by Liz Meldon
The vampire chuckled. Malachi’s rage skyrocketed. The elevator started up again, hurrying to meet them.
“I think she will make an excellent addition to the colony,” Serafino continued, fiddling with an unlit cigarette. “I’ve waited so long to find a beauty like hers. Utter perfection.” The bastard had the nerve to face Malachi, those bright greens burning a hole in the side of his head. “You can’t keep her from me. I’m her maker, after all, her master, her sire, and I will take what I am owed.”
The elevator dinged. The doors peeled open. And Serafino huffed an insufferable little chuckle as he strutted forth like he had the right to enter first—like he had won this pitiful little bout with a few incendiary words. His threats were idle, pointless, like a gnat bellowing at a mountain.
And yet he should be punished for them all the same.
Malachi caught him by the back of his neck, one large hand snapped tight around ice-cold flesh. He then slammed the vampire’s face into the wall next to the elevator, over and over again, all his strength engaged. Serafino yowled, flailing but unable to break free. Physically weaker, a hell-born vampire was no match for a chaos demon.
Perhaps this would teach him when to shut his fucking mouth.
And Ella…
Ella belonged to him, and Malachi, firstborn son of the Saevitia clan, chaos demon, legal ruler of Farrow’s Hollow, wouldn’t hesitate to kill for her.
Only he had vowed not to kill today by accepting the summons. He had agreed to it with a bloody fingerprint pressed to the summoning parchment. Serafino’s presence in that fucking conference room was the only thing keeping him alive.
He pounded Serafino into the wall until it broke, until he hit drywall and splintered wood, until the vampire was more blood than flesh, every bone in his face shattered. Broken teeth littered the ground between them, and after a quick count, Malachi knocked the last of them out with a few more precise hits.
The elevator dinged. The doors trundled closed; Malachi blocked them with his free arm. They bounced off and peeled back, the cabin empty and waiting. Wordlessly, he tossed the bloodied vampire on the floor; then, still holding the doors open, he ground every fucking tooth into the floor. Fangs and all.
With that sorted, he smoothed a hand down his jacket and sniffed, pleased that not a speck of vampire blood marred the fabric. His inner demon rejoiced, foaming at the mouth for more as Serafino lay groaning at his feet, brutalized but alive, blood pooling around him. Malachi strolled into the elevator to spare his oxfords the mess, then pressed the button to take him to the ground floor.
Serafino glowered at him, trembling, shattered, and Malachi waited until the last possible moment, just before the doors closed, to smirk.
Because that—that was how you won a bout, motherfucker.
Chapter Eleven
Leaning over the bathroom counter, Ella gave herself one last scrutinizing look, from the lip color to the eyeshadow to the brown mascara she had never used before, confirming that her face matched her neck. When every element met her exacting standards, she straightened with a grin, then high-fived her hazy reflection.
Land of the Living status—unlocked!
It had taken her almost two hours to get it right, experimenting with the mountain of product Moira had picked up for her this morning. Tonight would be her first outing since the attack; the entire house had given her the stamp of approval to be around the general public again, and Ella didn’t intend to go to Rose’s Corner, one of the most exclusive restaurants in Farrow’s Hollow and owned by Alaric’s dad, looking like she had crawled out of a crypt. Of course, Moira had insisted she looked fine before, but the pallid, bloodshot raccoon eyes thing just wasn’t a style she wanted to rock outside the house.
Now, however, using shades of makeup that would have looked wrong with her skin tone before, she had found her sweet spot. A faint flush in her cheeks. A light brown eyeliner dotted over her cheeks to make her freckles pop. Skin contoured to suggest she had at least an hour of sunlight a day instead of living like some basement dweller. Before her makeup experimentation had begun, Ella had showered, then straightened her hair and worked it into twin fishtail braids. Taking a step back from the mirror, she decided that in that moment, she almost looked human.
Actually, no. She fiddled with her mustard-yellow sweater, smoothing out the rolls and tugging down the hemline. Ella had worked hard on her appearance all afternoon, counting down the hours until sunset after Moira left for her usual Friday evening meeting with Zachariah. She had started over, fresh-faced and frustrated, more times today than she had in years.
This had taken effort and skill.
And you know what?
She did look human. Ever since that night with Malachi, she had been feeling more her old self, like her mind had finally unlocked all the emotion and feeling this damn curse had tried to suppress. Gone was the purely reptilian brain, completely fixated on feeding and biting and fucking. In its place, some semblance of her old self. Cordelia had told her it would come back, and now her patience was finally starting to pay off.
Physical feelings had started to trickle in as well; today when she had caught her foot on the corner of her bed, she’d actually felt the twinge of pain blooming in her angry little pinky toe. Bit by bit, Ella was finding herself again.
Tonight would be a big test for her, being around so many beating human hearts, and she needed all the battle armor she could muster. Hence her favorite yellow cardigan and her most flattering pair of jeans. A full face of makeup. Hair done. A subtle perfume spritzed. Confidence climbing.
Her phone alarm sounded from the bedroom, and she padded back in to shut it off, tripping over one of Malachi’s discarded boxer briefs along the way. Shaking her head, Ella scooped it up and tossed it in the laundry hamper next to her closet. One of his shirts also caught her eye, a sleeve poking out from under her duvet cover. Before that one joined the silky black briefs in the pile, she brought it to her nose and sniffed, long and deep, a swarm of butterflies fluttering to life in her belly.
The chaos demon had been gone since Saturday, almost immediately after his top secret meeting downtown. Ella had snorted when she’d realized all his dramatics had been for nothing, all that secrecy a waste, because Malachi had been summoned for a presentation about a resort proposal. Confirmed by Cordelia, said presentation had been bureaucratic and not even remotely worth the air of intrigue he’d crafted around it beforehand.
Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much time for teasing, not when Malachi and Cordelia stated that they needed to return to Hell somewhat urgently. Neither had offered any real explanation, leaving Alaric just as thrown off as Ella—though at the time, she had felt considerably worse. After all, this wasn’t the first time Malachi had up and left without explanation.
This time, however, he hadn’t disappeared in the dead of night, not even the early hours of the morning. He’d sat down with her for a final feeding—only from his arm, which was nowhere near where Ella wanted to feed from—and let her drink way more than usual. Then, with an expression far too serious for her liking, Malachi had taken her by the chin and forced her to meet his gaze.
“I’ll explain everything when I find the proper answers,” he’d insisted softly, fiercely. Ella had swallowed her frustration, clutching his wrist with both hands, eyes dipping down to his lips on their own accord.
“Can’t you give me something?”
“We’re investigating a demon we met at the summit. I personally don’t believe he’s a threat, but that’s all I can say until I’m completely certain. You’ll be perfectly safe with Moira and Severus in my absence.”
“But—”
“This is your first test, little vampire,” Malachi had murmured, sweeping her hair back before stealing a kiss, deep and slow, the kind that made her toes curl. When he broke away, he did so with palpable reluctance, the strain obvious. “I will be gone for several days, perhaps even a week, but I will return for you. Keep your b
loodlust under control.”
Despite her eyes narrowing, Ella had smirked, one hand falling to his chest to toy with a shirt button. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
And then he’d kissed her again before disappearing into the sunlight with no further explanation. That had been almost a week ago, and while the hunger pains came and went, Ella felt in control. Drinking from him, curbing her appetite with Malachi’s help, had given her the confidence that she could survive a night out.
Or, more likely, that the humans around her could survive her night out.
Rather than tossing Malachi’s button-down into the hamper, she folded it neatly and set it at the end of her bed. Keep your bloodlust under control. Honestly, if he walked in the door right now, she would have gone full leech, but without him, Ella almost found it easier to keep her appetite in check. Sure, she could drink from Moira or Alaric, but she had grown accustomed to a chaos demon blood diet—to the sensual high it brought out of her.
Human blood just didn’t have the same appeal.
Now, if Malachi was gone until Christmas, the holiday three short weeks away, then maybe all those gains made might just—poof—disappear. For now, she would make the most of her newfound self-control.
Hell, Ella planned to celebrate it with all her favorites in approximately… She stood up on her toes to see her bedside clock over the curve of her pillow. Two minutes. Two minutes to a completed sunset. Two minutes until she was out the door and into the real world again.
She let out a giddy little squeal, then hunkered down in front of her closet’s shoe rack, on a quest for just the right pair. Too snowy for heels. Too dressy for galoshes. Black boots it is. Tying the outfit off with a maroon infinity scarf, she was ready by the time two minutes had rolled around, and with the sun well below the horizon, it was finally safe to…
Go outside.
Three weeks in the house. Three weeks of change and upheaval and disappointment and heartache and confusion.
Bundled up in her olive-green winter jacket, the hood lined with faux-fur, Ella hurried down all the staircases and threw herself outside. For a few moments, she clung to the doorknob, staring, trembling, breathing in the frigid evening air—something she didn’t need to do, just like wearing this huge jacket. But she did it to feel alive, to confirm that even though she had dropped out of school and quit her job and forsaken just about everyone she knew, the world hadn’t stopped turning. Life would—and could—go on.
The air tasted exquisite. Cold and crisp and dry. Two-foot mounds of snow lined the street, piled up at the curb and kissed with a topping of gravel and salt and muck. It was a typical night in early December: cold but not as cold as it was going to get. Dark, biting, boring.
And Ella loved every second of it.
She stilled when a couple strolled out of the apartment building next door, arm in arm, wrapped up in scarves and toques and thick jackets. They meandered by, chatting, smiling, not paying Ella any mind. Her senses, already on high alert, ramped up a notch—to the point that she could hear their hearts beating, the oxygen filling their lungs, the blood pounding through their major arteries.
Panic kicked in—and then subsided when the pair passed unharmed. At no point did her body respond without her consent. No sudden appearance of her fangs, though her gums ached with interest. Her mouth filled with saliva, but a few gulps and a calm, reassuring little speech under her breath had things settling again. Ella was hungry, but not hungry enough to attack two random people on the street.
Not hungry enough to go after the trio of women who strolled by shortly after, crossing the street at a break in the snowdrifts and jogging over to the shoe shop.
She let out another purposeful exhale, watching her breath briefly fog and then vanish. This was doable. Tonight would be a success, even if she only made it through appetizers at the restaurant.
Appetizers she had no intention of eating, of course, but she loved watching her friends eat, savor, and enjoy food for her.
With Alaric handling some business at the Inferno, Severus had left a half hour ago for campus, like he always did on Fridays, to pick Moira up from her session with Zachariah. The incubus had offered to wait, to escort Ella to Rose’s Corner and have Alaric meet her before he popped over to collect her bestie, but she had shooed him away with a smile. She could do this—walk down the street, go inside a restaurant, ask the host for Alaric’s usual table—all by herself.
She had to, for her own sake.
Excitement threatened to turn her legs to jelly, to make her hands tremble at her side. Without issue, Ella walked half the distance to the restaurant, passing humans along the way, and successfully crossed the street amidst the obscene glare of car headlights. Just up ahead, the great black awning for the Inferno looked like it could use a good brushing, about three feet of snow piled on top—not that the university kids who were already lined up outside at the velvet rope cared about a bit of snow.
“Well, well, well… Look at you.”
Ella stilled, fear tickling the back of her neck. That voice—that deeply masculine rumble, a teasing whisper that caressed the inside of her skull. She had been blocking it out for days now, the whisper growing louder in Malachi’s absence. Once again Ella had kept it to herself, not wanting the others to think she was losing her mind to bloodlust, to the vampiric monster inside.
But the voice wasn’t in her head this time.
It was… here. Outside.
In her periphery, a shadowy figure rose from the candle shop’s stoop. Christmas decorations lined the front windows, their little white lights welcoming, beautiful against a backdrop of peppermint-swirl candlesticks and holiday wreaths. The shadow descended the two concrete steps with a chuckle.
“If I didn’t know better, I might have thought you’d changed back.” An icy finger drifted down her cheek. “But we both know that’s impossible. Surely you’ve been told, Ella, bella…”
Something reminiscent of adrenaline finally kicked in as she staggered away. Deep in the recesses of her mind, the old Ella urged her to run. Run toward the crowd. Lose him in the restaurant.
But she wasn’t her old self. Not really. Even if snippets had crept back into her life over the last few days, she wasn’t the running type.
So she faced him, shoulders back, chin lifted. A slight tremor touched her hands, her lips, but she stood every inch of her five foot four, on the verge of screaming get the fuck out of my head…
Her bravery faltered when she saw his eyes. Bright green and flecked with gold, impish yet ancient.
She remembered those eyes.
Finally, she remembered.
“You…” Words failed her. The best she could manage was an accusatory point of her rigid finger. “You…”
“Bella, why have you been ignoring me?” he crooned. He swept a hand through his raven-black locks, and a predatory grin kicked up his lips as he strolled toward her. “Can’t you hear when I call? Can’t you feel it?”
The backs of his knuckles ghosted along her cheekbone, and he tipped his head to the side, handsome features wounded—manipulatively so, the hurt nowhere near enough to etch out the mischief in his bright greens.
“Y-you were in my class,” Ella stammered, her voice returning in a frightened rasp. “I-I remember. The adult literature class, you—”
“I was in your university courses too, bella, but I’m afraid I couldn’t make myself known to you yet.” Spidery fingers curved around her chin, and he drifted closer. “I had to be sure.”
She swallowed thickly, the familiar ache in her gums oddly comforting now. “Sure of what?”
“Sure of you, sweet girl,” he whispered, his words wrapped in a seductive purr that resonated in her core, tingled between her thighs. She rolled her shoulders back, a hot rush of anger outpacing the interest.
“You bit me.”
“I did.”
Flashes of that night came crashing back. This man—this vampire—sitting in her classroom at
the old elementary school, staring at her instead of the teacher. Watching her correct assignments, brushing his fingers along hers and smirking when she redistributed them. Calling her name in the corridor, jogging after her when class ended. Her cheeks had flushed with a painful, hot prickle—because when had a man this handsome ever paid her any attention?
Besides that, she’d needed a palate cleanser after Malachi and all the conflicting feelings he brought out in her, and some gorgeous English lit enthusiast would do the trick. Maybe even warranted her number—
The shift in his gaze, friendly one moment, destructive the next. His hand on her arm, snapped tight like a steel trap. Hauling her away from the main doors. Throwing her through the metal ones out back. Landing hard on the concrete, skinning her palms. Her head colliding with brick when he shoved her up against the wall. Stars dancing behind her eyelids. Pain when he bit into her. Fear when she realized she had no voice, nothing to cry out with.
Agony when he abandoned her.
“Who are you?” she hissed, trembling harder now—but no longer in fear. Because fuck this guy. Fuck this pretentious asshole who had ruined her life. The look on his face suggested he took her flustered demeanor for something it wasn’t, his smile twisting with desire.
His teeth… His fangs were gold. Permanently displayed, sharp and dangerous, nestled between a row of other teeth that were almost too white, too perfect.
“My name is Serafino… I am your master, bella.” He shook his head with a grimace. “And I never meant to leave you there. When we finally merged, my blood on your tongue, yours on mine—” Fucking gross. “—I was so enraptured by you… The chaos demon and the hybrid caught me off guard, but never again, my bella.”
“Cool,” Ella remarked flatly. She then grabbed his shoulders and slammed her knee into his crotch. The vampire’s imposing frame buckled, and he groaned when she moved in closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear, fangs at the ready. “Fuck you, Serafino—for everything.”