26. Winnie

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

WINNIE

I wake to cold moonlight streaming in through the gothic windows. I rub my eyes, casting my mind back to the violent dream that woke me, but I find nothing.

Huh?

Odd.

I always remember the nightmares of towering piles and scrambling rats and bugs. Why can’t I remember? Am I so sleep-deprived that I’m starting to lose my memory?

I sit upright and fumble around for my phone. 5:33 PM.

What? That can’t be right.

I slept until 5:33 PM. But how?

Did I not have the nightmare?

I focus on my body. My skin isn’t crawling. I can’t feel the bugs.

My eyes fall on the pillows scattered across the bed and floor, and the person-sized indent in the mattress beside me.

Alaric slept here.

Alaric slept here because I went to bed with him . Because he gave me the best orgasm of my life three times over and whispered all those filthy things in his gravelly voice …

But now he’s gone.

Mortification heats my skin. Did I say or do something embarrassing?

I do have prior form.

Did he flee as soon as I fell asleep?

I slept with Alaric and I didn’t have the nightmare.

I leap out of bed. As I hunt around in my packing cubes for the perfect ‘morning after you slept with your client and he leaves before you wake up’ outfit, I notice a white box sitting on the table. I pick it up.

It’s a brand-new phone.

My heart stutters. I flip over the box. Maybe Alaric bought himself a new phone and left it here when he ran away…

A note is attached to the case, written in Reginald’s loopy cursive.

Ms Preston

Lord Valerian asked me to pick up a new phone and number for you. His actual words were, “Winnie requires a new rectangle of annoyance, as hers has joined my ill-conceived attempts at knitting at the bottom of the cistern.”

I have programmed Lord Valerian’s number in it for you, although he usually will not answer or reply to texts. He did ask me not to add your playlists, but I’ll leave that to your discretion.

Yours, Reginald

Alaric got me a new phone.

It’s yet another strange and wonderful way he’s taken care of me, especially since he hates phones with the fire of a thousand suns. He’s willing to reshape his whole life so that I can fit into it. No one has ever found me worth changing like that before.

I could get used to this.

I throw on a soft grey jumpsuit and an oversized purple cardigan, stuff the phone in my pocket, relight the candelabra, and head downstairs.

“Alaric?” I call to the empty castle.

“Meorrw?” Mirabelle greets me on the stairs. She rubs herself around my legs then darts off before looking back at me, as if to say, “Well, hurry up, then!”

I follow her to – where else? – the study, where Alaric is hunched over his desk, brow furrowed in concentration as he dips his brush into paint and works on a small canvas.

“Hey, stranger,” I say, the nerves creeping in. “What are you working on?”

“Winnie.” Alaric drops his brush and leaps to his feet, his presence sucking all the oxygen from the room until I feel woozy from the sight of him. “I wanted to let you sleep.”

“It’s fine. I know that you’re not used to sleeping at night. I just wanted to check that…” I swallow. “Thank you for the phone.”

“I thought you might regret your impetuous overhand throw,” Alaric says. The warmth in his voice glides over my body like his hands and tongue did last night. I am so gone for this man . “I tried to rescue the rectangle of annoyance, but it swims as well as you do.”

“It was so thoughtful.” I want to say more, but anything that comes out of my mouth right now is dangerous. “Um…we’re okay after last night? I mean, you don’t regret?—”

“I regret many things in my long life, but taking you to bed will never be one of them.”

That warm fizz along my spine is back. “Oh, well. Good. I mean, me too. I have ro negets. I mean, no regrets…So, um, what are you working on?”

Alaric slams down the painting on the desk. “It’s an abysmal failure. I cannot show you.”

“We talked about you not being such a perfectionist.”

“Yes, but tonight is not the night to begin.” Alaric takes my hands in his. “Winnie, I said that there is something I need to tell you. About me.”

“You sound so serious.”

“This is serious.” His eyes blaze as his cool fingers knit in mine. “Winnie, you must know that the time we’ve spent together has been some of my brightest nights upon this earth. But I fear those days have come to an end. I fear you cannot know the truth and still want me, but I owe you my vulnerability, my truth. You see, I am a?—”

“My lord.”

We leap apart. My chest heaves as I turn to Reginald in the doorway. He looks miserable. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you have a visitor.”

“Tell them to go away!” Alaric booms. “We’re busy!”

“I wish I could, my lord. But it’s your mother. She’s arrived early.”