Chapter Kaitlyn
KAITLYN
Ilie in the bed and stare up at the rafters. Linton snores next to me, wings akimbo, legs spread out, taking up most of the bed.
Of course, Max apologised profusely for the state of my mothman. He had only offered Linton a small glass of fruit spirit to celebrate his marriage. Which as it turned out, so soon after feeding, was not a great mix, at least for Linton’s consciousness.
He spent a large part of the night mumbling to himself. I could catch the occasional word, and what I did hear was concerning, given it mostly related to weapons and death. But after a while, he settled down…and the deep resonant snores began.
Initially I tried the chair, but it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to sleep upright, and tiredness was in my bones, so I took off my new dress, put the night clothes back on, and got in beside Linton with all the hesitance of a cat on a thin branch.
I was alone in a room with a male I hardly knew. But I was desperate for sleep.
I had no need to worry. Linton snorted and turned over, away from me, to continue with his slumber. Admittedly my own sleep was fitful and it’s the early hours with grey dawn light creeping through the gaps in the curtains as I lie awake.
Which is when the arm thumps over my abdomen. I turn my head in alarm to find Linton smooshed next to me, eyes still closed and his antennae lifted.
“Kaitlyn,” he murmurs, but he’s clearly asleep.
And it’s then the tear runs from under his lid and down his cheek. I swipe at it with my thumb, and he hums gently, a wing sliding from his back and over us both like an extra furry blanket.
There is nothing predatory in any of his movements. He merely wants to be close to me, his breathing deepening once more as sleep takes him away again.
And, funnily enough, sleep finds me once more because when I wake, Linton isn’t in the room. All there is are his scales covering the bed like iridescent snow.
I clean up in the small attached washing area and pull on my dress before I open the door of our room and peer out.
“Hello,” Linton says loudly.
I think I probably levitate about a foot in the air, grabbing at my chest.
“Don’t do that!”
“Do what?” he asks, pushing away from the wall where he’s been leaning.
“Scare me.”
“I scare you?” He studies my face, his eyes trailing down my dress to the floor and back again.
“Well, no, not scare as such. Just don’t jump out at me.”
“I do not jump,” Linton says, imbuing his words with a gravitas which would be funny if my heart wasn’t still pounding. “I watch. But today I do it quietly because my head hurts.” He finishes with less gravitas and more of a pout.
“I guess you’ll know better next time than to drink spirits.”
“I like spirits.”
“I thought you could only have blood.”
“I feed on blood. Other foods hold little interest to me,” Linton says, as if this is common knowledge.
“Except spirits.”
“The full moon is coming,” Max says, bustling out of another room and onto the landing. “Mister Linton likes the full moon, don’t you?”
Linton bares his teeth at the friendly warlock.
“Yes,” he growls. “I do.”
“Come for some breakfast, my dear.” Max beckons to me. “Joanna does a wonderful spread.”
Linton continues to growl, but then so does my stomach, and he stops instantly, staring intently at my midriff.
“I’m hungry, Linton,” I say, flicking my hair over my shoulders. “I’m going for breakfast.”
“And what do I get to eat?” he grumbles.
“You’re hungry?”
“And my head hurts.”
“If you want to feed, you only need to ask.”
“I’m asking.” He glares at me.
“I need to eat first. I have to make blood in my body in order to give it to you,” I say.
“I can feed?” Linton’s eyes are wide, and I suspect the concept of replacing what he’s already taken has gone missing in the literal red mist of being offered a second round.
“After I have,” I say sternly.
Linton does what can only be described as a mothman skip of delight, or at the very least, a flinch which could be interpreted as pleasure. Or he could be bilious, given he’s been complaining of a headache.
“Then you need to eat, my Kaitlyn,” he says, and he gestures to the stairs.
I follow Max down and back into the little nook we were in last night where the sideboard is groaning with food.
“Help yourself. There’s more if you want it,” Max says.
Looking at what’s out, it would be death by breakfast if I ate it all. Linton stares at it.
“What’s this?” Linton pokes at a pancake stack with a clawed finger.
“If you’re not going to eat it, don’t touch.” I slap his hand away, and for a second he holds it as if I’ve stabbed him.
Then he’s back, inspecting the food in the way I found him inspecting my sticky bun back at the bakery. I take a plate and pile it up, his red eyes following my every move, then I take a seat and start to eat.
Linton sits opposite me. He watches every forkful, from plate to mouth.
It is disconcerting.
“Would you like to try some?” I say eventually.
Linton licks his lips.
“You look…good…when you eat,” he says. “But it is not for me.”
“You can taste it, though? Can’t you?”
I hold out a forkful with a piece of bacon speared on the end.
Linton narrows his eyes and inspects it carefully, his nose wrinkling as he gets closer. Then he puts out his dark tongue and touches it against the bacon. It slides back into his mouth, and I have a very odd feeling in my core.
He sits back and smacks his lips.
“Salty. Like skin,” he pronounces. “Blood is sweeter.” His eyes blaze. “Your blood is sweeter than anything, my Kaitlyn.”