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“Celibacy isn’t all that fun either, but perhaps it would do you some good,” I say tartly.
My fear hasn’t stopped me from wanting him. Our relationship was forged on bloodshed and solidified through deception. I am the dark creature that craves sex and destruction, and he is the king of it.
I swear man sweat is at least twice as stinky as woman sweat. I’m pretty sure it’s a scientific fact.
Truth...
I tilt my head to the side. “You’re really freaking old, aren’t you?” A sly smile creeps along Des’s face. “I can answer that, but it will cost you.” I don’t need to buy a favor to know the dude must be ancient. I back away from him, heading toward the bathroom. “Rain check…Grandpa.”
😂😂😂
He steps in close, tilting my chin up. “I want to be good at this, cherub. At us.”
“For two centuries you’ve been nothing but a whisper of a possibility,” Des says, breaking the silence. “And then I met you.” He pauses, like an entire story begins and ends with that sentence. Like life was one thing before he met me, and it became something else afterward.
“You were everything I never knew I wanted. You were chaos. You were desperation. You were the most mysterious secret I’d ever come across. Everything about you drew me in—your innocence, your vulnerability, hell, even your tragic life. You were the most captivating creature I’d ever met.”
In the darkness, I see him staring back down at me. “You are magic, love.”
“What?” I finally say, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. He gives me a soft smile. “My mother would have loved you.”
Des 😭😍
“Perhaps you’d enjoy a different section of our library—unless you’re worried about curses.” “Curses?” I repeat. Stoically, he says, “The book you’re looking at deals with curse-caused ailments—particularly those that cause hemorrhoids, unexpected bowel movements—”
😂
I mean, I can be mad at him and still enjoy the view.
😂
“Callie,” he says, sounding disappointed, “I’m wounded. I would never lead you astray.” Says the man who taught me to drink and gamble. I think he needs to tighten up his definition of astray.
Hanging in the window of the clothing shop closest to me is a dress that looks made of actual sea-foam. Next to it is a man’s suit made in a hue of blue I swear I didn’t know existed. There’s a cloak that seems made of the night sky, small dots of light flickering in the dark fabric, and a wristlet that looks spun from clouds.
😍
“Semantics are everything, Callie, or have you learned nothing from me?”
😏
Finally, he says, “We share similar dreams.” “You want a husband too?” I can’t help but tease him. He flashes me a wolfish smile, choosing that moment to take another—very suggestive—bite of his churro. “Perhaps,” he says, “but you’ll do.”
😂😂😂
hate doomed love stories. Life’s filled with enough heartache as it is.
I laugh into my pillow, reaching out with a hand and pushing away his meaty body.
I'm sorry his what? 😬
For the life of me, I’ll never understand men, no matter what world they come from.
If Des were a city, he’d be Barbos. The lights, the chaos, the criminality, the sexuality, the excitement. It’s all part of who he is.
Cool beans. I’m just glad my hand didn’t land on the huge battle axe on the other end of the table.
😂
He’s my own personal brand of salvation, yet right now I get the impression he’s the one who needs saving.
“I would steal the stars from the sky for you,” he whispers into my ear. “Anything to hear you laugh like that.”
I pull away from her. “I can’t believe you blew up a portal to the Otherworld.” She flashes me a devious smile. “That’s just called making an entrance.”
Back then, his demands had made me nervous, but now, as he gazes at me with those expressive eyes, it’s clear his demands aren’t anything but the wishes of a man who was kept away from his love for too long.
My eyes move to the pots of paints. On a whim, I grab the paintbrush and dip it into a pot containing black paint. Once I’ve coated the brush, I systematically black out the painting.
Wtf that's insane...
Jerome was the librarian I met a week ago.
Is he sketch?
He narrates the chapter to me, his voice taking on a cockney accent just for the hell of it as he explains the old rivalries between Flora and Fauna, Night and Day.
😂
One by one, he moves through the remaining books, taking on various accents as he does so—sometimes it’s an Irish or Russian accent, other times it’s German or French, and once (to my utter delight) he impersonates a Valley girl.
Cute 😂
“Callie,” Des says softly, “you and I both know monsters aren’t born, they’re nurtured into existence.”
“I’ve waited years to see you dressed as the queens of my world are dressed,” he says.
Here’s the monster behind the war cuffs and pretty fabric, the monster I don’t want to tame, the one I want to unleash. I am the darkness, his eyes seem to say, and you are my lovely nightmare. And no one will take this away from us.
She might be the lovely Queen of Flora, but just like Des, she looks to me like a panther, something beautiful and dangerous that will strike when you least expect it. For all her magnificence, she must be a deranged thing.
“Sacred Gardens,” I murmur as we walk under a flowering trellis and enter the wooded clearing. “That sounds like something teenage me would call my vagina.”
💀😂
“Mate is the correct term,” he says, his voice pitched seductively low. “I’m not your”—he makes a face—“boyfriend. I’m neither a boy nor particularly friendly.”
Finally, “My mother’s hair was exactly this color.” “It was?” I ask, tilting my head to peer up at him. He smooths the lock of hair back down. “Sometimes,” he says, lost in his own thoughts, “when I’m feeling particularly superstitious, I think that’s no coincidence.”
Ok mommy issues...
Des strokes a hand down my back. “That is a question for another time. But for now, I will tell you this: ill-fated mothers, cruel fathers, and friendless childhoods—you and I, cherub, really do share similar tragedies.”
“What’s this little pipsqueak up to?” Temper asks under her breath, watching the Flora fae head our way.
😂
Hundreds of pinpricks of light glitter from my hair, the starlight clustered into constellations. I shake my head, and the starlight moves with it. It really does look like I’m wearing the night sky in my hair.
😍
the Fecundity Formal.
I'm gunna be real shitty if she gets pregnant 😅
“I’ll say this for the Bargainer,” Temper says, “he throws a mean right hook. That pretty-boy king went down like a boner in church.”
,💀
He’s legit going to make me choke up.
Cringe 😬
Temper snorts. “Callie, we’ve been friends for nearly a decade. Stop beating off the bush—” I wince. “Around, Temper. Beating around the bush.”
Awwww.
Cringe 😬
“You want to know a secret?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Only if you drink the lilac wine will our bond be complete. Only then can we freely share our magic.”
😳
He’s the part of my soul that lives outside my body.
“But,” he continues, “none should have enough power to keep me from waking you. If I had any living siblings, perhaps they’d be strong enough to perform that kind of magic, but my father killed them all off.”
Ok but did he...?
“And your father?” I ask. “Could he—?” “He’s dead,” Des says, his face stoic.
Are we sure?
am someone’s nightmare, I tell myself. Sure, that someone is probably the next macaron I come across, but hey, we all start somewhere.
Next to her, the Green Man’s gaze flicks to me, his gaze intense.
Suspect?
Each in turn attests to the fact that they caught the servant out on the palace grounds playing hide the salami with a soldier.
Cringe 😬
