Chapter 4
FOUR
“Are you insane?”
Raziel kept a faint smile on his face as he looked down at his sister Lana. He was used to this. It wasn’t the first time he had received a dressing-down from her. Hopefully, it would be one of the last.
Because, if all went to plan, she would be dead soon.
He wondered who would be the one to get the kill on Lana. Him, or his new little murderer. Either way, he was going to watch.
Azazel was sprawled out on a sofa, looking entirely uninterested in the conversation, reading a book. Lana went nowhere without her favorite pet.
And Ivan was standing near Monica, looking as stern as ever. He had informed his bodyguard to keep watch over his newly vampiric wife. He could not trust his mother not to attempt to murder her over dinner.
“Stupid question.” Lana placed her hands over her face as she paced back and forth over the carpet in front of him. “Of course you are. Of course.”
He lit his cigarette, enjoying the taste of the incense and wood chips on his tongue.
It was an odd habit he picked up decades ago, but one he found hard to shake.
That, along with the coins he was constantly toying with.
They gave him something to help ration his thoughts when his mind wanted to go faster than the rest of him.
Lana plucked the cigarette from his mouth and immediately tamped it out in a brass bowl that sat atop the elegant antique credenza against the wall.
His mother’s home was far more dated than his.
She preferred the look of things from a bygone era—all deep lacquered wood, crimson drapes, and all so dimly lit that without their vampiric eyesight the family would have been constantly tripping over velvet footstools.
“You know Volencia hates it when you smoke,” Lana hissed. “Are you trying to make this worse on yourself?”
Raziel rolled his eyes. “She smokes. This house reeks of actual cigarettes. I hate the smell of that hideous weed she rolls up and puts in those papers for some reason.”
“Exactly! She says you smell like a bonfire. Always taking after your father, smoking woodchips.” Lana went back to pacing with an angry sigh. “Bad enough you walk in with that.” She gestured at the young woman standing nearby, close to the door, her hands tucked into the pockets of her dark coat.
Monica, to them. To him? Nadi. What a wonderful name.
It was deeply amusing how attractive the rancher’s daughter had been to him until he knew the truth—until he realized that so much of the fire and razor’s edge that he had come to desire in the young “human” had actually belonged to the fae assassin who had come to murder him.
The little bits of her own personality she had allowed to shine through the lie she had so carefully played were the parts he had adored, not the act she had worn.
And a brilliant job she had done in her lie, he had to give her credit. To share his bed—his life—to slide into the Serpent’s lair without notice. It was only because of her dreams of grandeur and desire to murder his entire family that he was still alive.
If she’d wanted him dead… he would be. Several times over. He had been at her mercy for weeks.
By the moons, that shouldn’t make him want her as badly as it did.
Because now that he’d seen her true face—knew her true self? It would not stop haunting him. The image of Nadi atop him while holding a knife to his throat, cursing him with lust and hate in her eyes, kept waking him from sleep.
They were destined to destroy each other. One of them would end up dead. A duel to the death. And it was delicious to him. He would have it no other way.
There she was, hiding behind the veneer of Monica-turned-vampiress. As flawlessly as any actor upon a stage, with her slightly magenta eyes and her pale skin. Shy, but determined. Frightened, but like a cornered cat. Not afraid to lash out with her sharp claws.
“That is my wife, need I remind you.” He pulled a coin from his pocket. If he couldn’t smoke, he’d amuse himself in other ways. He began to walk the coin across the backs of his fingers, moving to stand by the window.
“You needn’t remind me,” Lana bit back. “But I apparently need to remind you that you were supposed to kill her!” The shrillness of her voice made Raziel wince.
“The plan changed.” A simple fact. It did.
“And why? Why! That’s what I don’t understand.” Lana was furious. It was always funny when she got all wound up. So pointless. Such a waste of time. “Sure, she’s cute, but you’ve never been one to get—”
His patience, however, was running thin. “Show her, Monica.”
“Are… are you sure?” Monica grimaced. Good girl, still flawlessly playing the part. “I haven’t quite figured out the… whole… clothes… thing…”
Oh, very clever. Likely drawing off her experience mastering her skill when she was a young fae.
The image of her accidentally tearing apart her clothing when shifting forms did nothing to help the low hum of desire that had been burning in him since their foray at the estate. “She’s about your size. It’ll be fine.”
Lana was clearly unamused. “What are you two babbling ab—”
Monica shifted forms into one that flawlessly matched Lana, only wearing Monica’s clothing. She smiled. “What are you two babbling about?” she parroted in a perfect imitation of Lana’s voice and tone.
Lana staggered backward, falling into a chair.
Ivan jumped away from Monica as if he were suddenly an old woman who had spotted a mouse.
Azazel did a double-take, before snapping his book shut and sitting up on the sofa, his mouth agape.
Monica, wearing Lana, marched up to Raziel. “Are you insane? Stupid question. Of course you are. Of course.” She repeated the first half of the conversation to him flawlessly, even pacing around on the carpet, copying Lana’s mannerisms with a disturbing degree of polish, even to his eye.
Raziel wondered idly how well she could copy his own personality. He had seen her take his form, but she hadn’t been copying his mannerisms. Likely for his own comfort, he realized.
That was skill, not magic, that gave her that gift.
She grew so much more frightening to him in that moment.
And he wanted her so much more for it.
The form of Lana melted back into that of vampiric Monica, and she stepped to Raziel’s side, wrapping her arms around his waist as if she were suddenly afraid of the world. She exhaled, seeming exhausted.
He draped his own arm around her, holding her close. “My blood had an interesting effect, you could say.”
“What the fuck—what the fuck—what the fuck—” Lana was in a panic. “That—that’s not—that’s not possible—that’s not—bats are one thing, but—”
“You remember cousin Mikhail, do you not?” Raziel kissed the top of Nadi’s head.
She rested her cheek against him. “He could take the shape of all manner of animals at will, not simply bats like we Nostroms can. Wolves. Rats. Even a camel for that one party.” He chuckled.
“Oliren can change his form into mist as well as bats. Is it such a stretch to imagine this? In some ways it’s more natural, when you think about it. ”
Lana was numbly shaking her head. Azazel was still staring, agog.
Vampires sometimes had a singular gift that ran in their family. With the Nostroms, it was the gift of shifting into bats. With the Rosovs, they could speak to animals—though there were no animals in the metropolis and pets were illegal, so it was a rather useless gift.
Those vampires like Raziel or the ones he had mentioned like Mikhail or Oliren were considered powerful and rare mutations. Or, now, “Monica.”
“So fucked up,” was Ivan’s simple, three-word addition to the conversation.
“Thank you for the summary, Ivan.” Raziel smirked. He was very, very proud of himself in this moment. It wouldn’t guarantee that he would come out of the evening unscathed. Hardly. But he was now quite convinced that “Monica” would be allowed to join the family.
Because such a skill was far too useful to destroy.
Lana stood from the chair finally, never taking her eyes off Monica like she was some kind of freak of nature—which to be fair, she was—just not for the reasons Lana might believe. She hurriedly left the room, likely to go tell their mother what she had just witnessed.
Good. It saved them both having to repeat the parlor trick.
“I don’t want to die,” Nadi murmured to him. Moons, she was too good at this.
“You won’t. Not here. Not today.” He tipped her head up to look at him. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Nadi might shy away from his touch. She might bare her little fae fangs and hiss at him like a feral cat. But Monica? Monica was his.
Leaning down, he kissed her. Kissed his murderous little fae. His wife. It was a cheap ploy to steal an embrace from her, he knew. And she would likely be furious with him later.
But he wanted a kiss.
And he knew she wouldn’t break character.
Sure enough, when he pulled away, her eyes had drifted shut, and her hand was lightly clasping the lapel of his suit coat. There was peace and bliss on her face.
He wondered if that, too, was an act.
He wondered why that hurt him.
Lana stormed back into the room. “Dinner is served. Ahead of schedule.”
It was time to face the music. He straightened his shoulders and released his little murderer. “Come, Monica. Let’s get this over with.”
Nadi sat rigid at the formal dining table, her eyes fixed on the plate before her. Maintaining the glamor of a newly turned Monica was a layered experience—she had to look pale, subtly different from the woman’s human form, and keep the slightly magenta tint in her eyes.
But controlling her expression was proving to be the real challenge.