by Ruby Raine
“It was complete humility, and strength, Charlie. You should be proud of it. You will be a good leader.”
“I’m not sure I want to be,” he whispered coarsely. “I always have, in some ways. I don’t know if... if I can be like my dad.”
“I saw how proud he was of you. He believed you could.”
A sudden fury of color lit up the sky.
Charlie looked across the Isle, in awe of it.
In awe of his life. His future.
His gaze settled on Lizzy. “It really is breathtaking.”
“Are you falling in love with a Deane, Charlie Howard?”
It was his turn to be blunt.
“Not falling...” he confessed. “Your father, and your fiancé, were correct when they said the fall was hard and instant. I fell in love with you around ten-thirty this morning while you were making potions in my kitchen. I fell madly in love with you when you fought by my side and I knew with such complete certainty that you owned my soul. You are the someone special, Lisbeth.” Charlie didn’t know where the words came from.
It wasn’t anything he’d thought out. Or planned. It just happened. His mind perfectly clear on this. He never thought he’d have that singular moment when he just knew without a doubt that he’d found that someone extraordinary.
Lizzy stared intently, her eyes swimming in thought.
“Is it possible that I rendered Lizzy Deane, speechless,” said Charlie, thrilled at the prospect. It wasn’t even a concern to him that she didn’t return his sentiment.
She stepped over, getting onto her tiptoes to reach his ear. “Actually,” she quipped with a sigh, “I was just imagining how utterly adorable our babies are going to be.”
He let out a rushed breath.
“And I want a lot of them, Charlie.” She reached up and put her fingers to his lips before he could speak. “Don’t argue. Don’t worry. And don’t over think it.” She turned away from him and headed for the manor. “Pleasant dreams, Charlie.”
His mouth opened, but he found himself having another Jack Howard moment, his tongue too befuddled to get the words right.
When he finally spoke, what came out was, “How many is a lot?”
But Lizzy had returned home.
COURTNEY JESSUP’S BODY lay in the woods where William had killed her.
It had occurred during his blood rage while chasing and killing Eva Jordan.
Her pupils moved, underneath closed eyelids.
She lifted off the ground into a sitting position, her broken neck snapping jarringly back into place.
Her mouth opened, a deep inhale expanding in her lungs.
Her eyes flew open. A fury of blue.
She twisted her head back and forth, unfamiliar with her surroundings.
Her lips felt funny. She lifted her hand expecting she had a fat lip.
She gasped. Her hand dropping.
Her tongue ran over the outside of her teeth. There was a new addition.
Fangs.
She panicked. Getting to her feet. How had this happened? She’d come here for a specific purpose, to Kill Stricker, and now...
“That fucking bastard turned me into a vampire.”
She looked up, the sky starting to lighten.
She needed cover, or her life as a vampire would be very short.
She saw the hollowed out log, the one the white-haired woman had tried to hide inside of. She wondered what had happened to that woman.
“Son of a bitch. Why didn’t I just run away? Stay out of it? Just let it go?” She could have just ignored the woman, kept to her task... but no, she had to step in and help.
“And look at me now! Hiding in a log in the middle of the freakin’ God damned woods!”
The sun peeked over the horizon. She got to her hands and knees and wiggled her way inside the log. She watched the sun come up, cursing as her tongue ran across her new fangs.
A rumble inside her belly ached, begging for just one thing... blood.
This could not be her life now. She could not be a vampire. She was a witch.
With one final name on her hit list.
“Make that two,” she growled angrily.
Courtney Jessup added a new target to her hit list.
The vampire would pay for doing this to her.
WILLIAM WAKEFIELD RETURNED to his study. He’d showered and dressed, looking more like himself. His injuries hidden. Some still healing.
He’d left Charlie with Melinda, and had heard Michael return with Emily not long ago.
He hadn’t told them he was home, he preferred to be alone.
To mourn the loss of his friend. Jack Howard.
To accept what he’d done with Melinda. What he’d told her.
He’d come close. So precariously close, to asking for death.
He would never have uttered the words. But he had wanted it. He had wanted it to end. Seeing Melinda, hearing her voice, was the only thing that had kept him from begging for release.
‘I love you, William.’ So sweet. So much pain in the words. Even more pain in hearing them. More pain than all his physical injuries combined.
It was not the first time he’d suffered, physically. He’d been tortured before. You didn’t live to be over four-hundred-years-old without making a few enemies.
He felt certain, that much greater torment was about to begin.
He’d given in to Melinda, and himself, in the dream world he created to ease her suffering. His love was out in the open. He had succumbed to it in a manner he’d never done before. He had become attached to Melinda in a way he’d never allowed before. Even with Angelina.
It filled him with such uncertainty.
He had opened himself up, given himself completely. There was no shoving it back into hiding. This bond he created with Melinda... he was not sure it was a bond he could break, or wanted to break. He had no idea what this would do to him in the future.
He feared for her. What this battle had done to her.
She might wake, and never be the same Melinda, he loved, again.
There would be a dark mark on her heart from this day forward.
On all their hearts.
“God. Jack. Dear, dear Jack.” Grief threatened to overwhelm him. “You are with Catherine now.” It was the only bit of solace in his friend’s death.
Catherine, her secret words to him. Her silent request.
One she had whispered only to him, right before she left Emily’s body and moved on from this world.
Even after what he had accepted, and admitted to Melinda and himself, he just could not. It wasn’t right. Or fair. Even now.
‘William, I know you love my daughter. Don’t argue. You’re a bad liar.’ She smiled kindly. ‘She loves you too. But she’s young and doesn’t know what her heart wants. Give her time to live. To figure out what she wants from this life. And if she chooses you... don’t turn her away. Love her. Forever. You may not see it yet, but she is stronger than you think.’
Catherine’s words had horrified him in a way he had difficulty expressing.
He hadn’t believed it. That Melinda loved him. He hadn’t even admitted it to himself yet.
And the very idea of what Catherine was asking him to do. Telling him it was okay to do. To take Melinda out of this life and curse her to his existence. To force her to watch her friends and family grow old and die, while she remained, unchanged. Never moving forward.
Yes. Melinda had great strength in her. He saw that now more than ever.
But his was a cruel fate he’d wish on no one.
A fate he’d never impose without incredible cause.
He loved Melinda too much. Too much to ask this of her, to make her choose. It would cause such pain and strife.
No. It was better that he die, when she did.
It was a loving gesture, for a mother to give her blessing to such a union. It meant so much to him that he was loved, and trusted, in this way. But he could not do it. Ever.
For
the first time since William could recall, he wished he could sleep. To leave his thoughts behind. To let his mind rest.
He peered down at his desk. It was a mess from all their research and planning. He decided to clean it up before locking himself in the basement. The blood cravings would begin soon. Cravings unlike anything he’d experienced in hundreds of years. He’d consumed so much human blood, straight from the vein. It might take weeks this time, rather than days, to get the cravings under control again. He did not look forward to a single minute of it.
William started to put things away. At human speed. Feeling the need to move precisely. Deliberately. He filed papers, slipped books back onto shelves. He grabbed the diary... the diary that had caused so much trouble, and cost them so much strife. What should he do with it?
He flipped it open. An envelope fell out of it.
William froze.
He recognized the handwriting.
“Jack,” he whispered.
He picked it up and took a seat in his chair.
After a long, silent minute, he finally opened it.
William.
My longest friend in this world. I write this letter in case things tonight go badly and I don’t have the chance to speak with you in person. I cannot shake this feeling that I’m living on borrowed time.
First, I must thank you on behalf of Catherine and myself, for looking out for our children after our sudden departure from your lives. I cannot express what your presence in their lives means to me. You have kept them alive, and seen them through difficult times, and for this, I am forever grateful.
Second, there is something that has become painfully obvious to me in my short hours back on the Isle. And there is something I must ask of you, William.
A terrible thing. Nothing I ever dreamed in a million years I would find myself asking of you. It hurts more than words can express, to do so.
I must ask you to leave The Demon Isle...
WICKED GOOD WITCHES BOOK 8
Night Moves the Vampire to Murder
Supernatural Protectors: A Legacy of Magic
THE MOON HOVERED HIGH in the night sky; bright, crisp, and full.
The sand underneath Melinda Howard’s bare feet cooled after the day’s sun. The beach deserted other than a bonfire surrounded by a small party who were laughing, drinking, and having fun.
Her brother Charlie sat on the ground with his back against a rock drinking a beer, with Lizzy and Lucas Deane sitting and talking nearby. Not far away, Michael was dancing with his girlfriend, Emily Morgan. They’d had a little too much to drink and toppled over onto the sand, giggling. Smooching. Happy.
This was where the normality of Melinda’s dream ended.
Not that this setting was normal either. She could not recall the last time her family had spent the day together doing something fun. Something non-witch and non-work, related.
Melinda’s gaze shifted right, where Grace, the owner of the Wicked Muddy Café, stood behind her coffee counter, which for whatever reason was sitting out in the open on the beach. She picked up a serving tray balancing steaming mugs, approached Melinda, and handed her one.
“I just know I got it perfect,” Grace promised, tossing her a wink.
Melinda lifted the mug to take a sip and caught her breath. A thick red liquid sloshed inside.
Blood.
Her stomach rolled at the sight. The rusty stench of it stuck in her nostrils.
Grace moved on to serve the others. Everyone clinked their mugs together in a toast before downing the contents. Bile threatened to surface in Melinda’s throat.
What a bizarre dream. She was certain, not prophetic, just bizarre.
It was such an odd thing to be so present and aware inside her dreams while sleeping soundly in real life. And to wake rested no matter how fitful her dreams became.
Mackenzie Briggs, The Demon Isle’s sheriff, called Mack by her friends, emerged from the darkness and thrust out her hand. A roll of yellow police tape snaked out of her palm, streaking across the shadowed beach. She pivoted a few feet and threw out another long strand, and then another, and another, until there was so much tape weaved around them, nothing could get in, or out.
“Gotta keep those dang reporters from gettin’ their picture.” She laughed raucously, proud of her handiwork.
“Could I sell ya on a mug of blood?” Grace called out to Mack.
“Why don’t mind if I do.”
In another blink Grace and her coffee counter shuttered into black and white, like a scene from some old TV show. She swiped a bloody hand down her frilly apron, the red of it harsh against the white of the cloth. She poured Mack a mug of blood and the sheriff proceeded to spoon three heaping mounds of sugar, mixing it in.
“Damn my sweet tooth,” she joked, taking a sip. “Mmm, mm. Sure is delicious, Grace. Like a rusty nail. Really hits the spot.”
The bile in Melinda’s gut rose a little higher.
Grace had a ridiculous frozen grin on her face, a shine in her eyes, and a gleam on her teeth. She winked at Mack, her black and white scene shuttering into and out of the dream.
Melinda’s family along with Lucas and Lizzy joined in Grace’s and Mack’s revelry. They stepped into the black and white of the beach café, the only color, red of the blood. They smashed mug against mug in a toast to each other. Red globs sloshing up over the sides, splattering all over their clothes, and faces, and down onto the sand.
There was a sizzle when it hit the flames of the bonfire. Which was still in color. In another blink, the black and white went away and they’d all somehow come to stand in a line about ten feet in front of Melinda. Side by side, flat gazes aimed her direction. Bodies streaked with blood. Laughter intensifying, with mouths hung open, the sound escaping taking on a canned antique quality as they gaped in a freaky statuesque pose.
Melinda wrapped her arms around her middle, forcing off a shudder and holding herself together. “I’d like to wake up now.” This dream was going from good, to strange, to creepy, and she suspected scary was coming next. It had been like this for days.
Another blink.
Another blink.
Another change.
No more bonfire.
In its place, a pile of wood. A pyre, unlit. A stake rising from the center.
Melinda staggered backwards only to fall into something both hard and soft. Strong hands unpeeled her arms from around her waist and new arms slid around, possessively pulling her in.
Lips nuzzled her neck. A voice whispered in her ear.
“You have to choose, Melinda. It can’t go on like this, forever.”
It was Riley Deane.
He withdrew his arms and twirled her around, his eyes drunkenly taking her in, admiring her with a gaze and a smile that reminded her of the first time she’d seen him in town. Straddling his motorcycle, shooting her a grin that buzzed electricity from her head down to her toes.
Eyes locked on each other, baby blue seeping into molasses. She breathed him in, a hint of brown sugar at the back of her throat.
His gaze ordered her answer.
“I cannot choose,” she replied forlornly.
“I can convince you to choose me.” Riley sank into her lips with a greedy kiss, pulling her body against his in a move that would have melted her legs to jelly... if she could still move them.
A gasp.
Her eyes flew open. Body, no longer moving under her control.
Riley’s warmth gone.
Tied up.
Bound.
To the stake jutting out of the unlit pyre.
Helpless. Unable to stop what was about to happen.
The only thing she could move was her head, and only as far as her shoulders allowed. She planted the back of her head against the stake; it was as far from Riley as she could get.
The dazzle in his eyes darkened, replaced with a wild abandon and intoxicated simper. He backed away, but it was more like his body floated.
“Choice. Ma
de.”
Riley landed on the ground soundlessly.
A group of seats appeared behind him. Theater style. Her friends and family fought eagerly over who would get to sit in the front row.
A slithering voice crawled out of the darkness.
“Come one, come all! The show is about to begin.”
Sir Tinkham Sickereaux, the Feyk otherwise known as Stricker, rolled out of the shadows in a summersault to the clanging of symbols. He bounced to his feet, slapping on his top hat with one hand, swirling a cane in the other. His vile smirk fixed on Melinda like she was the star of the show, and he, the announcer.
In this case, more like the executioner.
With the flick of his hands, the cane tip burst into flame. He lunged forward, faking an attempt to light the pyre, teasing the wood, threatening to ignite it.
“It’s almost time to burn,” his wretched voice warned.
This dream sucked ass! Melinda’s heart pounded so hard she swore it was knocking at the wooden stake behind her. If only she could learn to wake herself up! Or dream like normal people.
“You should have chosen me,” Riley called out from the beach below. His untamed grin stared up at her, and he did nothing to stop Stricker from teasing the wood with his lit cane. She closed her eyes, firmly, wishing she’d wake up. Perhaps if she focused really hard on her good memories of Riley, she could change the dream. Get out of this hellish nightmare.
A warm hand caressed her cheek and her eyes fluttered open; Riley in front of her again.
But same dream. Same nightmare. Still bound to the stake.
Still helpless, powerless, and unable to stop the inevitable. Even in her dreams.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Riley was back, his lips almost touching hers. Hand stroking down the side of her face. Trailing down her neck, trickling across her chest.
“We could have so much fun with you all tied up.”
“Riley, no. My family is watching. Yours too.” Even in a dream, Melinda had no desire to play voyeur in front of anyone, least of all her family. Her plea fell on deaf ears, as so did his lips, nibbling, caressing, tasting.
