mints set in a little bowl in the center of the table. Jace decided the woman was even more beautiful when she was expecting. She appeared radiantly happy. Alive. And he admittedly liked a woman with a little meat on her bones. He fleetingly wondered what Aggie would look like with a baby growing inside her—his baby—but immediately quashed the idea as soon as it occurred to him. He had no business being a father, didn’t exactly have a good example to go by. He sure didn’t want to fuck up some kid’s psyche as much as his own father had fucked up his.
“So how many little Lionhearts are you going for, Daddy-O?” Eric asked.
“As many as she’ll agree to,” Sed said and sported a cocky grin. “I owe our species the perpetuation of my superior genes.”
Eric snorted and then turned to Jace. “Speaking of jeans. Where are your pants, Jace? Didn’t they fit? I made sure they were extra short, which was far easier than finding historic garb in size tall. You’d have blended in well two hundred years ago, little man.”
Jace was too used to short jokes to rise to his bait any more. “I don’t know if they fit; I didn’t bother trying them on. I’m not wearing them.”
“That was an option?” Sed growled, glaring down at his own knee-length trousers with disdain.
“Is this where the real party’s at?” Trey asked, joining their little Sinners huddle. “I’m about to jab sharp objects through my eardrums. What is that fucking music they’re playing?”
“That’s music?” Sed asked, glancing toward the flashing DJ booth suspiciously. “Could have fooled me. Sounds like shit.”
“This shit is far more popular than our music,” Eric said. He reached around Sed for a plate but was blocked by the shift of Sed’s body, as if they were playing one-on-one basketball instead of raiding a buffet.
“Put me out of my misery.” Trey grabbed a butter knife, gritted his teeth, and aimed the knife at his ear canal.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Eric said, “Small as it is, your brain is rattling around in there somewhere.” He grabbed Trey’s wrist and they made a big theatrical scene of fighting over embedding the butter knife in Trey’s ear.
“I’ll do it,” Trey said, cringing as the knife slipped and scrapped against one of the piercings in his ear. “I’ll end it all. Make the noise stop.”
“Get the knife, Jace,” Eric said, “before Mills bleeds all over the blood pudding.”
Jace squeezed Trey’s wrist and took the butter knife out of his loosened grip. He dropped the dull blade on the table. “Maybe you should talk to the DJ,” Jace suggested. “Ask him to play something more to your liking.”
“But that would be the sensible thing to do,” Eric said.
“And the DJ happens to be a her,” Sed remarked, adding several crumpets to Jessica’s already overflowing plate.
“Oh really,” Trey said, his body going erect with interest.
“Does Reagan know you still flirt with every woman who will hold still long enough for you to harass her?” Eric asked.
“Of course she knows. She isn’t stupid or blind,” Trey said. “She also knows a little harmless flirting leads to nothing.”
“Except anything you want,” Jace said with a grin.
Eric released Trey, who tugged on his form-fitting burgundy brocade vest and straightened a very large lacy cuff. Did men actually wear this stuff back in the day? How did the human species not go extinct? Dressing like a chick couldn’t have done much for their ancestors’ testosterone secretion. Trey smoothed an eyebrow with one spit-wet fingertip and headed toward the umph umph umph blaring from giant speakers across the room.
“I don’t know why Reagan puts up with him,” Eric said, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I acted like that with other women, Rebekah would put me on pussy restriction for a month.”
Jace laughed. “Does Rebekah have trust issues?”
“I don’t think so,” Eric said. “She’s just very territorial.”
“Aggie is as well,” Jace admitted. But like Reagan, he understood that his mate could be trusted to enjoy others without breaking their emotional bond or cheating.
“Jess is also territorial,” Sed added, resting the full plate on his forearm and grabbing a second plate to add a selection of desserts.
“Territorial? If you keep feeding her like that, she’s going to end up as her own sovereign territory,” Eric said.
“No worries, she shares.” Sed grinned. “And she’s been so horny lately, I can scarcely keep her satisfied.”
“Maybe you should hire some assistance,” Eric joked.
Sed hit him in the forehead with a crumpet.
An unexpected silence filled the room. Jace had been tuning out the music in the background, but its sudden absence was very noticeable.
Trey’s voice came over the speakers. “I hope you all can dance to Exodus End,” he said. “I can’t stand the club music for another moment.”
Everyone on the dance floor gawked at him as the familiar intro of “Bite” filled the large room. Apparently no one knew how to dance to Exodus End, so Trey entered the dance floor to show them.
A hand pressed against Jace’s lower back.
“Is anything on the buffet edible?” Aggie asked.
He glanced at her and smiled. “I wouldn’t know. Sed is holding up the line.”
“I’m almost finished.” Sed added another slice of cake to his second plate.
“Yeah,” Eric said, “but there won’t be anything left for the rest of us.”
“I’d hit you, but I don’t have a free hand.”
“I’d be willing to take on the task,” Aggie said. “For a price. I don’t work for free.”
“Does she still charge you, Jace?” Eric quipped.
“Not after tomorrow,” he said. “Marrying her makes good financial sense.”
“Bassists do make a little more than paper boys,” Aggie said.
“But not by much,” he said.
Eric lifted an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t your contract give you an even cut of Sinners’ profits?”
“Yeah.” Jace shrugged. He really didn’t care about the money. It was nice to make a living off what he loved, but he could do without. It wasn’t as if he’d never been destitute. He didn’t particularly want to go back to wondering where his next meal would come from, but he’d survived it once and could survive it again.
“Inside joke,” Aggie said. “My mother was trying to get him to tell her how much money he makes.”
Sed snorted. “Sounds like my mother-in-law.”
“I thought you and Jess cut all ties with her after the way she acted at your wedding,” Eric said.
“Yeah, well, she decided she could control herself if she was allowed to see her grandchild. She’s been marginally successful at not pissing off Jessica so she doesn’t get disinvited from the delivery room.”
“Jessica looks pretty hungry if you ask me,” Aggie said. “If anyone is pissing her off, it’s you.”
And Sed finally left the buffet to allow the growing line a chance to score some food.
“You’re brilliant,” Jace told Aggie.
“Eh, Sed thinks like a typical guy. He’s easy to manipulate.” She kissed the corner of Jace’s mouth. “I’m still trying to figure out how to get you to do what I want you to do when I want you to do it. You’re still a bit of an enigma to me.”
“Tripod is not complicated,” Eric said. “Just bring out the short jokes. They get him all flustered, and he forgets he’s brooding and that he lacks a sense of humor.”
“He’s not short, he’s perfect,” Aggie said. “Maybe you’re just freakishly tall.”
Jace lifted his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twisting in a smirk. “Eric’s just jealous because my dick is bigger than his.”
Eric stared at him with his mouth hanging open, apparently without a proper comeback.
“Yeah, well,” Eric said finally. “My dick’s not small. It’s perfect. Maybe yours is just fre
akishly large.”
Aggie and Jace laughed.
“And I like it that way,” Aggie said, giving Jace a courteous slap on the ass.
Eric grabbed two plates and, as if on cue, Rebekah sidled up to him, bypassing the entire line.
“Hey,” Aggie chided. “We were here first.”
“Eric was holding my place,” Rebekah said, the red streaks in her blond hair matching her ball gown perfectly.
“I was?” Eric said, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Yes.”
“And where have you been, Miss Reb?” Aggie asked. “Setting up more pranks to scare the piss out of me and Jace?”
If the looks of confusion on Eric and Rebekah’s faces were fabricated, they should have gone into theater instead of music.
“What are you talking about?” Eric asked.
“The message you wrote in lipstick on the mirror,” Aggie said. “Very mature, Eric.” She crossed her arms over her large breasts and scowled at him.
Jace had almost forgotten about the creepiness they’d experienced before they’d entered the castle. He shuddered as the feelings of unease settled upon him once more.
“What did it say?” Eric said with a snigger as he filled his plate with food. “Get out! Get out of Aggie’s pussy, Jace. You’re late for your own rehearsal dinner?”
“You know damned well what it said, jackass,” Aggie grumbled.
“He is mine,” Jace told them. He lifted a heavy white china plate from the end of the buffet as Eric followed after his wife down the spread of food.
Eric’s head swung in Jace’s direction, and his eyebrows shot up toward his bizarre hairline. “Do you have something in the closet you’d like to share, little man?”
“No.” He prodded Eric in the ribs with his elbow. “That’s what the message said.”
“I’d love to take credit for rattling the unrattleable—”
“Is that even a word?” Rebekah interrupted her husband.
“If not, it should be,” he said.
“It wasn’t you?” Aggie asked, leaning around Jace to look at Eric. Her ice-blue eyes were pleading with him to admit he was lying.
“Nope. We’ve been here waiting for you to arrive,” Eric said. “Maybe Jace’s fangirl—he only has one that I know of—has come to sabotage the wedding.”
“Or maybe the place really is haunted,” Jace spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Did you see a ghost?” Rebekah said excitedly. “I heard the queen’s ghost haunts the grounds. I’ve been hoping to catch sight of her all evening.”
“I saw…” Jace crumpled his forehead as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen out in the field. “Something.”
“You did?” Aggie squeaked.
“It was just some reflection of light on the fog.” Jace shrugged, trying to convince himself—more so than his captive audience—that what he’d seen hadn’t been a ghost. He didn’t believe in such things, did he?
“Rawr!” Eric growled and bumped into Jace, trying—and failing—to startle him. Eric earned a stomped-on foot for his efforts.
“You’re sure you didn’t write the message on the mirror?” Aggie asked.
Eric shook his head. “Maybe you’re seeing things.”
“I saw it too,” Jace said.
“So you’re having sympathy hallucinations,” Eric said with a shrug.
“This is cool!” Rebekah said. “I want to see it. Did you wipe it off?”
Aggie shook her head. “We’ll show you later.”
Much later, Jace thought. Maybe after the sun rose and Halloween was over. Rehearsal dinners usually continued until dawn, didn’t they? He hoped so. Jace bit his lip and continued to fill his plate, not paying much attention to what he was going to have to eat once he sat down.
The four of them joined Brian and Myrna at a nearby table. The couple had already finished eating, but they were still trying to convince their stubborn son to ingest unfamiliar foods in a place that had far more interesting things to watch than the spoon making daddy-derived airplane noises at him. It seemed Mal wasn’t a fan of British fare, if one was to judge by the state of his father’s food-splattered shirtfront.
“He doesn’t like that,” Myrna said.
“He doesn’t like anything,” Brian said, closing his eyes as Mal blew out a spoonful of red mash. Beets? Brian reached blindly for a napkin and wiped the bright red muck from his face. “Are you going to eat anything, Mal?”
“No!” Malcolm said.
“If you eat your dinner you can have cake.” Brian tried bribery.
“No!”
“Are you tired?” Myrna asked.
“No!”
“What do you want?”
“Down!” Malcolm tried to snake his way down out of his high chair, but a strap between his pudgy legs thwarted his escape.
Brian tugged the baby back up into his seat and tightened the tray to keep the squirmy child in place.
“Down pwease, daddy,” Malcolm said, his most heart-melting expression plastered to his face as he lifted his chubby arms and opened and closed his hands repeatedly.
Brian was made of stronger stuff than Jace was. Jace knew without a doubt that he’d have succumbed to the child’s wishes immediately.
“Maybe he just needs to crawl off some energy,” Myrna suggested.
The youngster must have been sucking energy out of his parents while they slept and stockpiling it for his own use; the two of them exchanged weary smiles.
Yeah, Jace decided. Parenting was not something he’d be any good at. He needed his sleep, if nothing else. Sleeping until noon wasn’t something he’d be able to enjoy with a baby in the picture.
“You’re not getting down until you eat your supper,” Brian said to his pouting little one.
“Twey!” Malcolm screamed at the top of his lungs. “Twey!”
The godfather in question appeared at the table a moment later. “What are you doing to my favorite buddy?” Trey swept a hand over Malcolm’s fluffy black hair.
“Making him eat,” Brian said.
“Who wants to eat when you can party?” He bestowed an ornery grin upon his godson. One that was immediately mirrored by the child. “Do you want to party, Mal?”
“Twey!” Malcolm said, reaching for the dangling cuff of Trey’s shirt and giving it a tug. “Pwease.”
Brian rubbed his forehead and shook his head. “I give up.”
Trey rescued his godson from the high chair. Free of his prison, Malcolm immediately spotted his favorite object to yank—Eric’s hair—and leaned over to wrap his fist in a long red strand resting temptingly on Eric’s shoulder. Eric rose to his feet to prevent being scalped and trailed after Trey and Malcolm, now making for the dance floor, until he was able to extricate his hair from Malcolm’s grip.
“I do believe your friends are a bad influence on our child,” Myrna said to Brian. “Especially that Twey character.” Her crooked grin indicated she was teasing, but Brian rested his head on the table and rubbed his face over the table cloth.
“We’re doomed,” he murmured. “Doomed!”
“He talks so well already,” Aggie commented. “Do they usually talk that much at nine months?”
Myrna beamed. “Not usually. His pediatrician says he’s never met a more gifted child.”
“Doomed!” Brian repeated.
Jace laughed and sampled what he believed was kidney pie. The dish was a bit salty, but not as disgusting as he’d feared.
“He’s so goddamned cute, it should be a crime,” Aggie said, watching the baby giggle and squeal in Trey’s arms as the pair energetically took up a mix of disco and swing dancing to the Metallica song blaring from the speakers.
Eric returned to the table, rubbing his scalp, which was likely