The Velvet Moon

The sultry haze of the greenhouse was brightened by the desert sun beyond, giving the moist air and dancing motes a dreamy quality. Magalie sighed heavily, going through the motions of tending to her plants. The task usually had a calming effect on her and, being especially vexed this morning, she was in need of calming.

“Conniving little shit,” she said. “Weaselly, interfering bastard.” Angry little snips of her shears punctuated each insult, sending the unwanted leaves of the plant fluttering to the table. Careful not to puncture any of the tiny fruits that had begun to mature into a deep violet, she continued to prune and complain to her companion.

“What’s one to do, Cat?” Magalie’s siamese, who’d found a lovely patch of sun, glanced up. Its pupils had all but disappeared in the sunlight, revealing eyes of ice blue.

“Prt?” Replied Cat.

@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

"No!" Magalie whispered, her tone aghast and accusatory, as she peeled the next page of the book and slapped it smooth. She sat sideways on the couch, her back pressed against the cushioned arm, the book  open in her lap.  She gasped as she continued to read and pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, holding it there with her teeth.

The book was the latest in the Chastity Divine novels by Madaline Weatherby which had come out just that day. Magalie had pre-ordered  Children of Chastity the very day she finished the previous book, Chastity Lost and spent the following month more irritable than usual, grumbling about how lazy authors were and suggesting that any that employed cliffhanger endings should be hung by their own entrails.

Upon its arrival she sequestered herself to her room under penalty of slow demise to anyone that disturbed her until the next morning.

Blind hands reached to the table beside her and, after some fumbling, found her wine glass. She wrested her eyes from the page just long enough to drink the last meager drop, tilting her head back until the bottom of the glass pointed to the ceiling. "Tsk," she clicked her tongue.

She reached for the bottle, leaning precariously off the couch and stretching her arm out for it before wrapping her fingers around its neck. Raising her arms above her head as not to obstruct her view of the book poised in her lap, she up-ended the bottle into the glass. A single red drop dribbled from the mouth of the bottle and she growled in frustration, hastily depositing both back onto the table. With that distraction removed, she huddled herself around the book, unabated until there was a quiet knock at the door.

Magalie set her jaw and ignored it. Another knock, still soft but slightly louder. "Fuck ooofff," Magalie said in a sing-song tone through gritted teeth. She'd reached the end of another page and flipped it, nearly ripping it as she did so. Finally another knock and Magalie growled and balled her hands into quivering fists. She slapped the book face-down onto the couch and stormed across the room, ripping the door open to reveal a very startled maid.

"What were my words?!"

"B-b-but," the maid attempted.

"Not a sound, is what I said, *not a single fucking peep under pain of DEATH*,” she said, stabbing a finger into the air between their faces. “A YEAR I've waited, a YEAR! Now Lady Chastity, bearing the child of one her lovers - who by all sensible accounts is Lord Falmouth, although it could just as easily be the stableboy Mr. Whats-his-shit's as Chastity is a bit of a fool for a tight arse -  lays in a coma, having mistakenly drunk the poison that was meant for Sir Barringhal - the fucking prick - but the storm has knocked out the bridge to Whitehall Manor keeping Doctor Felton from saving her!! NOW!! What could POSSIBLY be so important as to forfeit your life and interrup…" Magalie stopped her tirade without preamble and leaned her head to the side to see around her maid and regard the worried looking man in her hallway.

Magalie: “See? I told you we weren’t Duskwight.”