Cuckoo in the Coven

Celeste looked back through the window and stared momentarily at Fox. In the space of a heartbeat, she craved him.

She blinked and sent the thought on its way, then watched in horror as Sunny appeared to look down at a sheet of paper on the table. “Oh no, he’s already given her the contract.”

It explained the bars appearing on the windows. Once a recipient read the contract, they were committed. Such was Fox’s law. He operated under devious and wicked manipulations.

She put her hands against the glass, staring at Sunny.

She had to let Sunny know they were there, and would aid her.

Sunny glanced her way, and nodded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Sunny had requested an intimate dinner date.

This was not an intimate dinner date.

Surprisingly, the dessert was quite edible, which was kind of disappointing. It was an Italian confection served in a fancy glass parfait dish straight from the 1970s. She’d expected it to be alive and served on an alligator carcass, or something equally showman-like—and he accused her of showing off? Pfft.

The dessert was delicious though, and she actually managed to eat a bit of it. The glass dishes reminded her of a set her grandma had owned. She made a mental note to check in the sideboard, in case any had gone missing. She wouldn’t put it past this weirdo to pilfer for fun, and there was the Versailles chandelier to account for.

She stared down at the dessert and wondered if she would’ve been disappointed in the viscount too, if she’d really wanted to court his attentions. Good looking, yes. Austerely charming, maybe. But she found him a repulsive individual, despite his efforts to impress and his apparent power. How on earth Celeste had fallen for him amazed her. Perhaps it depended which century you met him in. Then again, her grandmother had apparently taken against him, so maybe it was a genetic thing, an innate reaction she’d inherited—like so much else. And Fox had to keep people here by force, that much was clear.

Didn’t say much for his hospitality now, did it?

Somehow the notion gave her strength. Cullen, her man, was worth fighting the very concept of time itself to keep by her side.

Now that was true love.

Fox pushed his parfait dish away, apparently pleased with the odd meal. Maybe he’d been different, Sunny thought, before he went to the dark side. It must have been horrible for Celeste to witness, if she loved him. She shuddered.

She’d felt Celeste’s presence nearby for several minutes, spooling strength to her, but right then she couldn’t concentrate on it. She hadn’t yet signed the contract, and he’d expect her to. The rest of the bars she’d been worried about would slide into place, one by one, every time she read a line.

She glanced at the window, where the steel bar looked so solid and real. A movement caught her eye.

She looked back at Fox.

Members of the coven were out there, trying to help.

Maybe Cullen too. Her heart missed a beat, her hopes lifting.

Even though she wanted to deal with him herself, she couldn’t help being touched.

Risking another glance, she caught sight of a hand at the bar on the window, then another. They were trying to break Fox’s shield.

She snapped her attention back to Fox, determined to keep him from noticing what was going on outside.

“May I go over and look at your painting?” She nodded her head at the one and only painting in the room, on the far wall behind her chair. It had caught her eye but she couldn’t see it clearly without getting closer.

“Of course.” He rose to his feet and gestured for her to follow, at ease showing off his possessions once more.

I may regret this, Sunny realized, approaching the painting. She figured it might be some dire representation of his feats on the killing fields. It wasn’t. It was a surreal landscape, seemingly a depiction of Raven’s Landing as seen from above, at a distance. It was quite primitive in style and the landscape was flat and uniform green, populated here and there with figures.

As she got closer she realized they were mostly women, although there were two male figures. The images were mere outlines, shadowy female forms in profile. Only three of them seemed more defined. One was male, a handsome young lad who was painted in detail but his face remained featureless. The second was a woman, gothic in appearance, slim and elegant with long black hair. The other one that drew her gaze the most was a woman standing by the shore, and familiar to Sunny. It was a likeness of Celeste, looking back over her shoulder, at the viewer. The image of her somber eyes chilled Sunny.

“I painted this one myself,” Fox commented.

She nodded, and scanned the rest of the people in the image. She didn’t recognize them from their profiles, and Celeste was the only one looking back. Was this his equivalent of a little black book, she wondered, feeling quite ill at the thought of Celeste’s lingering glance backward, as painted by the man himself. “Why did you paint Celeste that way?”