She froze. “Is that…?”
“Yep.”
“A chicken?”
“Mm-hm.”
“With flowers?”
I nodded, resigned. “Welcome to Darkmoor.”
We both stared at it. Blood had soaked into the already pathetic carpet. The flowers still had clumps of dirt on them, like someone had ripped them straight from the ground.
“Is this… a threat?” she whispered.
I snorted softly. “No.”
“Then what—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
God save me. “He was probably trying to be… thoughtful.”
She blinked at me. “Thoughtful?”
I didn’t elaborate. If she knew it was Ash, she’d never sleep again.
“I’ll clean it up,” I said. “You go in.”
“Dev—”
“It’s fine.” I didn’t quite meet her eyes. Mostly because I could feel him not far down the hall, watching from the shadows like a feral cat with a crush.
She hesitated, then crouched.
Carefully—so carefully—she lifted one of the flowers that hadn’t been soaked in chicken juice.
A rose. Dark red. Thorn stem broken, petals still damp with dew.
Stolen from the back gardens, no doubt.
She held it close to her chest like it meant something. Like no one had given her anything soft in a very long time.
Then she nodded once, slipped into her room, and locked the door.
I let out a slow breath and looked down the hall.
“Ash,” I muttered under my breath, “you absolute menace.”
And started cleaning up the damn chicken.
Chapter 10
Ash
I wanted to punch him.
He chucked my present in the bin.
