpider and the elemental Ice and Stone magic flowing through my veins.
From what I’d read online, the faire was a biannual event sponsored by the Ashland Renaissance Players, a group dedicated to showcasing all things medieval, magical, and the like. Winter’s Web was the first faire of the year, with the second one to follow in the summer.
I shook my head. “I still can’t believe you thoughtthat going to a ren faire would be fun. Or that you actually bid on the tickets during a silent auction back during the holidays. Didn’t you say the organizers had a ski trip to Snowline Ridge? Now, that’s whatIwould have bid on. Or that spa weekend in Cypress Mountain.”
“Oh, there were all kinds of trips and getaways up for grabs. I bid on several of them,” Owen said. “Trust me. I know howmuch we could all use a vacation, especially given our latest run-in with Hugh Tucker.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Finn frantically slicing his hand over his throat, not so subtly telling Owen to shut up. Owen grimaced, knowing it was too late to correct his mistake.
Saying that Hugh Tucker was my personal nemesis was putting it mildly. Tucker was the vampire enforcer of the Circle,a secret society responsible for much of the crime and corruption in Ashland. A few months ago, Tucker had tried to get me to join the Circle, and when I’d refused, he’d tried to kill me. But my relationship with the vampire was far more complicated than mere nemesis status. To my shock, I’d learned that my mother, Eira Snow, had been a member of the evil group—and that Tucker had loved her.
Tucker’s feelings hadn’t kept my mother from being killed on the Circle’s orders, but they had led the vampire to help me more than once. Although Tucker’s help always came with plenty of strings attached and usually involved him manipulating me into killing his enemies. Clever bastard.
Over the past few months, the ugly revelations about Tucker, the Circle, and my mother had just kept on comingand coming, like a freight train that kept running over the tracks of my heart no matter how hard I tried to derail it. But I’d slowly fought, clawed, and killed my way through the Circle ranks until I had finally identified the group’s leader and the man ultimately responsible for the murders of my mother and my older sister, Annabella.
My uncle Mason.
That recent discovery had been a particularlysurprising and brutal gut punch. My father, Tristan, had died when I was young, so I didn’t remember much about him and knew nothing at all about his relatives. I was currently searching for Mason so that I could kill my mysterious uncle for everything he’d done to me and my family, but I wasn’t having any luck finding him so far.
Finn kept flapping his hand at Owen, who cleared his throat, breakingthe awkward silence.
“Although I have to admit that I don’t remember actually bidding on the faire tickets,” Owen said, changing the subject. “But at least Jo-Jo was able to find us some costumes.”
“Anytime, darling,” a light, feminine voice drawled. “And I think you all look fabulous.”
I looked over at the middle-aged dwarf lounging on one of the cherry-red salon chairs that filled the room.Unlike the rest of us, Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux wasn’t wearing a costume. Instead of swaths of leather or velvet, a long white fleece housecoat patterned with tiny pink roses covered her short, stocky body. Given the early hour, her white-blond hair was still done up in pink sponge rollers, although she’d already applied her favorite pink lipstick and other makeup.
A mug of chicory coffee steamedon the table by her elbow, and the rich, dark fumes tickled my nose and overpowered the chemical scents of the perms, hair dyes, and other products that Jo-Jo used in her beauty salon.
Despite her thick housecoat, Jo-Jo’s feet were bare, and she was idly rubbing her toes back and forth over the tummy of Rosco, her beloved basset hound, who was lying on his back, with his stubby legs stickingup in the air. Every once in a while, Rosco would let out a little grunt of pleasure, but his eyes were closed, and he was fully enjoying his belly rub.
My friends and I had shown up at Jo-Jo’s house about an hour ago so she could give us our costumes before she opened her salon for the day. The dwarf had also done my makeup, rimming my gray eyes with silver shadow and liner and painting my lipsthe same royal blue as my awful blouse. She’d also used some of her many rollers, hot irons, and combs to curl, twirl, and tease my shoulder-length dark brown hair out and up to new heights. I might be going to a renaissance faire, but this was still the South, where hair only came in two categories: big and bigger.
“At least you guys got to wear pants,” another voice groused. “How did I endup in this monstrosity?”
High heels clattered on the floor, and a woman a few years younger than me stepped into the salon. She was wearing a bright, neon-pink silk dress that could best be described aspoofy. The neckline, the sleeves, the skirt—there was some ruffle or flounce everywhere I looked. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole thing was also covered with pale pink sequins. They matchedthe ones on her pink high heels, as well as the pink crystal tiara sparkling on her head.
