lacked the tell-tale texture of facial hair. He was trying to compensate for his physical appearance of youth with austere dress. His only concession to holiday frivolity was an ostentatious medallion-broach-thingy. A ruby as big as my thumb-nail was surrounded by emeralds.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch.” He glanced at Beatrice, at me, and then he started toward me.
“Harold,” Beatrice said, flowing to my side as if she had intended to be there all along. She stood in front of me. Her assistant, servant, whatever-she-was Eleanor arrived with two more women.
The room felt charged, and the thoughts were weirdly gleeful.
“How charming!”
“Entertainment!”
“Is it vulgar to accidentally cut the faery for a sip of blood?”
I glared at that one, a rather regal looking woman who had been grandmotherly upon death, and growled. “Mine.”
“Witch.” Harold tried to push passed Beatrice. “We have no use for witches.”
Simultaneously, Beatrice said, “Back up.”
Harold drew a respectable-sized blade and tried for Beatrice’s throat. Her guards were there, but I was literally inches from her, so I pulled her backward to safety.
Harold’s knife sliced my arm from shoulder to near my elbow.
“Witches have no right—”
“Duck fucking weasel.” I kicked Harold and snatched his machete. “I’m getting sick of hearing that nonsense.”
It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Harold was somehow tied to Weasel Nuts shooting at me. I pushed that thought at Beatrice, who transformed from elegant to feral in less time that it took to blink.
“Take her out of here,” Beatrice said.
Eli had my hand, but we were jerked apart as Eleanor moved me further away from Harold. Then in a little more than a heartbeat, Eli and I were both outside.
“You are a gift,” Eleanor said. “Her Majesty will dispatch with the vermin.”
Then she was gone, and I was swaying precariously over ground that was filled with bodies, outside a castle where there were ancient draugr I very much didn’t want to adopt.
~ 7 ~
If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a poinsettia petal in my cleavage. It was hard to tell because I was losing blood faster than the average tourist losing their dinner after midnight. It could have been blood, but I thought it was a petal.
Admittedly, it was a toss-up between bleeding and vomiting on my “things I dislike” list, but in this particular moment, I was thinking I’d have preferred puking.
“Are you well enough to stand?” Eli was at my side, looking more warrior than prince. He looked fierce, even as he stepped over the already-rotting corpse.
“I’m good.” I nodded. I was standing. Well, I was leaning on a cooperative oak tree outside Beatrice’s castle, but that was like standing.
“How bad?”
“I’m upright.” I shrugged, clutching my new blade as if I’d be any use against the sort of draugr inside the castle.
“I want you to get me inside the car before my blood spills onto the ground.”
So far, I’d held my arm so the gash was angled upward, so nothing had dripped to the soil.
Yet.
“I give it about ninety seconds.” I shoved off the oak’s trunk.
Eli scooped me up and all but ran to open the passenger door on his little blue convertible. I was ready to leave, not argue with whatever Thom, Rick, or Marie I summoned if I bled on soil.
Inside the safety of the car, Eli said, “Lower your arm, cupcake.”
“Can’t. I’ll ruin the seats.” Blood wasn’t great for Eli’s butter-soft leather seats. They weren’t going to come to life, but I still had no desire to bleed on them.
If my magic wasn’t fucked sideways lately, I wouldn’t be bleeding. Trying to avoid the draugr meant I’d been careless. My temper was lousy.
“Least I got a new toy.” I patted the machete in my lap. “And Beatrice owes me.”
“You could have died.”
I don’t know if I replied. I was sleepy, the sort of sleepy that only seemed to come with massive blood loss. I closed my eyes for just a moment, but somehow my moment was almost an hour.
When I opened my eyes, Eli was driving through the city with the sort of speed that came of fae reflexes and arrogance. I was in far more danger from my average week than his driving though, so I just let myself relax as much as could.
When he scraped the undercarriage to park directly in front of the door, blocking the side walk, I didn’t argue.
And I didn’t argue when he half lifted me out of the car. All I knew was that we were on the sidewalk and then