Page 20 of How to Seduce a Slender

“But I’m not ti—” Thwarted by her own yawn, she shut up immediately. There was a shit-eating aura radiating off her slender as he loomed over her.

“Good night, Melody,” he purred, brushing the hair away from her cheeks again till it hooked behind her ears. She watched him with mischief in her eyes as he slunk across the floor. About an inch from the door, she stuck her tongue out at him. Smith jerked a finger up in the air. “I saw that!”

“No, you didn’t.” She snorted.

“I see everything, Ms. Deathless, you’ll learn soon enough. Sweet dreams.”

Melody waited for the door to creak closed before she jutted her tongue back out. A hand made of static and nightmares jerked out of the floor. Melody shrieked, back-peddling away from the floor and onto the bed at the same time Agatha floated up through the floor. “Miss!”

“What?” Melody jerked to face Agatha before she erupted in laughter. “It’s Smith’s fault! He just reached through the floor to grab me!”

Agatha’s eyebrows shot up on her face.

Melody baulked, hands shaking rapidly as she tried to back-track. “No! no! Not like that. I mean I stuck my tongue out and he tried to grab it. Nothing like that.”

Agatha’s face said she was not buying it. Melody babbled further, trying to explain as her already burning cheeks blistered. “Agatha! Ya gotta believe me, it’s nothing like that. I just, you know, have been sticking my tongue out at him and every time he snatches it! And like I pinkie promised I wouldn’t do it again, but I broke it. So now he’s just trying to catch me doing it. Not IT-it! Nothing like that. Just, you know…I’m going to shut up now.”

The banshee chortled to herself as she floated across the room. Melody admitted defeat and gave the ghost her back. Agatha teased, “Now, now, I would neverimagineanything uncouth would happen between you and Smith. He’s a gentleman, after all.”

“Notthatgentle,” she muttered to herself, absent mindedly rubbing her wrists.

“Pardon?” Agatha fluttered around, helping remove the dress from Melody’s body.

“Oh, uh, just that Smith’s really kind.” Melody chewed on her lower lip as Agatha eyed her with a knowing look. The words tumbled out.Come on, it’s not like you’ve had anyone in eighteen years to talk to!Besides, the banshee gave a motherly aura that dragged the confession out with iron claws. “He must really like me for some reason to go through all this trouble? Just for little ole me.”

Agatha draped the fabric over her arm. “What about you makes you think you’re not worth the trouble?”

Ouch.Melody let out a nervous laugh as her arms wrapped around her body. “Point taken.”

“Best learn to keep self-deprecating thoughts out of ear shot of Lady Rosemont, dear. She’s stabbed people for less.” Agatha floated into the wardrobe with the dress.

“Whoa, wait, what! You can’t just drop something like that then disappear into the void, Agatha!” Melody rushed to the wardrobe but there was no banshee. Just a singular, silk nightgown hung at the front of a rack of suits. Melody took her nightgown but lingered in the doorway of the wardrobe. Smith had…maybe forty suits. She wasn’t a big math person, but she knew a massive collection when she saw them. And yet, they were all variations of black and very few were thesameshade of black.

Melody’s fingers danced over the sleeves, feeling all the fibers. Some were softer than others, some thicker, but all of them had one consistent, no metal. No brass buttons or copper cuff links or any metal accessories. Not even his belts, the ones he’d hung up were leather with some sort of thicker leather or even plastic bits. Melody couldn’t help pushing aside suit after suit.How many fucking suits does he have? How many does he need?

She stopped when something thudded to the base of the wardrobe.Like a book.Crouching, she shifted aside lost socks and shoes until her palm found an unsettling texture. It was…squishy? In the way leatherbound booksshould neverbe squishy. It had a bounce-like skin, but it was without texture. Melody tried not to gag as she, for no reason she could discern,ripped itout of the wardrobe. It clattered to the floor at her feet.

Melody stared at three sets of eyeballs embedded in a rotten, red tome with heavy, black stitches across its many scars. Frozen in the moment, she stared at it. Then it blinked. Melody wrenched backward, kicking it as hard as she could. It clunked against the wall behind the wardrobe.

“And furthermore, my dear, you are infinitely more delightful than you give yourself credit for. I, for one, enjoy that you like a pop of color! And you’re so funny!” Agatha shot up through the floor, disconnecting Melody from the terrible terror that was the eyeball journal. The banshee planted a fresh candle onto the bedside table holder and lit it with a click of her nails. “Are you ready for bed?”

Melody glanced down at the floor by the wardrobe. With a grimace, she shook her head. “Not really…but I don’t have much of a choice. Smith won’t let me stay up past my bedtime.”

Agatha beckoned her with gentle hands, easing her into the nightgown and helping her into bed. The whole time, Melody thought of the journal. Those eyes bore into her soul, and as she laid there with only the candle to illuminate the dark, she imagined it crawling out from behind the wardrobe. Its spider legs slithering out of its pages. How it would drag its heavy, soft belly across the floor after her. It would chitter and hiss as it climbed toward her.

Those eyes haunted her as she flipped over onto her other side.

Sleep was going to be a struggle again.

Chapter Eight:

Smith

“Aretheyincapableofa simple request?” He huffed, standing by his wall. The apron and accompanying paperwork hadn’t made it to him yet. He’d sent in that request early in the morning, it shouldn’t take an entire day to get himone apron!Smith had half a mind to call Aravis and demand an explanation.

All of that went out the window when a shriek pierced the night. Smith’s body lurched, exploding into a million little volts. He rematerialized within his room. Melody thrashed in the bed, fighting something over her face. Smith was on the bed, kneeling over her to peel her hands from her cheeks.Nightmare.His mouth filled with drool as he smelled the terror pouring out of her. It filled the air like an intoxicating cloud of sugary liquor. It made his stomach twist. If he even unclenched his jaw an inch, he’d wrap his teeth around her.Her nightmare was so vivid.My favorite.Melody cried out, bucking beneath him and the blankets. Her head snapped back and forth.

It was only as he leaned in close, unable to resist inhaling her terror, that he saw it. Just along her throat, where her hair and the neck of most gowns hide…a scar. Not of flesh, but of magic, like something was physically ripped off her body. Jagged edges of angry purples and browns lay against her skin, glowing in the dark. Something was taken from Melody.

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