“Bea?” Krista says behind me, ruining the mood.
That’s all I get. A few seconds of bliss and peace. I open my eyes and spin back to face her. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? Mustn’t keep our master waiting.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Villain in My Own Story
At least I’ve made the bastard’s life harder today. Per Krista, Connor’s barely slept all day and spent all last night healing and organizing the arrest to “get me out of enemy hands” as Krista calls it. I just sit in her car with the window down and head resting on the door lavishing in that sunshine. But like all things in this life, it’s over too fast. We reach downtown and the skyscrapers blot out the sun, and its completely taken away from me when we turn into his underground garage. Even without knowing there’s a secret torture room here this place would feel like a tomb. They fixed the gate, and the moment it shuts, my heart leaps into my throat. I’m really doing this. Am I really doing this? Yes. Darn straight I am. Get out of the car and be the bad bitch they need you to be. Ruthless. Cold. Hard. You’ve learned from the greats.
A goon gets the car door for me, and I climb out with my shoulders back and chin up. I don’t wait for them to follow. I know where I’m going. What I’m doing. This minnow has evolved into a shark and its time to swim.
Neil stands at the entrance of the apartment hallway staring down with a scowl that I assume he wishes could kill me as I come up the stairs. Seems he’s fully recovered from last night. Not a dent or scratch. Jerk. I smirk anyway. I’m positive he’d preferred the goon had taken me out to the desert and shot me in the back of the head, but when do we ever get our heart’s desire? I continue smirking at the silently seething vampire. “Hello, minion. See you’re not ready to kiss and make up yet. Not surprising I guess. I can’t recall ever seeing your lips do anything but kiss Connor’s ass.”
“You—”
“Bitch. Cunt. Yeah. Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes as I pass him at the top of the steps. Down the hallway two guards flank the apartment door and both reach into their jackets as I approach. I stop at the door and smile at them both. “Gentlemen.”
Neil finally reaches the apartment door and pounds on it twice. “Come in,” Connor calls from the other side.
And away we go.
Connor sits on the sofa with a laptop beside him and cell phone pressed to his ear. Looking at him in a pair of khakis and royal blue button down no one would ever suspect he’s a cold blooded killer. Considering what I did to him last night I expect a greeting like Neil’s but instead get passivity. He simply nods at me before returning his attention back to his call. “Avril the moment the sun sets I expect everyone here. I have not been able to reach Edgar’s consort all day. He needs to rise now. Send someone there.” Connor listens for a moment. “We shall see. Get it done.” He hangs up the phone before finally looking at me with a frown. “You look dreadful, fairest.”
“Fleeing one’s psychotic boyfriend then spending the day in jail does that to a gal,” I say with a cruel grin.
“Yes. I must apologize for my…tactics. It was—”
“Your tactics? Like trying to force your soul on me? Accusing me of a felony? Those tactics?”
“Yes,” he states as plain fact. “But desperate times call for desperate measures. I—”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, for God’s”—the vampires wince—“sake, just shut up. Just shut the fuck up. After everything just please do me the courtesy of stopping the bullshit. Desperate times…fuck you, asshole. This was you, Connor. This was all you and your boredom and dumbass ambition and pathological need to win so you can feel good about yourself. End of. It’s fucking pathetic. You’re as insecure as a teenage girl, and I see right through you. So save the spin and let’s just get down to brass tax.” I pause. “Ten million dollars.”
Belittling him didn’t get him to drop the poker face but those last three words do. His eyes narrow. “Ten million dollars?”
“With a million every year after as long as I live. Plus you pay for my godchildren’s college all the way through their doctorates if they choose to go that route.”
“I do not…”
“That’s it. That’s the price for half my soul.”
Connor, Neil, heck the guards all stare at me in disbelief and confusion. I stand here under their scrutiny, back straight. Connor catches my eyes, peering in deeply to find the subterfuge. He won’t find any. I mean every word.
“You suddenly wish to become my familiar? Just like that?” Connor asks. “You know what it entails.”
“Yeah. You get to use my power in your dumbass duel, and I get to live the picture of health for an extra hundred twenty-five years as a millionaire.”
“And this is acceptable to you?” Connor asks.
“No. None of this is acceptable to me, asshole,” I snap. “I would kill you dead here and now, but I’m sure you have a contingency plan for that. Probably something to do with my baby nephew, you evil fucktard.” His mouth twitches into a momentary smile. My blood chills a few degrees. I don’t let it show. “There are obvious trust issues here on both parts. I get that. You don’t trust me not to kill you here and now and I sure as hell don’t trust you won’t slit my throat the moment you have your precious LA territory. Which only leaves us…mutually assured destruction. As I understand it as your familiar, I can’t kill you without killing myself and vice versa. That fact will give us both insurance. You hurt my family, reneg on your end of the deal, cue destruction. On your end not only do you get my power, I will damn well fight by your side tonight just to keep my own ass alive. When the bitch is dead, we go our separate ways and I never see your smug face again. After tonight the only contact we’ll ever have is the yearly payoff. I will have no further part of your business, and you do not call me unless your life is in mortal fucking danger. You will cease to exist for me. We kill the bitch, we’re done.”
He’s been scrutinizing me during my whole proposal with one side of his mouth curled up. “You would truly do this? Sell your soul and murder a woman who took you in last night?”
“Well, let’s face it, what choice have you left me? Either of you? You’re both going to keep swatting me around like cats who’ve caught a mouse for how long? Years? And forget about me, fuck me, what about my family? At least this way the bullshit ends tonight, I come out with enough cash to keep my family comfortable, and I get to start a new life away from all this violence. Away from you. Win-win.”
“Not for Antonia,” he points out.
“Her problem, not ours,” I say with a sneer.
“I glean you two did not get along as well as she had hoped,” Connor says.
I grimace. “No. We got along just fine…until I walked in on her and her girlfriend fucking Oliver. So…”
Connor chuckles. “Of course. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” He shifts on the couch. “And what of your gallant, lantern jawed hero?”
“What about him? You don’t touch him,” I say forcefully. “He’s covered under the family clause of our little Faustian deal here.”
Connor chuckles wryly again. “Do you honestly believe he will stand idly by whilst you assist in murdering his friend and lover?”
My mouth twitches. “He said he would. She-she pressured him last night. Took advantage. He’ll see the light. Eventually. But you don’t touch him regardless.”
“And if he attempts to touch us?” Connor posits.
I stand up straighter. “Then he would have made his choice, wouldn’t he?” I swallow. “But it won’t come to that. Not if we stick to my plan.”
“Your plan?” Neil asks with derision.
My gaze whips his direction. “Yeah, asshole. My plan. The plan of a woman whose led close to two dozen missions as a Federal Agent. Who spent all fucking day in jail with nothing but time on her hands to work out every angle that gets her family out of danger and ten million dollars in her bank account. Now shut up and listen.” I return my attention
to Connor. “We move tonight. Now. We have precisely two tactical advantages over her right now: she thinks I’m a weak moron and the element of surprise. As last night’s attempted metaphysical rape proved, you can’t trick someone into becoming your familiar. I have to be willing. As long as she has my family, logic dictates I won’t do anything to jeopardize their lives. So I wouldn’t readily agree to be your familiar. But you do have me. You would just possibly torture me until I agree, but that would take time. Not to mention the longer we wait the bigger the chance one of her spies discovers I’m your familiar and all bets are off. Still with me?”
“Oh, yes,” Connor says with pride.
“She’ll be scrambling tonight to get me back and fortify, to gather intel, so the majority of her underlings will be out. But I know where she works. Sleeps. I know the layout. I suggest you gather a small tactical team, hire us a plane, and we arrive at the bar in force before it opens. An ambush. Then…you finally accept her duel in front of whoever’s there. One of three things will happen: one, you fight with your bright and shiny new talent and win, two, she’ll reneg and you’ll win by default.”
“And the third possibility?” Neil asks.
“Well, the most likely occurrence is she’ll say no, you’ll win by default, and with nothing left to lose, she’ll start a big ass fight in an act of desperation, hence the need for your best and brightest but once again, a lot of you and few of her. You win anyway.”
“We cannot simply all-out attack her. The King—” Neil says.
I look at Neil. “Has already seen my testimony from last night and knows what a bad boy Connor here’s been. However, unless he has a familiar with telekinesis you don’t know about, after tonight’s takeover, not only will Connor be richer and probably more powerful than this King, but in a one-on-one fight, he can take him too.” Back to Connor. “So. Clock’s ticking, asshole. You in or not? Best accept before I change my mind.”
My cautious ex-boyfriend stares at me but asks Neil, “Did our people notice her having contact with any of Antonia’s? Any phone calls?”
“No,” Neil says. “She made no phone calls and the only visitors were Krista and our attorney. Antonia’s he-she was at the courthouse but as you heard what both Krista and Charlie said they spoke only in their presence. And, if she is willing to be your familiar…”
“Mutually assured destruction,” Connor says with a smile my way. “You know, I have never wanted to throw you on this couch and fuck you so badly as I do now.”
“After the familiar ritual if you ever lay a finger on me again, I will rip your dick off and feed it to you, death be damned.”
Connor rises from the sofa. “Well, a hundred twenty-five years is several lifetimes. I may win you over again yet.”
“Please. Like you haven’t already begun looking for a way to sever the tie without killing us both. A hundred twenty-five years wouldn’t be enough for a greedy son-of-a-bitch like you.”
Connor slowly moves over to me, stopping less than a foot away and his eyes never waver from mine. “You know me so well, fairest. And here I thought I knew you.”
“Yeah, well, as someone pointed out to me today, what good has being me gotten me? Time to try being like everyone else. Greedy. Selfish. Cold.”
“Finally wiseing up, I see.”
“Ten million with another million every year. Protection for my family. No contact unless life and death. Accept my terms and you become the most powerful vampire in America, if not the world. So just say yes already and let’s get this the fuck over with.”
Connor smiles again, those violet eyes crinkling. “To mutually assured destruction, fairest.” He turns to Neil. “Charter the plane and cars. Get everyone here.”
“But not too many,” I order. “Only people you trust implicitly otherwise one of her spies could catch wind and fortify. Strong but surgical.”
“You heard our General. Hop to,” Connor orders. Neil rolls his eyes but obeys, whipping out his cell phone and moving to the other side of the room. Connor returns his attention to me. “So…shall we begin?”
I glance at the guards and Neil. “Can we have some privacy please?”
“And be alone with you and a knife? I think not.”
“Still don’t trust me?” I ask.
“I shall in a few minutes.”
“Fair enough. I’ll get the knife, you get my money, Danny Boy.”
“Non-silver please, fairest.”
“Aww. You’re taking all the fun out of this for me,” I say.
“I shall make sure you have plenty of fun tonight. Partner.”
With an eye roll, I turn away from the vampire. As Connor returns to his computer to make me a millionaire, I find a butcher knife in the kitchenette. My hands tremble as I pick it up. I can’t back out now, no matter how terrified I am. I don’t know what to expect. Will this hurt? Will it destroy what’s left of my soul? In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s going to happen regardless. I just don’t want to prolong any of this. I want this night to be over. I just want it all to be over.
Connor types away at his computer and I set the knife down between us. I help him complete the transaction. In less than a minute I become a bonafide millionaire. I used to live in trailer parks, out of a car at times even. Dirt poor. And now I have more money than I know what to do with, and I don’t feel a damn bit different. Nana can finally live in a house without bars on the windows. April won’t have to worry about choosing between doctor visits and groceries for the week. It’s a life changing amount of money and I don’t feel a thing. Not happy, not guilty, just nothing. Connor looks over and smiles. “Congratulations. You are now a wealthy woman. How does it feel?”
“Like I sold my soul,” I say. “Imagine that.”
“When you are sunbathing in Turks and Caicos with a martini in your hand next week I am sure that feeling will be different,” he assures me, patting my hand. After that first part, with a glower, I yank it away. He frowns at the rebuff. “I have kept my end of the bargain. Your turn.”
My stomach seizes. Okay. Okay.
Before I lose my nerve, I pick up the butcher knife and slash my still healing hand where his minion cut me last night. “God—” he winces right along with me, “damn it that hurts! Ugh!” I clench my jaw. “Over the heart too I assume?”
“Yes. I can—”
“I got it,” I snap. After another deep breath, I slice where he “accidently” hurt me last night. He begins removing his own shirt. “We don’t have to have sex during this, do we?”
I hand him the knife. “It would aid the process, yes, but can be avoided as long as enough blood is exchanged and both participants are…open, spiritually, with one another. Kissing, touching and exchanging blood are required though.” He cuts his palm and across his heart with winces. “We can always attempt the ritual once without copulation but if it does not work then we may have no choice.”
I’m so dead inside and out I probably wouldn’t feel a thing regardless. Just close my eyes and think of England, right? Become a literal whore, but at least I’d be a high priced one. “Fine.”
“I have to paint the sigils on your head and heart in our mixed blood,” he explains. He dabs his own bleeding hand then mine with the same finger before drawing on my forehead and over the wound on the swell of my breast before doing the same to himself. Sigils. I’ve seen witches use these to seal spells and ward away bad energy. Just looks like squiggles in a circle to me. “Now…we begin. We must share a great deal of blood. Ingest it. Beginning with me. I have to bite you.”
My nose crinkles up. “Goddamn it. Fine.”
I push my hair to the side and bare my neck. He isn’t gentle. Those fangs sinking in, piercing my skin, hurt a lot more than the cuts. Even worse than the pain of his fangs in my neck is the sensation of him touching me. His hand in my hair, his tongue licking and lips suckling my open wounds. Pure hell.
It seems like an eternity but can only be about thirty seconds before I b
egin growing woozy. He finally pulls away from the blood feast only to kiss me. The blood filling my mouth at least distracts me from the kiss. I can actually tell there are holes in his tongue just like last night. My own has no option but to mingle with his when I’m not swallowing enough blood to almost trigger my gag reflex. Another thirty seconds of this disgusting act and he moves back to my neck. Then we’re kissing again. My neck. I’m almost grateful for the blood loss. I’m so relaxed and don’t even care he’s really kissing me now. Running his good hand through my hair as he did dozens of times before. He pulls away this time to stare in my eyes and clasp our cut hands together. “That is my girl,” he whispers. “Give in fairest. Let go.”
He kisses me again for several seconds before returning to suckling my neck. The wound’s healing so he has to bite again. My own blood pours out. I must have lost three pints by now. Connor stops his feast again to pull me on his lap. Of course he has an erection. I don’t care. I’m so woozy I barely notice as he bites his own wrist again and the blood spews out. As he moves the wrist to my mouth and I continue to gulp down the disgusting liquid. He begins whispering in Latin again, “Sanguinem sanguine meo.” He pulls away his wrist. “When I drink you say it.” He returns to my neck and grinds his pelvis against mine as I repeat the phrase. This time he only suckles for a few seconds before making me feast from his wrist as he says, “Caro de carne mea,” then back to my neck as I repeat the phrase. Back to drinking from him as he repeats the first phrase. Then I do my part as he switches to my neck. Again with the second phrase. As he grinds against me. Repeat. Repeat. He finally looks me in the eyes and says, “Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, we are of one soul, one body. Always mine, always thine.”
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