Page 96 of Too Cursed To Kiss
“It was the ring. It must have been. It’s caused all this mess.”
Her hand froze on the coverlet she was pulling over my chest. “What ring?”
“The time ring. The one Caledonia had that broke, only it didn’t.” I looked at my bare fingers. Where was it?
“How do you know about the ring?” Victoria’s face paled, and the fingers of one hand twisted at a diamond ring on her other hand.
“I used it.”
“You what? You couldn’t have used it. You aren’t of this family.” She shook her head, the blonde curls so artfully piled up bouncing.
“It’s a long story, but I was, kind of, and maybe I still am.”
“Stop. I shouldn’t hear it, and neither should anyone else. Don’t mention it again. If your life can be saved, it’s imperative that your use of the ring remain hidden. Do you understand? It is part of the timekeeper’s duty.”
“No, but I’ll keep quiet.” If it meant living, I was up for anything.
Wald walked in. “They are coming.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Agatha, Devlyn, and Sert.”
“They aren’t dead?”
Wald and Victoria looked at me. Victoria placed a finger in front of her lavender-painted lips as I covered my mouth with one hand. Keeping secrets was going to be hard. I flipping knew they weren’t dead. No one was dead, only me if whatever plan I came up with didn’t work. I needed these people who thought I was a stranger to be my advocates. Besides, Devlyn and I were such good friends. Fuck me.
“Rest now. It will be a few hours before they get here, and you need to conserve your strength.”
My side burned in reply, followed by a deeper pain, as if the dying thing might be taking hold. Holy crap, maybe I was dying, really dying. “How long do I have?” I choked out.
“We don’t know,” Wald said, fluffing my pillow. His cloves and musk blended with something sweet and sugary, but it was the musk I wanted. I pulled his head down and kissed him. His lips were tight and unyielding at first and then opened for me. His tongue, his glorious tongue met mine. Ignoring the pain I tugged him lower.
He broke the kiss. “You should not ‘ave done that,” he rasped, standing up, but his bottom lip twitched as if he wanted more too.
“Kissing my boyfriend isn’t going to get me to like you more, you know,” Soda said, walking in a puff of sage green tulle and chiffon. Fairy clothing. Her long blonde hair was twisted half up in curls, framing her head with dragonfly pins that sparkled as she approached. She was a vision I could never compete with.
“How’s she feeling?” she asked Wald, placing a cool feather-light hand on my forehead as if I wasn’t in the room. “The fever is low, but I will make something for the pain. You should have called me back when she woke up.”
“You’d been here all night. I thought you needed a break.”
“You know I don’t sleep either,” she tittered back flirtatiously. I would have thrown up if I could. Instead, all I could do was groan to break the hot gaze between them. I wanted Wald to be hot for me like that. He had been and was going to be again, so help me. I was not dying.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Iwas left alone with a pile of books that I couldn’t focus on. Apparently, the digital age hadn’t reached the cottage I was in. They’d housed me in a building that wasn’t the manor house. I’d bargained to get out of the bed and was now in a high-back wing chair by the window, feet up on a matching ottoman, with a striped wool blanket over the top in shades of lilac and cream. The garden was lush and green, the beds dotted with a rainbow of flower colors.
Soda’s pain medicine had worked wonders. I was lucid, and the pain had been buffered back to bearable. According to Victoria, the fever was gone as well. I was dying comfortably.
Wald had made excuses to leave I didn’t believe, though I’d begged him to stay. I knew he was going to go make love to Soda all night in the bed we’d shared.
It wasn’t fair.
Life wasn’t fair. I fricking knew that. You had to bite and scratch your way to what you wanted. Soda had better keepawake for a long time because she wasn’t standing between me and Wald. I could almost taste him, bourbon and cloves and the essence that was him alone.
I shifted and groaned, sick of waiting.
The door creaked open. A waft of incense and garden greenery with turned dirt. Agatha’s particular scent. As if she was having mass in a graveyard.
