How to Kiss an Undead Bride

by Edwards, Hailey

  “I’m the best man.” He tapped his own button. “I do what I want.”

  “Fight me for it.” Lethe began bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Winner takes the club.”

  The way Hood looked ready to devour his mate on what should have been a dance floor prompted Linus to clear his throat. “Ride for it.”

  “I like the way you think.” Lethe channeled her aggression into a little dance. “Me first.”

  “We can do this all day,” Hood drawled. “It’s not a fair test.”

  The next round of insults faded into the ever-present wail of wraith song screeching through his mind. As Grier entered the bar, he was granted a reprieve, her presence a lull in the storm of his thoughts. She wore her dark hair parted down the middle and woven into long braids. Her pale-blue eyes shot past the gwyllgi straight to him, and the warmth in her smile drew him off his stool.

  “Hello, lover.” She slid her arms around his waist, pressed her face into his chest, and exhaled with a simple happiness to see him that caused the cold to retreat precious few degrees. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “I like the braids.” He flicked one over her shoulder. “They’re nice.”

  “They make me feel ten years old, but you wouldn’t believe the night I’ve had so far. I wanted my hair out of my face, and Neely swore this style fit the theme best.” She smoothed her palms across his chest, her fingers tracing her favorite of his tattoos. “I like your pajamas.”

  Lethe might have dressed her up in costume, but at least she had dressed her. Hood, who lived in cutoff sweatpants turned shorts in his downtime, didn’t see the problem with Linus’s bedtime attire.

  “Get off the bull,” Lethe shouted across the room at Hadley. “I need to teach my mate a lesson.”

  Adelaide stiffened, ready to defend Hadley, but Hadley slid off without complaint.

  “That’s rude,” Grier yelled at Lethe. “Mind your manners.”

  Lethe tapped a finger against her chin. “Nope.”

  “Too many dominant gwyllgi in too competitive an atmosphere.” Grier just shook her head. “Lethe’s been on edge all night. Proximity to her mother has her instincts going haywire, and Tisdale has not helped things. I definitely see where Lethe gets it from. Maybe this will get it out of her system until after the wedding.”

  “She’s used to shouting orders at pack.” He kept an eye on Hadley, and her temper. “Not everyone here is her subordinate.”

  “Trust me, the others won’t complain.” Her eyes twinkled, drawing him in. “Not unless they want Lethe to perform a colonoscopy on them with her boot.”

  Lethe approached the bull’s handler and dropped a crisp bill in his tip jar. He gave a short nod and mashed a button that caused the scarred bull to rattle and shake, its seams to crack, and its eyes to open, exposing red lights that flashed like taillights when it blinked.

  “It’s like a Transformer.” Grier jiggled his arm. “Keet would lose his little bird brain over this.”

  Where the homely bull once stood, a metallic sculpture of melded fantasy creatures had taken its place.

  Razor-sharp horns replaced the dull ones. Wings that pumped with animatronic clicks spread from the split down its spine. Gone was the leather hide, and in its place were sleek scales that would make gripping impossible. Its eyes glowed red, and four stout legs extended from its belly as it folded in the pole where it had been mounted.

  “What is…?” Hood gaped at the beast. “How did you know?”

  “Hadley,” Lethe said simply. “She did the research.”

  Confusion twisted up his face when he swung his head toward Hadley.

  “What?” She shrugged. “I believe in the power of Google.”

  “No.” Hood pointed a damning finger at it. “No one on Google mentioned that.”

  “Well, not outright. There are hints, but you have to know the code.”

  Rubbing his forehead, Hood studied her. “There’s a code?”

  “Hadley has a review addiction,” Midas explained for her. “She won’t eat, shop, or attend an event without digging through its online records first.”

  “Whatever.” Lethe shoved through them. “Me first.”

  “Want to get a closer look?” Grier ribbed him with her elbow. “This should be hilarious.”

  “Those wings look functional.”

  “You think the floorshow will come to us?”

  Based on the open ceiling, and the bar’s central location… “We have front-row seats.”

  “And me without my popcorn.” She angled for the best view. “How are you enjoying your night?”

  “It’s been interesting.” This twist meant it promised to get even more so. “You?”

  “Interesting is a good word. Let’s stick with that. Also, how do you feel about kids?”

  The boom of his heart pounding in his ears deafened him to the spectacle around them. “Kids?”

  “Baby goats.” She scanned his face then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist.” Burying her face against his shoulder, she shook with laughter in his arms. “Your face. You should have seen it. Gah. Why didn’t I think to record it?”

  Kissing the top of her head, he sighed. “You spent entirely too much time with Lethe while I was gone.”

  “Possibly,” she admitted easily. “You can thank her for the curves.” She pulled back to smooth her hands down her hips. “Eating like a gwyllgi is the only way I can keep on the—”

  An explosion of sound—part animal and part machine—left his ears ringing, and they both spun toward the modified bull. It stamped its front leg, snorted and tossed its head, and jittered its wings.

  “Goddess,” Grier breathed, taking an automatic step toward her friend. “Lethe, are you sure…?”

  “Yeehaw,” Lethe hollered. “Let’s see what this thing can do.”

  “Don’t fret, Miss Potentate, ma’am.” The bartender passed Grier a glass of clear liquid neither Grier nor he were foolish enough to assume was water. “No one who walks in on this will be anything other than jealous Hank flipped the switch on the mechadrabull before two. They’re ornery critters. It’ll give you twice the fight for waking it up early.”

  “Mechadrabull,” Grier echoed, a bit awed by the creature. “Where did you find it?”

  “Hank breeds them. They reproduce maybe once every two-three hundred years.”

  A delighted laugh escaped her. “That explains why he’s got a part-time job in a bar.”

  “We couldn’t handle it otherwise. Like I said, they’re damn ornery critters.”

  “But they’re alive? Like real animals?”

  “They’re something,” he agreed, selecting a glass to polish. “Maybe ask Hank about it if you’re interested in putting down a deposit on his next calf. They run four—maybe five—hundred.”

  Her brows drew down. “Four or five hundred dollars?”

  “Thousand.” He moved on to wiping down the bar. “Talk to Hank.”

  “I’ll do that.” She leaned in close to Linus and whispered, “When pigs as well as mechanical bulls fly.”

  The creature began walking, stretching its limbs after a long confinement. Its gait proved too fluid to be anything less than a living creature, and Lethe adapted, getting a feel for how it moved.

  “Diesel,” Hank mumbled. “Get.”

  Diesel got.

  Lurching forward, he kicked up his heels and extended his wings, jostling his rider. Lethe acted cocky up until Diesel took flight. After that, she resembled a child who had gotten her wish of a pony for her birthday granted a day early.

  Unable to restrain himself, Hood took a single step forward before noticing his faux pas. He downplayed it by leaning his elbows on the top rail of the enclosure before Lethe’s mom could take exception to him thinking—even for a second—that her daughter needed his help.

  “You’re the professor.” Grier gawked after Lethe and Diesel. “Profess.” She pointed. “How is it doing that?”

&
nbsp; The creature planted its feet midair, the logistics of which piqued his interest. Bucking, whirling, pawing, kicking, snorting, Diesel flew in zigzag patterns and performed barrel roles to unseat his rider but to no avail.

  “I have no idea.” A thrill zipped through him at having learned something new. “I’ve never heard of a mechadrabull.” He drummed his fingers on the bar, itching to do the research, his inquisitiveness as much a curse as a blessing. “I promise you I will rectify that tonight.”

  Gazing up at him with good humor, Grier chuckled. “You’re so cute when you’re in professor mode.”

  “It’s dangerous to have unknown supernatural creatures in town.” Hardening his eyes, he stared down his nose at her, a tactic that had resulted in at least one of his students releasing their bladders. “Particularly ones who blend so well and have regular contact with humans.”

  “Not buying the act.” She patted his cheek. “You’re adorable for trying to scare me, though.”

  Unable to hold on to the mask with her, he tossed it aside. “Most people are afraid of me.”

  “Most people haven’t seen you reenact key scenes from Titanic with an undead parakeet.”

  Heat, as much as he could produce, flooded his cheeks in a stinging rush. “You promised never to speak of that.”

  “No.” She drilled a finger into his chest. “I promised never to tell anyone else you lifted him like Simba in The Lion King so he could be king of the world or whatever.”

  Much to her distress, Keet had also learned how to make a glug, glug, glug noise, which he paired with flopping onto his back on the hardwood with his legs sticking in the air. For a while, he used a piece of toast for his “door” to “float” on, but Lethe ate it.

  “We could start a tab for some of Lethe’s young adults, send them out barhopping and get an idea of what’s out there right under our noses. Hadley’s good at code-breaking reviews. Maybe she’ll give us a crash course in reviewese.”

  “You’ll have to start a lottery,” he mused. “Draw a winner every month to keep it fair and prevent management from noticing they’re under surveillance.”

  Otherwise, there would be bloodshed. On both fronts.

  “I like you.” She patted his shoulder. “P.S. I’m going to let you draw names.”

  “I assumed the dubious honor would fall to me.”

  “I’m pack. I can’t be seen showing favoritism.”

  Aware of the true reason, he called her out on it. “You don’t want to explain to Lethe why her name never gets drawn.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  Linus angled his head toward the bartender, about to ask for a fresh drink, when sudden impact with Grier’s shoulder knocked him off his stool. He landed beneath Grier, her hands cradling the back of his skull to prevent it from hitting the poured concrete floor, and he gripped her shoulders, yanking her flat against him as Diesel pranced over their heads to the tune of Lethe’s maniacal laughter.

  “I’m not riding that thing,” she breathed, her lips brushing his. “I can’t die the night before my wedding.”

  “I agree.” He helped her stand then rose to his feet. “I have an idea.”

  Always up for mischief, her eyes sparkled with delight. “Will it get us in trouble?”

  “For ditching our bachelor and bachelorette parties?” He pretended to mull it over, but he had long since made up his mind. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  * * *

  All eyes remained trained on the ceiling where Lethe blazed a jagged path on Diesel. Money exchanged hands within their small group, Tisdale at the heart of the betting. With their attentions fixed elsewhere, I downed the freebie shot from the bartender for courage then coughed until one of my lungs detached.

  The liquor shot straight to my head in a rush that left me deafened by the pulse banging in my ears. “What was that?”

  “House special.” Weathered skin folded into deep creases when the bartender grinned. “We call it Diesel fuel.”

  Afraid of the answer, I didn’t ask him to elaborate but slapped a twenty on the bar to cover Linus’s tab. I drew obfuscation sigils on us using my modified pen, checked to see if we had been missed yet, then shoved Linus toward the exit.

  Normally, gwyllgi senses would be an obstacle to overcome. Tonight, not so much. The combined noise of the mechadrabull, the earsplitting whistles, and raucous cheers from the pack, meant that Linus and I could barely hear ourselves think as we made our escape.

  Just to be on the safe side, I drew a sigil on the bar across the exit door to muffle its click before depressing it. Giddy with the cheap thrill, we slipped outside and left the others to finish what Lethe had started.

  Hand in hand, we bolted for freedom. Inhaling the cooler air, we savored the blessed quiet and erased the obfuscation sigils to make coordinating our getaway easier.

  “Are we supposed to be together tonight?” I wondered, not really caring about the answer.

  “Do you care?”

  I snorted so hard I wobbled, the alcohol in my belly sloshing. “You really do get me. All the way.”

  Wrapping an arm around my waist, he kept me steady. “You get me too. All the way.”

  “I put a ring on it,” I agreed with him. “You’re all mine.” I whirled away from him, falling into the steps we had been practicing for our first dance at the reception. “Mine, mine, mine.”

  Amusement glittered in his eyes. “Are you drunk?”

  “Why do you ask?” I went to flip my hair off my shoulder and poked myself in the eye.

  Sexy.

  “No reason.” He captured me before I spun into a rain barrel and got tangled in its drip cord. “Are you ready to go home?”

  “That’s the first place they’ll look.” I drew him into the dance. “We have to be sneaky.”

  “We could get a hotel room.” He smoothed my stumbling into a loose waltz. “There’ll be room service.”

  “Marry me,” I breathed, imagining all the damage I could do to a turkey club right about now.

  “I plan to,” he assured me. “Tomorrow, in fact.”

  Cold metal brushed my nape, and I swatted at it, but my hand came away bloody.

  “Y’all made this so much easier than I expected.” A woman chuckled behind me. “Look at you two lovebirds. Drunk as skunks and all alone.”

  The city, who was not fond of me bleeding, responded to the spike in my pulse by throwing out vines to trip our unwelcome guest.

  “You really suck for interrupting our getaway,” I informed her. “Really, really suck.”

  Five minutes alone to be goofy and in love. Five piddly little minutes where we didn’t have to watch our backs. How was that too much to ask? How had we not earned a break?

  In agreement, the city sprouted more vines and cocooned what I now sensed was a vampire.

  “She’s not going anywhere.” Linus searched her for concealed weapons then pried the sword from her hand. “We can wait to call this in until we reach our hotel, if you want.”

  “No.” Sadly, the death threat had sobered me. “It’s too dangerous for us to run off all willy-nilly.” I pricked my finger and drew a sigil on her to knock her out cold. “Volkov is still out there. We shouldn’t be alone. We can take care of ourselves, but there might be collateral damage.”

  Picking up on my meaning, he nodded. “We have a lot of family and friends in town.”

  “A lot of hostages.” I sounded more tired than drunk now. “We have to consider them.”

  “I’ll call the Lyceum and request sentinels come fetch her for questioning.”

  Resigned to our fates, we marched back into the bar and confessed to our escape attempt.

  Twelve

  The now-familiar cocktail of mild dread with a splash of fondness that Boaz inspired in me post-Adelaide swirled through my gut when I picked him out of the sentinels who came to investigate the incident and retrieve the latest vampire assassin/kidnapper/who knows. We hadn’t let it get that far this
time.

  With help from a purging sigil, I had flushed the mystery alcohol from my system, and I was ready to crash. “Get anything out of the vampires we captured in City Market?”

  “They all claim to have been hired by Volkov.”

  The special emphasis wasn’t lost on me. “Claim?”

  “Their descriptions of the guy who hired them match each other’s, but they don’t fit Volkov.”

  That meshed with our expectations. “We already suspected he wasn’t working alone.”

  Linus’s daylight confrontation outside Javier’s shop proved human servants were involved. They might be responsible for the rest too, but I doubted they could infiltrate Lethe’s den without leaving distinct scent markers behind unless they had magical assistance erasing their trails.

  “We’ve got a line on a possible vampire accomplice thanks to the number and email address your interrogation provided. He’s from McLennan County, Texas. Two of the vamps are too. The only reason this guy’s name popped up was a note attached to his file about a rampaging unicorn incident a few years back.”

  Just when you think the world can’t get any weirder. “Rampaging unicorns are a thing?”

  “The guy’s daughter is a Last Seed. He bought a unicorn foal for her twelfth birthday, and it grew up mean, as unicorns do. When it hit puberty, it impaled everything that got in its way, including his daughter.” Boaz scratched the stubble dotting his chin. “Unicorns are a fae problem, but he was an Undead Coalition member. Ultimately, the Society stepped back and let the professionals handle it. The incident was enough to earn him a red flag on his file.”

  And the Last Seed daughter, so much rarer than a son, would explain where Volkov fit. Last Seeds were a vampiric minority, the odds of any one clan having two were abysmal. It wasn’t uncommon for older LS to mentor younger ones, with clan oversight, of course.

  The professionals meant fae marshals. Bounty hunters, really. “The Earthen Conclave sent someone?”

  That would have fallen within the purview of the fae’s ruling body, on this side of Faerie anyway.

  “Thierry something and her partner.” He shot me a cocky grin. “I wish I could have seen that.”