Page 90 of Perfectly Perplexing Zombie

“Good.” The grin slipped from my lips as fear slipped in. “Promise me I’m not going to lose you now.” I sucked on my bottom lip. “I know that’s not fair of me to ask, but I’m asking anyway.” I swallowed hard. “You don’t have to stay with me now. You don’t have to keep trying to convince me to accept your bond. You…you can go anywhere and do anything oranyoneyou want. I don’t have much to offer you. I’m currently living rent-free in a tiny one-bedroom apartment above a bar. I’ve got a scuttlebutt, a fridge full of brains and bits of flesh, and I’m just a helper at Dusk. I have no idea what my future looks like or where I’m going. I…” My words trailed off, and my eyes slipped closed.

With his fingers on my chin, Ray tilted my face and ordered, “Look at me.”

Slowly, I did as asked.

Ray’s crimson-ringed eyes danced with low-banked fire. “I’m not going anywhere. There is only one criterion dictating where I wish to be, and that is your presence. I need nothing else. It is I who worry that you will tire of me. You have a thousand and one opportunities before you. I’m old, Wendall. Some days, those years are heavier than others. When I’m with you, the past is but a whisper on the wind. I have not looked this forward to the future in countless centuries. I will be by your side until you demand Queen Silvidia remove me.”

My grin returned with a vengeance. “You really mean that. Don’t you?”

“With everything I am.” Ray sounded so certain. “One day, I hope to share my bond with you just as I hope you’ll give yours to me. Finally, time is no longer against us. There is no need to rush.”

I didn’t feel the need to lay claim to Ray, at least not right this second. He was mine just as I was his. There was no clawing, desperate need. There was simply the gentle knowledge that it would eventually be. I was as certain of that as anything. It was a peaceful thought and settled my heart.

“Sleep,” Ray said, keeping his voice low. “I will be here when you wake. If you’ll allow, I will be the last face you see when you close your eyes and the first you see upon opening them.”

I shifted closer and threw my leg over Ray’s, entwining our calves. “Muriel told me she wasn’t sure if fairies could fall in love.”

“I assure you, they can and do. You need look no further than the fairy lying in your bed. Now, rest. Your body is exhausted, and the naps you’ve taken aren’t enough. As I said, I’ll be here when you wake.”

I tenderly ran my fingers across Ray’s cheek. “I love you, Ray. Now and always. My bond already belongs to you. You have but to claim it.” Leaning in, our lips found each other again. Plush and soft, Ray poured his love into that kiss, and I felt it tickle my soul bond.

Pulling away, I laid my head on my pillow but kept our foreheads touching. Our breath mingled, and my heart slowed into an even rhythm. I fell asleep to that sound, its warm lullaby pulling me under with pleasantly curious taunts of the future.

When Ray and I did share our bonds, it would be little more than a formality. We were already connected. My imperfectly reanimated life into a zombie paved the way to the awaiting, fantastical future. I had no idea what my human-fairy body had in store for me. I only knew that the fairy lying in my bed would be integral to it. Ray said he’d never leave me, and I believed him. What he’d soon learn was that went both ways. I was just as smitten with my fairy as he was with me.

Love was a fickle mistress. I’d been fortunate she’d chosen to stop and knock on my door. I’d been even more fortunate I’d chosen to open it and allow love in.

Epilogue

I neededanother whiskey but couldn’t be bothered to get up to get one. My mind wouldn’t stop turning.

Djinn.

They still existed, and the possibilities were beautifully endless.

Finishing off what was left in my glass, I set it back on the arm of my chair. My office was my sanctuary. No wolf—beta or otherwise—would dare enter without prior permission. It was a hard and fast rule that only the most foolish or naïve broke. And those who did never repeated that mistake.

The fire dwindled to little more than sputtering flames and cinders. I didn’t need the warmth. Werewolves ran hot enough, but I still found the crackling flame soothing. It helped me think, and right now, I needed that mental stability.

“I need more money,” I said. The walls didn’t answer back. I didn’t expect them to. “Cash is the key.” Or, more to the point, cold, hard cash was the means to get what I wanted. And what I wanted was revenge.

Sweet, savage, deadly retribution.

A low growl slipped through my lips. Before Sedrick Voss and his pixie mate, no one had beaten me. That defeat opened an unwelcome door. My pack had yet to offer an official challenge, but as time progressed, it wouldn’t be long before some randy upstart thought they could best me. I didn’t doubt the outcome of such a challenge, but they were tedious and consumed precious time. They undermined my overall authority and fostered doubt. I didn’t have the patience for either.

Twirling my empty glass, I thought over my possibilities. Cash flow was less of a problem now than it once was. Who knew ogres would pay so much for a pixie? I’d known they became easily addicted to that damn dust, but I hadn’t known just what lengths they’d go to feed that addiction. Trafficking the pixies wasn’t exactly easy, but the group I’d helped bring together was capable, discrete, and most of all…greedy. It was a lucrative business, and right now, I needed all the extra funding I could get.

My beta, Johann, finally found a warlock that might be able to break a pixie bond, but he wasn’t promising anything and was demanding a shit-ton of cash to try it. He’d also said it would take time. Possibly years.

Another growl filled the room, this one louder than the last. I didn’t want it to taketime. I wanted that damn bond broken yesterday. I wanted Phil to hurt, and I wanted Sedrick there watching every second of every minute Phil suffered until he’d wasted away to nothing and his heart beat its last.

Dillon and Ruthie were mine. I’d murdered my own damn daughter to get them, and Sedrick Voss had swooped in and stolen them out from under me. If it hadn’t been for Phil…

My claws broke free and cut into my chair’s worn leather. They wouldn’t be the first claw marks, and they wouldn’t be the last.

Eyes closed, I concentrated on the crackle of the dying fire, allowing it to clear my head and focus my thoughts.

“A djinn,” I said with reverence.

A wicked smile pulled my lips. I’d heard about that idiotic human, Stover’s, death. The djinn he controlled was no longer his. I wasn’t certain where she’d wound up, but I could bet they’d either taken her object of attachment to Fairy or given it to Peaches or Phil for safekeeping. They’d squander her away inside their protective barrier and keep anyone else from playing with the delectably powerful creature.

That djinn was currently beyond my reach, but where there was one djinn, there were others. The key was finding them, and that’s where cash was king. It was amazing all the impossible things one could find when payment was limitless.

Somewhere, out there in the world, was a djinn waiting to be found and unleashed. And I was just the alpha werewolf to hold its leash.

The world needed to become reacquainted with the fact that no one dismissed Alpha Arie Belview.

No one.

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