by Anne Malcom
I managed a weak wink that felt like sandpaper was trapped behind my eyes.
“Isla’s….” She kept staring at me. “She’s in need in some serious Botox in the form of your blood. So be ready to open a vein in approximately two minutes because if you take any longer….” I could practically feel the anguish across the phone. “You’re going to get to experience the wrinkled version of your beloved that you’d planned on avoiding considering the whole immortal thing. And trust me, this is not a pretty picture.” She was trying to inject some blasé sarcasm into her tone, but it wasn’t even convincing the wrinkled and severely dehydrated being she was talking about.
I felt kind of bad, presenting Thorne with my life in the balance not once but twice.
But then again, I felt worse about the death comment. It did seem to have its eye on me. I imagined death to be like that menacing eye in Mordor in Lord of The Rings, atop a sleek, polished tower, its eye seeing all and snatching them when need be.
The eye was focused on me fully now. And I didn’t like that.
At all.
I thought I was fading away into the nothingness once more when the clearness of his command filtered through even death itself so it was palpable—corporeal, even.
“Hold the fuck on, Isla. Don’t you dare fucking leave me again.” The rough command was yelled through the phone.
So I held the fuck on.
For a moment.
Or longer. It was difficult to tell because I used the warmth that came with that voice and the memory of the heat of his skin to keep the unrelenting chill of death at bay.
And then the heat wasn’t an imagining; it was there, real. A fiery furnace but in a good way. Like I remembered in my human days in Russia, how the cold would seep into my bones in such a way that I was certain my fingers would fall off. And then one of the maids who was thoughtful enough to remember I was a human when my parents forgot, or ignored that fact, would light a fire in my chambers, bringing me a hot mug of wine. I’d cradle the drink in one hand while using the fire to warm me.
That was what it felt like, the cradle of an open flame around me and then the hot sweetness of that drink pouring down my throat.
“Drink, Isla,” Thorne commanded, his voice an echo in my head that had somehow been full of centuries of memories yet empty at the same time.
At first I thought it was too late, that my body would regret the sweet nectar of the blood, that the dryness of my throat would make it impossible to drink.
A hand pushed my hair from my face. “Baby, remember you’re not leaving this world,” he murmured. “Not without me.”
And that was something to make me drink, as was the gentle vibration of his heartbeat that had filled the silence of the roars of memories.
And there was nothing but the heartbeat.
And blood.
And life.
“Cool, so now we know that drug dealers are not a good choice for a post battle snack,” I said, breaking the long and uncomfortable silence.
I grinned at my grim-faced boyfriend, who looked slightly more on the iridescent side than usual. But he still looked hot all anemic. Under fluorescent lights, no less. How did it take me so long to understand he was immortal?
No human looked good under fluorescent lights.
Only few vampires could. Luckily I was one of the few.
Even after a brush with death.
But brushing with death did wonders for the complexion. It kept one young.
I was still tucked in Thorne’s warm embrace. And though I no longer felt the cold from inside my body, it didn’t mean the heat on the outside wasn’t rather nice and I was loath to leave it.
So I didn’t. I spoke from the position in the embrace.
His arms tightened around me as he glared at Sophie, whose brows were furrowed between us in a look that I did not like. It looked far too serious and far-reaching for me. I much preferred the not-so-serious and not-so-far-reaching looks she normally sported.
“How did this happen?” he hissed.
The echo of his voice was filled with emotions that almost felt like my own from the freshness of his blood that was pouring through me.
I felt his fear that was receding, giving way to something more functional, and hotter.
Fury.
In its purest form.
I thought I’d gotten angry, furious. There were more than a few winners of The Bachelor that I so thought shouldn’t have been there, and then there was the family that killed my husband and tortured me over the centuries.
So I had experience with anger.
But nothing was quite like this.
Nothing like the fury of the world, trying to take something away that should be immortal. Not just me. What he felt for me that, because of this connection, seemed almost separate to me. To us. It couldn’t even be contained in two bodies. Two supernatural bodies.
It was within the both of us and somehow residing within the connection that was invisible to anyone but me.
And it scared me.
My own fear that time. Because having his feelings laid out so raw and exposed was somewhat like a mirror, presenting me with the cold reality of my own.
Which was what I had been afraid of.
I loved him. He knew that. I knew that. But even I had been holding back from realizing how much, because it wasn’t the love of those cheesy movies that made your life better for being in it.
It was complete and utter destruction.
It was an ugly kind of love that, in its beauty, coiled around every part of you with a connection to another person that made everything you were dependent on everything that they were.
And that reality, the insanity of it all, scared me more than death itself. Because in the face of love, death was simple.
But then simple wasn’t exactly on the night’s menu after Thorne’s contribution.
Sophie’s face told me that.
And the whole almost dying at the hands of a rebel faction out for my blood, then not being able to do the simplest thing that I had done in the world—kill.
“The witches,” she whispered. It sounded strange. Too throaty for her.
I tried to reason that she might just have a tickle in her throat, considering even the proximity to death left one rather suffering the flulike symptoms that came with exposure.
“They need to die. Now,” Thorne growled.
“I agree. We need to go with my plan,” I said from beside him, the contrast of my even voice and his animalistic growl showing the differences in our sanity. Or insanity. His was only controlled if he let go of the fury into his voice. Mine was never under control, so it gave me free reign to play with the crescendo of my voice. There was nothing like acting out of my tree when I spoke in the same tone of someone working at the DMV.
“And what’s your plan?” a cultured voice asked smoothly. It was smooth in a way that shimmered with the fury beneath the surface of the promise of death.
All eyes darted up to the entrance to Sophie’s office, where Rick and Duncan stood. We’d decided to regroup there after me having the almost dying episode yet again—it was closest and had booze.
We were in dire need of booze, and we didn’t seem to have the best track record with bars.
Dante had made off after it became apparent I wasn’t going to die, and after a rather volatile stare-down with Thorne.
“I’ve got to go check on the bar,” he’d said, glancing at me. “Or what’s left of it.”
“It needed some new décor, and corpses and blood are always an improvement.” I grinned. “You know my details. Send my people the bill.”
He gave another look to Thorne. “Yeah, I will, but the price of the wrong choice at the right time is death,” he warned, then was gone in a puff of black smoke.
“That was Dante,” I told Thorne. “He likes to show off. Trust me, it’s all for show. I’ve done the legwork in finding that out the hard way.” I waggled my eyebrows as I spoke.
Thorne hadn’t been entirely impressed, although I didn’t know if it was because Dante was a demon who feasted on human souls or because I’d unwisely admitted we had bumped uglies. Most likely a combination of the two.
I blamed the blood loss.
And because I liked stirring up trouble.
But trouble liked stirring me right back, considering the king of all vampires was standing in the doorway not one hour after I’d almost died—again—and then I’d decided to tell my boyfriend I’d banged a demon right after he saved my life.
The boyfriend, not the demon. Though I guessed Dante had helped a little, considering apparently he was the one who fought the rest of the vampires off my lifeless corpse and threw me into the van that Scott somehow had waiting at the mouth of the alley.
Rick’s cold eyes flickered over me, the sheer amount of blood covering what I guessed was every inch of my body, then at Thorne and the healing puncture marks at his neck.
If he was surprised or concerned or any of the above, he surely didn’t show it. His façade was hard as ever, but a small muscle in his jaw ticked, almost imperceptively.
“My plan is no plan at all,” I told him happily, deciding not to show my surprise at his appearance or the fury lurking beneath his kingly exterior.
Duncan frowned at me. “I like it, lassie. But I don’t like that you seem to be having all the fun without me.” His own fury was different than Thorne’s, plainly exposed in animalistic beauty, and Rick’s, a cultured mask with a depraved monster lurking underneath. His was cloaked in humor and a flippancy that only came out when he was really mad. I knew at least some of it was from being left out. He didn’t wear concern well, or at all. When you lived forever, you became acquainted with the fact that you couldn’t form attachments too easily, for death would inevitably sever them and you’d be left with a huge gaping hole.
Duncan already had that hole. He’d perfected a persona and a life where it wouldn’t get bigger.
I poked my tongue out at him. “You were the one who wanted to play messenger boy for the king. Is lapdog your new official title? Because the kennel is a little full right now.”
I nodded to the silent werewolf in the corner who hadn’t seemed to need to go off and howl at the moon or anything.
In fact, there had been no howling. And no words. Just staring at Sophie in a weird, intense way that reminded me of the way Thorne was looking at me.
One that got my hackles up in a way that, had we not had a lot going on, I’d totally be investigating that situation.
“How did you know we were here?” I asked, focusing on the task at hand, giving the werewolf the back seat until later. Scott had already explained his presence, as he’d been on the phones at the Sector and heard the reports of a huge battle in a bar, coming immediately since he knew it had to be me.
I reasoned he was just stalking me.
Duncan held up his phone. “Text. Great invention. Saves a lot of pigeons.”
“Okay, well I hope you’re not here on my account. I’m fine, nothing a little slayer blood—of the right flavor, of course—can’t heal.” I gave Thorne a grin, which he did not return.
Rick’s eyes flickered to me, then Thorne, then Sophie. “What is the explanation for this?” he demanded, unbuttoning his suit jacket in order to sit on the sofa across from us.
It was such an inherently human gesture that it was almost jarring, but I was exceptional at going with the flow. And also being pissed off. I was great at that.
“We were getting to that bit before we were so rudely interrupted,” I snapped.
He eyed me evenly. “You are aware I’m still your king?” he said blandly.
“You must have forgotten your crown. I need shiny things to remind me, considering I’m a little forgetful on account of all the near-death experiences,” I replied just as blandly.
At that, Thorne’s façade cracked slightly.
Of course it did. I was insulting his nemesis—who was his nemesis for reasons still unknown, which I would find out when people stopped trying to kill me.
I was hoping for a free week next week.
“By all means, continue your explanation as to how Isla is not only able to survive on blood that should kill her but also almost die when she drinks blood that is designed to sustain her,” Rick invited, tone somehow implying it was all Sophie’s fault.
Monarchs had the niftiest way of shifting the blame.
My hackles went up for my best friend. “Yes, because Sophie was the one who started this war, dragged me into it with blackmail, then got me cursed by a bitchy witch and then almost killed me in order to keep his crown from tumbling from his oh-so-kingly head,” I snapped.
Thorne’s hands flexed around me. “Easy,” he murmured.
My death glare went to him. “I thought you’d be applauding my next plan, which would be to rip his throat out since you two don’t do sleepovers and movie nights,” I snapped.
It wasn’t an empty threat. I was feeling testy, and when I got testy, people died. It was somewhat of a habit.
He met my eyes. “I just need an explanation, and it looks like Sophie has one. So how about we save the throat-ripping plan? Until later, at least,” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“I guess,” I huffed like a child denied chocolate after a meal. Denying a vampire murder after a meal was basically the same thing.
He kissed the top of my head and then focused on Sophie. I did too, but not before glaring at Rick one last time and bringing my finger along my throat slowly in a cutting motion. Obviously this little event made me more childish and murderous than usual.
“You were saying, Sophie?” Rick prompted, as if I didn’t make the gesture or talk at all. Almost as if he didn’t care. But I noticed the slight edge to his voice, the way his jaw was held tight and his stillness on the sofa was too still. Even for a vampire.
Sophie glanced between Thorne and Rick, grinning. Then she focused on me and her gaze sobered. “I’m not an expert on this by any means, but a little reading and a lot of guesswork has me thinking that whatever happened with this curse, it has a caveat that even if you beat it you’re still cursed.” She glanced at the almost-healed cut on Thorne’s neck. “His blood saved you and so it shall sustain you. And only you and only him, for no other blood shall pass through the lips or the veins lest you perish from the lack of the Ichor in your veins.”
I blinked. “Wow, that’s good. Did you just make that up on the fly?” I asked, impressed.
Sophie held up a very old and very boring-looking book.
“Not enough pictures,” I said, squinting at the words squashed together on a page so it was almost unreadable.
“This is a grimoire from almost the first of us. Since records began, as legend goes,” she explained. “Since the four.”
I knew witchy lore had something about four sisters and the four elements, the connection with nature bestowing the powers of the earth within each of them and then birthing the first four witches.
Yawn.
“Looks the part,” I said, deciphering the language to be that of a long-forgotten dialect that even I couldn’t read properly. And I was old enough to be fluent in dozens of languages, both out of necessity and boredom. Plus, I liked being able to insult as many people from different cultures as inhumanly possible.
“It specifically mentions the Herodias sisters,” Sophie continued.
I frowned. “Herodias, as the witch queen, or the princess of the Herodian Dynasty, depending on which history you want to adhere to?”
All eyes went to me. Even Thorne raised his brow.
“What? I read sometimes,” I defended.
Sophie grinned and went back to her little speech. “The Herodias sisters were some of the most powerful witches in ancient times. They were also known for creating havoc.”
I inspected my nails. “Well, I’m sure we would’ve gotten along with them great in other circumstances.”
Everyon
e ignored me.
Sophie sucked in a breath. “Witches are born of the earth, from the soul of nature itself. No god bestowed power over the first mortal women to gain the powers of the elements. Not like the vampires or werewolves.”
Her eyes went to me and then the werewolf in the corner. Their eyes lingered just that smidge too long, the sign of something more.
But then she glanced back to the group at large. “No, it was the benevolent power of nature herself that gifted the first of our kind with gifts.
Not the powers of gods but the powers of mortals unrealized. Or maybe forgotten powers the gods had left strewn about the leaves which had settled into the soil when they wandered the earth.” She trailed her finger over the book, not reciting from it, saying it from memory.
Impressive, I couldn’t even remember what Vogue said the ten essential closet items were for winter, nor the amount of people I was meant to have killed for Lewis this week.
Sophie continued.
“It was neither good nor evil, what the four were blessed with, just power itself. But it is dangerous, that neutrality, especially when put into human spirits. Which is why the most ancient of us created the rules that bind every witch, that forbid the use of natural powers for unnatural acts. Because it’s there. The power.”
Something flickered behind her eyes at that moment, something that would’ve given me chills if I weren’t tucked nice and close to my own personal heat source.
“But that unnatural power, it must be taken using the gift we were bestowed, and it tarnishes it, warps it to something ugly. Malena was not born wicked, as is the way with most of the wicked people. She was the head of the family. In witch covens, it is the oldest girl who is given that place in the family.” Her eyes narrowed at the men in the room. “Witches had the monopoly over feminism before anyone. Warlocks knew that females were the most dangerous. Just a side note, that works in this situation too.” She gave me a wink.
I flashed fang.
“Malena wasn’t happy with rules. She believed that power was a living organism and should be allowed to grow. As did her sisters, Belladonna and Ucillia.”
“Horrific names,” I muttered.
More ignoring me.