by Melissa Marr
“I am terrified,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I want you,” I whispered against his throat.
“And I want you.” He leaned back and stared into my eyes.
“So . . . we boink like bunnies? Risk our friendship for some orgasms?” I tried for light, but I sounded panicked even to myself.
“I give you my vow, Geneviève Crowe, that I will not stop being your friend if we ever start and then stop boinking.”
The air felt thick as he spoke, as the magic that rode in his words floated beside us. I felt the magic press into my skin. “Eli of Stonecroft—"
“You do not need to make a vow,” he reminded me. “This is not a bargain.”
“I want to. I want you to know that I feel the same, that I want to preserve our friendship,” I explained. “Eli of Stonecroft, I will not stop being your friend. No being alive, again-alive, or dead will cause me to abandon you.”
The smile he gave me would melt ice on a frigid day. Quietly, he said, “I accept.”
We stood there beside his car a few moments. A part of me wanted to shove him against his car and kiss him again. Another part of me wanted to say “I can’t” and run.
I leaned back and said, “So, I guess this means we agree that sex is an option . . .”
He grinned. “It appears that way.”
I stared at him, waiting. “Well, we had a bargain: One kiss at your choosing. We could start there. I did kiss you earlier.”
“Oh, cupcake, you know me better than that.” His voice was back to the familiar teasing one that I treasured. “I will not ruin this moment by claiming that kiss. . Unless you are finally inviting me into your bed tonight, I will bid you goodnight.”
I felt nervous. Being with him made me feel as awkward as a virgin at an orgy. This was real, not one of the fantasies of him I indulged in during quality time with a vibrator.
I chickened out. “Not tonight.”
He continued to be silent. When he extended a hand to me, I accepted, and in an instant, I was in his embrace. No kisses. No wandering hands. He simply hugged me again. If he’d kissed me, I would have dragged him to my bed. Instead, Eli was making the decision all mine.
“Soon,” I said. “But I need a minute. We . . . I . . . I’m nervous.”
“I’m nervous, too,” he whispered. He released me and walked back to his side of the car. He paused and gave me a smile, and I recalled briefly how many things he’d done to ease my worries. He was good at this.
I walked to my door and jabbed the code into the door. When I stepped into the lobby, I looked back at Eli through the closed heavy glass door and waved. Then I stood and watched him drive away, feeling like a much younger, much less experienced woman. I wasn’t sure I knew how to start this after so long avoiding it. Our kiss had been powerful, and . . . now what?
I sighed and turned toward the firedoor to enter my floor of the building. The light above it must have burned out, so I made a mental note to bitch at the manager in the morning. My vision made the lack of light an improvement, but if my friends visited at night, they’d be stumbling into the umbrella stand or the bench. Having done that in a few drunken moments over the years, I wasn’t going to wish it on anyone else.
I needed to text Tres and cancel lunch. Whatever was going on there with his vaguely Renfield-like behavior, I wasn’t going to be seeing him alone.
I was pulling my phone out of my pocket when a noise drew my attention.
Alice Chaddock stepped out from behind the stairwell. She stood there in an elegant coat and thin heels and stared at me. She took a halting step forward, and I struggled to remain calm.
“Mrs. Chaddock?” I had no idea why—or how—she was in my lobby, but I’d already had at least three more crises than should happen in any month . . . and I was over it. I just needed a long fucking nap. “Whatever this is, can we do this tomorrow?”
She sobbed and threw herself into my arms. I definitely don’t cuddle clients as a rule—and I didn’t even like the widow Chaddock. She was clinging to me, though, arms around me like a determined koala.
“Okay, what happened?” I started, not quite able to detangle her clutching arms. Whatever the damsel-in-distress class was, she took it and aced it. Firmer now, I asked, “Why are you here, Alice?”
I heard footsteps, the unmistakable clack of heels. I looked over Alice’s shoulder and saw another woman about my age standing there. “Who are you?”
Before I could say anything more, something jabbed my upper arm. Sharp. Burning. It felt as if my very bone had cracked, and I swayed under the pain. Everything was wrong. I felt my muscles going loose, and icy agony spiraling down from whatever pricked my arm.
“What . . . have you done?” I slurred as I fell to the floor.
The two women looked down at me. The second one, a stranger, said, “Why is she still talking? Alvin and Jimmy were dead by this point. The maid, too.”
Alice shrugged. “Maybe it’s like a witch thing? She’s freaky strong.”
I was felled by a hug. If I could stand, I’d kick my own ass.
“Here.” The stranger pulled something out of her bag. I couldn’t see what she was holding out, but I hoped to hell it wasn’t a gun.
I managed to say, “Why?”
“Hold on.” Alice crouched beside me and tugged my shirt up.
I could see her hand and a syringe in it. I tried to lift my hand to bat it away, but all I managed to do was flop my hand onto my belly.
I felt and saw the needle inject me again, and the world went sideways.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke to voices. I let my magic slide out before forcing my eyelids to lift. I felt the spaces in my home, three bodies filling the usually empty air. Another trickle of magic told me that Christy, Sera, and Jesse were here.
Friends. Family. No rich bitches with crocodile tears. I was safe.
Christy and Sera were in my bathroom. Jesse was beside me, sitting on the floor next to my sofa. He was still, but watching me, guarding me. All of this might mean I was recently dead—or not.
I wasn’t sure what dying felt like.
I knew I was on my sofa, on top of what I thought was a tarp, and I had an overall chill, a very cold stomach, and general sense of dampness. I had no idea how I got here. I was home. Not in the building lobby, but inside my home. The last thing I knew I was in the lobby. Had I crawled here? Did I get dragged here? My brain was muzzy, and I knew that it was probably from whatever jabbed me—or a result of the throbbing in my head from hitting the lobby floor.
I forced my eyes open and turned my head to stare at Jesse. “Up.”
“Keep the ice there. You stopped convulsing when we got ice on you.” Jesse helped prop me up. “You were burning up when we found you.”
“How long?”
Jesse glanced at the wall clock over the sofa. From this angle, I couldn’t see it. “Maybe an hour since we found you. About twenty minutes since you stopped thrashing. Two minutes since you started to wake.”
I nodded. “Time now?”
“One-ish. You didn’t call or reply to any of our texts, so . . . we’re here.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal that they had come to check on me and probably saved my life.
“Dead?”
He shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Time would tell if I’d stay alive. I felt the venom in me. What did draugr venom do to someone who was a living but genetically-similar draugr? It was a question I’d asked myself more than once when something cold, dead, and surly slavered on me in attempts to gnaw on my carotid. The poison was inside me, but I had no idea if it would kill me because, technically, it might not be poison to me. It was like a rattlesnake with a cut in its mouth. Did the venom injure the snake? Or was it different because I hadn’t swallowed it, but had it injected in me.
“What do you need?” Jesse prompted as he scooted closer.
“Cold drink. More ice.” I swallowed.
My whole body felt like it was on fire on the inside. I could trace every vein.
Jesse turned his head and called, “Water. Ice bags. She’s awake.”
I noticed that he was wearing black disposable gloves, as if we were about to dye my hair. Actually, they looked like they were the ones from my bathroom used just for that. He’d been careful in this, at least. Who knew how much venom had been on my skin?
“Vodka,” I corrected, even as I felt the air displaced as one of the women moved from bathroom to kitchen. That was Sera. She was a hummingbird where Christy felt like a jay. Jesse was always more owl in his presence, watchful and strong. Someday, he’d be a great father to children who would be my “nieces” or “nephews.” We weren’t blood, but sometimes family was what you chose.
Jesse looked at me and said in a low voice, “I can try again to kick them out or you can risk getting all confessional. Asking for vodka after convulsions is going to raise a couple questions. You want to tackle that?”
“Vodka.” It was that or call Mama Lauren for one of her weird medicinal concoctions.
“Your call, little sister.” Jesse started to push to his feet, probably to fetch my booze.
I felt woozy and started shivering, and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d see sunrise.
Amateurs. The women who did this only left me half-murdered. Fucking amateurs. That was why I liked beheadings. No doubts there. Sever the head, and bodies dropped, even draugr or whatever the fuck I was. If I healed, I was going to be . . . unpleasant at best. Why would they risk that? What if I woke up a draugr? The thought of that particular nightmare made my heart speed. I really, really didn’t want to find out that I was a draugr now.
I tried to lift my arm to grab him and totally missed.
“Stay for now,” I rasped.
Jesse took my hand. “Hey, Gen? Focus on me, yeah?”
My eyes were not sure how to focus. I convulsed on my sofa.
“Panic is going to spread the venom.” Jesse was using the calm voice, the one that meant I was legit injured. It was not comforting, but I knew by now that the calm voice meant that I needed to listen to him.
“No panic,” I promised.
The venom in my body should have killed me. Was it just slower because of the ice? Where was Eli? Where did all the ice come from? I had the sort of questions that made me worry about twelve things at once. Adrenaline shot with a hemotoxic edge. I glanced down and saw blood oozing around the plastic bag of ice I was currently clutching to my belly.
As carefully as I could, I said, “Where is ice from?”
“Sera called a friend.” He made air quotes. “Had it delivered to the building. Bags and bags of it. No one else came in.”
Sera and Christy came into my living room then. Christy had a bottle and two plastic ziplocked bags of ice. Sera had icepacks, ointment, and a cleaning cloth.
“Vodka,” I said again, staring at Jesse.
He nodded and stood.
I didn’t think the women heard me, but Christy raised her brows at me as she handed me a tall, closed metal water bottle. I shrugged, took the bottle, and swung my feet to the floor. I took both ice bags and pressed one of the icepacks to my shoulder, and the awkward angle made the one on my stomach fall to the floor.
“Vodka?” Christy repeated.
I grabbed my fallen ice and plopped it and the new bag of ice on my chest.
“You’re bleeding! Why is she bleeding again?” Sera came over with a damp cloth and lifted my shirt. “We pulled the needle out. Why isn’t it closing?”
When I saw the watery blood, I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch it.”
I felt my panic swell again. “Did any of you touch it?”
“I did.” Jesse held up his gloved hands. “But I was careful. There was a broken needle in your belly. I wasn’t going to leave it there. Pulled it out. Tossed it. Iced you.”
“Cloth,” I said, holding out my hand.
Sera let me have it, and I wiped away the thin watery stuff seeping out of my skin. Yes, there was blood, but that wasn’t all. I looked closer and saw a red mark. Circular. Raised. One tiny puncture in the middle. I could feel a bump in there, like a tiny lump of poison where the widow Chaddock had injected me.
In a calmer than I felt voice, I said, “I need a bag to put contaminates in.” I met Sera’s glare. “Did you touch any of my blood?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I stared at her, my magic zinging at her, studying her, seeking the green glow of venom in her. She seemed clean.
“Dude! Put the magic away.” Sera glared at me in the way of a friend who was used to all of my quirks. “Don’t go all mind control or whatever that is.”
“I can’t control your mind,” I said lightly. “I was just—”
“Slapping your magic at me,” she finished. “Well, stop. Jesse refused to let us touch you. He put on gloves and got cleaning rags to wipe up your blood.”
“Good.” I nodded at him.
“Toss it in there.” Jesse motioned to an industrial paint can I used to store salt and as a base for the training dummies I built. Jesse had co-opted an empty one as a makeshift bin for contaminants. It was a smart plan. Bloody rags and water were piled in a reddish mess in the bottom of the can.
“Not my first time needing to be sure I wasn’t going to catch something from a woman,” Jesse teased. “I’m very in favor of prophylactics of all sorts.”
“TMI,” Christy said dryly. “And don’t say prophylactics talking about your sister.”
I grinned, grateful as ever for the smart asses that were my friends. “I’m glad he’s making sure he’s safe. Smart man. Good catch even.” I shot her a look. “And you ought to be glad. I mean, I’m not the one here who’s sleeping with him.”
“You told her?” Jesse said.
“No, dumbass.” Christy shook her head. “You just did.”
I laughed, the movement spilling more venom from the injection in my belly. I typically healed faster than this. I sopped it up again with the rag, noting that the ooze was leaving red trails on my skin. I dabbed instead, trying to absorb it.
“Christy? I want to hear more about you two later, and you”—Sera pointed at me— “can stop with distracting or magicking me to forget or whatever else you want to do to avoid discussing this.”
“I can’t magic you to forget,” I muttered. Of all the traits I wished my dad had given me, that one had yet to show up. I wasn’t sure it was even real. Could draugr make people forget? There was speculation, but my father, frat boy of darkness, was dead so I couldn’t ask. Sometimes I was livid about that, that my temper slipped so badly, that I was not as in control as I wanted--but most of the time I thought the decision to murder him was a good one.
Being covered in ice wasn’t going to work long-term. Freezing the venom to buy my body time to eject it was a start. What would happen when the rest of it hit my system though? Would I die? Re-wake? Transform without dying? I had no answers.
Christy plopped another bag of ice on me. “Keep it cold.”
My brain was zinging in overtime. Colder was making my mind clearer. I wanted to ponder everything except what was happening to me right then. Maybe if I survived, I’d ask Beatrice about what exactly draugr could truly do. My accidental mind-reading skills might be either my dead bio-father’s genes or the result of being a hybrid. My witchy mother couldn’t do it.
“Get your arm. You’re bleeding there, too,” Sera muttered, pulling my focus back to now before she flounced out of the room again.
I felt my arm. It was oozing, too. Worse yet, it felt icy to the touch without any ice packs. No venom ball there. It was in me. Magic wasn’t necessary to see the venom under my skin.
“Going to fill us in?” Christy asked.
“I was injected.”
“Obviously. With what?” Jesse prompted, even though he knew. Of course he did. They knew I was at the morgue because someone was injecting people. They still stared at me with h
ope.
“Draugr venom, I think.” I dabbed my stomach. It was oozing more than my arm. “My blood isn’t coagulating right. Did it feel cold through the glove?”
“Chilly, but not icy.” Jesse met my eyes. “Will your bio offset this?”
He didn’t say “bio-dead-dad” or even “biology,” but I knew exactly what he meant. Would my bio-deadbeat draugr and the fucked-up biology from him offset my reaction? I mean, I couldn’t really say for sure. I hadn’t been injected before now. Obviously, to some degree, there was offset. I wasn’t dead.
“So far, I think it helps,” I said. “They thought I would be dead after the first dose.”
“Why aren’t you dead then?” Christy asked.
“Weird biology,” I said lightly. I was glad I sounded much calmer than I felt. The widow and her friend had tried to kill me. Lots of dead things had tried to kill me, but having a human woman try it was new.
I’d rarely had such cause to celebrate my mother’s bad taste in bedmates. If I were simply human, I’d be dead. Of course, I wouldn’t be a target for well-dressed women with poison if I were merely human—or able to stop them if I survived.
That aside, I didn’t get it. Why inject people with draugr venom? There were much easier ways to kill someone, but draugr venom had killed Chaddock and Odem. I had been guessing the other woman was Odem’s widow, but she was young. Odem’s wife supposedly wasn’t. Daughter? Another dead man’s wife? Either way, she was a woman who had tried to murder me. Why me? Why them? Why venom? And where did they get it? Only venom from a century-old draugr was lethal, and none of those would be easy to milk like snakes.
“How did they get to you?” Jesse asked. “Were you distracted? Were there a lot of attackers?”
That was not the question I wanted to answer.
“She hugged me,” I said sheepishly. I could face monsters, kill, hunt, and generally bad-ass my way through life. Today, though, I was felled by a hug. It was mortifying.
“The widow was hiding in the lobby when I got home, and she hugged me. I didn’t know she had a syringe. Once I was down, the other woman handed her a second dose because I wasn’t dead yet.” My heart sped in anger, and I stood.
