49. Chapter 49
Chapter 49
Cedric
W e walk back toward the cottage as the sun sets behind us.
Our intertwined fingers don’t provide enough contact, and I detangle them only to put an arm around her waist and press her closer to me. I don’t know how the version of myself from a scant hour ago thought I could get through an entire life without Delilah Anders next to me, but I am bloody glad I will never have to find out.
For as long as she’ll have me, anyway.
“What do you think Faye and Marcus were talking about at the pier?” she asks quietly, stealing a glance at her best friend and my brother who are trailing behind us.
“No clue,” I admit. Faye doesn’t seem to appreciate Marcus’s particular brand of humor, and Marcus, well… I’m sure Marcus appreciates her too much.
I’m going to need to have a word with him about that, at some point.
In the chaos of processing everything that has transpired in the past twenty-four hours, and in light of the most recent of those, namely the fact that we’ve found a way to cut my part in Joe’s conditions, it occurs to me now how Marcus’s predicament is still alive and well.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll think about that.
Or perhaps the day after. I don’t know that I’ll be willing to get out of bed so soon.
“Hey,” Delilah says. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we will.”
“Can we stop at Myrta’s for a second? I should probably talk to her,” Delilah says on a nervous breath as we approach the flower shop.
“Of course, shall I come along?”
“No need,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Myrta knows everything, by the way. The, uh, break in? That was me,” she adds with a grimace.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I did not have that transformation on my schedule, but hey! Accidents happen, I guess.”
“Was that my fault?” I ask quietly, remembering how the discovery of the alleged crime scene was the morning after we were about to sleep together–also, the morning after Delilah asked me to leave her bedroom .
“No! I mean, possibly? Faye has a theory, but we don’t know for sure. It doesn’t matter though, because I’ve been working on it. I’ll do everything I can not to make it happen again.”
“Delilah, I’m not worried about it happening again. I’m worried I did something that potentially put you in danger.”
She smiles, one hand coming to rest on my cheek. “Don’t. If anything, it was proof of the effect you have on me.”
“Are you sure it’s a good thing?”
“Yes,” she says, standing on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek lightly. “I’ll be right back.”
Delilah
“Myrta?” I ask as I pass the empty counter.
My boss doesn’t believe in ‘leaving money unattended’, but I assume there might be some other pressing matter keeping her elsewhere in the shop. It’s not like we get a lot of customers at this time of the evening, anyway.
I cast a longing glance at the hot pink peonies tinted with a peachier hue at the edge of the petals, caressing them as I pass them by.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I whisper, and though flowers can’t speak, Myrta always told me they understood.
I step further into the shop, stopping at Myrta’s office’s door. I’m about to knock when I realize the door isn’t shut, a pale yellow light the only sign of her presence.
“Myrta?” I ask again. I hear a shuffling sound, and an overtly loud clearing of throat, before Myrta’s weathered voice calls for me to come in .
I push on the door, and her hunched form greets me as she’s sitting, fingers steepled on the dark mahogany desk.
“A particularly eventful full moon, I take it?”
“You could say that,” I say with a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry for not checking in with you, but Cedric–”
She waves one hand, her expression not betraying any annoyance she might be feeling.
“I have eyes to take in the sky,” she says by way of explanation. I almost wince, thinking about how avoidable what happened last night could have been, if I’d paid more attention, though it turned out for the best. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Oh, right, sorry! Do you want me to sweep the shop or close the greenhouse up?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Myrta confirms, her chest heaving.
“Are you alright, Myrta?”
“Girl, don’t you know enough by now to figure out when an old woman is busy with her dinner?” She passes a pointy thumb to the corner of her mouth, and that’s when my eyes focus, and I notice a few tiny, bright red dots.
“You? But–I did not? Oh, heavens.”
“Not a place I’ll be welcome to, I should think,” Myrta grumbles. “You may go, and Delilah? Shut the damn door.”
I nod quickly, snapping out of my stupor and rushing out of the office. The door thuds closed as I press my back to it.
My mind spins as everything I’ve ever known about her, every conversation, rearranges itself in my mind. She can’t be a vampire, right? I’ve seen her in the light every day for years. Is she a dhampir, too? Why didn’t she tell me?
I step out of the shop as Cedric glances up at me from the bench he’d been waiting on, his elegant limbs effortlessly carrying him toward me .
“Is something the matter?” he asks, head tilted as he takes in my confused expression.
“Would a vampire hire a werewolf?” I ask.
“Werewolves do not suck,” Marcus provides, smiling thinly as he stuffs pale hands in his pockets.
Cedric looks up, probably searching for a glimmer of patience in the sky.
“Are you saying Myrta is a vampire?” he asks, squinting back at me.
“I’m pretty sure,” I say, a nervous giggle escaping my lips.
“Why am I not surprised?” Faye comments with a sniff, though I don’t miss the way she eyes the shop with renewed interest.
I shrug, adding this new piece of information to the list of the incredible things that have happened lately.
Though when you think about it, Fern Port’s definition of incredible is probably different from everywhere else’s.
“Let’s go home,” I tell everyone. “Dinner is on me.”