“You’re definitely done,” she agreed cheerily. “One day you’ll learn to play to your strengths instead of resorting to dickhead macho posturing. You’re a forger, not a fighter, kiddo.”
She released me, and I righted myself to a sitting position. “You really don’t hold back, do you?” My tongue felt thick and my wrists were bruised from her titanic grip. I prodded a particularly sore spot on my temple and sighed as I wiped a smear of blood away.
“Why would I do that? You’ll never improve if I go easy on you.” She eyed me keenly. “Tantrum over with yet?”
“Yeah.” I deflated as quickly as I’d ignited. “Sorry.”
“I bet you are.” Her eyes softened. She addressed Trace. “How about you take James inside, feed him, then put him to bed? He looks knackered.” When James protested, she repeated her suggestion to him, laced with thrall. He balked at first, then wilted under her persuasive tone and followed Trace meekly into his carriage. I sighed.
“I’ll have to apologise to Trace, I s’ppose.”
“Suppose? No suppose about it. You were bang out of order.” She kept her focus on me until I capitulated.
“I’m just so confused now,” I said plaintively. “How can I trust anything?”
“What d’you mean?” Baxter slung one booted leg over the opposite knee and rested against another fruit tree.
“You, for instance. You knew, all this time. How do I know you weren’t feeding thralled suggestions to Trace on the quiet? ‘Poor old Eddie, been alone for years. Same as you. You might hit it off if you cosy up to him. He won’t break you like he might a human.’ That sort of thing.”
“Jesus Christ! What sort of paranoid saddos have you been draining to be this gloomy? Oh, no, you feed from James now. Question stands. Why the fuck would you think I’d do this? You can’t make people fall in love, you tit.” She threw a rotten apple at my head, which I deflected with my elbow. “Get a grip, Marsh.”
I conceded she was probably right, but the niggle persisted. “What about Trace himself?”
“What about him?”
“Did he think I was an easy mark? I dunno.” I scrubbed weary fingers through my hair. “I just…I’m not sure I could deal with this not being real.”
“An easy mark. Right.” Baxter was gearing up to a rant with that degree of sarcasm in four words. “He lost his entire fuckinghome,you bonehead. Several acres of Essex countryside razed into rubble. Soof coursehe wanted an oversized East London window box with a resident vampire and his shadow. Grow up, Eddie. I love you, but it’s not always about you. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s rarely about you.” She smacked her fist into the earth. “He’s. In. Love. With. You.”
“He did say that earlier.”
“And you’re in love with him.” She was speaking to me as if English wasn’t my first language.
A boulder clogged my throat. “Yeah, I am.”
“Don’t you see it yet? You and Jamesare in love with him.This is real, Eddie. As real as it gets. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise.”
I stared at her in more confusion than ever. “What wouldn’t have worked?”
Her eye roll threatened to dislocate something. “What is Trace? Apart from knicker-wettingly pretty?”
“Er, Fae?” I suggested, mildly squicked out to hear my sister describe my boyfriend this way.
“Exactly. And what did you think he was before this happened?”
“Human.”
“Right again. So, what do you possibly think might have been the catalyst for his transformation?”
When the penny dropped, I let out a groan that came from my toes. That couldn’t be true. Really?
“We said we love him?” Now I rolled my eyes. “C’mon, Bax, like in a cheesy romance novel, seriously?”
“You really can be dense at times, mate. Of course that’s what unlocked him. Look at what’s been happening: Charley and Luc, Sorley and Gethin, and that’s just in our close circles. Barrierseverywhere between our different kinds are being broken down, and why? Because of love. It might sound like magical woo woo and perhaps it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening or not real. What other possible explanation is there?”
“You could be onto something,” I admitted. But love, really? “I suppose the only way to know for sure is to talk to Trace.”
“Which you already know you need to do.” She bared her teeth at me. “Well, don’t sit there all night like a spare part, you fool. Go and grovel. I’m going to trawl the late night clubs in search of a needy-looking hetero twink for dancing and feeding.”
