Wicked Bite

by Jeaniene Frost

  It was afternoon—demon-free time—so I went shopping on the avenue Montaigne. Paris’s picturesque, tree-lined street was famous for its high-fashion stores. I bought my outfit from the most pretentious one, got a bite to eat from a store clerk, then went back to the hotel and spent a solid hour getting ready.

  When I was done, my hair was in wire-stiff curls, heavy makeup covered my face, perfume covered my natural scent, gaudy jewelry dripped from my neck and ears, and my dress was a ridiculously expensive creation that only looked good on vastly underweight women. Even in my usual slender-formed glamour, it wouldn’t be flattering on me. In my true form, my curves bulged in all the wrong places, and its tight sheath meant I could only walk with mincing, delicate steps.

  Ian had fallen for a warrior woman. I now looked like a spoiled fashion victim that would need assistance climbing into a cab. If I could conjure up a swoon at the presumed sight of danger, I would be the perfect repellant for him.

  A knock sounded on my bedroom door promptly at seven. I opened it, hiding my smile as Ian’s gaze swept over me in surprise. Then I let my smile bloom until it wreathed my mouth in the coyly expectant way some women do when they are waiting to be complimented while also pretending to be shy.

  “I know it’s not the latest trend, but I could barely find anything to wear,” I said with the same vapid intonation as a particularly annoying reality TV star.

  A sound came from him that could have been a laugh. Then he said, “Nonsense, you’re ravishing,” with such smoothness, I thought I had to be mistaken about the laugh.

  He came inside, revealing a bouquet he’d concealed behind his back. A dozen red roses, except their petals were too thick to be natural and they glittered like finely cut crystals.

  I touched one of the brilliant blooms. It felt cool and hard the way crystal would, but its petals bent beneath my finger as if it were a real flower. “What are these?”

  “They’re called Faerie Queen Crimsons.”

  I gave him a look over the top of the dazzling bouquet. “You’re giving a Law Guardian illegal magic flowers?”

  His smile reminded me of the crystalline roses: dangerously beautiful because once you saw it, nothing else could compare. “No, I’m giving my wife a gift I thought she’d enjoy.”

  I thrust the flowers back as if they suddenly burned me. “I’m not your real wife.”

  “A Law Guardian disagreeing with the highest court in vampire society?” He tsked. “What is the world coming to?”

  “You could care less about the law,” I snapped, my simpering date façade crumbling.

  He grinned. “And you hate your hair, that dress, and those ridiculous tottering shoes, but here we are.”

  He came in and set the flowers on an end table. The roses stood upright as if their long stems were contained by an invisible vase. When the overhead lights hit them, they glittered so brightly, a myriad of colors scattered across the room. They were beyond gorgeous, and so obviously magical that I’d never have gotten them for myself. I’d consider the risk too high and my happiness too . . . unimportant. As usual.

  Did Ian remember that about me? I couldn’t tell, but it was obvious I couldn’t trick him with my vapid-date façade. He’d either seen right through it or he remembered the truth.

  “These shoes are ridiculous,” I agreed, kicking them off. Why did modern women torture themselves with such contraptions? “I also hate how stiff my hair is, the stench from this perfume, and this gods-awful dress I can barely move in. Fuck it, I’m showering and starting over.”

  Ian’s laugh followed me as I went back into the bathroom. “I’ll wait here.”

  A quick shower, blow dry, and normal amount of makeup later, I put on a black silk pantsuit. It was chic enough for a date while also giving me pockets to store my weapons. After my near-escape from the Mycenae ruins, I’d never be without them on me again, especially at night when demons were free to roam.

  Ian had on black pants, a black jacket, and a deep umber-colored shirt that should have clashed with his hair but didn’t. Instead, his auburn hair and the shirt looked like different shades of an ever-deepening flame. I tried not to focus on that by wondering what he had planned. Paris’s many landmarks, clubs, opera houses, and restaurants certainly gave him no shortage of options. But after thirty minutes, Ian pulled up to the last place I expected: an amusement park.

  I stiffened. “Why are we here?”

  “Someone with your long life-span has already eaten at all the finest restaurants, drunk all the best wine, seen all the museums, attended countless operas, and been to so many clubs, they all look the same,” he replied. “But I wager you’ve never been to one of these simply for a fun evening out.”

  A strangled laugh escaped me. “You’re right. The last theme park I went to was no fun at all.”

  He turned the car off. “This one will be.”

  I almost refused to go inside. Then I realized I couldn’t ask for a better reminder of why I had to get away from Ian. Dagon had murdered Ian at an amusement park. He must not remember that, but I did.

  “Can’t wait,” I said stiffly.

  I maintained that stiffness through the first hour. Then my iciness began to thaw. This park couldn’t be more different from the one we’d battled Dagon at. That had been a broken-down shell filled with the silence of long abandonment. This was an elaborate wonderland of rides, stores, and soaring attractions, like the fairy-tale castle that loomed over the main park.

  Granted, at first all the excited squeals from the children reminded me of the demons’ death cries from that day, but by the second hour, I was smiling at the screeches. When was the last time I’d been surrounded by screams of joy?

  By the third hour, Ian had cajoled me into riding some of the park’s many attractions. He enjoyed them with his usual abandon, but what surprised me was that I enjoyed them, too. For a few moments, acting like the children around me allowed me to let go of the constant stress, fear of failure, and sadness that had consumed me the past several weeks. How had Ian known that I needed this? I hadn’t even known it myself.

  By the fourth hour, I was grinning as I let the rollercoaster whip me around with the kind of force I only felt when locked in a death match. I even raised my arms and let the wind play with my hands as the cars hurtled us toward the bottom. When the ride came to a stop, I said, “Again!” with the same greedy glee I’d heard from countless children this evening.

  Yes, I was thousands of years too old for this, but so what? I had the rest of my life to act my age.

  Ian laughed, flashing his lit-up gaze at the attendant. “One more time for both of us.”

  “One more time” turned into three, until my head spun from the repeated g-forces and the simple joy of reveling in the moment. By the time fireworks broke out over the castle, signaling the park’s closing, I was happier than I would have thought possible at the beginning of the night.

  “This was nice,” I said as I watched the sky explode with colors above us.

  He laughed. “Normally, I’d take such faint praise as failure, but from you, it means tonight was a smashing success.”

  “Yes, your record of showing your dates a good time is still intact,” I assured him.

  “I do have a reputation to maintain,” he said with a sly grin. Then that grin faded and his expression turned serious. “In truth, I wanted you to have a good memory to replace the wretched one of the two of us at that other theme park.”

  The blood in my veins turned to glass. Ian remembered that?

  “Now, what were my last words?” he asked almost casually.

  I was so shocked, I was stuttering. “W-what?”

  “My last words before I died. What were they?”

  I took several steps backward, then hit a metal gate. A quick glance revealed that Ian had picked a deserted place with no exits to spring this on me. I couldn’t fly away from him, either. The brightly lit park had too many security cameras.

  “I f
igured out why my body read as new to Leila,” Ian went on in that deceptively causal tone. “It’s why I have a demon’s abilities without the demon brand, and why I no longer owe Dagon my soul. I died, yet here I stand. Care to tell me how?”

  “Ian . . .” I couldn’t tell him I’d saved him. I refused to saddle him with a debt he’d feel honor-bound to repay.

  “I think I know,” he said lightly. “Granted, my first glimpse of the Grim Reaper was so terrifying, it was easy to forget his real appearance, but his hair is quite distinctive.” He paused to run a hand through mine. “So are his eyes, and your blood isn’t vampire, demon, or ghoul. Knew you were more than a vampire, but I hadn’t remembered what that ‘more’ was. I do now. You’re half of whatever he is, so either you or he plucked me out of hell and brought me back.”

  Dammit, he knew too much! I had to tell him something.

  “It wasn’t hell.” I met his gaze, steeling myself. “Dagon had been hoarding souls he made bargains with inside himself. We didn’t know that until we killed him and he burned through one of them to resurrect himself. Then he killed you and swallowed your soul, so the darkness you remember is being trapped inside him. It’s also how you absorbed some of his power. I had my father pull you out because you’d saved my life earlier that night, so I saved yours as repayment, making us even.”

  You owe me nothing, hung unspoken in the air between us. I wanted to stress it, but that would make him suspicious. No, I had to act nonchalant.

  Ian stared at me, his gaze relentless. “I remember part of that story very differently. Dagon didn’t take my life—I shoved that last bone blade through my eye myself.”

  The memory scalded me so deeply, I flung him away. Before I could blink, he grabbed me. Everything blurred, and when it stopped, we were in an empty section of the vast parking lot, the noise from the now faraway park fading in the distance.

  “Why did I do it?” he continued. “I must have told you.”

  “I don’t remember,” I lied.

  He stroked my cheek, his touch gentle despite his iron grip on my arms. “My last memory was the look on your face. There’s no chance you forgot any of it.”

  There wasn’t, even if I lived another four-and-a-half-thousand years. But I still couldn’t tell him. It hurt too much . . .

  Two people materialized behind Ian. For a split second, I thought I was having a PTSD attack with vivid hallucinations, because I recognized one of them and this couldn’t be happening. Not again.

  The boyishly handsome, blond-haired demon grinned much the same way he had when he’d shoved that bone knife into Ian’s eye several weeks ago. Only this time, the knife in Dagon’s hand was silver, and he was grinning as he aimed it at Ian’s back.

  Chapter 11

  My other nature ripped free as if I’d never had the power to hold it back. My vision blackened, my emotions iced over, and my skin split from the power exploding out of me. I couldn’t see Dagon fall to his knees, but I could feel it. I could hear him, too. He was screaming with what sounded like unbelievable pain.

  How curious. I hadn’t even started to rip him apart yet—and what did Ian think he was doing, pushing me aside?

  “Get behind me,” I heard Ian hiss. “A dozen more demons just teleported in here!”

  I felt the bone knife Ian withdrew from his coat. Felt the water pulsating inside of him, its power calling to me. Then my vision cleared and I saw the new demons. They were behind Dagon, who was writhing on the ground in much the same way Ian did when a new memory overtook him.

  Ah, yes, my father had ensured that Dagon couldn’t be near Ian without crippling pain. The Warden must not have told Dagon that. How predictably evasive of him. Now, Dagon was helpless and he couldn’t teleport away to save himself—

  Ian flung his knife and speared Dagon through the eye. Ian reached for his next weapon, but I knocked it from his hand. Dagon was my kill, mine! Then I ripped the water out of Dagon, smiling as the bloody deluge coated the stunned demons around him. I yanked most of the water out of them, too, pulling it forward to hit Ian like a red wave. It coated Ian while barely drenching me because he still had me behind his back.

  That would remind Ian that I could take care of myself.

  I was about to freeze the bloody water into ice knives when Dagon rasped, “Get me out of here!” Then Dagon and the demon closest to him disappeared as that demon teleported them away.

  “No!” my vampire nature screamed.

  Her rage catapulted her back on top. The other demons tried to teleport away, but most of them were too desiccated to summon the necessary power. Ian began teleporting among them, ramming his knife through their eyes before they healed enough to vanish. Still, a few teleported away before Ian got to them.

  “Let me back up,” I said to my vampire half. “I can finish this.” I just had to rip a little more water out of the other demons to ensure their doom—

  “You let Dagon get away!” my vampire half screamed. “Now shut up and stay down!”

  Ian paused in his slaughter to swing an amazed glance my way. “Do you need a moment alone with yourself so the two of you can sort this out?”

  One of the remaining demons took advantage of Ian’s distraction. He muttered a spell and a bright red beam formed, hurtling toward Ian. Ian teleported away, but the beam followed him like a heat-seeking missile. Ian held out his hands, fingers blurring as he conjured up a blocking spell.

  My celestial half shot back on top, sending a frozen wall of bloody water to capture the beam. The beam blasted through it as if it wasn’t there. Ian was still conjuring his blocking spell, but he was out of time. When that red beam slammed into him, my vampire half wrested back control.

  I sucked in a breath that exploded out with relief when that beam bounced off Ian without causing any harm. Instead, it reversed course and aimed itself at the demon who’d cast it. He tried to run, but he was too weak from water loss. I pulled my bone bident from my jacket and hurled it at his face. One end missed his eye, but the other tip sank home.

  I flew at him. Ian beat me, teleporting over and ramming that second tip home before I reached the demon. The demon’s face exploded in a cloud of smoke and sulfur.

  Leah suddenly zoomed past me. The remaining demons began screaming and tearing at themselves in horror over whatever hallucinations the ghost had forced into their minds. It allowed Ian and I to slaughter them with an ease that would have felt cruel if they hadn’t come with Dagon to kill us.

  When Ian was about to shove his knife through the last demon’s eyes, I shouted, “Don’t, I need one alive!”

  He only stabbed one of the demon’s eyes out, muttering, “Hurts, doesn’t it? I certainly didn’t forget that.”

  “I’ll keep this area clear, but you shouldn’t linger,” Leah said before streaking toward the other end of the parking lot.

  Ian glanced at her before his gaze swung back at me. “The spell that demon flung at me bounced right off me. How?”

  “I put a deflection spell on you before I left you. Prevents any magic from touching you that doesn’t come from me, but it only works once.” And it had taken a lot of power to do that spell, but I left that part out.

  Ian snorted. “You had a ghost babysitting me and affixed a deflection spell onto me? Blimey, you make Mencheres look like an amateur when it comes to overprotectiveness! He’ll trip over himself welcoming you to the family when he hears of this.”

  “I’m not part of the family,” I said, ignoring his challenging arch of the brow.

  “Yes you are, and who was that blond sod you sent screaming to his knees before he got away?”

  My shock lasted only a second. Of course Ian wouldn’t recognize Dagon. The demon was the starting point for everything my father had ripped from Ian’s memory.

  “That was Dagon. If, ah, you didn’t know who he was, why did you chuck your knife into his eye?”

  Ian shrugged. “You attacked him first, so I surmised he was the one who most need
ed killing.”

  Dagon needed killing, all right, but it was my father’s spell reacting to Ian’s proximity that had sent Dagon screaming to his knees, not me. “You,” I said to change the subject, shoving my bident under the demon’s remaining eye. “Start talking. What was Dagon doing here tonight?”

  “Kill . . . him,” the demon said, his glance indicating Ian. Then he laughed, a dry, crackling sound. “You’re not supposed to be here . . . halfling. We heard . . . you’d left him.”

  “Halfling. How marginally insulting,” I said mockingly. “Don’t tax yourself thinking up something better, though. You’ll need all your wits to tell me everything Dagon is up to.”

  “Kill . . . him,” the demon repeated, his one eye glaring at Ian.

  My other nature hit the bars of her cage hard enough to make my vision briefly go black. I kept her down, but I was shaken. Was it always going to be like this? Fighting my other half when my stress levels were high?

  “I could rip the last of your water out of you and choke you with it,” I said in a dispassionate tone. I might not let my other nature get control again, but I could pretend I would. “Or, you could tell me what I want to know.”

  “Dagon is . . . weaker.” The demon’s voice cracked even more. Talking must be hard on his shriveled vocal cords. “Needs to slaughter . . . souls that got away . . . to take back power they stole from him. Why Dagon killed . . . the woman in Egypt . . . and others. But he really wants . . . him.” Emphatic nod at Ian. “Used . . . the blood he’d collected from . . . an old amusement park . . . to cast spell to find him—”

  I shoved the blade through his eye. It was that or let my other nature rocket back on top. Hearing how meticulously Dagon had plotted Ian’s death shredded my control.

  “That was premature,” Ian remarked, yanking his blade from the now dead demon’s other eye. “He might have had more information.”

  “Maybe you don’t realize it,” I said between clenched teeth. “But I’m having a problem at the moment.”