Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7)

  “How is it that every adventure requires a new costume?” I said, turning this way and that in the three-way mirror and admiring my corset-enhanced curves in the low-cut black dress. So refreshing to see true style, after suffering Emerlie’s ministrations.

  Reve grinned through a mouthful of pins, reminding me so much of Crim’s old friend Antonin that my heart hurt. “Costumes make the adventure possible,” she said. “And if you went to Mr. Sweeting wearing old rags, he would treat you like offal. Always be the best-dressed person at a battle. Or a ball.”

  “Same thing, really,” Crim muttered, tugging again at the high cravat Reve had tied on him with a tighter knot than he preferred. City styles had changed again while we roved the countryside following our own rules, and now my poor, wild husband was sewn into a tight jacket and breeches and a hat so tall he had to duck through doors. He looked razor-fine, and whenever his hands weren’t occupied tugging at his clothes, he held the scorpion’s box, turning it over and over as if flipping a giant coin over his knuckles.

  He’d already tried to lure Reve to join the caravan, and she’d just laughed at him, as Frannie had.

  “That’s two rejections today. I’m not scary anymore, am I?” he asked me.

  “You’re never scary when you like someone,” I told him with a smile. “You’re just not accustomed to liking so many people all at once.”

  Reve finished hemming my dress and fluffed the skirt over my petticoats. She’d already provided me with a boot knife and had tried to strap one to my thigh, but there was no way I could get under all my skirts in time to do any damage. I’d probably just carve up my own legs if I tried.

  “Why is everyone so certain that we’re going to end up in a fight?” I asked.

  Crim helped me down off the hemming box and twirled me around, ending with our hands clasped. “Because people who assume they’re going into a fight tend to live through the fight. This Mr. Sweeting is a dangerous character, and the witch might be more dangerous still. Are you sure this is the proper course, love?”

  “I didn’t bring my grandmother here just to let her die alone with the person I hate most in the world. We’ll all be able to relax once the witch is gone. And I’m harder to kill now.” But the way he was looking at me, face open and eyes gleaming with worry . . . he’d never looked at me like that before. I put my hand to his cheek, and he leaned into me for a moment before kissing my palm. “What’s wrong, Crim?”

  Reve swiftly disappeared down the stairs. It was still strange to me, dealing with daimons. They were, at their core, people who needed emotions as sustenance and were therefore attuned to every minor change in feeling. Perhaps our worry and anxiety tasted as repellent to her as tuna and capers to me; Reve was, after all, a daimon who dined on delight.

  Once she was gone, Crim laced his fingers through mine and pulled me close. “Thing is, love, I’ve already played my hand. When you were still human, I always had an ace in my pocket. If something hurt you, it was in my power to turn you into a Bludman. But now that you’re a Bludman, I’ve nothing up my sleeve. If Sweeting shoots you with seawater, you’ll burn and scar. If the witch stabs you in the heart, which is the sort of thing a witch would do, you’ll die. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. And that makes me worried. And furious.”

  “Then let’s go now and get it over with. I’m not scared. I feel . . . amazing. Impossibly strong. Confident. Like I could fight anything, destroy anyone who got in my way.” To make my point, I flexed my biceps—or tried to. The current bodice style in Sang had tight sleeves and a deep V-neck with slightly exposed shoulders. I felt a little bit like an evil Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

  “Bravado is fine and well, but it’s no way to go into a fight with a dangerous foe, darling. Courage is silly and will fool you into making all sorts of mistakes. The trick is to feel the fear and do it anyway. As you are now, you’re likely to make a foolish mistake, to bank your decisions on the fact that you’ve never experienced this new body damaged to the point of death or hindered in any way. You can’t feel the stakes, so to speak. You feel invincible, but you’re not.”

  “So what, then? We just sit around waiting for me to understand the full potential and weakness of my new body and then, when I’m full of doubt, rush in and throw a scorpion at him?”

  “Something like that. I wouldn’t race a horse I’d just caught, savvy?”

  And he was right. I did feel different, although mostly in a good way. But I kept catching my trimmed claws in the cloth of my skirt and rasping sharp fangs over my tongue, cutting my own lips. There was a clumsiness to my ferocity that wouldn’t serve me in a fight. My muscles worked faster, but my brain hadn’t caught up; I tripped going up stairs too quickly. When I looked in the mirror again, I didn’t see a young, beautiful, smooth version of Tish. I saw an inept monster decked out in ruffles and ribbons, better suited for wild places where bloodstains didn’t matter. I felt the loss of my humanity keenly just then. I was a new creature, and although my body and heart were finely tuned, my mind hadn’t quite made the leap.

  “I feel silly,” I muttered, fluffing my skirts like a child in a too-fancy dress.

  “You’re never silly, love. You’re different. Change is inevitable. And this change is much better than the slow alternative. It ate at you, daily. I saw it in your eyes, caught you rubbing the veins on your hands and frowning. Be glad of it.”

  “So we can’t go now because I’m fragile?”

  “We can’t go now because it’s Sunday. Sweeting’s shop will be closed.”

  “Goddammit.”

  Crim stifled a laugh and pulled me in to peck my lips gently but with promise. “I have a better idea, anyway,” he said. “To help you get the hang of this fine new body of yours.”

  And the wolfish, hungry look he gave me was enough to make me shiver with anticipation for what he had in mind.

  He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but I followed him willingly through the twisting streets of the daimon district and onto the wider streets of London Proper, as they called everything that didn’t belong to nonhumans. The cobblestones were actually dirtier here, thanks to the Pinkies’ food wrappers and detritus. It was my first time personally experiencing the sneers and whispers that dogged a Bludman’s every step, but the high quality of our clothes and the costly earbobs I wore kept anyone from throwing an old cabbage.

  “You’re not shagging me against Big Ben, if that’s what you were thinking,” I said as the giant clock came into view.

  “No Big Ben, no Tower, no ravens, no Thames,” he all but sang. “Not even a quick rogering on the carousel.”

  I was panting as we walked ever upward, but he didn’t slow down. Then I saw what he had in mind and stopped in my tracks, hard enough to nearly yank him backward.

  “No.”

  “Letitia, my love. Live a little. You’re practically indestructible. You said so yourself.”

  I dug in my heels. “No.”

  He swung me up into his arms, my petticoats foaming and rustling, and carried me onward. I looked up and up and up and shivered, but was it truly in fear, or was it perhaps in excitement, too?

  “I’ve never been up in a hot-air balloon before,” I murmured, and he kissed me quickly and kept walking.

  “Has that ‘no’ become a ‘yes, please,’ then?”

  “It’s a ‘maybe.’ ” But we could both hear my sped-up breathing, and history had taught me that he could smell my response to his touch. And couldn’t I smell something myself, the heady breath of musk and desire that rolled off him like a fine cologne? I pulled down his cravat and dragged my nose along his neck, breathing in deep. And then licked him.

  “Almost there, darling,” he said, voice all husky with promise. “They actually frown on public displays of devourment among civilized people.”

  “Screw civilized people,” I growled, and he laughed.

  “That’s what I had in mind, love.”

  We’d reached our d
estination, and he swung me down gently to the ground. My knees wobbled, and my thighs clenched together. I’d had no idea that being a Bludman would heighten my sensations, responses, and hunger for sex. It was a wonder Crim and I ever left the damn bed, if he felt like this all the time. He was more of a gentleman than I’d ever assumed. The past six years must have been maddening for him.

  I smoothed out my skirts while he went to talk to the fellow at the ticket window. Up above, dozens of balloons and dirigibles in all shapes and sizes bobbed merrily on the evening breeze, tethered to the wooden docks by ropes and winches. Some were large, with enclosed gondolas to carry passengers safely over the wild moors toward other grand cities. Some were rough and fierce-looking, ready to deliver expensive cargo at great speed and height. Some were smaller pleasure balloons, gaily draped in colorful pennants to attract the eyes of rich children. And attention-seeking hedonists like us, I supposed.

  My husband was having more trouble than usual getting what he wanted out of the balloon man, who mainly just shook his head. Their whispered argument carried on the air, ended by the clink of coins spilling on wood. Soon Crim returned to me clutching two rectangular tickets edged in gilt.

  “Which one is ours?” I asked.

  He grinned and pointed. I followed his finger up and up to a light-blue hot-air balloon so trimmed out in ribbons, pennants, and paint that it looked like a wedding cake.

  “Such a romantic,” I muttered sweetly.

  As I watched, the balloon descended to the dock, pulled by a long rope on a huge winch turned by draft-sized bludmares in rusted muzzle caps. We walked to meet it hand in hand. I hadn’t been sure, until he pointed, that he meant to simply rent one of the high fliers. I’d been worried that we would be on a metal-cladder or dirigible, possibly the world-famous Maybuck, an airship bordello shining bright gold among the clouds. For all that my Bludman’s body made me more daring, that didn’t change the fact that my tastes didn’t run to kinky. Luckily, Crim’s didn’t, either, unless you counted sometimes tying me to our brass bed with silk cravats. Or hiring a by-the-hour hot-air balloon that was even now being wiped down for our use.

  The operator tossed his rag onto the ground and stood in front of the basket, brandishing a wrench at us. “Don’t touch the mechanisms. Don’t pull the levers. Don’t untie the rope. No hanging from or standing on the edges of the basket. And don’t be leavin’ no blood on my balloon,” he growled. “Blood stains.”

  Criminy swung me over the edge and into the creaking wicker and jumped in beside me. “No blood,” he agreed, handing over our tickets. As the operator shouted at the drovers and the winch began to release us into the sky, Crim added, “But that leaves quite a few other fluids, doesn’t it?”

  The look on the poor man’s face was priceless, and Crim and I burst into the loud, carefree laugh of Bludmen who don’t give a damn.

  It was my first time in a hot-air balloon in my world or in Sang, and it was exhilarating. The basket swung and creaked below us, the fabric above flapping a little and burping heated air. It was an unusually lovely day to be in the air, especially once we’d floated above the London smog and burst out of the brownish fug into a twilight shimmering with purple and gold. We caught glimpses of other balloons and airships here and there, but the airfield was large and the vessels well spread out among feathery white clouds. The Maybuck flashed her giant wooden tits at us, but the only sound was the whoosh of air and the cries of birds hurrying past the city, high above the squalor. The wicker was slightly cold through my black velvet gloves, the brisk wind whipping my cheeks as the balloon jerked suddenly, at the end of its tether.

  Crim’s hands settled outside of mine, left and right, his body pressing against my back, a wall of heat and hardness.

  “And how does flying suit you, poppet?” he whispered in my ear.

  “Well, it’s no submarine, but I suppose it’ll do. At least we’re alone.”

  “That we are, love. That we are.”

  He nibbled down my neck and along the curve of my shoulder, his bare hands skimming my corseted waist and curving over my hips. With just the right amount of roughness, he spun me around to face him, held my face in his hands, and kissed me, hard enough to bruise my lips and make me growl. I went for his buttons, but he caught my hands and wrapped them around the ropes on either side of me.

  “Hold on,” he said against my lips.

  “What?”

  Strong hands on my waist hefted me up to sit on the edge of the basket, and I struggled not to topple backward out of the balloon to my death.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to die,” I said as he slipped off his gloves and ran bare fingertips up the insides of my calves, skimming over the fine Parisian stockings Reve had tied on.

  “Just a little death, love.”

  With a delicious wink, his fingers found the crux of me through my bloomers as his mouth claimed mine again, hungry but not pressing so hard that I might lose my balance. I’d learned well enough to talk around my new fangs, but kissing was another thing entirely, and it took me a moment of his tongue’s lush pull to figure out how to kiss him back without hurting either one of us. Meanwhile, he was working me down below in that clever way of his, knuckles brushing here, fingers pressing there, making me gasp into his mouth. As if reminding me to hold on tightly, his fingers wrapped around mine and the rope briefly before disappearing in a rustle of fabric.

  “I can feel how ready you are, love.”

  “I can, too,” I panted. “I’ve never . . . I just . . .”

  In a controlled, torturous, measured push that made me gasp and shudder, he was all the way inside me and moving with a slow, punishing cadence. His lust enveloped me, enrobed me, my own passion rising to meet it. As if he could read my mind and my worries, he wrapped both his hands around mine, around the ropes, and increased his speed, his depth.

  My muscles were tensed as I struggled to keep my balance and he struggled to undo me completely. His mouth traveled down my neck to nestle between my breasts, teasing my nipples through the fabric. My heart pounded with the exhilaration of the height, the wild wind, the sinking sun, his lapping tongue. I could already feel a climax coming with a ferocity I’d never known, and I held my breath as it overwhelmed me, my eyes closed and my thighs pulsing. If he hadn’t been holding my fingers tightly, forcing them to stay clutched around the ropes, I would have fallen back through the air without a care in the world.

  As it was, I was already floating.

  Of course, that was never enough for Criminy. Still inside me, still hard, still taking his sweet goddamn time, he pulled me down from the side of the basket, unwound my hands, lifted my voluminous skirts, and murmured, “Turn around, will you, love? There’s a lovely view.”

  Seconds later, I was bent over the basket, skirts flipped over my back, with a breeze over my bare bum, and he was pushing back into me with a groan. With my boots on the wicker and my hands curled around the basket’s edge, I felt giddy relief, but that never lasted. Not with Crim. He started slowly, agonizingly slowly, and I trembled with each thrust. My eyes were filled with indigo sky, my insides writhing with building want, my exposed skin cool in counterpoint to the warmth of the man taking me, mastering me, torturing me to new dizzy heights with each stroke.

  “Come on, Crim,” I urged, and he laughed.

  “All in good time, love. Ah, yes. Here’s what I was looking for.”

  I couldn’t have been more surprised when I heard a low buzz . . . until I felt it. My legs almost collapsed as warm, smooth metal vibrated over my clit.

  “Jesus, Crim! What . . . where . . . oh, my God.”

  “I take it this is what you had in mind as a marital aid?” He said the last two words with a haughty emphasis that made my knees buckle.

  “Where’d you get that?” I managed to sputter.

  He did something that nearly made me scream. “London,” he said absently.

  The cool air, the heat of him, the slowness of his i
nexorable pounding, the buzz of the metal. I’d never been so wet, so turned on, so in tune with my body, and I couldn’t stop myself from pushing back against him, demanding that he take me harder, deeper. He grunted and obliged, as he always did, battering into me with such power that I slammed against the basket and moaned.

  The climax took me quickly, and I screamed as he sped up to draw it out as long as possible. As the echoes faded, he kept going, soon shuddering against me, arms wrapped tightly around my waist as he bucked into me. I couldn’t help myself—I came again, this time high and sweet and leaving me laughing as my insides trembled.

  “I’m fairly certain they heard that all the way back at the caravan,” he observed, pulling out and rebuttoning his pants with a satisfied grin.

  “And I’m fairly certain you made good on your threat to the little lame balloon man,” I shot back.

  He looked down at the wicker floor. “I agreed there would be no blood, so he should be well pleased. That was delightful. I’ve always wanted to roger you in a balloon.”

  Reaching down, he pulled a bright red flag that had been latched to the wicker and stuck it into a holder to wave in the wind. Seconds later, the wicker creaked as the balloon began its descent.

  “He can see that little flag from the ground?” I asked, shielding my eyes to look around. Sure enough, I could see the angry operator at the dock, the drover and the mares, and all the people milling about the airfield. Until then, I hadn’t actually looked down, as I’d always had a small fear of heights. “Wait. Does that mean they can see . . .”

  “Oh, yes, love. They can see us. Some of them even have telescopes for such sport. That’s part of the allure.”

  Down below, a sound reached me, an echo of the feral howl I’d unleashed as I’d come, followed by a crowd’s laughter.