Page 3 of The Shadow Bride

A larger animal.I stifle the urge to retch.

“I told you”—Lou lowers her voice, at least, but I still hear every word—“her body doesn’t want deer. We should’ve—I don’t know—found a bear, or—”

“Do we have bears in Belterra?” Beau asks abruptly.

Sighing in exasperation, Coco hangs her cloak, and the scent of herblood—my vision tilts again. I seize a bedpost for balance as she says, “How do you not know this? You’re theking—”

“I’m not the king ofbears, Cosette.”

Odessa snorts from the corner.

“No, Beauregard,” Coco says in a long-suffering voice, “we do not have bears in Belterra, but if we’re being honest, her body doesn’t want animal at all. She needs to feed—really feed, thistime. I told her we could help her hunt, but she refused.”

Closing her book, Odessa says rather puckishly, “Oh? And do you have experience hunting humans?”

A pause as everyone reluctantly turns to her. Though they’ve done their best to avoid her presence, they never ignore her outright—because of me, I think. Yesterday, she chastised Lou for feeding Melisandre cheese—“Do you have any idea what dairy does to a cat’s digestion?”—until Reid intervened, at which point she chronicled the history and mythos of red hair for nearly an hour. Coco takes a deep breath now. “Of course we don’t have experiencehuntinghumans, but—”

“I do, actually.” Unlike Coco, Reid doesn’t bother to hide his distaste for the vampire in his kitchen. Somewhere between Odessa’s suggestion that Melisandre stank and that, historically, his hair meant he should’ve been sacrificed at birth, Reid lost his social graces. “Together, we could help Célie feed without harming anyone.”

“Ah, yes.” I imagine Odessa examining her nails with a polite lack of interest. “Thehuntsman. Tell me, darling, with all of your ineffable experience, how do you imagine that scene unfolding? Would the four of you—three of whom govern the whole of Belterra—descend upon the streets at nightfall in search of Célie’s dinner?”

“We wouldn’tdescend—”

“And what would happen if you found it?” Her voice deceptively light, Odessa continues without acknowledging him. “Perhaps a lovely young man hurrying home from a late night at the shop—would you corner him in a dark alley and politely ask him to offer a vein? Would you enchant his acquiescence if herefused? Hmm... no.” She taps a nail upon her chin in contemplation. “You are a huntsman, after all. Instead, you would probably incapacitate him while Célie took his lifeblood by force. Either way would result in harm. Probably even death.”

I stare at my feet, unable to truly see them, and listen to the soft disturbance of air as Reid shakes his head. “Célie would never hurt anyone.”

“Have you ever seen a newborn vampire feed?” Odessa’s voice grows unusually grave when no one answers.Shecannot pretend to ignore my heightened senses; she wants me to hear every word. “You might’ve known Célie once, but she isn’t human any longer. She won’t be able to control her impulses, and that makes her dangerous.Especiallyto all of you. She is drawn to you, clearly—even loves you—but all emotion strongly felt turns to hunger in a newborn vampire. She needs to be among her own kind on Requiem. I cannotfathomwhy Michal allowed you to bring her here, but—”

“Célie didn’t want to live on Requiem,” Lou says irritably, interrupting her as my gaze snaps upward once more. “She told us just before she died.”

“And slaughtering her friends?” Odessa asks. “Isthatwhat Célie would want?”

“That won’t happen.”

“If she smells your blood while feeding, Louise le Blanc, it will.”

“Well, then,” Lou says as she stalks down the hallway toward my door, “let’s hope she feels strongly about deer.”

A moment later, she knocks, and my knees seem to grow roots as the door cracks open. She pokes her head inside with a gentle, “Célie? Are you awake? I thought I heard—” Her eyes fall to thesmashed music box and widen slightly. I swallow hard. “Is... everything all right?”

“My music box broke.” Though I say the words quickly, feverishly, the bedpost begins to splinter in my hand because I can’t—I can’t hold my breath and speak at the same time. I can’t prevent the scent of her magic from becoming a literaltasteon my tongue, and—and— I choke on my next words. “But I—I think I can fix it. I think I can—”

Whistling under her breath, Lou crouches to swipe a finger through the glittering dust. Her lips twitch. “Damn. I don’t think evenIcan fix such an admirable fit of temper. Good foryou, Célie, but—it is a shame. I had plans for this creepy little music box.”

I blink at her, nonplussed. “What?”

“Oh, I was going to hide it next to Reid’s pillow after he falls asleep tonight.” She waves an errant hand, and at once, her enchantment sweeps over me, dulling the sharp edge of my hunger. Her own stomach emits a deafening rumble in response. She pats it fondly. “He tried to scare me the other day—hid under the bed and everything, bless him. He thought it’d be enormously clever to grab my ankle as I walked past.” A devious grin. “He has no idea what he started.”

“Why—why would he do that?”

“I might’ve dyed his eyebrows blue last week.” Eyes glittering impishly, she stands and dusts her hands against her pants before offering one to me. “Come to dinner, Célie. You shouldn’t stew in here alone.”

“I’m not alone,” I say reflexively.

Filippa’s laughter echoes around me again, and the hair on my neck lifts. My eyes dart to Mila, who frowns.

“Right, of course. Mila is invited too.”

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