Page 40 of How to Seduce a Slender

“Oh, was merely admiring all the supplies here. We’ll have to make a monthly order at the speed you draw,” he laughed sheepishly, scrambling up to her side.

“Is that bad?” Melody immediately frowned.

“No! Never.” He took some of the items from her arms, winding extra arms out of his chest to hold them in place. “I manage the finances for Sebastian, and he signs off on them. We have an unfairly large shenanigans budget that usually goes to waste, so I can absolutely give you a detailed budget to create art. And if you do wish to sell them, we have working relationships with many nations, realms, and even people in King’s Fall. Or simply give them away. I think Dahlia intends to have you paint everyone a portrait, however, maybe start with the house staff first, and then freelance work.”

Melody snorted, taking up two large cans of sealant and a smaller jug of some indescribable, viscous liquid with no name. “Good, I like having purpose. Maybe one day I’ll do a full family portrait, you know?”

“This is where I warn you that—”

Melody huffed, rolling her eyes, “I know, I know, not to give anyone funny mustaches or googly eyes. You’re no fun, Smith!”

Smith barked out a laugh, shaking his head as he snatched the items from her hands as well. Melody glared at him, but it melted away as he brushed past her. “I was insinuating that it will take time. Lord Rosemont is a little shy about his appearance.”

“Oh? So, mustaches and googly eyes are on the table then?” She giggled as they ended up at the cashier counter.

“I think Austin and Havershum would laugh, Agatha might cry a little on the inside.” Smith gently placed all the items down for the cashier, trying not to explode as a warm body pressed up against his side.

“And you? What shall I do? I feel like a full mohawk and fake mutton chops would do nicely. Maybe painting the face you say you don’t have butclearly do!” Melody hugged his actual arm that was attached to his shoulder and squeezed it against her chest. Smith didn’t have to have a heartbeat, and when she looked up at him with those huge puppy dog eyes, fluttering her lashes, she robbed him of every beat after it. Smith melted into her touch, twisting till he could slide his arm around the small of her back. Melody easily fit into the crook of his arm, throwing an arm around him too.

“Are you teasing me, Ms. Deathless?”

Please say yes. Please say yes.His body grew taut as she sheepishly glanced away. When her eyes flitted back to him, those cute fangs pinched her bottom lip. “Maybe I am? What are you going to do about it?”

Smith felt the last thread of his sanity press against the knife’s edge that was Melody’s flirty eyebrow wiggle. Until the cashier cleared her throat, “Uh, that’ll be thirty-seven silver and twelve copper coins, please?”

“Right!” They blurted out, Melody breaking for the bag of supplies while Smith scrambled to procure money from the void that was his pockets.

Right, we’re in public.

How in the dragon’s fire did Sebastian and Dahlia get away with actually fucking in town? Oh right...he’s an audacious sorcerer... Smith had a few tricks up his sleeve but none of the audacity. He had a bunch of hands that itched to grab onto pieces of Melody he had not been authorized to touch, however. And he busied all those hands holding Melody’s bags as the two scrambled out of the store. Nervous laughter spread between the two of them like a disease. By the time they burst into the bright sunlight of the city, they were wheezing for air. Melody stumbled across the sidewalk, holding her face in shame. The sidewalk wasn’t busy, but the pair avoided bodies left and right till they stood on the corner. Melody’s hand pressing into the streetlamp pole for support.

Smith didn’t have the time to react as someone rounded the bend of the sidewalk too fast and bumped into Melody.

“Oh! Mel?”

A distinct chilling breeze blew across the city as Smith fought with the bags into Sebastian’s pocket portal they’d brought with them.Why carry anything when one can send it home immediately with magic.Smith glanced up from the pocket, cinching it shut to see the stranger standing between him and Melody. Hackles he didn’t have rose up on his back. Smith shifted to the left. A mop of brown hair, dressed in thick fabrics to hold out the cold, the person was indistinguishable on the street. The stranger spoke again, “Yeah! Melody right?”

The man—Smith decided by the stink of his atrocious cologne and the shape of his shoulders, they were likely a man—shifted in his way. Melody noticed, her eyebrows shooting up as she moved opposite of him, “Depends on whose asking.”

Smith’s left eye twitched as he cleared his throat, swiveling the other way only to have the stranger dance that way. Writhing smoke tendrils whipped in the air behind him as he blinked out of existence from behind the man and appeared beside Melody. The stranger jerked back...into a completely empty sidewalk. He didn’t even have a recognizable face. It made Smith’s insides boil as he found a face so similar to every other face...it almost wasn’t real.

The sensation of no noise permeating the air filled Smith with dread. In a city as large as King’s Fall...never once was there a moment of pure silence.

“It’s me, you know...we met at the diner. You gave me your number.” The guy edged forward, jabbing finger guns at Melody. “Oh, come on, girlie pop, you know me.”

Smith and Melody both tensed, but for different reasons. Smith fastened an arm around Melody’s waist. Melody cocked out a hip, palms flat against her sides with her fangs bared. “What did you just call me?”

“Aw, come on...” The world changed and Smith realized they had, in fact, walked right into a trap. The very thing he worried would happen.

It wasn’t like him to walk into traps. Smith was supposed to see these things a mile away...I am going to get so much shit for this.

Smith didn’t wait to see the transformation. The sound of one bone popping was all he needed to hear before booking it in the opposite direction, Melody secured in his arms.

Now, he didn’t need to run. Smith could, after having fed on Melody’s dreams, flattened the curb with that non-person's face. He could have ripped out his eldritch throat and painted the sky with his blood. It would have been too easy...but they were in King’s Fall and there were still consequences for senseless murder.

“Where are we going?” Melody bellowed as Smith carted her in two of his arms while the other three ripped anything his hands could tug down into the way. The thunderous cacophony of sounds behind him saidthey’re close.He didn’t need Melody slapping his back and crying out for him to run faster. He damn well knew they were chasing him. “Just teleport us back!”

“I can’t!” he roared.

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