Page 15 of How to Woo the Undead

“Does a hug mean something I am unaware of?” She scowled.

“No! No!” Both of them rushed to speak, waving hands in front of her. Hyacinth narrowed her gaze suspiciously on them. Lord Rosemont continued while Agatha laughed sweetly by his side, “It’s a simple embrace shared between two people.”

“Totally innocent!” Agatha chimed in with a sickly-sweet smile.

“Are you both being sarcastic?” She squinted even more, her vision nearly slits. They straightened, the banshee’s facesoftening while her maker’s impassive, ocular stare bore through her.

“Not at all.” Agatha shook her head.

Hyacinth huffed, “Then whatissarcasm.”

Sebastian offered with a sigh, “Basically, anything that comes out of Smith’s mouth.”

A distant ‘Hey! I heard that’ floated down the hall but it was quickly shushed and muffled by the rustling of fabric. Hyacinth glanced in the direction the voice came from, but all she could see was shadows beyond the staircase. When she returned her attention to Lord Rosemont and Agatha, they were studying her. Something suddenly filled her belly, like that of a million moths or a handful of clumsy bats. It made her flesh warm and her stitches itch. She snatched the vial from her maker and steadily backed away from them both, never taking her eyes off of them.

“I am going to bed,” she declared.

“Sweet dreams!” Agatha called out, waving to Hyacinth sweetly.

“Or! Rather, no dreams! Sweet dreamless slumber, little one. Down the whole vial then right to bed.”

Hyacinth picked up the skirt of her dress with one hand, the bear and vial in the other, and climbed back up the steps.Why are they looking at me so strangely? I still don’t know why I was made but maybe…maybe there is no reason. No good one that will explain anything, anyway.With a sigh, she stomped petulantly the whole way to her room. Once behind her bedroom doors, she pulled the cork out of the vial and drank it all the way to her bed. Throwing herself into the duvet felt good, so she made sure to flop about a bit.Really rough it up.And she even grabbed a pillow. Stuffed it to her face, muffling the sound of her scream. She learned earlier if she made a loud noise, people wouldcome running. She didn’t want them to come in and see her. She didn’t need their intrusion.

Hyacinth just wanted to scream. Pressing the soft cushion on her face, she unhinged her jaw slightly and let out a scream from deep in her dead lungs. Shortly after getting it all out and rolling onto her belly so she could press her face into the pillow—for sleep screaming—she passed out. A werewolf fur teddy bear curled up against her rib cage, choked in the pit of her elbow.

Chapter Eight:

Austin

Austincreptupthestairs at first light.I’m being silly. She can see me.He wanted to apologize for his behavior, especially the hug.I won’t do that again.Not if it brought old memories that didn’t belong to her. Especially not since it was a terrible one. So, he took a cue from Sebastian and Smith, taking a tray of food up to her room. A pile of scrambled eggs full of cheese and garlic, buttery biscuits covered in jam and cut up sausage patties. She wasn’t supposed to be eating fully solid foods, but these were the softest in the house and…well…he’d eatenwaaaaayworse when he was first created. In fact, he had a distinct memory of eating a chicken, beak and all. A memory he was preparing in his head to tell her.It’s one of my first memories, so it counts.

Excited to tell her the silly tale, he opened the bedroom door with his foot. Only to stall, tray raised in one hand, other out to the side to balance himself, eyebrows knitted in confusion. Hyacinth lay face down in her pillows like a log. A dead log. A dead log full of rocks sank to the bottom of the ocean. His heart lurched.

“Hyacinth!” he yelped.

“Huh!” Her leg kicked and the dead woman flopped to the right. She swiftly careened off the edge of the bed, arms flapping rapidly to catch herself. Unfortunately, Austin couldn’tget to her before she fell. She hit the ground with a thud as Austin set the tray on the floor beside her. She’d tangled herself up in the sheets and thrashed. Every tug she gave was in the opposite of where he pulled. His fingers were too big for such fiddly work.

“You were—no, this way. You’ve made a knot.” He gasped for air inbetween trying to kindly bark instructions.

“I feel like a knot.” Came her muffled reply.

“Left, no,myleft.”

“How do I tell who’s left I’m turning?”

Austin opened his mouth to teach her the trick of hands when he grabbed ahold of her hand…and it wasn’therhand in his grasp. He stared down at a mangled palm, ripped flesh and gnarled bone, claws like that of a cat. Austin followed the forearm into the sheets where Hyacinth kicked and found another woman in there with her. A woman who stared out through her auburn hair. Deep set eyes surrounded by dark purple half-moons, they glared at him. The nightmarish palm curled around him and he wrenched back.

Austin stumbled away from the sheets, crawling backward as the second woman disappeared. When Hyacinth huffed, flipping the fabric off her, he was already hidden from her at the end of the bed.

“Austin?” she asked, but he couldn’t look her way. Instead, his eyes were leveled at the bedroom door. His heart rapidly slammed against his ribs. Sucking in air through his nose, he tried to find words to answer her.What was that? Who was that?

He felt the shake of the bed, and he chanced a glance over his shoulder. Austin found her with her back to the side of the mattress, the tray of food in her lap.

“Hyacinth?” he exhaled.

“I remembered you didn’t want me to see you,” she answered. A fork clanked against the plate. Austin hung his head.Dang it! Again!This was supposed to be his moment to show her his face. He could still do it, but the second he tried to round the corner of the bed, he remembered the angry woman living in Hyacinth’s hair. It forced him to swallow hard.Is that a Fae thing?

“I, uh, brought you breakfast.” He managed to say through a cowardly, heavy tongue.