Page 18 of The Fire Went Wild

“My chamber pot’s full,” she says balefully.

I knew that already; I’ve got a Hunter’s sense of smell. I wasn’t going to say anything, though. “I’ll change it out while you’re downstairs for dinner.”

She pushes up on her arms, fear flickering across her face. “Dinner?”

“You’ll need to change.” I really want to see her in that yellow sundress. “Be ready in an hour.”

“Or what?”

Her eyes gleam, challenging me. This would be so much easier if I could kill her, but even thinking about it sends jolts of electricity running through my limbs. My gods storm around.

“I’ll tie you down and do it myself.”

The idea excites me. Makes my skin prickle. Charlotte just glares at me.

“An hour,” I tell her.

Then I leave, my heart thumping.

Since it’s cold out,I make crawfish étouffée, using the big bag of frozen crawfish I keep in my food freezer. I’m not like Ambrose. Animal meat only, thank you very much.

Once the étouffée is done, simmering quietly on the stove, I set everything up in the formal dining room, using my grandmother’s fancy porcelain china from the 1920s, two decades after she and my grandfather built this house. I light some candles. Dim the chandelier that hangs up above the table. Lay out cloth napkins. Open a bottle of expensive red wine and set it next to my place setting so it can breathe.

Then I go to my room and grab my carving knife from its place on my bedside table. My Guardian screeches a little. “I’m not going to kill her,” I mutter. “But she might need some convincing.”

Charlotte was quiet the whole time I was cooking. I don’t know if she’s resigned or she’s worn out or if she’s planning something. Maybe all three.

When I go to her room, I stand outside the closed door and listen for a few minutes. Listen, and try to calm down my racing heart. I hate how nervous I am about this. About entertaining a living girl.

She shuffles around inside, the chain clanking softly.

I push the door open.

Charlotte stops when I do, looking up at me, her expression unreadable. What stuns me, though, is that she actually did change. The yellow dress looks like she’s wrapped in sunlight, and it has these off-the-shoulder sleeves that show off the top part of her chest, the bodice tight enough to squeeze her breasts upward. She stares at me, red hair falling around her bareshoulders, her smeared eye makeup suddenly more noticeable than it was earlier.

“Happy?” She stalks over to the chair and pulls up the change of underwear I brought her. “I couldn’t put these on, by the way.” She shakes her chained leg to illustrate her point.

I swallow. Clutch my knife a little tighter, for strength. Her eyes flick down to it, noticing it for the first time. Fear wafts off her, the usual spicy scent that, on her, has a dark, bloody undercurrent that drives me wild.

“You can change your underwear after I unchain you,” I tell her. “But wait here.”

She opens her mouth like she wants to protest but I slam the door shut, breathing hard. She isn’t like a typical victim. Iknewthat, of course—I knew that the second I saw her walk into that diner, glittering like a victim but marked with clear instructions from my gods not to destroy her. She has this defiance about her that would be infuriating in an ordinary victim, the sort of thing that would earn them a slower-than-usual death. But that defiance only adds to her allure. Even when she obeys me—putting on the yellow dress, say—it feels like defiance.

She planning something. And that just sparks my blood even more.

I dart back into my room to grab two things: her makeup bag from her suitcase and the cigarette case of weed, which I slip into my back pocket. Then it’s back to her room, where she’s still standing beside the bed, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me.

“Redo your makeup.” I toss the bag on the bed.

“Why?” She doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“You’re going to dinner.” I answer her calmly, although I squeeze the knife, prepared to threaten her with it if she getstoodefiant. I’m hoping she does. “You need to look nice.”

Her mascara-smeared eyes narrow. “I need to look nice for you, you mean.”

I shrug. She rolls her eyes but does sit on the bed and rummages around in her bag. Her fear perfumes the air. I bet she figures getting out of the room will be her chance to escape. But she thinks I’m a human man, some loathsome serial killer idiot, and not a being designed to do exactly what I’m doing to her.

I watch her clean the old makeup off her face with baby wipes and then apply it fresh. She doesn’t put on as much as she was wearing yesterday, but that’s fine. Honestly, it would be fine if she didn’t wear any. I just didn’t like that the smeared makeup reminds me that she’s been crying.

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