You’ve finally won the lottery, haven’t you! That’s it, isn’t it? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
“How I got into this place is way more unbelievable than hitting the lottery. Champagne?” I suggested, pointing to the mini-fridge built into the bar cabinet.
I had been ecstatic to discover an entire case of the stuff in the small utility room near the kitchen. Sunny pulled a bottle from the fridge as I grabbed the Waterford flutes and motioned her over to the sofa.
“Sinfully rich, darkly handsome, wickedly sexy and enormously endowed sugar daddy?” she asked hopefully, plopping down beside me and removing the foil from the cork.
I snorted. “Sort of. If you want to put an extremely euphemistic spin on it.”
Balthus had been all of those things. Granted, I hadn’t had a chance to find out about his endowments—but as he was a creature with the ability to make wishes come true, it was probably a safe bet he wasn’t lacking in that area. Unfortunately, trying to steal my soul trumped any of his desirable qualities.
Sunny stared at me expectantly, her expression shifting to a frown at my hesitation to elaborate. I watched in amusement as she popped the cork, filled the expensive crystal glasses and then placed them next to the bottle on the scratched glass of my old coffee table.
Then she turned to me and her hands snaked out to grab my shoulders and shake me. “Enough!” she yelled. “Spill, Spill, SPILL, you insufferable wench!” She unerringly found the ticklish spot on my side and set upon it without mercy. “NOW!”
In response to my screech of protest, Jasper, who had curled up on a nearby chair, raised his head to glare at us. I could almost see his black brow twitch in disdain at our childish antics.
When I could breathe again, I haltingly began to tell Sunny about coming to the hotel Friday night and how I met Balthus at the bar and then followed him up to his room. She grinned appreciatively at my description of him and kept interrupting me with suggestive questions and innuendos.
When I finally got to the part about Sparrow showing up on the balcony with the lamp and Balthus going all smoky and disappearing, she just laughed in an ‘Oh, that’s a good one Syd—you got me!’ sort of way.
When it slowly dawned on her that I wasn’t kidding, she downed the rest of her champagne in one gulp and silently got up to retrieve another bottle. After that she didn’t say a word until I’d completed the story, including Lorien’s appearance on my pillow later that night, and how I completely forgot about Jeremy until the next morning.
By the time I finished we were on bottle number three.
“That’s some tall tale, Syd,” she said at last, her speech slurred.
“I wish that’s all it was,” I said blithely. Not only was I high on the champagne, but it felt damn good to tell a fellow human what had happened to me after keeping it to myself for a week.
Sunny stared at me wide-eyed and I giggled at her expression for a moment before I realized I’d spoken the forbidden word. I slapped a hand over my mouth just in time to cover a sneeze.
“I told you not to say that word!” grumbled a tinkling voice. “And if you’re going to get sloshed and talk about me, the least you could do is invite me. Ooh, champagne, my favorite!”
I swung my head toward the sound, waited for my blurred vision to clear, and then smiled at Lorien through a sparkling red haze of faerie dust. “Lorien, Sunny” I gestured, “Lunny, Sorien. Um, sorry, you guys know what I mean.”
I gazed expectantly at Sunny, who was looking somewhere off to Lorien’s left with narrowed eyes and an expression of utter confusion adorning her heart-shaped face. My head tilted back toward Lorien to find her dipping a thimble-sized earthenware jug into my champagne flute.
She took an experimental sip and sighed in approval before carefully settling
“How I got into this place is way more unbelievable than hitting the lottery. Champagne?” I suggested, pointing to the mini-fridge built into the bar cabinet.
I had been ecstatic to discover an entire case of the stuff in the small utility room near the kitchen. Sunny pulled a bottle from the fridge as I grabbed the Waterford flutes and motioned her over to the sofa.
“Sinfully rich, darkly handsome, wickedly sexy and enormously endowed sugar daddy?” she asked hopefully, plopping down beside me and removing the foil from the cork.
I snorted. “Sort of. If you want to put an extremely euphemistic spin on it.”
Balthus had been all of those things. Granted, I hadn’t had a chance to find out about his endowments—but as he was a creature with the ability to make wishes come true, it was probably a safe bet he wasn’t lacking in that area. Unfortunately, trying to steal my soul trumped any of his desirable qualities.
Sunny stared at me expectantly, her expression shifting to a frown at my hesitation to elaborate. I watched in amusement as she popped the cork, filled the expensive crystal glasses and then placed them next to the bottle on the scratched glass of my old coffee table.
Then she turned to me and her hands snaked out to grab my shoulders and shake me. “Enough!” she yelled. “Spill, Spill, SPILL, you insufferable wench!” She unerringly found the ticklish spot on my side and set upon it without mercy. “NOW!”
In response to my screech of protest, Jasper, who had curled up on a nearby chair, raised his head to glare at us. I could almost see his black brow twitch in disdain at our childish antics.
When I could breathe again, I haltingly began to tell Sunny about coming to the hotel Friday night and how I met Balthus at the bar and then followed him up to his room. She grinned appreciatively at my description of him and kept interrupting me with suggestive questions and innuendos.
When I finally got to the part about Sparrow showing up on the balcony with the lamp and Balthus going all smoky and disappearing, she just laughed in an ‘Oh, that’s a good one Syd—you got me!’ sort of way.
When it slowly dawned on her that I wasn’t kidding, she downed the rest of her champagne in one gulp and silently got up to retrieve another bottle. After that she didn’t say a word until I’d completed the story, including Lorien’s appearance on my pillow later that night, and how I completely forgot about Jeremy until the next morning.
By the time I finished we were on bottle number three.
“That’s some tall tale, Syd,” she said at last, her speech slurred.
“I wish that’s all it was,” I said blithely. Not only was I high on the champagne, but it felt damn good to tell a fellow human what had happened to me after keeping it to myself for a week.
Sunny stared at me wide-eyed and I giggled at her expression for a moment before I realized I’d spoken the forbidden word. I slapped a hand over my mouth just in time to cover a sneeze.
“I told you not to say that word!” grumbled a tinkling voice. “And if you’re going to get sloshed and talk about me, the least you could do is invite me. Ooh, champagne, my favorite!”
I swung my head toward the sound, waited for my blurred vision to clear, and then smiled at Lorien through a sparkling red haze of faerie dust. “Lorien, Sunny” I gestured, “Lunny, Sorien. Um, sorry, you guys know what I mean.”
I gazed expectantly at Sunny, who was looking somewhere off to Lorien’s left with narrowed eyes and an expression of utter confusion adorning her heart-shaped face. My head tilted back toward Lorien to find her dipping a thimble-sized earthenware jug into my champagne flute.
She took an experimental sip and sighed in approval before carefully settling
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