Taking his wrist, I sniffed, grimacing at the heavily laced stink of liquor, but beggars and all that. He moaned when my fangs sank in.
Five minutes later, I was just about ready to quit.
Skeeter was giggling like a little girl and swaying back and forth. “C’mongirlgimmeyournumber...”
His hand rose drunkenly, as though trying to find my face in the darkness, but I easily swatted it away. I hated when my food talked back to me.
The rest of what he said was an unintelligible jumble of nonsense. I might have probably taken a bit more than I should have, but I’d been hungry and anxious, and two-hundred seventy pounds of college linebacker muscle was nothing more than a way to take the edge off.
I rolled my eyes and dug my fangs in deeper, irritated by the taste of his alcohol-laced blood. I didn’t object to a nice glass of whiskey now and again, but that boy tasted as if he’d bathed in the stuff. He was what my daddy used to call “drunker than Cooter Brown.”
Also, I’d grown spoiled during my time with James and Merc. Nothing was nearly as satisfying as the peppery autumn warmth that was shifter’s blood. The breeze stirred, and suddenly I was staring into a shade of ephemeral blue and smiling eyes.
Without breaking stride, I pulled harder.
“A part of me is glad I died that night.” Boo chuckled. “You look a right sight there, peanut.”
I hissed, which only made Boo laugh harder.
Distracted and no longer interested in Skeeter’s less-than-appealing bouquet, I swiftly pulled free of his wrist, causing a spurt of blood to pump from his veins to the concrete ground. The blood was curdling in my stomach, and with a glower at my prey, I sealed the bite site clean and stood, causing the swaying Skeeter to pitch forward and land face-first on the bench with a hard oomph before loudly snoring.
I grimaced, feeling kind of bad for the guy but not bad enough to wake him. His friends were gonna find him there, four sheets to the wind and thinking he’d passed out before getting to seal the deal. He’d get shit for the rest of his life about that, but at least he’d have a life. I could have done what many of my kind did and just killed him for the hell of it.
Wiping off my mouth with the back of my wrist, I grunted. “Well, that was a pointless exercise in futility. Now my head is all buzzy from all that booze.”
I toed Skeeter’s shoe with a shudder. He snored even more loudly, twitching as he did. Good God, I felt bad for whomever he wound up with someday. His mate was never gonna get any sleep with the amount of caterwauling that went on.
The electric glide of spirit energy sparked down my cheek. Boo was chuckling, and as annoyed as I’d just been, I couldn’t help but join in.
“You always were good for my peace of mind, Jimmy.”
“Glad to know some things don’t change.” He winked. “Thought maybe you’d forgotten about me.”
Standing, I stepped over the dead weight and shook my curls out. “Never. Just took me a little longer to acquire the charm.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the chain, dangling it by two fingers. He grinned.
“I have to ask, though.” I inhaled. “Are you sure you wanna go to this ball? There are spirit feeders among my kind. This could be dangerous—”
Again that spark of spirit energy trembled against my fingers, and I knew Boo was running his hand over mine, trying in his own way to calm me.
“You once meant the world to me, Scar. I remember the depths of what I’d been willing to do for you in life.”
Ghosts don’t dwell on silly things like love. There’s freedom in death, which I see in a way I hadn’t when I’d been mortal. Boo had been my fiancé, a soldier, and my world. We’d been high-school sweethearts, and I couldn’t have imagined my life with anyone but him.
The graveyard, as macabre a site as any, was also Silver Creek’s version of Make-out Hill. We’d not been the first young lovers to go out there—we’d simply been the bastards unlucky enough to find ourselves in the path of a homicidal vampire.
As morbid as it might sound, the graveyard was now a hallowed place for me. It was where I came to settle my thoughts, where I came to see my Boo. Even if our love had changed, we would always be inseparably bound one to the other.
“I’m ready, Scar,” he said slowly.
Jezebel hadn’t given me instructions when it came to tethering him, so I hoped like hell that my intuition was right because otherwise, I was up shit creek without a paddle.
Biting my lower lip I palmed the cross, and the metal was cool to the touch. He glanced down at it.
“A cross?” he said with a hint of a smirk because, of course, a cross was supposed to be anathema to vampires. It wasn’t—it was just a cross—but myths existed for a reason. If the cross was built of ash, then yeah... it would kill our ass. Again.
“I think the witch I got this from has a sick sense of humor.”
Boo’s radiance literally danced before my eyes as though he were excited, fascinated. Sometimes, he definitely seemed more animated than the typical haunt, more like Delilah, the cannibal widow with an insatiable thirst for souls, even after death. Most ghosts just didn’t care about anything, but Boo actually exhibited a little spark of life now and then.
Maybe that was why I still came to see him, because he was one of the few ties I still had left to my old life.
“You ready?” he asked deeply.
I took a deep breath. “Sure hope so.”
Frowning, I stared at the crucifix. I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
Touch him. The voice was distinctly female, lush, and throaty and not mine. It came from that dark place inside me, that same place that’d stirred when Sharp Elbows had been after me.
I swallowed hard, fighting to not shiver, to keep focused, to not think about the fact that either I was going completely bug fuck or—even worse—something really was living inside me, and she was getting stronger.
Touch him, it said again, that time with more force. Biting my front teeth together, I looked at him, and he looked at me. Trust burned in his clear-eyed gaze.
Then I shoved the crucifix against the spot where his chest should be, completely expecting my hand to pass through him as it always did.
That’s not what happened this time.
Instead, a brilliant beam of white light, then... Boo was gone. The metal in my hand gleamed like white flame. How did I know that? How had I known this would work?
How?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I hurriedly unclasped the chain and slid it around my neck with shaking fingers. My stomach heaved, flopping down around my knees. Fighting the urge to throw up all the blood I’d just sucked down, I twisted on my heel and ran for Betsy.
I had two hours to get ready. That wasn’t enough time to think about the darkness within me.
Then again... was there ever a good time to consider the very real possibility that I might be possessed by something twisted, dangerous, and volatile?
I drove and tried to forget that my chest was burning where the pendant rested, that my blood was throbbing, and that deep down in the darkest corner of myself, I felt something moving.
Chapter 19
Scarlett
I had just finished my hair and was patting my gown down into place, feeling unusually shy and self-conscious for some reason. The dress had been pretty on the hanger, but on me... I could hardly recognize myself.
I’d never even gone to prom in high school. I’d never worn anything like that, and though I was technically dead, I couldn’t stop a nest of nerves from tearing me up inside. So stupid that a pretty dress, hair, and make-up could make me feel like a radically altered person, but I did.
Blinking, I slid a curl of hair behind my ear and was debating whether to put it up or just leave it down when my phone buzzed.
With a frown, I glanced down. I still had ten minutes or so before the limo would arrive. Mercer should have been getting there any time. Stephen was again staying with Em
and Candy. I was as ready as I’d ever be.
I grabbed hold of the crucifix I was wearing when I spotted Carter’s direct line calling mine. The warmth of the metal infused my palm, making me strangely calm despite my nerves.
Clicking the speaker button, I said, “Carter?”
A long, exaggerated sigh of relief filtered down the line. “Damn. Been calling for the past thirty minutes.”
Instantly, my heart squeezed, and I could practically taste my pulse beating on my tongue. “I’ve been here. I didn’t get anything. But please, God, tell me you found something.”
“I found something,” he said quickly.
I grabbed hold of the bathroom countertop as the world suddenly spun around me. “What?” My voice came out a squeaked, hopeful gasp.
“It’s not much, but Scar, it’s not too late to back out of this.”
My eyebrows gathered tightly at the desperate urgency in his voice. “What?” He knew there was no backing out. “What’s wron—”
“That woman you killed, Juliet.”
“Yes?” I nodded.
“I was able to trace that marking you’d found in the jewelry.”
“So it was really in there? I hadn’t imagined it?”
He sighed deeply. “No. I’m sorry it took me so long. My contact, um... well—”
Swallowing hard, I shook my head. “Please, Carter, just spit it out. What did you learn?”
“That marking you saw was the royal crest of the house Infantes. The woman you killed was Juliet Infantes, relation to Cole Infantes.”
He was also known as the master vampire of Clan Infantes. Shit on a cracker. My fingertips felt suddenly numb, my skin breaking out in a wash of cold sweat.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “But... but royalty? That’s not... She wasn’t... Carter, where was her entourage? Royalty is never alone. She should have had a guard. She should have—”
“She did. A man by the name of Luc DeNastro, a.k.a. Scar Lip.”
Going absolutely still, I squeezed my eyes shut. This was bad. This was really, really fucking bad.
“Please tell me she was like the sixth cousin removed.” That wouldn’t make the situation any better, but if she was a sister I was royally screwed, pun intended.
Again he sighed, sounding weary and anxious. “She was a first cousin and next in line to the throne.”
“Fuck,” I snapped.
“My contact was able to give me one last piece of evidence before she vanished.”
“Vanished?” My lower jaw thrust out. “Who the hell was your contact, and where did she vanish to?”
I could tell by his sudden silence that Carter didn’t want to tell me, didn’t want to get me any more deeply involved than I already was. However, I was in it all the way up to my neck.
“Carter, things can’t get much worse for me right now. Do you think the Infantes have her?”
Inhaling deeply before answering, he said softly, “I do.” Finality rang in his words, one that told me he wasn’t holding out much hope of finding his contact alive. “She was a vampire-dwarf hybrid who worked in their employ as a maid.”
“Her name?”
“Magdalena. Doesn’t speak much English, she comes from the old country. Dark hair, gray eyes. I know it’s a long shot, but—” The obvious inflection of pain in his voice made me shiver.
Clenching my fingers tightly, I nodded. “If I see her, Carter, I promise I’ll try to get her out.”
“Don’t go, Scarlett. We’ll find another way. Don’t go. This is a setup.” His words were soft but frantic as they plucked at my heartstrings.
Carter was worried for me. That’s when I realized how much I did still care for him and he for me. Regardless of who he really was beneath that skin, deep down, he was my friend, my true friend.
Those were exceedingly rare in my life right then.
God, he didn’t know how much I wanted to do exactly as he said, more than he could even imagine.
“You know I don’t have a choice in this. Go now, or go later, but I’ll be going. At least now I know what I’m walking into.”
“Goddamn it, Scar,” he murmured heatedly, and I could almost picture him staring frantically around, cracking his knuckles, or scraping a hand over his bristled jaw.
The thought brought a soft smile to my lips and a pang to my heart.
“I have a plan,” I said.
“Tell me it’s a fucking good one.”
I laughed, the sound hollow because I wasn’t sure.
“Damn,” he whispered, getting my hint. He knew without needing to ask that whatever happened that night, the odds of me coming back were less than low.
“Thank you, Carter.”
He growled and said, “I’ll text you the picture Mags sent me. Keep your head on a swivel out there, Scar.” He didn’t say, “Please, come back,” but I heard it all the same.
Nodding tightly, I whispered, “I promise.”
We hung up a few seconds later. A text notification came in. After clicking it open, I stared at the picture he’d sent.
The photo was old-timey, in shades of washed-out yellow and buttery brown. Three people were dressed in authentic Victorian fashion. At its center stood Juliet, a mischievous smirk on her lips. Flanking her on either side were two men, one blonde, one raven haired.
The raven-haired man had clear-colored eyes though I couldn’t make out the shade in the photo. I guessed blue. His nose was patrician, his cheeks high, and his lips slight. He wasn’t classically handsome, but a manner about him, an aura, made me study him and want to know more. He wore a top hat and looked directly into the camera with a penetrating mile-long stare.
The blonde, however, was gorgeous, like a young Brad Pitt. He too wore a mischievous smirk on his full, sensuous mouth. One of his hands gripped his silk vest while the other was clearly low on Juliet’s back.
What caught my eye with him was a thin, vertical scar just above his cupid’s bow. He was clearly Luc.
Beneath them in fine print was a date: July 21, 1890.
A knock sounded on my door seconds before I scented Mercer’s clean scent of bergamot and soap.
Two minutes were left until the limo was slated to arrive. I quickly ran to the door and opened it. Mercer opened his mouth, ready to say something, when he stopped and looked at me with a large, assessing look.
He liked what he saw. My stomach feathered as I liked what I saw, too. Dressed in a tuxedo, he looked amazing. His big, strong body filled out the suit perfectly, making my insides tremble. Seeing Mercer in anything other than jeans and a T-shirt was rare, and God, I was such a cavewoman because all I could think was I wanted to drag him back to my room, peel the clothes off him and fuck him until I couldn’t remember my name anymore.
I swallowed hard.
“Scarlett, you look—”
I cut him off with a swipe of my hand. My stomach a feathery mess, I shook my head.
Neither one of us had the time for intrusive emotions.
“No time. Carter just called me.”
Instantly, Mercer’s body tensed. “And?” his voice came out a coarse growl.
“The woman I killed was the Master vampire’s cousin. Moreover, she was the successor to the throne. Scar Lip was her bodyguard. His name is Luc.”
As I spoke, his heavy brow drew down into a deep frown, then he was shoving two fingers through the thick, blond hair he had pulled back.
I could practically read the thoughts buzzing through his head. “This is bad. Fuck. You shouldn’t go.”
Tires crunched, rolling over gravel. With a quick glance, I spotted the limo. Our time for what ifs was over.
I shook my head, telling him we couldn’t talk about that anymore. Not there. Not then.
His nostrils flared, and his shoulders tensed, but he nodded once, understanding immediately.
Taking my hand in his, he brought my knuckles to his mouth and kissed them tenderly, making me feel hot and needy even as my nerves threatened
to devour me whole.
The limo parked. A valet got out, dressed in coat and tails, with his long black hair slicked back and his pale skin practically gleaming like ivory in the night.
His thin, almost emaciated frame stood without flinching beside the back door as he looked at us with the imperious manner of an ancient cold one. Mercer’s fingers twitched as though he meant to release me, but I clung tightly, needing the strength of his touch.
Without a word, we descended the front steps toward the limo. Once we got to within a few yards, the valet opened the door, still not speaking. A low, vibrating rumble echoed through Mercer’s chest. He didn’t like the situation. Neither did I.
We both got into the limo, though. The door closed on silent hinges behind us. The inside of the limo was black on black on black. The privacy window was rolled up. A few bottles of champagne were there, and I even smelled chilled blood.
My throat tingled, and my tongue ached.
Mercer glanced over at me, giving his head one slight but firm shake. “Do not trust them, ever.” I swear I could almost hear him speaking the words straight to me. Without thought, I reached up and flicked at the faint mark on my shoulder where he’d bitten me, and I felt strangely settled and more composed when I touched it.
His eyes locked onto the movement, and something, an unnamed emotion behind his eyes, made me think Mercer knew exactly what I was thinking.
~*~
I tried not to gasp when I walked through the castle’s massive wooden archway.
Yes, I said castle, as in a big, freaking medieval thing of stone and iron and wood beams the size of a giant’s hammy fist. I’d known we were going to a castle, but knowing and experiencing it were two entirely different things.
The three-hour ride to the castle had been quiet and tense. Neither of us said a word, and the only activities I’d been able to manage were to clutch at my crucifix and to trace Mercer’s bite.
As we passed the archway, I felt Mercer's look, reading the tension bracketing the lines of his eyes. Juliet was Cole’s cousin, first in line to inherit. Deep down, I’d already suspected the ball was a set up, and now I was sure.
Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo (Southern Vampire Detective Book 2) Page 22
