Wicked Ever After(2)

“Your lady? Ha! Your wrinkled apple, more like,” I muttered as he helped me to my feet.

I wobbled, but then again, I was wearing stiletto-heeled boots. Because surely it wasn’t that come-hither look in his eye that made me feel all wobbly in the middle.

But it was. Even after six years by his side, I still got chills when he looked at me like that.

“Fine wines only grow sweeter with age, Letitia,” he said gently.

I snatched my hand from his grasp. “Don’t call me that!”

“But it’s your name.”

“It’s an old-lady name!”

“And you’re not an old lady.” As I stomped toward the caravan’s circle of warmth, he paced alongside me, barely out of breath. “Or at least . . . you needn’t be.”

Ripping off my dirt-smudged glove, I felt the skin around my eyes with my fingertips. Wrinkled, pitted with lines of laughter and sorrow, lines that had deepened in six short years from the good-natured grin of my thirties to the crepey ditches of a woman in her sixties. It wasn’t fair, dammit, and how dare he say that, much less in public? The only other woman he’d ever loved had been a Bludwoman and beautiful. If Merissa had appeared before us just then, she would have looked half my age and had twice my magic and talents. It was unbearable, being trapped in a body that didn’t feel like mine and constantly comparing myself with the unattainable Bludwomen who threw themselves at Criminy as if I were just a tired old plaything.

“Again with that ‘immortal kiss’ crap? ‘Oh, I’m such a sexy vampire. Let me drink all your blood and spit it back into your mouth, and blah blah blah, you can never go back to Earth and see your grandmother again, much less help her die with any kind of dignity, even though you live with insane amounts of stress every single day that you’re in Sang with the devilishly good-looking ringmaster you love while your grandmother is two wheezy breaths away from kicking the damn bucket.’ ”

Firm hands settled on my waist, snatching me backward, lifting me in an effortless swirl of skirts that felt oh-so-Disney, or would have if he hadn’t been grinning at me with fangs in his mouth, lust in his eyes, and a mostly ornamental whip coiled on his hip.

“The moment I blud you, love, those wrinkles that I definitely don’t see will melt right into soft, youthful skin like fresh cream kissed with roses. You’ll still be terribly young, for a Bludwoman. Until that moment, I’ll love you, just as I do now, just as I always have. My ‘immortal kiss,’ as you call it, just waits for your word. This problem will solve itself.”

He tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow, checked that Vil was tending the turnstile, and towed me toward his damn caravan. And I let him, because despite the fact that I’d just had a hissy fit, I knew in my heart he was right.

Criminy Stain was always right.

I couldn’t enjoy the caravan after that. I should have known better. The magic I’d felt my first night there could never be replicated. More and more often these days, I found myself chasing old joys, hunting for thrills that had dissipated. I drank more red wine than usual, persuaded Emerlie to teach me tightrope, and spent evenings testing my edibility and resilience by wandering the moors to see which blud creatures might challenge me. I’d had enough of Criminy’s blud by now to be not quite human, and I required at least a few drops a day to stay sane. The blud madness crept closer with every sip, urging me to drink deeper and release the beast waiting, curled, within me. Urging me to hunt. It was the worst of both worlds: I had to remain human to visit my grandmother on Earth, but every day I waited aged me a week and hurled me deeper into what felt like an abyss of monstrousness. Some nights, I woke up on the moors, fingernails ripped and bloody, mouth redolent of cabernet, surrounded by fanged forest creatures I couldn’t remember tearing to shreds.

After being forced to kill a particularly hungry bludstag and carry it home on my shoulders for the cook pot, I’d kept closer to the safety of the caravan lights. I still couldn’t accept that parts of me were slowly edging into bludded territory, even though I was haunted nightly by my fortune-teller vision of my own hands turned black and clawed. Which was worse, to age unnaturally fast or to accept that you were becoming something different against your will?

I’d asked Casper about it once, when we were in London. When he’d first sampled blud from every Bludman he’d met, my fellow Stranger from Earth had merely thought to render himself unappetizing to his friends. Eventually, however, it had taken him over completely and nearly driven him mad. And yet that recklessness had helped bring him his perfect match, his Ahnastasia. Becoming a Bludman had ensured that all his dreams had come true.