“His purple nurples,” Hugh finished, and—still shaking his head—ushered Gwen into the front passenger seat of Lorrie’s car.
9
“Stop fussing,Gaston.” The outline of her supine body barely visible under the mountain of cashmere throws Max had already piled atop her, Edie pushed away her boyfriend’s latest offering. “The next thousand-dollar blanket you put on me, I’m using as a napkin when I eat my buffalo wings.”
At the moment, Edie—a common human woman of uncommon spirit, determination, and kindness, in Gwen’s view—was lying on an elaborate satin chaise, of the sort one might find in Versailles. Hells, maybe it truly had come from the Sun King’s furniture collection, given Max’s French background and indeterminate but very advanced age.
Either way, Edie didn’t appear at all overawed by the luxury surrounding her or the powerful vampire at her side. Who was, in fact, fussing over her.
“Buffalo wings?” Outrage creased Max’s broad forehead. “You wouldn’t.”
“You know I would.”
“Dammit, Edie,” he complained.
As the couple continued to bicker happily, Gwen snuck another curious glance around the library where she and everyone else had settled.
After Max had greeted his visitors on the sagging front porch of his dilapidated 1960s ranch house, he’d led them to a hidden elevator that ushered them deep beneath the earth’s surface. That elevator had opened into this room: a lovely, cozy library, with stained-glass lamps that cast a soft glow over honey-toned antique wood and silk upholstery.
The only off note: a gorgeous, thick rug on the floor whose numerous rusty stains indicated significant bloodshed. Probably Max’s rather than Edie’s, since she wouldn’t have survived such wholesale exsanguination.
Gwen figured he simply hadn’t had time to replace it yet, given the disruption of recent events. And byrecent events, she meant the zombie breach, of course—but also his acquisition of a stubborn common human girlfriend who was still recovering from her own life-threatening injuries. She’d come so close to dying, in fact, that she’d actually chatted with a reaper, who’d arrived in expectation of guiding Edie to whatever afterlife destination Death and the Fates had considered suitable for her.
With most of the newly dead, that destination—for good or ill—was apparently quite straightforward. In a few cases, however, an argument could be made for various outcomes. Whereupon a reaper would accompany their charge to theRealm Below, the ancestral domain of Death and the Fates, and into a courtroom where an assigned demon lawyer would argue on behalf of their recently deceased client.
From what Gwen knew about Edie, she figured the common human’s eventual afterlife wouldn’t require a trial and would contain only good things. Assuming Max let her die at all. Which he probably wouldn’t, based on what Gwen had overheard several hours ago.
She was doing her best not to envy that kind of devoted love.
Without warning, Hugh rose from where he sat beside her on a gracefully curved settee, walked over to the chaise, and collected the blanket rejected by Edie. Shaking it out, he silently offered it to Gwen. She accepted it with a mouthedthank youand smiled up at him as he protectively tucked the blanket’s luxuriously soft folds around her.
The only thing that would make this moment better? If Hugh’s bare chest and arms weren’t covered by a thick black sweater. Unfortunately, though, everyone had been given time to wash up and change after Sabrina had done some basic healing on Hugh and Kip. By the time Hugh had emerged from Max’s palatial marble bathroom, all traces of Prince had disappeared…other than a bit of eyeliner the demon had missed.
She hoped he didn’t notice it anytime soon.
When he sat again, his left hip and firm leg pressed tightly to hers. Even through the blanket, the heat of his body rivaled the fire in the library’s hearth.
She shivered. Not from cold.
“Apologies.” His gaze caught hers. Held. “If you wish, I can move farther—”
He tensed as if to rise, and she caught his arm and kept him in place.
“No.” Her throat had gone Mojave dry. “Please stay where you are.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re certain?”
“Definitely.” Too tired for shame, she let herself lean infinitesimally into the unyielding support of his slim, strong frame. “You’re so warm.”
For some reason, his face dropped a little. “Ah. Very well.”
Clearing his throat, he directed his attention across the library, where their host and his girlfriend were still arguing.
At that point, Sabrina lost her already-strained patience and interrupted the drama.
“For fuck’s sake.” Sitting up straight in her brocade armchair, the witch pointed at Edie. “She’ll be fine, you overbearing mother hen of a vamp. I’ve checked her over multiple times, as you know. She just needs rest. And I need to get back to my wife, so—”
“Is everyone still squabbling over Sir Edes-a-lot’s buffalo wings?” Lorrie appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Kip. Pleased satisfaction shone bright in the cousins’ matching grins, and an unidentified orangish-red smear marred Lorrie’s left cheek. “If so, crisis averted. We ate them, along with everything else in the fridge. You’re welcome.”
