Page 35 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
“What’s that about?” I ask.
“What’swhatabout?”
“That.”
Ediye gives me an innocent look.
“That. That look. Thatsmile.” I repeat, gesturing to the angel and demon that follow several meters behind us.
Ediye shrugs. “Nothing! Nothing. I was just checking that Eryx’s wings are still hidden.”
I snort a laugh.
“What?”
“Right. So it has nothing to do with you wanting to be part of a demon-angel man sandwich.”
Ediye guffaws an incredulous laugh that’s just a little too loud, giving her away. Her skin might be too dark for me to see her blush, but I can sense the rush of blood that floods the surface of her cheeks. “I do not,” she hisses.
“What would you even call that? A demwitchgelwich?”
Ediye can’t help but snicker. “No. The preferred term is a demglowstickelwitchelwich.”
We grin conspiratorially at one another and I grip Ediye a little tighter. Voices and laughter and music flow down the street like water, trickling away from the club. It feels like we’re part of the atmosphere here. It’s easy for the mortal world to seem like it passes around us sometimes. But hearing it so alive, like this, makes me feel as though we’re not so far beyond the reach of what makes life so precious. I smile a little wistfully and glance up at the star-riddled night as we walk on in silence.
“How are you feeling?” Ediye asks, her voice low and serious as she pats my hand.
My smile fades and I glance over at her. “Kinda shit to be honest. I shouldn’t have had that second bottle,” I admit, tapping my palm to my chest, hiding a burp in my fist. My buzzing headache hasn’t stopped since I woke up on the floor at Mr. Hassan’s, and I figured it best not to mix some unknown elixir with booze since my preference was the latter. So the pain ebbs and flows, but it’s persistent and uncomfortable. The rest of me isn’t quite right either. Inexplicably off. I thought wine would take my mind off it, or at the very least would give me a decent reason to feel like crap. The latter it shall be, I guess.
“I meant about seeing Cassian,” Ediye says, though she looks me over with a worried glance. I think we were both hoping the procedure in Cairo would magically fix things. But that’s the funny thing about magic. Sometimes it’s not all that magical after all.
“Yeah, that. Good point. I dunno, a bit weird I guess?” I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about it, actually, which was the other reason for downing so much wine. But Ediye doesn’t press for more, just hums and nods as we draw to a halt beneath the blue lights of the Datura coven’s bar.
We wait for the others to catch up as we reach the entrance of Club Caelum, the doors flanked by two warlock bouncers. Aside from being a little on the big side, it’s not like the hulking warlocks look any different from the human patrons that wait in line or stumble as they leave, but I can sense the magic in them. It surrounds this place in a coating of spells so thick that the air almost shimmers. The staff have clearly been forewarned about our incoming visit and step back to let us pass.
The music swells around us on the scents of humans and potions and alcohol. Sweat and breath linger in the air. Voices and heartbeats surround me.
The space is dark, illuminated by the light show from the stage where a DJ performs. Ediye leads us through the boundary between the dancefloor and the high tables. A long bar flows like a curved wave to our left, the bartenders behind it lining up shots and shaking cocktails. We head for a set of stairs where another two bouncers guard a velvet rope that cordons off the VIP area. When they see us, they open the barrier and stand aside.
My heart starts to climb my throat with every step we take up the stairs. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve seen Cassian, but I can still picture every inch of his skin. I can almost feel my fingers trace the deep scar that slices through his left brow and another smaller one, straight like the blade that made it, that cuts into his upper lip. Beautiful remnants of bloody battles.
A hot Roman warrior with tanned skin stretched over thick muscle? With big brown eyes that always looked like they were smiling, even when he was slashing guts and taking names? Yeah… We vampires notice that stuff. Andwe like it.So of course I was all in for that, back in the day. He was kinda psychotically hot.
I fell hard and fast.
It was only a month after I met him that I gave Cassian the offer and he accepted. I made him immortal. And at first he was pretty great. Until he wasn’t.
I really felt like I was catfished, you know? I was looking for a warrior to ride into battle at my side and instead I got the Tinder equivalent of a guy holding a fish. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh… he did still killsomepeople.Fine, lots of people. But he was way more interested in rising through the political world, donning fancy clothes and going to fancy dinners and manipulating humans into doing his fancy-ass bidding.
It was borrrrinnnng.
I tried to convince myself it would get better once we were married and blood-mated. After all, Cassian did give me a pretty spectacular proposal that was very in-line with his tastes. We vampires do adore romantic gestures. I would have preferred something low-key and intimate, but, to his credit, he did put a lot of effort in. There were chariots of flowers. There were singers and children dancing down the street toward me like some kind of smelly little flashmob. He even made a play, for fucksakes, about a mythical woman that steals the soul of a simple soldier andyada, yada, yada,they live happily ever after,Leucosia will you marry me, THE END.
…….
………Yeah, it was about as cringe as it sounds.
But I said yes, of course. How can you not when a couple hundred people are watching you expectantly? And I was lonely, and I think we’ve firmly established that I do FUCKING STUPID SHIT when I’m lonely.
