The Vampire & Her Witch

The stairs creaked beneath Ashlynn’s feet as she descended, and with each step, she felt herself pulling the pieces of her composure back together like a woman gathering scattered threads to weave them into a net that would at least stop her from falling apart.

It wasn’t working as well as she’d hoped. The tremor in her hands had stopped, but she could still feel Cian’s blood on her cheek even though Cynwrig’s cloth had wiped it clean, and the phantom weight of Eira’s fingers around her wrist lingered like footprints in the sand of the beach.

Each beat of her heart faded the feelings a little bit more, but it would take some time before the sensations dissipated entirely.

Ashlynn paused at the bottom of the stairs, nodding a simple acknowledgement to Marcel, who waited patiently for her before she stepped through the doorway into the private dining room.

The warmth of the hearth hit her first, a wall of golden heat that was so different from the cramped chill of the room above that it almost made her stumble. Then the smell reached her, mulled wine and spiced pastry and the honest smoke of good firewood.

For a moment, just a moment, she felt like she was back in Georg’s kitchen in the Vale, where the worst thing that could happen was burning the bread or dropping a heavy pot on her own foot.

The feeling faded as soon as it came, however, as four faces turned toward her. Two of them she knew well enough to trust with her life. The other two, she hadn’t seen since the day she married Owain Lothian, though she could hardly say that she knew them after such a brief meeting.

”Lord Loghlan, Lady Mairwen,” Ashlynn said, inclining her head in a greeting that was polite without being elaborate. ”I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you both. Liam spoke very highly of you while he was my... guest,” she said a touch awkwardly.

Baron Loghlan Dunn rose from his chair, and the man who stood before her matched his son’s description in every respect. Broad shoulders, weathered hands, dark hair turning gray, and piercing gray eyes that were already taking her measure.

It was the lines of his face, however, that captured Ashlynn’s attention. Baron Dunn might be broader and stockier than Rhys Blackwell, but his eyes bore the same laugh lines her father’s face held, while his brow carried just as many worried creases. When she looked at his face, she saw a man who had laughed, loved, and carried the weight of responsibility for his family and his domain... Just the way her father had done.

”Lady Ashlynn,” Loghlan said, offering a formal bow that stopped just short of the deep reverence he would show to a marchioness but carried more weight than the nod he’d give to a fellow baron’s wife. He was threading a needle, Ashlynn realized. He didn’t know what she was yet: queen, rebel, witch, ally, or all of them at once, and his greeting was carefully calibrated to fit whichever answer proved correct.

”We’re honored to finally meet you,” Mairwen said from beside her husband in a voice filled with warmth that felt genuine rather than diplomatic. The Baroness had worn her auburn hair in a practical braid, and her green eyes studied Ashlynn with an attention that was different from her husband’s. More open and friendly, perhaps... But also reading every motion and gesture the way a scholar reads books.

Ashlynn felt those eyes linger on the tension in her jaw, on the way she held her hands too carefully at her sides, on the faint redness around her eyes that cold water and willpower hadn’t quite erased, and she knew, with the certainty of a woman who had learned to read people under Marcel’s expert tutelage, that Mairwen Dunn missed very little.

”Please, sit,” Ashlynn said, gesturing for Loghlan to return to his chair as she pulled out one for herself. ”I know it’s late, and I’ve already stolen too much of your evening. I’ll try not to steal much more.”

Beside the hearth, Isabell had risen from her seat without a word. Ashlynn didn’t notice the older woman move to the edge of the fire, where a pair of leftover hand pies sat on a clay plate, but a moment later, the plate appeared on the table near her elbow, the pastries warmed through by the hearth’s heat, alongside a cup of mulled wine that steamed gently in the firelight.

Ashlynn glanced at Isabell, and something passed between them that needed no words. The silver-haired woman’s expression was calm, but her silvery eyes had a sharpness to them that made it clear that her friend knew something was wrong; she just wasn’t commenting on it.

Ashlynn picked up one of the hand pies and took a bite. The crust was flaky and buttered, and the filling was sweet with candied walnuts and tart berries, and for a few seconds, the simple pleasure of warm food settled some of the churning in her stomach.

”Before we begin,” Ashlynn said after washing the bite down with a sip of wine, ”I want you to know that I’ve just come from a meeting with Sir Cynwrig and Lady Cerys Stormbrook. They’ve agreed to help us by finding Ollie’s parents in Lothian Manor and taking them into their care.”

”I hate taking advantage of Cerys’ injury this way,” Ashlynn admitted, though her tone wasn’t exactly apologetic. ”But some things are too important. I can’t afford to pass up an opportunity like this when it improves the chances of successfully protecting Ollie’s family by such a wide margin.”

”Such are the decisions all lords must make,” Loghlan said, raising his hand to wave off Ashlynn’s concerns. ”And it’s just as well that the task you’ve given them allows them to repay some of their debt to Sir Ollie.”

”Still, I appreciate directness,” Loghlan said, and the slight emphasis on the word ’directness’ told Ashlynn that Isabell’s style of conversation had already set the tone for the evening.

”We know that things are... complicated, after what happened to Sir Ollie,” Mairwen added. ”And we’ll be sure to give our own accounting of it when the time comes. But for now, please don’t worry about softening your words on our account.”

”In that case,” Ashlynn said as she relaxed into her chair and took another sip of wine. ”I’ll be direct, because without your help, things will become significantly more perilous for all of us.”