Faefever (Fever, #3)

by Karen Marie Moning

“What constitutes ‘must’? Where do you go?” He glanced around. “Where is the cake?” “I threw it away.” He gave me a look. I sighed, got up, and got it out of the fridge. It was a seven-layer chocolate cake, with alternating raspberry and chocolate cream fillings, frosted pink, with a Happy Birthday JZB in the center, delicately scripted and adorned with flowers. It was beautiful. It was the only thing that had made my mouth water in weeks, besides Unseelie. I set it on the coffee table, then got plates and forks from the cabinet behind the counter. “I’m confused, Ms. Lane. Is this cake for me, or for you?” Yeah, well, there was that. I’d been planning on eating a lot of it myself. I’d spared no expense. I could have downloaded forty-seven songs from iTunes instead. “They were out of black icing,” I said dryly. He wasn’t reacting the way I’d planned. He didn’t look the least bit touched or amused. In fact, he was regarding the cake with a mixture of horror and … grim fascination; the same way I regard monsters I’m about to kill. I fidgeted. At the time I’d ordered it, it’d seemed like a good idea. I’d thought it was a humorous way of poking fun at our … relationship, while also saying, I know you’re really old and probably not human at all, but whatever you are, you still have a birthday, just like the rest of the world. “I believe candles are customary,” he said finally. I reached in my pocket, pulled out candles in the shape of numbers, and one I’d whittled to a stub of a...