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May 12 - May 15, 2025
“It tastes like a hate crime.”
And brilliant. And quite funny. And with an arse so fine, Geralt of Rivia comes to him for workout tips.
when the night is filled with monsters, you need the worst monster of all on your side.
He saved me. Again.
The dark, twisted part of me is ready to be vulnerable for her.
I may be a monster, but if she would be mine, I would be her monster—
the way he steps towards me, oozing power and possession and danger, makes me understand why dark romance heroines are so ready to be tied up in a basement and punished by the villains.
did not run from our kiss because I don’t want you, Winnie. I ran because you’re everything I’ve dreamed of.”
“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.”
“Winnie requires a new rectangle of annoyance, as hers has joined my ill-conceived attempts at knitting at the bottom of the cistern.”
You’re literally living in a paranormal romance novel.”
Our first item of the evening has been to encourage Winnie to stay in Argleton and bang her hot vampire boss.”
“You’re a vampire who’s lived for over five hundred years. There’s nothing in that book you haven’t done before.” “That’s not true. Page sixty-four was most enlightening.”
“I will stay because it pleases you,” he whispers in my ear. “I cannot say no to you, my wife.”
Loving her will destroy me utterly. But I am more than ready to be ruined.
And when he gets back, we can confront Callista and take a shot at catching a killer, saving his head from being disassociated with his body, and ending a regressive ancient vampire law. Just, you know, a typical day for a professional organiser.
Hot like a lovechild of Aragorn and Geralt of Rivia.
I find myself always turning back to her, as if she is my true north.
“Fire can heal as well as destroy, Winnie. I want to be wherever you are.”
“You may be my betrothed, but I do not command you, nor would I ever try.
And I think that maybe he needs me to save him even more. He needs to believe that he isn’t a monster,
Alaric may not have seen the sun for centuries, but his smile is pure sunlight.
“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.”
“Did you ever … hear anything else?” “Oh, no, absolutely not,” he says stoically. “Definitely not anything that would appear on page sixty-four of one of your books.”
Of course, it was Alaric saving me again.
Maybe we can pull our walls down together, and build something beautiful in their place?
There aren’t even any gargoyles. Honestly, Gideon, it can’t be that expensive to slap up a gargoyle or two. This used to be a proper country.”
“If I died on that battlefield, I never would have met you. Eternity was worth the wait for you, Winnie Preston.”
“I didn’t know that your version of first aid was to go around licking things!”
Afraid that I would let slip my true nature, and you would see my fangs and run. But you didn’t run, Winnie. You saw something beneath the monster, and that something made you laugh and made you feel safe. I have never met anyone who looked at me the way you did, as if I was their harbour during a storm.
“You … you’re using a map? On your phone?” I can’t believe it. “I have changed my opinion about the annoying rectangle.” Alaric shrugs.
He sees me.
So many times over the years I have wondered why I endure, why I continue on this earth when I so hate what I am and what I’ve done. The answer is the same reason I’m standing here today – hope.
The white scar below his armpit glows faintly in the firelight, a reminder that all victories are hard-fought and won with blood.
Things that break can be repaired, and become all the more beautiful for the cracks. Even hearts. Even souls.
