Over the following weeks, Edmund found his existence invaded. Perdita would appear at his castle gates with a freshly killed deer (“Thought you might want the blood, darling. The rest is for my pups.”). She challenged him to races through the thorn forest (she won, but claimed his complaining about a torn cape was “adorable”). She even laughed genuinely at one of his sarcastic remarks about the local zombie peasantry’s work ethic.
He thought of Perdita’s laugh. Her terrible table manners. The way she’d nuzzled his cold hand once, her wolf form’s rough tongue surprisingly gentle.
She didn’t excuse him. She crossed the room, took his raw, reddened hands in her warm, calloused ones, and kissed him. It was not a gentle kiss. It was a kiss of teeth, of near-misses, of a werewolf and a vampire finding a surprisingly comfortable middle ground. For a moment, Edmund forgot to be cynical. His heart didn’t just lurch. It raced .
Baldrick, watching from the shadows, nodded sagely. “See?” he whispered to the stuffed raven. “Told you. Even monsters need a turnip.” Blackadder Monster Sex 05
Perdita grinned. “Knew it. You’re not a monster, Edmund. You’re just a grumpy cat who needs a good walk.”
The crisis came during the Blood Moon Hunt. A rogue faction of vampire purists, led by the odious Duke Malvolio (a mosquito-themed nobleman with a whiny proboscis), decided to “solve” the werewolf problem by poisoning the pack’s watering hole with silver nitrate.
“Right you are, my lord,” Baldrick would say, picking something unspeakable from his fangs. Baldrick was a ghoul. A simple ghoul. “Though I did have a turnip once. Felt a bit wobbly about it.” Over the following weeks, Edmund found his existence invaded
Edmund still complained. About the hair on his velvet. About the smell of wet dog after a full moon. About Perdita’s habit of leaving half-eaten bones in his sarcophagus.
But every evening, just before dawn, Perdita would curl up at the foot of his coffin, her wolf form a warm, heavy weight against his cold feet. And Edmund, the cynic, the sneerer, the Lord of the Carpathian Vale, would allow himself one small, secret smile before the sun rose.
It was, as Edmund would never, ever admit out loud, the least inconvenient feeling he’d ever had. She challenged him to races through the thorn
This last event caused Edmund a moment of profound horror. As her laugh—a genuine, warm, lupine roar—echoed off his granite walls, he felt something stir in the desiccated raisin of his chest. A thump. Then another.
Edmund recoiled, smoothing his lapels. “Madam, I am not glum. I am superior . There is a difference. And kindly refrain from touching. I bruise like a peach, and I’m worth more than your entire pack’s flea-ridden fortune.”