Crim joined me, cocking his head and pointing. “I think you might be right, love. If this was Sangland and this the mainland, the pinholes would mark all the places we’ve stopped over the years. See how many of them are clustered on London? Here’s Manchester and Glasgow. And this would be Paris, where we visited the cabarets. And here’s Italia, where he’s from.”
“So he took a suitcase and this map. Which means he’s . . . somewhere in this hemisphere. Grand.”
With a deep breath, Criminy went from amused, doting husband to whip-wielding ringmaster. He threw open Torno’s door and stood on the top step, arms crossed. “Torno is missing. Everyone visit your wagon and see if anything was taken or if anyone else is gone. Report anything unusual to me directly.”
“Is he—” Emerlie started, but Criminy cut her off with a hand.
“We don’t know. As of now, we don’t suspect foul play. See what you can find.”
As the crowd turned to go, I put a hand on Crim’s arm and whispered, “Can you ask them about Nana?”
“Oh, and if you should see a Bludwoman in a frilly pink dress—”
“In a gentleman’s suit,” I interrupted.
“In a gentleman’s suit.” Crim tried not to break his stern face. “Do send her along to my wagon. She’s my gran-in-law, and she’s also missing. Good night.”
6
Back in our wagon, Criminy sat at his desk, throwing his scrying bones like dice and clucking over whatever answers he read there. I paced, still dressed in my glancer’s costume and horribly worried. I liked Torno but felt he could take care of himself, plus my glancing had thus far not disappointed in regard to carnivalleros meeting unhappy ends in our caravan. My grandmother’s disappearance, on the other hand, terrified me. Sure, she was a Bludwoman and therefore mostly indestructible, but we hadn’t had time to explain life on Sang. She didn’t know that in the cities, she might be ghettoized, arrested, or worse. She didn’t know how to buy blood by the tube or that she could live off blud animals, if necessary. She didn’t know that drinking from humans was expressly forbidden and could result in public draining.
We had planned to sit her down and tell her all that tonight. But she was gone.
When the knock came, I startled and spun. Emerlie stood in the doorway, Charlie Dregs lurking mournfully behind her, as usual. Criminy stood back to let them in.
“My wagon’s been ruffled,” Emerlie said, blue eyes wide. “Only stuff missing’s a bunch of old city clothes, a gentleman’s large boots, and a huge bonnet.”
“Are you sure? It’s a dump in there.”
Emerlie drew herself up tall and tossed me a disdainful look. “You supposedly know your business, I might as well know mine. A messy wagon’s a sign of creativity, they say.”
“Or laziness,” I mumbled.
“So we’ve a strong man and a new Bludwoman gone missing, and a human’s city clothes have been stolen. Which means . . .” Crim looked at me, grimly amused.
“My grandmother’s run off with a younger man,” I finished lamely.
“They’ll be headed for a city, then. Probably hopped on one of tonight’s buses along with the audience.”
“The bus back to Birmingham? Whatever for?”
“Mebbe they’re getting married! Or mebbe they stole something and need to pawn it. Perhaps they’ll have a love child . . .” Emerlie’s eyes roved over the innards of our wagon hungrily as she contemplated the juicy possibilities, but I felt like vomiting at the thought of my grandmother pregnant . . . or even having sex at all.
“Let us know if you find anything else, eh?” Crim said coldly, bowing toward our open door.
“She’s your gran!” Emerlie shouted as she left. “You ought to keep track of ’er like a proper relative.”
Charlie winced on my behalf and tipped his hat.
I kicked the door closed. “I just don’t understand it, Crim. I go to all the trouble to bring her here, use that dreadful potion, not knowing what it’s going to do to me—and I think it took a few more years off, because I swear I’m getting a hunchback—and then she just up and leaves? Without saying anything? After an argument? In which she was wrong? That wasn’t how she raised me.” I passed into our bedroom and slumped on the bed. “I’ve spent years of my life nursing her, changing out bags of her shit, feeding her. And now this. It’s like she said—I guess I never even knew her at all.”
Crim sat by my side and snaked an arm around to hold me tight. “Now, love. Try to see it from her point of view. She’s been trapped in a bag of bones, stuck in a bed, and forced to watch someone else clean her embarrassing filth, and suddenly she shows up in a new world, gets drained, learns to drink blood, and feels like a person again. Did you think she would be content to sit around the cook wagon, skinning bludbunnies and talking about those pie things you love so much? You probably weren’t born until she was an old woman. You never knew her as a girl. Life’s different when you suddenly have choices.”
“But it’s good enough for me, here in the caravan. Why can’t it be good enough for her?” I traced the pattern on the quilt square. “And why didn’t I glance on her when we appeared in the box and were touching all over?”
Criminy kissed my forehead and stood, going over to the box. I’d ignored it since he’d pulled Nana and me out. What good was it now? He reached within and chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
He looked up and gave me an apologetic smile. “Ah, my love. I must’ve forgotten to tell you. The thing is, when two glancers touch, the strongest one gets both glances. Which means that if you didn’t glance on Ruby, she knows a lot more about you now than you know about her.”
“But she could be anywhere! What the hell good is glancing if it can’t help me get the things I need most?”
I broke down in sobs, and Crim returned to hold me like a child curled against his chest. I could feel the hard, aching knobs of my spine against his young, well-muscled arm, and it only made me cry harder.
“The thing about glances, my love, is that some are more helpful than others.” He held out his hand to show a scrap of paper with scribbling on it. “But notes are infinitely more useful.”
I uncurled it and read the familiar spidery handwriting. Went to London to visit my old friend Hepzibah, I’d tell you not to follow me, but I know you will anyway. Ruby.
Not Love, Ruby.
Just Ruby.
Criminy had found the note in the exact spot where I’d left the scorched remains of my locket—which had also disappeared. And since the locket had come from Hepzibah, the same witch who had given me the potion and stolen twenty years of my life, I could only assume my spitfire of a bloodthirsty grandmother had gone to London to murder Hepzibah for some reason she hadn’t shared with me. If her glancing was stronger than mine, perhaps she’d seen the horror the witch had wrought on my life and had gone after her for revenge. And she’d taken Torno with her, which was problematic not only for our lack of a popular performer but also because it was nice to have an enormous strong man around when you had to leave the caravan and its denizens unguarded to go hunt down your naïve but dangerous grandmother before she got herself in trouble.
“We have to hurry. They can’t be too far yet,” I said, pulling my traveling bag out from under our bed. With shaking hands, I opened my armoire and started pulling out the clothes that would travel best.
Crim watched me, silent as a hawk and just as inscrutable.
“My darling . . .”
“You only call me that when you’re about to say something I don’t like.”
“My best beloved, does it occur to you that if Ruby wanted our help, she could’ve easily asked? And that instead, she wrote a note and left in secret?”
“So she made a mistake. She doesn’t know anything about us, about Sang. She’s a sitting duck.”
“She’s a fanged duck with a tower of muscle by her side. And Torno can tell her anything she needs to know.”
“Fine. She ha
s muscle and info. But she’s never tangled with that goddamn witch. She’s going to get herself killed.”
Fingers light on my shoulders, Crim firmly massaged the tension from muscle and aching bone.
I sighed back against him, tears burning my eyes.
“My darling . . .” he started, and I growled. “Look, poppet. Of the four of us, you are by far the most likely to get herself killed should we go after them. Leave it to Charlie and me. We’ll even take the twins, if you believe more teeth are necessary.”
I swept a hand toward my suitcase. “She’s my grandmother. She needs me.”
His fingers left my shoulders. So, so gently, he said, “She doesn’t seem to think so.”
I spun, furious. “Don’t act like I’m the bad guy. This whole thing is your fault.”
His smile went brittle, his arms carefully crossed. “Oh, yes, my sweet. I do apologize for delivering your drunk and decrepit ancestress over to this wretched plane of existence and forcibly exsanguinating her as cruelly and messily as possible for my own personal amusement in order to give her two hundred more years of life with which to abandon you. I’m an utter cad.”
“Not that. Everything. You brought me here, to Sang, against my will. You said to give her time and space. You took a damn nap and let her escape!”
“I was rather overcome by the drugs and drink in her system, yes. Not to mention the exhaustion of that particular event, when I, too, was drained. I had no way to know she’d run off with my strong man. Definitely wouldn’t have bludded her if I’d known she was going to turn my life upside down and make you so unhappy.”
“Fine. Fine! Then do it. Do it now. You know you want to. You’re goading me into it. Turn me!”
His face was as flat and blank as an unmarked gravestone, neither amused nor angry nor smug. He was looking at me the way he looked at anyone who challenged him, and it sent a shiver up my spine. “Into what?” he said.
I tried to dig fingers into the collar of my dress, but I was still in costume, still wearing the audaciously low-cut blouse I could freely wear once I was a Bludwoman. No human with any sense of self-preservation would expose their neck in public. My fingertips scraped down my neck, nails biting into skin, daring him with the blood welling in the scratches. “Blud me! So I won’t get killed. So I can join your morbid little hunting party. So I can fetch my grandmother from the only person in this goddamn world who’s got any power over me. Get it over with.”
He shook his head. “No.”
That caught me up short. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean I’m not going to give you this gift out of spite or because you’re in a hurry. I wish to share my life with you, and I long to give you my blud, but it’s not some knee-jerk reaction to trouble. This is your life. And you’ve resisted being bludded for half a decade. I’ll not have you resenting me for a choice you made when you weren’t seeing clearly.”
“You would’ve done it and gladly this afternoon.”
His eyes burned, hungry. “Oh, yes.”
“Then do it now.”
“I think not.”
I looked down at my hands, spotted and veiny and trembling, and anger surged through me. Hooking my fingers into his cravat, I pulled Criminy close, so close our lips were almost touching, my head leaning back to look up into his cloudy, flaming gray eyes. I closed my eyes and kissed him, hard and punishing.
At first he resisted, but then he met me with full force. We usually held back, knowing that although certain magic lessened his ravenous need to kill and drain me, there was always a chance he could lose control and do real damage. But this time I gave him everything I had, clashing teeth and a taunting tongue and my front plastered to his, my hand slipping down his shirtfront and under his waistcoat.
“Careful, poppet,” he hissed as I went for his breeches.
My lips skittered sideways, and I nipped his ear. “No. You’ve always wanted to taste me more deeply. So do it. If you won’t listen to reason, listen to lust.” I knocked off his top hat, dragged my mouth down his throat, and lifted my hair to show him my neck, where the fresh scratches still burned. “Kiss me here,” I breathed.
“Letitia, you know very well that goading me won’t work,” he said, but it came out ragged, almost pleading, and I undid the buttons of his shirt, kissing my way down. When I hit his waistcoat, I dug my fingers between the buttons and ripped it open. Soon his chest was exposed, right down to the V of his hips, pointing me farther down. His head fell back, and I ran my thumbs around the high waistband of his soft, tight doeskin pants as I licked a long line from his navel to his throat and claimed his lips again.
“I’m not goading. I’m just giving a rather eloquent argument,” I said between deep, hot kisses that rocked me to my core.
Criminy slipped the loose blouse off my shoulders and pushed the fabric down to my waist, revealing my corset. His teeth scraped over my clavicles as he kissed his way down between my breasts, pressed up and together by the tight stays. I forgot to feel self-conscious about my aging body as his tongue dipped below the thick satin and sought a nipple. All I could do was moan and push his shirt and waistcoat off his shoulders so I could revel in his body, which was spare and muscular and as tight as that of a man of twenty. If I could just push him a little harder, push him into biting down for the first time, he’d have to give in. My body would return to its youthful smoothness and fullness, too.
I tried to slip my hand down the front of his breeches, but he pushed me back onto the bed with the force of his mouth on my breast, sucking and licking and driving me mad. One hand on either side of the busk, he popped my corset open, and I took a great gulp of air that caught in my throat as he jerked up my voluminous skirts and ran bare knuckles over the wetness there.
“You do seem very ready, Letitia.”
“I am ready. Do it.”
With a rustle of fabric, he was there, as ready as I was, fiercely pressing and rubbing. His mouth found my neck as he sank into me, and I turned my head and rose to meet him, as anxious for his teeth as I was for our joining. Yet he only kissed me as he entered me, slow and sure, barely teasing me with the scrape of teeth over the thin skin and veins in my throat, the warm rasp of his tongue over the scratches I’d made to tempt him.
“Now who’s goading whom?” I cried, breath coming fast as he began to move, slowly at first and then building into his rhythm, pounding into me, again and again.
“Ah, but I’ll give you at least some satisfaction, darling.”
I rose off the bed, already starting my first climax, as always amazed that he knew my body this well. He didn’t slow his rhythm; he knew it undid me to keep going, to never flag, to let the echoes play out as the next wave built. I wrapped firm fingers through his fine, long hair, pulling his face to my neck. “There. There. Just do it. Please. Now.”
In response, he only thrust into me harder, and my whimpers became more frantic. I tried to scratch myself with all-too-human fingernails, tried to give him the blood he craved, but he only pulled my hands away and pinned them to the pillow over my head as he rode me. I dared to look at him, and he was a feral masterpiece of bared teeth and wild hair and stormy gray eyes, grinning fiercely as I came again, bucking beneath him. At last, his head fell back, and I felt him jerk inside me as he groaned and let loose my hands, his forehead to my shoulder and his breath hot and sweet on my skin.
Before he had opened his eyes, I pushed him off me and stood, pulling my skirt back down and my blouse back up, red-hot with shame and frustration. What good were a cascade of multiple orgasms if I still couldn’t get what I wanted from the one man who could give it to me?
“Letitia, my love, if you’d like to talk about it now—”
I shook my head and ran for the small water closet, slamming and locking the door behind me. Criminy had never denied me anything, and I felt an utter fool, more human and breakable and old and fragile than ever.
“Letitia?”
The sof
t whisper of his hand on the door nearly broke my heart. The first time he’d made love to me, we’d started like this, with nothing but a thin wooden door between us. It had happened on a submarine lined with posh red velvet, and I’d been partial to red velvet ever since. Now, as I wiped myself clean down below and splashed water on my face to rinse off the kohl-tinged tear tracks, I wondered if we’d ever be equals again.
“Go away, Crim. I have to get cleaned up so we can go find my Nana. Before I get old and die.”
“You’re not going to get old and die, love. Glances don’t lie.”
I swallowed hard and looked in the mirror. My glance, the very first time I’d touched his skin, agreed with everything that had happened to us thus far. Everything except the part of the glance I’d always feared so much: a black-scaled hand clutching Criminy’s in our bed.
And, for the very first time, it occurred to me that I’d only seen Criminy and another Bludman’s hand.
Perhaps it wasn’t mine at all.
7
“Just . . .” It was hard to keep my voice steady. “I need to be alone for a minute.”
With his usual gentlemanly consideration, Crim murmured his love through the door and left. After the wagon door had closed, I emerged from the tiny bathroom feeling as transparent and breakable as a porcelain teacup. I dressed hurriedly in my nicest city clothes, the sort of thing any wealthy human woman would choose. A brightly colored dress in aqua and green with a high neck, a firm leather corset to fend off those dangerous Bludmen, high leather boots, and a hat that covered my ears.
It was ridiculous, I knew, as most Bludmen had more than enough self-control to resist an old woman’s flappy earlobes, but it made traveling in the city easier for me, as no one noticed me at all. And if Nana’s note was correct and she’d gone to London to find the witch, then I didn’t want to arouse any sort of suspicion on the way into town. Hepzibah had spies everywhere, considering that she paid better for information than she did for years, which she could steal with a touch. I’d given her five in a fair deal, but the spell she’d put on the locket had taken at least thirty.
Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) Page 5