8. Chapter 8 #2
A massive table lit by crystal chandeliers was laid out for us.
Crystals and polished porcelains glistening under the warm lamplight.
There were flowers and all sorts of decorative baubles in the middle of it.
And it was so different from Logan’s home; you could feel the touch of a woman in every single detail, from the wilton jacquard carpets matching the flower patterns on the wallpaper to the twirling pink candles perched on the golden candelabra.
He bent towards my ear as he pushed in my chair. “If you have another talking animal in your pocket, I think it’s about time I know about it.”
“This dress doesn’t have pockets. Which is a shame, actually. Can I slip my singing lizard in yours mayhaps? Or will you gag again if I touch you?”
Whatever hint of amusement had briefly lingered in his eyes vanished. “I didn’t gag.”
My cheeks burned. “You were about to.”
He leaned in even closer, lips pressed against my ear. “Your heart beats a mile a minute. Any other vampire would have taken that as an invitation to sink their fangs into you. Fear makes the blood taste like a delicacy. Lucky for you that you’re my wife and no one can touch you.”
I ran my cold and sweaty palms up and down my thighs, trying not to breathe in too fast. “I told you, I’m not scared of you.”
Shivers travelled down my spine when he hummed, and then peeled away to take a seat next to me.
Dinner was laid for all five of us, but only Piper, Morgana, and I were eating. Did vampires invite each other over for a pint of blood typically when non-food-eating people were involved?
Despite all the travelling conversation, I’d not heard a single thing they’d talked and laughed about.
I was too focused on not screwing up at eating this damn bird on my plate properly.
Five hundred types of cutlery had been laid around me for no reason at all.
How many forks did someone need to eat a bird?
Why was there a bird on my plate? Birds should be flying around.
I was going to be sick.
“Willow, I hear you were in the medical sciences,” Philip said, and the entire room went silent as the knife slid off my plate to the ground.
Except, my husband caught it mid-air and grabbed my hand, putting it between my fingers again.
Except, he didn't pull away, instead wrapping his other arm around my shoulders to hold my fork hand as she slowly helped me cut through the tiny duckling.
His face was inches from mine. “Stop looking at it like it’s a pigeon.”
“They fly the same. Who’s to say it is not? And what do you even know about pigeons? Did they say something to you?” Christof, that evil man. I’d confessed my weakness to him in total confidence.
Logan still didn't let go as he guided the fork to poke the duck meat and slowly raised it to his mouth. “There. Tastes like a dead fucking duck,” he said, chewing on it as he reached to stab another fat piece for me and brought it to my mouth.
“Good?” he asked, watching me chew.
“Not a pigeon, that much I can tell you.”
He hummed, taking a sip of his bourbon first before tipping it against my lips, letting me have a taste.
The dining room had grown impeccably quiet. You could even hear the electricity coursing through the lamps.
“Occult pathology,” I said after noticing both of his grandparents were looking between the two of us.
“What an odd profession for a young woman,” Morgana said, taking a sip of her drink.
“Someone has to do it.”
“Your Holy Mother forces you into these positions?”
“Oh, no. I picked it myself.” I lifted my cutlery up. “Despite what you’re seeing, I’m quite good at cutting things up.”
Philip laughed, resting an elbow back on his chair. “How did Agnes let go of such an accomplished witch? Typically—”
“Philip,” his wife interrupted, her tone scolding.
“It is the truth. Your coven sisters are good at being plain and invisible.” His eyes went to Logan. “Must be your luck.”
“Must be,” he echoed, sharing a long, narrowed look with his grandfather, who was wearing a wry smirk.
“It’s good to be plain and invisible,” I said, lowering my cutlery to the plate. “To survive, you have to be.”
“And you don’t?”
“I stopped worrying about survival a long time ago,” I said, realising a moment too late I’d said it out loud.
His gaze turned skeptical, suspicious. “Why is that?”
My foot was about to drill a hole through their dining room floor from how fast it was bouncing.
“When you’re in such direct contact with death all the time, you sometimes wonder if the fight is all that even worth it.
Why keep clawing if we’re all plagued by this terminal illness that is death?
” A more stupid fib had never left my lips.
I loved living despite the horrid manner I’d chosen to do it.
I loved breathing in and I loved breathing out.
I loved the sound of cicadas on a hot summer day.
The smell of wet soil. The taste of honeydew.
To touch leather and feathers and silk. I loved every mundane thing.
I’d stopped worrying about surviving only so I could learn how to live for whatever little time I had left.
Logan’s attention was burning against my right cheek. I heard him huff under his breath before he threw back the entirety of his bourbon. “She likes telling people whatever they like to hear. She’s good at it; guessing what others want to hear.”
My molars ground against each other as I breathed slowly in and out. Why wouldn’t he just let me be? And what did he even know?
It was Morgana who cut through the heavy air. “What about family? Brothers, sisters?”
“Oh, no. None of that. I have an Ethel. We grew up together in an orphanage. That’s close as it gets, I suppose,” I said, chewing on the duck until my jaw started to ache.
“Is that why you had Agnes’s surname?”
Was this how ants felt like when you put them under a looking glass? “Yes, she made me her ward.”
“You must be skilled in the arts of chaos.”
“For a time. But as it turned out, I wasn’t interested in magic like most.”
Her old eyes narrowed on me. “Because you preferred sciences best?”
“That’s enough,” Logan quietly said. “I didn’t bring her here to be interrogated by you.”
Morgana’s frown deepened as she folded the cutlery on her plate. “Can’t we get to know the mother of your future children and the heirs of Darkheim? Galahad, too. They will inherit everything we have.”
Oh, Goddess. The duck was trying to kill me. I coughed, trying to lodge the bit of white meat out of my windpipe.
Logan set his liquor glass on the table, and I might have heard the table legs snap under the weight. “I have an heir, Morgana.”
Her wrinkled eyes pinched. “Piper is your niece. She has her own father’s properties and titles to inherit. You intend to have children, do you not?” his grandmother asked. “Logan? Why did you marry the poor girl if you don’t intend to have children with her?”
We all flinched a little when the crystal glass snapped in his hand. “Did you ask my wife if she even wants to have my children?” he asked, shaking his hand and wiping the blood and the bourbon-stained shards on a napkin.
Both his grandparents went silent when he lit another cigarette, and said, “Apologise to her.”
It was his grandfather who said, “You will have to forgive us, Willow. Ever since we’ve hit a certain age, logistics have taken priority. We didn’t mean to offend.”
“That’s quite alright. I’m not offended.”
“I am,” my husband said.
I stepped on his foot, and his attention snapped at me. Wiggling my nose, I tried to signal him to stop.
“I’ve heard you’re settling well in Mortdale,” Morgana said to break the unnecessary tension.
Cutlery kept sliding from my clammy fingers. “I’m enjoying the lack of sun. My skin is very sensitive.”
“It must have not been easy. Being different.”
Though her tone had been compassionate, I could taste the pity on my tongue.
But I held my smile steady. “I’ve gotten used to it.
They never considered this even the strangest part about me.
” My attention dropped to my plate as I moved food around with the tip of my knife.
“There was this rumour about me back home that I slept in the mortuary cabinets with the corpses.” I stabbed a bit of meat over and over, huffing a shaky laugh.
“You should have seen the looks I started getting then.”
Philip lowered his drink, staring between my husband and I. “Why would they make up such a rumour for a respectable young witch?”
Their sudden solemnity choked me with apprehension.
“Oh, it was harmless. When I was thirteen, as a prank, a few of the coven girls buried me with a corpse for three days.” Chewing slowly, I waited for them to laugh—but they didn’t.
Swallowing down on the hard bite, I went on, needing to explain the joke.
“They stuck a little pipe through the coffin; it was just big enough for me to breathe. Thank Goddess it didn’t rain.
” My laughter bounced off the walls, stale.
“The entire corpse thing sort of stuck with me since then,” I said, not noticing the noise the knife was making against the porcelain plate from my uncontrollable shaking until Logan’s hand came to cover mine.
I smiled widely between all of them. “It was really funny.”
Logan’s eyes had turned a severe shade of gold, a raging cold kind, and I could see the veins sticking out against his temples, the tense muscles on his jaw working as he ground his molars tightly, and the quick breaths he devoured as if there wasn’t enough air for him.
Briefly, I realised I’d never seen him truly angry until that very moment.
Something warm slid down my cheek. “It was,” I said, never letting my smile die.
I glanced back at the butler waiting by the door. “Where’s the lavatory?”
The solemn man pointed to the door. “Down the corridor, to your left.”