Dirty Deeds: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Bonds of Blood Book 3)

by Cate Corvin

  “Me and Will, of course.” Suraziel never stopped rubbing. My body kept threatening to tighten up again, my predatory senses anticipating imminent attack.

  Will gave him a sidelong glance and reached out to lay his hand on my thigh. “And where am I going to get hellfire explosions?”

  “Arko gave you a gift, didn’t he?” Somehow Suraziel managed to sound insouciant and lazy even while giving me a massage and confounding Will.

  Will stared at him, then down at the hand Arkomoch had scorched.

  My own mouth might’ve dropped open. In the aftermath of Thraustila’s attack on Libra, none of us had really stopped to regroup until now.

  Will’s knuckles were no longer scorched red from hellfire. They were as golden and smooth as they’d ever been, scars excepted, but now a new scar shone there: a perfect circle emblazoned on the back of his hand in thin white lines, cut through with spiky sigils. “I thought he was being facetious,” he said indignantly. “What’s this?”

  “That’s your hellfire, bro. Welcome to the infernal ranks.” There was a faint thread of disquiet in Suraziel’s smooth voice. “You made yourself a vessel when you bound me, Will. Even if you wanted to go back to the slayers, I don’t know if you could.”

  “Nobody said it was possible to hold hellfire,” Will said, tilting his hand to examine the sigil.

  Suraziel let out a snort. “Of course not. Slayers don’t want their kids finding out and doing irreparable damage to their bodies. If you’re marked once, you’re marked forever.”

  Even without looking at him, I knew Suraziel was examining Will out of the corner of his eye for his best friend’s reaction. Will wasn’t a demon, but he was permanently bound to their kind, with all the perks and weaknesses: eternal life, hellfire… but he’d probably be burned by holy water and blessed iron now, too.

  Will flipped his hand palm upright and concentrated, his brow furrowing. A tiny flame of sickly, hypnotizing green exploded to life and died just as quickly.

  Maybe Suraziel needed a backrub next. I felt his tension under me.

  “Sweet,” Will said. “I can explode now.”

  The incubus relaxed palpably. His fingers had slowed on my shoulders, but as soon as he knew Will accepted what he’d become, Suraziel started rubbing again in earnest. My skin warmed, picking up the demon’s psychic happiness.

  The bloodsongs, which had started off discordant and become a tentative melody, now rang through my skull in a steady march. No song was stronger, overshadowing the others, and no song was too weak to be heard. They’d found an equilibrium, creating the perfect music.

  That was when I knew that all the pieces had come together perfectly. We were all were we were meant to be.

  We just needed to survive the final round with the asshole who’d kicked everything into motion.

  I met Càel’s pale blue eyes across the room. He was sprawled out so he took up the entire couch, wearing his bright Hawaiian shirt. My knight gave me the faintest smile. “You had a plan, Victoria.”

  “I did,” I said slowly. “I’ve thought a lot about what the Morrígna said. That I need to take something for myself if I want anyone to respect my claim on it.”

  My men would do anything to keep me from going near Thraustila. I knew I was no match for an elder vampire. But, as Will had once told me when we were burning with hatred for each other, I’d always been a serpent, looking for my kind.

  I couldn’t face Thraustila head-on unless I had a few tricks up my sleeve, and oh, the tricks I had.

  “I’m going to challenge him.” Càel’s brow creased, and Suraziel’s fingers tightened painfully on my shoulders.

  “Tori, we’ve been over this already,” Will began, but he met my eyes and stopped. “What are you planning?”

  “I’m going to need all of you, and the Fae.”

  They didn’t like the plan. Each one of them interjected with their protests, but one by one, they came around. Càel would die for me, but he respected my right as both a woman and his monarch to choose my course. Will was prepared to do anything, even channel hellfire, to make it happen. And Suraziel laughed.

  Of course, my demon would be amused.

  Thornton barely noticed when we left. He had an entire alchemical laboratory arrayed on the counter and was dispensing tiny spoonfuls of the dust onto a glass tray.

  “See you around, Thornton,” I called, and he muttered something unintelligible. Great conversationalist, that guy.

  The shop’s sign had been flipped to Closed, and we stepped out into streets that were never completely quiet.

  “I need a pixie,” I muttered, and like my words had summoned her, Lula Fray spiraled down from the rooftops, glowing a faint lavender. I held out my hand and she landed in my palm, leaning forward to press her forehead to my skin.

  “Hi, Lula. Please don’t bow, it makes me feel weird.”

  The pixie gave me a stern look.

  “You’ll have to get used to it, Victoria.” Càel crossed his arms over his chest. “Our customs are now yours.”

  He seemed entirely too satisfied by how my life had turned out. I guess being my singer did give him bragging rights for banging a vampire queen.

  Lula stood up, nodding enthusiastically in agreement. Now everybody was against me. My first Law as queen would be to establish a very relaxed code of conduct, no bowing allowed.

  “I need you to announce me,” I told her, holding the pixie at face level. The first part of the plan would involve pissing off Càel’s Maker. The angrier Thraustila was, the better. He might have the strength of an elder vampire, but he was as prone to powerful emotion as anyone else. Possibly even more so, given that he was frozen forever as a hormonal sixteen-year-old. “Rally the pixies, tell everyone the queen is coming home. And I mean tell the whole court. Every person in that place.”

  If that didn’t send Thraustila into an emotional spiral, I didn’t know what would.

  Lula raised a minuscule eyebrow and swept a sarcastic curtsey instead of bowing again, then blew me a kiss before taking erratic flight.

  “Okay. That should get him nice and worked up,” I said, watching the lavender speck zip around a skyscraper. “Now for the kelpies.”

  We stopped at an open meat market on the way to Central Park. It wasn’t a whole cow, but I figured if I was going to ask the kelpies for a favor, I might as well sweeten the deal.

  It turned out to be a good idea. The smell of blood and raw meat called them much faster than I’d expected.

  The stars glittered across the water, and ripples broke the image as twelve bony horse heads surfaced. Kelp hung lank over their faces, and phosphorescent eyes glowed like foxfire.

  “Hello, friends,” I said, kneeling on the bank. Suraziel and Càel unwrapped the meat and I held it out, cautious of where my fingers were even if I had faith the kelpies wouldn’t bite on purpose. “I’ve come to ask for a favor.”

  A much smaller head, less bony, with slick new baby-skin, surfaced beside a face that was familiar. I’d once regretted going back for the kelpie. Looking at the tiny infant Faerie, I couldn’t feel anything but relief that I hadn’t run and saved myself.

  Any favor for you, Crowned in Blood.

  “We need to get into the Clouded Court. Unseen.”

  I fed the steaks into the water, watched them disappear in quick bites. It was like fish feeding, the kelpies becoming water and shifting around each other to eat their fill.

  My mate can do this. The kelpie bobbed in the water, tucked her baby a little closer. I cannot stray from my young.

  “Of course not.” I gave her the biggest steak, and the other kelpies backed off, letting the baby eat its fill. It was tempting to reach out and stroke the head of the little Faerie foal before it grew up into a bloodthirsty horse, but for all I knew it already had a strong bite reflex. “I wouldn’t ask you to leave her.”

  We bring you below. There is water there. You will not drown with us.

  “I trust you.”
>
  There was a time in my life when I would’ve given my left arm to not make a deal with the Fae. They were anathema to us, not of this world, another kind.

  Like all things I’d learned, they were not what I’d expected. They were what they were, but there were hearts under those skeletal forms.

  The kelpie licked the blood from my palm, her tongue cool against my skin.

  Come now.

  I stood up. “It’s time to go.” I looked at the guys. Càel was the first to wade into the lake, and the kelpies swarmed around him. The stallion of the herd- he nuzzled my kelpie’s face- hung back, even though I sensed he wanted to go to Càel, the physically-strongest of us.

  He was waiting for me. Their leader would be the one to carry the queen they were allied with.

  I followed Càel, who’d climbed on the back of a well-fed mare, and Will and Suraziel followed. The water was icy at first, frost cracking apart as we entered the lake, but my body adjusted quickly. The bite of frost receded, becoming more of a mild discomfort than anything.

  The water shifted under me, sending me backwards and swamping my hair with icy lake water, and the stallion rose from beneath, catching me on his back. I automatically clung to his seaweed-like mane, slippery against my hands.

  Breathe, the stallion commanded. His voice rang through my head powerfully. You will be protected.

  There wasn’t so much as a warning before he submerged. One moment I was breathing icy New York air.

  The next moment I was in a world of gray shadows, my hair swirling around my head in a cloud. Faint light dappled the underwater world, painting spots of light across Càel, Will, and Suraziel. Will took a breath and looked shocked, and I followed suit.

  My instincts told me water would flood my lungs, but I received air. The Fae’s magic transmuted the element we traveled through before it passed into us.

  The kelpies we rode broke away from the herd, traveling downwards into a dark abyss. I felt the prickle of magic run over my skin as a spume of bubbles enveloped us.

  When the bubbles cleared, I tasted brine on the air I breathed. We’d crossed from the lake to the sea.

  Several serpentine forms rose from the murky waters. Mermaids. Dull metal glinted at their ears and wrists as they watched us pass, the kelpies flowing through the sea as easily as snakes. One mermaid raised a hand in acknowledgment, and a familiar bracelet glinted around her wrist.

  We were in Gravesend Bay, but not for long. Another cloud of bubbles spiraled ahead of us, and the kelpies raced for it. They tickled my skin as we passed through the sea into a… fish pond?

  Ivory-and-sunset fish flipped away in a flash of bright fins, and we hit more bubbles, bursting through into a brightly lit swimming pool, then into a dark underground river.

  I felt the kelpies’ joy as we rushed along with the current. Fluorescent lights overhead cut through the water; we tore through the sluice, poured over a waterfall, and burst into a cavernous grotto.

  The next is as close as we can get. The stallion arched his back under me, cutting at the water with his hooves. Beneath the Clouded Court.

  My heart jumped into my throat. There was a culvert of water near Thraustila’s warehouse.

  I glanced to my side, saw water tearing at Càel’s blond hair, and then we hit the final bubble-spume.

  Darkness reigned supreme, wherever we were. The stallion rose, moving more gently now, and my head broke the surface of the water. I heard Will and Suraziel, muttering as they slid from their kelpies’ backs and found solid footing, and I followed suit.

  I carefully climbed up an embankment of clay, crouching on the wet stones at the top. Leaving the lake felt like passing through a weird sort of membrane; I pushed through, and the water saturating my hair and clothes remained behind, streaming into the lake behind me.

  We were all perfectly dry as we left the water.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, unwilling to be any louder or say anything more. I felt the stallion’s acknowledgment in my head as an amorphous thought, more of a feeling than real words, and the kelpies vanished. I didn’t expect them to linger, and if all went well, we’d be leaving through the red doors of Bathory, not through the lake.

  If everything went perfectly, which was a pretty tall order, we wouldn’t be leaving at all.

  Nineteen

  Tori

  The sound of running water cut through the silence. Càel took my arm, and my hand found Will’s, and together we left the subterranean lake.

  The door into the subway tunnel was practically invisible from the passage itself. I’d completely missed it the first time I’d come down here.

  A tiny lavender light bobbed in the darkness, and a moment later, Lula Fray was clinging to my hair, fluttering against my cheek. I caught a whiff of her Fae scent before the delicious smoky smell of Suraziel filled my nose as he leaned in close to listen.

  His whisper was flat so it wouldn’t carry. “The Cerberian Gate is under us. Past the storage facility and downstairs.”

  Càel was on high alert, but he moved like he was completely relaxed. “I don’t feel my Maker here,” he said, matching Suraziel’s flat tone.

  It was my turn to relax. I needed to face Thraustila in front of the court, not down in the depths of the tunnels. They needed to see I was worthy of not being torn apart the moment I tried to take the throne. Or staked in the sun. Or...

  Cheerful thoughts, Tori, cheerful thoughts. James’s voice echoed out of the reliquary I held in my mind. Kick ass, worry about shit later.

  A tinge of sadness touched me at how faint that inner voice was becoming.

  Càel touched my shoulder and moved past me into the dark. He was a silent predator, somehow blending with the shadows despite the lightness of his hair and skin, like he’d been born to move there.

  I followed, with Will and Suraziel guarding my back. The broken brick wall to the warehouse was abandoned, but hundreds of crates were still stacked beyond it. I was relieved to see that the cold iron cage used to house Fae was empty.

  Lula slid down my hair and landed on my collarbone, making herself right at home. Small tinkles of her voice guided our way. I stepped over a foul-smelling puddle of some viscous green liquid, and Lula’s chime filled my ears.

  We turned right. The offshoot tunnel led downwards, the brick steps slick with moss. Even though my eyes were now designed to be attuned to darkness, the pressing black seemed almost like a solid substance.

  The pixie left me, swinging drunkenly through the air as she darted downwards. Her pale glow brightened, illuminating the tunnel with lavender light that shimmered off the dripping walls.

  “Lula, you’re the real MVP,” I whispered. I didn’t know if the pixie knew what an MVP was, but she seemed to get the gist, preening as she sparkled like a frenetic disco ball.

  She stayed just ahead of us as we walked, following her light to another tunnel below. It was a little like walking through a time capsule, traveling under New York; the cracked tiles of the subway tunnels gave way to brick laid centuries ago, slowly crumbling at the edges. I remembered a day with James, a long time ago, when he was gushing about Libra Academy and how many Shadowed Worlders there were to hunt here.

  Shadowed Worlders living in the warren beneath New York, a system of tunnels so vast it was like a city beneath a city.

  This tiny little subsection was so small, we hadn’t seen even a fraction of what else there was to see. And this portion, thanks to Thraustila’s influence, was entirely devoid of inhabitants.

  Except for the streaks of glimmering pixie dust streaking the slimy ground. Thraustila had made no efforts to erase his Fae-trafficking.

  Lula led us fifty yards down, then found another stairwell. This time, her tinkling chime was so soft I barely heard it.

  “It’s down here.” Suraziel breathed in my ear. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded, but I didn’t feel nearly half as confident as I was trying to. Thraustila had pulled a Belial siege engine throug
h the gate, which meant it was going to be one big motherfucking gate.

  And big motherfucking gates usually took blood to shut down.

  What was with demons and blood, honestly?

  Suraziel touched my arm. I looked up at him, his onyx eyes grim, and he took my silver dagger from my belt, the one with a wickedly twisted blade meant for Thraustila’s heart. I watched as he ran his tongue up the blade, from hilt to tip, slow and almost sensuous, then down the other side. His eyes never left mine.

  He’d ‘poisoned’ it for me. He slipped it back in my belt and touched my cheek. “Don’t be afraid to use it. Last resort.”

  I moved to descend the stairs, but Càel held out an arm, stopping me in my tracks. He glanced at me, the hard planes of his face illuminated with lavender light, but he didn’t need to speak to tell me there was no way in hell I was going first.

  As much as I wanted to plunge down there, rip the band-aid off, there would be no fighting him on this one.

  I let Càel go first, but I was practically walking up his ass, I was on his heels so hard.

  The floor leveled out and I blinked. I hadn’t realized that Lula Fray had dimmed her glow, and what I was seeing was no longer pixie light.

  It was the gate.

  The pixie hid herself in Suraziel’s horns, hunkering down and clinging to him for dear life. The light streaming out of the gate was sickly and sinister, painting us all with corpse-light. It was a bastardization of a liminal gate, a perfect circle of rune-painted bricks standing tall in the middle of a wide room.

  But liminal gates didn’t make my eyes feel like they were bleeding when I looked at the wavering power at the edges, like it was a second away from bursting into all-consuming flame and taking everything else with it. Despite my wavering vision, there wasn’t the slightest sensation of heat.

  Rather, it was icy cold, freezing me down to my marrow even though cold didn’t touch me much at all anymore.

  We spread out in a line, looking at the warped, wavering form of the gate, and Suraziel blew out a sigh. He didn’t bother whispering anymore. There was no sign of anyone else. “This one’s gonna need blood.”