by Isabel Wroth
Without warning, Dhiraj went limp, and from one second to the next sat up like a horror movie vampire hinged at the hips.
A huge grin split his face as he lifted his hands up to examine them, front and back, and with a boyish whoop, he leapt to his feet and started to Floss.
“Oh yeah!” He chortled, continuing to dance and spin around like a lunatic. Maksim and his brothers crowded closer together, watching Dhiraj with naked expressions of shock and confusion on their faces.
“I always wondered what it would feel like to be a vampire! Man, I’m starving! Wow, I never thought I’d miss the feeling of being hungry. This is awesome!”
Maksim reached out to pull Kerrigan back into the circle of his arm, not looking away from Dhiraj doing the Moon Walk in a circle on the ballroom floor.
“What’s happening right now?”
Kerrigan couldn’t withhold her laughter, “Quentin is enjoying the sensation of having a solid body again.”
“Quentin is?” Virico sputtered, absolutely horrified. “But… but he’s a ghost! What did you do?”
Kerrigan huffed in annoyance, baffled by his continued ignorance on the abilities of a necromancer and the power of ghostly energy.
“I get the feeling someone told you ghosts are harmless, Virico. Let me be the first to tell you, they’re not. As for what I did, I gave Quentin enough power to possess your brother, and he’s taken charge of Dhiraj’s body.”
“Right!” Quentin clapped his hands and boogied his way closer, “First thing’s first, let’s deal with the compulsion, eh?”
Dhiraj/Quentin held out his hand to her, but Maksim’s arm turned to steel around her waist. She soothed him with a gentle murmur, smiling up at Maks confidently.
“It’s okay. Quentin is in control. He won’t hurt me.”
Skeptical and still clearly worried for her safety, Maksim shifted his grip from her waist to her hand, glued to her side as she moved past the knot of vampires to approach Quentin.
Dhiraj’s hand was warm from whoever he’d fed on, callused from centuries of wielding a sword. His deep eyes swirled with power, and though his voice was his own, it was Quentin who spoke the words.
“Kerrigan Gray, I release you from my thrall.”
At first, she didn’t feel anything. No tingles, no tickles, no tugs… but after a moment the feeling that came was akin to taking off a bra with a band one size too small.
Relief. Like she could finally take a full breath for the first time in over a decade.
Not long after, the churning grief, rage, and guilt she’d carried with her since the night of her botched induction into the Silver Wives coven, drained away like dirty water in a sink that had finally been unplugged.
Quentin/Dhiraj squeezed her hand and gave it a sweet pat.
“All good?”
Kerrigan nodded, struggling to maintain a stiff upper lip when all she wanted to do was break down and cry with the wild happiness.
“Yes. Thank you, Quentin.”
“Time is short and I’ve got a few things everyone needs to hear, but will you do something for me?”
Kerrigan stopped herself just before agreeing to anything outright, and took a bracing breath to speak the proper words.
“Anything, unless it brings harm to myself or anyone else.”
Quentin/Dhiraj’s smile was roguish as he gave her hand another squeeze.
“Tell Juliet she’s an amazing young woman. No matter what our parents said or how they treated her like a second class citizen, she was always enough.”
Kerrigan blinked hard to keep the tears at bay. “I’ll tell her.”
He gave a smart nod, and was all business as he turned to Maksim. “Right. Jim and Beth Dodson, Gwen Lawrence, and Tom Lynch were the four investigators Dhiraj hired to stalk Kerrigan. Tom is the only one Dhiraj didn’t compel to follow Kerrigan, and Tom will take the news of Dhiraj’s death very personally. Don’t let the cycle start again.”
“I won’t,” Maksim promised.
“This next bit will be messy. You might want to step back.” Quentin/Dhiraj made a shooing motion with his hands, and Kerrigan allowed Maksim to pull her aside and out of the way.
Not sure what Quentin was up to, Kerrigan put up the same shield she used when Juliet was on a tear, but Virico just wouldn’t give it up.
“What the hell can he possibly do? He’s a ghost!”
Suffice it to say, Quentin showed them exactly what a ghost could do when given enough power.
It was a flush of heat to Dhiraj’s cheeks first. Then a pink sheen of blood and sweat broke out on his face and trickled down his throat to stain the collar of his white shirt.
Dhiraj’s skin actually started to steam a little, and whatever Quentin was doing took enough concentration for Dhiraj to come back to his own mind, and his cherry red face contorted with agony.
“What… what’s… happening?” he groaned fearfully, not so smug now.
Dhiraj’s face started to swell up, his limbs expanding like he’d been stuck with an air hose and was blowing up like a balloon.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting Quentin to do, but making Dhiraj explode in a shower of guts, blood, and bone was not it.
Chunky bits of crimson and white slid down the shield Kerrigan had thrown up, but a sideways glance showed none of the other vampires in the room had been spared from the gory rain.
Quentin’s ghost stood at the epicenter of the explosion, laughing maniacally to see the mess he’d made.
“And that, gentlemen, is what a ghost can do!”
Kerrigan bit into her lips to keep from laughing as she glanced to where Virico stood, looking like a horror movie extra, blinking rapidly as a pink, shiny remnant of intestines slid down his cheek to plop loudly on the floor.
Hector, Isaiah, Thomas, Aubin, and Etienne all wore equally disturbed and shocked expressions, and when they looked at her, there was a newfound respect in their gaze that made her feel quite proud of herself.
The shifter guards seemed completely unfazed, but less than pleased. She’d definitely see to it they got a bonus for tonight’s events.
“Oh, and before I forget, you’re going to be needing this.” Quentin approached with a shimmering bit of pink fluff in hand.
Kerrigan made a soft sound of awe, skirting around Maksim’s protective arm after pulling the large sapphire from inside her boot.
She held the blue stone with both hands, cupping it like a baby bird for Quentin to flatten the final piece of Cecilie Ancel’s soul into the stone.
“Thank you, Quentin,” Kerrigan said earnestly, folding her hands over her heart, pressing the stone to her chest as she nodded to the ghost already flickering out of sight. “Rest now. Be at peace.”
Quentin gave a salute to her, and his last act was to wink salaciously at Virico before disappearing completely.
“That’s my sapphire!” Etienne shrieked, fighting against the chains, hopping up and down like a frog in a frying pan, his concern about being covered in gore long since forgotten. “You did it, didn’t you? You’ve finished and you can summon her! I have to know where it is! You have to—”
Maksim jerked his chin at the shifter closest to Etienne, and obligingly the beast delivered a punch that shattered Etienne’s jaw and sent him to his knees. Kerrigan clicked her tongue and looked at Thomas with a lift of her brow.
“Both of them deserve a raise.”
Thomas chortled and winked in reply. “Indeed.”
Kerrigan carefully picked her way across the parquet floor and smoothed her skirt close to her legs as she crouched in front of Etienne.
His fine coat was ruined, his shining blonde hair matted with blood and bits of bone. In short, he was a hot mess.
Her smile was less than kind as she held up the sapphire, letting it catch the light as she twisted it in her fingers.
“If I summoned Cecilie right now and gave her twenty minutes of freedom, what do you think would happen, Etienne?”
/> His anger drained away and he looked positively pasty white beneath the blood splashed across his fair cheeks.
He didn’t say a word, but his Adam’s apple gave a fearful bob. Kerrigan nodded slowly, curling her fingers around the sapphire to hide it from his sight.
“As I’m well aware you didn’t personally shell out the money to pay me, I don’t feel bad when I tell you, if you make any attempts to get your hands on this sapphire or spread tales of what I’ve done to put her back together, I’ll give Cecilie a ring and send her to you with instructions to take as much time as she needs to drive you insane before tearing you in half like a Christmas cracker Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” Etienne gulped.
“Good. These really awesome gentlemen are going to take you downstairs, and you’re going to spend a few days in the nice sub-basement dungeon, and you’ll have some company, just to make sure there doesn’t come a day in the future where you think you might try to pull one over on us.”
Eyes big and wide as a kewpie doll, Etienne looked up at her in terror. “Com-company?”
“Jaysus, he sounds like a deflated dog toy,” Hector grunted in disgust.
Maksim’s shiny shoes appeared in Kerrigan’s peripheral, his toe tapping on the bloodied floor.
“Cowards often do. Gentlemen, if you please.”
Etienne was hauled away like a carpet bag, and Maksim offered his hand to help her stand.
Kerrigan gave his spiffy, sexy suit a glance to make sure it hadn’t been soiled, and when they turned back to the sullied group she felt like they’d just won another best dressed couple award.
“Now then,” Maksim announced as he looked at the still stunned faces of his brothers, “Is anyone confused as to the baddassery my Bride is capable of? No? Excellent. I think we’re done here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“You’re sure about this?” Kerrigan asked one final time, holding a crumpled wad of paper in one hand, and the small glass bottle containing the daywalking potion in the other.
The spellbook and potion had been right where Cecilie said: under the hearthstone in a small chapel that had once been the home of Louis the Fourteenth’s confessor.
The chapel had been renovated and built during the creation of the Pere Lachaise necropolis, but the hiding place endured the test of time and kept Cecilie’s stolen treasure safe.
After perusing the spellbook, Kerrigan wasn’t quite ready to destroy it. The knowledge contained inside deserved to be transcribed and preserved in another text, and then Kerrigan would destroy the book to ensure no one could ever summon the spirit of Caoimhe Mhártain.
There was something special about the book, something Kerrigan couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she knew Rowena and the others would want to see the collection of powerful magic.
However, Maksim was adamant the recipe and instructions for brewing the daywalking potion be destroyed. Tearing out those three pages and crumpling them in her hand had been physically painful.
Kerrigan literally held the keys to untold power and Maksim wanted her to burn it. With an easy smile and a decisive nod, he took the potion from her, pulled the cork, and upended the golden liquid over the fire in front of them.
“Yes, love, I’m sure. Go on.”
Kerrigan opened her hand before she could stop herself, silently apologizing to Caoimhe for erasing what had been the achievement of a lifetime, hoping she would understand.
Maks pulled her up under his arm, dropping a kiss on her hair. “This is the right thing to do. No vampire should have so much power. Not even me.”
“Yeah, I know,” she murmured, watching the flames hungrily devour the thick sheets of vellum.
When the potion and paper were nothing but ashes and smoke, Maks urged her into motion, and just as they stepped out into the night, snow began to fall on the beautiful necropolis of Père Lachaise.
EPILOGUE
Several months later…
“Rowena, will you answer your damn phone? We’re trying to have a party here!” Juliet shouted, punctuating her announcement by tossing another handful of confetti. Kerrigan ducked her head and threw her hands up to avoid getting hit in the face with more black and gold paper skulls, laughing even as she wondered where the hell Juliet was getting it all from.
Tonight her coven and friends were here, in the newly finished home celebrating Kerrigan and Maksim’s birthday.
The journey to this place had been a long one, a hard won battle, and Kerrigan was so happy she felt like she might burst at any second.
Maks looked as dapper and as gorgeous as ever, having dressed down for the night in a pair of black trousers and a sexy beige Fisherman’s sweater.
The bulk of his suits were back in New York, and every few weeks, they went back to pick up a few more as they settled into the farmhouse.
Maksim decided to not take complete control of Armistice, opting instead to be the VP to Thomas’s CEO. It was really just a formality, more of an advisory position. He’d also turned down the Vampire Council’s offer to take up the mantle of their War General.
Maybe in the future, when he caught up to all the new technology and familiarized himself with the changes that had happened while he’d been in prison, Maks would go back and have a more active role in the company.
For now, Maks wanted to make up for all the time they’d lost and enjoy the quiet life with her in the country. Kerrigan had zero complaints.
Uriah had been forced to add on additional square footage to create another office, and a sitting room between an enormous pair of his and hers walk-in closets, mostly to make room for Maksim’s fancy-ass suits and his ridiculously large collection of watches, but everything worked out perfectly in the end.
Kerrigan covertly used her thumb to move the platinum band decorated with the most gorgeous, pear-shaped ruby back and forth across her ring finger. It looked like a single drop of blood preserved forever inside a ring of tiny diamonds.
She’d woken up with it on her finger, and Maksim’s voice in her ear, promising to make her his Bride in every sense possible.
Maks looked at her now from across the room, his smile igniting a flurry of erotic sparks in her belly.
Was it rude to want everyone out of her house so she could get back to their private celebration?
“Hey, quiet down!” Rowena ordered, waving her hand around for silence as she cupped her hand around the speaker of her cell to better hear the person calling her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that last part. What was that?”
Even from several feet away, Kerrigan could hear the female voice shouting at the top of her lungs to answer.
“I SAID, I have something that belongs to your goddamn fairy, so open this fucking gate!”
Rowena straightened up and looked around for Ilex, her face twisted in confusion.
“Um… I guess it’s for you?”
Ilex didn’t look like a man eager to receive whatever was being delivered to him at eleven-forty-three P.M. In fact, the enjoyment of being near Juliet seemed to drain out of him, leaving him stiff and uncomfortable.
“Seems a little late for a delivery,” Uriah commented, leaving Ivy’s side just long enough to peer suspiciously through the front windows.
Reece, Goddess love him, put down his beer and smacked Doyle on the arm.
“We’ll see who it is before letting them come up to the house.”
As they all waited to see who would come up the driveway, Kerrigan couldn’t help but feel a sense of impending doom, especially when she glanced over at Astrid and saw the other woman fiercely glaring at her shoes, her hands jammed up under her arms. If Astrid was angry, something bad was about to happen.
Maks must have noticed too, because he closed the distance between them to set his palm on Kerrigan’s waist, giving her plenty of room to move if she needed to take drastic measures.
Still, a spitting mad woman dressed like a stripper with a beat up baby carrier ho
oked over her elbow wasn’t the threat Kerrigan had been expecting.
“Touch me one more time, you pussy asshole. I dare you!”
“I was trying to help you. Geeze, settle down, bitch,” Reece huffed indignantly. “You’ll wake the kid.”
“Like I care?” their unwelcome guest sneered.
“That’s obvious,” Doyle muttered. Doyle looked at her and raised his eyebrows to silently shout a warning at Kerrigan. “Uh, this is Lori. From the Vermont She-Wolf pack.”
Lori set the baby carrier down with a careless thump and waved a hostile hand toward Ilex.
“Congratulations, you fairy fuck. It’s a boy.”
Like an ancient oak in a hurricane, Ilex swayed but didn’t break. Feeling like she was about to witness a nuclear explosion, Kerrigan couldn’t stop herself from looking back and forth between Ilex and one of the werewolves he’d, uh… utilized, the day they’d rescued Maksim.
“I assure you, the child is not mine,” Ilex replied with a note of sadness in his voice that Kerrigan didn’t understand.
“Well,” Lori huffed mercilessly. “It sure as hell isn’t mine!”
Uriah pipped up from where he stood protectively in front of Ivy.
“That’s most definitely a full blood wolf-cub. I can smell it from here.”
Lori scoffed incredulously, pointing a blood red claw down at the snoozing newborn.
“Oh yeah, it’s a wolf-cub alright, but it shouldn’t even exist. Wolves only breed with their fated mates, and I haven’t met my mate yet. It’s his fault, and there is no way in hell I’m taking responsibility for this.”
“I’m confused,” Callie said, looking at the baby, at Lori, at Ilex, and back to the baby. “Ilex can’t make wolf babies.”
“Oh, yes he can!” Lori screeched, her badly highlighted hair flying as she gave a sarcastic toss of her head. “Because I showed up to that field, was fucked within an inch of my life, and left pregnant!”
“Time out!” Doyle ordered, his hands forming a T. “I was right there when Ilex was talking with your alpha, Lori. He was seriously specific about none of you bitches showing up if you’d had sex with someone else within the last forty-eight hours.”