Of Wicked Blood: A Slow Burn Romantic Urban Fantasy (The Quatrefoil Chronicles Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “It was for a job.”

  “What sort of job requires a kilt?” Do I even want to know?

  Alma pours water from the carafe already placed on our table. “Were you an escort?”

  “It wasn’t that sort of job.”

  She sets the carafe down and plops both elbows on the tabletop. “What sort of job was it?”

  “A profitable one,” he says cryptically.

  My mind goes straight to a heist. After all, this is what Slate does.

  He raises his hand to grab the attention of the temp waitress Nolwenn hired from the university. As he orders wine and an appetizer platter of cheese and cured meats, I see Alma pointing out the other diners to Bastian, feeding him names and anecdotes. Sometimes, I think Alma should be studying journalism instead of political science. She’d make a great gossip columnist.

  I hear the name Liron fall from her lips and turn toward where she’s looking. Her ex is sitting at a table with some of his friends, one of whom is Paul. His face floods with heat when our gazes connect. Even his ears turn a crisper shade of red than his hair. I smile and wave. His brow pleats, as though he’s surprised I’ve acknowledged him, which is weird because I always say hi. As I spin back, I catch Slate glaring at him. I’m guessing the two have met and didn’t hit it off. I suspect Slate doesn’t hit it off with many people.

  The wine comes and is poured. Alma raises her glass and toasts to new acquaintances. We all clink and drink. I start to lean back but feel Slate’s arm and all but pop back forward. I drain my wine way faster than I probably should, but my day has been rough, and my nerves are fried. Slate refills my glass before upending his own and pouring himself some more.

  While Alma tells Bastian the story of the tavern, Slate holds his glass up to mine and murmurs, “Two down, two to go.”

  I tip my glass against his even though his toast has just awakened snakes inside my stomach. What if I’m next?

  “I’m scared,” I murmur.

  His jaw becomes squarer as he leans in and pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. “I’ll be by your side the whole way through. Same way you were by mine.”

  I wasn’t only by his side; I was also in front of him. I was his curse.

  “How can you stand looking at me after that?” I keep my voice low, not that Bastian and Alma are paying us any mind.

  My question blunts the spark in his dark eyes. “She might’ve worn your face, but she wasn’t you, Cadence.”

  I slide my lower lip into my mouth. “Still.”

  “Believe me, she needed dental work. And lots of it.” He rubs his jaw, grazing the scar that’s crusted over beneath the black stubble.

  I want to press my lips to his wound, replace the memory of her mouth with mine, but the appetizers arrive along with a basket of chewy baguette and sweep away my audacious contemplations. I all but throw myself on the food, before throwing myself back on the wine. I should slow down but want alcohol to quiet the snakes and zap my inhibitions. After the third glass, my head starts to feel delightfully fuzzy, and I ease back into the chair, not squirming away from his arm this time.

  Alma lifts her water glass. “It’s not real, though.”

  Bastian picks up a pickle and chomps on it. “Cadence said it might be.”

  “What might be?” I ask.

  “The Quatrefoil,” Alma says.

  “Oh.” I cough but still sound like I have a chunk of bread lodged in my throat when I say, “Who knows?”

  Alma twirls a pale-auburn lock around her finger. “How awesome would it be if it were real?”

  Her eyes twinkle at the prospect or from the amount of alcohol she’s consumed. Or maybe it’s Bastian’s proximity. I can tell Alma thinks he’s cute because she’s patted his cheek, touched his bicep, squeezed his shoulder more than once. I don’t think he minds my friend’s tactile attention seeing as how his entire torso is angled toward her.

  Slate clears his throat. “According to the town’s history, magic can only be brought back by assembling four golden leaves.”

  “What if they’ve been assembled?” Alma whispers conspiratorially.

  I stiffen. Slate’s thumb brushes my spine, bumping into my bra strap before dipping back down. Stone-cold sober Cadence, who didn’t spend her afternoon digging up a grave, would have pulled away, but slightly tipsy Cadence, who helped slay a monster, melts into his touch.

  His smell knocks into me anew, and I drag in a deep lungful. Even though it’s probably the wine, I feel like all my veins are dilating. I glance at him, find him already looking at me. The room blurs around the two of us—the soft rock song growled by Johnny Halliday becomes a faraway rumble and the faces of Alma and Bastian bleed together.

  “Gold leaves,” I hear someone say in the haze of my mind.

  It’s not Slate, because his lips are immobile. Only his jaw and Adam’s apple are moving, and his thumb. God, that thumb.

  “If they’re real gold, I bet Slate could find them. I swear, my brother’s like a human metal detector. What do you say we all hunt them down?”

  Slate’s finger freezes midswipe, and the world comes crashing back around us.

  “No.” He turns his attention on Bastian. “Magic isn’t real. Your buddy Harry Porter isn’t real.”

  “Potter,” Bastian corrects. “You know damn well it’s Potter.”

  “Yeah, sure. Him.” Slate shifts in his seat, his arm falling away from the back of my chair.

  “You’re a serious buzzkill sometimes.”

  Slate rolls his shoulders back, which in his black cotton turtleneck, look especially wide. “Just keeping it real, little bro.”

  “I know.” Bastian shoots him a smile that smacks of affection.

  “How long have you two known each other?” I ask.

  “Since I was eleven, and Slate was thirteen going on forty.”

  Only two years apart . . . I would’ve guessed more.

  Alma wraps a slice of Emmental around a cornichon and bites into it. “And you managed to stay together in the system? Is that easy to do?”

  “No. But if someone can make things happen—anything happen—it’s this guy.” Bastian hooks a thumb toward Slate.

  Apparently, receiving compliments makes Slate uncomfortable, because he folds his arms.

  “Do you know what he did when I got into college?” Bastian continues.

  “Do tell.” Alma tops off everyone’s water and wine.

  Slate is uncharacteristically quiet, and even though his eyes are fixed on Bastian, he seems elsewhere, lost in the past.

  “He relocated to Marseille to live beside me. Bought an apartment where I have my own room whenever I want to get out of the dorms.”

  It’s enlightening to see Slate through Bastian’s eyes for whom he clearly means the world, but it’s also dangerous. Dangerous, because I have feelings for this insufferable boy, and they’ve gone way past the simple crush phase. Way past any feelings I’ve ever had for any man. Even for Adrien.

  What worries me isn’t that they aren’t mutual. What worries me is what’ll happen once the ring comes off. He may have a house here, connections to this town, but he hates everything about Brume.

  “That’s really sweet of you.” My voice is wrought with emotion.

  With a slow blink, Slate slides back into the present. “Nothing sweet about it. Just normal.”

  “No, it’s not, Slate.” Bastian pushes his plastic-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. “Then again, you’re not normal.”

  Slate gives him a small headshake.

  “I was just glad to have an excuse to leave St. Tropez. What a fucking dump that was.” Slate lifts the empty wine bottle and taps on it. “We need more. I can’t handle all this sentimentality.”

  Alma kicks my ankle under the table to get my attention. The second I look her way, she shapes a quick heart with her indexes and thumbs. The wine raised my body temperature, but her gesture makes it reach a whole new level of toasty. Thankfully, our main courses have arr
ived, which has the boys distracted.

  “Did you book a hotel room, Bastian?” Alma suddenly asks over a bite of pan-fried monkfish.

  “There’s a hotel in Brume?” Slate asks.

  “In Brume?” Alma titters. “Nope. In the next town over.”

  “I have a guest room. If you or Slate need an extra bed.” My heart speeds up at the idea of Slate sleeping over again.

  “Bastian and I are used to tight sleeping quarters.”

  I’m not sure what that means, but I don’t press him either way. “The offer doesn’t expire in case you change your mind.”

  Nodding, Slate swallows a large bite of stewed meat, then wipes his mouth on his checkered napkin. For a moment, I’m stuck looking at his lips, wondering how the night would’ve gone had Bastian not showed up in Brume. Not that I regret anything about this dinner. My best friend is here, and I’ve learned so much about Slate.

  He leans toward me and puts his mouth to my ear. “Better stop looking at me like that, Mademoiselle de Morel.”

  My body floods with more heat, which makes me pull off my cardigan. Alma hops to her feet, announcing she’s going out for a smoke, and does Bastian want to come? She’s a social smoker, not that it makes her habit all that great, but at least she’s not addicted. Bastian doesn’t even hesitate.

  Once they’re gone, Slate angles his body toward me, and his legs flop open around my chair. “Bastian doesn’t even smoke.”

  “No?” My pulse is thrumming so wildly that I’m a hundred percent sure the contours of my body are blurred.

  Slate eases the fingers with which I’m strangling my fork off the skinny handle and slots them through his own, pulling them onto his hard thigh.

  “This isn’t the evening I had in mind,” he says, all low and gravelly.

  “I’m really enjoying it.” How I wish my voice wasn’t shaking as hard as my body.

  He smiles, but not with his mouth . . . with his eyes.

  I lick my lips, which makes his gaze dip there. He’s no longer smiling when he looks back up at me; he’s cogitating. I’m too busy undergoing a complete system meltdown to do much cogitation. Is that even a word?

  I suddenly wonder why I’m waiting for him to make the first move when I’m plenty capable. Fingers tightening around his, I start to lean forward but panic and freeze four centimeters away from his mouth.

  Slate’s hand twines through my hair, anchoring my face near his. “I’m trouble, Cadence.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think you do. I’m not the sort of guy you bring home to Daddy.”

  I shake my head, or at least, try to. “You’ve already been to my house and met Papa. Besides, I don’t need his approval, Slate.”

  His eyes roam over mine.

  Sensing his doubt, I challenge him. “But hey, if you need his approval—”

  “I don’t need anyone’s approval, besides yours.” His features harden with that self-confidence I used to find so obnoxious until I understood how hard he had to fight to earn it.

  “You have mine, Slate.”

  He moves closer. When his mouth is a hairsbreadth from mine, he murmurs, “I think you may have bewitched me, Mademoiselle de Morel.”

  I smile, my heart striking my ribcage with such violence I fear I may become a pile of splintered bones and smoldering flesh.

  The tips of his fingers stiffen in my hair, and then he tilts his head and fits his mouth to mine. My breath catches; my pulse, too.

  This is happening.

  Really happening.

  The kiss is gentle at first, as though he’s learning the shape of my mouth, and then his pressure firms, molding my lips to his. I raise the hand he’s not clutching to his shoulder and grip him, worried I might topple right off my chair. In perfect synchronicity, our lips part and our tongues meet.

  The kiss turns messy, almost violent. And I’m scared of how much I adore it. How little I care that we are making out in the town’s most popular hangout.

  I dig my fingers harder into his shoulder, and he groans, and I think I’ve hit a bruise and start to pull away, but his fingers flex on the back of my head, mashing my mouth to his. I take it he must not be in pain. Still, I touch him more lightly, and then I’m gliding my palm toward his neck. When I graze the edge of his bandage under the cotton turtleneck, he springs away from me.

  I slap my palm over my mouth. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  He’s breathing heavily, and so am I.

  “Yeah. Just a kneejerk reaction.” He drags my fingers off my mouth and threads them through his. “Who knew librarians could be so wanton?”

  His mouth chases mine again, catches it. The second round is slower, sweeter, made even more so by our handholding and his thumbs stroking up and down my knuckles.

  A slight squeal makes me jerk away from him and flush down to the roots of my hair. Alma is tottering up the stairs, Bastian right behind her.

  I hunt his bespectacled gaze for disapproval but find none.

  As both take their seats, he says, “And here I came to Brume because I was worried about Slate. Should’ve known not to be.”

  “Now that you’re reassured, you can go home.” Slate releases one of my hands but not the other, and sits back, looking like a satisfied man while I probably resemble a tween with a face rash.

  “I could.” Bastian leans forward, forearms overlapping on the table. “But I think I’ll stick around a while longer. Just until school starts. Spike isn’t half as fun and chatty as you guys.”

  “Spike?” Alma asks, eyebrows popping up.

  Bastian smiles. “Spike is Slate’s pride and joy.”

  Slate shakes his head, but a corner of his mouth has flipped up. I vaguely remember him mentioning that name over the phone earlier.

  “Is he a dog?” Alma asks.

  “A German Shepherd-pug mix, maybe?” I wink at Slate.

  Bastian frowns.

  “Disregard Mademoiselle de Morel. The wine’s going to her head.”

  I pinch his ribs, but then blanch because I probably just hit a bruise. “Sorry.”

  He tightens his grip on my hand, his smile reaching his eyes.

  “Spike’s a cactus,” Bastian finally announces.

  “You named a cactus?” I blurt out.

  “An Eve’s Needle,” Slate says, as though it somehow makes his plant baptism more normal.

  Again, I ask, “You named a cactus?”

  “Yes. I named my cactus.”

  “Do you name a lot of inanimate things, Slate?” Alma asks.

  Bastian snickers, but Slate doesn’t.

  Very seriously, he says, “Spike’s very animate. As are all the other things I name.”

  Alma tosses her head back and laughs, which makes Bastian crack up. I find myself grinning. And not just at that moment, but throughout the rest of dinner. Even though today was one of the worst days of my life, tonight is one of the best nights.

  I squeeze Slate’s hand, and the ring’s shape and heat remind me of how he walked into my life. Every bit of the anger and hatred I felt for him a few days ago has disappeared.

  I lean toward him but not to kiss him . . . to whisper, “I hate the reason you stayed, but I can’t imagine you gone.”

  He releases my hand to tuck another lock of hair behind my ear. “Cadence de Morel, if I survive—”

  “You will.” I flatten my palm against his chest, drinking in the steady pulses of his heart. “You will.”

  His gaze softens. I don’t like it soft; I want it firm and resolute.

  “Just because the last generation failed doesn’t mean we will,” I add quietly but not gently. “We are so much more prepared than they were.”

  Slate heaves a deep sigh, and then he gathers me against him and nestles his chin in the crook of my neck.

  And he holds me.

  Just holds me.

  I slip my arms around his back, hoping not to graze any bruises.

  It’s crazy, but I don’t
want him to ever let go. I don’t want him to get on a train and leave.

  For now, a ring keeps him in Brume but what happens once it comes off?

  Because it will.

  It has to.

  31

  Slate

  I only have to insist once that Bastian take the bed. The second we’re home, he kicks off his boots, drops his coat on the floor, and flops about on the mattress, snoring like a freaking Harley-Davidson. I’ll have to limit his alcohol intake from now on. He only makes so much noise when he’s inebriated.

  The floorboards are hard and cold as rock, but knowing Bastian is comfortable relaxes me. After an eyeball joust with a scuttling roach that ends in a lug-sole full of smashed shell, I finally drift off.

  And wake up to Bastian shouting my name.

  My body jerks to attention and wham! my forehead slams into wood. I rolled partially under the bedframe during the night. I scoot out, sit up, and put my hand to my head. Putain. I’m going to have a lump on top of my lump.

  “I hate this fucking place,” I mutter.

  “Slate! Did you . . .?” Bastian lurches off the bed and onto his feet with the nimbleness of someone used to being fully alert and ready to run at the merest creak of a floorboard.

  Unlike in our foster homes, our door’s locked, and no barely-functioning excuse for a human is looming over us, breathing fumes so potent one could get drunk off of them. “Why are you shouting in my ear at the crack of dawn?”

  “There was this little girl. She was here. In the room.” He swipes his glasses off the dresser and thrusts them on his face.

  I’ve never seen him so pale. Then again, there’s sunlight pouring through the grimy window, weak sunlight filtered by wisps of fog, but sunlight nonetheless. Even the squashed cockroach corpse on the bottom of my shoe doesn’t seem quite as black as yesterday.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a nightmare?” The kid’s had his share of bad nights. For three whole years, we had to sleep with the lights on.

  “No, dude. I saw her. She was right here.” His finger rocks in the air as he points toward the corner of the room, the small recess between the window and the mirrored armoire. The only thing there is a giant spider web worthy of a Halloween decoration. I don’t even want to know what size the spider could be, or if it’s currently roaming my room.