“I don’t exactly see you disagreeing.” Her chin lifts in challenge. “So,areyou frightened?”
With a sigh, I nod towards the trees watching like sentinels. “If I were frightened, Francesca, you’d know it.”
She follows my gaze and then leans closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “Show me.”
I tap the steering wheel absentmindedly, enjoying the brief hush that follows her challenge. The tension builds, and I can practically feel her impatience rise, her need to know whether I’ll lay down the gauntlet or accept. She gives a quiet huff when my mouth twitches into a crooked smirk.
“Unlock the door, since you’re not frightened, Eric.” Her tone creeps closer and closer to pleased.
My expression doesn’t shift, but I let my gaze track from her to the rickety fence outside, half collapsed, then to the deer path that disappears into the woods. “I’m not frightened, just assessing murder etiquette. Being cautious doesn’t equate to fear.”
“That sounds like fear wearing the Monopoly man’s outfit.”
“Control,” I emphasise, thumbing the unlock, and the actuator snaps up. Her fingers don’t reach for the handle right away, and she doesn’t even so much as blink. The locket shifts slightly with each breath.
Fine.
I sigh through my nose and reach for my seatbelt. She watches me as I lean closer, one arm sliding around her seatback, the other sliding to the door handle. Hinges groan into the mist as the scent of her wraps around me.
Close enough to see my reflection in her pupils, I mutter, “After you, Lady Hannibal.”
The side of her mouth notches upwards, and a pulse jumps in her throat. She slips out of the car the instant I return her space to her, and the door traps me inside this vault as she saunters off. I watch for a moment, running a gloved hand over my face.
My father would have a fucking field day if he knew I was about to follow this half-ghost girl into the woods.
18
PRETTY LITTLE BABY
ERIC
Idon’t know why we’re here.
The ground is too soft and the fog is too dense this morning. I’m wading over putty, and my freshly polished dress shoes riot against me with each step. Francesca doesn’t care that there’s mud at the ends of my pants; she just struts on until she breaks the treeline. The lake opens up in front of us, still asleep under a heavy blanket of fog. It makes me mourn the comfort of the bed I left behind.Granted, Lady Athena watched me as I slept, and the sheets, though soft, still felt like rope binding me to a stone altar—but that didn’t eliminate the fact that I was comfortable.
Well, as comfortable as one can be in a haunted castle.
Now I’m here before the lake in the hour when dawn hasn’t even arrived yet, tapping my leg like a frightened boy. A gust of wind comes from the woods and shoves me forward, impatient to spit me out, and I groan in regret. I follow the grooves in the ground and find Francesca crouched between tall reeds in search of something. There’s fuckall light, and I bite my tongue from asking whether she’s got night vision or something.
At least that’s the joke I make to myself, because the other feels more like truth than something to be laughed about: that she doesn’t need light when she’s mapped out the place of her nightmares.
Her denim dips scandalously when she leans forward, and the jumper lifts, revealing a crescent of lower back. I stare because I can’t not. Because I’m a prince, not a fucking saint. This must be what my ancestors felt like when they saw a clavicle for the first time and lost their bloody minds.
“Planning to summon the dead, Lady Hannibal?” I call out, and the fog steals half the sound. “Careful,” it slips out when she leans deeper, and I move without thinking. “The ground’s soft enough to pull you in.”
“I’ve a feeling you’ll catch me were I to fall.”
I scoff to myself and scan the treeline, resisting the urge to haul her back from the water’s edge. The surface isn’t visible, yet the way the fog shifts implies that something is waking. It’s the wrong hour for that, and I eat slightly at the distance between us.
Just a bit.
There’s a small squeak from her when a reed catches her in the face. “So…” Her tone already has me bracing. “Are you sad your brother’s leaving later?”
“I don’t do sad.”
The breeze carries her laughter towards me. “I’m asking if you’llmisshim, Eric.”
“I don’tdosad,” I repeat.
