Chapter 9. Ambrose
Isadora pushed the pasta around her plate with a long, drawn-out sigh.
My chest hollowed instantly at the sound. Her mood hadn’t improved much since the late lunch incident, and now I’d managed to ruin dinner too.
I wanted to show Isadora that I could look after her. That I could cook and clean and protect... and, if she ever wanted it, pleasure. That I could be everything that she ever needed.
And I’d been so sure this meal would be the one that won her over. I’d boiled the pasta for exactly eleven minutes. Simmered the sauce for the fifteen minutes the jar had instructed. Sprinkled the cheese on top just as one of the videos had suggested.
It wasn’t exciting, but it was supposed to be foolproof.
There was no way I could’ve fucked it up badly enough to elicit the look of distaste she wore now.
“Um, Isadora?” I ventured, keeping my voice low. My muscles tensed, bracing for the snap of her well-deserved temper or the sudden, violent clatter of crockery.
She lifted her gaze slowly, lips pressed into a thin line that made my stomach tighten.
This is how you learn, Ambrose, I told myself. Isadora deserves better than this.
After worrying my bottom lip between my teeth, I tried again. “How can I make it better next time?”
“How about not using blue cheese, for a start?” she snapped.
I blinked, thinking back. The cheese had been unusually pungent. But as someone who only ate mortal food when Blaise insisted on using me as his guinea pig, I’d assumed it was just one of those strange preferences. How was I supposed to know cheese came with rules?
I mentally added research cheeses to the ever-growing list of ways to learn how to appease Isadora.
She shoved the plate away from her with a sharp scrape, her nails tapping irritably against the tabletop as her stomach growled.
I was on my feet at once, hurrying to the pantry to find something else she could eat. The shelves were almost bare. I clenched my jaw, grabbed the jar of cookies, and carried it back tentatively.
Isadora’s eyes narrowed as I set it in front of her, and I held my breath.
Her stomach growled again, louder this time, as she reached for a cookie. She bit into it with disdain and muttered, “Stale,” under her breath, but ate it anyway.
Relief loosened something in my chest. My own stomach gave a loud, traitorous rumble in response, a reminder that I would need to feed soon too.
I glanced up at Isadora, hoping that the cookies had softened her mood.
She had already pushed her chair back. One leg was crossed over the other, her foot bouncing with restrained fury as she stared out the window toward the stretch of garden where the wards were weakest.
I knew better than to interrupt her now.
I definitely knew better than to mention feeding. Not after the last warning. Not if I wanted to keep my tongue where it was.
If I could just convince the hob to either come back or leave entirely, maybe Isadora would finally be able to shake the dark cloud that seemed to cling to her.
And then, maybe, I could broach the subject of feeding without risking her hexing my tongue off for daring to bring it up again.
I certainly didn’t feel entitled to her attention. But my body was edging dangerously toward starvation now, and I needed to find a way to remind her of that gently, without turning my need into her burden.
“I wish that damnable creature hadn’t decided to free itself by taking my favorite sweater. It was a Wyrdwood, you know. Vintage,” she said, her tone lamented. “It took me ages to find someone who had one in my size.”
I had half a mind to correct Isadora, to tell her that it was only a myth that you could “free” a hob by giving it an item of clothing, but I decided to say nothing.
This whole situation was wearing her down. I could see it in the way her shoulders stayed tense, in the sharp edge to her voice. Being so isolated didn’t help—just the two of us, tied to the house, always watching the wards in case the hob tried again.
So far, Isadora had only let me scare it off when it got too close, but I wasn’t allowed past the wards. But scaring it from behind the wards wasn’t enough. I needed to prove I could do more than stand guard.
And once the creature was dealt with, everything else could finally begin.
An idea took hold, my skin prickling with anticipation.
“Isadora?” I asked, keeping my voice low, careful not to stir her already-fraying temper.
She didn’t look at me, instead tilting her head slightly in silent permission to continue.
I cleared my throat. “I was thinking—”
“I don’t pay you to think,” she snapped.
Technically, she wasn’t paying me at all. The moment I’d met her, dazzled by her beauty, I’d offered myself freely—my time, my labor, my loyalty, and anything else she could ever want from me.
But that was neither here nor there, so I pressed on. “Of course,” I said quickly. “It’s only that I think I might be more useful to you if you allowed me to cross the wards.”
The look she gave me was thunderous. “Is this a trick?” she hissed. Before I could answer, her tone softened, smoothing into something almost melodic.
“Tell me the truth, Ambrose.”
I let out a long breath, a strange calm settling over me.
My words seemed to spill from me before they’d even formed in my head.
“No, Isadora. It’s not a trick. I just want to use my shadows to capture the hob and reason with it.
To convince it to come back. Or to chase it off for good.
So we can finally move forward.” I hesitated, then added, carefully, “I was even thinking... once it’s dealt with, maybe we could take a vacation? ”
Isadora didn’t answer right away. She stared past me, lips pursed, fingers tapping once against the table.
“A vacation?” she said at last.
My heart swelled. This was it. If we could sort the creature out and escape for a romantic stay, maybe then we could finally move forward in our relationship.
Or, at the very least, manage a trip to the grocers together.
The depleting stock of mortal food was starting to worry me as I already was struggling to make a meal that she wouldn't balk at, but she refused to let me cross the wards and go into town.
“Yes,” I said, unable to stop the hope creeping into my voice.
“Once the hob is dealt with, I’d love to go away with you.
I think Headless Hollow is quite close to here?
I’ve never been, but I hear it’s the perfect retreat for supernaturals.
And maybe we could...” I trailed off again, my imagination racing far ahead of my courage.
A slow smile spread across Isadora’s face.
“If you can capture that creature,” she said smoothly, “rid it of whatever is preventing me from compelling it, and bring it to me—then I’ll consider going on a vacation.”
I couldn’t help the smile that etched itself into my face.
“But you won’t try to run away from me if I let you past the wards?” she said. It was said like a question, but it landed as a command. “Don’t leave me, Ambrose.”
Either way, it didn’t matter. Isadora was my everything. There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
“Of course not,” I said, lifting my hand instinctively—then stopping short as I remembered the no-touching rule. I let it fall back to my side. “Sorry,” I added, silently praying to Hades that she wouldn’t snap.
The God of the Underworld must have been listening, because Isadora only sighed.
“Fine, Ambrose,” she said at last, a deep melody lacing her voice.
“You may leave the wards to capture the hob. But whatever you do—do not let it touch you. Do not let it fill your head with its lies. It’s a grubby little creature at the best of times, and a few weeks living in the forest has only made it worse.
” She wrinkled her nose, as if she could already smell it.
“Hose it down before you bring it inside.”
“Of course,” I said, already on my feet. “You just rest, and”—I slid my phone across the table, the ScareBnB app already open—“take a look at where you’d like to stay for our vacation.”
***
The moment I neared the property boundary, the wards felt... different.
For the past week, the closer I’d come to them, the more it’d felt like invisible ropes were pulling me back to the house, as if Isadora’s magic was meant to keep me in just as much as it kept the hob out.
This evening, though, that pressure was gone.
Whatever change she’d made to the incantation had loosened its grip, and no unseen force compelled me back toward the house.
My fingers closed around the garden gate. Magic rushed over my knuckles and up my forearm, potent enough to raise the hairs along my skin. It was powerful work and despite myself, a sliver of admiration stirred for the small, stubborn creature that had made it its mission to test these wards.
The second the gate clicked shut behind me, the forest fell unnaturally quiet, the sounds dulling as if wrapped in wool. All I could hear was the insistent thud of my own heartbeat, loud in my ears, and beneath it, Isadora’s faint, persistent whisper—Don’t leave me, Ambrose.
I steadied my breath, willing the pounding of my heart to slow as I listened for movement. My shadows rolled out from me, slipping between trees and underbrush, probing the darkened crevices where a hob might hide.
As they searched, I reached for what knowledge I had about hobs—and came up frustratingly short.
The realization left a sour taste in my mouth.
Normally, if I knew what kind of creature I might be facing, I would research it obsessively, searching for weaknesses, patterns, anything that might give me an edge if it came to a fight.
Blaise was the one who charged in headfirst and dealt with the consequences later. I was meant to be the careful one.
Something deep in my bones twisted with unease. You’re not acting like yourself.