Chapter 15

15

EVANGELINE

" I only have a passing familiarity with the rituals that make up a standard girls' night," Gabriel said. There was a small furrow between his eyebrows, and he looked deadly serious, and a little perturbed, like he'd just realized there was a massive oversight in his research.

I did a really good job of not laughing. "The girls' night thing was just an example. We don't have to do any of that stuff."

"What do you and Isabella usually do on those nights?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. His hair was drying into a chaotic curly mass, and he looked softer and less guarded than I was used to. I patted the sofa next to me, and he settled onto it lightly.

"Watch a movie, drink, gossip," I said. "Sometimes I do her nails. She offers to do mine, but she's awful at it. Stuff like that."

Gabriel nodded, listening intently. "I don't have objections to any of that. Except perhaps the gossip. Not out of any sort of disapproval of it, you understand, just because I doubt we have anyone in common to gossip about."

I couldn't help but find it sweet how seriously he was taking this, treating it like it was some important cultural ceremony that was an honor to be invited to. "I think I can live without the gossip," I said. "Wait, you're fine with the nail polish thing?"

He shrugged. "Social grooming is a pretty major part of vampire culture," he said. "Personally, I don't usually wear nail polish, but I've got very steady hands, and I've had a lot of practice doing other people's nails."

"Social grooming," I echoed. "Like monkeys?"

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Generally, vampires don't have to spend as much time picking bugs off each other," he said, utterly deadpan. "These days, we can use cameras to check our own appearances, but that's an extremely recent development. Most of us still prefer to rely on each other for that sort of thing."

I had a sudden vivid flashback to second grade, sitting on the floor with a bunch of the other girls in my class to make a braid train. There was absolutely no way I could let Gabriel know how cute the idea of a bunch of lethal vampires doing each other's hair was.

"So, is it, like, a family thing, or…?" I trailed off, hoping he'd get the gist of the question without me actually having to spell it out for him.

"It can be," Gabriel said. "Our family units often aren't bound by blood, so the definitions aren't quite the same. I live with several other vampires. Although none of us are from the same bloodline, I consider us to be family, and it's common for us to take care of each other that way. It can also be romantic, of course."

"Of course," I said, feeling something prickle in my throat. "And is that, y'know, something you've done a lot?"

Gabriel looked up at me. The corner of his mouth twitched upward, then smoothed back down. "No," he said finally. "Such things aren't done as part of one-night stands."

"What, you'll trust someone with your junk but not your hair?" I asked. I wanted to ask if it was all one-night stands or if he ever tried to find a real partner—somebody he wouldn't just sleep with but also wake up next to. Asking about his hair was a safer avenue.

My question surprised a laugh out of Gabriel. It was low, rich, and settled over me warmly. I couldn't help but smile back.

"Pretty much," he said. "I can't trust just anyone with this." He waved a hand at his hair, still smiling a little.

"Gotta protect your crowning glory," I agreed, nodding seriously. "All right, if you wanna do girls' night, let's do girls' night."

I left Gabriel in charge of setting up the stuff we'd need—with Chanel's help, and Pothos's supervision. After using a quick charm to dry my hair, I ran down to the restaurant underneath my apartment and placed an order for dinner, then went down the corner to the good liquor store to buy wine and synth-blood.

When I got back with drinks in one hand and a fragrant, greasy bag of takeout in the other, the apartment had been transformed. Candles were clustered on the coffee table, throwing soft, flickering light through the room, and a massive fuzzy blanket I didn't recognize was folded neatly over the back of the sofa. Gabriel had found wine glasses somewhere, and had managed to put together an honest-to-God charcuterie board with odds and ends he'd found in my fridge. My small collection of nail polish was neatly arranged on the end table, along with a couple sheet masks fanned out like magazines in a waiting room.

Gabriel was by the coffee table, trying to pick a scented candle. He took the lid off one, sniffed it, and flinched like Pothos did when he insisted on sniffing a clementine. He sneezed twice in quick succession and fumbled the lid back onto the candle quickly.

"Gesundheit. Super-strong vampire senses don't play nice with Peppermint Eggnog Spice, huh?" I asked with a smile.

Gabriel looked up at me, and I was suddenly shocked I'd ever thought he was stoic. His mouth softened, and his eyes warmed, his body angled toward me. It was subtle but unmistakable. In the candlelight, his purple eyes were washed out to a gentle stormy gray.

"I think I'm more of a—" He lifted up a candle, checking its label. "Autumn Petrichor Romance man."

"Of course you are." For a moment, I was uneasy with how comfortable I was. Coming home to find Gabriel puttering around the apartment and sliding into easy banter felt way too natural. I couldn't let myself get used to it, especially not with someone who had just told me that he only ever made time for one-night flings.

Although, maybe there was something to that. Maybe something quick and casual would help me get him out of my system, then I could stop being distracted by things like the lines of his forearms, or how good his butt looked in his stupid fancy pants. With how dangerous things seemed to be getting with the investigation into the ascendancy array, I needed to keep myself focused. Getting over this silly crush would help.

"Your apartment suggested a few movies," Gabriel said, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Something about a mummy, and a retelling of Taming of the Shrew set in a high school, I believe."

Chanel innocently slid out my copies of The Mummy and 10 Things I Hate About You from the DVD shelf beneath my TV, and I rolled my eyes. The idea of watching a movie about an adventurous librarian falling in love with an abrasive man with great hair while looking for an ancient treasure with Gabriel sitting next to me was an absolute no-go, and as much as I liked Heath Ledger, the rom-com was also out of the question.

"Down, girl," I muttered at Chanel under my breath, kicking the toe of my boot against the baseboard. Chanel slid the movies back into place and somehow seemed surly about it. I grabbed a DVD at random and handed it over. "We can watch this," I said.

"This is a documentary about historical poisonings," Gabriel said.

Damn it. Not my dorkiest option but pretty close. At least it wasn't the documentary about a font. "Yeah," I said. "It's pretty good."

"I've seen this," he told me. "It completely misrepresents Catherine de Medici."

"I thought it seemed pretty accurate," I said, oddly offended on the documentary's behalf.

He shot me a look, raising one eyebrow microscopically. "Trust me," he said. "She was a close friend of my mother's. My mother was so offended by the film that she sent threatening letters to half the people involved in the production, and she had the director cursed."

I blinked a couple times, trying to absorb that little tidbit of information. "You know what, maybe you should pick what we watch."

I opened the wine and poured us each a glass, then popped the top on the synth-blood and put it in a mug for Gabriel. The fuzzy blanket on the sofa was even softer than it looked, and I draped it over myself happily.

"Where the hell did you find wine glasses?" I asked. "And the blanket?"

Gabriel looked a little sheepish. "In my camping supplies."

"You… brought wine glasses on a camping trip," I said. "A very short camping trip."

"They were included with the tent," he said defensively. "It had a built-in bar cabinet."

"Oh, well in that case, it's totally normal," I teased.

"I'm so glad you agree," he said primly.

We ate our food in companionable silence. Well, I ate, and Gabriel sipped slowly at his fake blood while he examined my movie collection.

"This one," he said eventually, holding out a DVD case for me to inspect. It was the font documentary.

"You sure? It's kinda dry."

Gabriel frowned slightly. "I've been wanting to see it for some time. But the blog post I consulted while you were away suggested that romantic comedies are more typical fare for girls' night, so if that would be a more suitable choice, I can?—"

"The documentary sounds good," I interrupted. "I mean, it's really good, I just didn't know if you'd like it. It kind of takes a while to get going."

"I am nothing if not patient," Gabriel said. It didn't sound like he was just talking about the documentary.

I flushed a little but didn't know why.

That was how I wound up curled up on my sofa next to an ancient vampire prince, watching a documentary about the history of Helvetica. I decided to skip the face mask; I wasn't exactly planning on making a move on Gabriel, but if wine-drunk me decided to flirt a little, I didn't want her to have to do it wearing a sheet mask printed to look like a panda. Gabriel, on the other hand, opted for under-eye patches.

"Do you even need those?" I asked. "I mean, it's not like you have dark circles. Your skin is so perfect it's a little irritating."

Gabriel smiled. "The perfect skin is a vampire thing, I'm afraid. Something about the body chemistry of undeath."

"Unfair," I grumbled.

"We're very prone to dry hair, if it helps," he offered.

"It helps a little."

"So, no, I don't need the patches," he said. "But as an honorary member of girls' night, I felt I should participate to get the full experience."

"Good to see you're taking this seriously."

Gabriel gave me an amused little look, and I smiled back at him.

"Okay, this is a crucial decision," I said as the credits rolled on the documentary, picking up two of the bottles of nail polish. "Espresso Caress or Pine Baroness?"

Gabriel looked at both of the options with a frankly adorable level of intensity. "Pine Baroness," he decided.

I nodded and handed it over.

Gabriel folded one of his legs up onto the sofa, turning to face me. He reached out and touched my wrist with the gentlest of touches, and my breath caught in my throat. His hands were cool and careful as he guided my hand down, so that my palm rested on the curve of his knee.

"For stability," he explained. He squeezed my wrist lightly before letting go, so lightly that I might have missed it if my treacherous body hadn't decided to make me incredibly, painfully aware of his touch. I flexed my hand against the bony curve of his knee, and watched, hypnotized, as he wetted his lips with a pink flash of tongue.

Gabriel began painting the deep green polish over my nails in even strokes.

"You weren't kidding," I said, "You're really good at that."

I saw the lightning-fast flicker of his smile. "One of my housemates always has to have her nails perfectly done," he said. "She and her husband like to make sure that they match, and she usually has me paint her nails to match his outfit or eyes. He tried to do it once, but he knocked an entire bottle of acetone onto an antique silk velvet dress, so now he's been banned."

I wasn't used to hearing Gabriel sound so affectionate. I shifted a little, moving my hand, and he made a disapproving noise. I went still again.

"They sound like a cute couple," I said.

"They are," he agreed. "Lissa and Vic love each other very much. And often very loudly. I had to have their room soundproofed."

I huffed out a laugh, earning another there-and-gone smile from Gabriel.

"It was a bit of a scandal," he said. "Vic was supposed to be married off. His parents bought in a facilitator to assess each of the potential matches before they made the final arrangements and picked a spouse for him."

I recognized the pattern of someone repeating a story they'd told more times than they could count, until retelling it was something that didn't actually require any conscious thought. "Sounds like there's a ‘but' coming," I said.

"There is indeed a ‘but' coming," Gabriel said. "The facilitator was Lissa. Depending on which version of the story they tell, they either fell madly in love at first sight, or couldn't stand each other but fell into bed immediately, and eventually fell in love. Either way, between the two of them, they found a reason to turn down every possible suitor, and then Lissa presented her own suit to Vic's clan heads. When they laughed her out of the hall, the two of them ran off together."

"Okay, that is pretty scandalous," I said. "And pretty romantic, too."

Something about Gabriel was a little off. My investigative instincts were screaming at me to push just a little to see if I could find out what was up. I figured that I probably shouldn't poke too much, but the two glasses of twist-top rosé I'd had disagreed.

"Do vampires still do a lot of arranged marriages? I thought that was way less popular these days," I said casually.

Gabriel's hand twitched, almost smudging the stroke of nail polish he was working on.

Bingo.

"It's much less common than it used to be," he said. "But the practice definitely hasn't died out. It's still considered standard for the more powerful vampires to find a suitable match for their heirs. Other hand, please."

I put my other hand on his knee. "Have your parents picked out a future Mrs. De Montclair?" I asked. Suddenly, I felt kind of sick. Maybe I'd overdone it with the spicy noodles.

"Not officially," Gabriel said tiredly. "They've had someone in mind for a long time, but neither she nor I actually want to get married to each other. So far, we've managed to distract them every time it's come up, but it's only a matter of time."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, squeezing his knee gently. "That's really shitty."

"It's just the way things are," he said. His voice had gone flat. "I've always known romantic love wouldn't be in the cards for me."

"Gabriel," I said firmly. "Hey. Look at me, okay?"

Gabriel hesitated, but he looked up from the bottle of nail polish and met my eyes. He looked tired, resigned, but there was a wariness hiding behind it.

"Just because it's the way things are doesn't mean that it's not bullshit," I said, quiet and intense. "You shouldn't have to marry someone just for political bullshit reasons. You should get to marry someone who makes you feel amazing. Someone who makes you feel safe and excited at the same time."

Gabriel looked almost startled. For a moment, he appeared so much younger than his actual age that I could almost pretend we were just a pair of regular twenty-somethings.

"Evangeline, I…" Something in his face closed off. He huffed out a sad little laugh and shook his head. "Thank you," he said finally.

"I mean it," I told him.

"I know. I don't suppose there's any more of that wine, is there?"

"Oh, don't worry. I got a second bottle. Hang on, I'll grab it."

I carefully wiggled out from under the blanket, trying to use my hands as little as possible so I wouldn't smudge my nails.

"Do you want more synth-blood?" I asked over my shoulder as I headed to the kitchen counter. "I grabbed a four-pack. The only single cans they had were flavored, and lemon-lime blood just sounds weird."

"Evangeline," Gabriel said. His voice sounded all wrong, hollow, and shocked.

I turned back.

"What's wrong?" I asked, but Gabriel had already vaulted over the back of the sofa with uncanny agility and grabbed my arm, spinning me around so that my back was to him.

"Your shoulder," he said urgently. "Something's wrong with it." He brushed a careful touch over the skin just below where I'd been stabbed, and I yelped in pain.

"The potion should have fixed it," I said.

"Well it didn't. The curse must have taken hold faster than we thought. The runes are starting to form around the wound, and they're spreading." He pressed the flat of his hand over my shoulder, and I winced.

"There's still dark magic trapped inside," he said. "It's faint, but I can feel it."

"I know a couple cleansing spells. Maybe I can use one of those. I've been cursed before. Hazard of the job. I generally recover pretty fast."

I went over to the small mirror by my front door, craning my neck back so that I could get a semi-decent view of my shoulder in it. The knife wound, which should have already healed to a barely-there scar, was an angry gray-purple surrounded by jagged runes. I reached back, wincing as I moved my shoulder and touched the spot.

The words of the spell came easily to me. I'd used them countless times before on myself and on a whole range of people who'd ended up on the wrong end of spiteful magic. Usually, the magic felt cooling and gentle as it flowed out of my fingertips.

This time, it felt like someone was pulling barbed wire through my skin.

"Okay, something's definitely wrong," I managed between clenched teeth. "Like, really, really wrong."

An old bell I kept on the bookshelf began to jingle. "Shit," I hissed. "Someone's coming. Chanel uses that to let me know when someone shady looking is coming up here."

I tried to work a quick spell to strengthen the wards around the front door of the apartment, but the pain hit me again. My vision went white, and I slumped against Gabriel's side.

"Hurts," I hissed. "Fuck, that hurts." Panic started to well up as the pain faded, making my heart pound, and my throat tighten. "Gabriel, I can't use my magic."

The bell jingled again, louder, shaking so hard that it tumbled off the shelf and landed on the floor. That was the only warning we got before the door burst open, and the vampires charged in.