When the Innkeeper Met the Vampire (Leafshire Cove Monsters #5)

Chapter 1 Colette

Colette

The square is filled with Leafshire Cove folks, my new neighbors, and I couldn’t be more excited. Snowlight is just a fortnight away. It’s my favorite holiday.

An orc carries a garland into The Gold Coin, a pub across the square. Three pink and green fairies and a blue-skinned pixie sip from steaming mugs in front of Two Cats Bakery. Their scarves are every color of the rainbow, likely made by our town weaver. Our! I’m a Leafshire Cove inhabitant now.

Pride swells inside me, and I bite my lip as I head back inside to the Acorn Inn, my new place of business and home in one.

My family helped me save up the coin to buy the place.

It took a lot of scrubbing other people’s homes, running errands for folks between regular work, and eating beans, but we did it.

The inn is quiet right now because I only opened back up yesterday.

No one is in the gathering room or at the desk by the door.

I hang the six sets of room keys on the hooks behind the desk.

I asked one of my two employees to come in later this morning.

Hopefully, she will be on time. Using the mirror near the card table, I braid my blonde hair into a long tail and set it over my shoulder.

My mother’s eyes look back at me. “Green as the pines,” my father used to say. I miss the old man.

The mirror straightens itself and the teapot whistles. The scent of freshly laundered linens and lemon wood polish wafts through the air. Living and working at a sentient inn is going to take some getting used to.

“Thank you,” I say to the inn, trying to sound at ease.

I’m relieved the inn appears to be accepting me as the new owner. I pour a cup of tea into a flask that’s actually meant for something far stronger, and I leave in a rush. It’s already time for the book faire and I can’t be late.

Hurrying through the crisp air, I pass the chandler’s shop with its hanging rows of beeswax candles. Their gentle honey smell is lovely. I need to grab a few more pillar candles for the upper-level rooms at the inn. Perhaps after the faire.

The shutters on the weaver’s windows are shut tight, and her dragonfox sleeps on the roof, his green wings tucked tightly and his red fur puffed for warmth. His mate is curled along his side. I can’t help but let out an-“Awww.”

When I arrive at the faire, a dozen or so folks are already going in and out of the doors.

On the lighter-colored cobblestones in front of the bookshop, the baker sets up a towering display of iced cookies in white and green.

My mouth waters because I know exactly how good she is at her work. I will definitely try each one of them.

My table is set up with books stacked in neat piles of cream, pink, and red.

Five more tables of books by other authors make a crescent shape beyond the baker’s cookies.

I recognize the purple books with the dragons on the covers.

That’s my favorite fantasy author’s spot for the faire.

I can’t wait to devour her newest release. Winter is the best time for reading.

“Colette! Finally!”

The bookshop owner—she also runs the library—clops toward me on her little hooves. Lysandra is a faun, quite rare, and very proud of her very pink horns. I don’t blame her one bit. They’re adorable.

I hug her and smile at the table. “Thanks for setting up my books.”

A blush colors her light brown cheeks. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up today.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You’re so famous now. Your last two books are on the Royal Reading List, you know?”

“I didn’t know that!” I hug her again. It’s a huge honor.

“Once the rest of the Veiled Kingdoms find out you bought an inn, the tourists are going to swarm this town.”

“I hope not.”

“Why?”

“I like how small and sweet Leafshire Cove is. It’s so different from the hustle and bustle of Kingstown.” I lived in the king and queen’s main city my whole life until now.

Lysandra beams at the circle of singers at the base of the Snowlight tree. “Leafshire Cove is a charming place. I can’t deny it.”

The Snowlight tree is made of fallen branches from the woods bound together by the town witch’s magic. A young shifter reaches up to hang a clay snowflake from one of the slender limbs. A song begins, the singers lifting their voices in the traditional soft tune of the Frost and Fire ballad.

Lysandra grunts and crosses her arms. “That vampire is late. Very late.”

“Who?”

The faun jerks her pointy chin toward another table of books. “The thriller author, Archer Darkheart. He didn’t want to accept our invitation to the event. I could practically hear his sigh through his letter back to me. But his publisher informed me that he would be here.”

“I’ve heard of his books. Never met him though. What a gorgeous name. I bet he’s handsome. Vampires always are.”

“Thrillers aren’t really your thing, are they?” Lysandra asks.

“No. I like happy stories.”

“Like yours and hers,” Lysandra says, pointing to the fantasy author’s table. She’s seated there now, her spectacles on her pretty nose and a neat row of quills beside her books.

“I can’t wait for the author tea afterward. I’m definitely getting her autograph.” I might be an author, but I’m still a reader, and a voracious one at that.

“How are things at the inn?” Lysandra asks. “I meant to ask yesterday after your, um, incident.”

Yesterday, the inn tripped me on my way over the threshold, my knee hit the doorframe. I shouted a colorful string of curses that I’m pretty certain the entire town heard.

I laugh and roll my eyes at myself. “Good, actually. The inn was clearly annoyed about how many paintings I nailed into the walls, but it heated my teapot for me this morning, so I think we’re friends now.”

“Very good sign, yes.”

I want to pick Lysandra’s brain about the former owners of the inn and how they had lived in harmony, but the chapel bell begins to toll.

Lysandra startles, utters something unintelligible, and I hustle to my table.

The scent of the iced cookies fills my nose.

The tables are arranged around the sweets display with my spot and the no-show vampire’s set up on the far side.

Hmm, I probably require a cookie to prepare for the readers headed my way.

I stand close to the display, eyeing the treats.

I like the red ones best, but I pick up a white-iced one because I don’t want my mouth dyed for this important day.

I want to do my best for my publisher and for Lysandra.

I lift the cookie and take a bite. The sweet treat crumbles perfectly in my mouth, and I moan with pleasure.

Just then, a dark-haired male with very fair skin walks out from behind the bookshop and aims toward the cookies—toward me.

The morning light washes across his sharply cut cheekbones, the chain and piercings on his pointed ear, and the fang that shows as he greets Lysandra with a small, wicked-looking half smile.

He’s in head-to-toe black, from boots to cloak hood.

The wind blows and pulls his hood from his raven-black hair, and he scowls at the air like the wind somehow insulted him.

It’s the vampire author, Archer Darkheart. Has to be.

Then his red-brown eyes lock onto me. My heart gives a great jolt.

He is suddenly right across from me, leaning over the sloping edge of the stacked cookies. I can’t stop staring into his bewitching eyes. My head is light, like I’ve had a pint without a bite of food.

Blessed Stones of the Veil, Archer Darkheart is going to kiss me.

Everything moves slowly. I find myself bending toward him.

He suddenly launches forward, his elbow catching the table of cookies, and then grabs me. I look up, and the short distance from his mouth to mine feels wrong. I rise up on my toes.

And I kiss him.

A delicious shiver dances down my body, but then he’s pulling away, eyes wide. The cookie display completely topples to the ground. Icing and crumbs everywhere. The crowd faces us, eyes wide. My face blazes hot, and I stutter, backing away. Even the Snowlight singers have gone silent.

“I, I’m so sorry,” I stammer.

The crowd erupts in applause.

The vampire looks like he’s turned to stone.

“How romantic!” one woman says.

“A perfect Snowlight season moment,” an orc male says, swooning and grinning around large tusks.

Finally, Archer seems to wake up. He runs a hand roughly through his shoulder-length hair. His skin is even paler, which is saying a lot considering how white he already was. He looks from me to the crowd and back again.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I tripped.” He points to the cobblestones at his feet. “Just there.”

Of course, he didn’t intend to hold me, to let me kiss him. I’m an idiot! My face is roughly the temperature of the sun. I find my tongue and bend to gather cookies while the crowd moves on to the Snowlight tree to hook their creations to the branches.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I am so embarrassed. Seriously, how can I make it up to you?”

Because I’m the one who kissed him. He was just reacting.

I can’t look up and see his expression. I am too flustered.

He’s surely agape, shocked, appalled that I smashed my face into his like some lovestruck youth instead of the thirty-year-old woman I am.

Or worse, he thinks I’m a criminally aggressive person.

I want the cobblestones to rise and cover me. I can’t face this.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Archer also attempting to tidy the mess.

He isn’t saying a word. I have to smooth this over.

Finally, I stop and gaze at him. The crowd is still laughing merrily and talking about us in happy tones.

I can hear my name and his too. They think this is incredibly romantic.

“I’m Colette Amelot,” I say quietly, “and I hope you don’t hate me before we’ve even been introduced.”

He takes a large handful of cookies and sets them back on the display table, his gaze flicking to my face. His eyebrow lifts.