by Lucinda Dark
“What’s there to have?” I asked. “All I’ve got are the clothes on my back.” I grinned as dust swirled up against my ankles as I swung my legs back and forth.
Torin rounded the SUV and settled against the car at my side. “You’ve got me,” he argued. “And Mav.”
I lifted a hand and brushed a stray lock off his forehead. “Maybe you’re right,” I replied. “Or maybe I’ll dump y’all in the next town over.”
“Ahh, there’s that Barbie attitude we’ve come to know and dread.” Mav’s voice came around the other side as he strode out of the motel room we’d stopped at to grab showers and rest up before we decided what to do next.
I snorted. “Sarcasm isn’t an attitude,” I said. “It’s an art form. One I dedicate my life to.”
An eternity with a smartass, Satrina commented dryly. How exciting to look forward to.
I smirked but didn’t respond. I knew she cared about me, even if she was just using me as a portal to the mortal realm to alleviate her boredom.
The red wood door with a hanging six that, if one went by the numbers on either side, was probably an upside down broken nine, slammed shut at his back. The card reader beeped, letting us know we were now locked out. Didn’t matter, though, we were done here.
Mav strode around the SUV, popping open the trunk and tossing in the new duffle bag of clothes and supplies we’d procured. I listened as he slammed the trunk lid closed and walked around to the front—where we were parallel parked against the curb. Unsurprisingly—in the middle of the desert Ashwood Mountain had been situated in—there were few cities and towns and even fewer tourists. Aside from our car, the motel parking lot was empty.
“How’s the wound?” Torin asked, his hand sliding across my stomach—fingers grazing the bottom of the giant scab that now took up a lot of Barbie skin real estate.
I caught his hand in mine and held it. “Sore,” I said, “but healing.”
“Not fast enough,” Mav mumbled.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Any news on where Esperanza went?”
Torin shook his head. “No. It’s like she just disappeared.”
“Do you think she really wanted to help him?” I asked, thinking back on when Katalin had taken Arrius down—shocking both him and me—and how immediately after, the black witch had turned and walked out.
She wasn’t the only one to escape, either. A couple of the vampires who’d been in attendance of the ceremony gone wrong had managed to get out as well. I’d been far too hurt at the time to chase her—or them—down.
“I don’t know,” Torin said. “I’d like to think not. She did try to help us.”
“Maybe she thought she had no other choice,” I offered.
“There’s always a choice,” Mav disagreed.
I sighed. The three of us grew quiet, our breaths the only noise aside from that of the surrounding nature—insects buzzing and birds chirping as the sun’s colors bled into the rest of the sky. “So,” I said, “what now?”
It took a moment for anyone to reply. “I don’t actually know,” Torin said, sounding a mixture of tired and lost.
“We could go home,” Mav suggested.
“Can we though?” I asked, turning to meet his gaze. “I mean, we just killed the most powerful vampire in the world, and you and I are no longer human. Can we really go back to being … normal?”
“We never even graduated,” Maverick pointed out. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to do that.”
Torin snorted. “Go figure. The jock wants to graduate.”
“You were a fucking jock too, asshole,” Mav said, leaning around me to punch his shoulder.
I shook my head. “Who cares about graduation,” I said. “We did something a bit more important.”
“Saved the world?” Mav guessed.
I nodded.
“Perhaps…” Torin hedged.
Both Mav and I turned and stared at him curiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Arrius was bad. As bad as they fucking come. The thing is, he had his share of enemies and there are supernaturals in this world that I’m sure laid low because he was there to police them. Who the fuck knows what will happen now that he’s gone. Who’s to say there won’t be someone like him cropping back up in the next few years.”
“There will always be someone like Arrius Priest,” I said. “Hungry for power with no conscience to tell them when enough is enough.”
Maverick grinned as he reached past me and clapped Torin on the back. “Good thing there’ll always be a Barbie Steele.”
I chuckled, adding, “And a Torin Priest and a Maverick McKnight.”
“Yeah.” Torin cast a small smile my way. “Especially now.”
“Yeah…” I trailed off.
Especially now that it’d be a long time before any of us died and it certainly wouldn’t be from natural causes. That was the life and death of a vampire hunter, though. You lived in danger long enough that you expected to die in it as well.
“Come on, let’s go,” Mav said.
Torin reached for my hand and I let him take it. As he helped me hop off the hood, I took Mav’s as well. I didn’t ask where we were going, and to be fucking honest, it didn’t really matter. Wherever they went was where I was bound to be. It was where I was meant to be. Through blood, guts, and glory.
Did You Enjoy Barbie?
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Sneak Peek
Chapter One: Cress
A yawn stretched my mouth as I lounged back on the sun warmed stone rooftop. Even at the depths of twilight, when the air was growing colder, the feel of the dying sunshine on my face lulled me into a listless half-asleep state. Sleeping, after all, was the best past time to have. Not that the nuns of the Abbey of Amnestia would necessarily agree with me, but they didn’t know where I was, so I didn’t have to listen to their scolding and I could nap in peace.
It was only the ricocheting clanking sounds of someone climbing up the creaky old half-rusted ladder I’d stashed on the side of the storehouse that drew me out of my dreamy state. I peeked one eyelid open as a petite form appeared over the side of the stone roof—wispy strawberry blonde hair flitting in the semi-cool breeze. I sighed.
“Sister Lena is going to be so mad at me if she finds out the reason your missing is because you came looking for me again,” I commented lightly as Nellie finished clambering onto the slanted rooftop.
“Sister—ugh!” Nellie grunted as she gripped the end of the roof and shimmied up and over the last rung of the ladder where there was still a two foot difference from that to the roof—“Lena,” she continued once she was stable, “wouldn’t have anything to worry about if you’d stop coming up here.”
Nellie crawled across the space left until she made it to my side. I let my eye slide shut again now that I knew she was safe. She may only be a year or two younger than me but there was something fragile about her, something that was far too delicate to be climbing up onto rooftops—not that I was much taller—but let’s be honest, I was far more adept at not killing myself. Most of the time, anyway. Minor bruises, some fractured bones, and lacerations were not cause for concern when it came to me. Just the norm. The Sisters like to say that I was prone to accidents. I liked to say that accidents were prone to me. “Where else am I going to find a place to nap? If I try to stay in my bed, Sister Madeline finds me and makes me work in the stables.”
“You’re just lazy,” Nellie snapped. “Maybe if you did your work, Sister Madeline wouldn’t have to chastise you so much.” I didn’t have to see it to know that Nellie had both of her fists planted on her hips as she sat on her knees and glared down at me. Sister Lena did that same thing when she was pushed past her breaking point, and Nellie followed that woman around like she was her little duckling.
I grinned without opening my eyes, the feel of it stretching my cheeks. “She c
an chastise all she wants,” I replied. “It won’t suddenly turn me into her favorite person.” I re-cracked the same eye. “Or make me not want to nap. Napping is the best.” I closed my eye again.
Nellie huffed out a breath and a moment later, I felt her petite form thump beside me as her arm brushed my side. “Heard you refused to eat again today,” she said quietly making me stiffen.
“I didn’t refuse,” I said, pouting petulantly. “I just ... told them I wasn’t hungry.”
“Did you tell them you weren’t hungry after calling them murderers and dumping a plate of ham on someone’s head?”
I grimaced and then snorted. I had done that, but only after the sisters in charge of feeding us orphans had called me an ungrateful leech who was too lazy and stupid to survive if it weren’t for their goodwill. I wasn’t ungrateful for everything they did, but I couldn’t stomach some of the things that made their way across the table—specifically if said things had previously had a face. And since we were surrounded by farmland, a lot of faces made it across our table—pigs, cows, chickens, and even wild boar. But the meat, for some reason, always made me sick.
“You can’t call what they were trying to serve ham,” I replied tartly, opening my eyes. “It was burnt to a crisp and smelled of oil. I was pretty sure they just stuck some mold and meat together and tried to burn it so no one would notice.”
“And if it hadn’t been burnt?” Nellie pressed. “If it was just ham, would you have eaten it?” When I didn’t answer, she sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you, Cress.” She shook her head forlornly. “You have to eat.”
“I do eat,” I reminded her, staring up as a cloud drifted in front of the sun.
“Usually when kids refuse to eat, it’s their vegetables they’re not interested in. That’s all you eat. It’s probably why you’re so short.”
I sat up and turned, casting her a dark glare. “I am not short,” I snapped. I was perfectly acceptable height for my age. I was taller than a midget, for sure. Though to be fair, only by a few inches. I scowled. “You’re not one to talk. You’re a whole three inches smaller. I’m still the taller one of us both.”
“I’m seventeen,” she deadpanned. “I’m still growing. You’re twenty—almost twenty-one.”
I groaned and flopped back against the roof. She had a point. “I don’t know why I can’t eat it,” I admitted quietly. “I’ve tried before—it just made my stomach hurt really bad for days. Sister Lena thought I was gonna die.”
“Pretty sure Sister Madeline would’ve liked that,” Nellie muttered.
I laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. She hates me.”
Nellie looked at me, her soft brown eyes beseeching. “Just come down and do your chores and eat, won’t you? Be nice to the sisters and when the Abbess gets back from her trip, maybe they won’t mention everything.”
I snorted at that. “They always mention it, doesn’t matter what I do.”
I turned my head and looked out over the vast countryside. Sheep and cows munched on dry grass in the near distance. Small little hut houses dotted the land, most of them in a collection not far from our little convent. I glanced down and picked at a piece of fringe from the frayed hem on my uniform shirt—it was just like the one Nellie wore. The nuns had taken us in—some as babies like I’d been and some as older children, like Nellie—but none of us were unique in their eyes. We were just mouths to feed, more and more arrived every day as orphans from the southern wars with the Fae.
Across the small Courtyard of the abbey’s land, church bells for evening service rang. Nellie sat up abruptly. “Oh shoot,” she said. “We’re late.”
“You can make it if you shimmy down and cut through the kitchens,” I said absently as I settled back against the stones.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked as she crawled back across the roof towards where the ladder was.
I shook my head and let my eyes slide shut as the sun began to set over the horizon. “Nah, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’d rather take another nap.”
She scoffed. “If they catch you sneaking in after missing evening services, they’re going to thrash you.”
“That’s if they catch me,” I replied, opening my eyes and shooting her a grin as she slipped over the side of the roof.
When just the top of her head was visible, she narrowed her gaze on me and huffed. “Fine,” she snapped. “Suit yourself. It’s your hide that’s gonna be reddened before the day is through.”
I shrugged, which only served to irritate her more and true to her age, she rolled her eyes at me before disappearing altogether, leaving me to relish in the last remaining rays of sunlight as the big glowing red ball of heat slipped behind the mountain range. I didn’t understand it, but feeling the sun on my skin—even as far from it as it felt like our little backwoods rural community was—made me feel energized. I’d lied when I said I was going to take a nap. The truth was that I’d been waiting for the evening service all day. Every day, like clockwork, the nuns—or brides of Coreliath as some referred to them—would gather the rest of the orphans and preach about the feats of the God King they spent their lives worshipping, forgoing all physical pleasures and remaining chaste in the hopes that he would pluck the most virtuous of them to live with him in the afterlife.
While they were absorbed in their prayers, however, I had to think about the real world. Sure, Gods might’ve been real once—long ago—but now we had more tangible monsters to concern ourselves with. Like starvation and homelessness. In two days’ time, it would be my twenty-first birthday and that meant that in less than forty-eight hours, I’d be exiled from the Abbey of Amnestia unless I took the vows of chastity required of the Brides of Coreliath. I laughed internally at that thought.
Yeah, fat chance of that happening. I didn’t want to remain a virgin for the rest of my life. I wanted them to exile me. I needed to leave these walls. The sooner I did, the better. Who wanted to be stuck on the same little patch of land for their entire lives? Certainly not me. I was getting out even if it killed me. Which it might. Hopefully not. But I mean ... there was always a chance. What with dangerous Faeries and all sorts of other creatures crawling over the countryside, and I’d been known to trip over nothing but air a time or two.
It was a blessing that our little rural community was as far from the war as possible. When I was kicked out, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about running headfirst into a battlefield. Knowing my luck, I’d somehow find a way. I swore, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was cursed by Coreliath—but why would he give a shit about a nobody like me? Answer: he didn’t. Thank the Gods. But that left me with one understanding—I was the one responsible for all of my mishaps and accidents. Clumsy, thy name is Cressida.
Still, my impending deportment from the Abbey brought with it other ... issues. If I was gonna be homeless for the foreseeable future, I’d need far more than the scraps they were likely to give me—barely enough for a three day journey. I’d need money to get, well, basically anywhere.
I sat up as the church bells rang into silence and the sound of the church’s large door echoed up the stone buildings’ exterior walls as it was slammed shut. It was time to execute plan A.
I slipped down the ladder and headed for the convent’s main building. It housed the nuns’ sleeping quarters, but more than that, it housed the Abbess’ office—the head honcho, the big cheese, the end all be all of the Sister’s lives—other than their imagined God husband. The Abbess was rarely ever there—since she chose to traverse the countryside for some ridiculous reason or another—spreading charity or love or whatever Abbesses did. A horse whinnied at me as I passed through the stables and I lifted a palm with a smile, pressing a finger to my lips with a wink.
“Shhh, Isabelle,” I whispered. “You don’t want to get me caught, do you?”
I shook my head with a small smile as if the horse could understand me, but she quieted nonetheless, stomping her feet in her hay before s
he turned her head and whipped a bit of her mane into my face. Rude horse. I chuckled anyway, flicking her dark horsehair out of my face. “Sassy girl,” I chastised, reaching through her stall to give her a gentle pat before I continued on my way.
I peeked into the empty Courtyard, darting my gaze left and then right before I left the safety of the stables and raced up the front steps and into the building. I had to go faster, move quicker—before anyone thought to leave the church. Before the chance was gone. The Abbess’ office was in the back—next to the kitchens and the nuns’ sleeping quarters. I hurried for it, pausing when I thought I heard someone beyond the kitchen doorway.
Sweat coated the back of my neck, making the white-blonde strands of my hair stick to me. I gulped back a breath, reaching for the doorknob, turning it, and moving at the same time as a footstep creaked on the wood flooring several paces down the hallway. I eased the door shut behind me and pressed my back to the door, panting with relief when a woman’s voice—Sister Madeline’s, I realized—sounded from beyond the door. A few seconds more and the mean, old coot would’ve caught me.
“Stupid girl, of course she’s not here. Where the hell could she be? Missing evening service after all that she’s been given. Ungrateful little—” I breathed a sigh of relief when her voice faded off down the hall. She’d been in the building looking for me. That wasn’t surprising. Her vitriol didn’t surprise me either. From Sister Madeline, it’d always been ‘you’re such a lazabout’ this or ‘can’t you do anything right?’ that. I could certainly do things right. I could hold my breath underwater for two and a half minutes. According to Nellie, that was an accomplishment and I’d take those when I could get them.
I let my head sink back on my shoulders as I stared up at the ceiling. My heart thundered in my ears, and it took several moments of even breaths to calm it. Once I had it under control, I looked back to the rest of the room. A large oak wood desk with a plush cushioned chair behind it. Velvet drapes lined the window even further back and twin floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves lined the walls. I whistled quietly as I tiptoed further into the space. I’d never been called to the Abbess’ office before, and to my knowledge, none of the other orphans had either. I wondered what Nellie would do if she knew that the Abbess was living large while we were all scraping to survive.