by Sarah Piper
Jaci admired that, though. Personally, she’d never felt such a devotion to a place. Never felt a sense of belonging anywhere.
Especially not here.
But that’s why she was doing this, she reminded herself. Once she got her father’s soul out, they’d find their true home. Maybe then she’d finally understand what she’d been missing.
“I ran into some bloodsucker trouble,” Jaci said now. “Bad trouble.”
“Is Duchanes still threatening you? I swear, when that asshole finally bites it, I’ll be greeting him at the fiery pits myself and personally overseeing his eternal stay.”
“And I appreciate it. Believe me. But Duchanes is M.I.A.—turned tail and ran after the Redthornes took down Bloodbath and everyone in it.”
“Holy fuck. What?”
“Yeah, Bloodbath really lived up to its name last night.” Jaci gave Meech the update—as much as she could remember, anyway. She wasn’t even supposed to be there—Duchanes had sent her on some late-night errand to drop off supplies for one of his other witches, a whole crew of them working inside Bloodbath on a project with the grays. Demons and vampires were there too—a veritable who’s who of Duchanes’ most vile servants.
She’d only been inside the club a few minutes when all hell broke loose. The Redthorne vampires and their allies launched a surprise attack, wiping out most of Duchanes’ organization. Caring more about protecting her own ass than standing up to the Redthornes, Jaci made for the cellar, taking cover behind an old wine barrel while the battle raged overhead.
“Next thing I know,” she told her cousin now, “the Redthorne witch—Isabelle? She’s dragging me out of hiding and lining me up with the other witches for an interrogation. Apparently, Duchanes was working with Chernikov on some sort of plot to bust open the hell gates and flood the city with demons.”
“What? Seriously? No one ever tells me anything down here!”
“I have no idea how deep this thing goes, Meech. I was working for the asshole and I didn’t know about it—still don’t, really. All I know for sure is Duchanes and Chernikov were in bed together on the big evil, and Rogozin and the vampire royals didn’t like it, so they teamed up instead.”
Meech pressed her fingers to her temples, taking it all in. “Okay, so this whole thing is crazy. But it sounds like it might have a happy ending for you, no? Duchanes is out of the picture. You’re a free witch.”
“Not… exactly. I’m working for the Redthornes now. One of them, anyway.” Jaci shook her head, that dark swirl of rage threatening to bubble up again as she told Meech the rest of the story—Gabriel’s intense questioning, the demands, the apartment.
“I’m telling you, girl,” Jaci finished up with another sigh. “The world has never met a more infuriating, annoying, egotistical bloodsucker.”
“Perfect! When are you gonna stake him?” Her cheeks dimpled with her bright smile, as if the idea of killing Gabriel was not only a foregone conclusion, but the pinnacle of entertainment.
“Are you insane? He’s my best shot at staying safe in this city!”
“The vampire who kidnapped you, locked you up in an apartment you’re not allowed to leave, and blackmailed you into doing his bidding is your best shot at staying safe? If that’s your kink, Jay-Jay, you should’ve stayed in hell.”
Jaci shivered at the thought. “Look. As long as Gabriel believes I’m following his orders, I can keep my head down and work on the spells for Dad without worrying about anyone trying to kill me, feed on me, or fuck me.”
Meech cracked up. “And you think this vampire prince isn’t interested in at least two out of those three?”
Exsanguination… A shiver rolled down her spine as the vampire’s earlier threat echoed. Despite the hours that had passed—not to mention the scalding hot shower—the ghost of his mouth still lingered on her neck.
Fear makes honest fools of us all…
“Not with me, he isn’t,” Jaci insisted. “He’s just another cocky vampire prick, Meech. As far as Gabriel is concerned, I’m trash. The only reason he hasn’t killed me is he thinks I can help him.”
“Can you?”
“Doubt it, but he doesn’t need to know that.”
Meech just stared at her with that know-it-all smirk, black eyes glittering like she was in on some secret. One Jaci definitely wasn’t interested in hearing.
“Anyway,” Jaci said. “I didn’t summon you to gossip about—”
“Sexy evil vampires doing sexy evil things to you?” Meech wriggled her eyebrows, purple like her hair.
“You are literally the worst. You know that, right?”
“Truth in advertising, babe. If you’re looking for the best, next time summon an angel.”
They both laughed, but it didn’t last. The real reason for the summoning sat heavy between them.
Meech’s smile faded, her eyes turning serious. “I’m sorry, Jay-Jay. No luck yet. Emphasis on yet.”
Jaci nodded, no further explanation needed. Meech had been searching for Jaci’s dad’s soul for as long as Jaci had been working on her spells. But the realms of hell were as complicated, convoluted, and endless as the prisoners who inhabited them.
There was only one demon who knew for sure where her father was. One demon who thrived on brutalizing him. And she’d never tell.
“Viansa… Have you seen her?” Jaci dreaded the answer, but she had to ask.
Meech lowered her eyes. “Your sister—”
“Half-sister.”
“She may be your half-sister, but that bitch is full-on crazy.” Meech glanced up again, worry tightening her brow. “She’s trying to manifest, Jay.”
“What? Here?”
“Where else?”
“But that’s impossible!” Adrenaline spiked, making Jaci itchy and hot, her heartbeat shuddering in her chest.
It was the one saving grace—the thing Jaci had counted on to keep her safe from her family. Viansa could haunt her nightmares—a favorite trick for the sociopathic succubus—but that was as far as the bitch could get. She was physically bound to hell, her dark soul eternally cursed to haunt the dreams of the living, but never their realm.
“She can’t take form,” Jaci said. “She can’t even leave hell in a vessel. It’s… no. It can’t happen.”
“Hence the trying part of the equation.”
“Tell me she’s not close.”
“I wish I could, but you know how she fixates on shit.”
Dread pooled in her belly. As the subject of Viansa’s particular brand of “fixation” for the first eighteen years of her life, Jaci knew it all too well.
If Viansa succeeded—if she actually manifested in the earthly realm—not only would Jaci likely lose her father and be dragged back to hell for eternal torture, but humanity itself didn’t stand much of a chance either.
“It won’t come to that,” Jaci said, assuring herself as much as she assured Meech. “I’ll figure something out. A binding spell or dream hex or… something. I know I will.”
The dimples reappeared as Meech grinned again, her black eyes shining with affection. “I know you will, girl. But maybe speed it up a little? Or a lot?”
“Already on it.” Jaci forced a laugh, but inside, her stomach was twisting itself into a pretzel. Finding her father’s soul was a difficult enough prospect—she’d already been working tirelessly for seven years on the locator spell and still hadn’t gotten it right. Extracting it from hell was another challenge. But binding her crazy sister? Stopping her from whatever path of destruction she’d set her mind to?
And how much time did she have now, anyway? How long until Viansa brought her evil from the sheets straight to the streets?
“I’ve got this,” she said anyway.
“You’ve got this.” Meech blew her a kiss, and with Jaci’s promise to check in again soon, they said their goodbyes. She cleaned up the evidence of the summoning, hiding a few of the larger glass shards in a stack of towels in the linen closet. Thanks to th
e demon blood coursing through her body, her hand would heal by morning, but for now, she washed it and wrapped it in some gauze, pulling her sweatshirt sleeve down to hide the bandage from Gabriel’s spy cams.
Back in the kitchen, armed with a fresh mug of cinnamon-vanilla tea and some spicy dark chocolate she’d found in the pantry, Jaci recalibrated her mission.
Save Dad. Bind Viansa. And… fast-forward to the part where she’s sipping strawberry daiquiris on the beach, her old life nothing but a fading memory.
The plan was still the plan, just like she’d said.
But now it was a little more complicated.
And it had to happen a hell of a lot faster.
Chapter Six
Three days. That’s how long Gabriel had managed to avoid the witch. Three days and three sleepless nights, torturing himself with the memory of those vexing blue eyes, of his hands on her body, his lips on her neck…
With every breath, he swore he could still smell the woman on his skin.
Fucking witches.
Why he’d ever thought this was a good idea was beyond him. Perhaps he’d suffered a head injury in battle.
He flipped open his laptop, queuing up the video feeds from Jacinda’s apartment, situated just one floor below his new penthouse. He’d purchased the fifteen-story building a couple of weeks before the attack on Bloodbath, already planning his relocation from Nevada. That he’d be using it to house a prisoner—a witch, of all things—had never occurred to him.
In the centuries since he’d become a vampire, none of Gabriel’s prisoners had ever lived long enough to require housing.
Gaze fixed on the screen, he watched with rapt attention as she sat curled in an overstuffed chair by the living room windows, mug of something hot balanced on her knee, hair piled on top of her head, nose in a book she’d found on one of the shelves. Birds of New York, it was called. It seemed to fascinate and delight her.
She turned another page and nodded, a smile gracing her lush red lips.
Gabriel felt an unexpected flicker of warmth in his chest.
Bloody hell. He reached for the bottle of bourbon on his desk, poured a stiff drink.
He was obsessing again. It crawled through his blood, making him jittery. Making him weak. Whether it was another of her wicked spells or the failings of his own mind, Gabriel resented it. Resented her.
What secrets are you harboring, little moonflower?
“So this is why you were too busy to join us at Ravenswood?”
The voice startled him. Familiar. Cheery. Annoying as fuck.
“Aiden bloody Donovan.” Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “How did you get in here?”
“Door was open, mate. After I picked the lock, anyways. You really should see someone about better security—I hear the neighborhood has really gone to seed.” He peered over Gabriel’s shoulder at the monitor. “Wow. Didn’t peg you as the voyeuristic type, princeling, but—”
Gabriel slammed the laptop shut. “Is there something I can do for you, Aiden? Or has my brother finally tired of your sunny disposition and endless witticisms and sent you to pester me instead?”
“Your bother adores both my disposition and my wit, and so do you.” Undaunted by Gabriel’s scowl, Aiden took the chair across from him and propped his feet up on the corner of the desk.
Gabriel tried to hold on to his irritation, but it quickly faded. While he wouldn’t say he adored the man, Dorian’s best mate had been part of their lives for centuries, long before they were all turned into vampires. Aiden was a brother to them all—in more ways than their actual brother Malcolm had been.
Guilt and sadness crept into his chest. Another shot of bourbon chased it away.
“Tell me more about your sudden infatuation with this witch,” Aiden said. “Seems like a bad idea, mate. For her, I mean.”
“Piss. Off.”
“Hit a nerve, have I?”
“I thought you were staying in Ravenswood all week with your new little co-ed.”
“Sasha is spending some much-needed quality time with her sister tonight. Which is lucky for you, because you need an intervention.” Aiden glanced at the laptop again and laughed. “Infatuation is unbecoming for a royal vampire, Gabriel. Especially a broody, melodramatic one like yourself.”
“Says the vampire infatuated with a teenager.”
“She’s nearly twenty.”
“And you’re that times a dozen.”
“Aged like a fine bourbon. Bourbon? Yes, I’d love some, thank you.” Aiden rose from the chair and retrieved a glass from the cabinet behind the desk, then poured himself a healthy glass from Gabriel’s bottle.
“Remind me again why the fuck you’ve broken into my penthouse? Was it just to insult me and steal my alcohol?”
“We are here,” Aiden said, holding up his glass in cheers, “to give you the report from Ravenswood and guilt you into being more involved in your brother’s plans for the Council.”
“We?” Gabriel turned toward the entrance, where Isabelle Armitage had just entered.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I got caught in midtown traffic.”
“You’re just in time, Isabelle.” Aiden passed the witch his glass of bourbon, then poured himself another.
Gabriel sighed. Isabelle had more than proven her loyalty and would soon make her bond to the Redthorne family official, but after two-and-a-half centuries of learning things the hard way, Gabriel would need more than loyalty and a formalized bond to feel at ease around a witch.
“Dorian is the diplomat of the family,” Gabriel said now, channeling as much of the king’s diplomacy as he could muster. “Let him unite the bickering supernatural rabble. I’m useless at politicking.”
“Agreed,” Aiden said. “Your strengths lie in lurking and skulking. Oh, and apparently spying on unsuspecting witches.”
“She’s hardly unsuspecting, Aiden. She—”
“Cole and his wolves found another nest of grays upstate,” Isabelle said, heading off the looming argument. “He and Dorian believe there are still more nests in the area.”
Cole was another old friend of Dorian’s—wolf shifter, artist, and until just a few weeks ago, a total recluse. Thanks to the grays encroaching on his territory upstate, he’d come out of hiding and joined the fight.
Just in time, too.
“Did they execute them?” Gabriel asked.
“Some,” she said, sipping her bourbon. “But a handful wore the amulets. They were able to overcome the attacks and escape. The wolves are still searching the woods.”
Disgust churned in his gut at the mention of the amulets, the resurrection magic Jacinda had devised. It was illegal demonic spellcraft—a combination of advanced magics that prevented the gray’s body from turning to ash by prolonging the moment of death, then reanimated the corpse with demonic energy.
He flipped open the laptop again. Jacinda had moved to the kitchen, where she’d just set a pot of something on the stovetop. A dark-gray sweatshirt hung nearly to her knees, and she’d pulled the hood up over her messy hair, a few curls spilling around her face. It made her look young and sweet and naive, a vision nearly impossible to reconcile with the truth.
Jacinda Colburn was neither sweet nor naive. She was a dark witch who’d tapped into the powers of hell and wrought the vilest, blackest magics. A witch who’d worked for his enemies and helped poison his brother. A witch who’d brought pain and death to the ones he loved.
No more than you, Redthorne…
“Whoever’s controlling the grays,” Gabriel said, his words sharper than he’d intended as he turned his attention back to his guests, “they won’t be resurrecting them much longer. The witch is in my possession. I’ve got her phone and apartment wired, guards posted at the exits. I’m tracking her whereabouts at all times. She is no longer a threat.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t find another witch to continue the work,” Isabelle said grimly. “Besides, the amulets are just
prototypes. They were already working on more advanced spells when we raided Bloodbath. For all we know, they’ve succeeded.”
Gabriel nodded. He’d feared the same.
“Has Jacinda shared anything with you about Duchanes’ plans?” she asked. “About his associates?”
“I was going to ask you the same question,” he said. “The wretched woman has stonewalled me at every turn.”
“I questioned her when we first captured her, but she refused to cooperate.” Isabelle shook her head, her brow tight with concern. “Jacinda Colburn is no ordinary witch, Gabriel. There’s a darkness in her I can’t quite place—one that goes well beyond her magical practices.”
“Excellent!” Aiden said. “Another evil foe in our midst. Always love a challenge, you Redthornes.”
“Not evil, no,” Isabelle said. “Just… a darkness. She’s shielding it well, but it’s there, almost like an emotional current running just beneath the surface. It’s as if—”
“Did you see that?” Gabriel, who’d only been half-listening to the witch’s assessment, gestured toward the laptop. Jacinda brought a wooden spoon to her lips, tasting her concoction. “Is that some sort of… potion?”
“Indeed.” Isabelle leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “Chicken noodle, from the looks of it.”
“Soup? She’s brewing soup?” Gabriel asked incredulously, as if the act of making soup were a worse offense than resurrecting grays.
“Goodness, Gabriel.” Isabelle sat back in her chair and sighed into her drink. “You’re a royal vampire prince whose family has just aligned itself with a powerful demonic crime syndicate. You might consider learning a bit of discernment.”
“Wasting your time there, Izz.” Aiden thumbed toward Gabriel as if he weren’t even in the room. “Like a wrecking ball, this one. Smash first, discern later.”
“Dorian should’ve let me kill her,” Gabriel muttered, watching Jacinda dip the spoon for another taste. “One less witch tainting the city air.”
