Wow.

All the nights I’d lain awake, my dick in my hands, imagining what it would be like being with Bianca … my wildest dreams were nothing compared with the reality. My body still buzzed from the heat of our mating.

Bianca’s head rested on my chest, wisps of her pixie hair trailing across my skin. Her chest rose and fell, a perfect rhythm. Through the grimy attic window, pale moonlight streamed across the bed, illuminating her skin with an eerie glow. I rubbed my finger over the wound on the side of her neck, the mark that said she was mine.

She’s mine.

Even though exhaustion clung to my body, and from the sounds of the dying party below it must be the early hours of the morning, I couldn’t sleep. I could only count the knots in the wooden planks along the wall, and replay scenes from before. Bianca’s lips on mine, Bianca’s tiny, pert breasts, her nipples hardening under my touch. Her tongue sliding along my cock … the way her mouth opened when she came …

Damn, now I was hard. I’d never be able to sleep.

Bianca let out a tiny snort, her eyelids fluttering before settling still. Her arm weighed down on my chest. I groaned as a cramp seared along my arm.

Bianca wasn’t a morning person, especially after a night of partying. She’d sleep for most of the day. Meanwhile, this cramp wouldn’t get any better, and my stomach was starting to rumble. I’d been too nervous to eat before the wedding, and too agitated to enjoy all the amazing food at the party.

As gently as I could, I dragged my arm out from under Bianca. She moaned a little, settling back into the pillow as though I’d never been there. I rolled off the tiny bed and grabbed a clean set of clothes from my rucksack in the corner. I backed out of the room, half certain that when I returned she’d disappear, like a mirage.

I padded downstairs, trying to avoid the creaking steps, but pretty much every wooden board in this old house creaked. A Dutch artist collapsed at the foot of the attic stairs lifted his head and glared at me. Half a cupcake was stuck to his forehead.

I picked my way across the first floor landing, trying to avoid disturbing the overturned bottles, glittery costume remnants, streamers, and tangled, collapsed bodies. From the balustrade of the main staircase, Bianca’s cat Macavity glared at me, as if to say, “Look at the chaos you have wrought.”

“If only you knew, Mac.” I patted his head. Macavity shot me a disgusted look, and bounded down the stairs toward the kitchen.

I gripped the balustrade and started down the stairs. My fingers dragged through something sticky. Fuck, I don’t even want to know what that is. I yanked my hand away, fumbling my way down to the entrance hall and through the sitting room. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows, casting eerie pools of light across the mess.

People slumped in every available chair and corner, bodies twisted in various contortions. Bottles and plates lay strewn across every surface. Several cupcakes were stuck to the wall by crusted icing, forming a giant anarchist’s A.

I set about cleaning up, dumping all the empty bottles into the recycling bins, and carrying the glasses and plates into the kitchen to be picked up later by the rental company. In the centre of the ballroom, I found my torn shirt and kilt. There were lipstick marks all over it, and someone had stolen my sporran and boxers. I glanced around at the collapsed party guests, wondering which one of them had nicked them. Artists were weird.

I went into the kitchen with arms full of dishes, and turned the coffee machine on. I’d never been much of a coffee drinker – there wasn’t exactly a good place to plug in a machine in the Aberdeen woods – but ever since I’d started hanging out with Bianca, she’d been trying to convert me. While the beans roasted, I rummaged around in the fridge to find the milk. Belinda had left some trays of savouries and cheesecake bites in there. Breakfast of kings. I stuffed a few in my mouth and gathered up a plate to take up to Bianca.

I picked my way back through the darkened house, resisting the urge to whistle a tune. I’d never been this happy in my entire life. As I stepped onto the first floor landing, a muffled voice called something out to me. I whirled around, but couldn’t see anyone conscious. It took me a moment to realise I was hearing a voice coming through one of the bedroom doors. Serenity Jones’ room.

I waded through the filth on the floor and stood against the door, trying to keep my breathing shallow so I wouldn’t make a sound. I pressed my ear against the door and listened, although I could only pick up a few snatches of conversation.

“… a pretty wild night … yes, debauchery aplenty, and you wouldn’t believe… a werewolf … don’t worry … going to expose … much know the truth … yes, I’ve got pictures … emailing them through now.”

Great. That’s just wonderful. She’s already calling in her story. In a matter of hours, photographs of the world’s first werewolf would be circulating across the globe.

Should I do something? Now was my chance to make good on the stupid mistake I’d made. I could leap in there, teeth bared, and threaten her into silence. My hand closed around the door handle.

No. That was what my father would have done, solved the problem with intimidation and violence. What if she refused to stop the story? I’d have to hurt her. I stared down at my hand, watching my fingers curl into a fist.

I stepped back, determination setting in. I’d find a way to make this right, somehow, and I’d do it my way, without threats or violence or breaking any laws.

Talk to Caleb. He’ll already have a solution. Apologise and hope like hell he doesn’t kick you out.

I turned away from Serenity’s door. A stream of moonlight stretched from the window at the end of the hallway, illuminating a long rectangle, ending on one of the gilded portraits on the opposite wall. I stopped and stared at the image. It was of a young girl – she couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen when it was painted. She sat in one of the high-backed chairs in the downstairs library, her hand resting on a closed volume in her lap. The artist had taken great pains to render the folds of fabric and elaborate embroidery of her dress, and the enormous choker and ring that adorned her body.

Moonlight glinted off the girl’s eyes. They held me mesmerised – deep pools of icy blue that beckoned me closer, that seemed to follow me as I took a step across the landing. They were Bianca’s eyes.

Her face was Bianca’s, too – the pointed chin, high cheekbones, tiny, bow-shaped lips. I knew without a doubt I was looking at one of Bianca’s ancestors and—

Holy shit.

The realisation hit me with the force of a freight train, stunning me so much I nearly dropped the tray.

The ring. The girl was wearing the Benedict Ring. It was right there on her hand – the twin snakes coiled around a large, blood-red stone. I couldn’t believe it – I’d walked past this portrait dozens of times while heading back and forth from the attic. I’d spent a month trawling through the papers in The Prim’s attic, and all the time, evidence of the ring was right in front of my face.

I stared at the calligraphy in the frame’s nameplate – Silvia Sinclair, 1835. It’s the same girl who wrote the scrapbook we discovered in the attic. My heart thundered against my chest. I stepped over a Sicilian acrobat slumped against the wall to peer at the ring, wishing I could reach inside the painting and pluck it from her fingers.

Spurned on by the discovery, I dropped the tray on the sideboard and flicked on the light. “Hey, what gives?” the acrobat grumbled from below my feet. The German by the stairs groaned and pulled the corner of the rug over his head.

I scanned the other portraits in the hall with fresh eyes. I located the ring in five more, all dated before Silvia’s. Two women wore the rosary Bianca’s dad had shown me as well. In all the paintings dated after Silvia’s, the rosary was present in some, but the ring was nowhere to be seen.

For weeks I’d been straining my eyes on old documents, desperately hoping I’d find some clue as to the whereabouts of the ring. Now I had a date for the last true sighting of the ring. Silvia was the last person in the family to wear it.

But where had it gone? If it was such a family heirloom, why had it disappeared? With its tiny rooms filled with nooks and crannies, Primrose House was the perfect place to hide something small, something you didn’t want anyone to know you had.

The ring … it could be somewhere in Bianca’s house.