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

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Charlotte’s sudden glare halts Cadence mid-sentence. “I get it.” She cackles, honest-to-goodness cackles. “You messed with the sparkler.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve been pining over my boyfriend, so you messed with the sparkler.”

  “I was at the door when—”

  “See. You’re not even contradicting the first part of what I said. You little jailbait whore.”

  My gut tightens in time with my fists. “Watch your mouth,” I snarl, low and menacing.

  Charlotte watches Adrien, her body quaking with adrenaline and anger. “You fucking called out her name once when you were balls-deep inside me. Pretended you were thinking of class and grading papers.”

  “Char, that’s not true.” Adrien’s voice is thin, oh-so-unconvincing.

  Unfortunately, I can’t see what the news is doing to Cadence, because her back is to me.

  “Charlotte!” Her friend’s voice is muffled by the windowpanes, yet it seems to blare across the quiet house. “The firemen are here! They’re going to break down the door if you don’t let them in.”

  Sure enough, there’s loud banging.

  “Bastian.” I flick my chin toward the front door. He eases Alma onto a couch, then heads to the door.

  Charlotte sniffs. “Maybe I should call the police. Or your daddy. I’m sure he’d love to hear about your little tryst.”

  “Nothing’s going on between Adrien and me, Charlotte.” Cadence’s voice is unflinching.

  “Yet.”

  My molars gnash.

  “You’re in shock, bébé.”

  “Don’t you fucking call me baby. I am not your bébé. I am not your anything.”

  The same men who guarded the overflowing well last week are now standing in the living room, armed with fire-extinguishers and heavy-duty medical masks.

  The friend snakes around them and latches on to Adrien’s seething ex. And then the room breaks out in questions: What happened? Was the source of the blaze controlled? Did anyone retain physical injuries?

  That last question wins them a barbed glare from Charlotte. “You think I painted boils on my fucking torso?”

  “Besides you, mademoiselle,” the fireman says.

  “No. They were all spared. Just me.”

  “The paramedic will take a look at you.” The chief clicks his fingers.

  One of his men drapes a crinkling silver sheet around Charlotte’s shoulders, the sort they hand out after marathons, then escorts her and her friend out of the house.

  The chief pulls Adrien aside for a few more questions while Cadence heads to the kitchen and grabs a paper towel roll and the ice bucket I set aside. She crouches to collect the shards of glass, flinging them into the empty bucket. I go to help her, expecting her to charge into me and tell me to fuck off. She does neither. I’m not even sure she realizes I’m squatting next to her.

  The noise level quiets down and then the door clicks shut. Adrien stands facing it for a long time. His shoulders are stiff and yet tremors run down his arms. I almost feel bad for him. Almost because if what Charlotte said is true, then he’s a fucking sleazebag.

  I hear Alma and Bastian talk in low tones, the only other people who’ve stayed. Cadence stands and lugs the bucket to the kitchen where she empties it into the trash. And then she’s balling paper towels and blotting the spilled champagne. I grab the roll from her and rip out some sheets, glancing at Adrien every few seconds. He still has his back to us but his hands are lifted, cradling his head. Shame rolls off him in thick waves.

  Finally, he says, “I thought she was my piece.”

  After a beat of silence, Alma asks, “What does that even mean: your piece? What’s going on?”

  Cadence looks at her best friend. “I’ll tell you later, honey.”

  Alma scoffs, “How about you tell me now, honey?”

  Cadence turns to me. Is she seeking my counsel or my comfort?

  I want to give her both. “Bastian, why don’t you explain what you know?”

  After almost a week in this shithole, he’s up to speed. Where I spent the last five days thinking about Emilie, retreating under the duvet, downing nothing but cheap madeleines and five-euro wine, he trudged up to Fifth Kelc’h to use the library, only to find it closed. So, he trudged back down and did a deep-dive into the internet instead. He’s a total information sponge; every little tidbit sticks to his brain, no matter how insignificant it may be. And he can usually connect dots that no one else sees. On day five of my funk, he dragged my sorry-ass out of bed and got me to take a sorely-needed shower.

  I watch him line up the discarded wine glasses on the coffee table with the half-drunk beers. He always fidgets when the spotlight’s on him. When we were kids, and our foster parents would grill him on whether he cheated in class—his scores were too perfect—he’d tend to a sagging plant or color-code the canned food in the pantry closet.

  As he walks Alma through the Quatrefoil and the curse, Adrien finally returns to the scene of the crime. “I can’t believe I did that to Charlotte.” He clasps the edge of his kitchen counter. “She’ll never forgive me.”

  “For saying another girl’s name during sex or calling her a demon?”

  Cadence glares at me, color rising into her cheeks, into her eyes. I swear they’re bluer. Yes, that was a dick move on my part, but do I regret it? Not even a little.

  “Why did you call her a demon, Adrien?” Her searing eyes don’t leave my face.

  Adrien spears his hand through his mussed locks. “These past few days, I’ve been doing research on curses for the Fire piece. A diaoul—or demon—made of fire is one way the dark magic protects the Quatrefoil. When I saw her shirt in flames, I was sure it was a trick.”

  “This is so freaking insane!” Alma blurts out at Bastian’s admission. “Magic is real. Curses are real. And you’re the chosen ones! Wow.” Excitement supplants her shock.

  Cadence grimaces while I sigh and drop the last of the sopped paper towels into the ice bucket. “Adrien, do you have a mop? We need to rinse your floor, or it’ll get sticky.”

  “I’ll do it later. Don’t worry.” For the first time since the showdown, Adrien looks at Cadence, and she looks at him. “Cadence, I’m sorry. About what she said,” he adds through lips that are so tightly wedged together I’m surprised he can produce any words.

  She gives him a half-hearted smile. “Don’t worry. I know it’s not true.”

  The hell it isn’t. I see the way he looks at her. It’s the same way I do.

  He tugs on the hem of his baby-blue vest, then readjusts his rolled shirtsleeves, as though to look like those nerdy teacher models on the covers of romance novels.

  I ignore the pain sawing through my chest, through my arms, through my entire body. Cadence thinks you’re scum, Slate. And I am. But, contrary to what Rainier told her, I empty pockets not hearts, and I don’t bed the innocent. The women who end up wrapped in my sheets are just as heartless as I am—there for one reason. The same one as me. No-strings-attached gratification.

  Cadence is different. She deserves better. Better than me.

  Zero regrets, Slate.

  But she also deserves better than Adrien.

  I grab the bucket of soiled paper towels and dump everything in the garbage. And then I turn around, about to suggest walking the girls home, when my knuckles whiten around the metal bucket and the ring spits out so much red light, it actually tints the air around me.

  Putain de bordel de merde.

  The stone chimney breast, the mantel, even the hearth are expanding and retracting like the fireplace is . . . breathing. Tongues of fire lick the fire screen before writhing and pinwheeling, becoming one enormous sphere.

  “Look out!” My arm cramps and cramps. I ball my fingers.

  Bastian grabs Alma and ducks behind the couch while I chuck the bucket and crash into Cadence, knocking her to the floor just as the fireball streaks across the living room, its smoke and sparks inches from my
back. I tense over Cadence, making sure every part of her body is securely tucked underneath me, her hip against my groin, her head in the crook of my neck.

  Even though the Quatrefoil is back, I feel nothing but the press of her body against mine. I pick my head up to check on her. Her pupils are dilated, her cheeks flushed, and her glossy-red lips only inches from mine. Damn, even amidst all this chaos, the first thing I think is how much I want her.

  “Slate, we need to get up.”

  I really don’t want to. I’m going to bruise her hip by how much I don’t want to.

  Her eyes narrow, her palms flatten against my black button-down and then she shoves me. “We need to help Adrien.”

  Nostrils flaring, I rasp, “Fine. I’ll go. You stay down.”

  “The hell I’m staying down.”

  “Cadence . . .” I growl.

  “Slate,” she growls right back, punching me with my own name.

  I want to lick the sound from her lips, then make her scream it for a completely other reason.

  Zero regrets, my ass. As soon as this is over, I’m taking back the reputation I allowed de Morel to tarnish and setting this girl straight. Cadence and I, we’re probably going to crash and burn like Adrien’s house, but I’d rather go up in flames with her than douse the hissing blaze.

  36

  Cadence

  As I glower at Slate, a groan erupts from the kitchen where a fireball is ping-ponging against the painted blue cupboards and grid of windowpanes, whizzing around Adrien’s head like a livid, sizzling bat. The sheers ignite, and then the fireball shoots back across the living room, slams into his thick walnut dining table before ricocheting against the oil portrait of his mother.

  As flames chew through the canvas, melting Camille’s face, I slam my gaze back on Adrien who stands in the middle of his narrow kitchen, unmoving and dazed.

  “The fire extinguisher!” I shout at him. “Under the sink!”

  He doesn’t react, so I scramble to my feet. Slate grips my upper arms, and I think he’s about to push me down, but he’s actually helping me stand. His concern and protectiveness is muddying my focus, and I really need to stay alert, so I tear my gaze off his.

  Alma peeks at me from behind Bastian’s shoulder and a curtain of strawberry-blonde curls. Slate’s brother can’t begin to imagine how grateful I am for his presence tonight.

  “Adrien, the fire extinguisher!” He still doesn’t react to my screeching, so I streak into the kitchen, fling open the cupboard door, and grab the fire extinguisher before spraying the white goop over what’s left of the kitchen curtains. The fireball hits the bookshelves bracketing the chimney and ignites the neat rows of spines before bouncing back into the fire screen and vanishing up the flue.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  Bastian has his head tilted back, his eyes closed, his nostrils flaring. “Brimstone.”

  “What?” Slate splutters as the cloud of smoke fattens and wood splinters.

  Bastian levels his gaze on the chimney. “I think that fireball was the precursor to the main event.”

  “I really fucking hate this Quatrefoil,” Slate mutters.

  “What’s a brimstone?” Alma whisper-asks.

  “It’s the biblical term for sulfur,” Bastian explains. “Otherwise known as the smell of Hell.”

  Alma wrinkles her nose. “Lovely.”

  Smoke puffs from the fireplace, which begins to bloat again, and then the entire wall’s trembling, and flaming books are falling off shelves.

  “Bastian, get Alma out of here!” Slate roars. “And both of you stay out!”

  “But—”

  “Now!” Then he turns, hunting me down with his dark eyes. “Cadence, you too.”

  The portrait of Camille crashes to the floor, its wooden frame hitting the back of the brown suede couch. On his way to the front door, Bastian rips a folded woolen blanket from an armchair and tosses it over the blaze, effectively smothering it, but it seems so inconsequential considering the devastation.

  To think that if Bastian’s right, this is only the beginning.

  As the front door claps shut behind our friends, Slate hollers at Adrien.

  Adrien who’s standing there like a lost child on a battlefield.

  “What’s the plan, Mercier?”

  The house rumbles and then the stones lining the fireplace fly outward, crashing into the beige plaster ceiling and wainscoted walls. I cover my head, the hail of debris spraying us hard and fast, but the ensuing inhuman roar drags my arms right down.

  Slate nods toward the scaled green beast breathing fire through saucer-sized nostrils. “I’m guessing that’s your piece, Prof. A big-ass ugly snake with wings.”

  “A guivre,” I breathe. We learned all about this kind of dragon in Brumian Myths and Legends last semester.

  That startles Adrien out of his stupor. “Not just any guivre. A demonic guivre. It breathes hellfire.”

  Slate snorts. “Right. ’Cuz normal fire is for pussies.”

  Adrien’s eyes are huge and shiny like marbles as he glances around the kitchen. “Salt. I need salt!”

  “Planning on seasoning it, Prof?”

  He finds the plastic grinder I left on the edge of the countertop, grabs it, and unscrews the lid, then shakes pink flakes into his palm and stuffs them inside his pockets before going for a second fistful. Finally, he upends the grinder’s contents into his pockets.

  The creature turns its head toward us, twin streams of steel smoke pulsing out of its nostrils, blurring the edges of its equine face and curled horns. I tighten my grip on the extinguisher, directing its nozzle toward the beast that hovers over the rubble, slitted eyes sunk on Adrien.

  “Cadence, get out of here.” Slate’s standing beside me, his left arm flush against mine.

  “No.”

  Even though Adrien doesn’t look away from the guivre, he explains, “According to Gaëlle, the salt will immobilize my piece long enough for me to recite the incantation.”

  Incantation? He knows a spell against dragons?

  I don’t ask for fear of distracting him. I’m incredibly glad he has a plan, because my nifty fire extinguisher isn’t going to do much against a guivre that could swallow both Slate and me, and still have room left for Adrien.

  Something shatters, and I whirl around to find Slate running a sheet pan over the serrated edges of glass stuck inside the window frame above the kitchen sink.

  “Cadence, I’ll help him contain the piece. But get out. Please.”

  “I’m not leaving him.” Or you. I don’t know why I don’t utter that last part out loud. Because I’m mad and petty?

  Slate’s jaw gets a full workout from how unhappy my refusal makes him. I can tell he wants to argue some more, maybe even bundle me in his arms and toss me through the open window. But his eyes widen and then . . . and then he’s throwing himself on me, and we slam down on the tiles, the momentum ripping the fire extinguisher from my hold. Although he cushions the back of my skull and tailbone with his palms, the impact jostles every bone in my body.

  I blink, catching pale streaks of smoke whizzing past the pillar of bone, muscle, and warm skin shielding me. Were those . . . were those more fireballs?

  Mon Dieu.

  I try to wriggle out from underneath Slate, but not to get away, just to make sure he’s okay. “Slate?”

  He groans, his fingers curling into my hair. If he can move his fingers, then his knuckles didn’t shatter, right?

  Although tempered by my bodyguard’s spicy scent, the reek of sulfur expands, and then the air fills with the flap of great wings.

  The guivre is on the move.

  37

  Slate

  Everything hurts. Again.

  But there’s an upside—Cadence is under me, her body pressed against mine, her voice tinged with worry instead of hostility.

  “Slate?”

  “I think I’m dying. Give a man his last wish. Ravish me, Cadence.” Even through my shut lids, I s
ense her eyeroll.

  She presses against my chest gently. “You’re not dying.”

  “Hmm . . .” When I finally draw my lids up, I catch the loveliest sight: pinked cheeks and tipped-up lips.

  “Slate, the guivre. Come on.” She slides out from underneath me like a car mechanic on a creeper.

  Ah, yes. The dragon. Hence the horrid smell and ridiculously hot air in the room. Well, what’s left of the room. Adrien’s going to have a hell of a time redecorating.

  The creature roars, and I feel its vibrations in the blue tiles.

  I push back into a squat, and squint into the cloud of silver smoke. “Cadence, please,” I try one last time. “Get to the window. I got—”

  “I. Said. No.” She stands but ducks as a giant wing nearly clips her head.

  “Fuck.” That gets me on my feet. “Prof?” I say into the smoke.

  Nothing. Fuck.

  But then a grunted, “Dragon de merde,” reaches my ears, and I breathe a little easier.

  Although there are some pros to this dragon de merde offing Mercier, the cons—such as, if he dies I die—outweigh any advantages.

  “You sure about the salt, Prof?”

  “Istor Breou talks about demons . . . taking all sorts of forms,” he pant-mutters. “A guivre being one of them.”

  The smoke disperses. Instead of shapes and outlines, I can see everything clearly, especially since the beast managed to level Adrien’s cluttered house. I’d joke about how nice and zen it looks, especially with its brand-new, unobstructed view of the fog and stars, but I suspect that would earn me a throat-punch from Cadence.

  The dragon twists around like a cat whose tail got squashed and hisses a puff of fire at Adrien, blowing back his untidy blond strands and lighting them up like wicks. Howling, he palms his head. While I stand there, trying to decide how best to help, Cadence scoops up the fire extinguisher and squirts a rope of white foam at his smoldering, newfangled haircut.

  Adrien blinks, then swipes at his eyes like a wild man.

  Cadence grimaces. “Sorry. I, uh—”