Page 12 of Once Upon a Dark October
Chapter Twelve
A t half past six in the evening, we gathered in the front parlor for what Morrigan considered a formal dinner. I’d learned that the coven preferred to take their meals where they could lounge around a lively fire rather than the extravagant table that spanned the length of the dining room. I had no complaints, for I’d been feeding from Morrigan mostly in a state of undress between her bedchamber and washroom for the past week.
In spite of the fledgling cravings that threatened to gnaw at me from the inside—and my personal preference to have Morrigan undressed—this arrangement made me truly feel part of the coven, not a bloodthirsty, feverish monster that had to be sequestered. They had welcomed me into their home at my weakest, lowest point, sheltered and cared for me as they had promised that fateful night.
A connection had been forged between us not only through blood but compassion. I’d do anything to return their kindness. To earn my place here among them, even if it took years. Decades, perhaps.
Gwen had arrived early to set up a tea service on a gleaming silver tray, the autumn leaf-patterned porcelain cups already full of chilled blood. She had taken up an armchair, sipping at her teacup while she cut festive shapes from colorful parchment strewn across her lap.
“Evening, lovelies,” she greeted. “You look much better, Mor. At least you’re fit to be around again. Elspeth must’ve worked her own magic to make you tolerable.” Gwen winked at me over the rim of her cup.
Morrigan and I nestled into the settee. Her long-suffering sigh was teasing as she reached for the tray. “She did , thank you very much.” A teacup had been left empty, which I thought had been meant for Clarabella until Morrigan pierced her forearm with her fang and let a stream of bright crimson flow, filling it for me. “Any sign of Josephine and Clarabella?” Morrigan handed over the teacup with care not to waste a single drop and stain the cushions. “This won’t be enough to stave off your hunger, so don’t be shy about asking for seconds.”
I held the teacup between my palms, scenting it eagerly, watching the firelight dance across the surface.
“Or thirds,” Gwen laughed. “Fledgling hunger is a beast . I remember it so fondly, like it was only yesterday. Of course, that was thousands upon thousands of yesterdays ago. I had a terrible time with the fevers, but after all that unpleasantness, it was really great fun. Spent a lot of it without my clothes. Lots of willing partners eager to help the…cravings.”
Morrigan’s laughter ricocheted around the inside of her cup while Gwen resumed cutting the outline of a spider. “Jo said she’d be down soon, but we both know her definition of soon is unpredictable at best, so she told me it was all right if we started without her.”
“And Clarabella?”
Gwen shrugged. There was grief at the edge of her expression. “We can only hope.”
Morrigan relaxed into the plush cushions and stretched an arm behind my shoulders along the settee’s curve. “Drink up, darling.” She nodded at my cup before hooking her forefinger around the handle of her own. “I know it’s not as thrilling as feeding straight from the vein.”
Gwen couldn’t contain her scandalized giggling. “Definitely not. Did you know that sounds have a habit of traveling far around here? Stone isn’t helpful when you want to be discreet in a vampire household.”
The effort to conceal my blushing was lost. “Oh, stars …”
Morrigan lifted her hand, unbothered.
“So, Elspeth, what do you like to do for fun?” Gwen asked. “Aside from making Morrigan come.”
I choked on my next sip.
“Don’t mind Gwen’s teasing, it’s how she likes to show affection,” Morrigan advised. “And just so you know, Gwendolyn dear, we weren’t making any attempts to be discreet.”
Gwen smiled. “I never thought otherwise.” She drained the rest of her cup and set it aside. “So, Elspeth? Interests? Things do you like to do to pass the time? You’ve got quite a lot of it ahead of you now.”
Suddenly I had forgotten my table etiquette, for the cravings had pulled me into their tide and I could do little to keep from drowning. I drank with a fledgling’s abandon, the hunger ravaging the moment the first swallow of Morrigan’s blood hit the back of my throat. It was unseemly, disgusting, but politeness had lost to instinct. I was monstrous, overcome and desperate. I slurped the last dregs—somewhat mortified at the noises—and swept my tongue around the inside of the cup, licking every bit of red.
An errant droplet trailed from the corner of my mouth. I would’ve caught it, if not for Morrigan wrenching the teacup out of my hands.
Gwen burst into a fit of giggles. “Hunger indeed.”
Morrigan was already refilling it without my asking. She chased away the embarrassment fluttering around my stomach with a kiss upon my temple, pushing the teacup back into my hands.
“Here you are,” she said, nosing along the swell of my cheekbone, breathing the scent of her blood on me. Our hands stayed together on the teacup.
Morrigan claimed the wayward trail of crimson at the corner of my mouth, her tongue gliding slowly down the slope of my chin, then back again. My stomach resumed its fluttering for a different reason, warmth unfurling there as she brushed her lips against mine. She did not seem to care that we had an audience; it was as if we were caught in a single, halted moment of eternity. Eyes closed, my thighs trembled with wanting, our mouths hovering close enough to kiss—properly, with that consuming desire Morrigan had earlier—before she picked up her teacup again.
The breath I’d held rushed out of me slowly. Lost in the scent of her, the warmth of her blood, she was making it difficult to restrain my other craving. The blood I’d taken pooled at the center of me. Morrigan’s hand rested on my thigh, rubbing unhelpful circles.
I sipped at her blood, tried to ignore the aching she’d stirred.
“Don’t worry, Elspeth,” Gwen said. “Sooner you embrace those cravings, not run from them, the better off you’ll be. We have our ways of hiding it so the society mortals often forget. But they’ll never understand—they don’t need to. All that matters is making peace with the monster inside you now.”
Morrigan finished her cup. “And sorcery is a different monster entirely.”
My lips went still on the cup’s rim, Morrigan’s blood seeming to answer with a thrum of latent power. The craving in me vanished.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Josephine said by way of greeting, bustling into the parlor with a book beneath her arm. “Hope you’ve left me some, I’m starved.”
“Forgot to eat again, didn’t you?” Gwen asked. “I brought you up luncheon hours ago, what happened to it?”
Josephine grabbed the teacup Morrigan handed off to her as she passed. She was already drinking hastily from it while she sunk into an armchair next to Gwen. “It’s a rutting mess up there—couldn’t tell you,” she admitted. “No sense looking for it now, my brain’s as scattered as the laboratory. Bella, bless her, she keeps trying to clean up after me. A lost cause if there ever was one.” She gulped down the rest, then poured herself another cup from a tea kettle, the silver polished to a shine. After she’d drained it halfway, Josephine finally came up for a breath, wiping her mouth on a folded kerchief.
“Only you understand the mysteries of its chaos,” Gwen said in her melodic, lilting cadence.
“Will Clarabella be joining us?” Morrigan asked.
“Not tonight,” Josephine said. “But she mentioned meeting Elspeth in the library this afternoon.”
I swallowed another mouthful before I spoke. “I was sorry to have frightened her. I hadn’t meant to, I was only curious.”
“You didn’t,” Josephine answered. “Bella saw the blood running from your ear and felt badly about it. Wanted me to make apologies for her. She hadn’t known anyone was around to hear her singing. No one’s ever in that wing.” She set her emptied teacup onto the leather-bound book in her lap. “Bella told me you’re welcome to explore the library if you want. You don’t remember, but she was there when you were bedridden with fever, watching over you once the curse took us each midnight.”
Much of those days were lost to me despite not having been too far behind them. But there were scattered pieces I tried to fit back together again; an icy breath upon on my brow, the air plunging winter-sharp around me, someone there and gone in mere seconds. A reassurance whispered into my thoughts. Rest now, the morning will be here soon enough.
“I’ll have to thank her properly,” I replied. “Did she curate the library herself? I only had a glance, but the collection seems extensive.”
“Some of it,” Josephine answered. “Library’s been there through bloodlines of our coven. Bella always enjoyed maintaining it—least that hasn’t changed. I thank the stars every night that she still has something to keep her mind busy.”
“You were in the abandoned wing again?” Morrigan asked, diverting our conversation. It felt like I had broken a rule I hadn’t known about, aside from her warning about locked doors. “There’s nothing of interest up there.”
“Oh, on the contrary, I find locked rooms to be exceptionally interesting,” I countered. “It’s rather difficult to believe there is nothing behind those magnificent doors.”
No one appeared to be as interested as I was, preoccupying themselves with anything other than looking in my direction.
“A lot of nothing,” Gwen said, returning to her parchment crafts. “So much nothing you’ll be bored of it in seconds.”
Josephine was balancing her teacup and book before they both slipped from her lap. “Remember: even if something looks beautiful from the outside, it might be hiding rot at its core.”
“Like Sonia,” Gwen added.
“Well now you’ve only made me even more curious.”
“We’ll discuss it later perhaps, but—” Morrigan stood up, a blur of motion and haste, rattling the teacups and kettle on the tray. She was peering upward at the expanse of the ceiling, standing still as the gargoyles that flanked those locked doors. She moved slowly toward the middle of the parlor, a predator on the hunt.
“Mor?” Gwen asked, setting her work onto the table beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone is here. ”
I rose from the settee, senses perked at the sounds I couldn’t parse out—some distance away, perhaps somewhere above us. A harried skittering like rats along the wharf. Claws on stone, on roof tiles. Morrigan’s power hummed to life on the air, saturating it with a burst of warm iron.
Morrigan seized my arm. “Into the cloakroom,” she ordered. The grimace that wanted to pinch her expression was tamed for the moment, but I could see it beneath the surface of her predatory calmness. “Quickly, now. And do not make a sound. Whatever happens, do not draw out your power.” I hesitated, my eyes locked on hers. She squeezed my upper arm before she released me, her fingertips staying a second too long. “We’ll be fine. But you must stay quiet.”