Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,41

another swig and grins at me, looking a little giddy himself. “I’m sure you never had anything half that delectable back in your own world.”

I think of cotton candy at the summer fair, of sugar cookies at Christmas, of crème-filled chocolate eggs left by the supposed Easter Bunny. If all those flavors were somehow combined into one, it would almost reach the wonder of that pink stuff.

Instead of answering, I hold out my hands. “Could I have a little more?”

Whitt chuckles and passes the bowl back. I take a bigger swallow than could really be called “a little” before he pulls it out of my grasp. “Watch you don’t drown yourself in that, mite.”

My head tips back against the cushioned chair, the warmth swelling from my belly all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. Why get hungover if you could just have this “cure” to begin with?

My thoughts spin around that question and bounce off another consideration of cures. My head feels heavy when I lift it to look at Whitt. “I’m a cure. Not for hangovers. For going wild when it’s a full moon.”

“Indeed you are.” He winks at me and throws back the rest of the syrup. “Wouldn’t want to try the hair of the dog approach there. A pity we can’t package you up in the pantry so easily.”

Hair of the dog. I’ve heard that expression before—from my parents, way back when?—but I don’t remember what it means, if I ever knew. The entire contents of my head have started spinning now, but it’s an exhilarating sensation, like whirling around on a merry-go-round.

I cling onto the thread I’d meant to pursue, pulling the words from my mind as if they’re unravelling from a spool. “You talked about a tonic—you could keep a tonic in the pantry. Why didn’t you just keep using that? Why did you come looking for me?”

“Oh, we didn’t know it was you we’d find. We just wanted our own means of making the tonic. Aerik didn’t often share with us, you see. We’re somewhat out-of-favor with most of our Seelie brethren. And he did enjoy holding that over our heads. No more!”

“Because of me?”

“One way or another.” Whitt tosses the empty bowl onto the coffee table and stretches in the chair, more cat-like than wolfish in that moment. A very large cat that could sprout claws just as sharp. “No more living on the fringes of the Mists, human drudges just around the corner. No more half-sized keep for a home. No more dwindling pack. As soon as our lord and master gets on with sorting it all out.”

A bit of an edge has crept into his flippant tone, but my attention has stuck on something else. The fringes of the Mists? Humans just around the corner? Are we close to the regular world here, then?

I want to ask that, but when I open my mouth, all that tumbles out is a breathless laugh. My mind isn’t just whirling but soaring now—I’m suddenly sure that if I reached up I could brush my fingers over the ceiling. The colors of the chairs with their leafy patterns are so vibrant they make me want to cry for awe. Am I even still sitting in one or am I floating?

“You did like that syrup, didn’t you?” Whitt says with a laugh of his own. “Feed you on this every day, and you’d be happy enough.”

In some distant part of my brain, it occurs to me that this isn’t normal. It isn’t right. No regular food or drink would give me this giddy, soaring sensation. It might not be the cacophony of sounds and color that the pulpy mash put me through, but this—Whitt’s hangover cure—it’s plenty intoxicating in itself.

I can’t quite bring myself to care, though. I reach upward, in the grips of the notion that if I just angle my arms right, I can flap them and fly off the chair like a bird.

Whitt leans toward me, his bright blue eyes sparkling, the same pleased glow in his face that I saw when I watched him at his party the other night. “What are you trying to do, little birdie?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and giggle so hard my ribs vibrate with the sound. “Is this what you have all those parties for? To float like this?”

“Something like that. Don’t fly too far now.”

“No. That wouldn’t be good. I might hit my head on the ceiling.” I giggle even harder.