Page 74 of You’re So Vein

“Your supper is served, Ma’am,” she calls out as she sets the tray down in front of Komal.

“Oh, that looks lovely.” Komal surveys the treats. “Now I know who the garlic pizza bread was for. I thought Augustin was trying to build up tolerance before the annual garlic festival.”

I watch Komal and Hannah as they taste all the snacks. I ball up my peacoat in my lap, the one Komal came to return to me. It’s now splattered with her blood. I breathe in her rich plum and cedar scent, rising from the fabric, and drag my nails over the dark stains that make my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. The now-familiar nausea churns in my stomach, but this time it’s tinged with something else. Something I haven’t admitted feeling in a long time.

Desire.

Yearning.

Hunger.

26Komal

Beth: Komal, Celeste told me you went to Augustin’s house. What’s going on? Just checking that you’re going for “happy horny” reasons and not “I’m chasing the husker on my own because I’m Madam MacGyver and now I’m bleeding out on the floor” reasons.

I SPEND THE NIGHT PLAYING “shop” with Hannah and Augustin. Hannah is so imaginative. She proudly shows me all the objects and clothing she’s covered with bright beads and sequins. But she’s so sheltered that even the simplest things are foreign to her. She doesn’t understand that people who work in shops do it as a job, not just out of a love for matching customers with bedazzled shoes. She’s fascinated by the contents of my tote bag and asks a million questions about my job.

“Maybe I’ll take you both for a ride in my helicopter one day,” I say. “If your dad agrees.”

“Yes!” she exclaims.

Although how I’ll do that is a mystery, since that would probably involve flying at night, something I will absolutely never do again. But that’s a problem for another day.

“Time for bed.” Augustin carries Hannah upstairs. I hear him reading to her, the two of them talking softly. My heart aches for things that can’t be.

I check my phone, and it’s exploded with messages from my mother and the Nevermore Coven. I tap out a quick “I’m fine” to the girls so they don’t come and try to stake Augustin through the heart.

Augustin descends the narrow staircase. “She’s asleep,” he says, wearily. “Sometimes she doesn’t sleep well during the daylight, but it’s better that she adjusts to my schedule, as I cannot adjust to hers.”

“It’s nearly sunrise,” I say. “You must be ready for sleep yourself. And you have the debate tomorrow night. You can’t let Colonel Whitby win with his ‘trebuchets for the police’ policy because you haven’t got your beauty sleep.”

“Colonel Whitby is hardly my most concerning opponent.”

“He is now.” I swallow. “I’m pulling out of the race.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, I know it’s the right thing to do. I can’t be the reason Augustin doesn’t change the vampire laws. This isn’t about me versus him – it’s about Hannah.

I’m disappointed in myself, because it’s yet another thing I cared about that I’m going to quit.

Augustin reels in surprise. “You are?”

“I am. But you owe me one.” I waggle a finger at him. “You will be approving my Uncurse November Festival. And my app is a bloody good idea.”

He smiles at me then, and my whole world explodes with warmth. “You’re a remarkable woman.”

“I know. And don’t you forget it, Durant.” I stand. Augustin holds the door open for me, but I find myself uninterested in leaving. “Are you a coffin or a bed man?”

“Excuse me?”

A hot flush burns my cheeks. “It’s just that I’ve heard vampires have strong feelings one way or the other. Alaric likes a coffin, but Arabella prefers a mattress, and according to her, Gideon has a bed shaped like a coffin. It revolves. Which sounds ridiculous and completely Gideon, so I was wondering which you—”

I’m babbling to hide the fact I just asked Augustin a very private question about his sleeping arrangements, and he is standing rather close with his stupid height and his huge shoulders and his mossy smell and that annoying curl of hair that always falls over his eye, and thinking about beds and coffins is making me think about him and me in a bed (not a coffin)—

“Why would you care where I choose to sleep?” His voice is low, dangerous.

In the close quarters of the cabin, the air between us dances over my skin, and I’m reminded of him in the moonlight, rain droplets rolling off the tip of his nose as his eyes raged with fire and he yelled that loving me is too painful.

“I don’t,” I say quickly. “I just… er…”