"Together?" I say.
He nods.
We drink.
The first sip is light and cool and tastes like nothing I have a word for. Not sweet. Not salt. It takes like what I imagine ambrosia to taste like, with a mineral edge that coats the back of my throat. I feel it land. A small loosening, like a muscle I didn't know I was holding finally lets go.
The second sip is fuller. Thicker than human blood, slower across my tongue, and the warmth spreads down through my chest before I've swallowed. My head goes light at the edges. Not dizzy. Soft. Like the space behind my eyes has expanded by half an inch in every direction. The bond opens wider, and the edges of the room go soft.
Something is wrong.
But this feels like the opposite of wrong, so I take another sip.
By the third sip, I understand. The warmth has moved into my limbs, and my thoughts are arriving a half-second late, and everything in my peripheral vision has a faint luminous quality that I'm fairly certain is not the gold veins in the walls.
I'm drunk.
I haven't been drunk since I was human, and I forgot that it felt like this.
Maximus's hand is on my waist. His thumb tracing a slow line above my hip, and I can feel his pulse through his fingertips, and my pulse is matching it, and the music has moved inside my body somewhere.
He's on his third sip too. His eyes are brighter, but his posture is still his. Composed. Present.
"How are you already this far gone?" he asks with an amused look.
"I don't know." I mean it. "We don't get drunk."
"No," he says. "We don't."
I giggle.
He looks at me like I've sprouted two heads.
You don’t giggle, Celeste!I giggle again.
I toss the goblet back and drink the rest of the blood.
A girl’s got to have nourishment.
By the time mine is empty, the room has gone warm and close, and the music is threading through my bones, and I am aware of every point where Maximus's body is near mine without touching it. He sets his empty goblet down first.
Wait, I didn’t see him finish his!
He takes mine from my hand. His fingers are careful, deliberate, like he knows I need the extra second.
He offers his other hand, palm up.
“Dance with me.”
I look around the room. The cleared floor has filled with Fae couples moving in patterns that look choreographed bygeometry. Precise, elegant, ancient. The kind of dancing that requires a few years of practice and a body that doesn’t make mistakes.
Oh, what the hell? YOLO.
I put my hand in his.
He leads. I follow. Badly. His hand is at the small of my back, against the bare skin the dress leaves open, and his palm is cool and steady, and I can feel every finger individually, and my feet are not doing what they’re supposed to do.
“You’re thinking about your feet,” he says.
