Page 173 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

“How original,” I said. There was an unavoidable slip of tightness in my cheery voice.

“Special magick from a special girl,” Aster praised, characteristically oblivious.

Juliette had dropped her bridal whites and was instead wearing the same shade of blue I’d worn previously. And her flowers were an exact replica of what I’d sold at Celeste’s before the born had pushed me out of business and crushed my dreams of opening my own shop.

It wasn’t as if the mimicking was worse than the murdering, but gods above did it inflame my rage in a way I couldn’t consciously put words to.

It made me regress to a childish state of pettiness, triggering an urge to expose Juliette and win this game I’d never agreed to play in the first place.

Instead, I sat across from Aster, refusing to show her any reaction other than disinterest, as if I hadn’t even noticed her obsessive mirroring.

She tried again to talk in depth about her garden and her love of faeries and trickster spirits. She bathed in Aster’s affirmations and praise like a love-deprived child, desperate to be seen and acknowledged.

I swallowed down a sip of tea—after, of course, assessing its magickal properties for poisons.

The lavender and lemon balm made me think of Mena.

I looked straight at Juliette, who settled and stretched in Aster’s lap like a cat. Red fang marks dotted her fair neck.

She locked eyes with me. I grinned, and her gray eyes flashed in surprise.

“The tea is lovely.” I reached for a macaron and let it melt on my spiteful tongue.

“What about you, Evie? I know you once supplied all manner of witch goods to a local establishment. Have you been crafting anything new lately?” Aster asked.

I studied him, the amusement in his amber eyes, the way Juliette was now playing with his blond hair as she frowned deeply.

What had I been crafting? Oh, you know, vampire poisons and weapons, mostly.

“Candles and teas,” I said sweetly.

Juliette made a little huff, biting into a cookie. As usual, her actions and moods made little sense. What had changed between the time she told me she wanted to be sisters and now that had inspired her to kill my friend?

“Those girls at Celeste’s aren’t good for you, Evie,” she said, her eyes swimming with a sudden earnestness.

Aster lifted a brow. “What are you talking about, kitten?”

Heat crawled up my spine. My palms tingled.

“Those girls aren’t her friends. They’re nothing like Evie,” Juliette said, answering Aster’s question. “They would never be able to understand her.”

Something wounded and subconscious reared its ugly head against my will, a nudge from my deepest fears.

Wait. Had Juliette been trying to hurt me? Or had she been trying toprotectme? In a demented, jealous sort of way. Just as she’d done for Aster.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” I said, watching her closely.

Juliette’s face relaxed. “That’s what family is for.”

Don’t you dare, I urged my sickened, thirsty shadows. Aster relaxed in his chair. I bit into another pastry as he started off on one of his monologues.

“Nothing is more important than family, girls,” he said. “One of the greatest writers Ravenia has ever seen, Bartholameu Holt, once said that the right chosen family is far stronger than a lineage by blood. That’s why it’s so important to choose wisely.”

“Exactly, Sir,” Juliette said. “You’re the most intelligent man in the realm.”

Aster rattled off his sanctimonious diatribe as I continued to envision his head on a spike and Juliette’s blood watering my carnivorous plants.

The sheer insanity of Aster and Juliette thinking I’d be wooed by a fucking tea party and promises of wealth and protection in the midst of bloody authoritarianism was beyond comprehension. But it shouldn’t have surprised me. While they tortured children in the basement and burned witches and holy books, they simultaneously held classy dinner parties, ensured proper decorum and appearances, and made bets on sporting events.