by Jill Myles
He laughed and put her back down again, only to have Remy squeal and move over to Dee, giving her air kisses. “This is so awesome! The gang’s all here and my body is all mine again!” She touched her nose. “I think he broke my face, though. And dude, smell my hair—it’s seriously rank.”
I held up a hand. “Pass, thanks.” At least she wasn’t holding a grudge. I smiled at Remy’s happiness, a bone-wearying sense of relief pushing through me. My friend was okay. Now we just needed to take care of a few other small problems.
Noah gave Remy a pat on the back and then moved back toward me, all purpose and movement. I watched him, my stomach churning in a mixture of happiness and a curious dread. Dee watched him approach me as well, her eyes narrow slits.
“Jackie,” Noah said, pulling my hand into his again. He looked at my empty ring finger, and hurt crossed his face. “My safe was ransacked in Mexico. I was hoping you’d taken the things inside it, but I guess not.”
“Yes, I have the ring and the painting,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“You just chose not to wear the ring?” An expression of pain crossed his face, only to be hidden away by a stoic look. “Let’s not talk about it now. This is not the time.”
It wasn’t, but at the same time, I didn’t want it lingering like a big crappy stone around my neck. I grabbed it out of my pocket and shoved the ring box in his hand. “Here,” I said. “Noah, I can’t take it right now. I just can’t.”
Behind us in the wreckage, something stirred. I tried to turn to look, but Noah stepped in front of me and pushed the ring box back in my hands. “Jackie, I want you to have it. I want you to know that we can be together, forever.”
“Noah,” Dee began in an annoyed voice.
“I—Noah,” I said, hesitating as he opened the box and revealed the gigantic diamond inside again.
At my side, Remy squealed and clapped her hands. “Jackie! You guys are engaged? You didn’t tell me that!”
That was because we weren’t. I looked at Noah with uncertain eyes. “We need to talk.”
“Jackie, we belong together.” Noah wrapped my fingers around the ring.
An animalistic snarl erupted from behind us, and Ethan shoved Remy behind him protectively. Dee instinctively stepped behind Noah.
The hole I had emerged from exploded with debris, and black wings flung themselves into the air, Zane hovering over the wreckage. His face was unholy to look at, his eyes brilliant red, his lips set in a hard snarl. His gaze was squarely on Noah.
“Again?” Zane growled, the sound nearly inhuman in its pain. “Again you will take her from me?”
“Uh oh,” said Remy.
I stared at Zane, aghast. Did he think I was accepting Noah’s proposal? I stared at the ring with horror and looked at Noah. His face was set in grim, angry lines as well.
“She’s not yours,” Noah said in a warning voice.
“You can’t have her!” roared Zane in a blood-vessel-bursting voice. He dove at Noah, and our small party scattered as the two of them went flying backward, a sonic boom following them. “Not again!”
With an insane amount of force, Zane shoved Noah backward. They both skidded along the pavement, the concrete buckling as the two of them slammed backward, leaving a smoking trench behind them.
What the hell was going on? I shoved the hated ring back into my pocket once more.
“Zane! Noah!” I screamed, following as they plowed through the parking lot. “Stop it! Both of you! We need to come up with a plan to stop Caleb!”
“Not again,” Zane roared, plowing a fist into Noah’s face.
Again? What were they talking about?
Noah’s face, normally so smiling and friendly, was contorted with anger. He flipped the vampire over onto his back and plowed his fist into Zane’s mouth. “You’re a murdering bastard,” Noah seethed. “You don’t deserve to touch her.”
Zane flung Noah backward and scrambled to his feet, arms flexing as if ready to go another round. Noah moved to his feet, too, circling around.
“What the hell are you two doing?” I called, moving forward.
Dee grabbed my arm, stopping me from moving forward. “Bad idea. This has been building for a few thousand years.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “One of them is going to have to tell you. Until then, let them fight it off.”
“It’s kind of sexy and hot, don’t you think?” Remy said in a fascinated voice. “Two sweaty men, fighting over the love of a woman.”
“A succubus,” corrected Ethan succinctly. “It is not the same thing as a woman.”
“Really?” purred Remy. “’Cause I got the same body parts as a woman. Wanna see?” She plumped her breasts in his direction, her eyes brilliant blue with need.
Ethan froze in place and gave her a deer-in-headlights look.
Noah feinted to the left and grabbed Zane by the shoulders, throwing him forward into a telephone pole. It cracked and fell toward us and we scattered like a flock of birds. I ran for the two men. If I didn’t stop them soon, they were going to tear apart the entire parking lot.
Zane launched himself in the air, grabbing the broken end of the heavy telephone pole and swinging it around as if it were a baseball bat. Noah ducked, and the pole went flying. Dee screamed and hit the pavement, and I was tempted to do the same.
Instead, I clenched my hands and screamed as loud as I could. “ZANE!”
He paused in the skies, an angry fury of black feathers, then dove in my direction. Noah shouted for me, but he didn’t reach me before Zane did. My vampire moved forward and landed before me. He touched my face, his frantic red eyes searching my bleached silver ones.
“I turned you,” he said, his voice panting and frantic. “You’re mine. My creation. I made you. I turned you so we could be together. I won’t lose you again.”
The frantic, unhinged quality in his voice was starting to frighten me. I glanced over at Noah, who was watching close nearby, his eyes narrow slits. I’d never seen him so angry.
What did he mean, lose me again? The six months we’d been apart?
“He can’t take you from me again,” Zane said, stroking my cheek with hurried, possessive motions. “I made you what you are so we could be together forever. Again.”
“Zane, what are you saying?” I shook my head, breaking free of his anxious grasp. Why would he choose to turn me … like that?
Maybe he saw the potential inside you and thought you deserved more than wasting away in a bland mortal life. He’d told me that the first time we’d made love.
But maybe it wasn’t me he’d been thinking of … A cold feeling swept over me.
Remy coughed, really loudly.
“You guys suck,” Dee said, coming to my side. “I can’t believe it’s been, how many months? And no one’s told Jackie what the deal is?”
“No,” I said, my gaze searching Zane’s face, then Noah’s. “What’s going on?”
Noah turned away from Zane and focused on Delilah, his jaw cold and angry. “Stay out of this, Dee. I’m trying to protect her.”
Protect me? Hold the hell up. “What exactly does that mean?”
Noah reached for my arm. Zane snarled and pulled me close, pressing me against his chest. At the sight of me cuddled against Zane, Noah’s face darkened and his hands flexed.
I thought for a minute they were going to go at it again, except I was going to be sandwiched between them. I pushed away from Zane. “Tell me what you mean when you say ‘again.’”
Zane was mutinously silent.
What was so bad that no one would speak of it? My heart aching, I turned to Noah for the answer. “Again?”
Noah crossed his arms over his chest. “Jackie—”
“What do you mean, ‘again,’” I gritted. What were they hiding from me? “What happened in the past that made you two hate each other so much?”
You could have heard a pin drop. No one was answering.
Remy raised a fist to her mouth and began to fake-cough. “CoughRachaelcough.”
“Rachael?” I gasped. “The shepherdess in the painting?”
The pieces slid into place. The painting of a Hebrew shepherdess. Zane’s intense hatred for Noah. Noah’s icy dislike of Zane. A woman in a painting with my face.
My world crashed around my ears.
“You guys are fighting over her … as me?” My hand began to tremble, and it felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of my body. “You changed me because of … her?”
Not because of me? There hadn’t been a spark of something special in a lonely nerd who’d stumbled out of a club? I just happened to have the same face as some other chick four-thousand-years dead?
Pain began to throb in my chest. I’d gone from two men fighting over me to … no one.
“Jackie,” Zane began.
I raised a hand. The world was spinning around me, and I felt like throwing up. “I don’t want to hear it right now. I really don’t.” I’d heard enough for the moment.
“Let me explain,” Noah said in a gentle voice.
“No,” I said, and took a step backward.
A warm, brown arm wrapped around my waist. Remy.
I felt like crying. Here she’d gone through hell, and she was offering me comfort. I wasn’t worthy of her friendship. I leaned heavily against her. “I don’t want to talk to either of you.” The heavy weight in my pocket felt like a stone, and I grabbed the ring box out of it and flung it at Noah’s feet. “Here. Take your fucking ring.”
Noah flinched as if I’d slapped him.
As Zane stepped forward, I saw the triumph flash across his face. I pointed at him before he could move another step. “I don’t want to hear from you, either.”
I ignored the raw pain on his face and turned away from the two men—the two anchors in my Afterlife. The two big, fat liars who’d betrayed me. Zane, for never telling me the truth about why he’d turned me, and Noah for hiding the secret because his feelings weren’t entirely for me.
Nothing was really for me. It was all for some other woman.
I wanted to cry.
Remy patted my shoulder. “Come on, Jackie. Let’s go home.”
I nodded and linked my arm with hers, walking away. To my surprise, Dee fell in line with us, her hand lightly touching my shoulder in support.
We got in the car, and I climbed into the backseat as shocked tears began to pour down my face. Ethan passed me a tissue and I crumpled it in my hand, swiping at my runny nose. I was as wrecked as the club was.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, I heard Zane cry my name in anguish.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As my spoon scraped the bottom of my container of tin roof ice cream, I gave a watery sniff. “I’m out again.”
Delilah took her spoon out of her Soy Dream pint and generously offered it my way. “You can finish mine.”
“No one wants that soy shit, Dee! Gross!” Remy slapped at Dee’s hand with her spoon, leaving a wet streak. “What’s wrong with you? She’s in mourning! Here, you can eat mine.” Remy shoved her favorite Ben & Jerry’s into my hands. I took the carton with another sad sniff and began to shovel up the ice cream.
Delilah gave Remy a cross look and daintily swirled her spoon over the top of her Soy Dream. “It’s an interesting flavor.”
“You’re a succubus. You don’t have to eat health food, you know.”
Dee just smiled. “When you’re seven hundred years old, you learn to appreciate different textures and nuances of food. I’m currently enjoying the soy movement, thank you.”
“Freak,” Remy muttered, and grabbed the bottle of coconut rum. “She’s still crying. Time for another round of shots.”
“Drowning her sorrows in alcohol and sugar isn’t going to solve her problems.” Dee glanced over at me, clearly disapproving as I continued to cram ice cream into my mouth. She leaned close and patted my knee. “Jackie, honey. You do know that ice cream will still exist tomorrow, even if you don’t get to eat it all tonight?”
“Shut up,” I said between mouthfuls, “I still hate you.”
Remy held out a shot to me. “Come on. You know you want one.” I reached for it, and she gave me an approving “Goooood girl.”
“I’m not a dog, Remy,” I said but downed the shot anyhow. It burned down my throat, too sweet and overpowering without a mixer, but I didn’t care. It was my fourth bottle of rum and who-knows-how-many shots over the course of several hours. “My life is shit.”
“Well, my life is back to awesome!” Remy said, falling backward in the pillows on the floor and wiggling like a wild animal. “My body is mine again! Yay! Suck it, Joachim!”
“How pleasant,” Dee said in a disapproving voice. She gave Remy a light kick to her pajama-clad leg. “You’re quite the lady.”
“I was a lady for the first four hundred years,” Remy said irrepressibly. “It’s no fun. That’s why I decided to be a slut for the next four hundred.” She rolled onto her side and arched an eyebrow at us. “So far, it’s much more fun.”
Dee gave another disapproving sniff. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re feeling more like yourself, at least.”
Remy cupped her own breasts and squirmed happily. “It all feels like myself.”
I couldn’t help but muster a faint smile at that. Crossing my legs, I leaned back on the mountain of pillows and blankets we’d spread on Remy’s living room floor for our makeshift slumber party. “At least you’re back to normal. One good thing came out of all this mess.”
“Oh yes,” Delilah said in a disagreeable voice. “If you ignore the fact that we have a super-powered, crazed vampire on the loose that could bring about the destruction of any immortal in a hundred-mile radius, and the fact that your two lovers are having emo fits as you cram ice cream into your face, then yes.” She gave an innocent smile. “I’d say this was an unequivocal success.”
Just for that, I shoveled up another mouthful. “You’re not helping, Dee. I know we messed up, and that everyone is in danger if we don’t get that stupid halo out of Caleb. You don’t have to remind me of it every five minutes. Don’t you have some dolls you should be sticking pins into?”
“I left yours at home, sorry.”
I made a face at her.
Remy flipped over, undaunted by our sniping, and reached for the remote. “Want to watch another movie?”
Both Delilah and I groaned. “No.”
“I’ve seen enough of your pornos, Remy.” Dee crossed her legs and sat up straighter. “Besides, my Itch is due tomorrow and I left my usuals at home. So I’ll need to find someone.” She gave me a sidelong look. “Mind if I borrow one of yours?”
Only if she didn’t mind me pushing my spoon up her nostril.
I forced myself to give a casual shrug. “Do what you want, Dee. I don’t control either of those men. They’re the ones calling all the shots, remember? I’m just the blow-up doll they decided they can’t share any longer.”
Remy patted my knee. “Don’t be so sad, Jackie. You’re much better than a blow-up doll. No one has to rinse your holes out afterward.”
A choking sound emerged from the kitchen. All three of us turned to see Ethan standing in the doorway, his face flushed dark. He wore a ruffled apron and carried a dustpan. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said in his awkward, stiff voice. “But I am out of garbage bags.”
“No problem!” Remy said, jumping up and bouncing to the kitchen. “Come on, Precious. I’ll show you where everything goes.” The way she purred it made it sound like far more than garbage bags.
I watched them leave and shook my head. “It feels wrong to put him to work like this.”
“Oh pooh,” said Dee, waving a hand. “He’s getting a fix from it, and it keeps him distracted while we’re all here. Poor thing isn’t used to being around one succubus, much less three. Especially one that’s pursuing him.”
“I can’t believe Remy’s not more traumatized,” I
confessed to Dee. “I’m drinking away my sorrows at hearing that my masters are assholes. She’s been possessed for the past six months and yet you’d think nothing happened to her.”
“She’s compartmentalizing,” Dee said. “When you live for hundreds of years, you learn not to dwell on the bad or unpleasant for very long or you’re just going to beat yourself down. Remy’s lived through some horrible things in her past, and she prefers to enjoy the moment.” Dee leaned over and patted my hand. “You know, compartmentalizing is a good skill for you to learn, too. It’ll help you through the low moments. And when you’re immortal and tied to two selfish pricks? There’s quite a few low moments.”
“So immortality is nothing but heartbreak, and I need to learn to live in the moment?”
She shrugged. “It’s working for Remy, right? She’s happy, she’s carefree, and she’s currently trying to sink her hooks into the hottest man nearby.”
Poor Ethan. Remy’s single-minded pursuit was going to be a major learning experience. Then again, it might be good for him. He was a little too wide eyed and innocent. But who was I to think that was a bad thing? I’d been all wide eyed myself once upon a time—before two assholes came into my life and ruined it.
I reached for the bottle of rum again and took a swig. “I hate men.”
“That’s a phase we all go through,” Dee said, holding her hand out for her turn with the rum. “Comes with being a succubus, I think. I can’t believe neither of them told you about the Rachael thing, though. It’s very unlike Noah to be so withholding of information.”
“Maybe he knew it’d piss me off,” I retorted. “I still don’t know anything about her, other than we shared the same fat face and it apparently gives immortals boners.” Prying the rum out of her hand, I took another large swig and choked on the burning sensation as it poured down my throat. “Have you seen the painting? She’s boring looking. Round face. Same horrible hair I used to have. Same dumpy figure. I don’t get it.”
“Haven’t you realized that it’s not always appearance that drives a man—or two—mad with love?”
