by Anne Malcom
I turned to Duncan, who was still staring at me. I sighed and took another shot. “You think this is a mistake,” I said. “That I’m fucking with something that’s already likely to get me killed, and my last wedding is not really doing much for me since my human husband is actually a vampire looking to kill my husband-to-be and take over the world,” I babbled, resting my elbows on the bar. “Usually I don’t say this with a negative attitude, but I might be making a big fucking mistake that could possibly get me killed.”
Duncan didn’t answer immediately, as I expected him to. He treated me to a rare moment of silence in the roaring and crowded bar.
“Even immortals don’t get out of this shitfight called an existence alive,” he finally said, emptying his glass of Guinness in one swig. He looked to me and raised his amber brow. “You best remember that, lassie, and act accordingly. You don’t want to die finding out that you’ve fucked up everything that made this all worth fighting for.”
I blinked at him, his words hitting me somewhere important precisely because I wasn’t expecting such things to come from a Scotsman who, in detail, told me about the last time he’d fucked a human and then drained her afterward. He was not a good man. Or a bad one. He was a vampire. One does not expect such things from a man, good or bad. Especially not from a vampire.
Then I recovered and scowled. “Fuck you, Duncan,” I said, not unkindly, trying to shake off just how deeply his words had penetrated. “You’re just trying to be all deep for that slayer you think you’ve got a chance with. They hate our kind and want to kill us, remember?”
His eyes twinkled, but something darker lingered in there too. “Ah, but you defied the odds. Why can’t I?”
“Because I’m special. You’re not.”
Duncan shook his head. “Persistence pays off. I’ll have her yet, whether she likes it or not.”
I jerked my eyebrow. “That sounds like rape, not romance.”
He showed fang. “It’s not rape if she likes it.”
I gaped at him, even though I knew Duncan would never forcibly take a woman, it was totally crossing a line for him to even say that. And when I thought someone was crossing a line, it meant shit was bad. “That’s exactly what a rapist would say.” I punched him in the shoulder, dislocating it. “No means no, Duncan. I’m sure she can rip your dick off quite accurately if you don’t adhere to that, but I’ll do it the second time once it grows back.”
He scowled and popped his shoulder back into the socket. “That’s exactly why I like her. Gotta be with a woman who’s not afraid to castrate you. Keeps things interesting.” He looked over my shoulder. “And that’s likely why your slayer is locking you down.” He glimpsed at my cleavage. “Apart from the obvious, of course.”
“There’s more to me than my great tits and willingness to castrate the man I love,” I snapped. Then I paused. “Oh no, wait, there isn’t.”
The air in the bar went from close and rowdy to tense and eerie. A human slayer strolling through the throngs of immortals wasn’t really the norm; in fact, it had been forbidden until lately.
Dante had made sure to let the patrons know there’d be a swift death to anyone who harmed Thorne under his roof. It wasn’t for lack of trying, and I was sure someone would try to kill us before the night was out.
The very precise reason I’d told Thorne to meet me there. I had one more person to invite.
I downed my shot. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have ‘save the dates’ to send out.” On that, I pushed myself out of my chair and gracefully leaped onto the top of the bar, kicking away empty bottles. Duncan snatched his half-full ones right before I kicked them too.
I glanced down, blowing a kiss at a furious-looking Thorne, then moving my eyes to an amused-looking Duncan. “An introduction, if you please?” I asked.
Without further ado, he snatched the nearest demon by the scruff of the neck and sent him flying into a table full of vampires. The table collapsed under the force of it, and some of the slower vampires spilled their drinks.
“All right, you good-for-nothing fuckers,” Duncan roared. “Isla has something to say, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to kill her until after she’s finished talking.” He glanced up. “Over to you, lassie.”
I winked to him, then waved at the glaring crowd below me. “Hey, assholes, for those who don’t know me, I’m Isla. Vampire, shoe enthusiast, and recent caretaker of the fate of the world,” I said, strutting along the bar, kicking glasses on a whim. Most of the regulars were used to this kind of thing—especially from me, though not usually fully clothed—so they merely snatched up their glasses like Duncan had. Dante made drinks around me.
He was more than used to it.
“I’m sure a lot of you in this bar despise me,” I continued, my eyes roving over the crowd. “I honestly take it as a compliment, because being despised means you’re doing something right, or wrong.” I screwed up my nose. “Whatever. It means I’m awesome, nonetheless.” I narrowed my eyes. “And I know out of those people who despise me, there’re some little spies for an asshole called Jonathan who happens to be the leader of the merry gang of lowlifes trying to bring about the aforementioned end of the world. Now, I’m not hot on that. Neither am I hot on your leader. I need him dead. Like yesterday. But since there are some of you stupid enough to follow him, I’ve got a message I want to pass on. No, an invitation. To a wedding.”
I showed fang. “Mine. Sorry, none of you are invited because I don’t like you and you want to kill the groom. Who is, coincidentally, standing right there, glaring at me and disapproving of the way I’m announcing the nuptials.” I pointed to Thorne. “He wanted to send an evite. I wanted to go old-fashioned.” I shrugged. “Well, apart from wearing white and being a virgin,” I amended. “So, little spies, run along and tell Jonathan he’s being replaced by a hotter, more muscled and much better lover.” I winked. “And a human to boot,” I added the obvious.
“And for the small ones of you who do like me and want to get me a wedding present, Jonathan’s head on a platter would do nicely. Silver platter, real. No cheapskates, please.” I paused. “That’s about it. Oh, and whoever is driving a red BMW, I crashed into your car on my way in. You should probably park better.”
It was at that point that Thorne reached up and ripped me off the top of the bar so I landed roughly in his arms, but he had to abruptly let me go on account of an angry demon taking a swing at him. Or me. Or both of us.
He yanked us both out of the way, pushing me behind him as he plowed his fist into the demon’s face. I snatched the knife from his belt and used it to stab the vampire rushing me from the left, going for my jugular.
Duncan was sipping at his beer and incapacitating the vampires whose table he’d broken.
A werewolf landed a blow to my kidneys while I was yanking Thorne’s knife out of yet another vampire. The impact sent me flying through the air and into the arms of a demon.
Luckily that one happened to be Dante. He placed me roughly on my feet, burning the face off a vampire who had tried to attack both of us. We ignored the screams.
“I thought you promised you weren’t going to wreck my bar again,” he said through gritted teeth.
I shrugged. “You should know better than to think that, when I promise something, it’s actually for real.”
“Dammit, you made me spill my beer!” Duncan roared. “Now you’re gonna die.”
And so it went.
It wasn’t really as bad as what we’d done before, all things considered. Dante’s bar was still standing when Thorne dragged me out of it. No one had died. Well no one important—ie me.
We only had minor injuries that wouldn’t be worth noticing had my healing not been super slow and meant that I still had said injuries when we got back to my apartment.
“What the fuck were you thinking back there, Isla?” Thorne roared, slamming the door so hard it bounced off its hinges.
I frowned. “Come on, I just got that fixed,” I whined.
He stalked forward, snatching my shoulders. “You just announced the fact that we’re getting married to a whole bar of monsters just looking for a reason to kill us, then invited your fucking ex-husband—the head of the rebellion gunning for your head—to come along,” he yelled.
When he put it all together like that, it didn’t actually sound as great as it had after almost an entire bottle of demon brew. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said.
His eyes bulged. “Really?”
“No, of course not,” I snapped. “It was a terrible idea then, just like it is now. Which is why I did it, obviously. Sometimes it’s like you don’t even know me at all.”
Thorne gripped my arms. “I know you, Isla. I know everything, even the things you think I don’t. You drive me crazy, baby,” he murmured, his voice moving from fury to something else. “But if it doesn’t drive you crazy or psychopathic, then it isn’t love.” His eyes burned into mine as the moment seemed to grow heavier.
I frowned. “What if I’m already crazy and psychopathic?”
He gave me a look. “Then I’m thinking the world better brace.”
I grinned. “Yeah. It better.”
And then, right when I thought he was going to kiss me, strip me, and fuck me, he stepped back, reaching to his pocket and going down on one knee.
I gaped at him, shocked still and silent.
His eyes glittered as he opened a telltale bloodred ring box to reveal a diamond, five carats at least—a round-cut black one, with multiple pave diamonds covering the rest of the ring.
In other words, perfection.
The exact ring that was me.
“I know you said you didn’t want the speech, or the getting down on one knee,” Thorne said, voice thick and gravelly, eyes never leaving mine. “But I’m only planning on ever doing this once in the eternity I have on earth, so I better do it right.” He paused, taking the ring from the box. “Isla Rominskitoff, I’m gonna love you till the end of time, and long after that.” He slipped the ring onto my finger. “And I’ll fight for you, with you, beside you, till everything around us is dust and we’re covered in the blood of our enemies.”
Then he was off his knee and I was in his arms, my body pressed against his, lips inches from mine.
“You didn’t technically ask me to marry you,” I whispered, voice rough.
He grinned. “You already did that, babe,” he growled.
I smiled back, my expression lazy with happiness. “Okay, so you’re gonna fuck me now?” I asked.
His arms tightened. “Oh, I’m gonna fuck you now,” he growled. “Then I’ll marry you tomorrow.”
My stomach dipped. “Then we’ll cover ourselves in the blood of our enemies?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, taking my mouth.
Neither of us thought that our enemies might bathe in our blood.
Love made people stupid, after all.
It killed people too.
Even immortals.
Sophie
Sophie rubbed her eyes, momentarily forgetting that such a motion would smudge her artfully smudged eyeliner.
The spell she had cast against the blurring that had crept in after the eleventh hour in front of the computer was now wearing off. She was exhausted. Tapped out. She doubted she’d be able to handle the small glamor she’d been clinging to whenever Isla came around.
She’d barely managed it when the vampire had strutted in to declare her upcoming nuptials.
Sophie squinted at the clock on the computer screen.
The nuptials she’d likely be late to if she didn’t get her ass out of the chair and into a shower and her sluttiest dress.
Isla had told her she could wear what she wanted.
She was happy for her vampire bestie. Really.
Sophie didn’t believe in the institution of marriage because she didn’t believe in institutions at all, but she kind of understood why Isla was doing it. The ground they were fighting on was continuing to become more and more unstable, and there was only one solid constant in her life.
Thorne.
And then there was the fact that she’d been carrying around demons—and not even the fun kind—her entire existence from her last marriage. She needed to exorcise those. Not that a wedding would make much difference, but this was Isla—she needed dramatics in order to distract the world, and herself, from those demons.
Sophie was coiled with icy cold dread knowing it wasn’t going to be long before those demons latched at Isla’s throat. And there was nothing she could do, because you couldn’t do shit with a feeling. A premonition of death, of battle.
She just knew they were in the eye of the tornado, watching Dorothy’s house and sparkly shoes circle around them. It was only a matter of time before a fucking house landed on them.
Which was why she’d been sitting in front of the computer for as long as she had, hacking into every satellite she could think of, streaming through phone cameras, ATMs, CCTV. Big Brother might always be watching, but his bitch of a big sister was too.
She’d had no luck scrying or asking the spirits in the mirror for locations of Jonathan. Or Isla’s mother.
Nor the entire coven.
That chilled her bones.
They were gone.
The villa she had grown up in and run away from sat desolate, haunted with the ghosts that had, until recently, been real flesh and blood.
Again, the image of the dead teenage witch assaulted Sophie’s mind. She pinched the bridge of her nose against the pain of it. Against the utter blasphemy that was being committed by her coven. She couldn’t trust anyone. Not the council. Especially not the council. Even if they weren’t on the side of the bad guys, they’d sequester her the second she got within spell range.
And she didn’t know if she’d be able to fight against some of the witches the council used to bring in rogue witches. She’d half expected to have them knocking at the door by that point, and it only increased her feeling of dread that they hadn’t.
For the millionth time that day, that freaking hour, she thought of Conall. She missed him like a limb. Like a fucking whole chunk of her soul.
She hadn’t even sensed him since she’d thrown him out the window in her rage. She knew he wasn’t dead because she’d slowed his impact to the ground at the last second. He’d likely only broken a handful of bones.
And she would know if he were dead. A part of her was sure of that. Because she would die too. Maybe not literally, but something inside her would cry out in agony, then shrivel up and decompose within her. She knew that because it was the part of her pulsating with pain and need for him.
The part she’d been trying to drown out by scouring everything she could think of for banishing spells. By testing out every spell on the unmoving, smiling corpse in the cage.
Why, when all that failed, she’d sat in front of the computer, looking for something to do, something to distract her.
The fact that he hadn’t been around, groveling, explaining, apologizing, was sandpaper against her soul. She knew he hadn’t been kidnapped again because she’d already cast the same suffering spell. He was not amongst the tortured. Of body, anyway.
Of mind may be different.
But wherever he was, he was not at Sophie’s side. In her bed. A comforting and constant presence she had come to rely on.
And that was on her.
You could rely on no one.
Apart from the vampire who had told her she’d skin her alive if she were even a second late to the wedding. So Sophie pushed out of her office chair, her body lead as she did so. Exhaustion was a weight clinging to her bones, but she pushed past it.
Hopefully the wedding wouldn’t involve too much violence. Then again, it was Isla’s wedding and she’d publicly invited Jonathan to try and kill her there, so Sophie doubted it.
The pendant on her neck burned as she walked out of her office, as it had every day that she’d worn it. Sophie had learned how to deal with
it now, how to channel the evil energy outward, back into the source, without letting it seep into her blood and poison her.
But that time, something different happened. Maybe Sophie could blame it on the sheer fact that she was running on less than fumes. Or that she was too busy thinking about her fractured heart and the weight of it. Or yearning for her wolf.
It didn’t matter the why of it, it just mattered that it happened.
The stone at her neck yanked at her.
Then she was in front of the cage without quite knowing how it happened.
Then skeletal arms darted from the bars and gripped either side of her face. Sophie’s bones crushed underneath the grip, froze beneath her skin. Everything in her body turned to acid.
Bugs crawled from the fingertips of the witch clutching her and burrowed into Sophie’s hair, biting at her scalp.
Sophie recoiled inwardly but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think around the pain. It was probing her, stabbing into the most private of places, yanking at the magic she’d taken great pains to lock down.
She struggled to keep her gaze from the witch’s eyes, because she knew, too late, what was happening. It was happening how she’d intended all along. Malena hadn’t been stewing, withering, dying. No, she’d been waiting. Biding her time. Hanging out for that precise moment, when Sophie’s guards were down and her magic of light could no longer protect her.
The cold shards of death magic were unleashed from within her, merely with Malena’s touch. It was the grave, after all, and it was every time that Sophie met the grave that the powers inside her grew more insistent.
Grew more dangerous.
Malena was killing her, she knew. In whatever recesses of her mind that could still think with some semblance of cohesiveness, she knew.
And she couldn’t even fight it. Because of the pain. Greater than anything she’d ever experienced. Her blood boiled underneath her skin. Every single one of her bones was crumbling. But it wasn’t even that. It was this unnatural and sickening magic spreading through her inner being—that was the most agony.
“Surrender, young sister,” a grotesque voice cooed inside her head.
