Page 60 of Mortdale

He tipped his head back, giving me a dark look. “Why do you like walking around the house half naked?”

I bit down on my half-victorious smile. “You’ll think about it. Say it.”

He exhaled another dark cloud of smoke. “I’ll think about it.”

“You’re sort of easy.”

He leaned in closely, murmuring against my ear, “And you have five seconds to get your ass back inside and put some clothes on if you don’t want your friend Arthur to lose an eye tonight.”

I got on my toes to peek over his shoulder.

Surely not.

“Five, four—”

I turned around and ran inside.

My library trips were becoming useless. The further back in time I went, the more the pattern got confusing. Vampires of status and their witch wives had been dying at a similar rate, almost in parallel to each other. The only trouble was, all of the witches had been dying before their husbands. So, it didn’t make sense that the infected nobles would attack their own wives in their rage-infected state. The infection was as sporadic as the deaths of the red maidens. Popping from one city to the other too fast to determine an infection rate or an incubation period or anything at all for that matter. I needed Logan to put me on this case. Maybe I should have begged. I wasn’t beyond begging. I had Ethel to save.

Christof took my coat at the entrance. “The library must have been wordy today, too, I presume.”

“An absolute claptrap,” I sighed.

“We have a new word for the vocabulary,” he said, taking the book I’d slid him under the cloak.

I leaned in, and said, “Becca lost the child, blamed it on Camila, and now Cecil is on a revenge trip on Camila. But Camila found out the child was the earl’s. Now she’s working with the earl to expose Becca and Cecil while pretending to be courted by him.”

Christof clicked his tongue. “Good for her.”

I giggled. “She’s so bodacious. I’m in love with her.”

He pointed his head to the dining hall. “Your husband is home early today. Given he’s voluntarily chosen to be a mark for Lady Piper’s food throwing practice, I might say he’s waiting for someone.”

Piper sat on his lap, holding her jam-covered paws up in the air while he brought a glass of orange juice to her jam-smeared mouth. They were an incredibly gentle sight. He looked different when he was with her. Vulnerable. Human, almost.

Piper’s eyes grew into big saucers when she noticed me. “Boo!”

She launched off his lap, darting in my direction, and I took off with all my might. She chased me around the breakfast table, giggling like mad. And I might have been slightly terrified about it.

I screamed, running around. “Seize the jammy creature before she makes us all stick to one another!”

She screeched when Logan hauled her off the floor, lifting her over his head a few times before lowering her onto his lap. She squealed and squirmed when her uncle grasped her arms and brought them in my direction.

“I want a proper name, m’lady,” I said, wiping the jam off her fingers with a handkerchief while Logan held her still.

She wrinkled her nose back and forth, unable to itch it. “I call you Boo.”

“Boo is not a name,” I told her.

She looked up at her uncle, frowning. “Bear?”

“Yes, Bear?” I asked, also looking up at him.

“Boo is a fine name,” he told her, holding my gaze steadily.

Asshole.

She chewed with her mouth wide open, tipping her head back against Logan’s chest to look at him. “She come to my dance recital, Bear?”