Blood & Honey

by Shelby Mahurin

  “Please.” When he looked at me, the longing in his eyes made my breath catch in my throat. I’d never seen anything so beautiful. “I can’t—I’ve never been good with words. Just—please. Let me touch you. Let me show you.”

  Swallowing hard, I released his hands.

  Slowly—so slowly I wanted to scream—he slid the velvet jacket from my shoulders, untucking my shirt and inching it up my torso, revealing the skin of my belly. My ribs. My chest. When I lifted my arms for him to continue, however, he carefully rolled the hem over my eyes and left it there. Blinding me. Trapping my arms in the sleeves.

  When I wriggled in protest, he splayed a hand across my hip, stilling me. His lips moved lightly against my neck. “Don’t you trust me?”

  The word rose to my lips, unbidden. “Always.”

  “Prove it.”

  I stopped straining abruptly. A chill swept through my entire body, lifting the hair on my arms, my neck, as I remembered.

  Do as I say.

  “Embrace me, Lou,” he repeated my own words back to me, trailing feather-light kisses on my throat, catching my earlobe gently in his teeth. I gasped. Though his body pinned mine to the mattress, he was careful to support his weight with his elbows. I wished he wouldn’t. I wanted to feel him. All of him. “Embrace us.”

  Let me show you how powerful you could be. My hateful words seemed to echo around us. Let me show you how weak you are.

  “You don’t have to be afraid.” If possible, his touch—his lips—turned even gentler. He trailed a finger between my breasts, and fresh gooseflesh erupted in his wake. I shivered, my knees shaking. “Let me show you how much you mean to me. Let me show you how loved you are.” His lips followed after his hand, each kiss reverent. Each a vow. “I’ll never take you for granted. I’ll want you every day for the rest of my life, and I’ll love you even after.”

  “Reid—”

  “Do you want to kiss me?” His finger stilled on my waistband, and I nodded, breathless. I knew the next words before he spoke them. I reveled in them. “Show me.”

  In a single, smooth motion, he pulled the shirt over my head.

  I was on him in a second. He landed on his back with a soft laugh, which I captured in a kiss. He laughed again at my enthusiasm, arms tightening around me, before rising up to his elbows to help me tear his shirt from his pants. I shucked it over his head and to the floor, pushed him back against the bed and straddled his waist.

  “Have I told you,” I said, bending low to whisper in his ear, “how beautiful you are when you smile?”

  He smiled then, the kind of smile that dimpled his cheek and set my heart on fire. “Tell me.”

  “Sometimes when I look at you, I can’t breathe.” My hand moved to his belt. “I can’t think. I can’t function until you look back. And when you give me this smile”—I brushed my knuckle against his dimple—“it’s like a secret just for the two of us. I don’t think I ever love you more than when you smile at me.”

  He chuckled in disbelief at the words, but the sound faded into nothing as we stared at each other. As he slowly realized their truth. And they were true. Each of Reid’s smiles—so rare, so genuine—was a gift to me. He couldn’t know how much I cherished them, how I wished I could keep them in my pocket to pull out whenever he felt sad. He felt sad so often.

  After all this was over, I’d make sure he never felt sad again.

  He ran his fingertips down my ribs, lingering on my waist. “I want to know all your secrets.”

  “My secrets are ugly, Reid.”

  “Not to me.” He swallowed hard when I inched my hand beneath his belt. Lower still. “I meant what I said after Modraniht. I’ve never met anyone like you. You make me feel alive, and I just”—he gasped at my touch—“I want to share everything with you.”

  I pressed my free fingers to his lips. “And you will.”

  I released him only to ease his pants down his hips, his thighs, his ankles, trailing kisses down every inch of pale skin I revealed. He shuddered beneath me but mostly kept still . . . until I took him in my mouth. His hips bucked involuntarily then, and he lurched upright. “Lou—”

  I placed a hand against his chest to still him. “Do you want me to stop?”

  He groaned, falling backward and clenching his eyes shut. “No.”

  “Then open your eyes. Don’t hide from me.”

  Though he seemed to have difficulty drawing breath, he did as I asked. Slowly, his eyes fluttering open and shut, he flexed into me. Every muscle in his body went taut. He flexed again. A fine sheen of sweat coated his skin. Again. His throat worked, and his mouth parted. Again and again and again. He fisted his hands in the bedsheets and threw his head back, breathing ragged, body on the edge of losing control—

  Lunging forward suddenly, he yanked at my pants, and I twisted to oblige, helping him drag them down my legs. When they caught on my shoes, he made a low, impatient sound, and my stomach knotted with anticipation. I shucked each boot off hastily, ignoring the notes that fluttered to the floor. Ignoring everything but his hard body on mine. When we fell back to the bed, tangled in every possible way, I clung to him, reveling in the way he moved, in the way his hips fitted between my legs and his hands braced against the headboard. In the heat of his skin. Of his gaze.

  He didn’t hide from me.

  Each emotion played in his eyes, uninhibited, and I consumed them all, kissing every part of his damp face between breaths, between gasps. Desire. Joy. Wonder. He moved faster, determined—chasing each raw emotion as it came—and I followed, digging my fingertips into the hard muscle of his back. Though I was desperate to close my eyes—to revel in the sensation—I couldn’t stop looking at him. He couldn’t stop looking at me. Trapped in each other’s eyes, helpless to stop ourselves, we built and built until we shattered, baring ourselves to each other at last.

  Not just our bodies.

  Our souls.

  And in that moment when we fell apart . . . we came together again as something new.

  Part III

  Qui vivra verra.

  He who lives, shall see.

  —French proverb

  The Last Note

  Lou

  I descended the steps that night feeling lighter than I’d felt in weeks—and perhaps a bit foolish. Coco had knocked on our door only moments ago to tell us there’d been no sign of Morgane during the procession. Not a single sighting. Not even a hint of magic on the breeze. It seemed after everything—after suffering blood camps and cold swamps, Les Dents and Le Ventre—we’d come here for nothing. I couldn’t say I was exactly disappointed she hadn’t wreaked havoc and mayhem. Indeed, her inaction had quite made my night. Her notes burned holes in my boot, but I ignored them, pinching Reid’s backside as we entered the bar.

  Though I knew he still grieved—as he should, as he would for the rest of his life—he shot me an indulgent, slightly exasperated smile before looping his arm around my neck and kissing my temple. “Insatiable as ever, mademoiselle.”

  “That’s Madame Diggory to you.”

  His free hand slipped into his pocket. “About that. I think we should—”

  “At last!” At a table near the stairs, Claud applauded as we arrived. The dim candlelight couldn’t conceal the impatience on La Voisin’s and Blaise’s faces. Both sat with their respective parties as far from one another as the small room allowed. Coco, Ansel, Toulouse, and Thierry acted as a buffer between them—as did Zenna and Seraphine. They’d donned glittering costumes quite at odds with the others’ travel clothing. “The lovebirds have flown. How wonderful, how marvelous—”

  “Where’s Beau?” I interrupted, scanning the room again.

  “He stepped out for a moment.” Coco’s expression turned grim. “He said he needed air.”

  I frowned but Reid shook his head and murmured, “I’ll explain later.”

  “You lied to us.” La Voisin didn’t raise her voice, despite the wrath in her eyes. It seemed she hadn’t yet forgiven
me for Coco’s sake. “You said Morgane would attack today. I brought my people here to claim vengeance, yet all we’ve received”—those eyes flicked to Blaise—“is disrespect and disappointment.”

  I hurried to correct her. “We didn’t lie. We said we thought Morgane would attack today—”

  “We too have been disrespected.” Blaise stood, and Liana and Terrance followed. “Though our debt remains unfulfilled, we will leave this place. Nothing more can be done.”

  When both parties looked to us expectantly, Reid and I shared a surreptitious glance.

  What do we do now? his eyes seemed to ask.

  The hell if I know, mine replied.

  Before either of us could bumble a plea, Coco spoke instead. Bless her. “Clearly, we misinterpreted the notes, but that doesn’t mean our window of opportunity has passed. Manon is in the city, which means Morgane likely is too. Perhaps we shouldn’t have hidden Lou and Reid away. Maybe we could use them to draw her out—”

  “No, no.” Deveraux shook his head vehemently. Tonight, his clothes were uncharacteristically simple in head-to-toe black. Even the paint on his fingernails and kohl around his eyes matched. His lips, however, he’d daubed with bloodred rouge. “’Tis never a good idea to play cat and mouse with Morgane. She is never the mouse. Inherently feline, that one—”

  Coco’s eyes narrowed. “Then what do you suggest?”

  “I suggest”—he pulled a white mask from his cloak and tied it around his face—“that you all take a breath and attend our performance tonight. Yes, even you, Josephine. Some levity in La Mascarade des Crânes might do wonders for those crinkles between your brows.”

  I froze, staring at him.

  His mask was shaped like a skull.

  Though Claud continued to babble about Dame Fortune, delighted when La Voisin snapped back, Reid didn’t miss the abrupt change in my manner. “What is it?” he asked. With cold fingers, I reached down into my boot, and his smile faltered. “What are you—?”

  Without a word, I handed him the scraps of paper I’d hastily replaced after my bath this evening. He accepted them with a frown. I watched his lips shape the words to himself.

  Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, with hair as black as night,

  She cries alone within her pall, her tears so green and bright.

  Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, forgotten and alone,

  Trapped within a mirrored grave, she wears a mask of bone.

  “I don’t understand.” Reid’s eyes shot to mine, searching, as Claud finally stopped talking. As he stood to read the lines over Reid’s shoulder. “We still don’t know what these mean—”

  “Mask of bone,” I whispered. “La Mascarade des Crânes. It can’t be coincidence.”

  “What can’t be a coincidence?” He took my face in his hands. The papers fluttered to the dirty floor. “These are just bits of gibberish, Lou. We came to the Archbishop’s funeral. She wasn’t—”

  “Oh dear.” Claud’s eyes widened as he bent to retrieve them, finally catching sight of the ominous words. “Feline, indeed.”

  Reid spun to face him, but a knock sounded on Léviathan’s door. Frowning, I crossed the room to pull it open, but Reid stopped me with a hand on my arm. Straightening his coat, Claud opened the door instead. A small, unfamiliar girl stood on the threshold. “For you, mademoiselle,” she said, stuffing a third scrap of paper in my palm before scurrying away. I unfolded it cautiously, dread seeping into my stomach.

  Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, your pretty clock doth start

  Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

  All my love,

  Maman

  With shaking fingers, I showed the note to Reid. He skimmed it quickly, face paling, before hurtling after the girl. Blaise followed with a snarl.

  “Oh dear,” Claud said again, taking the note from me. He shook his head, reading through it once, twice, three times. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Who is this poor soul? This—this porcelain doll?”

  I stared at him in dawning horror.

  Yes. We’d misinterpreted the notes.

  Mistaking my silence, he patted my shoulder consolingly. “Not to worry, dear. We shall solve this mystery. Now, it seems to me the greatest clues to learning her identity lie in this first note . . .”

  “What’s going on?” Coco joined us now, Ansel following on her heels. She plucked the note from Claud, skimming the words before passing it to Liana, who in turn handed it to Terrance. La Voisin stood behind them, watching with an inscrutable expression. Nicholina, as always, smiled.

  “Perhaps her skin could be described as porcelain?” Claud mused, stroking his beard. “Her features doll-like? The black hair is quite clear, but the—”

  “Green tears?” Terrance scoffed. “No one has green tears.”

  “It’s symbolic,” Ismay said, rolling her eyes. “Green is a metaphor for envy.”

  Oh no.

  I took the note from her, rereading the lines and thinking hard—praying, praying I was wrong. But no. It was all here. Porcelain skin. Black hair. Envious tears. Forgotten, alone . . . even the goddamn pall fit. How could we have missed it? How could we have been so stupid?

  But that last line . . . eating her heart . . .

  Feeling sick, I glanced at La Voisin and Nicholina, but Reid soon emerged beside me—red-faced and panting—and scattered my train of thought. “She’s gone. She just—vanished.”

  “Of course she did,” Coco muttered bitterly. “Morgane wouldn’t have wanted her to stick around and play.”

  “Who was taken?” Blaise asked, voice deep and insistent. “Who is the girl?”

  A commotion sounded at the door, and Jean Luc plowed inside, holding Beau by the collar. The former’s eyes were wild, crazed, as they found mine. Found Reid’s. He pushed toward us with single-minded determination. “Reid! Where is she? Where?”

  When she heard what he’d done, it nearly killed her. She’s been in seclusion for weeks—weeks—and all because of some misplaced emotion for him.

  Lips numb, I crumpled the note in my fist, taking a deep breath and steeling myself for the pain to come—for the emotions I’d see in Reid’s uncharacteristically open expression, in those newly vulnerable eyes. I could’ve kicked myself. I’d encouraged him to stop hiding, to feel. And now he would. And now I didn’t want to see.

  And my mother had known exactly how to play with us.

  I turned toward him anyway.

  “It’s Célie, Reid. She’s taken Célie.”

  Coco’s Vision

  Lou

  Until the day I died, I’d never forget the look on Reid’s face.

  The disbelief.

  The horror.

  The rage.

  And in that moment, I knew—deep down in my bones—that I would save Célie’s life or die trying.

  Our motley crew glanced back and forth between where I paced at the window and Reid stood at the door. Heedless of the chairs, Claud had plunked down on the floor by the bar, crossing his legs as if he intended to stay awhile. But we didn’t have awhile. Already our clock had started. Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

  Reid stared at his hands, transfixed and unmoving.

  “She’s trying to lure you out,” Beau insisted. “Don’t let her.”

  “She’ll kill Célie,” Jean Luc snarled, still clutching the notes I’d handed him. When Monsieur Tremblay had finally revealed Célie’s weeks of seclusion hadn’t been seclusion at all, but abduction, Jean Luc had combed through every inch of East End to find us after the funeral. It’d been a happy coincidence indeed that Beau had stepped out tonight, or Jean Luc never might’ve found us. What a tragedy that would’ve been. “We have to rescue her.”

  “You do not speak.” La Voisin’s eyes held vicious promise. “Make no mistake, huntsman. Your holy stick will not prevent me from cutting out your tongue.”

  “How does he taste, he taste, he taste?” Nicholina edged forward, licking her lips.
“Let’s tear off his face, his face, his face.”

  Blaise growled low in agreement.

  Claud persuading the innkeeper to let his rooms to witches and werewolves had been nothing. Claud persuading the blood witches and werewolves not to tear a huntsman limb from limb, however, was proving more difficult. Jean Luc didn’t seem to realize the precariousness of his situation—especially as his holy stick remained tucked out of sight in Reid’s bandolier. To Reid’s credit, he didn’t reveal his old friend’s secret. If the blood witches suspected Jean Luc defenseless, they wouldn’t hesitate to attack.

  Terrance knew, however. His lip curled in anticipation as he looked between Reid and Jean Luc.

  “And where is she, exactly?” Coco had gravitated back to her kin, standing between La Voisin and Nicholina. “Have you managed to divine her location from Morgane’s riddles?”

  Jean Luc gestured to the rumpled papers. “She’s—she’s in the tunnels. In this Skull Masquerade.”

  “The tunnels are vast, Captain.” Claud turned a tarot card over in his fingers again and again. At my repeated glances, he extended it to me. It wasn’t a tarot card at all. Upon closer inspection, this card was crimson, not black, and painted with a leering skull. Gold letters that read Nous Tombons Tous curled into the shape of its mouth and teeth. At the top, Claud Deveraux and his Troupe de Fortune had been inked in meticulous calligraphy. An invitation. I handed it back with an ominous feeling. “They traverse the entire city,” Claud continued. “Our search will continue long after midnight without proper direction.”

  “She’s given us direction,” Zenna pointed out. “She cries alone within her pall and trapped within a mirrored grave couldn’t be more obvious. She’s in the catacombs.”

  The catacombs. Shit.

  “She has given us nothing,” Claud said sharply. When Zenna’s eyes flashed, his voice softened. “Alas, we must cancel our performance, mes chers. The world below is not safe tonight. I fear you must return to your rooms, where you might escape Morgane’s notice. Toulouse and Thierry will join you there.”