Morgaine sighed. “I guess we do. Gwyneth, I’ll see you later. You’re still coming over for dinner and the burning of the Yule log, right?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. Remember that cake Yule log I made last year?”
Ugh. Don’t tell me she still has it.
“I just made another one exactly like it. I thought we could invite Nathan and Sly over for dessert. Well, wine for Sly.”
Whew. The cake isn’t stale and hard as a rock.“Sure. Sly would you be interested in celebrating Yule with us tonight?”
“Absolutely. I was going to ask you when I could give you your Yule gift.”
Morgaine sucked in a breath. “A Yule gift? For me?”
“Why are you so shocked? I heard you went Christmas shopping.”
“Oh… I did. It won’t be ready tonight though.”
“That’s fine. I’ll give you your Yule gift today and you can give me my Christmas present on Christmas.”
She smiled sadly. “That would be fine with me, except your gift won’t be ready for Christmas either. I tried, but it’s kind of complicated.”
“That doesn’t matter. We can have a belated Christmas anytime.”
She gave him a coquettish look. “I’ll make it up to you.”
Gwyneth laughed.
He grinned. “I’ll look forward to that. So, can you come down to my apartment?”
“Sure.” She waved to her cousin, “See you later,” and closed the door behind her.
The night before, Sly had mesmerized a jewelry maker, telling her she would give him three 7-inch pieces of white gold and he would pay her back as soon as he could. The cost wasn’t prohibitive because they were raw materials and no artist had designed anything from them yet. Sly knew exactly what he wanted to do.
He braided all three bands of gold, bent them around a dowel to meet, cut the ends to overlap, and then he used his vampiric strength to fuse them together. On the flat section, he used a sharp needle, and in his best cursive handwriting, inscribed their initials…SF & MM. It came out better than he had envisioned.
He was excited to show it to her and hoped it would mean more, because he’d made it by hand just for her.
Morgaine appeared nervous while he unlocked his door. She shifted from foot to foot behind him.
“What’s wrong, Morgaine?”
“Nothing.” She slapped a smile on her face so fast he almost didn’t catch the worried expression it had replaced.
He opened his door and stepped aside for her to enter.
“Seriously, how are you, love?”
“I’m well. I suppose you are too since you never get sick unless you come into contact with silver or sun. And now that you have your wine, you don’t even have to worry about that.”
“I don’t know about silver yet. I haven’t tried handling it.”
Is she being sarcastic? No, that’s not my Morgaine.“I want you to know I’m rather proud of what I made for you. I hope you like it.”
“Youmadesomething for me? That’s so sweet!”
All the jittery nerves and frosty formality seemed to disappear.
“Wait in the living room. I’ll go and get it.”
