Read the excerpt from Wicked Ever After by Delilah Dawson:
A tall black boot cut the grass before me, punting another soft brown rabbit into the night before a red-gloved hand appeared in my tear-blurred vision.
“My lady?”
He’d followed me from the turnstile, resplendent in his ringmaster’s kit and high top hat. I took his hand, cursing him for how smooth I knew it was under his glove, how unmarred his handsome face was by time and his many cares. Bludmen had all the luck in the looks and near-indestructibility departments; this dangerously gorgeous specimen would live to be at least 300 and would look just as suave right up to 250 or so, provided no one tossed him into the salty and poisonous sea or drained him for impertinence. Whereas I was 32, looked 60, and would die before 40 if my curse continued to cause supernatural aging. A human, and a poor excuse for one at that. It did not pay to bargain with witches in this world.
“Your lady? Ha! Your wrinkled apple, more like,” I muttered as he helped me to my feet.
I wobbled, but then again, I was wearing stiletto-heeled boots. Because surely it wasn’t that come-hither look in his eye that made me feel all wobbly in the middle.
But it was. Even after six years by his side, I still got chills when he looked at me like that.
“Fine wines only grow sweeter with age, Letitia,” he said gently.
I snatched my hand from his grasp. “Don’t call me that!”
“But it’s your name.”
“It’s an old lady name!”
“And you’re not an old lady.” As I stomped toward the caravan’s circle of warmth, he paced alongside me, barely out of breath. “Or at least... you needn’t be.”
Ripping off my dirt-smudged glove, I felt the skin around my eyes with my fingertips. Wrinkled, pitted with lines of laughter and sorrow, lines that had deepened in six short years from the good-natured grin of my thirties to the crepey ditches of a woman in her sixties. It wasn’t fair, dammit, and how dare he say that, much less in public? The only other woman he’d ever loved had been a Bludwoman and beautiful. If Merissa had appeared before us just then, she would have looked half my age and had twice my magic and talents. It was unbearable, being trapped in a body that didn’t feel like mine and constantly comparing myself with the unattainable Bludwomen who threw themselves at Criminy as if I were just a tired old plaything.
“Again with that ‘immortal kiss’ crap? ‘Oh, I’m such a sexy vampire. Let me drink all your blood and spit it back into your mouth, and blah blah blah, you can never go back to Earth and see your grandmother again, much less help her die with any kind of dignity, even though you live with insane amounts of stress every single day that you’re in Sang with the devilishly good-looking ringmaster you love while your grandmother is two wheezy breaths away from kicking the damn bucket.’”
Firm hands settled on my waist, snatching me backward, lifting me in an effortless swirl of skirts that felt oh-so-Disney, or would have if he hadn’t been grinning at me with fangs in his mouth, lust in his eyes and a mostly ornamental whip coiled on his hip.
“The moment I blud you, love, those wrinkles that I definitely don’t see will melt right into soft, youthful skin like fresh cream kissed with roses. You’ll still be terribly young, for a Bludwoman. Until that moment, I’ll love you, just as I do now, just as I always have. My ‘immortal kiss,’ as you call it, just waits for your word. This problem will solve itself.”
He tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow, checked that Vil was tending the turnstile and towed me toward his damn caravan. And I let him, because despite the fact that I’d just had a hissy fit, I knew in my heart he was right.
Criminy Stain was always right.
About the author: Delilah S. Dawson is a native of Roswell, Georgia, and the author of the paranormal romance Blud series for Pocket, including Wicked as They Come, Wicked as She Wants and the upcoming Wicked After Midnight, as well as two previous Blud novellas, The Mysterious Madam Morpho and The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance. She is also the author of the YA novel Servants of the Storm. For more on Delilah Dawson, visit her on XOXO After Dark!