Dead Over Heels

Prologue

The king and queen are coming to New York.”

The vampire, an ancient creature even by the standards of the undead, smiled. “Don’t tease, Robert. It’s so unkind.”

“I’m not teasing, my dear one. They’re coming.

They’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”

“What fun!”

Although he had made this vampire, as he had made many others, he was a little afraid of it. “Or, we could leave town.”

“Leave? This is our territory!”

“Yes, and since they took power, no one has been able to stand against The One and Sinclair.”

“The One,” the vampire scoffed. “Barely—what? Two years old? I don’t believe she even exists.”

“She killed Nostro,” he said quietly. “And Marjorie.”

“They were sloppy and complacent.”

And we aren’t? he thought but did not say.

“Someone killed them, but I’ll believe in this The One nonsense when I actually see her. No, it’s too too good. If I believed in such things I would say it’s meant to be. The king! Coming here! Of all the places he could have chosen, he’s coming here. Oh, I can’t wait!” The creature frowned. “Robert, you don’t seem terribly enthused.”

Terribly terrified was more like it, but he had no intention of admitting that. Instead, he sighed soundlessly, without breath. “So I take it we aren’t leaving town?”

Siamese blue eyes narrowed at him. “I will, of course, do as my sire commands.”

But that was a lie. He wasn’t in charge here, and they both knew it.

“Then we stay,” he said, surrendering. And the thing he had made chortled and bounced and giggled, and he smiled at it, and hated it, but he loved it, too.

Because he had made it, all those years ago when there were more horses in Manhattan than automobiles.

Chapter 1

I was so excited to land at the airport in New York City (La Guardia or the other one . . . I wasn’t paying attention to the pilot’s intercom ramblings) that I didn’t even bother with the stairs leading from the private plane to the ground. I just jumped, putting one hand on the railing and vaulting over, my black Gucci pumps dangling from my first two fingers. Didn’t even feel the shock in my knees when I hit.

This was not a trick I could have pulled off while I was alive.

At the head of the stairs, my husband (husband! bridegroom! Yessssss!), Sinclair, king of the vampires, shook out the Wall Street Journal, folded it, and scowled down at me.

“How completely indiscreet, Elizabeth.”

“Aw, Cooper doesn’t care.”

“Didn’t see a thing, mum,” Cooper assured me in his adorable Irish accent. He wasn’t our pilot, and this wasn’t our plane. It was my best friend, Jessica’s. She’d lent it to us for our honeymoon, told us we could go wherever we wanted. Cooper had worked for Jessica for ten years and, as they say, knew where all the bodies were buried. “An’ by the way, glad to see you’re not dead. That was a nasty business a couple of springs back.”

“Horrible practical joke,” I said, referring to my firing, death, thirtieth birthday, and return from the grave as the long-foretold vampire queen. The people who didn’t know I was a vampire either never knew I’d been killed, or thought it was a nasty trick thought up by my (late) evil stepmother. My friends and I did absolutely nothing to disabuse them of their silly-ass notions. “Really really bad taste. But it all worked out in the end.”

“Yes indeed, mum,” Cooper said, his blue eyes twinkling. Before Sinclair, I’d been a real sucker for Black Irish . . . that thick dark hair . . . those big blue eyes . . . umm . . .

Meanwhile, Sinclair (who wasn’t Irish . . . in fact, I had no idea what he was) was gliding down the steps like a beauty queen (all he lacked was the tiara and bouquet of roses . . . and the tearful wave), when I knew perfectly well he could step off the IDS Tower and not even rumple his tie.

“Try to contain yourself,” he sighed, moving past me toward the waiting limo.

“But it’s New York City! And we’re married! And we’re in New York!” I, the country mouse, ran after him in my bare feet. I was wearing a sky blue shirt dress, no stockings. Oh, and my wedding ring! Not to mention my non-cursed engagement ring. But that was a whole other story. “Don’t you think it’s going to be a blast?”

He muttered something that I, even with my super vampire hearing, couldn’t catch. Probably just as well. Behind us, Cooper was calling, “See you in a week, mum! Sir!”

I flapped a wave over one shoulder and practically dived into the limo (fortunately, the door was being held open by the driver, a tall, lean, gorgeous black guy with cheekbones you could cut yourself on and the most amazing green eyes). Sinclair got in on the other side and shook out his paper once again.

“The Grange Hotel?” the driver asked.

“Yes,” Sinclair replied absently as his pants made the dreaded chirrup. He fished out his cell phone, flipped it open, and blinked at the screen.

I sank back against the luxurious leather seats, halfway to full pout. “Don’t even tell me. Tina called again.”

“No matter where I am in the world,” he reminded me mildly, “I still have business to attend to. And so do you.”

“Dude! It’s our honeymoon, all right? If that thing beeps in your pants one more time, I’m going to eat it, understand? Now shut the fucking phone, toss the fucking paper, and bask in our mutual love and joy, dammit!”

“I’m not sure bask is the verb I’d choose,” he replied, but at least he put the phone away.

“Nice of Jess to arrange a limo,” I commented, relieved to finally get a fraction of his attention. We’d been married for three whole days and I still couldn’t believe it had really happened. Of course, according to my bridegroom, we’d been married since the first time we’d had sex. Don’t even get me started. “It’s not like her to throw her money around. And the plane! You believe she let us have her plane?”

“Point.” Sinclair frowned. With his dark good looks, dark suit, broad shoulders, and strong jaw, he looked formidable anyway; when he wasn’t smiling it was almost frightening. “She’s the least pretentious billionaire I’ve ever known.”

“Well, it’s her dad’s money.”

He gave me a long look and I nearly drowned in those dark dark eyes. “Correction. He’s dead. It’s her money.”

“Hwhuh?”

“It’s. Her. Money,” he repeated, well used to me being a little slow to pick up on current events.

I licked my lips. Jessica’s dad was a touchy subject. Fucking incestuous greedy arrogant asshole; if he was alive, I’d kill him. Seriously. And I am not a girl who kills lightly, as anyone who knows me will totally understand.

“I mean, she doesn’t consider it hers. It’s not like she earned it. Hey, I’m not putting her down, but that’s the way it is: she didn’t earn any of it. That’s why she doesn’t throw it around, and that’s why she has a day job.”

Sinclair just looked at me. He knew me well enough to know when I wasn’t coughing up the whole story.