To her credit, she barely hisses in a breath as I hold her hand above the chalice and squeeze a few drops of her blood into the wine.
“Merci, madame,” I murmur to her, folding her fingers closed over her palm. “Rest assured, your willingness will not go unrewarded.”
She inclines her head to me, a silken smile playing on her lips before she steps away. The rest of them follow suit much more easily in her footsteps, coming forward biddable as lambs. Almost as if eager to be lanced. And though I do not show it, it gives me a vicious pleasure to cut them, to leave them with my mark.
This brief slice of pain is the least of what they deserve, for all their betrayals and travesties.
Once they’ve all been bled, I take the shining apple from Camille’s belly and the chalice from her hands. Then I pass both to the guests, inviting them to nibble and sip, as a twisted inverse of Holy Communion. I’ve laced the wine with damiana, and glazed the apple with sweetened bishop’s cap, both powerful aphrodisiacs.
To ensure they will go home all aglow, intoxicated with the veiled wonders of this night.
“Now that you have partaken of the Morningstar, I invite you to entreat him,” I say, setting a small pot of pigeon’s blood and a quill on the floor beside the altar. “Write him your wishes, with this maiden as your parchment and this blood as your ink. Then seal your desire with a ceremonial gesture of your choosing. A holy defilement, if you will, rather than a sacrament.”
I sink to my knees behind the altar, to let this last part unfold beneath my watchful eye. Though all of them have been told what is allowed and what proscribed, I remember that Marie once called them beautiful barbarians. My role now is to make certain that they indulge without transgressing too far.
The marquise approaches first again, kneeling to carefully write her wish along Camille’s thigh, nibbling on her lip in thought. She chooses to seal it with a gentle kiss pressed to Camille’s hip, running her palm lightly down the length of the girl’s leg.
The gesture takes me aback a bit, surprises me with its boldness. It isn’t what I would have expected of the marquise. But it is a good reminder that no one is quite as they appear.
And that even these overindulged savages cannot always be predicted.
Less than an hour later the ritual is done, leaving Camille a cream-and-crimson scroll of wishes. I lead the guests through a closing chant before dismissing them with suitably solemn farewells. Then I transcribe the wishes into my journal, taking careful stock of each before I send Camille off to bathe.
For how better to play these nobles’ wicked dreams to my advantage than by collecting and studying them?
When a knock sounds at my study door, I’m still deeply engrossed. “Dieu merci, what is it, Simone?” I ask a trifle impatiently without looking up, assuming that only the chatelaine would think to disturb me at this hour. “The hour is late, and I’m rather occupied at the moment.”
“Not Simone, I’m afraid, but I do promise to be brief,” Adam responds, his voice lilting with humor. Startled, my eyes fly up to see him draped against the doorjamb, a hunter’s smile hovering on his lips. “Might I come in?”
“I suppose you may,” I say with a cool composure I do not feel. I flip my journal closed and set it to the side, leveling a gaze at him. “What are you still doing here, Adam? How did you get back in?”
“Forgot my cloak,” he replies with a wink that implies he did no such thing. “I’m forever misplacing the blasted thing. Or is it that I never brought it in the first place? Impossible to know. Whatever the case, I managed to prevail upon one of the more amenable of your strapping young footmen out there to allow me to retrieve it.”
He pushes off from the doorframe and strolls into the study, still smiling. “And you’ll forgive my presumption, but I found I couldn’t take my leave a second time without paying you my compliments.”
I press my lips together, resolving to have a stern word with whichever footman had let him back in. Though I find that I am rather pleased by his return, almost as if a part of me had hoped against reason that he might linger after the rest of them had left.
“Wine, perhaps?” I ask, rising from the desk, my heart fluttering like a sparrow against my ribs. “I noticed you did not care to take my communion at the end.”
His wolf’s smile widens at the mock solemnity in my tone. “Of course not. Not without knowing what … choice enhancements you might have thought to add. But I’ll happily take some with you now.”
I move to the walnut sidebar and pour us both a glass of pale Bourgogne wine. His warm fingers linger on mine a touch too long when I hand him the goblet, and he tips his head wryly as he raises it in a toast.
“To your ingenuity, my lady,” he proposes. “And a truly masterful performance. I’m especially pleased to find you took my advice on artful devilry to heart.”
“And how do you know I did not have all this planned long before we even met?” I demand, even as I clink my glass to his and allow myself a smile. “Or do you always take credit for others’ success?”
“Only when it’s due.” He sets his glass down on the sidebar, tilting his head quizzically at the sight of Alecto, who is still at her usual perch around my neck. “She is beautiful, your little friend. Might I say hello to her?”
I nod, making an effort to stay still as he traces a finger down Alecto’s sinuous length with unsettling slowness. She lifts her
