The Cold Kiss of Death

‘Genevieve.’ Malik’s voice came from above and below, confusing and indistinct, and the black cord tugged at me from both directions, as if it wanted to tear me in two.

‘It has been too long, vampire.’ A snort of unease edged the deep, burred tone. ‘Her soul should have returned to her body by now.’

‘My connection with her is still there, kelpie, although there is more resistance to my call now than the first time her soul was severed.’

‘Genevieve.’ The call came from below me this time, stronger, more urgent. I flowed down towards it.

‘Genevieve.’ An echo stretched faintly above me, making me hesitate.

‘T’would have been better to let the spell take its natural course and let the bodies reassert themselves at dawn as they were meant to, instead of forcing the magic to revert early.’

‘That would have left Genevieve’s body at the mercy of the sorcerer.’ There was a note of forced calm in his voice. ‘It would have been too much of a risk.’

‘Aye, but what if it has been too long since you bonded with her, what if the bond breaks?’ The words sounded harsh. ‘Her soul could wander, become lost—maybe even fade.’

‘Genevieve.’ Pain slid like brittle ice along the silken cord, snapping it and flinging me back ...

I came to, naked and alone, lying in the dried-up lake of blood, the scent of sour pears gagging in my throat. Like the first time, the noonday sun streamed through the high mullioned windows, cutting oblongs of light and shade into the stone floor. Ignoring the pain in my body I pushed up onto my hands and knees, then stood, straight and tall. The gold-brocade wedding dress lay torn and crumpled near the heavy oak doors, the plait of blue-white hair abandoned near it, and as I looked at where Sally had been butchered, the sunshine caught and flashed in my eyes. I walked over to where the sword lay discarded from the night before and stared down at it, my hands clenched into fists.

This time I wasn’t a child.

This time I wouldn’t run.

This time I would make him pay.

Then a hand, colder than my own, took hold of mine and slowly I turned to stare into the dark, cautious eyes of Cosette, the child-ghost.

‘This is no longer your time, Genevieve.’ Her voice was soft. ‘You must not stay here any more, it is too perilous.’ She tugged me, anxiety flitting across her face. ‘Come, they are both waiting for you, and there are the others ...’

Others?

I turned and followed Cosette as she led me back into the red-blackness ...

I came awake again with a start, pulse thundering in my ears; my eyes snapped open and I looked up into Malik’s face as he straddled me. His hands were pressed to the cold skin over my heart. I could see stars scattered like pieces of silver across the night sky above him, and the ground shifted sand-soft beneath me.

‘Genevieve—’ His voice was rough, as if he’d been calling for some time.

‘It was you that night.’ I licked my lips. My voice sounded thready, scared. ‘You bit me that night.’

‘Of course.’ A fine line creased between his brows. ‘Who did you think it was?’

‘Him. I always thought it was him ...’

‘He would not chase you down himself, not when he had me as his tool.’

Fear exploded into anger. I clenched my fists. ‘You bastard! You left me for dead!’

An odd expression crossed his face. ‘I did not leave you for dead.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I killed you. As I did tonight. Your heart was still, your blood had settled in your body, your lungs no longer drew breath and your skin was cold and lifeless to the touch. If you had not been sidhe, I doubt you would have revived.’

I stared at him, my mind reaching for something I couldn’t quite grasp—

‘I don’t understand.’

His frown deepened. ‘Would you have preferred me to have given you back to the Autarch alive?’

No! my fourteen-year-old voice screamed in my mind.

He touched a hand to my forehead. ‘Sleep now.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Iawakened for the third time to the quiet burble of water, the scent of clean air, and silk sheets caressing my skin. I huddled tense and wary, listening, but a feeling of calm enveloped me, finally convincing me that I was on my own, and safe—even if I wasn’t entirely sure where I was.

I squinted out from under my lashes. Everything in the room was round: the bed on which I was lying, and the dais beneath it; the skylight in the domed ceiling that framed the stars piercing the night sky; the porthole windows, behind which darted shoals of tiny fish in neon-bright blues and oranges and yellows. Even the pillows on the bed, the huge vault-style door, and the dive hole set in the thick green-glass floor leading down into the water were round. If I didn’t know better I’d have guessed I was on some sort of movie set instead of Tavish’s bedroom.

The calm feelings persisted, dampening down my surprise at being here, and a vague notion made me look. A barely discernible net of cool green magic covered the walls and ceiling, shifting softly as if pulled by a peaceful sea. I wondered if it was some sort of Containment spell, but when I reached down to where it gathered by the bed it rippled away, then reformed as I removed my hand. Some sort of Wellbeing or Tranquillity spell, or even a Healing spell, maybe?

Just what I needed after being skewered with a five-foot-long bronze sword.

Still, the sword-in-the-chest incident might have been an abrupt ending to our dramatic fealty performance, but one thing was clear: even in the haze of imp-engendered bloodlust I—or rather, Rosa—had given Malik my oath. And that effectively shut the door on any vamp in London—or anywhere else—contacting me. Relief overwhelmed me. No more invitations, no more worrying about paranoid witches demanding I be evicted, no more visits from poor stoked-up Moth-girls. Now they’d have to go through Malik—although hopefully not as literally as Elizabetta had tried to do—and all I needed to worry about now was the pretty vampire himself.

I shivered; did that mean my life was better or worse?

The thought brought on the unwanted image of my torn wedding dress; nausea roiled in my stomach and I jerked up, clamping my hands against my mouth to keep from vomiting. The past was gone. It had been a nightmare, nothing more; my mind had equated one trauma involving a sword with another and coupled it with Elizabetta’s talk about the Autarch. That’s all it was, nothing more. Malik wasn’t Bastien, the monster, and I wasn’t marrying him—I wasn’t doing anything with him. And Malik had had more than one opportunity to do me harm, and he hadn’t taken it ...

A huff of almost hysterical laughter escaped me: that was if I discounted the recent sword-in-the-chest episode, of course. I took a deep breath and let the green magic calm me as I rubbed the cold spot just below my heart where the sword had entered. Nervous, I pulled the sheet down to check my body. It looked normal—and uninjured. I ran my fingers under the base of my sternum, pressing and prodding: nope, definitely no sword holes, not even a pink patch of new skin or a leftover yellowing bruise. I looked as good as new. But then, Malik held the true Gift, and he’d healed me before.

He’d also killed me before.

Betrayal sliced through me with as much pain as the sword had. I hugged my knees tight and dropped my head onto them, tears pricking my eyes, aching in my throat. The voice had told me to run that night. I swallowed the tears back. I was not going to cry. But you don’t run from vampires. I’d trusted the voice in my head, trusted Malik’s voice, trusted it meant escape ...

But Malik had hunted me down like an animal.