wished he knew. “No idea,” he mumbled as he stalked to the window. He looked out the open portal, but all he could see was some ivy and the rose bushes on the trellis outside his window. They appeared to be a little greener than they should be that time of the year. Perhaps Sorcha had given them a stroke? But what had opened the window? He reached to close it. But a thorny little vine shoved at his arm. “Ouch!” he cried as a thorn scraped the back of his hand. Then the vine tickled the underside of his palm. “Oh, good God,” he mumbled.
Alec watched helplessly as a large clump of vines crept over the window sill and spread across the room. Two of them went for Delia’s slippers, which lay on the floor beside his bed. The vines grasped them in their greedy little clutches and pulled them back to the window where they tossed them into the dark night.
“Umm, Delia,” Alec said helplessly. “You might want to dress.”
She hopped on top of the bed when some of the vines trailed in her direction. “What’s going on, Alec?” she cried.
“What are they?”
Alec chuckled. That little witch. She’d put a spell on his plants. Alec tossed Delia her shift just as the vines tugged her stockings from the back of a high-backed chair where she’d draped them. “Again, I would suggest that you dress,” Alec urged. “The quicker the better.”
She dropped the robe and tugged the shift over her head. The vines retreated out the window, tugging her stockings along with them. Alec leaned over his sill to peer down to the lower level, where her stockings and slippers now lay in the garden.
Alec reached for her dress when the vines grabbed it, but they were too strong. While one of them tugged the dress out the window, another wrapped around his hand to keep him from grabbing for it. Now all of her clothing, aside from her shift, lay on the garden walkway below.
Delia danced around on his bed, her feet sinking into the soft surface as she screamed, “Those are my clothes!”
“Indeed, they are,” he chuckled. “I did warn you.”
Her gaze shot to him. “You didn’t say anything about thieving plants!” She narrowed her gaze. “How the devil is that happening?”
Alec shrugged and leaned casually against the edge of his four-poster bed. He whistled softly. “I can just imagine what they’re coming for next.” His Sorcha wouldn’t leave the job half done. She’d pitch Delia from the window as well.
“Or, who.”
A particularly tricky little vine crept up the side of the bed and sneaked around Delia’s wrist like a shackle. Then it tugged. She nearly toppled headfirst from the bed, but she found her footing after a moment and ran toward the window as the vine pulled her. She stuck her head out and looked down at her belongings.
“Have a good night, Delia,” Alec called to her as the vines bodily picked her up and—rather gently, truth be told —carried her from the window and deposited her on the garden floor.
Her screams would certainly wake the neighbors. But he was enjoying the performance so much that he didn’t particularly care. He could make them forget tomorrow. Just as she could be made to forget. He walked to the window and looked out once more. Delia was frantically putting her clothes on as the vines stood sentinel. When she was done, they gave her a shove, much like a man would shove another man he really wanted to get rid of. Delia wasted no time. She didn’t even look back up at Alec. She ran. She left one of her slippers behind and didn’t seem to care. But the vines must have noticed it at the same moment Alec did because one of them picked up the discarded footwear and tossed it at her, hitting her square in the backside.
Delia stopped and picked up the shoe.
It was a damn good thing she did, or the slipper would have kicked her arse all the way back to the Thorne and Rose.
Alec hadn’t laughed so hard since he’d become a vampyre. “Oh, Sorch,” he said to himself, “I believe I’m in for a challenge. One I will enjoy almost as much as I enjoy you.”
Tomorrow he would marry a witch with extraordinary powers. Powers that could toss a lass out a window and throw shoes at her head. Powers that could tie people up.