Pretty When She Destroys (21 page)

Sliding her fingers through his chestnut locks, she bent her head to his throat. From the very beginning they had been drawn to each other in a terrifying and dynamic way. It had been lust in the beginning, but had quickly evolved into something much deeper and more frightening.

When Amaliya sank her fangs into his throat, Cian trembled and one hand settled underneath the mantle of her hair to rest against her neck. There was still a hint of warmth in the blood. The life threaded through it seeped into the marrow of her very being. With a low growl, Amaliya’s hands strayed downward but her hands paused on his belt. She needed to regain control, not encourage him to lose his own, so she snaked her arms around him and held him close.

Every time she fed from Cian, she was bound more intricately to the vampire on a supernatural level. There was a time when such knowledge would have sent her fleeing, but now she embraced it. All her life she had failed the expectations of others. Before her mother, Marlena, had died, she had shared her hopes and dreams for her daughter’s future. College, a career, a family: all the trappings of a good life in her mother’s eyes. After Marlena’s death, Amaliya had been typecast as the family failure, the black sheep, and the unredeemable troublemaker. Her father’s looks of disappointment haunted her throughout her childhood. Nothing she had ever said, or done, had ever satisfied him. Amaliya had careened through her life with no sense of real purpose until she had woken up in a forest grave with a new, terrible hunger. It was then she had found her purpose in life: to survive.

Though that goal remained at the core of her being, she had also evolved into a fighter, a protector, a lover, and a true friend. She was definitely not the same girl she had been before, yet, she was still a rebel who did not like to be told what to do, or constrained in anyway. Maybe that was what made her and Cian work so well. Neither one of them had any real interest in adhering to any particular societal rules.

Cian’s hand stiffened in her hair and drew her away from his throat. Her tongue flicked over the tiny wounds she had inflicted and the last few precious drops of blood. Pressing her against the grimy wall, Cian’s lips covered hers and overwhelmed her mouth. The kiss was full of everything that throbbed between them: love, lust, blood, and power.

Finally, they parted.

“Almost out of time,” he whispered against her lips. His eyes darted toward the young woman still held in his thrall. “Meet me outside.”

“Okay,” Amaliya breathed, trying to keep herself from crawling on top of him.

The human began to stir, the embedded suggestion that Cian had planted in her mind taking hold. Fading into shadows, Cian waited by the door. Amaliya licked her lips and stepped closer to woman. Sliding her hands over the mortal’s hips, Amaliya waited.

Several seconds later, the other woman flashed into awareness as a massive orgasm seized her. Clutching Amaliya close, the girl writhed with pleasure. Amaliya couldn’t help but grin. Cian must have given her victim one hell of an implanted memory.

“You’re amazing,” the girl gasped, then kissed Amaliya ravenously.

Amaliya lost herself for a few minutes in the afterglow of her feeding, relishing the softness of the other woman’s body and her full lips. Giggling, they finally parted, flushed, and sated. Stepping back, Amaliya helped the pretty brunette off the sink.

“Are you sure you won’t come home with me?”

Amaliya lightly ran her hand down the girl’s arm. “I wish I could, but my husband’s a real tyrant. He doesn’t get my needs.”

Pouting, the mortal nodded her head. “I used to have one of those. I ditched him.”

“He’s rich and has a big cock. It’s hard to give up,” Amaliya said. She sensed Cian’s amusement, but didn’t look toward the place where he was hidden by his power.

“I hear ya,” the other woman sighed.

Slipping out into the club, she gave the girl one last peck on the lips before weaving her way through the tight cluster of people near the bar. The harsh music thrummed through her body and she wanted to lose herself in it. It made her a bit grumpy to know that any fun nights out would have to wait until after she ripped The Summoner’s head off his shoulders and finished him for good.

There weren’t a lot of people on the sidewalk, so Amaliya spotted Cian right away. He was leaning against a lamppost waiting for her. Strolling up to him, she put her hands on her hips.

“Did you get her number?” Cian asked.

“Nah.”

“She was very pretty,” Cian said, his tone teasing.

“Well, yeah. I know how to pick ‘em.” Amaliya slanted her body toward him, giving him a sly smile. “So did you give her a really awesome memory of me?”

“You were amazing. The best ever. You’ve ruined her for all other women. And probably men.”

“Yes!” Amaliya high-fived him.

“You could probably still go get her number. For after the apocalypse.” Cian caught her about the waist with one arm and guided her down the sidewalk.

“Oh,
you
liked her!” Amaliya had to admit the girl had been delicious. “I can go back.”

“Nah.” Cian kissed her temple. “I just thought she might be a nice meal and a bit more sometime in the future.”

Snuggling into his side, Amaliya felt content despite the cloud of impending doom hovering over their heads. This is the life she wanted. Freedom to be with Cian. Freedom to hunt. Freedom to feed from and flirt with pretty young things, or dangerously hot metalheads. Blood, sex, magic, metal, and Cian were all the things that made her happy. She still felt guilt that Pete had died trying to save her from the life she loved. Pete had dreamed of a life with her filled with sunlight, a perfect home, marriage and children. She was grateful that he didn’t know that those were the things she had never really imagined for herself. The thought of marriage made her skin crawl and she could never imagine herself being pregnant.

“You, pregnant.” Cian chuckled.

“Fuck you.”

“I can’t imagine that either. Or the marriage thing. Though you would be a lovely bride. All dressed in white.” He was mocking her.

“Fuck you again.” Amaliya shook her head.

A slight smile graced Cian’s lips. He was being the mysterious, moody vampire tonight. She wondered if it was because of what had occurred between her and Samantha.

“No, no. It needed to happen. You both needed to rise to full power. It’s something else.”

“You’re not freaked out because I now have this deep connection to your ex-fiancée?” Amaliya had actually wondered if it would bother him. Though both of them had a big disconnect between sex and love, the emotional bond between them was very real and even sacred.

“Do I suddenly fear you’re madly in love with Samantha and want to leave me for her?” Cian smirked. “Why, yes I am.”

“You’re such a dick,” Amaliya exclaimed.

“I’m not worried about that. I’m concerned about something else altogether.” Cian drew her around a corner and they walked up a darkened side street toward the parking lot.

“What is it?”

Cian stopped in mid-stride, turned toward her, and took her hands gently in his own. “Bianca.”

“What about Bianca?” Amaliya knew before he even answered. The vision she’d had and the dreams had already told her the truth, but now she was going to hear it from Cian’s lips and her emotions began to harshly bubble in her chest.

“Benchley discovered that there’s a good chance she’s still alive,” Cian answered, then poured out the rest of what he had been told by Jeff.

Standing in the shadows of an old vacant bar, Amaliya fought against the urge to be furious at all three men. She balled her hands into fists and struggled with the impulse to storm off.

“Benchley had no fuckin’ right to tell Jeff. And Jeff had no fuckin’ right to tell you! Behind my back,” Amaliya wanted to scream with her frustration.

Cian folded his arms across his chest and gave her his most intense look. “Do you want to know what scares me, Liya? Bianca. Because I know you will do everything in your fuckin’ power to save her.”

“She’s like me!” Amaliya cried out. “I can’t abandon her! Our roles could have been so easily reversed. Why did I rise in three nights when she didn’t?”

“Jeff thinks it’s because you suppressed all your magical abilities and were living as a human. All accounts about Bianca are that she was struggling constantly with what she was, Liya. She was severely haunted by her power.”

A vivid memory of Bianca stepping out in front of her on the last day of her life sprang into her mind. The hesitant nervousness of the other girl had been off-putting. Bianca had tried to talk to her. She had said something, then The Summoner had come out of the building.

“I think she tried to save me,” Amaliya said, her voice catching.

“What?”

Though her death was shrouded in a haze, Amaliya had distorted dreams of dying. Sometimes, she saw flashes of Bianca’s face. “I think Bianca tried to warn me about The Summoner. I think she may have tried to save me, but failed.”

“You never said this before.” Cian’s brow furrowed beneath the fringe of his hair.

“It’s always been a really messed up memory. More a dream than anything, but I think it’s real.” Running her trembling fingers through her hair, Amaliya held her long tresses back from her face. “Shit, Cian. I can’t just abandon her!”

“But you also can’t go off half-assed,” Cian retorted. “You can’t go running off to rescue her when we don’t even know where she is. And how are you going to remove The Summoner from her body?”

With a cry of anger, Amaliya slammed the side of her fist against the building next to her. There was a loud crack as a spider web of fissures formed in the bricks. He was right and it infuriated her. Her inclination was to commandeer his car and drive immediately to San Antonio. But she knew that was foolhardy.

“We’ll sort this out together,” Cian said calmly, but with steel in his tone.

With an exasperated sigh, Amaliya stared past him, her vision blurred by the tears in her eyes. “I’m not going to kill him if she’s still trapped inside her own body.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. I won’t kill her, Cian. I won’t sacrifice her for him.” Too many people had already died trying to save Amaliya’s life. She wasn’t about to let Bianca die a second time.

“I understand. We’ll find a way.” He met her glare with a steady gaze. “I promise you.”

The fight left her at his vow. The one thing Cian never did was let her down. Once he committed to doing something, he did it. He wasn’t lying to get her to not do something foolish.

“I won’t bullshit you on this.” Cian gave her a weary smile. “I know that if I did it would backfire immediately.”

“I’d go to San Antonio and find a way to save her.”

“Or die trying.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re incredibly, annoyingly stubborn.”

“Fucking-A.”

Cian dragged her into his arms, his lips pressed to her forehead. Wrapping her in his embrace, he rocked her gently. “I love you for it even if it scares me to death.”

“Sucks to be you.” Amaliya twined her arms around his neck and allowed herself to calm down. If she wanted to, she could keep her anger going for hours, but it wasn’t worth it. In the end Cian would help her disengage The Summoner from Bianca’s body and she would save the world.

“It’s as simple as that,” Cian agreed.

“Exactly.”

Chapter 17

Roberto prowled around the bedroom Samantha shared with Jeff, ignoring the cat sitting in the middle of the bed hissing at him. The ghost’s body was frayed around the edges and his face tended to be out of focus, but it was almost like the old days when Roberto and Samantha had given each other hell. Though she was grateful he had agreed to help her, he was already on her nerves.

Throwing out his arms, he declared, “It’s so...plebian.”

“Fuck you,” Samantha automatically answered.

“Though the antiques have potential. If they were properly restored.” Roberto sniffed.

“You’re not here to snark on the house’s decor.”

“I wouldn’t call this decor. I would call it a...catastrophe. This is far worse than Cian’s IKEA obsession.”

“Yeah. What’s up with that?” Samantha shook her head and returned to her task. Scrounging around in her
large purse for her iPad, Samantha wondered how something so big could get lost. Pulling a stack of bills, a couple of fashion magazines, and her makeup bag out of the purse, she finally spotted the tablet. Jerking it out, she flipped open the case.

“What’s that?” Roberto asked, drifting closer.

“My notes on how to deal with you, dickface.” Samantha drew up the information she had collected from Benchley and Alexia’s research.

The ghost smirked.

“What?”

“Your power is wasted on you.”

Samantha raised one finger, ignoring him. “First off, you can’t leave the property without my permission.”

The moment she said the words, she felt her magic surge out in a big wave. She was peculiarly aware of it building a perimeter around the house. It was as if she had some sort of supernatural radar that pinged back information to her. Maybe she did. Tilting her head, she let her new powers decipher what she was feeling. It was a bizarre sensation, but she could feel, see, and almost taste the ward she had placed to keep Roberto in check.

Roberto narrowed his eyes. They looked more like smudges of black in his slightly blurred face. “Hmm...”

Giving him a victorious look, Samantha said, “See. My powers aren’t wasted. I can do this.”

“Apparently,” the ghost answered with a hint of grudging respect.

“Where was I? Oh, yeah. You’re not allowed to enter any of the bedrooms without permission. Especially this one. We don’t need you spying on us having...you know...relations.” Another ripple of her magic flowed out, creating new wards within the house.

The ghost winced, then began to slide along the floor as misty tentacles of her magic gripped him and dragged him toward the door. Pinwheeling his arms, he tried to grab onto something.

“Samantha!”

“Oh, you have permission to be here right now!”

Roberto’s skid stopped just before the door. He
glared at her.

“Oops.” Samantha made a mental note to remember that her magic took her words literally.

“What
is
my job exactly?” Roberto’s voice was cold, angry, and stubborn.

“You’re going to be the general of my ghost army,” Samantha answered. “Cool, huh?”

“Possibly,” Roberto replied noncommittally, but appeared intrigued.

“Also, play nice with the others. Cian’s in charge. Don’t piss him off.”

His hazy form slightly drooping, Roberto averted his face.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes. I am. Unfortunately.”

“Be nice, Roberto. I saved you.” Samantha frowned, worried that maybe this had been a bad idea after all.

“I am grateful for that, but a ghost can have many regrets once their life is over. I know I do.”

“Feeling bad for betraying Cian?” Samantha sat on the edge of her bed, setting her iPad on her lap.

The ghost flicked in and out of reality as he moved toward her. With a sigh, he sat next to her. “I should have killed Amaliya right away. Then you’d be married to Cian right now and none of this would be happening.”

Samantha was surprised by his words, and also a little unnerved. “Don’t say that.”

“I brought The Summoner down on all of us by not doing my duty to Cian. When I recognized Amaliya as a threat, I should have handled it. If I had, you and I wouldn’t be in this position right now.”

“A phasmagus and a ghost,” Samantha said.

“Exactly.”

“But you forget, I’d be married to Cian, who is a bit of a cheating bastard, you’d still hate my guts, The Summoner would take over the world, and we’d all die.” Samantha lifted her shoulders. “You may be worse off, but I’m better off. Jeff is a sweetie and I love him. Plus I’m a phasmagus and I will kick some serious butt. I’m scared, but happy here. Plus, bitch-face and I have a truce now. We’re even...kinda...sorta...friends. Honestly, Roberto, you fucked yourself over by betraying your friend. If you hadn’t been a jerkwad, you’d still be alive.”

The ghost whipped his head toward her, his features smearing together, his eyes holes of darkness, then his face returned to some semblance of normalcy. “Maybe Cian betrayed me! Just as he betrayed you!”

A year ago Samantha would have been terrified; now she was just slightly unnerved. She exhaled, her fingers fidgeting with the cover on her iPad. Even though she was the aggrieved party in their past drama, she had forgiven Cian and resolved a lot of her issues with Amaliya. She was also relieved that the romantic fantasy that she and Cian had created had fallen apart. There was no way Amaliya could have come between them so easily if they had truly been in love.

“I can tell by your expression that you know what I’m saying is true,” Roberto said after her silence had dragged on a little too long.

“I don’t think Cian betrayed you at all. Yeah, he didn’t listen to you about Amaliya, and he didn’t listen to me either, but that’s because he was lying to himself. I’m not saying he was right to ignore us. I’m saying that in the grand scheme of things, him being a bullheaded dick is a lot different from you going off and siding with The Summoner.” Samantha fastened a steady glare on the ghost.

“I was angry,” Roberto said with what could have been a slight pout.

“Yeah, so? I was furious. But I didn’t go siding with the enemy. I tried to
save
Cian from Amaliya. I didn’t
betray
him.”

“After so long together I could see that Cian was going to move on without me.”

“Oh, God. Were you two boning?”

Robert
o bestowed her with a sardonic smile. “And if we were?”

Scrunching up her face, Samantha said, “Eh, whatever. I’m over Cian. I’m with Jeff. You’re dead and a ghost. Fuck the past.”

Visibly deflating over not being able to rile her up, Roberto sighed. “Though we have shared many women over the years, and endured much together, we were not ‘boning.’ We were like brothers, or so I thought. I knew Cian was unhappy when he started trying to be human again. You were bad enough. But Amaliya...when he wouldn’t send her away even when he knew The Summoner might descend on all of us, I knew my time with him was at an end.”

“So why didn’t you just go off and find your own life?”

“Without a vampire’s blood, I would grow old and die. I wanted neither of those things.”

“Well, at least you won’t grow old now.”

Roberto’s grimace deepened.

“I was trying to look at the bright side.” Samantha hesitated, then asked, “Why didn’t you just ask him to make you into a vampire?”

“I was angry, impatient, and wanted to hurt him for destroying the life we had built. I also knew he was opposed to making fledglings. Maybe Cian wouldn’t have completely abandoned me. I don’t know. But I also didn’t want to depend on him to make the choice for me.”

“So you betrayed him even though you had a super-long friendship.”

“There is only so long you can cling to the past.”

“And now you’re dead.”

“And I won’t grow old,” Roberto said with a sardonic smile.

The door opened. The light spilled in from the hallway to illuminate Jeff’s startled look.

“It’s not what you think,” Roberto said swiftly.

“My girlfriend is laying down the law on your ghostly ass?”

Roberto frowned. “An automatic response from my...living days.”

“You were such a whore, weren’t you?” Samantha rolled her eyes. It felt strange to be locking horns with Roberto again, but in a weird way she had missed him. He had been a part of her life for nearly a year, then had suddenly been gone.

“Yes, yes, I was,” Roberto said, his voice filled with longing.

“Eww.”

“Do you mind taking your ghostly ass out of my bedroom?” Jeff pointed at the doorway.

Roberto’s hollow eyes menacingly darkened.

“Go patrol, Roberto,” Samantha said, waving her hand at the apparition. “You’re not welcome in the bedroom anymore.”

One second the ghost was beside her, the next he was in the hallway. With a grunt, Roberto blurred into a smear of darkness and was gone.

“Can everyone else see him, too?” Jeff asked, entering and shutting the door behind him. “Or is Cian’s blood still affecting me?”

“Oops. Pulling the plug,” Samantha answered, internally disconnecting her thread of magic from Roberto so he would fade. “He’s invisible again.”

Sitting next to her, Jeff fastened one of his sweet looks on her, his hand sliding over her fingers. “I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s serious.”

Samantha set her iPad aside with her other hand. “Those words make me a little scared.”

“Well, I’m a little scared, too, but I really need to talk to you about this. Especially after tonight, seeing you like that. It was amazing, but scary.”

“Are you sure this isn’t a bad talk?” Samantha’s stomach coiled into a tight knot. If Jeff was going to dump her, she didn’t know how she’d deal with it. She really loved him, but she was evolving into something that even scared her a little. Maybe he couldn’t hack the change.

“I don’t think it’s a bad talk. Of course, you might think it is.” Jeff sighed.

“Jeff, just tell me what is going on.”

With a sigh, Jeff nodded his head. “Okay. Here we go.”

When her boyfriend drew out a small platinum ring with a single diamond, Samantha literally stopped breathing.

“This is my mom’s. It’s been in my family a long time. Before my dad died he said to give it to the woman I loved. That’s you.” Jeff held out the ring.

“You’re just going to give me a diamond ring? As a gift?” Samantha was dizzy not only with the whirl of emotions inside of her, but because she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

Jeff’s eyebrows drew together. “No, no. It’s not a gift. I’m asking you to marry me.”

“But you didn’t really ask,” Samantha pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.” Jeff hesitated, then lifted the ring. “Sam, will you marry me?”

“No! Wait! Is this because we’re going to die?” Samantha had already made a mistake once when answering ‘yes’ to a marriage proposal and she wasn’t about to get married for the wrong reason.

“Not the answer I hoped for.”

“Is it?” Samantha pressed one hand to her wildly beating heart. “Because we’re going to die?”

Jeff adamantly shook his head, his floppy hair getting messier. “No! No. Well, sort of. Not really.”

“Well?”

“Look, Sam. This is the thing. I love you. I love you being in my house with me. It feels right. I want this to be our home together. And, yes, the thought that we might die in a few months scares me enough to compel me to say things that I might have talked myself into waiting on. You know, waiting for the perfect moment. Yet, there might not be one. A perfect moment.” Jeff was flummoxed. “I’m doing this all wrong. I’m sorry. I’m sure Cian did this much better.”

Samantha stared at the ring in his hand and watched it gradually go out of focus as tears welled. Cian had done it perfectly with a carriage ride, tons of red roses, champagne, a proposal on one knee, and a whopper of a ring. It had all been a charade. Jeff’s floundering proposal had her breathless, speechless, and stunned.

“I forgot to get down on one knee,” Jeff muttered. “Okay, this was probably a bad idea. I’m doing this all wrong. Maybe I should try again later?”

Wagging her head, Samantha managed to say, “No.”

“No?” Jeff visibly deflated.

“I mean, no, don’t ask me later.” Samantha grabbed his wrist before he could draw away. “Not don’t ask me. I mean. Yes.”

Jeff squinted at her. “Okay. Lost.”

“Yes. Let’s get married.” The second the words left her lips, Samantha burst into tears.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry!” Jeff reached out to draw her close.

Behind them, Beatrice meowed with irritation, trying to sleep.

“I’m crying because I’m happy.”

Despite all the insanity in her life, Samantha was sure that she wanted to be with Jeff. No matter what supernatural weirdness was occurring within her or around them, Jeff was her stalwart supporter. He believed so entirely in her, loved her so completely, that she couldn’t imagine not having him at her side. She loved him in a way that brought her an incredible amount of peace. She wasn’t afraid of sharing her future with him, even if it did end disastrously for both of them. As long as she was with him, whatever was left of her life would be worth living.