Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

Some emotion I didn’t want to look at too closely prompted me to speak instead of just letting him go. ‘I’m curious,’ I said, and he stilled, hand on the bedroom door handle. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about what happened?’

He kept his gaze on the door. ‘Do you want me too?’

Did I? I wasn’t sure. Explaining one small thing would just start the first domino falling, and there was no way I could tell him what lay at the end.

‘Your silence says you don’t’—the door creaked as he turned the handle—‘and I’m not prepared to wait for whatever story you’re concocting.’

‘I’m fae, Finn,’ I snapped. ‘Fae can’t lie and you know that.’

‘Not being able to lie isn’t the same as telling the truth, is it, Gen?’

No. It isn’t.

He pulled open the door. ‘I’ll see you later at work.’ But he didn’t leave. Instead he stood, silent, on the threshold for a moment, then he turned and strode the couple of paces back to the side of my bed.

‘Changed your mind?’ I glared up at him. ‘Want to listen to my stories now, do you?’

His face softened, eyes darkening with concern as he bent and traced a gentle finger down my cheek. ‘You were crying in your sleep, Gen.’ It was almost a question.

A dream-shadow of sorrow bloomed inside me and I dropped my gaze, hiding my face from him.

‘Hell’s thorns, Gen—’ He sighed, a soft impatient exhalation of breath. ‘You know where I am,’ he said, ‘if you want anything.’

I heard the front door close quietly behind him and I rested my chin on my knees, the sorrow gone almost as fast as it had surfaced. Confusion and an odd disconnected feeling replaced it. Was I suffering from some sort of mild shock, with everything that had happened? But then maybe it was just the hyped-up afterglow from the massive venom hit masking all my worries. I frowned at the picture hanging on my wall.

The scene was of the River Thames, early morning mist layering the grey water, a midwinter sun struggling in the sky, very Turneresque, very bleak and lonely. The artist was Tavish—a three-hundred-year-old kelpie who predated Turner by at least seventy years—and the water-colour had been a gift. He was the only other fae I’d spent any time with; even then I’d minded Hugh’s advice and kept Tavish at arm’s length. But that hadn’t stopped me being more than disappointed when he’d left, ten months earlier, to go prospecting in the Fair Lands.

But it wasn’t just Hugh and his advice that told me to keep my secrets, it’s who I am. My mother may have been sidhe fae, but my father is—or was —a vampire, something that the dream had reminded me of all too clearly. My latent vampire genes were one of the reasons why I’d always thought my vamp-disguise spell worked so well, but now ...

Was Malik right: was I wearing some stolen vamp’s body? Rosa? Maybe that was why I wanted to sink my teeth into Finn; maybe Rosa , my Alter-Vamp, was trying to take over. Sweat broke out over my body and I slammed the thoughts away into the box in my mind and locked it tight.

I looked down at where I’d been pleating the sheet and saw the bruises Malik had given me still circling my left wrist. They should’ve healed along with all my other injuries when the spell reverted at dawn. My hand flew to my neck—if the bruises hadn’t gone, what about his bite? Did I still have the fang-marks? I leapt out of bed and yanked open the wardrobe door, staring at my reflection in its long mirror. But my neck was smooth and unmarked. Then I remembered the Earl’s words as he’d held out my arm to Malik: And nor do I feel the need to mark my prey, like some brutish animal .

Malik had marked me as his. So what was new about that?

I shoved that thought away with all the others, and headed for the kitchen—time to try out Finn’s idea for the brownie magic and see if I couldn’t get rid of it before it caused me any more problems. If nothing else, it would keep my mind off other less easily dealt with thoughts.

I opened the sweet-shop size jar of liquorice torpedoes I kept on the counter-top and fished out four red ones. I crunched one between my teeth and lined up the other three at the back of the counter. Pulling open the fridge, I grabbed the bottle of Stoli, hesitating as the plastic box in the bottom drawer caught my eye. I shook my head and poured myself a large glass of the vodka. I knocked it back quickly, feeling the chill burn down into my stomach.

Closing my eyes, I focused and looked inwards. The brownie magic simmered like a multi-coloured soup, florescent wisps of steam rising from its gently bubbling surface. Buried below it were small black pearls, and I frowned until I remembered: they were the compulsion-spell I’d called from Constable Curly-hair’s ‘True Love’ bracelet.

Damn. Getting rid of that was going to be even more of a hassle. I’d probably have to wade into the Thames and let the compulsion-spell dissipate into the running water. It was too dangerous to try anything else.

‘Right then,’ I muttered, opening my eyes, ‘let’s see if I can do what any self-respecting four-year-old witch can.’

I lifted a ladle of the magic soup and poured it over the sweets, but the ladle kept turning into a sieve, with the magic draining back into the soup faster than I could pour. Each ladle—or sieveful—only managed to splatter pinpricks of the multi-coloured magic over the red torpedoes. I persevered, sweat trickling down my spine, until I finally managed to coat the sweets in the magic. I smiled in relief and called them. The sweets moved about an inch, then the magic peeled off and splashed back into the soup.

Damn. Maybe three was too many to start with. I tried again with one torpedo, which eventually moved six inches to the left. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I gave it one more try. This time the torpedo zoomed towards me. I grinned and held up my hand to catch it, then flinched in dismay as it exploded, spraying me with fine sugary dust.

My shoulders slumped. I felt like I’d been for a ten-mile run, but with less to show for it. I decided lesson one was over, and at this rate lesson two might never happen. Why the hell was it proving so difficult? Looked like I’d have to get rid of the magic inside a circle after all. I sighed and opened the fridge to put back the vodka.

The plastic box sat there, waiting.

My chest tightened. This so wasn’t a good idea, not when the dream-shadows were already creeping round the edges of my mind. I stood, hesitating, the icy air freezing my naked skin, then before I could change my mind, I opened the fridge drawer and gently removed the box. Biting my lip, I prised off the lid and looked down at the contents.

The gardenia-scented soap, still wrapped in its original waxed paper, rested on a bed of tissue paper next to the thin plait of blue-white hair.

I didn’t touch either, just leaned over and inhaled the delicate fragrance of the soap.

Closing my eyes, I saw Tildy as she’d been in my dream, her long blonde curls, the worried blue eyes, and the black opal collar concealing the bite on her neck.

I’d been the count’s daughter, his little Russian princess, waiting for my prince to come, just like in all the fairy stories. When he finally arrived, two weeks before the celebrations, I’d been the luckiest princess alive, for my prince was young-looking and handsome and powerful. And on my fourteenth birthday I would take his Blood-Bond—my life and blood and magic given to him to control—and become his faerie queen for ever.

I had been eagerly preparing to become his all my life. I even had my very own lady’s maid, Sally. She was pretty, with her pale blue skin and long blue-white hair—her great-grand-mother was a Cailleac Bhuer, one of the Blue Hags. Only Sally wasn’t magic enough for the fae, and had too much Other in her for the humans. But the vampires wanted her, even if no one else did.