Silver Blood: A Gilded Blood Prequel by Rachel Rener

Author:Rachel Rener [Rener, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Conjurer Books, LLC
Published: 2025-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

If one were to count a single bottle of wine as “a drink,” then Talia and I technically kept our promise to limit our libations. As much as I would have preferred to keep alcohol off the table entirely, her eyes brightened like a child’s when the server brought her a sample of a fragrant Spanish Rioja Talia insisted I try as well. I hadn’t had more than a few sips of alcohol in years, so all it took was a single glass of weak Terran wine to loosen my inhibitions in ways I was not expecting.

Granted, the first half of the three-course meal didn’t feel terribly different than the lunches we frequently shared at the shop. Talia told me a little more about her family and current situation, and I reciprocated as much as I could, offering admittedly vague and reticent details about myself. It was a perfectly pleasant meal, made all the more lovely by the flush in Talia’s cheeks and the vermillion glow of the sunset reflecting against the sailboat-dotted harbor.

But by the time the sun dipped below the horizon, and the bottle of wine and our dinners were half gone, something had shifted – and not just our chairs, which had somehow migrated in one another’s directions. Without the stress of the shop and the mentor-apprentice dynamic hanging over us, dictating our interactions, we were just two people enjoying a meal, a few drinks, and a late-summer sunset together. The wine certainly helped, particularly in my case; rather than embolden the beast, as I had initially feared it would, the alcohol had an unexpectedly mollifying effect on him. Or perhaps it merely lessened my fears and anxieties surrounding him, providing me with a bolstered sense of control. Whatever the case may have been, I felt lighter, unfettered—relaxed, even.

In Talia’s case, the alcohol had little effect on her personality, ebullient and good-natured as she already was, but it did bolster her confidence – which, in turn, made me even more drawn to her magnetism. She was a star, warm and brilliant, and I, her riveted satellite.

“Okay,” Talia said, taking a hearty swig of wine before leaning toward me. “This one is gonna be really hard.”

I propped my elbows on the table, meeting her halfway, our noses less than a foot apart. “All right. Hit me.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “Would you rather be the hottest person on earth and be poor as dirt, or be the ugliest person on earth and a billionaire?”

“Oh, an ugly billionaire hands-down.”

“What?!” Talia gawked at me. “No way! Since when do you care so much about money?”

“It’s not about the money.” I tossed a date in my mouth, then continued, “If you were the most attractive person on the planet, people would be clamoring around you for your looks alone, having no interest in the person underneath. You’d never know what they actually thought of you, who was really a friend, and so on. Not to mention, looks fade with time. And then what do you have? No looks, no money, no friends.

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