Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

Strong fingers dug into my wrist. Even when Madame Sylvie dragged me offstage and shoved me hard against the brick wall, I couldn’t stop smiling.

“What is this farce?” she growled, her face hot, bright red under flaking flesh-colored paint.

“It’s not a farce. It’s a dance. I call it the can-can.”

“How dare you! I take you in off the street, and you drive away one of my stars and take over the show? Unforgivable.”

I swallowed my grin, tried to look contrite. I failed. As I licked my lips and tried to plan my next words carefully, Blaise tugged on Madame Sylvie’s jacket.

“ Madame !”

“Away, boy. This is business.”

“But madame . This note is from the duke.”

The paper he held out was pristine and creamy and thick, the seal that held it still wet and glistening with a rampant gryphon. A hungry look passed over Madame Sylvie’s face, and she let go with one hand, still pinning me to the wall with the other. After ripping the note open with her teeth, she read it one-handed and sucked in her breath. Ever so gently, she untangled her fingers from the front of my jacket and placed me back on the ground as if I were made of porcelain.

“There are more, madame .” Blaise held out a fan of paper in his other hand, and Madame Sylvie took them with a giddy chuckle.

“Would you like to be the mistress of a duke, my Demitasse?” She raised one eyebrow at me as if gracefully conceding defeat and moving on to the next stage of negotiations.

“I’d like to meet him first.”

She stepped back, tucked the duke’s note into her cleavage, and brushed down the front of my jacket where she’d wrinkled it with her fist. “The can-can, eh? You’ve named a dance ‘the scandal.’ ”

“We are also sold out for tomorrow night, madame .” Blaise melted into the shadows.

Madame Sylvie crowed and looked at me as if I was edible—but in a regular way and not the harmless daimon way. “And what a scandal it is! Already sold out for tomorrow, and it’s not even intermission. I would call you an instant success if it didn’t cause me pain to do so.” She took a deep breath and put her hands on her hips. “Outfoxed by a Bludman. What have I come to?”

“A grand success, tons of publicity, and oodles of money?” I ventured.

She patted me on the head. “Just so. Now, off to your room and lock the door before they find you. You’ve driven them to a frenzy, you know.”

I straightened my jacket and put up my chin. “I’m taking Limone’s room.”

Her mouth quirked up, and she looked me up and down. “Fair enough. Just stay away from La Goulue, or she’ll stab you in the throat.”

“I’ve already died once on your stage. I’m not scared of round two.”

“Be scared of tomorrow, my dear. There will be even more men in the audience. And this time, they’ll be waiting to eat you alive.”

“Not if I eat them first.”

My eyes dared her to retort. She raised her chin a notch. On a whim, I caught the corner of the duke’s note and whipped it out of her corset, tucking it into my own cleavage instead. Her gaze continued to measure me, and I raised my eyebrows.

As I turned to hide my smile and take the stairs, she called, “Speaking of which, I’ll send out for some blood, shall I? Can’t have you getting too hungry.”

I raised a hand in thanks and muttered to myself, “You have no idea just how hungry I am.”

My elation and smug self-satisfaction lasted until I opened the door to Limone’s room and found a man standing by my open window, his face obscured by billowing white curtains.

“Shut the door and close your eyes,” he said.

“Honestly, Vale. Breakingin?”

He shrugged and grinned, his hands behind his back. “The window was open, bébé .” His finger sketched a circle in the air. “Now, at least turn around and shut the door.”

I leaned back against the wood, my breath catching as the door clicked shut. Last night’s room had been a closet with a cot, but Limone’s room was like a lady’s sitting room, with pretty damask wallpaper and rugs and a fire in the grate. The bed was sumptuous, iron with posts and draped in swaths of gauze and vines made of paper. I’d spent the afternoon trapped in here, waiting for my moment, but I hadn’t given the actual surroundings much thought. Now, with nothing between me and Vale but warm, smoky air scented with cinnamon and flowers and a jacket I’d already unbuttoned, it felt like a room made for seduction.

I nodded and closed my eyes, just to see if he would kiss me again.

“Good girl.”

A cork popped, and liquid glugged against glass. He stepped close enough for me to feel the warmth radiating from his skin and wrapped my fingers around the belly of a goblet. Gently, slowly, he brought it to my nose.

“Smell that, bébé ?”

Breathing in deep, I smelled a million things. Blood, lots of it. Red wine, deep and perfectly aged and carrying hints of berries and vanilla and summer fruit I hadn’t tasted since passing out in Earth on my dorm room floor. He hadn’t let go of my hand, and his other hand now wrapped around it and brought the rim of the glass to my lips as he stepped even closer.

The scent of the wine was overwhelmed by the scent of him, just as powerful, just as dangerous.

“Careful, now. Just a taste.”

The goblet tipped up, and I opened my mouth, taking the small sip that he allowed me.

“Keep your eyes closed. What do you taste?”

I rolled the wine around my mouth, letting it wash over my tongue. “Blood. Wine. It’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

“There’s something else. Try again.”

I swallowed the wine, felt it caress my throat all the way down to my belly, where it settled, hot and mellow. I’d had bloodwine a few times since coming to Sang but not much. Criminy didn’t want any risk of his carnivalleros descending into drink or other illicit substances that tended to make one lazy or feral. But Vale was right—the wine he pressed insistently against my lips was different. I drank deeper this time, wrapping a hand around his wrist to hold it there. The flavor eluded me, and I opened my eyes. Vale was smirking, delighted. My fingers tightened around his arm as suspicion rose in my gullet.

“Is it your blood, Vale?”

“No. Of course not. I don’t want to make you go mad, bébé .” He winked. “At least, not that way.”

My fingers didn’t relax, and his bones ground together in my grasp, but to his credit, he didn’t flinch.

“What, then? Something dangerous? Magic?”

A peculiar distrust rippled through me. I dropped his wrist and threw the glass into the fire, where it shattered and sent sparkly red flames roaring up the chimney. I bared my teeth, my heart speeding up as I tried to puzzle out what he had given me, what he had done.

I had grown too comfortable with Criminy’s honor among thieves and had given this avowed brigand more trust than was wise. He could have poisoned me all too easily simply because I had a schoolgirl crush on him and felt as if I was filled with helium every time he stepped near. Funny, to think I had survived college frat parties without getting roofied, only to fall for the first drink set to my lips in Sang. I didn’t want to believe he was a villain, but that smirk he’d given me . . .

He took a step back, hands down, eyes wary. “ Bébé , you’re taking it all wrong. It was unicorn blud, nothing more. There’s a certain cabaret where the Maestro and his Freesian Tsarina stay sometimes, and they keep the cellar stocked with special vintages of bloodwine. I nipped one and thought I’d surprise you. I assumed you would recognize the taste of unicorn. I’m told your people prize it.”