She shook her head. “Not right away. There’s quite a bit of objection to a human opening a business in Hollow County. We’re going to let the dust settle.” It might not have been the complete truth or even a fraction of the truth, but keeping out of sight for a while would not be a bad thing.
“What are you not telling me, sis?”
“Nothing.” Much. She sighed. She stared at the light blanket on the bed and on the clip over Megan’s finger, monitoring her heart rate.
“Okay. I can see that you’re not going to talk, but at least tell me about the wedding. Was it much different than ours?”
*** *** ***
Gerrod shouted up the hall from his private sitting room. “Gus, where the hell are my socks?”
He’d been shouting a lot lately and his scowl was sitting hard these days, low on his brows. Gus told him yesterday he was developing a troll-ridge and that if he wasn’t careful he’d be switching species any day now.
His temper was off the charts. Two weeks, two horrible weeks had passed since he’d last seen Abigail at Vojalie’s. Sweet Goddess but he was irritable and the blood starvation was back. He needed to call one of his doneuses, but the Goddess help him, he couldn’t tap the number on his phone.
He blamed Abigail for this, that he’d gotten a taste of rosemary blood and now nothing else would do.
He returned to pace his bedroom. He couldn’t find his socks, at least not the kind he needed for his boots. He had to have just the right kind. Gus knew that. What the hell was wrong with his castle staff anyway, that his drawers couldn’t be kept full of the socks the Mastyr of Merhaine preferred?
If he had to fight the Invictus now every night and if he had to make sure that one million souls were safe, he should at least have the socks he wanted.
He went to the doorway, and shouted again, “Where are my f**king socks?”
Gus appeared at the top of the hall, the only one that led to his private suite. His expression was grim. He carried a large wicker basket in both hands. His lips had become a thin white line.
“About f**king time.” He moved back into his sitting room, stomped into his bedroom, paced in front of the bed. His boots sat there, waiting. Gerrod had Invictus to face tonight again. Did no one understand that his life had become a nightmare?
The bastards had become active as hell and now he cursed as much as Ethan.
Why the hell hadn’t Abigail even called him? A simple courtesy call was the very least he had expected. ‘No, I can’t become a vampire. So sorry.’ At the very least she should have called and said that to him.
Goddess, he would kill to hear her voice.
Gus appeared in the doorway, lifted the wicker basket to his shoulder, and with the apparent use of all the strength he possessed, he flung it at Gerrod.
The wicker struck him with all the force of a pillow against his right arm. He batted it away and about a hundred socks flew in every direction, some pink, some purple, many embroidered with flowers, none of them his boot socks. The basket landed upside down near the bathroom. “What the hell? What’s going on here. Gus—” His bellows echoed around the stone-walls of the room.
He followed after him and shouted one more time, “Gus, what the f**k was that all about.”
Gus did not even turn around. He just flipped him off and kept walking.
*** *** ***
Abigail iced another cupcake.
Megan sat on a chair, bent over, and with artistry and skill, squeezed another leaf from yet another bag of well-crafted green icing. She did the leaves swiftly, one after the other, and they were nearly identical, perfect, and very leaf-like.
She was recovering well and insisted on doing what she could to help with all the orders, especially the ones to Merhaine.
“Joy tells me that you haven’t once been here when Gus comes to pick up the cupcake orders.”
“I think it’s best.”
Megan lifted the icing bag from her leaf job. “Are you ever going to tell me the truth about what happened two weeks ago?”
Abigail shrugged. How could she explain the silence that had fallen on her, as though to speak of Merhaine was to make it more real than she could bear. She had made her decision. She couldn’t leave Megan. Ever.
Megan set the bag of icing down and rose carefully from her sitting position. She rounded the long stainless steel worktable, getting in front of Abigail. “Talk.”
But Abigail moved away, turning in the direction of the sink. Maybe cleaning up the dishes would help. She flipped the hot water on and thrust her hands into a pair of heavy duty yellow gloves.
She began to rinse and arrange the dishes in the commercial grade dishwasher.
Megan got up close supporting herself with forearms on the counter. “You’re in love with him.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe. Oh, my God, Abigail, are those tears?”
“What of it?”
Megan reached over and shut the water off. “You have got to talk to me.”
Abigail couldn’t pretend anymore. She slumped to sit on the tile floor, pulling up her knees and balancing her arms right on top of both. Megan eased herself down to sit beside her. “Just so ya know, I won’t be able to get up by myself.”
Abigail nodded, but she couldn’t see much. Everything was a blur behind a wall of unshed tears. “I just have to get over him. I’m sure I can.” She rubbed her throat, trying to ease the sudden painful constriction. She remembered the last time Gerrod had sunk his fangs. He’d held her pressed against the storeroom door in the Merhaine bakery.
Then there was nothing but tears, about a million of them.
Megan rubbed her shoulders, her arms, her hands. At some point, she must have struggled to her feet then returned to sit beside her once more because she shoved about a dozen tissues at Abigail. She used every one.
When at last the tears began to subside, and the brokenness of her heart had become more of a drifting kind of pain in her chest instead of a painful strike against a forge, she told Megan everything.
‘Oh, my God’, fell from Megan’s lips about a hundred times.
“So you would become a vampire.”
“Apparently I’m almost halfway there as it is.”
Megan blinked a couple of times, staring at her hard, her eyes narrowed slightly as though considering everything Abigail had been through. Finally, she said, “You have to go back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. You have to go back to Merhaine.”