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

by Olivia Wildenstein

“No. Definitely not.” Adrien runs his palm over his forehead then higher. “I definitely don’t want to keep it this way. Thank you, Cadence. I appreciate your offer and will take you up on it.”

  “Cadence, Alma, I’ll drive you home,” Papa offers, but I shake my head.

  “I need to walk, Papa.”

  Alma casts a longing glance at the snowmobile seat, but in the end, she hooks her arm through mine. Once the distance has grown between us and the four men, she says, “There are so many screwed-up parts about this evening, but right now, I need to know . . . do you still have feelings for Professor M, because—”

  I pinch her arm and hiss, “Alma, he’s right behind us.”

  Instead of dropping the subject she drops her voice. “He called out your freaking name while making love to his girlfriend, Cadence.”

  “I’m sure that happens to lots of people.”

  “Um, no. When you’re doing it with someone, you’re not thinking about other people. Or if you are, you’re thinking about them silently. Totally silently.”

  “He was probably inebriated or something. But can we just not talk about it?” When she lets out a puff of breath, clearly annoyed I don’t want to analyze every angle of Adrien’s mishap, I add, “We can dissect it when it’s just the two of us and everyone’s gone, all right?”

  She glances over her shoulder. “Why is everyone coming to your house by the way? And what’s inside the metal pot? Please tell me it’s not an organ.”

  How well do I know my bestie? Of course that’s where her mind went.

  “It’s not an organ. It’s a gold leaf. One of the Quatrefoil’s.”

  Her mouth rounds in a perfect O.

  “And they’re all coming back to the manor so we can lock it inside the safe, because if anyone but Adrien touches it, that person becomes cursed.”

  “I was hoping to get some action tonight. Didn’t realize just how much I’d get.”

  “You and I both. So much for losing my virginity . . .”

  “There’s still time. Plus you have two willing candidates.”

  My cheeks go so hot that I’m tempted to fan myself even though it’s minus ninety-two degrees outside. “Oh my God, Alma, shh.”

  Her lips close around the wickedest smile that stays in place during our entire slog through the snowcapped circles of Brume, Papa’s snowmobile rumbling softly behind us.

  39

  Slate

  It’s one giant slumber party, except it’s all slumber and no party.

  Adrien, Alma, Bastian, and I crash at the de Morel house. Alma with Cadence, Bastian with me, in the same room as last time, and Adrien in the suite off of Rainier’s that apparently his nurse-slash-physical-therapist-slash-dominatrix Jaqueline uses sometimes.

  The minute we arrived, Adrien and Rainier locked the piece in the safe. Then Cadence set off to give Prof a proper buzz-cut, while the rest of us retired to the bedrooms, too beat and shell-shocked to do much of anything else.

  I scrub up four times in the shower, but the stink of barbequed dragon and soot still clings to me. I have no idea how I got out of that whole mess unscathed. I mean, yeah, I hurt like hell and there are plenty of scrapes and bruises all over my already scraped and bruised body, but for facing a demonic guivre, I’m in damn good shape.

  For being in Brume, I’m in damn good shape.

  This town’s a killer.

  I dress in the university-issued sweats and a T-shirt with the school logo de Morel’s house elf left out on the bed.

  “You should have seen me face the beast down with Adrien’s sword,” I tell Bastian as I step out of the bathroom, water spiraling down the nape of my neck from my waterlogged curls. “I’m getting a plaque with Slate Ardoin, Dragon Slayer Extraordinaire made for the house.” I slash the air with an invisible sword to bring the picture to life.

  Bastian snorts. He’s taken over the bed, he, too, in U of B’s gray uniform of sweats and T-shirt. “I’ll have to take your word for it. All I saw was fire and smoke. And the roof caving in like it was made out of Legos.” He straightens his glasses and runs a hand over his hair. “I was kind of busy comforting Alma.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”

  Color rises in his cheeks. “Don’t get any ideas. I just put my arm around her and discussed magic.” He adjusts his glasses again. “She’s . . . nice.”

  Now it’s my turn to snort. “Alma? Nice? I would put her more in the naughty category . . . Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But you’re—” I shrug. I’m not sure how to say it without getting his hackles up. He’s a baby sparrow and she’s a hawk who could rip his head off with one snap of her beak. “You’re too nice.”

  “There’s no such thing as too nice.” He fluffs a pillow. “Enough about me, though. I’d much rather discuss you and Cadence.”

  My feet sink into the thick, ivory carpet. “Rainier told her I slept with women to steal their cash and jewels, so there really is no me and Cadence.”

  He lifts his eyebrows.

  “Yes, I’ve thieved, but I don’t screw the women I’ve screwed over.” I may be a conniving lowlife, but I’m not a complete jackass.

  “Have you explained this distinction to Cadence?”

  “I tried.” I swallow a rawness in my throat. “But she’s already made up her mind about me.”

  “She doesn’t know you. Give her some time.”

  I rub the towel over my hair. “I’m not sure I have time.”

  Bastian shoots me a warning look, one that says: don’t think like that, but how can I not? The new moon is in less than a week.

  “Brume’s changed you. You’ve never been the glass-half-empty sort, and you’ve never cared what people thought about you.”

  He’s right. I normally don’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion of me.

  “I mean, I knew you liked her, but you must really like her if you want to make such a great impression.”

  I sink onto the edge of the bed, still rubbing my head with the towel.

  Bastian’s gaze shifts toward the closed doors. “That Charlotte really reamed Adrien. Poor guy.”

  “Poor guy? Whose side are you on?”

  “Oh, there are sides now?” Bastian smirks.

  “Cadence is like a sister to him. Who the hell calls out his sister’s name during sex?”

  “Except she’s not his sister.”

  “Except he’s a decade older.”

  “Didn’t he just turn twenty-four?”

  I scowl at Bastian, who studies me like I’m an amoeba under a microscope. “What?”

  He tilts his head to the side. “You got it bad for her, huh?”

  I lunge and grab a pillow, then toss it at him. Even though my downy missile meets its mark, it doesn’t wipe away the smile growing on Bastian’s face.

  He makes kissy noises. “Slate’s in looooove.”

  “How old are you? Five?” I glance at the door to the Jack and Jill bathroom. “And I’m not fucking in love. I don’t do love.”

  He sits up, laughing. “Look at you. You’re all worked up. Over a girl.”

  “You asked for it.” I spring to my feet and wrap an arm around his neck, grinding my knuckles against the top of his head.

  Still laughing, he elbows me in the stomach, but I don’t let go. His glasses topple onto the bed as I turn his hair into a rodent nest.

  “Truce!” he wheezes between two deep chuckles.

  I release him. “Weakling.”

  He plucks his glasses from the snow-white comforter. “I let you win.”

  “Sure ya did.” Grinning, I retrieve my pillow, then yank the folded ivory and cream plaid blanket from the fat armchair in the corner. I toss both down on the carpet and lay back, eyes on the teardrop crystals of the chandelier. I’ve seen some fancy interiors, but a fucking crystal chandelier inside a bedroom . . .?

  Ludicrous.

  Once I get back to Marseille, I’m putting one of these up, but mine’ll be double the size.
r />   Bastian switches off the lights. “You know, there’s room enough for two people in this king-size bed.”

  “I’m good, little brother.” I shut my eyes and concentrate on the wind leaning against the windows. Sleeping on the floor grounds me; plus, you can’t fall off the floor. Besides, the carpet’s thicker than some of the pancake mattresses I’ve slept on over the years.

  Dark little clouds smudge my thoughts at the memory of those homes. Horrible. All of them. No luck of the draw, there. Once I come into enough money that Bastian’s grandkids never want for anything, I’ll start a program to help orphaned youth. Maybe buy a castle . . . So many of those are dying in the French countryside because upkeep’s too steep. I’ll refurbish it and fill it with everything a kid could ever desire or need.

  Yeah . . . that’s what I’ll do . . . once the ring comes off . . . and I have the money.

  As sleep begins to haze my thoughts, Bastian murmurs, “I like who you are when you’re with Cadence. You’re the Slate I’ve always known, not the one you pretend to be.” He pauses. “You’re the good guy.”

  “Fuck you talking about. I’ve never been good.” Just because I want to do good doesn’t make me good. There’s too much rot inside me. But his words nonetheless make my chest swell with warmth.

  “Rémy Roland,” he sounds my birth name quietly. “Maybe that’s who you really are.”

  I think about that for way too long, wonder who I would’ve been if my parents were still alive, and I’d been raised in Brume. Would Cadence and I have been friends? More than friends?

  I flip onto my side, punching my pillow to plump it up, then shut these thoughts down, because that kid died right along with his parents, and I’m the phoenix who rose from his ashes.

  Besides with a name like Rémy I would’ve for sure been a wuss.

  Not a go-getter.

  Not a survivor.

  A loud knock on the bedroom door makes my lids snap up. Sunlight streams through the chink between the drapes. The sound of the shower running and Alma’s stellar singing voice come from the bathroom, “Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive . . . ah . . . ah . . . ah . . .”

  Bastian sits up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, while I stumble over my blanket to open the door. Cadence is on the other side, dressed in a blue sweater and fluffy bunny slippers. Despite the circles purpling the delicate skin beneath her eyes, her expression is fierce.

  I spear my hand through my hair, trying to put a little order in the chaos. “Hey.”

  “Papa wants to see you in his study.”

  Ah. Papa . . . Would it have been so much to ask that she’d sought me out because she wanted to see me?

  “And what Papa wants, Papa gets.”

  She sighs. “Slate . . .”

  I hold up my hands. “Sorry. Just give me a few minutes. I want to brush my teeth. Once Alma’s done with her performance . . .”

  A smile edges her lips. “She does like to sing.”

  “She does.” I want to ask if she sings, too. I bet she has a beautiful singing voice considering how husky her speaking voice is.

  She points down the hall. “There’s a powder room down there. With new toothbrushes and disposable shaving kits. In case you wanted to shave.”

  I rub my day-old stubble, which makes a scratchy sound, like ripping Velcro.

  Cadence trails my fingers’ movement, black pupils beating against the clear blue.

  “What do you think? Should I get rid of it?”

  “I, uh . . . I think . . . unless it bothers you.” Her cheeks pinken.

  I’m taking her blush as a seal of approval. Stubble’s staying.

  Her throat moves with a swallow. “It’s your face.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have to look at it. You do.”

  If possible, she grows more uncomfortable, and my ego gets a boost that I’m affecting her.

  She clears her throat. “Anyway, Solange usually leaves everything in the drawers and stocks them up when they run empty.”

  Aha. “So, that’s your house elf’s name.”

  A hairline fracture of a smile touches her lips as I shut the door behind me to give Bastian privacy.

  “How are you feeling by the way?”

  “Like I faced off with a guivre,” she deadpans.

  “That’s funny. I feel the same, exact way.”

  “Except you look like you won the fight.”

  “And you don’t?” I take the opportunity to slide my gaze down the dark-gray leggings that hug her curves and then back up over the powder-blue sweater that offsets her eyes.

  “My legs are covered in bruises.”

  “You mean, like my face? And hands?” I stretch out my digits. Three of my knuckles are a shade of eggplant-black that really makes the Bloodstone pop. “And torso? Care to see it?”

  She lets out a soft snort. “We can compare bruises later.”

  “Your offer isn’t falling on deaf ears.”

  Her eyes take on a slight shimmer. “It wasn’t an offer.”

  “Sounded like one.” I wink, then turn and disappear inside the pink and white powder room, which, at best, is large enough for a six-year-old girl.

  I bang my elbows and knees against the walls as I brush my teeth and clean the night off my skin. I try to comb out the reek of cold smoke from my distraught curls, but it lingers. After tossing the used bamboo comb into the small vermeil bin, I pat the mess atop my head with some water until it’s decent enough. Cadence is gone when I finally pop back into the hallway. I open the bedroom door to tell Bastian I’m off to a meeting with my favorite person, then clamber down a flight of stairs.

  The study stinks of cigar smoke, and I spy a stub in the crystal ashtray on Rainier’s desk. He sits behind it, thumbing through a manila folder. I catch the words ROLAND ESTATE on the tab. There’s no chair for me to sit in, so I stand across from him, arms crossed. While me looming over him at his desk should make me feel empowered, it doesn’t. Rainier somehow manages to look down his nose at people from the depths of his wheelchair.

  “Let’s skip the preamble.” He pushes the folder toward me. “I’ve gotten all your financial records together and relinquished my hold on your accounts. All that’s left for you to do is sign on the dotted line.”

  “Thinking I might survive this Quatrefoil gig after all, huh?” I open the file to a page bearing figures with an impressive number of zeroes.

  A sigh whistles through his barely parted lips. “Slate, I know you believe me the devil incarnate, but I’m not betting against you.” He leans farther back, the leather squeaking under his cream-colored cashmere turtleneck. “However, once this curse is defeated, I want you gone from Brume.”

  “What if I want to stay?”

  “Why would you stay?”

  To prove to your daughter I’m dependable. “To learn more about my heritage. I mean, if this works, I’ll have magic. I’ll probably need to figure out how to use it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be plenty capable of figuring everything out in Marseille.”

  My jaw aches from how hard I’m working it. “Why do you want me gone so badly?”

  “You know exactly why.” He doesn’t utter his daughter’s name, yet it dangles in the air between us like the reek of cold smoke.

  “What exactly do you think I plan on doing to her?”

  “The same thing you do to all the girls you keep company.”

  “You mean, extort them after repeatedly satisfying them sexually?”

  His blue gaze turns positively lethal.

  “I don’t know where you picked up that information about me, but it’s a lie. I don’t screw over the women I screw.”

  “You’re denying it?”

  “Of course I’m denying it.” My knuckles crack, sending little bolts of fire down the tendons. “I’m no saint, but I’m not some amoral gigolo. Have I ever let a woman buy me a meal or a gala ticket? Yeah. Have I ever helped a woman out of a bad marriage against material compensation? Gui
lty. But that doesn’t make me the low-life asshole you depicted me as to Cadence.” Because I’m feeling spiteful and petty, I add, “It’s fresh, coming from you. A man who took his wife’s last name and inherited all her assets. Who were you before becoming Monsieur de Morel, Rainier?”

  If looks could kill, I wouldn’t just be dead; I’d be buried six feet under solid concrete and a high-rise.

  The door swings open, disturbing the coalescing tension.

  “Am I interrupting?” Bastian asks.

  I’m not sure whether he was eavesdropping or whether he sensed my morning meetup with de Morel wouldn’t be pretty, but whatever his reasons for barging in, I’m grateful he’s come. Then again, Bastian’s the type of guy who shows up and sticks around, for better or worse.

  De Morel growls, “yes” at the same time I answer, “no.”

  When Bastian has shuffled in beside me, I nod to the folder. “My financial records. Do your magic.”

  I’m expecting de Morel to clap his hand over the file, or start shredding the papers, but he keeps his fists on his armrests.

  Bastian grabs the file, then begins leafing through it. As he squints at the legalese, I study the smudged upside-down triangles, statue-like sketches of people, and weird bugs littering the framed scroll above the filing cabinets. I’m so fucking angry that the small lines of illegible Breton blur, and a quatrefoil appears. Not by magic or anything, but the spaces in the text are arranged in a way that they align into four curved leaves.

  I step in closer. “What’s this?” When a minute passes and de Morel still hasn’t answered, I hook a glance over my shoulder.

  His skin’s returned to its normal pasty shade of pale, but the hatred in his eyes burns darker than ever. “The Kelouenn, also known as the Scroll.”

  “Shouldn’t it be stocked in that state-of-the-art archival room you got up in the Temple?”

  “Cadence showed you the archival room?”

  “She did.”

  Unhappiness wafts off him as potent as his fancy vetiver cologne.

  “So what does this scroll say?”

  “It explains how to assemble the Quatrefoil.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me?” I whirl around. “And you didn’t think to show us this blueprint before we faced the curses?”