Page 65 of Ravished By the Revenant

“Take me home.”

34

CLARA

Shmoo is waiting on the courtyard wall when Aldric carries me through the gate, and the sight of that judgmental gray loaf nearly makes me cry.

“Hi, baby,” I croak. “Mommy got kidnapped.”

He hops down, trots alongside Aldric’s boots, and yowls up at us the entire way across the courtyard—a long, scolding aria that needs no translation. You left. You were gone past dinner. There were no snacks. I have filed a complaint.

“Yes, we’re aware,” Aldric tells him. “You may bill us.”

Aldric brings me into the great hall, and I brace myself for a crime scene. Three trout sat unattended on the table for hours while the only witness was a cat with three hundred years of documented fish larceny. But when Aldric sets me down, the trout are still there. All three. Untouched. Shmoo looks up at them with the strained dignity of a monk who has been fasting against his will.

“You didn’t eat them.” I stare at him. “You had unsupervised fish for hours, and you didn’t eat them.”

Shmoo licks a paw like the accusation is beneath him.

“He waited,” Aldric says quietly. “He knew something was wrong.”

My throat tightens up for the twentieth time tonight, and it’s not even midnight. I crouch and press my face into Shmoo’s gray fur, and he permits it, purring like an idling Porsche, which from him is basically a tearful airport reunion.

“You get the biggest one,” I whisper into his neck. “Don’t tell your dad.”

“I heard that,” Aldric mutters.

I roll my eyes. “You have one ear. Statistically, you shouldn’t have.”

“The important part of it still works,” he fires back.

In the kitchen, Aldric strikes a match for the stove because old habits die harder than undead warlords. As he heats up dinner, the room fills with a divine smell, and my stomach roars loud enough that Aldric turns from the stove with one eyebrow raised.

“When did you last eat?”

“Breakfast.” I sigh dramatically. “A hundred years ago.”

He doesn’t say anything, even though I can tell he wants to. But he does move faster.

I don’t bother with the great hall and the table he set there. I eat standing at the kitchen counter, right out of the pan. I demolish it like a raccoon in a dumpster. Aldric leans against the counter and watches me with an odd expression.

“Slow down,” he says. “It will not flee.”

“You don’t know that.” I point my fork at him. “Unlikely but not impossible. I’ve learned I always need to expect the unexpected.”

Aldric reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb ghosting over my cheekbone, below the split lip, careful of everything.

“Not anymore,” he says.

I swallow the last potato past the lump in my throat. “Okay. New topic before I cry into the pan. I need a bath. I have blood on my chin.”

“Already anticipated.”

Upstairs, he lights candles and starts filling the tub, thanks to our brand-new water heater.

I smirk at the expression on his face. “It seems that you’re getting used to modern amenities.”

“I will confess, it is efficient.” He tests the water with his hand, adjusts the tap. Then he glances at me sideways, and his voice drops. “Though I would still heat every bucket. Carry every one up those stairs. If the machine failed tomorrow, you would never once bathe in cold water. I want you to understand that.”