Chapter 20
After the ball, something changed in House Ormonde. Elodie was always in a hurry, often taking only a sip of tea before she was gone again the moment Will sat down for breakfast.
He started reading the newspaper, but it was full of names that meant nothing to him, reviews of plays he had not seen, and fashion spreads he found outdated. He searched only for two people, following their war through the pages.
He read of how they fought to succeed the Red Hand, how they courted favor and paraded throughout the city. Every day, they appeared somewhere new: Mr. Arcos delivering speeches before the council, Elodie bringing food to the poor in the harbor district.
HAS THE CONTEST OFFICIALLY BEGUN?
As previously reported, rumors concerning the Red Hand’s declining health have grown more persistent, but this season promises to be an exciting one!
Mr. Arcos opened the contest with his impressive chimera attack on the Senate.
As a longtime servant of the king, he is considered the frontrunner.
Lady Ashton and Duke Godwin have thus been eliminated, leaving only Duke Wilkinson, Sir Lake, Duke Bohun, and Duchess Woelf.
A surprising new contender is Duchess Ormonde, who has returned to society following her father’s fall...
Will could not quite summon Elodie’s outrage over having such questionable glory stolen from her. It had still been a brutal double murder, after all, one the daily paper dismissed as an “elimination.” At the same time, it was fascinating to watch her fight her way up through society.
TWO ELDERS BEHEADED!
Duchess Elodie brings order to the harbor district. After Mr. Arcos drew attention last week with his successful vampire hunt—witnesses claim they saw him entirely unarmed (as previously reported)—the head of House Ormonde answered by killing two vampire pack leaders.
Will had wondered about that. The day before, Elodie had not returned to the townhouse until after breakfast, wearing a shockingly short dress that ended at her calves, armed with pistols and a sword, and leaving a trail of blood behind her.
“WE MUST ALL MAKE SACRIFICES TO WIN!”
Mr. Arcos contributes three more chimeras to the city’s defenses and, in a stirring speech before the Senate, reminds every citizen of their duty to ensure the city’s continued survival. He also advocated for stricter laws protecting captured vampires.
Will tried to learn more, but the proposed legislation was confined to a tiny secondary article.
Even so, he could not help smiling at a quotation from Mr. Arcos’s speech: “We use them [vampires] like cattle—worse than cattle—and for that reason, they deserve at least the same protections as our farm animals.”
Perhaps the ambassador had listened to Will more closely than he had thought.
The next day, Mr. Arcos was seen dining with a noblewoman, and Will’s hope that the quotation had been more than coincidence evaporated.
MARRIAGE INSTEAD OF THE RED HAND?
While rumors circulate of Duchess Ormonde’s secret engagement, she was seen with Mr. Arcos leaving Duchess Delean’s birthday celebration in the midst of a heated argument. Earlier that evening, Ormonde reportedly read the ambassador’s secret love letters aloud as midnight entertainment.
Gradually, Will understood that the entire city was following the contest breathlessly, waiting for Elodie and Mr. Arcos to tear each other apart. Four other candidates still sought the position of Red Hand, but they faded beside those two supernovas.
“I am receiving Duchess Wilkinson at the end of the week. I hope you can attend.” Elodie strolled into the dining room.
“Must I?” Will peeked skeptically over the top of the newspaper, but immediately folded it shut. Elodie’s dress hung in tatters, her wrists and throat bore the marks of restraints, and her hair was disheveled, leaves tangled in the curls.
“What happened?” He leaped to his feet. His first instinct was to search her for bite marks, but nothing about her suggested a vampire attack.
There was nowhere near enough blood, he told himself.
At his next thought, concern turned to icy shock.
She was still wearing the elegant red-embroidered dress in which she had left the house the night before. These were the marks of another human.
Before he knew it, he was beside her, taking her hand. Fine scratches covered her skin, just deep enough to bleed. But her wrists were worse. Were there still thorns embedded?
“What happened?” he growled.
“Eric.”
“That bastard!” He truly did not know the man.
He had seen Mr. Arcos’s capacity for cruelty, but he had never imagined him physically hurting someone—that their conflict went beyond vicious words.
Even so, Will felt relieved to know it had not been a group of strange men.
He trusted his judgment of Mr. Arcos that far, at least.
Carefully, he took her other hand as well and tried to assess the extent of her injuries.
He felt Elodie’s amused gaze before he looked up. “What?”
“It is touching to see how concerned you are.”
“How could he do this to you? Should Hedgefort send for a doctor?”
“That will not be necessary.”
At his skeptical raised eyebrow, she obediently allowed him to guide her to a chair at the table and sat beside him.
As a child, he had learned the essentials of treating cuts; his father’s wounds, infected with salt and fish blood, had always healed slowly.
In the Capitol, he had cared for friends after they were beaten because of the lives they led.
What little tolerance the city offered was not distributed equally.
“You don’t have to do everything alone,” he said.
“Who do I have besides myself?”
He left that unanswered. With one hand, he held hers; with the other, he unwound the last vine from her skin and picked the thorns from the wounds. She cursed very un-lady-like but allowed him to continue. He washed the cuts with water from the carafe and patted them dry with a white napkin.
“Use this.” Elodie drew a small brown bottle of iodine from the voluminous folds of her dress.
Only when he soaked another napkin in the liquid and turned toward her throat did he notice how close they sat. Their legs brushed, her skirts spilled over his feet, and her hand lay hot within his.
Morning sunlight entered the gloomy dining room, and within the vastness of the grand townhouse, they were suddenly very close. His careful touch became forbiddenly intimate.
Elodie’s pupils widened the same moment she noticed it. He saw her swallow and her breathing grow shallow as he leaned toward her throat.
His mouth dry, he placed his fingers carefully beneath her chin to keep her still while he cleaned the wound.
Her collar had been torn open, and blood and water ran down into her décolletage.
His gaze followed the rivulet, enchanted.
Perhaps he wanted to know what it would be like to become her lover.
To follow that copper taste with his tongue…
“You have a good soul,” Elodie whispered, her grey eyes resting on his flushed cheeks.
“My dear Duchess… if only you could hear my thoughts,” he murmured.
She hissed when he pressed the iodine against a deep cut.
Carefully, she laid her hand over his and stopped him. “I am sorry for my friends’ prank. And that I couldn’t apologize for it properly. Eric told me where he found you during the ball—I am sorry for that as well. I have not been a good hostess, and still you help me without being asked.”
“That should be expected.”
“But it is not.”
“Instead, you behave as though it were normal for a man to bind you with thorns.” Because that was clearly what had happened, the wounds told an unmistakable story: thorny vines had wound themselves around her throat and hands.
Will sat upright again, trying to bring some distance between himself and the compromising situation. Yet her skirts continued to brush against his legs like careless caresses.
“In the end, it became tedious—and painful—but at first…” She bit her lip. “He thought it amusing to tie me to the gates of the Senate. I only just managed to free myself before the senators arrived.” Elodie laughed and rose.
Had it truly been only another prank in their endless rivalry? Perhaps even a harmless one, by their standards, if their games usually ended with people dead.
Elodie paused beside him. “Please continue to do me the honor of accompanying me when I accept invitations. The entire city is practically boiling with curiosity to see you again. And it annoys Eric.”
Will sighed, but nodded. He knew this part of the game—swimming through high society and conducting sparkling conversations devoid of depth. Shimmering, shining, seducing. He doubted anyone would pour blood over him a second time.
Now it was Elodie who placed one finger beneath his chin and made him look up. “Perhaps I need more people like you in my life. With pure hearts and black souls.”
Following a thoughtless instinct, he caught her hand before she could withdraw it and pressed a gentle kiss to her palm.
“I am your servant.”
When she did not pull away, he kissed her wrist, the torn skin and ragged edges of the wounds.
His mother had kissed his injuries until they stopped hurting, but these made his head feel light and quickened his pulse.
Warm, fresh blood stuck to his lips, and instinctively, he licked it away.
For a moment, he imagined placing his mouth against her throat, following the marks there and drinking her blood hungrily, like a vampire.
She watched him as though hypnotized.
Slowly, he released her hand. The tension held, both unable to look away. Her pupils were blown wide, devouring nearly the entire stormy sea of her irises. Her racing heart drove fresh blood into her wounds.
Finally, Elodie looked away.
She left without a word, but her taste remained on his tongue.
Copper and salt.