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“Let me get the kit so I can st—"
“Absolutely not.” I dropped the new blade on a table. Now that we were secure, I could be unarmed.
I wound the bar towel around my arm. I wouldn’t wake anything here, but I’d still rather contain my blood.
We were alone in the bar. Just me, Eli, and my weapons. I glanced at my dagger. It needed wiped down, and with one arm holding my cotton bar towel on the other, I was in no shape to do it.
“My stitching is excellent,” Eli said, as if he was insulted. For all I knew, he was.
“Did I say otherwise?” I walked behind the bar, putting the long expanse between us.
Eli stared at me, as if his fae bullshit was going to work. It wouldn’t, although that smile of his was a sort of magic. “Geneviève Crowe, you are being unreasonable. Sit down and let me stitch--”
“Using my full name would only work if I was a faerie.” I poured a drink for each of us. Shaky, but mostly in the glasses.
“Are we calling out species, delectable witch of mine? ” His tone was falsely light—which meant I’d probably violated one of the eight hundred and thirty-seven rules of dealing with faeries.
Okay, admittedly, I didn’t know how many rules there really were. I gave up counting somewhere around eighty. I tried, legitimately tried to have peace with Eli, but we had a complicated relationship.
“I’m notreallyyours,” I muttered, stepped closer with both drinks in my working hand.
“You’re dripping on the wood.” He gestured to the floor.
When I looked down, he moved closer. It was the sort of speed neither of us usually used in front of the other. He hid his; I hid mine. We’re complicated.
The blue-tint from humming bar lights that were still on even though the bar was closed cast an ethereal glow over him, highlighting his inhuman beauty. No human was as striking as even the least of the fae, and after our brief trip toElphame, I discovered that no faery was as beautiful as Eli.
Not because he was fae.
Not because witches were susceptible to them or anything so convenient.
It was just Eli.
Or maybe I still had a lot of pent-up feelings in his general direction. Our one encounter that led to orgasms wasn’t enough. Maybe we just had too much unresolved lust and it made him somehowmoreattractive—which, incidentally, was fucking horrifying because he was already stunning.
He took his drink, tossed it back, and waited for me to do the same.
“Just give it a minute,” I said, peering at the gash on my arm.
“Why are you being difficult, Geneviève? Do I stitch you poorly? Have I caused undue pain?” His hand was alongside my cheek, hovering in that sliver of space where if I sighed, he’d be touching me. “You are seeping blood.”
“’s notyou.I want to know how fas’ I’ll heal now. This is an oppur. . .oppurtuney.”
He gave me an incredulous stare. “Not evenyouare this brash, love.”
Silently, I removed the now scarlet-red cloth from my arm. The bleeding was slowing some. Congealing. That was new. As I watched the edges of the ten-inch cut on my upper arm were straining, as if they could touch.
It was, in truth, a bit horrible to see my skin seeming to reach out. It was, well, not what human flesh did, not what witches’ skin did. This was a result of my paternal heritage. Creepy arm thing? Gift from doubly-dead dad.
He was dead when he fathered me, but his status was revised to permanently dead at my hand. But as any Southern-born person knows, the sins of the father don’t end at death—even two deaths. I was a freak of nature, neither dead nor alive. And after an awkward attempted murder that didn’t take, I was changing.
“Geneviève?”
I looked up.
“You have lost too much blood. You are drifting.” Eli gestured at me, and I could see the spectral shape seeping out of my body, as if my shadow had taken on life.
“Well, that’s no good.” I realized I had slid down the wall right about when Eli caught me. Propped in his arms, I took a good long drink of the bottle of white liquor he held out.
