Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo (Southern Vampire Detective Book 2)

by Selene Charles

  His nostrils flared, and threads of darkest red rolled through his eyes. Slamming his claw-tipped nails into the back of Luc’s hand, he lifted it to me. Luc whimpered but no longer fought.

  Glaring hotly at Cole, I took their now gloveless hands in mine, and the moment my finger brushed over the golden ring on Luc’s finger, I got a hit.

  Thousands upon thousands of memories plowed through me. Luc was an ancient, going well back to the middle ages, but sweeping aside the memories I did not need for the ones I wanted was not hard.

  I took a moment to scroll through images of him and Cole meeting, laughing and flirting, the dalliances they shared, both of them boys, both of them stable hands and very human.

  Then I watched as Cole was set upon by a vampyre—as they’d once been called—a creature hideously deformed and bald with patches of flaking skin, as if it’d been tossed into a lake of fire. The creature was desperate and ravenous. Luc tried to fight it off, but the monster turned and bit Luc too.

  Somehow, Juliet was there... and she too got bitten. All three of them lay in hay, soaked in blood. The monster was long gone, the howling winds of winter rumbling outside the stable door.

  “Keep going,” Cole barked.

  I started, almost forgetting that he and I were sharing the vision. Shoving those memories aside, I continued to search until... there it was.

  Luc and Juliet were naked on a bed, their beautiful bodies twined limb in limb, as they discussed how to dethrone their lover.

  Well, I hadn’t expected that. My nose curled. So he and the cousin were getting it on, too. Kinky. And gross. Mostly gross.

  “He’s mad, Luc. And you know it. He cannot lead us, not anymore. We have to fight. We have to reclaim the honor of the Infantes line. And you must be at my side, my love, my lover.” Juliet twirled a length of Luc’s longer hair around her finger, staring up at him with guileless blue eyes.

  Luc looked torn, ripped apart.

  Juliet smiled softly then crawled over his hip, straddled his still-raging erection and sank down in one smooth motion.

  There were grunts and sweat and groans and whispered words of love from him to her and her to him. Blah, blah, blah. Sex. Blah, blah, blah. And done. They shuddered. Only once she had dropped her head onto his chest and he’d run his fingers through her hair did he finally whisper, “Yes, Juliet. Yes, I’m with you.”

  The scene shifted again, that time to the night of the massacre. Juliet was holding onto her necklace, the one I’d found in her ashes.

  She smiled brightly up at Luc. “Tonight, then. It is settled, right?”

  When Luc wouldn’t look at her, she frowned softly, her beautiful features searching his. A look of uncertainty pinched her brows as though she knew, as though she suspected Luc would betray her.

  “Luc?”

  “Yes, Juliet. Tonight. But I fear... I do not feel well. I shall leave you for a bit. Though the guards will remain.” Then he grabbed her tightly, brought her forehead to his and kissed her hard.

  Juliet’s fingers curled into his jacket, and she trembled in his arms. “Meet me in my room tonight?” she whispered.

  A sound like a choked sob ripped from his throat. Juliet murmured soothingly to him, encouraging him to be still, saying everything was almost over and soon their nightmare would end.

  She didn’t know what I did, though.

  Luc wasn’t sobbing for the loss of Cole but for the loss of her. He’d made his choice. Nodding once, he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Only once he’d reached the parking lot did he take out his phone and, after punching in a number, quickly bring it to his ear and say, “Do it. Do it now.”

  The wavering ghostly echo of Declan Bently’s voice responded with, “As you wish, sir.”

  I dropped his hand as though scalded. A cry, both heart-wrenching and grimace-inducing, spilled off Luc’s tongue.

  He’d seen what I’d stolen and knew the memories I was keeping locked within me—the intense passion he felt for Cole, the love that still burned for his Juliet, and the lengths he’d been willing to go to keep Cole with him forever.

  “Naughty boy,” was all Cole said, then he ripped Luc’s throat out.

  I screamed, horrified, and covered my mouth, not having expected the brutality or the quickness of the attack, but Cole wasn’t done.

  Punching his fist through Luc’s chest, he ripped out the man’s heart. It was black and full of blood. With a look at me, Cole brought it to his mouth and sank his fangs in deep.

  I did throw up then at Luc’s lifeless feet, vomiting all over his Italian loafers. I heard a dull thud, as though something had been thrown, and then Cole was there, lifting me up by my elbow onto my toes.

  His mouth and neck were soaked in Luc’s blood, and his eyes were glittering with the same kind of madness I’d seen far too many times in Clarence’s. Juliet had been right. Cole was afflicted. Luc had chosen wrong, and the cost had been steep.

  “You and I will rule together,” he murmured hotly, drunk on blood and death.

  His nose ran down the length of my neck, making me break out in a wash of ice. His hands were hard and punishing as they glided down my corset then back up again before brushing my long hair off my shoulder and leaning in.

  I thought he would bite me too, steal the blood running through my veins. Instead, he went absolutely still as death. His fingers were suddenly splayed against my collar, by my shoulder, in the very same spot Mercer had bitten me less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, voice low and trembling with the heat of barely suppressed rage.

  I swallowed hard.

  “You’ve been... mated!” he barked, the words sounding more like a curse than a question.

  I blinked. What? That... that’s impossible.

  His nails were suddenly claws and digging into the wound as though he could rip it from me.

  “Stop!” I screamed, struggling against his unyielding grip. “You’re insane. I haven’t been—”

  “You fucking cunt!” His face was a contorted demonic mask. His eyes blazed, and spittle flew on my lips and face, making me flinch as though I’d been doused in poison instead. “You vile, perverted, disgusting—”

  I slapped him so hard my wrist throbbed. Then I froze like a terrified bunny caught in the crosshairs of a hungry wolf.

  His eyes grew wide, his breathing shallow. His hand slowly rose and touched the mark on his cheek as though he couldn’t believe I’d done that.

  Mercer. Mercer would die now.

  Oh my God.

  I waited for the darkness to stir, but it didn’t happen that time. I sensed nothing but silence—unending, unceasing emptiness inside of me.

  “Take her,” Cole hissed.

  The guards were on me in less than a second, pinning me to the ground by my arms and legs and neck, grabbing hold of my hair as I fought to remain calm enough to think.

  The dress!

  Almost sobbing with relief, I called to it. Blue had said all I’d needed to do was speak it, so I did.

  “Release,” I whispered.

  The gems burst, all at once, an explosion of clear liquid. A few of the vampires were fast enough to get away, but six weren’t. The moment that venom touched their skin, they shrieked.

  The poison ate holes through them, wherever it touched, drilling straight through flesh, muscle, and sinew, down into bone. It dropped them to their knees as it continued to pump through their veins.

  Shocked, I could barely move. What the hell had I been wearing? I’d never seen anything like fae magick. It was dark, black, and terrifying. Their horrified screams beat at my skull. I was amazed that the stuff hadn’t touched me and I was still there.

  I hoped—God, I hoped—that Cole had been caught in the blast, but the moment I heard him thunder, “Take her!” I knew I hadn’t been that fortunate.

  More bodies came stomping into the room. I fought like the devil, kicking, biting, slashing. I
killed a few, but too many were there, and I was overwhelmed. In moments, they had me subdued.

  I was bleeding out everywhere, my lungs and stomach bruised, my thighs screaming. A couple of bones in my feet felt shattered. One of my eyes had swollen shut. I’d never taken a beating like that in my life.

  Cole leaned over me, a tight smirk on his face. “I take it back, Scarlett Smith. It seems we will not need your services any longer. Now, would you care to see your lover’s final hours?”

  An unintelligible sound dropped from my cracked and oozing lips.

  “Good,” he chirped.

  They dragged me down the hall and past the dancers, where I heard startled gasps of shock and surprise. Even the music paused for half a second.

  Cole clapped his hand, and as though he’d parted the Red Sea, suddenly everything was as it’d been. No one looked at us. No one wondered. The music resumed.

  Everything was perfect again.

  I scented the reek of fear from all those around me. The tang of it was sweet and musky, making me curl my nose. Cole was mad, one hundred ten percent certifiable.

  Then we were marching down a long set of winding stairs. My body felt like one giant seeping wound, and I throbbed from head to toe. My vision winked in and out. My head was a haze of pain and frightful, clashing noise.

  I must have passed out because the next thing I knew, the sound of squealing rusted iron erupted right before I was unceremoniously dumped onto a cold stone floor.

  With a muffled oomph, I rolled onto my side, trembling as I barely clung to consciousness.

  “Scar?” Mercer’s voice was full of grit and exhaustion but also relief. “Scar!” he barked, then I heard the rattle of heavy chains and the kiss of rushing air as though he’d tried to come toward me.

  “You’ll get ten minutes,” Cole’s now-familiar bored voice cut through Mercer’s panic. “Make them entertaining, won’t you?”

  Then the door slammed shut behind us, and I shivered violently.

  “Scar. Scar. Scar!” Mercer rumbled, saying so much more than just my name, but I was too tired to try to make sense of it. “Are you—”

  Moaning, I bit my bottom lip and used noodle-weak arms to lift myself into some sort of sitting position.

  “I’m okay,” I said weakly.

  “Fuck that,” he snapped. “You’re far from okay.”

  Practically collapsing into the dank stone wall behind me, I swallowed hard and nodded. My head hurt. If I was human, I’d say I had a concussion the size of Texas. I wanted to puke again.

  I did not, however, want to do it in front of him. I shuddered and swallowed over and over and over again until the sensation passed.

  “S’okay.” My voice slurred, but I managed to pry my eyes open and look at him.

  My beautiful, beautiful man was sweat soaked, with slashes above his right brow and along his left cheek. He’d fought like the devil, no doubt.

  “You look like hell,” I said impishly. I laughed lightly before groaning and clutching my belly, which burned like a son of a gun.

  “You should see the other guy,” he said gently before his eyes tenderly raked over me. “Scar,” he whimpered and crawled toward me.

  I finally noticed they had cuffed not only on his wrists but his ankles too, and he was completely naked. A beam of moonlight washed over his tight body.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” I said.

  He barked with laughter. “And you only say this now. Goddamn it, woman, your timing sucks.”

  A grin briefly flitted over my cracked lips.

  His nostrils flared, and panic tore through his eyes in the form of neon-green bands.

  “How long ago?” I asked him softly.

  He knew what I was talking about. “I have an hour at best.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “We’ll make it out of here, Scar. I vow it to the darkness that binds.”

  Snapping open one eye, I glared at him, wanting to tell him not to make an unbreakable oath. No way in fuck were we making it out of there. For all my big words upstairs, even I knew our goose was cooked.

  The goddamn vampires had beat me to within an inch of my godforsaken life. The darkness that I’d hoped might save me was MIA. I felt as weak as a kitten, and Mercer was about to lose his fucking mind. No part of my situation was good.

  Instead of saying any of that, I just thunked my head back against the wall and moaned.

  “I love you,” he said softly.

  And I hated him, hated him so much right then that breathing was almost too hard because how dare he! How dare he wait until we were about to die to say something like that to me.

  I shook.

  “Say something,” he said softly.

  “Fuck you.”

  His nostrils flared. His chest heaved, but his look was so tender I felt broken inside.

  “You marked me.” It wasn’t a question.

  He answered anyway. “Yes.”

  “Why? Why didn’t you even tell me what you’d done? Why would you—”

  “To protect you. Always.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting the sob threatening to break loose. My head ached. Every inch of me ached, but that was nothing to the pain flaying my heart wide open.

  “You should have given me that choice. You should have—”

  “You would have said no.”

  Turning on him even though it almost made me pass out from the sudden and bright bolt of pain, I hissed, “Damn right, I would have. You’re a goddamn shifter. I’m a vampire.”

  “So the fuck what?”

  “So the fuck what?” I laughed, the sound high and manic. “Hmm, well, I don’t know, mattered a lot to you once. And matters a whole hell of a lot to Clarence.”

  “I lied. And since when did you care what my old man wanted?”

  Realizing he still didn’t know, I did cry then because everything was so fucked up I didn’t even know where to start or what to say.

  “Merc,” I said, my voice reed-thin and cracking, “Clarence has been pardoned.”

  “What? How the hell do you know this?” His words were angry, but I knew that wasn’t aimed at me.

  Still, I shivered. “James called me. But there’s more. Clarence is being forced to step down.”

  “And I’ll be forced to take the throne. Although now—” He jiggled his chains, chuckling low.

  I hated that he could even laugh at that. “No,” I said. “No, because you have to fight for the throne. It’s up for grabs and, with it, a fucking bitch. Pride of the clan Campbell.”

  He stilled, eyes a deep shade of neon green, and his voice took on his familiar, smoky animalistic tone when the wolf surfaced too close.

  “I don’t want a fucking bitch. I have my bride. And I sure as hell don’t want that goddamn throne.”

  I hated that my heart flipped in its chest, hated the way he pinned me with his chartreuse gaze, which clearly read “mine.”

  I had no right to be his “mine” or his bride even if he had marked me. There had be a way to get it off me. There had to be, for his sake, even if the thought of it made my soul bleed.

  “And Steven? You know what will happen to him if you don’t—”

  A horrible, terrible sound tore from his chest, fury mingled with fear. Then his eyes were looking all around, and for a second, I’d forgotten where we were and how trapped and helpless we both were.

  If we didn’t get out of here, he’d have no way to become Alpha, no way to fight for Steven.

  I clasped my fingers together, heart cracking in my chest. “Merc, we have to—”

  “We will,” he said with the type of bone-deep surety that I wished I could feel too.

  “And that’s quite enough,” Cole said, making me jump in fright. “Come with me. You’ll not want to miss this show, Scarlett Smith.”

  I’d not even heard the door open. Then something hard, fast, and excruciating clocked my temple. The last thing I heard was Mercer’s howl of rage.


  Chapter 21

  Scarlett

  I wasn’t sure where I was anymore. The next thing I felt was the sting of a hand to my cheek as I heard the roughly whispered words, “Wake up!”

  As if on command, my brain finally responded. Even though it still felt stuffed full of cotton and I couldn’t hear correctly, at least I was cognizant again. Maybe I had healed some. I hoped so.

  When I tried to move, though, my broken feet screamed in agony, and I slumped hard. Cole’s laughter was an irritating buzz. Two sets of hands held me up, one on either side of me—guards, most likely.

  “Watch, beautiful girl,” Cole commanded with his silky, sultry voice. “Or you’ll miss the whole show.”

  He seemed to have forgotten how much he’d hated me just moments before, or maybe he hoped I had. His moods were mercurial and shifting, and I wished I could lie and say that didn’t scare me, but it fucking did. I wasn’t sure even Clarence had gone that bug fuck yet.

  Then I looked up, and my stomach heaved.

  Mercer was in the chamber too, but he was on the floor beneath me, on a raised dais. The room was like a chamber, with columns and archways with hundreds of vampires looking down on him. Memories of the fight club came immediately to the forefront for me.

  Oh God.

  They were gonna kill him to hurt me and make a spectacle of it, to boot.

  No way.

  No fucking way was I gonna let that happen. I glanced down, unseeing eyes shifting back and forth as I wracked my brain for something, anything. I prodded at that well of darkness again and again but still sensed nothing.

  Had that shit abandoned me? Now? When I needed her most? Wake up, damn you! Wake up!

  “Watch.” Cole’s claws dug into my jaw, forcing my face to turn. The command in his voice overrode my own sense of self-preservation, that big booming mental hammer to my brain compelling me to obey against all thought, all reason. My eyelids were pried open as if by unseen hands, and I saw him: my life, my heartbeat, my adopted brother, my everything.

  Mercer was tied up, held by chains dipped in demon’s blood. He roared, screaming at the top of his lungs as he tried to gain some leverage, some ground or footing, but the chains’ strength was absolute. He was bound, legs and arms splayed wide as a pinprick of moonlight rotated slowly toward him.