Page 4 of How to Seduce a Slender

“Ms. Deathless, please…put down the trowel.”

“Who are you!” She jabbed the trowel into the darkened room, searching it for the source of the voice. Arms and shadows crept along the walls. Melody whipped back and forth, jabbing at the shadows with tiny shrieks. “Leave me alone!”

“I can’t do that.” Two hands wrapped around her with a sharp snap. Her scream was cut short as another hand wrapped around her mouth. Melody thrashed, swinging the trowel left and right as hard as she could. A huff sounded behind her, “Please—”

She whipped one last time and buried the garden utensil into the belly of the person engulfing her in shadows. The lights snapped on. Her weapon clattered to the floor. Melody gasped, hands flying to her mouth as a familiar person appeared.Finally!

“Mr. Smith!” She stumbled back, crashing into the desk. The quill and ink pot clattered as other objects were knocked off the top of the desk. He lurched forward. She was caught in the blink of an eye in long, skinny arms.

“Miss Deathless, if you will please refrain from stabbing me…I can explain.”

Her mouth flopped open and closed without sound as he effortlessly righted her on her feet and dusted off the sides of her jeans. The ink she’d spilled on herself fell away like dust. Her brain was flickering, error lights and disconnection, unable to connect. Finally, she squeaked, “Mr. Smith?”

“Hello,” he laughed in that breathless way one does when they’re flustered.

The slender stood before her. A faceless being of light and energy in a fitted, three-piece suit.Except, he wasn’texactlyfaceless.There was a face beyond the fuzz. The more she stared at him in utter shock, the more she noticed what she never did before. An ovular face, skinny with high cheekbones. No eyes, no hair, but she could make out the shape of his mouth as he talked. Like a thin film over a strong skull.

How peculiar… Had I never stared at him like this before?

“I do apologize, this must be a huge shock to you. And I assure you, I will see you home safe and sound as soon as possible. I just need to ensure you’re fully healed and not in any more danger…Miss Deathless?”

How did the nice lawyer from the diner save me? Why did he save me?

The words flew out of her mouth breathlessly, “Melody…please call me Melody.”

Smith took a deep breath in then exhaled heavily. “Melody, I apologize, this may seem brash. But I need to ask: why were those things chasing you?”

Melody stared at him before she squeezed her lungs for all they worth and wheezed, “I was kind of hopingyou could tell me why.I remember work…and then being chased, but what happened in between those two facts is…gone.”

“Oh dear,” he sighed. “You don’t know? Did they just come out of nowhere? Did they come from the diner? Come, your leg is still healing, sit.”

He maneuvered her like a well-practiced ballerina swings a flopping trout about the dance floor. She toppled down onto the couch, squeaking as she did her best to keep control of her limbs. Pain returned even stronger than before. Melody hissed as something brushed her leg. She glanced down to her own pantleg, coated in blood, brushing against a stitched patch of her skin.

Smith held her hand back, forcing her to leave her angry flesh alone.

“Melody, please, it’s important—”

“I don’t remember,” she shuddered. “It’s just…gone. All of its gone, Smith.”

Always the lost girl, never found.

And the terrifying loom of the unknown weighed her down into the fainting couch. Once again, she was lost…and last time she was this lost in the woods, her brother disappeared…leaving her alone for the rest of her life.

Chapter Two:

Smith

“Smith,”Sebastianwarned,handson his hips.

“Sir, I can explain.” Smith held up his hands like white flags. Sebastian and Dahlia Rosemont stood in front of him and his door. The door that shielded a sleeping Melody. He didn’t know what else to do. Smith convinced everyone in the house to distract Dahlia and Sebastian just long enough for him to get her to a room. Then bribed Havershum to bring him Sebastian’s enchanted sewing needle. Granted, he should have taken his lumps and brought her to Sebastian to stitch up in the first place. But when he saw her clutching that garden trowel in frightened tears, he knew a slow integration was best.

Melody Deathless was in trouble. Someone powerful sent eldritch horrors after her in those woods and she only survived because Smith was there to catch her. He wasn’t sure what he would have done had he found out through the grapevine…Did you hear? That poor waitress was ripped apart in the woods.Smith couldn’t even ponder the possibility without making the gas lamps around him shatter.

“Explain why you smuggled a whole person in the house? Or why we’ve been on a wild goose chase because of it? Or why you’ve got her hidden in your room? Or why Kevin and Carl said you rudely tossed them out the back door?” Dahlia cocked her head to the side.

Sebastian and Dahlia Rosemont were different levels of intense. Sebastian, a lanky man hidden behind a plague doctor mask, mint skin, flared fin-like ears, missing flesh upon one of his fingers. The Lich of King’s Fall. Dahlia was a platinum blond-haired, dagger-eared elvish woman with slate gray eyes and a certain level of eldritch horror radiating off her. The newHungry One, the woman who ate a god and lived to tell the tale.

“Her name is Melody Deathless, she’s an acquaintance of mine. Last night she was chased through the woods by some eldritch beasts and now has no memory of what caused it.” He motioned at the door vaguely, unsure how to explain better that the woman he’d been…okay, notobsessivelybut maybe more than was healthy, going to see every week for a cup of meager coffee and subpar flapjacks.

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