Chapter 2
Ophelia stood at the bathroom sink of Thaddeus’s lair finishing her makeup. It was not an ideal setup. Everything was balanced on or in the stupid console sink, and the lighting sucked. She was positive once she went topside, she was gonna look like a freak.
She tossed her mascara into the basin and frowned.
Screw it. As long as her fucking tatuaj were covered, she’d deal.
Even out in this armpit of the country, advertising she was part of the Vampire Court didn’t strike her as wise.
She misted her face with setting spray, then waved a hand, coughing, and huffed out a breath.
Ready or not, here I come.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, Phe. After losing that Ghandi-damned weasel, she was light-years away from ready. She pushed through the narrow, paneled door and out into the dimly lit hallway, her day skipping its usual slow slide into crap-itude and diving right into the deep end of shitty.
Ophelia hated Havers-by-the-fucking-Sea.
She huffed a lock of hair from her eyes and headed toward her room, buzzing her lips at all the wasted opportunities making up her current existence.
Case in point? Being sprung from prison by the coven and landing in some exiled vampire king’s lap had dark romance written all over it.
Excuse me? A shadow daddy? Um, yes, please.
Except.
The reality of the situation was that even after escaping the Inchisoare, the thought of anyone touching her was enough to induce a panic attack, and Thaddeus…
Thaddeus was more like a shadow uncle who kept forgetting to take his meds.
Like, yes, super creepy, and definitely intimidating, but half the time there was a geriatric hamster at the controls working with a broken joystick.
And the lair? It wasn’t anything special.
She’d have thought that after being in this miserable little town for close to five hundred years, Thaddeus would’ve done something with the crumbling stone building above that served as Havers’s library, but nope.
Aside from his study on the main level, the rest of the living areas were cobbled from the library’s basement, or at least what she’d seen of them were.
She had a sneaking suspicion that his chambers were more than the little room crammed with oddities she’d caught a glimpse of past his shoulder.
Stupid men. Ophelia supposed she should be grateful Soku came in twice a week to tidy up, do the laundry, and cheat at Uno.
If it wasn’t for the brownie, Ophelia probably would’ve offed herself already, and her unremarked corpse would be rotting beneath Thaddeus’s dirty socks and empty ramen noodle packages.
Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten today, but she wasn’t desperate enough for that.
Maybe she’d grab something after the initial court conference.
Klineville was supposed to be a decent sized town with more than pizza, Tex-Mex, and a smattering of bars.
She’d kill for some decent sushi or a wedge salad right about now—anything that wasn’t fried.
The concept of eating was weird since she was technically dead, but Bram Stoker must’ve been smoking crack, because Dracula was about as far from the truth as you could get. Being a vampire wasn’t much different than being a normy.
Yeah, so, okay. She had to drink blood to make sure the virus keeping her corpse animated didn’t run rampant and turn her into a mindless revenant hell-bent on destruction.
Sunlight was okay, but hanging out at the beach wasn’t advisable unless she wanted third-degree burns, and the whole stake-through-the-heart thing was legit, but the rest of it was bullshit.
Ophelia snorted. If only she was comatose during daylight hours. Maybe then she wouldn’t be bored out of her skull in this podunk town. She flicked her nails. At least the salon was on point. The rest of it sucked as much as the lighting in the bathroom.
Whatever. She supposed she should be lucky they’d installed basement plumbing when they tacked on the ugly brick addition to the main building.
By all the squealing and scampering, that was currently infested with rugrats.
Ophelia scowled, eyeing the rafters at a particularly loud bang.
Her tolerance for the little shits was seriously lacking after the weasel debacle.
She paused for a breath, weighing the pros and cons of going up there and threatening to eat one of them.
Her gaze flicked to Thaddeus’s door. Unfortunately, not intimidating townsfolk had been explicitly mentioned in his list of how she was to comport herself.
And, after having pissed off the entire Vampire Court and being thrown in the Inchisoare and subjected to their tender mercies for far longer than she cared to remember, she had zero intention of bucking the system in Havers.
She wasn’t gonna screw this up like she had everything else.
But Ghandi, it was tempting, and her personality didn’t exactly lend itself to compliance.
She frowned again and stepped over the extension cord leading into a tiny, previously unused storage space.
A thick rug covered the concrete slab, and Soku had hung blankets over two of the rough stone walls.
A janky dresser was pushed against the warped studs of a third, and across from it, a bare twin mattress sat on milk crates.
Christmas lights were strung along the rafters.
It wasn’t the Ritz, but after the Inchisoare, it was a palace, and she was stupidly grateful for it—not that she was about to say thank you.
Ophelia went over to the rolling rack of clothes and flipped through them.
Black suit, black suit, gray suit…and slut wear.
She eyed a micro-mini. Probably not the look she was going for, though the thought of being encased in fabric made her skin crawl.
Black suit it was. If Fayet’s attorney turned out to be as much of a dick as she’d heard, she needed to come out of the gate swinging.
She gritted her teeth and pulled on a pair of sheer black nylons, making sure the seams were straight, then wriggled into a pencil skirt.
High-necked, jade green shell, fitted blazer—Ghandi, she missed her closet before everything went to shit—and black, six-inch designer heels.
The suit might not be bespoke, but she’d be damned before she slummed it with her footwear.
Well, more damned than she already was.
Ophelia ran a hand through her dark pixie cut, willing herself not to sweat. You can fucking deal with clothes touching you, Phe. At least it’s not a corseted robe. She took another deep breath and swept up the diamond studs Thaddeus had given her from the top of the dresser.
Okay. Pop these babies in, and all she had left to do was grab her purse and go. Everything for this meeting should’ve already been delivered to the courthouse. Now to just show up and do what you do best.
Which was essentially be a litigious bitch.
Still, her fingers shook as she fastened the studs through her lobes.
She hadn’t been in a courthouse in over a decade, never mind dealing with the public.
Seclusion at the Citadel had messed with her, and her already shitty people skills were seriously out of practice.
Here in Havers it was one thing—everyone pretty much left her alone—but this was going to be the first time she’d left the town since the coven’s spell had summoned her here.
Ophelia closed her eyes. She could do this. She knew she could. She just needed to channel the Ophelia from before she’d set her life ablaze.
The Ophelia she’d been before Kremlyn.
The vampire prince’s name opened a churning pit in her stomach, and bile seared the back of her throat, her clothes abruptly suffocating.
She staggered, catching herself against the dresser.
What that monster was capable of…if he knew where she was, he’d come for her.
He wouldn’t let her go. She knew he wouldn’t.
A sheen of sweat broke out on her brow, anxiety cresting over her in a wave.
She forced herself to breathe through it.
No. He had no claim on her as long as she served the node, and for what it was worth, Thaddeus had sworn he’d stay close and watch over her while she was in Klineville—at least while he was lucid, no matter who might come for her.
And they both knew Kremlyn would, any covenants she’d made be damned. It was just a matter of time.
No. She’d stake herself before he touched her again.
Well, unless Jena did it first. Fingers crossed there.
Though why Thaddeus had so eagerly become her protector…
Ghandi, Ophelia didn’t care. Having to constantly question everyone’s motive, to be on her guard twenty-four seven.
She was sick of the mind games and backbiting of Court.
Tired of being dissected and manipulated.
Exhausted by the struggle just to survive.
And thanks to the virus she’d so gleefully infected herself with, that was never going to end.
Ophelia pinched across her temples. How something so logical at the time could be so fucking stupid in retrospect… She laughed, blinking away the tears threatening to fuck up her mascara, and a knock sounded at her door.
“Are you ready, child? Mr. Montgomery is here.”
Nope, but she was doing this anyway. “I am,” she said, smoothing her blazer with a trembling hand and grabbed her purse. She left her room and met Thaddeus and Liam in the hallway.
Her brow rose at the angsty were in a business suit and heavy wool trench, carrying a briefcase at his side. “Well, don’t you clean up nice,” she snarked, trying to ignore the urge to rip off everything she was wearing.
Liam frowned, running a finger under his collar. “Thanks, I guess. Let’s just get this over with.” He was obviously nervous, and with good reason.