Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“She is Jules Carter,” he says smoothly. “And she is under my protection.”
The skull’s grin never changes, but I feel his attention sharpen—like cold fingers brushing my skin. Don Malthus steps closer and extends one skeletal hand. Oh God—do I have to touch him? Do I have to let that bone-white, long-fingered hand enclose my own?
Lucian nods once to me and I have no choice. By coming to this banquet with him, I have agreed to at least act the part he assigned me—that of his queen. And a queen can’t be rude to guests.
I place my hand in the Necro Don’s grip and try not to wince as those long fingers curl around mine.
His touch is cold. Not just cool—actually cold like a headstone in a winter graveyard. Cold like the moment you step into a dark basement and realize you’re not alone.
He lifts my hand and presses the bone teeth of his skull-mask to my knuckles. They’re hard and unyielding. The kiss that feels more like a question than a greeting. He wants to know more about me…I can feel his curiosity like icy fingers skating down my spine.
A shiver runs through me so intense that my shoulders tense but I somehow manage to keep my face calm.
The Don’s voice drops into an intimate tone.
“How very warm you are, my dear,” he murmurs. “And how lucky Don Lucian is to have found his very own Abundant Queen.”
My throat tightens and I have to force words out past the stricture.
“Thank…thank you,” I get out at last.
Lucian makes a small, displeased sound in his throat. Clearly he doesn’t like other men touching me. For once, I agree with him—I wish Don Malthus would let me go.
As if sensing that he has gone a shade too far, the Necro Don releases my hand and turns toward the table.
“Shall we? I was promised a feast, as I recall.”
“And you shall have one,” Lucian says. “Come—let us be seated.”
Only then do we sit. Lucian pulls out my chair like a gentleman and settles me before he goes to take his own place at the head of the table. I sit at his right and Don Malthus sits at his left, across from me. Luckily the table is big enough that he’s not within reach. I’m glad—I don’t want him to find any other reason to touch me with those long, icy fingers.
The seating arrangement feels deliberate, though. Lucian is clearly in charge and he makes that known, but he also wants to show me off. He’s proud of having his own “Curvy Queen.” It almost makes me laugh to think that. I’m definitely not the kind of woman a human man would want to show off to his friends and rivals. Because I have the feeling that Don Malthus is both—he and Lucian aren’t exactly on the same side, they just get along. I guess you could say they’re “frenemies.”
Servants appear silently, as if summoned by an inaudible voice. They move with eerie precision, setting down covered dishes and pouring drinks.
My stomach knots as the first course arrives. What will we be eating tonight in this cavernous dining hall? What is the version of vampire haute cuisine?
A silver dome is lifted at Lucian’s place and under it is something like… art.
A small plate holding thin slices of dark, ruby-red meat—carpaccio, maybe—arranged in a rosette shape. The meat glistens under the candlelight, drizzled with something thicker and darker that looks like a reduction but smells faintly metallic. Tiny black pearls—caviar maybe?—are scattered like jewels, and there are delicate curls of what might be crystallized blood-orange peel as garnish.
Lucian inhales deeply and I see his mouth twitch into a half-smile of approval. Maybe this is his favorite dish? I wonder if I’ll get the same.
But when my food arrives, the dish is completely different.
My first course is a bowl of soup—golden and fragrant—with steam curling upward to tickle my nose. I inhale deeply, letting the aroma fill my senses. It’s butternut squash, I think—I love butternut squash. There’s a swirl of cream in the center and it’s sprinkled with toasted pumpkin seeds and a few leafy, emerald micro-greens that look too pretty to eat. But I can feel my stomach rumbling—I’ll definitely be eating them.
Then the servant lifts the dome at Don Malthus’s place…and I nearly choke.
There’s nothing there. Or rather—there is something, but it’s wrong—all wrong.
I see a plate of food that looks semi-transparent—like it’s made of smoke and moonlight. There’s the shape of a tamale, maybe, wrapped in a ghostly husk and thin slices of something that resembles an orange, but pale and faint, like an afterimage. Also, there’s a cup of pale liquid that doesn’t reflect the light properly.
Don Malthus lifts his utensils and even though I know it’s rude to stare, I can’t help watching from the corner of my eye. How is he going to eat the ghost food? Is it even edible?