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“Are you feeling okay? You definitelylookgood enough to pounce,” I told him.
Eli’s rumbled laugh was a salve on my mood. “You always look scrumptious,” Eli murmured as he bent down to kiss me. “Sadly, now is not the time to demonstrate, bonbon.”
I stuck out my tongue. “Let me grab my things.”
I walked into the main living area where Alice was surreptitiously watching for me, but after much repetition, she’d learned not to speak until I addressed her.
“Welcome to the day!” Ally chirped, looking up from where she was tapping away on a laptop at my breakfast table. “Ready for a pick-me-up, sunshine?”
I flipped her off, much to her glee. I felt weirdly wired and exhausted at once.
Eli asked, “Why are youalwayshere, Alice?”
“Prince Eli,” she started.
“JustEli,” he said, as he did every damn time that she tried to use his title.
My assistant was a cheerful shit-stirrer. If there was a category of monster filled by cheerful, maddening women, Ally would be assured a throne. Unfortunately, the world was pretty basic—humans, fae, witches, anddraugr. And since both witches anddraugrwere human or previously human, that really left it to human and fae.
Ally curtsied to Eli, who ignored her completely.
Giggling, she brought me a steaming mug of coffee and blood, which had sounded thoroughly disgusting to me until a few weeks ago. Now, I thought caffeinated-blood-of-Alice was the most delicious breakfast I could imagine.
I was pretty grossed out by thethoughtof it—though the taste was divine—which is why she keep trying to find a name for her concoction that was appealing.
“What do you think of Chicory Alice?” Ally asked as I accepted the cup. “I drank a bunch of chicory coffee throughout the day, so it would add chicory flavor to me, and then mixed Alice-Red-Juice with more chicory coffee. Did it work?”
I took a long gulp. It still tasted like bloody coffee, but I liked the taste of blood and coffee. I just didn’tlikethat I liked it. I mean, lots of people put syrups and creamer and whipped cream on coffee, so adding things to coffee wasn’t that weird—unless I let myself admit that what I added was people juice.
“It’s really good,” I told her.
She pouted. “You always say that, Boss.”
And I rarely wished I could lie as much as I did when Ally pouted. She was somewhere between assistant, responsibility, and an unwelcome but inescapable relative. Of course, she’d also tried to kill me in the not-too-distant past, so I figure she will become less needy once she was convinced I won’t behead her.
“You’re really good to me,” I told her. “And thisisreally good.”
“But you said the same thing about”—she held up her hand and started ticking off names—“Caffeinated Vodka Morning, Garlic Going to Get You, Fruit Bowl Friday, and—”
“The fruit left me too drunk to stand, and I didn’t like This Piggy Went to Market atall,” I reminded her. That one was horrifying. She’d soaked her blood in a bowl of crispy bacon. I wasn’t the world’s best Jew, but blood and bacon? Ugh.
Ally clapped her hands. “True! No more bacon.”
At first I thought her cheerful attitude was affected, but she was really just a bouncy person. And while I wasn’t going to announce it, I maybe liked her a little more because it was real. I couldn’t recall ever clapping in glee, and I caught myself smiling at Ally’s constant joy.
“I brought a suit!”
I blinked as she darted over to one of my fight dummies. She only moved at human speed, but I swear that woman had hummingbird in her DNA somehow.
I was still sipping my energizing meal when she held out an elegant suit that obviously wasn’t something she was lending me. We weren’t the same size, for starters. Ally was more like a well-heeled pin-up girl, and my bust was far from generous.
“You can’t keep buying me clothes,” I said, harsher than I meant.
Eli shot me a warning look.
But Ally had already reverted to the person she’d been when we met—and the widow Chaddock was a mix of sobbing and angry. Her pout had turned into tears, and she glared at me through those tears.
“Alvin is dead, and I’m sad,” Ally whined. “I just want to make up for being foolish, but no one else will let me. And I want you toneedme. Tres is off being all business man becauseyousent him away. And my Alvin . . .” Whatever else she said was lost under sniffling noises.
