“Aw, you don’t mean that, Snookums,” Marty said with a hitch in her voice, her wings sagging.
“I damn well do. And listen, if I don’t make…You know what the fuck I mean. Any bitches come sniffin’ around my man, you better take ’em out. Hard. I will haunt you from the afterlife if you screw it up, Blondie. But mostly,” she said, her words beginning to slur, “take care of Charlie. I don’t want some damn stranger muckin’ my kid’s head up. You two know what I want for her. Keep her close. Promise me, please.”
Marty and Wanda looked at each other. The fear for their friend was clear and sharp, almost palpable, falling over the room with a heavy hand.
Wanda pressed her fingers to her lips. “You just hush, Dark One. Charlie’s just fine, and so are Greg and Arch and Darnell, and our men, and Hollis, and you will be, too because we don’t leave each other—ever. We’ll be home before you know it. Trust me, Vampire.”
Nina nodded and closed her eyes, depleted, her body limp as she sagged into her friends. Carl whimpered, driving his nose under her body and hiding his eyes.
On quiet feet, Toni began handing out coffee to the women while she silently prayed Ellesandra would have something in her magical arsenal to save Nina.
Hamish brought dainty sandwiches with fat sausages in them, slathered in mustard, the delicious scent almost making Toni’s eyes roll to the back of her head.
She made plates for Marty and Wanda, filling the delicate China to the brim with food because she had to do something or she’d lose her mind.
What if Nina died because she was trying to help her? It didn’t matter that if you took the rational path, no one in a million years could have predicted the fate of Toni’s words. What mattered was these people were helping her, and their support had become invaluable, and now someone was in danger of losing her life.
“Sit, Toni,” Wanda ordered, pointing to a chair, her eyes glassy. “You need to eat, too. You’ve had another rough day and I won’t have you collapsing.”
Toni stuffed a knuckle in her mouth to keep from screaming her fears for Nina out loud. Instead she whispered hoarsely, “There has to be something we can do. Maybe Ellesandra can zap you guys back home. I’m fine. I really am. I can get to the castle without you. I’ll explain to the king when I get there. He doesn’t sound like a bad guy. No way would he let someone die just because of some stupid rule. We can get a sick note or something from the big boss Ellessandra. She’ll explain. Surely he’ll listen to her. I just can’t let this go on—”
The clunk of Jon’s boots interrupted her as he came back into the room and knelt down in front of Nina, his handsome face pained. “I shall carry you, milady. Fear not, ’tis just I, at your service.” He looked to Marty and Wanda then. “May I?”
“Ellesandra can help?” Marty whispered, a tear falling from her eyes as she stroked Nina’s cheek with the back of her hand.
His nod was curt, his strong jaw tight. “We think so. Though we must do so apace.” He scooped up Nina’s limp form in his big arms and turned to take her from the room, his muscled thighs carrying him toward the back of Ellesandra’s home, where he disappeared again.
Toni gulped as she stared down at her coffee, unable to even consider drinking it. What had seemed so appealing yesterday, what she’d likely have given her left lung and a kidney for one sip of, felt stupid and vapid now.
She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and let her head rest in her hands, tears slipping from her lashes and falling to the mosaic-tiled floor as she closed her eyes and made another bargain with the universe to save Nina.
Take me. If this involves the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” theory of the realm, then take me instead. No one will even know I’m gone back in Jersey. Please, just take me.
Jon pushed his way out the back door of Ellesandra’s, and Toni’s heart began that crazy crashing his appearance always evoked while her stomach did a backflip.
And on cue, shafts of light twinkled over his head and the strains of that stupid harp rang in her ears.
“Shut up, would you?” she hissed to the sky with a roll of her eyes.
“Milady, speak up. I did not hear you.”
“I said, how long do we wait to find out if it worked?” she asked Jon as he sat beside her under a portico by a fire pit made of white stone.
She watched the glistening snow fall beneath a pink and deep-purple sky. She was wrapped in a blanket made of the softest cashmere smelling of rose petals, hunkered down on a toadstool made for two, hoping against hope whatever Ellesandra had cooked up for Nina worked.
His handsome face was grim. “Ellesandra said we must wait until the midnight hour.”