37. Winnie

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

WINNIE

Faye: What do you mean you’re staying on in Argleton? Winnie, babe, how long does it take to sparkle up one teeny tiny castle?

I know you have the hots for Mr. Tall, Dark, and Vampy, but we are not going to get this opportunity again. We can’t wait on this.

I could do it without you…they did say that they think it’ll work better with a solo presenter, anyway…and you’re not so good with public speaking…what do you think? I can bring Winnie Wins to the world while you keep the business ticking over.

Speaking of which, that footballer’s wife in Chelsea needs two new storage bins. Apparently, she ordered seafoam green and we sent her sea spray green. Can you take care of that? Cheers very much, doll.

A laric listens intently while I form my plan. It’s a wild, crazy plan, with a lot of moving parts. We’re going to need so much help and a metric fuckton of luck to pull it off, and there’s the little matter of the terrifying Lady of Agony and her threats?—

—but I know a good plan when I feel it fizzing on the tips of my fingers and tingling on my lips.

Or maybe that’s the memory of Alaric’s incredible kiss?—

“No,” Alaric shakes his head when I finish. “Absolutely not.”

His fangs have retracted now. It’s a shame. I kind of like them.

I liked them scraping against my skin.

No, Winnie, focus. You have to stick to your own rules.

“But it’s perfect. It gets you out of the Perdita marriage, gives your mother the leverage she wants within the Midnight Court, clears up this whole human/vampires law once and for all, and we can even get justice for Danny.”

“I don’t want justice for that cretin. And if it goes wrong, you’ll be literally risking your neck in a room filled with hungry, lascivious vampires, at least one of whom has killed a human.”

“But I’ll have my handsome fake-fiancé to save me.” I smile.

I’m quite proud of this plan. I think it’s one of the best ideas I’ve had since the Winnie Wins System. Which Faye is going to pretend is all her idea on national TV, and there’s not a thing I can do about it since we both own the trademark.

But I’m not going to think about that.

Alaric scowls. He looks about as pleased with my plan as he did the first day I arrived and started arranging his stuff in piles. His hand closes around my arm and pulls me close. So close that every breath I take tastes of him.

“If we must do it this way, I will not be leaving your side until the ball is over, wife .”

“Um…yes. Good.” Despite everything I said about not being ready to open my heart to him, that this thing between us is strictly about finishing the job and getting him out of this arranged marriage he doesn’t want, the way he says wife makes the butterflies in my stomach dance a little conga line straight between my thighs.

Now that I know what Alaric is, the weight of him makes sense to me. Not a physical weight, but the emotional weight of five hundred years of yearning all concentrated on me. It’s heady and addictive being the focus of such a man’s attention, especially when he kisses me like that.

Which is exactly why I need some distance between us now.

You’d get plenty of distance if you were in London, the sensible voice inside my head screams.

But I can’t leave now. I can’t go back to my normal life knowing what I know, especially now that a crazy lady vampire intends to kill me.

And I can’t leave Alaric to face this alone. Not when I can help. This is the biggest mess I’ve ever tried to clean up, but if I can do this, I can do anything .

I place my fingers over Alaric’s hand and try to prise them off my arm.

“This is going to work. The Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven will come through for us. You haven’t met these ladies, but they can do anything. The hardest part is going to be getting your mother to agree. Call her now.”

I can’t help it. I love a new project, and this is much more important than cleaning up Alaric’s castle. It’s about cleaning up his life . I want to get started.

“If I propose this ludicrous idea and she refuses, I may have to kill her. In addition to all the pots we still need to sort, you’ll have to clean the blood out of the carpet.” Alaric sighs. “Reginald?”

The Thrall appears a moment later, bowing deeply. “My lord.”

“Where is my mother? Bring her to us. We wish to speak to her.”

“She and Perdita left to visit an artist living on the Sanctus Estate. She says not to expect her until early morning, and she left her Thralls behind as she says they will feast at the party.”

“When did she leave?”

“Around the time you stabbed Hrodebert.”

Alaric sighs. “And you remained on guard at the door because…”

“Because I trust your mother about as much as I trust German vampires to make a decent blood pudding,” Reginald says. “Which is to say, not at all.”

“You were listening.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. It’s only that I don’t want Ms. Preston to leave.” Reginald beams at me. “If I may say so, I think her plan has merit?—”

“Very well! We shall have an audience with Callista tomorrow. For now, my future wife is yawning. Reginald, if you could bring Winnie some more candles for her candelabra, she shall retire to her room to sleep.” Alaric moves silently towards the door. “I will walk with you.”

“I’m sleepy, not maimed. I can walk myself.”

“Even if my mother isn’t in the castle, her Thralls are here. I don’t trust them. You agreed that I am to remain by your side at all times.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. But don’t try anything, husband . I’ve got a purse full of anti-vampire weed charms and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Did I imagine it, or did Alaric’s mouth quirk at the corner at the word husband ?

Reginald hands me a fresh candelabra lit with flickering candles, and we begin our meandering walk through the castle, Mirabelle trotting ahead of us with her tail held high. Alaric doesn’t sweep me into his arms this time, and I admit I’m a little disappointed. He walks stiffly, his eyes fixed on me. His fingers find their way to the small of my back as he guides me through the narrow hallways and darkened corners.

We reach the top of the stairs.

“Well, goodnight,” I say. “Don’t let the coffin bugs bite.”

“Sweet dreams, Winifred Preston.”

I push open the door to my room and set down the candelabra. When I turn around, Alaric is standing behind me.

“What are you doing?”

Alaric shuts and locks the door. “I told you that after my mother’s threats, I will not let you out of my sight. The easiest way to do this is for us to continue our fake engagement. My mother will have her spies checking up on us, and since she knows we’ve already ignored the law once, she will expect us to share a bed.”

“You cannot sleep in here.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” I press my palm into my forehead. “Because I sleep in a bed, not a coffin. And there’s only one bed.”

He waggles an eyebrow. “That bed was plenty big enough for the two of us the other night.”

Oh balls, I am living in a smutty romance novel.

“That was before . You promised me that we wouldn’t do anything more than kiss in front of your mother. Your mother isn’t even here.”

“I promised you that I would do whatever I had to do to keep you safe. And that means not leaving your side. I am not here to possess your body, unless you wish it. I will watch over you while you sleep. Anything else that happens in this bed is your decision.”

“I am going to kill you.”

“You are too late, Winifred the Magnificent.”

“ Fine. I’m going to eat a very garlicky dinner tomorrow so that I fart garlic all night and Dutch oven you to death.”

Alaric smirks as he perches on the edge of the bed. “Would you like to use the bathroom first, or shall I?”

I shove past him and run into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I lean against the wood, panting.

Alaric is in my room again.

This wasn’t part of the bargain.

I thought I could stay and help him. I thought I could enclose my heart in walls as thick as Black Crag’s battlements and keep out that dry humour and shy smile and possessive, protective nature of his. But he’s in my room again and he smells like winter and happiness and I’m dangerously tempted to offer him my neck…

But if I leave now, I’d be without Alaric’s protection, and there’s a high chance Callista would suck me dry. I remember how Maisie described what happened to Danny, and I don’t want that to be me.

How did I get myself into this mess?

My hand glides over my stomach as I peel off my clothes, giving it a friendly wobble. I know that I’m safe from growing one of those Dhampir babies. I’ve never had any desire for children. When you grow up in a house like mine, you worry that you might inflict the same insanity on your offspring.

But it sucks that the world is so cruel to deprive Alaric the ability to become a father?—

Winnie, stop. What are you even thinking?

I take an extra long shower, and try to tell myself it’s not because I’m afraid of what I’ll let him do if I go back out there. I brush my teeth and pull on my pyjamas.

When I emerge from the bathroom, Alaric is sitting in one of the chairs at the window. Moonlight falls over his face as he reads a book.

“The bathroom’s free now.”

“Hmmm.” He turns a page.

I march over and snatch the book from his hands. My skin flushes as I realise that it’s next week’s smutty vampire book club pick, and the page Alaric’s reading is a particularly racy scene between the vampire prince and his human bride…

“I was reading that.”

“You’re a vampire who’s lived for over five hundred years. There’s nothing in that book you haven’t done before.”

“That’s not true. Page sixty-four was most enlightening.”

My ears are burning. I drop the book onto the nightstand and jab a finger at the bathroom. “Get in there and brush your fangs or whatever it is vampires need to do so we can go to sleep. And you are absolutely forbidden from imagining me in any scenario from page sixty-four onwards.”

Alaric flashes me one final infuriating smirk before shutting the bathroom door behind him. But a moment later, he bursts out again.

“This is a sickness.” He holds up my makeup case, jabbing his finger at the carefully-labelled matching bottles and individual containers. I’m particularly proud of that makeup case. Faye made a video about it a few months ago that went viral. “I’ve known witches with carefully curated poison cabinets who aren’t as organised as this.”

“Everything is tidy and easy to find,” I snap. “What’s not to love about that?”

“It’s so…restrictive. Where’s the creativity? Where’s the curiosity about the world? What were to happen if you mixed these two jars together?”

“Considering one of those is exfoliator and the other is protein-shake mix, not good things.”

“Sometimes, wife, I wish you would set free your ideas of what things must be and embrace the wildness of expressive vision?—”

I shake a fist at him. “I’ll give you expressive vision if you don’t stay out of my toiletry bag. Now get back in there so we can go to bed. Reginald left spare toothbrushes in the cabinet. And don’t you dare brush your fangs with my watermelon HiSmile toothpaste, or pain will be in your future.”

“Is that a promise?”

He ducks into the bathroom before the sock I throw gets anywhere near him. Damn vampires and their heightened senses and their impossibly hot arses…

By the time I hear the bathroom door open again, I’ve used every cushion and throw pillow in the room to construct a wall down the centre of the bed.

Alaric emerges from the bathroom, hair damp and a towel wrapped around his lower torso. I swallow so he doesn’t know that I’m salivating at the sight of his naked torso. The white scar from his mother’s blade glows in the flickering candlelight.

He’s had such a hard life. Everyone who should have loved him has either left, died, or betrayed him. No wonder he hates leaving the castle.

No wonder when I look into his eyes, I see a piece of my soul gazing back.

Alaric frowns at my construction. “What is this?”

I crawl under the sheets. “It’s a fortification, so you stay on your side of the bed.”

“I have fought a great many battles,” he says. “I have laid siege to castles with stronger walls than this.”

“ Alaric. ”

“What if I get cold in the night and need snuggles?”

“Vampires don’t feel the cold.” I snatch the blanket and jerk it over to my side. “And they definitely don’t need snuggles.”

I blow out the candles. Alaric gets into his side of the bed and sighs.

“What now?” I huff.

“I grow bored of counting the spiders on the ceiling beams. I should like to read.”

“Fine.” I switch on the light, toss the vampire book at him, and grab another book from my stack – the next volume of Mina’s story, which I really need to finish.

After ten minutes, I realise that I’ve read the same page twenty times. Every atom of me is aware of him on the other side of the pillow wall, the sound of pages turning, his feet shifting under the blankets. The fact that his towel is in a puddle on the floor and I’m pretty sure he has nothing on.

How much I’d like to ? —

No.

This is for your own good, Winnie. Remember how you trusted Patrick and you had your heart broken. You’re not jumping back into bed with the first vampire you meet, not until you’re certain you can survive being broken by him.

I drop my book on my nightstand and turn over.

“Goodnight, Alaric.”

“Goodnight, my betrothed.”

Damn him.

Alaric clicks off his light. The bed creaks as he lies down. I can’t see him over the pillow fortification, but I picture him behind my eyelids lying face up, hands crossed over his chest like an Egyptian mummy. A vampire in repose.

“Alaric?”

“Mmm?” His voice rumbles through my chest.

“If you bit me, would it hurt? I mean, it has to hurt a little bit, right? But it’s like a sexy hurt, or a hurty hurt? Does it leave a scar? Arabella from book club said it’s pleasurable, but is it pleasurable like a nice day at the beach or like a party drug? Can people get addicted? Can you do it anywhere or does it have to be on the neck?—”

“Go to sleep, Winnie,” he whispers. “I will never hurt you.”

“What if I want you to?”

My heart thuds against my ribs.

His breath rasps.

“Alaric?”

“I suggest you sleep, wife, and stop tempting me with dangerous words. This flimsy fortification you’ve built cannot withstand the hunger you stoke inside me with every syllable.”

“But—”

“ Sleep, ” he growls. “Sleep, and forget what you are asking.”