Lysandra frowns and cocks her horned head. “Caught up in the story?”
“More like caught up in one-way flirting.”
“Oooo, do tell. I had thought that you wanted to leave that kiss in the past.”
I exhale, still feeling silly about that accidental kiss. “I did, but, well…”
“Out with it.”
Dew arrives with the mead and hands it over to Lysandra. The faun takes a long sip and makes ayumsound.
“Now, come on,” Lysandra says. “Tell me what’s up, Colette.”
“It’s pretty obvious that the stuffy, too-smart-for-his-own-good vamp has a thing for my breasts.”
A bark of a laugh comes from the faun and I join her in chuckling.
“I know. He tried to cover it,” I explain. “He acts annoyed with me, with the project, with everything. But his eyes are telling a completely different story, and you know what? I’m going to see if I can melt his cold heart.”
“But he’s not awful, right?”
“Not at all. I think he’s very kind. He’s just isolated himself for some reason. He has walls taller than the king and queen’s. I’m going to break them down.”
Lysandra is clapping now. My cheeks hurt from grinning.
“I cannot wait to see this,” the faun says.
“For a librarian, you are very saucy.”
She waves off my comment and takes another drink of her mead. “You should know by now that the bookish ones are sometimes the hottest under the collar.”
I laugh and raise my own mead. “A toast to seducing the vampire,” I say, whispering under the rumble of the room’s lively conversation, most of which is about Archer and me.
Lysandra clinks her mug to mine and we drink.
Life is good.
Chapter 10
Archer
“We can’t rush this,” I say. My head is pounding and I’m pretty sure it’s because every time Colette taps her quill against her very soft, very gorgeous lips, I clench my jaw. It’s driving me mad. She can’t sit still for even one moment and she wants to hurry into the banter and action of the scene we’re writing. “This is the moment our characters decide they want to move forward. I don’t see either of them just leaping into action here. They’re both sensible.”
“Smart and sensible, maybe,” Colette says, “but they’re also thrown off by one another, which can definitely lead to slightly reckless behavior.”
I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t settle medown because the air is full of her scent. “Slightly reckless?” I ask.
“The readers know they aren’t going to die,” she says. “This isn’t that type of tale. So why not get into the meat of the story asap?”
“Because the meat won’t have any flavor if we don’t marinate it in motivation,” I say.
Colette raises one blonde eyebrow and a grin stretches my lips before I can stop it.
“Yes, fine,” I say. “That’s a bit heavy on the metaphor, but you know what I mean. Don’t you?”
She nods. “But we can add more once the rough draft is complete.”
I shiver. “I still cannot believe you think I can write a skeleton draft. It is the stuff of nightmares.” We have already argued about it three more times.
