Golden Anidae (A Blushing Death Novel)

by Suzanne M. Sabol

  Cordero Salazan smiled again as if he had a secret. How had he kept all this from Marabelle? He was blood-oathed to her if he was her servant and wouldn’t be able to shield anything from her. She would’ve been able to pluck it out of his mind like a wildflower from the field. There had to be some powerful magic to . . .

  “The gris,” I whispered, remembering the claddagh ring, the strand of hair, and section of bone. The tattoo made perfect sense. Jarvis glared at me like I was speaking Greek but Cordero Salazan’s eyes found mine. If he could’ve slit my throat right then and there, he would have. “But the Celtic ring. It’s not VouDon magic,” I said, glancing down at his arm. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a light went on and it all made sense. “It’s Fae magic! You made a bargain with a Fae. What did you give them? What did you trade?”

  Cordero Salazan’s heart sped up, thumping a frantic pulse at his neck as the silence drug on. Anger rippled off of him in waves making the air static and heated. I would have taken a step back if I didn’t already have my back to the wall.

  “What did you trade for the gris?” I snarled.

  “My daughter,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “The BEAST who took my Juliana from me also contaminated my four-year-old daughter.” He dropped his eyes to the floor. “She was an abomination, an animal. I cared for her for almost two years, as long as I could until Marabelle found me. She offered me my revenge and the longevity to see it through to the end.” His voice was harsh as he spoke. “The Fae offered me maneuverability in exchange for my beautiful abomination.” He spit out the words with contempt.

  Cordero Salazan’s eyes darted to mine, and I understood what bottomless rage was. It stared back at me from behind his eyes as a pit of desolation. “They wanted to play with her,” he snarled in contempt.

  “I’ll kill you with my last breath if I have to,” I whispered into the silence that followed.

  “I’ma ‘fraid, Ma’am, that I can’t let that happ’n. My mistress is waitin’ fer us,” Jarvis said, taking a cautious step toward me.

  Swinging the gun slightly to my left, I got Jarvis in my line of fire. He was quicker and Cordero Salazan was already wounded. Being Marabelle’s human servant gave Cordero Salazan certain abilities. Regeneration and long life were some of those. He was wounded but nothing that would stop him. The bastard hadn’t pushed the bullet out yet. Probably didn’t know how. Maybe he’d never been shot before to find out how. Lucky me.

  “You don’t think I’m gonna go willingly, do you?” I asked, almost appalled.

  “Yes, Ma’am, I do,” he said without faltering.

  I didn’t like his confidence or the apology in his expression.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Well, Ma’am, it’s not my style but someone’s waitin’ fer ya and I think ya might want ‘em back,” he said with a cringe, as if kidnapping was below him.

  Fuck! I dropped my arm and the gun, feeling the heavy two pounds of the gun like a weight on my chest. Handing the gun to Jarvis, butt-first, I waited for him to take it from me.

  “Now, there’s a smart decision. Thank you kindly, Ma’am, for bein’ cooperative,” he said as he took the gun.

  I stepped away from the wall, toward Jarvis and the door, leading them out. Looked like I was taking a trip to Marabelle’s compound after all, with an escort no less.

  The rush of air slapped my face as Cordero Salazan’s hands stretched for my neck as I stepped away from the wall. I ducked and dodged out of his reach, elbowing him in the gut as I rotated. Coming up on his left, I slung a quick jab to his head. His nose crunched under my fist and my arm splattered with blood.

  He dropped to his knees, holding his nose with both hands as blood seeped between his fingers. I peered down at him and felt that quiet rage building, the empty peace before a kill. The rage had kept me sane for so long. I’d missed it. Both were part of me as much as my fingers or my toes. I wanted Cordero Salazan to see the monster behind my eyes, to see the monster that wasn’t Eithina or whatever the Golden Anidae was. The monster that was me, The Blushing Death.

  “Make your peace, Cordero Salazan,” I purred through tight lips and clenched teeth. “You’ll be dead before dawn.”

  I turned to Jarvis, his long face neutral under that dirty old white hat. But his eyes were filled with respect.

  I could finally taste fear on the air.

  Fear of me.

  Chapter 17

  Jarvis ushered me into the back seat of the black Escalade and followed me in. Cordero Salazan hopped into the driver’s seat and roared the engine to life with anger making every movement sharp, distinct.

  “I don’t understand why I have to drive. I’ve got a fucking bullet in my shoulder,” he whined in an unflattering pout.

  “Cause,” Jarvis snapped. “I don’t want her ta kill ya before Marabelle has a chance ta get her hands on ya.”

  Jarvis’s entire body was on alert, his hands free and clear to snap my neck if he wanted. I was quick but I knew Jarvis was quicker. I smiled at Jarvis’s compliment and then found Cordero Salazan’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring at me like he could destroy me with a glare.

  “I will, you know,” I quipped, my voice flat and calm with a satisfied smirk turning up the corners of my mouth. “Kill you. I’ll enjoy every minute of it, too.”

  “So you say,” Cordero Salazan retorted but his voice quivered with doubt. He wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Sitting back in the seat, I got comfortable and crossed my arms over my chest. Jarvis relaxed a bit as I folded my arms. I wanted to talk to Marabelle. I needed to get in that compound and find out for sure if Soraida and Rupert were actually dead or alive. I wanted to get them out, but I needed to see who they’d taken to coerce me. Everett could take a lot of damage before he’d die. His body would heal and regenerate almost anything but that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t hurt. I didn’t want him to have to suffer the pain, physical or emotional. He was a good kid and didn’t deserve the torture, but then again, who did?

  “I can’t figure out if you’re suicidal or just stupid,” I said.

  “Shut your stupid whore mouth!” Cordero Salazan shouted.

  The change from future fuck buddy and werewolf-killing partner to whore was a quick one but I guess it was understandable when he found out I had been sleeping with a werewolf. He didn’t even know about Patrick.

  “Sticks and stones,” I chimed, catching his glare in the rearview mirror again. “She won’t let you leave. You know that, right?” I unfolded my arms and brushed my hair out of my face.

  “She doesn’t have a choice,” he stated.

  I laughed at him and his ridiculous statement.

  “Why are you laughing?” he snapped.

  “Because,” I said as I caught my breath and wiped a tear from underneath my eye, “I figured it out. You’re not suicidal, you’re stupid. She’s never going to let you go.” My voice was firm, daring him to debate the facts.

  “She’ll have no choice,” he said again but the quiver in his voice made me think he wasn’t as sure as he’d been only moments ago.

  I laughed again and shook my head.

  “She’ll hunt you down and drag your ass back by your pinky toe if she has to. Don’t you understand what being her servant means?”

  His shoulders tightened and his brows furrowed in the rearview mirror but he didn’t reply.

  “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” I continued. “You get longevity and eternal youth from her.” I leaned forward and whispered, my breath warm as it skidded across his neck, “She gets power and your life force and you didn’t even know it.”

  “Shut up!” he snapped. Sinking down into the seat and rolling his shoulder with the bullet still lodged there, he let his anger consume him as if he was standing on quicksand.


  “You know, Jarvis,” I said, taunting Cordero Salazan from the back seat. “I’ve seen what happens to marked human servants when their vampire master or mistress dies.” I shuddered.

  Nothing I would ever do could wipe the image of Smarmy’s body turning inside out from my mind. Jarvis watched me, waiting to find out where I was going with this.

  “But,” I continued, trying to bury the image of organs, muscles, and bones on the outside combined with the faint sound of muffled screams from the inside. “What happens to a vampire when the servant dies?” I asked, gracing Jarvis with a coy grin.

  He shifted in his seat and flinched as I shut down my emotions one by one, letting him see the cold killer I really was.

  Cordero Salazan shifted uneasily in the driver’s seat.

  I was baiting him and having a damned fine time doing it, too.

  “I’ve seen a few survive,” Jarvis said, glancing warily from Cordero Salazan to me and back again. “It depends on how close the two are.” The light of realization finally brightened his eyes.

  “I would guess that the vial of blood in Cordero’s nightstand is to maintain a connection but at a distance,” I said, rolling the possibility through my mind. “I don’t know what his plan was when that vial ran out, however?” I added almost to myself.

  Jarvis scratched his scruffy chin beneath his dirty white cowboy hat, glaring at the back of Cordero’s head. His eyes darted to me in the darkness after a long moment of contemplation. The only thing I knew for certain was that Cordero didn’t like my theory. The smell of anger, frustration, and fear lingered in the air like a heavy fog.

  “I think ya might be right, Ma’am. I think ya just might be right.”

  Salazan stopped the SUV at the iron gates and spoke into the intercom.

  “It’s Cordero,” he snapped. “Let me in.” The tinted window rolled back up and his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel continued as the gate swung slowly open. The estate was surrounded by a six-foot stone wall.

  “Does the wall go all the way around?” I asked as casually as I could but Jarvis turned experienced eyes on me.

  “Why, yes, Ma’am, it does,” he said, just as casual.

  He thought he had me trapped but I knew something Jarvis didn’t. I could probably jump it with my new werewolf powers or at least scale it and not even break a sweat. I was pretty certain I could jump it in wolf form. The idea of changing into a shiny gold wolf was really starting to grow on me.

  Salazan hit the gas, driving through the gates, barely missing the iron as it swung open. The Escalade curved around the circular drive until the SUV was lined up with the front door. The grounds seemed well maintained and what grass there was, quite a bit for Vegas, was well manicured. Palm trees littered the lawn, randomly blocking the view from the house.

  The two-story Spanish hacienda with porticos and curved tiles covering the roof sat like a palace amongst the trees. I followed Salazan through the front double-etched glass doors and called out, “Honey, I’m home,” with a smile.

  Salazan snapped his head back to glare at me so fast I thought he’d broken his own neck.

  “What?” I mouthed with wide innocent eyes. I couldn’t help myself. I was having too much fun picking at him.

  I glanced around the foyer and felt transported, and not to a good place. Decorated in Greco-Roman everything, white marble and Corinthian columns overwhelmed the senses and good taste. Marabelle had a fountain in the center of the open foyer, where Venus emerged from DaVinci’s shell, spraying water from her nipples. Her. NIPPLES!

  “This is horrendous, Jarvis. It’s obvious the colony has money. Hire a damned decorator,” I snapped at the two men, appalled.

  “She likes it,” Jarvis said with a weary apology. “Ya get used to it.”

  I rolled my eyes and stood between Jarvis and Salazan with my arms crossed over my chest.

  A sudden arctic rush of power hit me like a shot. Sharp and stabbing through me like a knife of nitro glycerin, her power was slow, freezing my insides. My jaw tightened and my muscles reacted as the chill of death consumed me. My blood pumped, and my stomached tightened in a primal fear. I fought to stay standing at the sudden intrusion of power, sharp and strange.

  She wasn’t stronger than Patrick. It was different, more intense, concentrated. Patrick was a constant flow of cold water, all-consuming until a person could drown. This was sharp and painful but couldn’t last. I could already feel the edge of it falling away. I didn’t flinch or grimace. I wouldn’t.

  Her power weighed down on me from the top of the curved staircase covered in plush red carpet. Glancing up at her, I froze in horror.

  Marabelle stood at the top of the stairs like a debutante waiting to make her entrance. She was a nightmare in a strapless Barbie doll pink ball gown. The skirt was nothing but yards and yards of rhinestone encrusted pink tulle. She was model thin with dark auburn hair trailing down her back and over her shoulders in long, soft, curling tendrils. Her eyes were the color of grass on a summer morning, deep green with sparkles of light I could see from the bottom of the stairs.

  She was beautiful.

  Descending the stairs like a cloud, weightless and graceful, she approached. Jarvis removed his hat, holding it tight against his midsection as she took that final step from the stairs in her delicate kitten-heeled slippers.

  “Cordero, it’s lovely to see you,” she cooed in a melodic voice, kissing him on the cheek. She took a step back to glare at the rest of us. “Jarvis,” she sang with equal affection and held out her hand to him. The haggard old cowboy took her fingers delicately in his roughened, calloused hands and knelt before her like a returning knight.

  “Mistress, we have a problem,” Jarvis growled, his eyes darting to Salazan.

  “We’ll deal with that later,” she said, turning her dark green eyes on me with a twinkle of pleasure. “We have a guest. We don’t discuss family business before guests.” Marabelle’s smile faltered a bit as her gaze narrowed on me. Malice lurked dangerously behind the pleasure of her moss-colored eyes. “She doesn’t look sooo dangerous,” she said, taking a step closer, invading my personal space and evaluating me.

  “Looks can be deceiving,” I snarled, meeting her gaze. I really didn’t like being talked about like I wasn’t there and she was pissing me off.

  “Mistress, we should not underestimate her,” Jarvis warned.

  “She’s pretty but nothing that should cause Cordero to forget himself,” she said, shooting a dark, threatening glance his way.

  Salazan had taken a step or two back, hiding behind me and to the left. The bastard was far enough away that Marabelle couldn’t reach out and grab him without going through me first. I just couldn’t respect a man who hid behind me. It was shameful and cowardly.

  “Or to cause this much fear in the Lebensblut board,” she finished, turning her glare back my way.

  A few months ago, I’d waltzed into the Lebensblut offices and killed a board member. Lebensblut was a kind of ruling class of the vampire world. Arthur had conspired, unbeknownst to the rest of the board, with the Pittsburgh Master vampire. His former lover, Darshan, wished to eradicate Patrick and myself to take over Patrick’s territory and give Darshan his kingdom back. Because of Arthur, Danny’s heart had been ripped from his chest by the vampire ninja assassin, Midnight Ash. I’d killed them all.

  “I feel like I should be offended but I don’t particularly give a shit what you think,” I snapped, popping a hand on my cocked hip and copping an attitude. I baited her unnecessarily, playing a dangerous game that could get me killed. Especially since my weapon was still sitting in Salazan’s shoulder holster.

  “You do have a mouth on you,” she snarled as her eyes sparkled with the hunger for violence. “I see I can’t interest you with my thoughts, perhaps my actions will be of more
interest to you,” she added. Each word dripped with venom as a malicious smirk turned her face into a grim threat of death.

  She turned, strutting down the hall, away from us. The click of her heels echoed on the marble floor in the stillness of the house. The compound was still but not empty. I could feel the others lurking in the shadows once she put enough space between the two of us. Their power moved over me like a cool autumn breeze, some thick like fog or mist and others faint as morning dew. The colony was upstairs, downstairs, and on the ground floor, hovering like a swarm. They waited for something. Their power buzzed across the air like static electricity with intensity and anticipation. My pulse pounded in my ears and my hands were covered in sweat. Too many, there were just too many of them for just me.

  We followed Marabelle and the swish of her dress down the hall to the last room on our left. She opened the door, turning with a bright, pleased smile lighting her face.

  The smell of blood, both fresh and old, invaded my senses. I paused between steps as the smell filled my nose and made my eyes water with the pungent scent. Jarvis came up behind me, placing his hand a few inches from the small of my back. He didn’t dare touch me but I knew from the proximity of his hand he wanted me to move along just the same.

  The faint whimper of a woman crying, or screaming —I couldn’t tell which—echoed through the marble halls. My breath hitched in my throat.

  Marabelle stood in the doorway with a pleased, knowing smirk on her face. “After you,” she whispered in a voice so malevolent even my mother would cringe.

  I turned the corner, stepping into the room.

  It was the same white walls, white marble floor, white marble fireplace, a few windows with iron security bars covering the glass panes, and load bearing Corinthian columns scattered throughout the room. White! Everything was fucking white.

  In the center of this white marble tomb was an empty chair next to another where a woman sat bound and gagged. As she turned frightened eyes up to meet mine, my heart stopped.