Chapter 10
Archer
“We can’t rush this,” I say. My head is pounding and I’m pretty sure it’s because every time Colette taps her quill against her very soft, very gorgeous lips, I clench my jaw.
It’s driving me mad. She can’t sit still for even one moment and she wants to hurry into the banter and action of the scene we’re writing.
“This is the moment our characters decide they want to move forward. I don’t see either of them just leaping into action here. They’re both sensible.”
“Smart and sensible, maybe,” Colette says, “but they’re also thrown off by one another, which can definitely lead to slightly reckless behavior.”
I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t settle me down because the air is full of her scent. “Slightly reckless?” I ask.
“The readers know they aren’t going to die,” she says. “This isn’t that type of tale. So why not get into the meat of the story asap?”
“Because the meat won’t have any flavor if we don’t marinate it in motivation,” I say.
Colette raises one blonde eyebrow and a grin stretches my lips before I can stop it.
“Yes, fine,” I say. “That’s a bit heavy on the metaphor, but you know what I mean. Don’t you?”
She nods. “But we can add more once the rough draft is complete.”
I shiver. “I still cannot believe you think I can write a skeleton draft. It is the stuff of nightmares.” We have already argued about it three more times.
“Works for me,” she says, her grin mischievous.
I give her a little snort. “Giving me nightmares works for you?”
“It really does.” She chuckles like we are playing around here, but this is our careers we are talking about. Our art. “This isn’t a game, Colette. If we don’t nail this book, we will both potentially lose our livelihoods.”
She sets her quill down with slow movements and tucks her lips up to one side. I want to nibble on them.
No, I do not.
Turning in her overly poofy chair to look straight at me, she laces her fingers over one knee. Her purple skirt bunches a bit and shows her stockinged feet and ankles. She’s wearing striped stockings that alternate between wool and lace and—
“Are you even listening to me, vampire?”
I swallow and look her in the eye. “Of course, I am.”
She cocks her head. “I was saying that if we don’t have fun with our art, why would we even do it?”
“Art isn’t for fun.”
Her mouth opens so quickly that it makes a tiny popping sound. “It most certainly is. It’s entertainment. Exploration. Excitement. All the Es!”
“I will give you exploration,” I say. “We dig deep into our souls and our hearts and discover shadows, layers, commonalities, and varied hues of life.”
She gives me a withering look. “Don’t you think you’re taking yourself a little too seriously?”
“You don’t take yourself seriously enough.”
Waving off my words, she sighs. “Just write the new bit and then hand it over. My stomach is telling me it’s pastry time.”
I roll my eyes and finish the chapter. When I hand it over, she gives me a curtsey, which infuriates me for two reasons.
One, she’s being sarcastic. Two, her perfect breasts bounce when she does that and I can hardly stop from salivating like a hound on the hunt.
My tongue finds the tip of one fang and I refuse to allow myself to imagine biting her right below her collarbone…
She gets to work on the draft once more, and suddenly, she’s looking up at me.
“Can you, um, do something? You’re making me nervous.”
I blink. I was staring like an idiot. “Ah, yes. Sorry.” There’s a viola on a stand across the room and I gesture toward the wooden instrument. “May I?”
“Oh yes! You play?”
“Poorly. Don’t get too excited.”
“Too late.”
I lift the viola and its bow. When I set the body of the instrument against my shoulder, the scent of Colette’s perfume tickles my nose. I exhale and set the bow against the strings. With one slow movement, I test the condition of the strings. Very good.
“I don’t play well either,” Colette says, “but it was a gift from my father before he passed, so I keep it in good condition to honor him.”
“That’s lovely.” Colette may be irritating to the extreme, but she is a good person.
I start playing one of Lazourge’s laments, a soulful piece about a man cursed to become a wolf for all but one day each moon.
He bids farewell to his brother and his land and has no hope of living life as he had always hoped.
The music rises and crashes down, albeit quietly, mournfully.
The last bit trails out on a minor note that is delightfully bittersweet.
He learns to love the wild even as he is grieved to lose his human life.
I open my eyes to see Colette watching me, open-mouthed. “Wh-what was that? It was the saddest song I’ve ever heard.”
Tears are streaming from her big eyes and my fingers twitch, longing to brush them away.
“It’s Lazourge,” I say. “His Wolven Lament.”
She studies my hand on the viola’s neck. “I’ve heard of him. One of my brothers used to sing his one about apples.”
“Apples.”
“Yes, the one that’s happier than that dark thing you just brought to life.”
“I didn’t know he had one about apples. But… Was my performance terrible? You can be brutally honest.”
“No, it was fantastic!” she says, her eyes shining.
I give her a pirate’s grin. “So you can appreciate darkness.”
Her cheeks pink slightly. “I suppose I can.”
I turn my head to hide a smile and a little flutter of excitement dances through my chest. I shake my head and replace the instrument exactly as she had it set up on the stand. When I return to my seat, Colette holds out her parchment.
“Will you read it for the crowd tonight?” she asks.
I accept the draft. “I told you that I don’t want to do that.”
“But what if Quinn and Avalon insist?”
I frown. “Did they? I didn’t receive a letter.”
“No, but they might,” she says.
“If they do, I’ll consider it. I must. But until then, let’s keep this project as professional as possible. We don’t need the ignorant masses weighing in.”
She’s toying with the bronze buckle on her belt.
I narrow my eyes. “What is it? You’re not telling me something?”
She studies her nails and licks her lips, which makes my body tighten in places. “I read to the crowd here last night. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
She did? No. Blessed Runestones, I bet they booed her out of the room. “How was it received?”
“They loved it. Lots of applause and all of that.”
I huff a laugh. “That’s good, I suppose.”
“I promised them more,” she says.
I shrug. “Well, you shouldn’t have.”
“Just come with me. I told Lysandra we could read at her bookshop and get her some sales.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t attempt to guilt me. We will have at least one event at her place when we launch this book. There will be plenty of time to give her business.”
“What if I went myself then?”
“Go ahead. I wish you wouldn’t, but I can hardly boss you about.”
“True.” She stands and crosses her arms. “Now, read that, tell me what you really think, and then we can head to Two Cats.”
I nod, but I can’t be honest. I might be a blood-sucking monster, but I’m not an arsehole.
At least, I try not to be. It’s not easy.
I critique her changes and additions specifically, avoiding generalizations and keeping the language technical.
Her writing is solid, better than mine, but the content doesn’t touch the soul.
“I want the reader to sit back and think, you know?” I ask.
Her lovely eyes pin me down. She points to the page, a spot where the female main character grips the edge of the bookshelf.
“You don’t see how this is deep thought? She’s exploding inside right there.”
“About the male main? Why? So far, he’s only shown himself to be an absolute dolt to her. She hasn’t seen any of his capabilities.”
“It’s not that. It’s that she’s fallen into the same habits she always does in stressful situations.”
“So you’re saying when she jokes to cover her fear, she grows angry with herself?”
“Exactly that.”
I drop the hand holding the parchment and look at the ceiling. “Hmm.” The wooden beams across the room host blue flowers, curling ferns, and bluebirds. I meet her gaze and she’s smirking. “What is that look for?”
“You can’t stop thinking I’m a shallow idiot and I can’t stop proving you super wrong.”
I lift my lip to show my fang. “You are not an idiot and I’m aware of that fact.”
“But the shallow part…”
“Your writing has depth, and I need to be patient enough to discover your subtler techniques. Wallow in glory, wordsmith.”
She laughs loudly then and grabs the draft from me. In the middle of prancing about the room like a show pony, she lifts a maplecat kitten from her wildly poofy duvet.
“Time for pastry, Mossette! Pastry! Pastry!”
The kitten mews and scrambles up to her shoulder to perch like a pirate’s bird.
“Wait,” I say. “Let me ask you one more thing before we head off to devour our weight in baked goods.”
“Anything.”
“When your character jokes instead of showing her emotions, who is she protecting herself from? Where did she learn this coping mechanism? It must be someone in her past. Her family? Her parents? A close friend who betrayed her in a time of need?”
Colette has frozen with one hand on the doorknob. The kitten mews into her hair, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I…” She coughs lightly and I can tell she’s stalling. “I don’t know. I’m not doing that whole dying sister backstory you were trying to sell before.”
“And you don’t need to. But she must have experienced something in her past that pushed her to that sort of behavior. You know that.”
“I do.”
“Yes. People wouldn’t buy your books if you didn’t have at least some ghost or wound in your characters’ backstories. That’s what rounds them out. Even in a romantic comedy.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why are you acting shocked at my question?”
“It’s just that… I don’t know.”
I know that look. She sees herself in that defense mechanism. I’ve been there. I am well-acquainted with the sensation.
“I began writing to deal with my troubles,” I say quietly. I feel raw, and I hope this isn’t the totally wrong thing to say. “Why did you start writing?”
“To make people laugh. For an escape.”
“Escape from what?”
She turns her head and looks at her nightstand, where a small book sits beside a locket that I’ve never seen her wear. “From my family.”
“Why?”
“They’re wonderful. They are. But we never had enough. Not enough food. Money. Time. Patience. My parents, well…”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Who wouldn’t want an escape from poverty in the city to a romp by the seashore where everything is roses by the end of the tale?”
I nod. “Fiction is so much easier than real life because, as authors, we control the outcomes.” I don’t want to push her to tell me more, to talk about what was obviously a tough childhood.
Not yet. It’s becoming clear to me why she is so happy all the time.
She taught herself to be so she didn’t cause more problems. That’s my guess anyway.
She is still staring at her nightstand. I take a step forward and brush her sleeve with one hand.
“Eh, let’s go get a treat. All right?”
She shakes herself and agrees. “Pastry, yes!” Her eyes are wistful, but the smile is genuine.
I grab my cloak and trail her down the stairs and through the square toward Two Cats Bakery.
Working with her reminds me of the time I fell into the river when I was young.
The current swept me down the bend, all the way to a farm outside of town. I have so little control here. And I am not great at being a leaf in the stream, as they say.