Page 9 of Mortdale

“Try to aim away from my shoes.”

“They do look like nice shoes.” I sucked in a few mouthfuls of air. “I think I’m ready now. Let’s get leg-shackled and live happily ever after in your big mansion. You have a big mansion, right?” I asked, picking on a hangnail until I could feel a bead of blood roll down my finger. “I’m sort of marrying you for your riches. Been scheming high and low on how to bleed your pockets dry.”

My rich husband-to-be drew another slow drag from his cigarette as he studied me intently. “And here I was, thinking we were marrying for love.”

“I might have loved you if you were old and bald. The erectile issue would have been a bonus.”

His lower lip rolled between his teeth. “What a shame.”

Squaring my shaking shoulders, I said, “Let’s do this before I faint.”

He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the pews lined with his men. “Art, get them all out.”

All who?

I looked around, and a tall, dark-haired vampire shot up from his seat, ushering everyone up and out of the chapel.

Marilla stuttered on her feet when another vampire with bronze eyes, umber skin and shaved, short dark hair politely tried to beckon her in his direction by curling his fingers at her. Her mouth parted without words several times. “We…we have to witness the union. It is tradition.”

“They know how it goes.” His charming smile didn’t have the intended effect on the old witch, given…well, the fangs.

Marilla shot me a bewildered look as the smirking vampire pulled her out by her arm. The hard slam of the door echoed, forcing the candlelight to flicker and drench us both in a massacre of shadows and utter silence.

My husband-to-be loosened his tie and grabbed a silver-hilted dagger wrapped in rubies from the altar. “What’s your favourite colour, Willow?”

I jumped back when he dug the tip of the blade into the pad of his thumb. “My what?”

“Colour—what colour do you like most of all?” he asked, wrapping a hand around my jaw and holding me still while he slid a step closer to me. He was cold…but warm—sort of. My entire body shook as I tried to be very still while his hand slid off my jaw to cup the back of my head. “Blue, yellow, purple?”

“It’s kind of a deeply personal question,” I said, swallowing hard. “And I feel very vulnerable right now. What’s yours?”

Carefully, he brushed his bloodied thumb over my lips, smearing his blood across them. “Red.”

His fingers tightened around my jaw and his voice was very low when he said, “You should breathe.”

I did. Though not very well.

“And exhale, Miss Briar,” he quietly said when I held it again as he pricked my thumb. “Good.” His eyes rolled down to mine as he brought my bleeding thumb to his parted lips, coating them in my blood. “That’s good.”

His entire body tensed. For a few long moments, he breathed in and out as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. Colour had disappeared entirely from his eyes, swallowed by the weight of his pupils. They locked on mine as he leaned down and whispered something in his vampiric tongue before pressing his mouth to mine. A sweet, coppery taste filled my mouth, and my eyes fluttered shut. His hand at the back of my head had lightly grasped a fistful of my hair as he held me still, and at some point, my fingers had grabbed the fabric of his shirt so tightly I could feel each dent of muscle in his stomach. His chest touched mine with each breath we took—breaths we were sharing. I’d counted almost to fifteen when the weight of his body shifted away from my proximity. As he pulled back, he dragged my bottom lip between his, sucking off the blood.

My first kiss. Bloodied. Cold. And so very gentle.

He just stared at me for a few very long seconds, not pulling back entirely as he slowly reached to wipe the remaining blood from my lips with his thumb. I nearly choked when he brought it to his mouth and sucked it off—licking his lips, too.

I swallowed, and his eyes dropped to my throat.

“Are you sure you’re not sick?” he asked, straightening his tie. “Or contagious?”

My voice slightly shook as I said, “Well, whatever I have you have now.”

He looked between us, at where I was still clutching fistfuls of his shirt. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I think we should keep our clothes on for the rest of this.”

He tipped his head to the side, just watching me. “Miss Briar?” Then that strangely pacifying gaze of his started gathering into a scrunched up frown, dropping to my mouth.

Shit.

Not mouth. My nose.