Fangs for Nothing (The Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

“Quoth told me you were here.” Mina pets the raven’s head.

“What’s in this muffin, apart from sadness?” “They’re made with sprouted mung beans, ashwagandha, reishi, lion’s mane, and I mixed in a quinton shot for foundational vitamins and gut health.” “It tastes like a hate crime.”

😂

“I did not run from our kiss because I don’t want you, Winnie. I ran because you’re everything I’ve dreamed of.” Excuse me, what? “You’re fun, and bright, and beautiful, and patient. You light up a room just by walking into it. It is torture to work so closely with you, to sit beside the fire with you, when the things I long to do to your body are anything but chaste.”

She may be here for professional pride. But I am drawing her even as the rising sun saps my energy, because I am utterly under her spell. Loving her will destroy me utterly. But I am more than ready to be ruined.

“Someone’s messaging you a lot?” Alaric’s nostrils flare. “It’s not Patrick, is it?” “Jealous, husband?” “I am jealous of the sun, for it kisses your skin where I cannot. I am jealous of that coffee you’re drinking, for it touches your lips…”

But at least there are no secrets between us anymore…save one. That I am hopelessly in love with Winnie Preston, and the monster in me wishes for an eternity that can never be.

“I know it’s hard for you to let me see you being weak,” he murmurs. “You have always had to be so strong. You’re the one who cleans up everyone’s mess, so you never get to be a mess yourself. Well, I want to love you whether you are a quiet day or a raging hurricane. I want you to fall apart for me so I can love every piece of you. Give me your wounds, Winnie, and I will bleed for you.”

I made a vow that I would never sire a vampire. My mother calls this life a gift, but I have never believed that until I met you.” His cheek shifts against mine, sparking fire in my skin. “If I died on that battlefield, I never would have met you. Eternity was worth the wait for you, Winnie Preston.”

Monsters don’t hurt as humans do. We hurt worse, because our skin is tougher, our hearts harder, so the knife that cuts deep must be drenched in poison.

Winnie sees our creativity and our pain and our hope. She’s the first person who ever truly saw me, and she found me worthy of her trust and her love, which some might argue was a foolish thing to do. Winnie has so much love and grace to give that I didn’t appreciate her gift until I had broken it beyond repair.

Not every chapter of our stories is smutty or nice or bloodless, but who are we without the history we carry around with us?

“A wise person told me once that I should be more vulnerable.” His lip quirks a little. “That no matter how high I built my castle walls, someone would tear them down. That someone was you, Winnie. You sieged straight into my heart and razed those walls to dust, and I laid down my arms and let you do it because I didn’t even realise how desperately I wanted to be free. I have everything I ever dared to wish for and more, all because of you, and all I want is to give you everything you deserve. You told me once that your intention for your life is that you deserve to be happy. And I hope, I wish, that maybe, you could be happy with me, as my wife.”