by Leeah Taylor
“No, I just ran out of tears.”
“Well, that’s because you let it all out.”
She looked up at him, and he gave her a familiar knowing smirk.
Juliette snuggled deeper into his chest, yawning. “Gonna just stay right here for the next twenty years. You okay with that?”
Ollie chuckled. “As long as you want, Doll.”
Lucien appeared in the doorway, looking weird in a white t-shirt and jeans, and clapped his hands.
“Get up, we’re going to Shirley’s,” he said.
Juliette looked at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s six in the morning, and you’re wearing jeans.”
“Oh, that’s a thing now,” Ollie huffed.
“It’s a weird thing, go change,” Juliette demanded.
“It’s like a hundred and three outside,” Lucien said. “Now both of you get up because we’re going to breakfast.”
He disappeared, and Juliette giggled.
“Okay, Dad,” she mumbled under her breath.
“I heard that,” Lucien yelled from halfway down the hall.
Ollie pulled Juliette into his arms. “It’s all going to be fine, Jules.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” he said, nonchalant as if there was nothing to be thankful for.
She pressed a smile into his chest and squeezed him. “Affection.”
“Always.”
Juliette | 25
She listened to Riley and Ollie giggling and whispering behind her as they walked up the sidewalk toward Juleps. Something beautiful was stitching together between them, and Ollie deserved happy in his life. For once.
Lucien and Chelsea walked just a few feet in front of her. She hung on his arm, awarding her the warm smile that used to be for Juliette. She wondered how long they’d wanted to be able to show off their love for each other. Display it to the world.
They turned the corner at Juleps, and Damien nearly walked into Lucien and Chelsea. He barely glanced in Juliette’s direction. It hurt.
“Where y’all going?” He looked Lucien up and down with his brow arched.
“Shirley’s,” Ollie said.
Damien shook his head. “It’s six in the morning.”
Juliette bit back a giggle. Only Lucien would get the whole family up at six in the morning for family breakfast.
Lucien rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone keep saying that? You coming or what?”
Damien nodded. “I could go for some pancakes.”
Shirley’s Diner was in the same building as Juleps on the opposite corner facing the water. Established sometime in the mid-seventies, Juliette couldn’t recall a time that dinner at Shirley’s didn’t happen at least once a week. But usually three times. Probably more. Not including all day coffee runs and breakfasts.
Now, though, Damien kept his distance. They had made the walk countless times. Sometimes, either thanks to the liquor in their bellies or because Damien’s judgement had lapsed, he’d tug her hand in his.
Late night Frost shenanigans usually ended in a hunger for delicious greasy diner food. Living with vampires was almost the equivalent to all day frat parties. Nostalgia washed over Juliette, and she smiled. It made for epic memories. Shirley’s was always there when they needed to sober up. But now the tension could be cut with a knife. Everyone walked in silence to avoid the elephants in the room.
Lucien opened the door to Shirley’s, and Juliette caught him watching them. No doubt hoping good food and banter would begin the healing. She never understood Lucien’s way, but it always worked.
Shirley’s had a modern flair with classic touches. The chipped and scratched black and white tile floor was a reminder of its age.
They bypassed a short counter facing the grill top. A man in jeans and a t-shirt that Juliette didn’t recognize stood at the grill, drinking coffee, and nodded as they passed.
Booths lined the wall against the windows, looking out over Sterling Bay with a clear view of the Docks. On a clear, early morning, Ollie and Juliette used to cozy up in one of the booths and watch the fishing boats load up and go out for the day. No words or conversation, just each other’s company. The best kind of best friends.
The coffee and doughnuts were a bonus too.
They filed into the booth in the corner. Damien sat across from Juliette. She buried her face in a menu, so she didn’t have to look at him, but she knew he was watching her. An older woman with silver hair and dark eyes crept up on them with a smile.
The smile reached her eyes. “Are we falling back into old habits?”
Juliette smiled. “Come hell or high-water, Ms. Shirley, I’ll have these boys having family dinner again.”
Shirley fell back. “My goodness, Juliette Marquis. It’s been at least?”
“Twenty years,” she said.
“Are you home? For good?”
Juliette met with Damien’s gaze. He shrugged with half a smile flirting on his lips. Warmth spread in her chest as hope blossomed.
“Not sure yet,” she said. “Maybe.”
“I hope so. Miss seeing their faces in here and yours. What can I get you?”
Shirley had been a knockout in the seventies. Long blonde hair and vibrant brown eyes with a full figure that had the bachelors lining up. She had been a twenty-something with a determination Juliette admired. Nearly forty years later, and she could still see that same fiery light inside the old woman.
Somehow Lucien’s ways broke the tension when the food came. Juliette suspected that had been his goal all along. Their laughter filled the diner, gaining the attention of the handful of customers sitting at the counter and getting them strange looks.
“Jules, you know where we need to go?” Ollie asked, giving Lucien and Damien a side eye.
Damien glared at his little brother across the table.
“Wherever it is, I’m in, just by the death look you’re getting,” Juliette giggled.
“Through the Decades.”
“Oh my god, Abby would love to see you, Jules,” Chelsea said.
It wasn’t often Juliette and Ollie ran out of new ways to annoy his brothers. On the rare occasion they did, they went to the old thrift shop in the Falls, bought the ugliest, most outdated clothes they could find and wore them, in public, until either Damien stole them and burned them, or Lucien lost his mind and his cool.
“Last time I saw Abby, she was,” she thought about it. “Barely ten, I think?”
Chelsea nodded. “She has a daughter of her own now. Evvie.”
Lucien smirked. “Hear she’s giving her momma a run for her money.”
“God, is she.” Chelsea shook her head. “Twelve going on thirty.”
Juliette laughed. “Definitely have to make a visit.”
“I swear to god if you two start coming home in those used rags, I’ll just set your ass on fire instead of the clothes.” Damien pointed at Ollie but cracked a smile when his little brother went red in the face with laughter.
Juliette pushed eggs around on her plate with a smile. “Have to catch him first.”
Damien lifted his fork at her. “Hey, don’t you start.”
“I would never.”
“Oh no, you would never.”
She took a bite of the egg. “I’m an angel.”
Ollie laughed harder. “Liar. Even I know you’re the devil with angel wings.”
She leaned back in the seat, meeting Damien’s heated stare.
“Even an angel can be corrupted,” she said.
A foot nudged her under the table. “Think you have that backwards, Luv, the angel corrupted the devil.”
“Show me the devil,” she promised, leaning forward and nudging him back underneath, “and I’ll corrupt him.”
He held her gaze. All the love he kept walled up for her flickered in the depths of his raging storm. Just say it. Her heart raced as the intensity grew.
“Careful, Luv, that heart will beat you right into a stroke.”
She looked
away as heat crept up her neck to her cheeks.
“Please,” she cleared her throat. “Don’t flatter yourself, Damien Frost.”
His laugh came out low and husky. “I don’t have to. You’re doing a pretty good job all on your own.”
“Juliette.” The voice cut through their connection.
She looked up with a scowl. “Louisa.”
“Your presence is demanded.” Even with a whisper she demanded submission. “Chelsea, yours as well.”
Lucien reached for Chelsea’s hand, not with affection, but protective. Territorial.
“Absolutely not,” he growled.
“She will answer for her actions,” Louisa snapped. “This isn’t a request.”
“Then I’m coming with them.” Damien’s tone suggested it was also not a request.
Thank god.
“I think you have done quite enough. Be lucky our reach can’t hold you responsible for Rebecca Law’s murder.”
Juliette went to set the record straight, but a forceful nudge under the table stopped her.
“She stole two grimoires and had a hand in both the destruction of the barrier wall and Val Valena.” Damien held Juliette’s attention. “At least I had enough respect and decency to return her body to you.”
Louisa adjusted her shoulders. “That aside, vampires have no right to be present for a blessing or judging.”
“I said, Chelsea doesn’t leave,” Lucien asserted.
“Now or later, she will be held accountable. The laws are clear."
Juliette rolled her eyes and pushed up from the table, making sure to keep her voice down.
“The laws are archaic.” She glared at the Elder. “And if you think for a second, as Regent, I will allow you to punish her for falling in love, you’re as senile as you look. Why the witches wouldn’t want one of their own to be with a man that loves her, respects her, and treats her like a fucking queen is beyond me. If you want me, then you leave her.”
“And I still go,” Damien insisted.
Louisa sighed. “Chelsea is still required to relinquish Regency.”
“I relinquish,” she declared. “You’re an Elder and in the presence of one other Sterling witch, so that’s all you need.”
“Fine.” Louisa stepped aside. “Shall we, then?”
Juliette went first. Damien’s hand pressed gently to her lower back. A fiery pulsing heat ignited between her legs. He steered her to the door.
He leaned close. “You don’t leave my side, understood?”
Still overprotective. She supposed it was ingrained in him.
She swallowed, nodding. “As long as you don’t leave mine.”
His lips brushed over her temple. “Never, Luv.”
Juliette | 26
“Wow, you were really confident that I’d walk out with you,” Juliette said when they stepped outside on the sidewalk, and two black SUVs were parked at the curb.
“You didn’t have a choice,” Louisa snipped, approaching the first SUV.
Damien opened the door to the second SUV for Juliette. “We’ll take this one.”
“Suit yourself.” Louisa shrugged as she got into the first SUV.
Damien waited for Juliette to get in before sliding into the seat next to her. Nerves gripped her stomach. She didn’t want this, but it was inevitable. The witches of Sterling always demanded the Regent bloodline be blessed into power.
The position had alternated between the Greaves and Marquis lines for centuries. When Ann Marie died, Regency passed to the next living heir of the Greaves line, Corinne Greaves. When she died and Juliette disappeared, the only choice the witches had, without confirmation of her death, was to give Chelsea Interim.
“Thank you,” Juliette murmured.
Taking responsibility for Rebecca’s death was more than she deserved, but the witches would expect nothing less from a Frost.
“I should have never let it go as far as it did,” he admitted.
“I don’t think you had it in you to stop me.”
“I had to let you do something.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He tucked the hair away from her face. “Yeah, I really did.”
He went quiet, but Juliette could almost hear every word he wanted to say. She wanted to say them too. There would never be an end between them. No matter how hard they tried, fate would always be there with its force to bring them right back together. Bent on sending his storm to hurdle into her galaxy.
“I’m sorry, Jules.”
Her head whipped up toward him. The words, his words, stunned her. Such genuine sincerity coming from a man that never uttered an apology, not unless coerced. But did it fix anything? Maybe it was a start.
“I’m sorry too.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “What now?”
“I don’t know.”
Immortality made taking love for granted too easy. The assumption that it would always be there was dangerous. Even in immortality, it could be finite.
“I don’t know how not to love you. I’ve tried. I can’t. And spending forever trying not to love you seems like a cruel punishment for being immortal.”
He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to his. “Then don’t stop.”
It was the closest to I love you he’d ever awarded her. I love you seemed trivial. It wouldn’t fix anything, but he would forever be the one that held her heart.
He touched his forehead to hers, and for a moment, when his hand cupped her cheek, she let herself forget. Let herself get swept up in the warmth of his touch. She couldn’t escape him.
“Jules, I—"
The door jerked open, and her heart sank. He was so close to giving in. It was the closest she’d ever got to I love you. Down in her bones, she knew he had been going to say it.
“What?”
With a steely expression on his face, his eyes flicked to the gathered witches.
“Nothing.” He got out of the truck and offered a hand to her. “Come on.”
Juliette took his hand and stepped out onto the curb. She looked down the path at the old city hall. The streets were empty and dark, yet she could feel eyes on her from all directions. Curtains rippled in the windows of the townhomes across the street as the witches watched from the safety of their homes. She steadied her breathing and swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay calm.
“It’s going to be fine, Luv.” Damien squeezed her hand. “I promise.”
Louisa walked past them, nose turned up, motioning for them to follow.
“Mr. Frost may wait out here,” she instructed, stopping at the steps.
“You must have not heard me before,” Damien said.
“I heard you loud and clear. I’ve allowed you to accompany her.”
He leaned closer to the Elder. “A Sterling witch tried to kill her in that explosion yesterday. My brother too. Excuse me for having a really hard time trusting the lot of you.”
Louisa flicked her eyes at Juliette.
She shrugged dismissively. “I have no reason to trust you either.”
“I could have you forcefully held out here,” she threatened.
Juliette glared. “He comes.”
There were bigger issues to tackle. Like finding her mother’s grimoire and stopping Ramsey before he figured out how to fix the spell.
Juliette tugged Damien behind her and went inside. Witches from across the city were grouped together in conversation. They quieted when she walked in.
The secondary Elders, the oldest members in the community, stood at the front of the room on the low stage, looking down on her. She knew they didn’t want her there anymore than she wanted to be there. She was a half-breed mutt. But there were no laws for hybrids or half-breeds. Marquis blood coursed her veins which gave her the right to Regency.
Damien bristled. “And we thought our house was tense.”
Louisa passed by. “If you can pull yourself away from that filth, then we can get started.”
J
uliette pressed a hand into his chest, just over his heart. “She’s just looking for a reason. Stay here.” He gave her his full attention. “Nobody else in.”
“Whatever you want, little devil.”
The moment from Shirley’s sparked to life, and she didn’t stop herself from smiling. Today she needed him as an ally. She needed the man that would do anything to protect her.
She moved towards the center of the room, feeling exposed and vulnerable, to a makeshift altar. A set of candles burned on either side, and a brand was held over a flame by one of the Elders, the metal blazing red. The end of the brand was molded into the Marquis family insignia. A mark she wore on her shoulder blade in black ink.
Ollie really could be a bad influence. Good thing she hadn’t let him convince her into a full sleeve like him. The idea was still tempting. Maybe she’d finally get one started. Damien would love that. He had his entire back done. She needed to focus. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about him or his backside. Though, she craved to see the artwork again. She eyed the gold handled dagger and blew out a small breath.
A copper bowl was placed in the center of the altar. In line, each Elder cut their palm and let their blood mix into the bowl. Louisa went last, then handed the blade over to Juliette. I should ram this thing into the side of her neck and do everyone a favor. She slid the blade down her palm, gritting against the sting, and added her blood. Swirling in the bowl, the mixture looked almost black.
“Juliette Ann Marie Marquis, you are the last living heir to Sterling Regent Ann Marie Marquis and, by blood, the successor to Sterling Regent Corrine Danielle Greaves. Do you challenge?” Louisa asked.
She didn’t want the power or responsibility that came with Regent, but it was bigger than her now. If she was going to protect Lucien and Chelsea, then she was left with no other choice.
“No.”
“Do you accept and recognize your right by blood?”
She sucked in a breath with her heart in her throat.
“Yes.”
Louisa picked up the bowl. “Arm.”
She presented it, palm up, with dread building in her. Louisa dipped her fingers into the bowl and marked a spot the size of a half dollar in blood on Juliette’s forearm.
