This chapter contains mature and violent content, and references to animal harm.

, In Grave (Wink) Danger

bothersome loose tooth. It wiggled and dangled in my mouth for days longer than it was welcomed. Eventually, I was so perturbed by the stupid thing I tied a string around it and yanked. Popped out, before it was ready, in a bloody pulp.

Why was I thinking about this?

There was a pressure. On my skin and in my lungs and my teeth and bones. Taunt yet soft? Urging and insistent but gentle. A warm hand against my cheek. Firm tug of my hair. A delicate whisper in my ear.

Wake up.

My blood warmed. Slowly. Pleasantly. Liquid heat tingled in my veins, chasing away a cold numbness that seemed to encase me.

Wake up. Wake up.

And then my heart beat. Hit me. Slammed me. Like a fanging shot to the chest. The muscle sprung to life fast and frantic.

That pressure, that tight, persistent, pressure centered in my fangs, pulled.

Wake. Up.

Gasping, I lurched forward, thrust into the waking world by the weight pinched around my fangs. There was pain. In my belly. Deep and searing. Burning. Yet I was cold. My whole body surrounded by a wet chill.

I opened my eyes.

And hissed.

Fangs!

It was bright. Too bright. Flung an arm over my eyes. What the fanging hell? Why was it so fanging bright? Burned my eyes. Blurred my vision. Specks and splashes of neon colors danced behind my eyelids. Sweet hell that hurt.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

A shudder coursed up my spine. I needed to get up. To go. To follow that... that feeling. Insistent and overwhelming and making my pulse surge.

Groaning, I opened my eyes again. Slower (no, faster, go, go, go, get up). I blinked. The world was white. I was outside. It was snowing. The sky gray and so, so bright and snowing. A torrent of white flakes fell on my face and chest and hands... my pale hands. Fangs, you could white balance a camera off these mitts.

Was it... daylight?

I squinted up, hand as a shield over my eyes. That sky. It was overcast but unmistakably sunny behind the clouds. I remembered that. The way clouds looked with the sun trapped behind them. Peaceful and foreboding, all at once. Haven't seen it in centuries. But I remembered. It was day. I was awake and it was day.

No. No. That couldn't happen.

Where the sweet hell even was I? Hey, now, believe it or not but I ain't the kind of vamp that makes a habit of blacking out and waking up in strange tombs. In daylight no less.

A tunnel of earth surrounded me. Dirt and snow scraped against my shoulders and the soles of my feet. It was tight. Too tight, for my liking. Suffocating. Too much like being... in the ground... what the fangs, was I in the ground?

How was that possible?

I blinked into the sun. For a moment, glimmering there in the light, I thought I caught the trail of a red thread leading from my mouth and out and over the top of the pit. It was taunt. Pulling hard at my incisors.

An overpowering need to follow that path clawed up my back.

I dug my fingers into the frozen earth to lift myself up and "Fuck!"

Pain ripped through me. Hot and flaring. Sawing into my gut. My ribs splintered around something hard, and I groaned. A stake. There was a fanging stake in my gut. Pinned me down. Who the—how did—

Took a deep breath. Slow inhale. Slow—ouch, shit—exhale. Alright, old boy, think hard. How in all the saints in hell did you get here?

Last thing I remembered was rolling up to Dmitri's house. It was getting early. His door knocker froze the skin right off my palm.

"Ho! Gregorio! My thanks to ye, oh valiant savior of the night!" said Dmitri from the threshold. "A true hero! A noble as thy designated drivers of fable! Come in! Come in!"

He threw his arms around me and hoisted me into a spine cracking hug. Swung me side to side. Over his shoulder, I spotted a figure sauntering up the hall and into the foyer.

"Ah, sorry, Dmitri, while I'm glad you're not killing me, uh, why?"

"For reuniting my truest love to me! She has come home!"

From the shadows of the house, Lily emerged, draped in a long gown and jewels fit for a queen. She swirled a wine glass in her hand. One decorated in golden thorns and roses. Filled with blood.

New skin. Same hands.

"Rosemond?" I choked and shimmied out of Dmitri's grasp.

She cocked a brow. "Who else would I be?"

I wrapped both hands 'round the stake in my belly and pulled. Drew it out slow. Oh, goat-sucking hell that hurt. Skin had healed around the spike that I tore and shred from my own body to free myself from the dirt. Bit a hole through my lip, grunting. A droplet of smoky blood bubbled onto my lip. Eventually, the weapon—slick with gore and red clumps of I don't even know which of my organs, swell—slid free with a wet pop.

Rosemond handed the blood-filled chalice to Dmitri. He raised up to me. "A toast to ye, Gregorio!"

Waved him off.

"Nah, pal, I'm working tonight," I nodded at the woman in control of poor Lily's body. What game were you playing at, broad? Truly looking to return to the land of the (un)living to be reunited with your lover? Two of you didn't look too chummy. Gal kept several feet of distance between herself and her 'truest love,' her body language tense. The hell was happening here? "Just looking to return something I think belongs to you."

Tossed the bag containing Rosemond's first set of bones to the floor.

"Husband!" she gasped. Yanked up the zipper and withdrew her own femur, eyes wide and mouth forming a too perfect ring of surprise. "Look! What did I tell you, it was him conspiring against us! He and the necromancer!"

A cold snap captured the foyer.

Made the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand on end.

Dmitri was uncharacteristically still. Statuesque. He extended his chalice, blood swirling inside it. An acidic tang burned the back of my nose hairs. "Gregorio," old bat's voice was stilted, his fangs long, eyes glowing red. "A drink for you, yes?"

"Hang, on, now, pal, you and your dame are acting a touch kooky—"

I backed toward the door.

"Nay!" Dmitri turned on me. Transformed. As a hellish creature he pinned me to the floor. Blocked my punches. Pinched my jaw and opened my mouth. "This scumbag is merely filled with joy for finding my second chance at true love! My wife has warned me of your dishonest nature. Ye and your lying wench shall not steal this reunion from us any longer!"

Rosemond poured the goblet. Right down my gullet. The blood burned. Acid and musky and ripping its way down my esophagus.

Werewolf's blood.

Where the fangs had these two gotten werewolf's blood?

I coughed. A glob of that clotted up, poisonous blood flung itself up from my stomach and out my mouth. It clung to the snowy wall of my grave. Yuck.

Above me, a woman laughed. As high-pitched and howling as the strengthening winds.

Rosemond hoot and hollered as Dmitri carried my seizing body out to the yard. She held a stake. Gleaming, polished wood. Long and sharp.

"Dm—pal—I—"

I twisted. The acidic blood seared in my throat. I heaved but fanging Dmitri clamped his monstrous, clawed hand around my mouth. He tiled my head back and forced me to swallow again.

And all the while he sobbed. Sounded like all the razor fangs in his mouth gnashed together to screech out a garbled rendition of the Star Bangled Banner in a thunderstorm. Bloody tears streaked those porcelain cheeks. "I trusted ye! Oh foul traitor! Why hast thy insisted on staking my vibe!"

"W-wa—" my tongue, though healing, was still too burnt and blistered to form words.

The world fell out from under me. Cold, black earth rose up around my ears as Dmitri's blood-tear-streaked face shrank in my vision. My back slammed against the bottom of the open grave. Somewhere, in my spinning brain, thought I heard Pearl twittering out a diddy about love and death.

"Don't worry," said Rosemond, handing the stake over to her husband. "She'll come for you."

Isla.

"No—" Not Isla. Don't you touch Isla. I'll murder you twice if you harm a single mole on Isla, you pair of absolute loonies!

Pain. Stabbing. Ripping through my abdomen. Hot and bloody.

Lights out.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Yes. Right. I needed to go. To move. The hole in my stomach had patched itself up. Good. My nerves fizzled under my skin with the urgency to go, go, go get up, go to her. Isla. It was fanging Isla's voice echoing in my head. Urging me forward. Her magic pulling and luring and tugging and caressing my will to go to her, now, yes, go you fanging idiot, she needs you.

A figure appeared above me. Looming. Blotted out the pale sun. The sleeves of her faded gown dripped into the mouth of the grave.

"Oooh looky here what I found!" Rosemond sang out.

I launched myself out of the grave, hissing and snarling. It was her. Fanging her. This whole time it was her stringing us along. Taking a poor girl's body for a joy ride. Tricking Isla and me into pitying her. Fooling Dmitri. Threatening Isla. Hurting her. Isla was in danger. She was hurt. Her blood pulsed in me, around me, everywhere. I could smell it. See it. Glowing, red and bright and lovely, in the snow covering the graveyard.

Rosemond was hurting Isla.

So I grabbed her by the throat and drove my fangs into her jugular.

She screamed. Yeah, getting your getting neck noshed on hurt. Not sure how it worked for the reanimated, but if the gal was anything like me, then being undead didn't take away any pain.

Her noxious blood flooded my mouth. Tasted rancid. Tacky and stale and overripe. Rotten to the very core. She'd been walking around as a dead woman too long. Fought back the need to gag, and instead let her festering decay spill out from my mouth and trickle down the front of her gown.

Isla was in the mausoleum. Right there, across the yard. Her bones glowed beneath her skin, reflecting off the white snow. Dark eyes locked to mine. Chest heaving. Face swollen and bloody. A red thread, wet and glowing, was pulled taunt between us. Her arm. My teeth.

She woke me.

My girl woke me up in broad daylight.

Well dang. Wasn't that something.

But her wrists were bound.

She was bleeding.

There was so much blood.

Ignoring every urge in my throat to vomit, I bit down harder into Rosemond's neck. Teeth touched bone. Even still, she wailed and jammed her elbows ferociously into my torso. I gargled on her stolen blood. Managed to wrestle the shovel from her and toss it aside, but she stomped on my toes, which dang it, did hurt.

Biting down hard, I ripped my teeth from her. Cleaved her skin. Shredded her meat and muscle beneath. Her body went limp in my arms.

Dropped her into the awaiting grave. Just like she'd done to the others.

Oh hell, I was going to be sick. A wave of nausea sloshed in my guts. I retched the putrid blood into a nearby, hacked up looking shrub, expelling every last bit of that hellish woman from my system.

Good riddance.

Bitch.

... I may have been spending too much time with Isla lately.

Isla.

In the mausoleum, Isla was pushing herself onto her feet with all the grace of a newborn deer. I ran to her. Was there in a flash, looping an arm around her soft waist. Pulled her body, warm and delicate and fragile, against me and a sweet, gentle, relief passed through us both. She was frigid. Shivering all over. Wearing nothing but pajamas and her wet robe and a t-shirt—my t-shirt?

"Oh," Isla sighed, leaning heavy against me. "Good morning."

Her pulse relaxed. Just a fraction. Mine slowed to match perfectly. Our hearts beat in unison, Isla's clearly setting the rhythm. This... this could be a problem. But, for now, fang it, I was just glad she was alright.

"Darling," I cupped her cheek. Her face was so swollen. One eye nearly shut. A gash decorated her forehead. One large enough to make me want to kill Rosemond a second time. "It's okay. I got you. You're okay."

"Spit!" she slurred.

"Spit?" Oh nelly. I squeezed her a little tighter. "Okay, not judging if you're into that, but I don't think now's the best time. What you hit your head on?"

Isla blinked. She pointed behind me.

Where Mrs. Cabroni lay, bleeding out, on a pedestal. "Shit."

"Spit on her!" Isla yelled. She pushed out of my arms and flung herself on the were-woman, pressing her already ruined sleeve into Mrs. Cabroni's split neck. "Do—the—thing. Lick her neck! Please? I'm asking!"

Oh. Isla knew vampire saliva could slow bleeding. She'd seen me do, the other night when I drank from her as we made love (banged it out, according to her turn of phrase). Mrs. Cabroni was wilting quick. Her half-lidded eyes fluttered as weakly as her twitching limbs. But the flow of her blood from the wound was steady. Her pulse still beat. It was slowing by the minute, but by no means gone.

Well, old boy, you've been around the block a few hundred times, but you sure never spit in a werewolf's neck wound before, so, first time for everything.

"Clever girl," I said to Isla, lifting her off the bleeding woman.

Took a deep breath. Stretched my jaws. Allowed a veritable puddle of saliva to pool on my tongue. I spit on Mrs. Cabroni. A fat glob of it that fizzed where it landed. The werewolf shifted and moaned, though she appeared to remain unconscious. I smeared my spit in her wound. Dug my thumb—gag—into the meat of her throat. The blood slowed at once. Not stopped, not completely. Vamp saliva wasn't a miracle drug. But it slowed. Helped to clot the wound. Hopefully, if we could get this woman to a doctor, she'd survive.

"S'it working?" breathed Isla.

"Yeah—"

A rustle in the snow alerted me. I draped my arm over Isla's shoulders and ducked, just as a shovel came soaring into the mausoleum. It clacked against the back wall. Right where my head would've been. The wooden handle splintered, leaving only a small stub attached to the blade.

"Finish my spell, you filthy slag!"

Isla and I spun.

Rosemond wielded the long stake like a spear. It was still messy with my blood. And hers, at this point. Brown and black liquid oozed, slow and gelatinous, from the undead woman's neck. Left an ugly gash in the snow, marring the frosty headstones with gore. My bite had torn a pretty hole in her. One to rival the wolf scratch in her abdomen. It bent Rosemond's head at a terrible angle. Flaps of skin blew in the wind. Said skin, and fabric and the errant curls of her hair, caught on her shards of exposed vertebra.

Now, that dame's neck was broken. Very much so. I ain't the most versed on necromancy, but even us vamps, when you broke our necks like that, we tended to stop walking. At least till it healed up fully. Didn't make any damn sense as to how her battered body could keep moving like that, trudging toward us full of wrath.

Powerful stuff.

No wonder it was illegal.

"You know what happens when you insult your local necromancer?" yelled Isla, pushing herself off the stone by the elbow. "You get unpossessed!"

Isla laughed. Loud and wickedly. Oh dear, that head injury was really doing a number on her.

Smashed my own elbow into Isla's shoulder. Knocked her right back over. "Sorry, darling, but you need a breather," I mumbled and threw myself at the woman with the stake.

Couldn't very well let her stab my girl with that thing, now could I? She'd gotten me with it before. I could take it. Oddly, despite knowing it was black magic—evil magic that was responsible for the unstoppable sack of bones and rage out for our blood at this very moment—knowing Isla could wake me right back up should I take another stake to the chest was relieving.

Rosemond only managed to clip me with the point under a rib as I tackled her. Our backs hit the snow. I growled. She screeched. We rolled. She jabbed blindly with her stake at my back—actually hitting her fanging target.

Sweet hell, was I not allowed to have any jackets?

But she couldn't get a good angle with me on top of her. Not enough force and space to drive the point all the way through my torso. Didn't stop Rosemond from stabbing wildly into my shoulders anyway. Ouch. That was going to leave splinters.

As she threw her arm back for more leverage, I snatched her wrist and smashed it into the ground. The stake bounced out of her hand, but she continued to claw at my back with her other. I could feel more of those acrylic nails popping off against my jacket.

I twisted her wrist in my hand. Tighter and tighter. Rosemond screamed as the bones beneath her skin all shattered, her muscle and tendons torn out of place. Anchoring my knee against her pelvis I dug my nails into her wrist and tore..

Her hand popped off like a chicken wing.

I lobbed it across the yard.

Bits of skin and meat and blood rained down on us, mingling with the snow.

This, annoyingly, did not seem to perturb her much. Instead of crying or, you know, losing strength from the massive blood loss she was inevitably suffering, Rosemond swiped the jagged stub of her wrist bone through my eyes.

For a moment, I went blind. My vision was only red and pus and pain.

"The fang does it take to re-kill you," I snarled, wiping my face and struggling to keep the thrashing woman under me pinned down. Fangs. I really thought I'd finished her. But she kept on coming. How in sweet hell was I supposed to stop her from getting up again?

I blinked, my eyes healed and vision returning, and spotted Isla quaking in the mausoleum. "How do we kill her?"

Isla loudly hissed through her teeth. "I, uh, skipped that part of narcolepsy lessons... Necro... lepsy."

I scowled down at Rosemond, drenched in her own toxic blood. "How hard did you hit her?"

"Not hard enough!"

She kneed me in the groin.

Fangs.

Knocked the wind from me. I fell off her. My back suddenly cold and wet in the slush.

Isla's bare feet—bare feet?—sprinted past my head, kicking up snow. "I have a plan!" she yelled, without fanging stopping. She left glowing, bloody footprints in her wake.

"What plan!"

Rosemond was up to her knees. She made to rush after Isla. I kicked out. Knocked her right in the knee, and sent her tripping, nose over toes, over a rocky headstone.

Which was apparently where that stake had been dropped in our tussle.