So far, I’d held my arm so the gash was angled upward, so nothing had dripped to the soil.
Yet.
“I give it about ninety seconds.” I shoved off the oak’s trunk.
Eli scooped me up and all but ran to open the passenger door on his little blue convertible. I was ready to leave, not argue with whatever Thom, Rick, or Marie I summoned if I bled on soil.
Inside the safety of the car, Eli said, “Lower your arm, cupcake.”
“Can’t. I’ll ruin the seats.” Blood wasn’t great for Eli’s butter-soft leather seats. They weren’t going to come to life, but I still had no desire to bleed on them.
If my magic wasn’t fucked sideways lately, I wouldn’t be bleeding. Trying to avoid the draugr meant I’d been careless. My temper was lousy.
“Least I got a new toy.” I patted the machete in my lap. “And Beatrice owes me.”
“You could have died.”
I don’t know if I replied. I was sleepy, the sort of sleepy that only seemed to come with massive blood loss. I closed my eyes for just a moment, but somehow my moment was almost an hour.
When I opened my eyes, Eli was driving through the city with the sort of speed that came of fae reflexes and arrogance. I was in far more danger from my average week than his driving though, so I just let myself relax as much as could.
When he scraped the undercarriage to park directly in front of the door, blocking the side walk, I didn’t argue.
And I didn’t argue when he half lifted me out of the car. All I knew was that we were on the sidewalk and then inside. No blood on the soil. No dead summoned to me. That was a victory.
Machete loosely in my hand, I leaned against the building while Eli rolled up the steel doors that protected the building. Mostly it was for thieves, but sometimes the newly-dead were apt to crawl into a person’s home. No one liked that. Finding out that a biter was watching you was creepy. Hell, dead or not, it was creepy. I like some weird, but stalkers are another thing entirely.
My eyes were drifting closed with all these thoughts of sleep.
“Plum pudding?” Eli’s voice was falsely cheery.
So, I made a rude gesture.
“I’d prefer you be awake when we consummate our love,” he said.
I opened my eyes. “Our what?”
Rather than answer, he opened the door and ushered me inside the bar. We were, obviously, late enough that the bar was closed, and for that I was grateful. Eli’s bar staff was alternately tense and mothering with me. No one was outright unpleasant, but I think they worried that I was about to get their boss killed.
That was how I’d first ended up cozying up to him. No human was strong enough to fight again-walkers. Eli was. I was . . . and that was how I ended up here. Again. Tonight was to be a simple dinner, but somehow, I was bleeding.
“My pretty dress,” I said.
Eli set the locks and rolled the steel. “You look gorgeous, buttercream, even with the blood. A warrior goddess.”
I grabbed a bar towel. They were clean, bleached, and absorbent. It wasn’t the worst bandage ever.
“Let me get the kit so I can st—”
“Absolutely not.” I dropped the new blade on a table. Now that we were secure, I could be unarmed.
I wound the bar towel around my arm. I wouldn’t wake anything here, but I’d still rather contain my blood.
We were alone in the bar. Just me, Eli, and my weapons. I glanced at my dagger. It needed wiped down, and with one arm holding my cotton bar towel on the other, I was in no shape to do it.
“My stitching is excellent,” Eli said, as if he was insulted. For all I knew, he was.
“Did I say otherwise?” I walked behind the bar, putting the long expanse between us.
Eli stared at me, as if his fae bullshit was going to work. It wouldn’t, although that smile of his was a sort of magic. “Geneviève Crowe, you are being unreasonable. Sit down and let me stitch—”
“Using my full name would only work if I was a faerie.” I poured a drink for each of us. Shaky, but mostly in the glasses.
“Are we calling out species, delectable witch of mine?” His tone was falsely light—which meant I’d probably violated one of the eight hundred and thirty-seven rules of dealing with faeries.
Okay, admittedly, I didn’t know how many rules there really were. I gave up counting somewhere around eighty. I tried, legitimately tried to have peace with Eli, but we had a complicated relationship.
“I’m not really yours,” I muttered, stepped closer with both drinks in my working hand.
“You’re dripping on the wood.” He gestured to the floor.
When I looked down, he moved closer. It was the sort of speed neither of us usually used in front of the other. He hid his; I hid mine. We’re complicated.
The blue-tint from humming bar lights that were still on even though the bar was closed cast an ethereal glow over him, highlighting his inhuman beauty. No human was as striking as even the least of the fae, and after our brief trip to Elphame, I discovered that no faery was as beautiful as Eli.
Not because he was fae.
Not because witches were susceptible to them or anything so convenient.
It was just Eli.
Or maybe I still had a lot of pent-up feelings in his general direction. Our one encounter that led to orgasms wasn’t enough. Maybe we just had too much unresolved lust and it made him somehow more attractive—which, incidentally, was fucking horrifying because he was already stunning.
He took his drink, tossed it back, and waited for me to do the same.
“Just give it a minute,” I said, peering at the gash on my arm.
“Why are you being difficult, Geneviève? Do I stitch you poorly? Have I caused undue pain?” His hand was alongside my cheek, hovering in that sliver of space where if I sighed, he’d be touching me. “You are seeping blood.”
“’s not you. I want to know how fas’ I’ll heal now. This is an oppur. . . oppurtuney.”
He gave me an incredulous stare. “Not even you are this brash, love.”
Silently, I removed the now scarlet-red cloth from my arm. The bleeding was slowing some. Congealing. That was new. As I watched the edges of the ten-inch cut on my upper arm were straining, as if they could touch.
It was, in truth, a bit horrible to see my skin seeming to reach out. It was, well, not what human flesh did, not what witches’ skin did. This was a result of my paternal heritage. Creepy arm thing? Gift from doubly-dead dad.
He was dead when he fathered me, but his status was revised to permanently dead at my hand. But as any Southern-born person knows, the sins of the father don’t end at death—even two deaths. I was a freak of nature, neither dead nor alive. And after an awkward attempted murder that didn’t take, I was changing.
“Geneviève?”
I looked up.
“You have lost too much blood. You are drifting.” Eli gestured at me, and I could see the spectral shape seeping out of my body, as if my shadow had taken on life.
“Well, that’s no good.” I realized I had slid down the wall right about when Eli caught me. Propped in his arms, I took a good long drink of the bottle of white liquor he held out.
Tequila.
Life was always better with tequila. Eli and I were better with tequila. Hell, everything was probably better with tequila. War? Famine? Plague?
“Fucking tequila heals everything.”
“Of course, it does, plum pudding. One more,” Eli urged, tilting the bottle for me as my hands were feeling less than grippy.
“Is grippy a word?”
Eli shook his head, but I wasn’t sure if that was disapproval or disagreement with my choice of “grippy” as a word.
“I’m stitching that cut, Geneviève.”
“Pro’lly good plan after all, muffin.”
He laughed. “Muffin?”
“’s what you call me. Stupid pas’ry words.” I closed my eyes.
“You like it,”
he whispered, kissing my forehead as he settled my head gently on the bar floor. “And you like me.”
I did, of course, but I wasn’t dazed enough to admit that.
~ 8 ~
When we were alone, I allowed myself to nestle into Eli’s arms. It was the sort of thing that I ought to avoid, a vulnerability that I seemed only able to share with him. Sometimes, I felt like it was what I needed most in the world, though, a safe place to rest. I was stitched and had consumed two bottles of liquor. I wasn’t feeling my best, but I was coherent again.
Eli held me so that my cheek was on his chest, and he stroked my hair. It was soothing to be held, to be safe, and to feel cherished.
“Dating you is more stressful than I expected,” Eli murmured.
I looked up at him. “This is me. What I do. Who I am.”
He sighed. “Geneviève, I know these things, but I had hoped that dating during your seasonal lull would include more romance and fewer stitches. Is it so much to ask for some time where we can dance and avoid bleeding?”
A flash of guilt rolled over me. “I wore a pretty dress for you. Seductive, and wore gifts you bought to show my regard.” I turned my head and kissed his chest. “We danced.”
Eli looked at me so intently that I squirmed in embarrassment. “You read about fae customs. You wore my gifts because you researched my people.”
“There are a lot of rules. I got one right, but I get a lot wrong.”
“You researched,” he repeated in a voice filled with wonder.
“Fine. Maybe I read everything I could find on fae rules over the last few years,” I hedged. “I felt like I offended you often, and I just . . . you matter to me, Eli.”
He held me in silence for several moments. “Enough to take no more jobs for the next three weeks?”
I thought about it. In terms of the things he asked of me over the last year, it was perhaps the easiest request so far. I nodded. “You have my word: no more jobs between Yule and Twelfth Night. We’ll call it a witch bargain.”
He chuckled. “Terms for this ‘Witch Bargain’?”
“No talk of weddings.”
“Done.”
“Nothing that happens as a result of festivities is precedent-setting,” I tried to sound calm, but Eli’s slow smile said that he knew exactly what I was saying. Festivities often involved desserts, some of which left me as drunk as a human with a fifth of whisky.
“Of course, my crème brûlée.” His voice sent welcome shivers over me. “I cannot change the law of intercourse for my people, but . . . I can touch you as often as you allow.”
If I wasn’t fighting to keep my eyes open, I’d be ready for that. The combination of blood loss and daylight wasn’t doing great things for me. I was drifting in and out of sleep until evening came. Eli was asleep finally, so when I woke, I started to slip out of bed.
Eli, half-asleep, caught my hand. “If you need space, stay here in the guest room. I’ll go to my room.”
I paused. “I’m feeling better now. I could go h—”
“I want you here, Geneviève.” Eli met my gaze. “Will you stay with me?”
The way he said it didn’t feel like he meant just for the night, but that was all I could offer in the moment. No sharing a lover’s bed. No letting them stay in mine. It was frightening to stay, but I trusted Eli with my life regularly. Surely, I could trust him with my heart for a few weeks, too.
I crawled closer to him and nestled against his side.
“So, dating you involves sleep-overs?” I asked, voice as light as I could manage.
“I’d like it to,” Eli said. “I know it’s not your preference, but let me have today.”
“And tomorrow?” I asked.
Eli knew me well, which he proved by adding, “This is a guest bed, Geneviève. It’s not my bed. You are simply staying in my guest room. Say the word, and I’ll go to my bed. Alone.”
Maybe that wasn’t romantic for most people, but it made me want to swoon. Instead I kissed him. “I’ll stay.”
“I’ll get you breakfast,” he said.
Within moments, Eli held out a steaming coffee cup of vodka with a dash of grenadine and a couple cherries. Liquor was magical with my biology. Bring on the booze. It was a key part of what kept my biologically-irrational body running.
“You’re smarter than anyone that attractive ought to be,” I grumbled as I reached for the mug.
Eli laughed and helped me sit up. “A little fruit for the pain?”
“Yes.” I reached out further, but we could both see my arm shake. Fruit, unlike liquor, made me tipsy, but after my failed experiment, I could stand a little tipsy in my—. . . I glanced at the wall clock.
He steadied the cup as I wrapped my hands around it and drank.
“Do you know how worried I was, Geneviève?” Eli asked, voice heavy. Worse yet, he was using my real name instead of whatever pastry or dessert he chose to use as a term of endearment.
I’d rather be called food stuffs than my name—especially when it sounded so ominous. “I suggested I go out without you, so—”
“Endangering yourself alone is no better.” Eli walked away. He sounded increasingly calm as he added, “Beatrice sent word while you were recovering. Harold has ceased.”
“Ceased?”
“Existing,” Eli clarified. “She also sent a suggestion.”
“A suggestion?”
“For an elixir that might aid your recovery,” he said evasively. “I procured the supplies.”
Then he left, and I was too damn weak to pursue him. Honestly, I hadn’t intended to let some dead guy practice his subpar threshing skills on me. I hadn’t meant to get injured, but was it so bad that I took advantage of my bad luck to see if my healing had changed since my semi-murder earlier that year?
It really wasn’t my worst idea the last year.
“Eli?” I started, but it wasn’t Eli in the doorway this time.
Alice Chaddock stood there. “Good morning, grumpy!”
“Alice, why are you h—”
“Oh you poor thing!” She leaned down to fluff my pillows, giving me an awkward up-close look at her cleavage. “You look even worse than normal.”
“Thanks.”
“I felt that you needed me,” she continued in her cheery breathy voice. “I’m sure of it.”
“Alice, you’re human.”
“We bonded, though. Witch thing.” She waved her hand around.
I didn’t think I could bond humans, but I’d accidentally bonded two draugr to me. Honestly, I really had no idea if bonding a regular human was possible, but on the off chance that Alice was my responsibility, I kept her around.
That, and the queen of the draugr was likely to kill her if I didn’t, and I’d feel guilty. I hate feeling guilty.
“Fine. You are the best servant ever.” I grinned up at Alice.
She rolled her eyes at the thought of being a servant. Alice could probably buy the whole block my building was on—and not dent her bank account too much.
“Now, go away,” I muttered.
Alice laughed. She was growing on me, although last week she’d tried to be helpful and used steel wool on one of my knives. I’d explained that I liked the guy who sold me my last sword more than her. I certainly liked my actual friends better, but Alice waved all of those facts away.
“I’m going to do your face.” She opened her bag, designer and expensive, and started pulling out her torture devices. “I was afraid you’d look terrible for the party.”
“The party was last night,” I admitted. Then I closed my eyes, pretended not to be able to think of all the ways my life could be better if I simply stabbed Alice. She took more energy than anyone had a right to do, but my choices were either kill her or keep an eye on her.
Only one of those was actually an option.
“I don’t understand what Eli sees in you,” Alice said, staring at me as if I had become a math problem she might could solve. “Let’s at least
get some eyeliner and rouge—”
“Alice, I was injured. I lost a lot of blood and—”
“That’s why you look so pale!” She thrust her wrist between my lips, scraped the skin on my teeth. “Here. Top off.”
I shoved her away, hard enough that she stumbled, even as my teeth descended to bite. “Stop that. I don’t need the taste of your perfume in my mouth.”
My so-called best friend pouted. Perfectly outlined, perfectly painted, smudge free lips jutted out like a child denied a treat.
“I’d be sad if you died, you know?” Alice flopped onto the bed beside my feet. “Tres gets impatient with me. And Beatrice is scary. And”—she darted a guilty look toward the doorway—“I don’t think Eli even likes me.”
“You belonged to a hate group opposed to him,” I pointed out once my teeth retracted. “And you tried to kill me. He likes me.”
“I said I was sorry!” Alice sounded genuinely upset. “And no one told me SAFARI was a hate group.”
“It’s called the Society Against Fae and Reanimated Individuals. That wasn’t a clue?”
Alice patted my feet through the duvet. “I wasn’t enlightened then. I am now. . . but Eli is still so grumpy with me. I like you, now.”
“Alice, honey,” I said, keeping my voice very level. “You tried to kill me just a few months ago. To a faery, that was yesterday.”
She stared, blinked, and finally whispered, “He time travels?”
I opened my mouth, and then I closed it without saying a word. What was there to say? If she wasn’t really as gullible as she appeared, this was the longest con ever. Her stepson, Tres, swore she’d been exactly the same since they were in school together.
Yeah. She went to the same college with him and then married his dad. Of course, my own parents were a special sort of wrong, too. My deadbeat dad wasn’t even alive, much less anywhere within range of my mother’s age, when I was conceived.
Alice wandered away while I was thinking. Honestly, I wasn’t recovered enough to deal with her. I could hear her, presumably washing her wrist from the sounds of the bathroom sink.
“She’s willing to help you,” Eli said when he walked in. “I had her delivered here—”
Under a Winter Sky Page 22