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Morgan appeared confused until I smiled. There was nothing friendly about the gesture. “You tried to kill the Queen of the Eastern pack,” I continued. “And you might have succeeded in killing the king’s lieutenant.” My finger tensed on the trigger. The flash of memory reminded me what Desmond had looked like on the platform, soaking in his own blood, all to save me… It was almost enough to make me change my mind.
“You’re a betrayer,” I concluded.
“I…” She grew pale.
“Do you know how vampires deal with rogues? Those who betray their own kind?” When she shook her head, my smile grew wider and I flashed fangs at her. She took a step back, but I raised my sword. It was the only warning I needed to give. “They chain them in silver and lock them away. For centuries. No food, no fresh air. They let them slip out of memory until they are withered, disgusting husks. Shells.”
Morgan got even whiter.
“Death becomes a dream.” I looked at the gun, then back at her. “We can’t do that to you, of course. Without food you’d starve to death. Unpleasant, sure…but not nearly as punishing.” Licking my fangs, I shrugged one shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. We have plenty of time.”
“We…we do?”
I nodded. “You’re going to live a very long life, Morgan. And I’m going to find a way to make sure you hate every single second of what’s left.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Seventy-six.
That was the number of calls, texts and emails I received from Lucas in the two weeks following our failed wedding.
Zero was the number I had returned.
Maybe it would have been smarter of me to send back one line. Something short and brutal, like Fuck you, I never want to speak to you again. But I didn’t. That felt childish, and it would have made me out to be a caricature of a jilted bride.
Jilted. It was one of those words you only ever hear used in one context.
I paced my kitchen as the seventy-seventh phone call came through. Billy Idol no longer sang to me when it rang. Now Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” was the go-to ringtone. At least for Lucas. Everyone else got Hall & Oates’s “Maneater”.
Yeah, that’s right.
While I waited for the call to go to voicemail, I opened my freezer and looked inside. Reaching past the half-empty bottle of vodka, I withdrew an ice cube tray and inspected the contents. My engagement ring lay frozen in one of the cubes, glimmering at me even in the low kitchen light. I sneered, thrust the tray back into the freezer and then punished myself a little by listening to Lucas’s message.
“Secret…” His voice sounded the same on every message. Tired, apologetic, but the last ten or so had also come across with some of his signature impatience. “I know you’re still upset.” I snorted. “But we need to sit down and talk about this like mature adults.” Really, he was pulling the mature adults card? There was a long, loaded pause. “I miss you.”
I deleted the message.
Leave it to Lucas to make me seem like the irrational one. It didn’t matter that Page Six had spent a whole week covering the fallout from the so-called “White Wedding Massacre”. Forget the gossip column, our wedding had been front page on The Times and the Post. Both articles made sure to mention how right before the gunfire started I had been stood up.
According to pack law, we were still married.
According to me, I didn’t give a fuck what pack law thought. Lucas and I were done.
I picked up the phone again and made a call. After three rings it was answered with a sleepy, rumbling, “Hey.”
“Did I wake you?”
Rustling sheets and a cough to clear the traces of sleep out of his voice. “No,” Desmond lied.
“I woke you, I’m sorry. Go back to bed.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Liar.”
I stared at the light on my microwave. Eleven forty-seven. I should have checked before I called, but I was still so used to Desmond being on my schedule it was hard to adjust now that he was living like a normal human man again. Out in the daylight where he belonged, not stuck down in a brick-windowed basement dungeon with me.
