Page 74 of The Serpent's Bride
Open arms and a bloody knife.
What a fucked-up pair we make.
Closing the distance between them, she kissed him.
He responded in kind for a moment before pulling his head away and placing his fingers against her lips to stop her from chasing after him. “Ah, youhungrylittle thing.”
Sighing, she glowered at him.
Laughing at how put out she looked, he tossed her rather unceremoniously onto her side on the bed. “I am not going to get into another round with you. Or else I will be railing you into oblivion for the next two hours. You will be a bruised and battered mess for dinner, and I will not hear the end of it from my family.”
“You could tell your family to get wrecked. Say you’re spending time with your new wife.” The words left her before she could really consider what she was saying. What waswrongwith her? What had he done to her? She knew humans could get wrapped up in what it felt like to be bitten by a vampire—but she hadn’t even been aware of the bite. Her head was already scattered from the intensity of the sex and everything else she’d been through. The moment he’d sunk his teeth into her neck, she had passed out. She hadn’t really experienced it.
Had it done something to her? Was she his thrall now?
A fresh wave of fear hit her. No, no—that wasn’t possible. She was just playing the part. And he was handsome. And she hadn’t been laid in a long time. And she had never in her life ever been laid likethat.
Maybe there was also some relief in her that he hadn’t realized she was fae after feeding on her. Her glamor had held up after being bitten. There was a lot to attribute it to.
Raziel was already changing, laughing at her comment as he pulled on a pair of trousers. “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, and as much as you will come to regret it later, I’m afraid I will have to insist. If you still feel the same way later, I’ll take you up on your offer after a bottle of wine. How’s that sound?”
“I’m just trying to avoid your mother.” She flopped back down onto the pillow. “But also…we’ll see.” She smirked at him in the mirror.
He smirked back. “Trust me. I would much rather be introducing you to the truth of the rumors about me than listen to my family prattle on.” His expression faded. “While they will be impressed with your performance, I’m certain they will findsomereason to needle. They always do.”
He pulled an undershirt over his head. She watched the muscles in his back flex as he did. Moons, she wanted to lick every single line of them.I clearly needed to scratch more itches in my life.She laid her head back down on the pillow. The painkillers were starting to work, and the ache in her lower back was easing up. “How long until they get here?”
“A few hours. You have time to get some more sleep before they arrive. I’ll send someone to wake you an hour before to give you time to dress.”
All he got in response from her was a grunt. She was already on her side and half buried in the thick comforter. When she felt him sit on the edge of the bed next to her and stroke her hair, she didn’t know what to say.
When he kissed her cheek, she didn’t know what to think.
“Get some rest, my little murderer. You’ll need it.”
When those words made her smile, she didn’t know how to feel.
TWENTY-ONE
Staring at herself in the mirror, Nadi was lost in thought. Studying a face that wasn’t hers. A body that wasn’t hers. And a soul that…she wondered if she was quickly going to fail to recognize before long.
What was happening to her? What was shebecoming?Was a chance at destroying the Nostroms really worth killing Luciento? It was too late now. She had made her choice. Luciento was dead. There was no going back.
Her uncle had been sacrificed on the altar of her revenge. All in the name of winning Raziel’s trust and convincing Volencia that she was worthy of joining the family. Or, at the very least, convincing her to agree to Nadi’s preferred outcome—that the sacrificial honeymoon simply be postponed for a while.
All Nadi needed was enough time to kill them all.
Looking down at her palms—atMonica’spalms—there was another thought that was eating away at her, a worry in the back of her mind, a stray thought, something far more insidious and dangerous than even her wanton lust for her worst enemy.
It was a single blot of black ink on a white piece of paper in her mind. A tiny little dot, but impossible to ignore. And equally impossible to remove.
Raziel found faedisgusting.Beyond disgusting. Reviled them with every fiber of his being. That he made painfully clear. He found Monica attractive. That was also painfully clear.
Those two things led straight to the thought that would not go away.
Raziel would find my true self disgusting.
It was a statement of fact in her mind. There was no way around it. If he saw her real self, her oil-slick-colored scales and fins, her pale green skin, and midnight-opal eyes, he would turn away from her in revulsion.
