Page 39 of The Serpent's Bride
And they would see exactly which one of them broke first.
“Save your luck for yourself, Raziel,” she murmured to herself. “I think you’ll need it more than me.”
ELEVEN
If she lived to see the dawn, she’d call it a win.
Nadi felt like she was having an out of body experience throughout the entirety of the so-called “wedding.” Wearing a dress meant for someone else. Wearing a persona that wasn’t hers.
Marrying the man she had vowed revenge upon.
Carrying a bouquet of flowers the color of blood.
Smiling. Shaking hands. Posing for photos. Forcing herself to look demure as she stood at the altar, saying the vows in front of the human priest. It didn’t feel real. It was all happening to someone else. It was the only way she could go through it all, like she was watching someone else go through the actions. She was playing a part on a grand stage—reading lines from someone else’s script.
The vows had been the most surreal.
Listening to Raziel say the words as he placed a ring on her finger. Repeating them back to him as she did the same. Lines in a play.
None of it was real. To either of them. A gesture of a motion of a feeling.
Only the kiss had any attachment to reality. It was chaste—they were in front of a crowd, after all—but that was the first time Raziel looked at her and truly seemed toseeher. The first time those red eyes hadn’t been glassy, faraway, and utterlybored.She wasn’t the only one going through the motions.
What a fucking mess.
When she finally had a moment to sit down at the head table in the reception hall, she could actually take a moment to assess the situation. They were in a giant, expensive hotel that matched the same kind of hyper-modern elegance of his home. It looked extremely fancy, yet somehow devoid of detail—so foreign to the way she grew up in the Wild. It seemed…somehow austere to her. Cold. Unwelcoming. Too fancy.
Insincere.
That was it. The whole damn thing. The hotel. The decor. The food. The feelings. The people. The smiles. The friendship. The family. The love. It was all fuckinginsincere.
The humans mingling among the guests were fascinating to her. Most of them seemed to orbit one or other of the vampires—serving as thralls, or toys, or temporary playthings. Just as Monica was expected to do for Raziel.
But she wasnotMonica. She was Nadi. And the people around herweren’ther new family. They were her victims. Each one could have had a name tag on them that had a number etched to it.
Ezekiel Nostrom, third cousin, drug runner. Number eighty-seven.She could kill him in the back stairwell and make it look like an overdose. Make him eat all the powder he was peddling to people from his coat pocket and trying—and failing—to make it look subtle.
Timothy Verrik, human, slave trader. Number thirty-four.That one, she’d bludgeon to death in his hotel room. Make itlook like the women he was just introducing into the market had turned on him in a fit of desperation.
Mael Nostrom, older brother, kingpin. Number one. There he was, sitting at the head table to her right, with all the other immediate Nostrom family. He was smiling and laughing, telling some grandiose story that had the table in rapt attention. He was charismatic, handsome, and always the center of attention. By the pit, he even had the mayor of the metropolis sitting at the table with him, smiling and laughing at his jokes.
Mael was the smiling face of the vampiric influence upon the human race. The constant, benign protector who had long since vowed to shield the humans from the Wild in the name of his ancestors who had done the same.
The sun to Raziel’s moon. No one would guess by looking at him that he was the mastermind of an entire drug empire and the one who made sure that all of the mayor’s problems quietly disappeared—and therefore the most powerful person in all of the isle of Runne.
Vampires were an obnoxious bunch. Each one was “blessed” with their own version of their blood-gifts. No two seemed to have the exact same powers, though there were definite patterns that formed in families. Turning to bats, or into mist, or rats—those seemed to be common.
Raziel’s gift of hypnotism? That was truly unique. But it didn’t make him any more or less durable than the standard vampire. Whereas Mael and his father seemed to share the trait of beingexceptionallydifficult to murder.
Yeah. Nadi hadnoclue how to killhim.
She’d heard stories of people who had tried. Poison hadn’t done it. Stabbing hadn’t done it. Setting him on fire hadn’t done it.
No, it’d require something more permanent to take him out.
Then it hit her.
Like father, like son.
