“Not a whole lot,” she said. “Something about a picnic and sending his regards.” She glanced at Rael. His face was a wall now. “They were acting weird, andshelooked nervous.”
“It’s the festival,” Rael said dismissively. “It gets everybody a little antsy.”
“There’s antsy, and then there’santsy. You know something, don’t you? This doesn’t feel like the other festival years.” When he hesitated, Deena said, “There’s something going on, isn’t there? Up at the house. Between Cal and Nadine, and possibly everyone else.”
“You’re paranoid, Deena. You’ve been standing out in the sun for too long.”
“He’s not hurting her, is he, Rael?” She looked at him sharply. “You’re a good man. You’d tell your father if he were—right?”
She wasn’t sure why she said that. They didn’t have any real camaraderie. But for some reason, her feet had planted in place, not letting her leave. Rael’s face softened at last as he looked her over, his eyes lingering for a beat on her best nude hose. She’d put them on for a meeting with the mayor later, cursing the runs that she’d put into the thighs, but the way he was looking at her now made the extra effort seem almost worth it. Self-consciously, she straightened her skirt.
“Cal wouldn’t hurt Nadine,” Rael said at last, but he said it in a strange way before he turned and headed abruptly down the path that would take him directly back to his father’s office.
He said it like he thought there might be somebody who would.
???????
Nadine had daydreamed often when she was young. It was the way of things, when you were young and dissatisfied, to imagine that all it would take to change your lot in life was the wave of a magic wand, or a dark prince taking you by the hand and leading you off into the sunset.
Nobody ever told you what happened when happily-ever-after looked more like a curse. When girls, and not witches, were shoved into ovens, and when staying on the path was what led you right to the wolf, who was not just a wolf but also the prince, who just so happened to harbor a taste for fresh, maidenly blood.
This house that looked like a castle—that was called Killraven Castle by those who lived near it—was built on grounds that had been watered with blood, secrets spiraling up to the hellebore and then radiating outwards on the blue-tipped wings of the ravens who haunted the grounds like wraiths. Those ravens; they swept through the trees, catching and killing all that they pleased.
And sometimes, Nadine thought grimly,they turn on each other.
But no raven was as terrifying as the ones who lived here, who wore their human faces like masks.
The Cullraven family were a far more potent evil than anything she’d encountered in fairytales.
After strange dreams about ghostly flowers and eyeless things in the woods, which were not woods at all but dried deer corpses peeling like the trunks of living trees and glittering with salt, Nadine woke up gasping, her body lighting up as if her nerves had turned to blinking lights.
(Do you dream of me often, little sparrow? Am I gentle or rough?)
Her nipples tingled, the skin around them prickling like they’d just been touched. There was a heavy ache between her thighs and her breathing was fast—too deep for nightmares.
Too deep to run.
I’ve felt like this before.
She let out a breath, rolling over in her bed. She was so warm—but then, it was easy for a bed to be warm with two bodies heating it.
“It was you,” she said, to the darkness. “You’ve been sneaking into my room.”
“You say my name in your sleep,” was the measured response. “Did you know that?”
“They weren’t good dreams,” she said, through gritted teeth.
“Not ever?” His voice was like dark thread circling around her. “Not even the ones that leave you gasping?”
“They were nightmares.”
“Well.” He tugged at a lock of her hair and when she sat up in surprise, she felt the coarse warmth of a man’s chest rub fleetingly against her shoulder before he pulled away. “I’d rather be in your nightmares than not have you dream of me at all, Nadine.”
And then he nudged her back and finished what he’d started, holding one of her hands up beside her face, clasped with his. “I just want to make you feel good,” he said, as her head rolled back and she tried not to cry out. “Let me do this for you, little sparrow.”
In the end, she ended up giving in to him.
Just like she always did.
