Blood & Honey

A fresh wave of anger washed over me. Perhaps he had found trouble. And—this time—perhaps he could sort it out without me. Without magic.

Breath tickled my neck, and I whirled, coming face-to-face with Nicholina. When she grinned at me, I scowled. Blood had stained her teeth yellow. Indeed, her paper-thin skin was now her palest feature, brighter and whiter than the moon. I shouldered past her to an empty table in the corner. “I want to be alone, Nicholina.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, souris.” She drifted around me, whispering, gesturing to Coco and Ansel, to Blaise and Liana, to Toulouse and Thierry. “They certainly don’t want our company.” She leaned closer. Her lips brushed my ear. “We make them uncomfortable.”

I swatted her away. “Don’t touch me.”

When I plunked down, turning my back to her, she floated to the chair opposite. She didn’t sit, however. I supposed wraiths didn’t sit. One couldn’t look sinister and uncanny with one’s ass on a barstool. “We aren’t so very different,” she breathed. “People don’t like us either.”

“People like me just fine,” I snapped.

“Do they?” Her colorless eyes flicked to Blaise, where he watched me from the bar. “We can sense his thoughts, oh yes, and he hasn’t forgotten how you crushed his son’s bones. He longs to feast on your flesh, make you whimper and groan.”

My own gaze cut to his. His lip curled over sharp incisors. Fuck.

“But you won’t whimper, will you?” Nicholina canted her face closer to mine. “You’ll fight, and you’ll bite with teeth of your own.” She laughed then—the sound skittered down my spine—and repeated, “We aren’t so very different. For years, our people have been persecuted, and we have been persecuted among even them.”

For some reason, I doubted she referred to we as her and me, the two of us. No. It seemed Nicholina wasn’t the only one living inside her head these days. Perhaps there were . . . others. I told you she’s weird, Gabrielle had confided. Too many hearts. My own heart twisted at the memory. Poor Gaby. I hoped she hadn’t suffered.

Ismay sat at a table with La Voisin, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. A handful of their sisters joined them. Babette had remained in the blood camp to care for those too young, too old, too weak, or too sick to fight.

They hadn’t recovered Gaby’s body.

“We’ll tell you a secret, little mouse,” Nicholina whispered, drawing my attention back to her. “It isn’t on us to make them comfortable. No, no, no it’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. It’s on them.”

I stared at her. “How did you become like this, Nicholina?”

She grinned again—a too-wide grin that nearly split her face in half. “How did you become like this, Louise? We all make choices. We all suffer consequences.”

“I’m done with this conversation.” Expelling a harsh breath, I returned Blaise’s glare with one of my own. If he didn’t blink soon, he’d lose an eye. Nicholina—though clearly demented—was right about one thing: I would bite back. When Terrance murmured in his ear, he finally shifted his gaze away from me toward the storeroom door. I tensed immediately. Had they heard something I hadn’t? Had Reid returned?

Without hesitating, I curled a finger, and my eyesight clouded. My hearing, however, heightened, and Terrance’s low voice echoed as if he stood beside me. “Do you think he’s dead? The huntsman?”

Blaise shook his head. “Perhaps. There is no peace in the human king’s heart. Reid was foolish to approach him.”

“If he is dead . . . when can we leave this place?” Terrance cast a sidelong look at La Voisin and Ismay, at the blood witches around them. “We owe these demons no loyalty.”

A twitch started in my cheek. Before I realized my feet had moved, I was standing, pressing my fists against the table. The pattern dissolved. “It seems you owe Reid no loyalty either.” They both looked up, startled—angry—but theirs was a flicker to my rage. Nicholina clapped her hands together in delight. Coco, Ansel, and Claud all rose tentatively. “If you suspect he’s in danger, why are you still here?” My voice rose, grew into something beyond me. Though I heard myself speaking, I did not form these words. “You owe him a life debt, you mangy dogs. Or would you like me to reclaim Terrance’s?” I lifted my hands.

Blaise’s teeth flashed as he rose from his chair. “You dare threaten us?”

“Louise . . . ,” Claud said, his voice conciliatory. “What are you doing?”

“They think Reid is dead,” I spat. “They’re debating when they can leave us.”

Though La Voisin chuckled, her eyes remained flat and cold. “Of course they are. At the first sign of trouble, they tuck their tails and flee back to their swamp. They’re cowards. I told you not to trust them, Louise.”

When Liana moved toward the door, I slammed it shut with an easy flick of my wrist. My eyes never left Blaise’s. “You aren’t going anywhere. Not until you bring him back to me.”

Snarling, Blaise’s face began to shift. “You do not control the loup garou, witch. We did not harm you for your mate’s sake. If he dies, so too does our benevolence. Be very careful.”

La Voisin stepped to my side, hands clasped. “Perhaps it is you who should be careful, Blaise. If you invoke the wrath of this witch, you invoke the wrath of us all.” She lifted a hand, and the blood witches stood as one—at least a dozen of them. Four times as many as Blaise, Liana, and Terrance, who edged back-to-back, growling low in their throats. Their fingernails extended to lethal points.

“We will leave here in peace.” Despite his words, Blaise met La Voisin’s gaze in open challenge. “No blood must be drawn.”

“How easily you forget.” La Voisin smiled, and it was a cruel, chilling thing. When she lowered her collar, revealing three jagged scars across her chest—claw marks—the blood witches hummed with anticipation. And so did I. God, so did I. “We like blood. Especially our own.”

Tension in the room taut to explode, they stared at each other.

Ansel started to step between them—Ansel, of all people—but Claud stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Stand down, lad. Before you get hurt.” To La Voisin and Blaise, he said, “Let us not forget the grander purpose here. We have a common enemy. We can all play nice until Monsieur Diggory returns, can’t we?” With a pointed glance first at Blaise, then at me, he added, “Because he will return.”

Not a breath sounded in the long, tense silence that followed. We all waited for someone to move. To strike.

At last, Blaise sighed heavily. “You speak wisdom, Claud Deveraux. We will await Monsieur Diggory’s return. If he does not, my children and I will leave this place—and its inhabitants”—his yellow eyes found mine—“unharmed. You have my word.”

“Ah, excellent—”

But La Voisin only smirked. “Coward.”

That was all it took.

With a snarl, Terrance launched himself at her, but Nicholina appeared, seizing his half-shifted throat and twisting. He yelped, flying through the air, and landed at Blaise’s feet. Liana had already shifted. She tore after Nicholina. Blaise quickly followed, as did Ansel and Claud when they realized the blood witches were after, well—blood. Knives in hand, Ismay and her sisters attacked the wolves’ jugulars, but the wolves moved faster, leaping atop the bar to gain higher ground. Though cornered, though outnumbered, Terrance managed to knock away Ismay’s knife, pinning her beneath his paw. When his other slashed open her face, she screamed. Coco rushed to intervene.

And I . . . I touched a finger to the whiskey on the bar. Just a finger. One simple spark—so similar, yet so different from that pub fire long ago. Had it only been a fortnight?

It felt like years.

The flames chased the whiskey down the bar to where Terrance—

No. Not Terrance. I tilted my head, bemused, as the flames instead found another, climbing up her feet, her legs, her chest. Soon she screamed in terror, in pain—trying desperately to draw blood, to claw magic from her wrists—but I only laughed. I laughed and laughed until my eyes stung and my throat ached, laughed until her voice finally pierced the smoke in my mind. Until I realized to whom that voice belonged.

“Coco,” I breathed.

I stared at her in disbelief, releasing the pattern. The flames died instantly, and she crumpled to the floor. Smoke curled from her clothing, her skin, and she gasped between sobs, struggling to catch her breath. The rest of the room came back in pieces—Ansel’s horrified expression, Terrance’s frantic shout, Ismay’s mad dash to find honey. When I stumbled forward to help her, a hand caught my throat.

“No closer,” La Voisin snarled, her nails biting into my skin.

“Enough, Josephine.” Deveraux loomed over us, graver than I’d ever seen him. “Release her.”