Page 79 of Grave Curse

“Every ten minutes.” He glanced at the clock on the wall before holding my hand to his lips for a lingering, loving kiss. Lord, how this man could make me feel like I was the most precious thing in the world to him. “Better yet, make that every five to ten minutes, or I tie you to my side.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you tied me up.” I turned away with a sassy little flair, only to snap back when he swatted my ass good and proper.

“That’s what you get for being mouthy with me,” he warned, a playful light threading with the desire in his eyes. That onelook melted me so utterly it spawned a wet slick between my legs that made me flush all over.

“Well, then. Guess I’ll have to be mouthy to you more often.” I blew him a kiss and sashayed my booty out of there, all the while feeling his handprint on me like I’d been branded.

The next hour or so went by in a happy blur. I got the beer flights going big-time by daring the so-called beer aficionados in the crowd to give their opinions on all those yummy seasonal beers and ales. My next target was Mabel, challenging her to do the adult version of bobbing for apples, then gave her a case of beer with a big, shiny bow on it when she successfully bobbed for a penis-shaped toy in under twenty seconds, much to the delight of her man Ashtray. I also made sure I took about a billion selfies with my girlies at the highly popular selfie wall. The music got louder and the crowd got drunker, and through it all I made sure I found my man and checked in with him so he knew I was okay.

Roxie, the sexiest pirate wench in the room, decided to test the flexibility of her back on the pole, and she showed us mere amateurs how it was done. She got the crowd screaming when she did some fancy upside-down split move, just as the unmistakable stab of a gun hit me in the small of the back beneath my fur cape.

“This is a Glock pointed at your spine. I’ve got another one ready to shoot up every last one of your innocent little guests who are having such a fun time right now, even the pregnant ones, I don’t give a fuck who I hit. If you don’t want anyone here to die, you’ll come quietly with me,” Red Flag said in my ear.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Goddess

Upon reflection, throwing a full-on costume party while expecting an attack from a deadly enemy probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done.

It also didn’t help that Tyr had shown up in a cloak very similar to the cloak Red Flag was wearing. Since they were both towering masculine frames and everyone now knew that Tyr and I were a couple, no one looked twice at us as Red Flag walked me out the front door, then shocked the crap out of me when he dragged me into the empty shop that had been Draco’s tattoo parlor only a handful of days ago.

“Clever,” I muttered, looking around the darkened, rectangular room, the ambient light trickling in through the glass door and partially papered-up windows showing bare floors and a built-in empty counter with a door behind it. “Holing up next door right under everyone’s noses. How long have you been hiding here?” The Gravediggers’ security teams would have detected him if he’d moved in the past twenty-four hours.

“A couple days. Long enough to weave several plans on what the fuck I’m going to do to you.”

“What the hell.” My upper lip curled back in a snarl as he all but threw me into the empty room and turned back to lock the glass door. My throat wasn’t about to close up, thankfully, because the rage erupting through me drowned out any hint of fear. “You want to run that by me again?”

“You really want me to?”

“I’mnot your enemy, you prick. Or at least I wasn’t.” The wild thump of music and sounds of a party in full swing driftedthrough the wall. Even if I started screaming now, no one would hear me. I was on my own, at least until I didn’t check in with Tyr. And then bodies would start hitting the floor. “So what’s your damage, Red? Are your little feelings hurt that I didn’t invite you to my party?”

“You disgust me, you fucking whore.” The rage that vibrated through his tone shocked me far more than the words. This dude was seriously like a sweaty stick of dynamite ready to go off at the least little jostling. “I’ve met some stone-cold bitches in my time. But lady, you take the goddamn cake.”

I swallowed the bratty urge to thank him for that. “Wait, you’re the one who trashed my shop. Why are you acting likeyou’rethe one who should be butthurt about that? What the hell did I ever do to you, besides shut your stupid mouth with a baseball bat?”

He jabbed a finger at the wall separating us from Vixen’s Den. “That.”

“The party?” My slow-blink was probably wasted on him in the gloom. “You’re mad at my party?”

“You dare to celebrate all the fucking death and misery rained down on the Chicago Gravediggers, yet you stand there pretending innocence? I don’t fucking believe how sick you are.”

What the actual fuck. “One of us is sick, but I don’t think it’s me, pal.”

“I’ve been told how you are—you’re fucking famous for throwing parties whenever a Chicago Gravedigger dies. And here you are, just like clockwork, dancing on the graves of people who mean absolutely nothing to you.”

“Today, the day before Halloween, is my goddamn birthday, and Hades—the man who raised me from the time I was five years old—knows full well that today is my birthday. Every year I throw a party for myself, because my shit mother and Hades never threw one for me while I was growing up. Again,something that Hades knows all about. That,” I said, jabbing a finger at the wall to mimic his move, “is my twenty-ninth birthday party, you unbelievably dumb Daddy’s boy. Though I’ll tell you what, I promise to throw the biggest death party the world’s ever seen when your old man finally kicks the fucking bucket, and I’ll even invite you so you won’t be so butthurt this time around.”

He loomed closer, a terrifying shadow borne out of nightmares. “You fucking cunt.”

Fiercely I held on to my anger and locked my knees so I wouldn’t feel how they wanted to shake. “What’s the matter, Red? Does my explanation make too much sense? Does it crush whatever bullshit Hades told you about me and the party that’s going on next door? And it was Hades who spoon-fed you all those lies, wasn’t it? He got you so revved up you just couldn’t wait to make me pay, right?”

“You and that assclown cousin of mine.” His sneer was a work of art as he whipped off the cloak and threw it into an empty corner. To my dismay he didn’t lose the gun. “Neither one of you gives a shit about all the bodies you’ve piled up, do you?”

“To ask that question, you must be new here.” My scoff tasted bitter. It would do no good to point out that I hadn’t killed anyone, or Tyr, for that matter. This guy’s brain had been twisted by Hades, so that meant only one thing—answering aggression with aggression. “What kind of club in Texas did you come from anyway? The kind that got together on weekends for happy little joyrides in the desert? Where the worst thing you risked was a bad case of sunburn? Take my advice and gather up all of Hades’s other bastard children and get the hell out of Chicago. Get out before he eats you all alive.”

“There’s no one left but me, bitch! Olive’s dead because of you!”

“Olive…?” My rage blinked out as if it had never been, and a terrible wave of horror tinged with sorrow took its place. The memory of the sweet, sad girl whose will seemed to be so crushed she couldn’t even handle a flat tire filled my head even as I put a shaking hand to my mouth. “Olive is dead?”

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