“Do you regret it?” I’d asked, not quite meeting his too-bright eyes.
He’d laughed the Bludman’s carefree laugh, leonine head thrown back and dimples deeper than ever. “Darlin’, just be what you are,” he’d said. “Come to the Dark Side. We got cookies.”
Criminy never stopped glaring at his onetime rival for my affections, but he did mutter, “Bloody bastard’s got a point.”
I thought that visiting the caravan the way the humans did, with fresh eyes, might wake me up a little. But the way Crim was looking at me now, with pity and sorrow—so not magical. In a bad mood over ruining my boot and my night, I slipped my hand from his arm. “Go run your damn caravan. I’m going to visit Nana.”
“Shall I tuck you in, love?” Sharp black eyebrows waggled, and my skin went on red alert at the dark promise in his eyes.
“There should be nothing sexy about visiting my grandmother. You can tuck me in later. I’m too . . .” I waved my hands as tears threatened. “Too damn human to go to bed with you right now.”
Faster than lightning, he caught my hands, threading his gloved fingers through mine, and spun me around to press my back against the cool wood of the nearest shadowed caravan wagon. His lips found mine, hot and greedy, and I melted against the urgency of his hips through layers of fashionable petticoats. Every nerve in my body rose to his touch, the breath catching in my throat at the sweet wine taste of his tongue. His kiss drove every thought from my head, pushed me out of my constantly worrying mind and straight into animal mode, all lust and teeth and hunger hammering to the clatter of calliope pipes.
“Didn’t say anything about going to bed, poppet,” he murmured, teeth grazing my ear.
“Bludhoney trash,” someone muttered, passing by with the crowd. It was impossible to forget what humans thought of Bludmen, and especially of the women who kept company with them.
Criminy growled, and the spell broke as he spun around with murder in his eyes. I reached for his coattails to tug him back.
“Crim! You’re not allowed to kill customers.” I yanked almost hard enough to split the heavy fabric, and he turned back to me, the beast fading in his eyes.
“They paid for a show. It’s my job to give them one.”
I stepped out from the wagon’s overhang, adjusting my hat and blushing. “Not now. Not murder, not sex. I still need to feel human sometimes. Any messages for Nana?”
Without a hair out of place, he grinned the most charming grin a predator could possess. “Tell her my next move is Knight to Pawn Three. Let the old bat deal with that.” And with a tip of his hat and a whirl of his cape, he was gone.
2
Back in Criminy’s bloodred wagon, I unpinned my hat and slipped off my remaining glove. I’d lost or destroyed more pairs of gloves than I could count since arriving in Sang. Most humans grew up covered from head to toe to keep the scent of their blood hidden from Bludmen, but I knew that was pointless and hated being confined. The magic that allowed me to move between Earth and Sang was peculiar, but I knew from experience that there was no point in suffering from sweaty fingers or crushing a perfectly good bonnet when I’d lie down, put on my locket, and awaken to my other life on Nana’s couch in my scrubs, seconds after I’d fallen asleep. I lost no time on Earth, which meant Nana never even knew that I was gone.
The fact that she was still alive defied everything we’d been told about her third round of cancer. She was old, impossibly frail, and barely hanging on by a thread. As her hospice nurse, I felt it was a privilege to help her die with as much comfort and decency as possible, in her own home. For a magically cursed woman traveling between two worlds where time made no sense, it meant that six years in Sang was only a few weeks on Earth, and to her knowledge, I’d been by her side almost constantly, except for when I went home to feed my cat.
Nana believed she was playing chess with my new boyfriend, who texted his moves to me via iPhone. It was one of my greatest sorrows that she would never get to meet Criminy herself, as I thought she would have adored his devil-may-care attitude and, as she called it, sass. And I knew he would have charmed the heck out of her with his suave near-British accent and sly remarks.
Clad only in my night shift, I used the key around my neck to open the coffin-sized box hidden behind a sliding panel in our wagon. The inside was padded with a lovely velvet Criminy had obtained from a Turkish merchant, the locking system cleverly designed by our own Mr. Murdoch, artificer extraordinaire, so that only I could open it from the inside . . . or Criminy from the outside. We’d grown a little paranoid about keeping me safe when I was unconscious and traveling between worlds. After all, just after Criminy’s locket had magicked me to Sang six years ago, a genocidal maniac had stolen the necklace and kidnapped me as part of his plan to destroy the race of Bludmen and return Sang to humans.