Page 1 of Heal Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #5)

Penny

T he kitchen was quiet, just the way I liked it.

If I started my evening in silence—with my knives oiled, my kit stocked, and the stew set on low—there was a chance the rest of it wouldn’t tilt sideways.

Blackwell Pack nights were a tangle of stomping boots, chatter, and someone bleeding on the rug.

As the biggest group of misfits and outcasts this side of the Mississippi, we were a made family instead of one built by blood.

But as much as I loved them, I preferred the in-between, the hush where the wards hummed, the stew bubbled, and no one needed me to patch them up.

I perched on the counter with my mug, letting calm wash over me.

The cold storage buzzed. The clock ticked.

Somewhere upstairs, Aster’s voice rolled low and smooth, probably cutting a deal that would end with someone grateful and someone terrified.

Typical Tuesday. As the resident death Fae, Aster wasn’t one to be trifled with.

Luckily, I was usually on her good side.

The rest of the world, not so much.

The stew simmered, and I hugged my knees tighter.

The meal wasn’t for me. Knox had a harpy’s metabolism rate and a talent for “forgetting” dinner when there were missions to run.

As the pack’s second, he was always busy.

He’d deny it, but I’d seen the way his hands shook after long flights.

I didn’t fix people who didn’t want it—but food wasn’t a fix.

It was insurance.

Right on cue, heavy boots thudded down the hall.

Knox filled the doorway in his black hoodie and sweats.

Coupled with his hooked nose and cut-glass grin, his general appearance made people think he’d bite first and apologize never.

His dark wings were nowhere to be seen, but give him a moment, and they’d be back, smacking into the doorframe.

“That smells like you pretending you don’t worry about me,” he said, already at the stove hunting for a bowl.

“Delusion’s a symptom, Knox,” I said, hopping down from the counter. “Might be airborne.”

“Better make that two bowls.” He flashed a sharper grin. “For my health.”

I ladled, and he snatched it from my hands, parking his butt at the giant table. He ate like the bowl was a threat, but it loosened something in my chest I chose not to examine. Knox was my only family, and if we were talking blood, I couldn’t even call him that.

He wasn’t blood, but he was my brother in every way that counted, and I cherished that more than anything.

He’d been the one to save me from that coven of death witches looking for a sacrifice.

He’d been the one who’d plucked me from the brink of death as a child, the one to convinced me to join this pack, the one who made me trust our Alpha—even when I really didn’t want to.

“Corvin wants you to go to the market with Aster tomorrow,” he said around a mouthful, shattering my illusion of peace and harmony. “Maybe pick up some supplies from the apothecary.”

My eye twitched, but I snatched the ladle from the counter to cover it, bringing it to the sink. The last thing I needed was to go anywhere near that damn apothecary.

“Corvin wants everyone to get sunlight and socialization followed by trust exercises and sing kumbaya,” I said, dry as a bone as I flipped on the tap. “I’d rather eat glass.”

“He’s not wrong.”

“Neither am I.” I rinsed the ladle, taking the time to dry it before setting it back on the counter next to the stew. Corvin wanted his pack happy, and he wasn’t above bribery or coercion to get the job done. “Finish your food and go. And while you’re at it, don’t crash into any more bell towers.”

“That was one time.” He angled his head, listening to something only harpies caught on the wind. “And it was funny.”

Rolling my eyes, I resumed my perch on the counter. “It was loud. And it got me half-trampled by Jude.”

Jude was a beast of a man even when he wasn’t in his bear form. It had taken four shifts to heal the crushed foot from that incident, and I refused to let Knox forget it.

Knox winced as he saluted with his spoon. “No more bell towers. I’ll scratch that off my to-do list.”

Then he absconded from the kitchen like the stew thief he was, and the silence returned, thicker than before. My healer’s kit waited, neat rows of vials and gauze and the good sutures tucked into the corner. I clicked each latch, the ritual steadying my wolf.

Everything in its place—so why did I feel like I was on the edge of something?

The past tried to nudge in, as it always did when I stood still too long. That stupid leather jacket, his dark eyes that lied far too easily. The flash of fangs, followed by the echo of blood. The world narrowed to the thud of two heartbeats, his teeth in my throat, shredding flesh.

A while back, Fate had selected a mate for me in the form of a no-good, lowlife vampire member of the Crimson Roses, a wannabe “bad boy” biker gang full of other vampires with no nest, no scruples, and no fucking sense.

They didn’t like that Corvin had put them in their place and tried to hurt me as a punishment.

Well, they did hurt me, but I made sure to send that asshole straight back to Fate with his throat torn out. And even though it had been years, the scars were still there. Inexplicably, my fingers found the faint raised flesh on my neck.

The bond had never fully snapped into place—no sex, no sealing bite—but my wolf still felt the empty echo like a door I’d slammed on my own hand.

I breathed through it, letting the tea scald my tongue. I’d always known Fate could be cruel, but trying to give me a mate that only wanted me as a pawn was something else. But I survived, and I refused to let myself fall into the trap of those memories.

I was alive and he was dead. The copper taste of his blood drifted away as my heart began to slow.

The house wards shivered in my bones—a low, welcoming purr—and then swelled in a ripple that wasn’t a warning so much as acknowledgment, as the back door blew open.

That was the thing about living with an Alpha: doors behaved like polite servants.

They didn’t block their mistress, and Styx was “top bitch” if there ever was one.

Her midnight hair was swept up in its usual high bun, her gleaming hair sticks no longer the conduits they used to be.

She didn’t knock. She didn’t need to. Goddess adjacent and Alpha in her own right, mate to our Alpha, heart of the river and the storm, the house knew her and wanted her here. The wards, old as the foundations, hummed in welcome. I felt it same as I felt my pulse.

“Penny,” Styx murmured, her voice velvet over iron as she waltzed into the kitchen with rainwater in her hair and a black garment bag over her shoulder. “What are your plans for the rest of this evening?”

Eyeing the garment bag like it was a venomous snake, I hopped off the counter and backed toward the hall.

“Busy,” I lied, because instinct was a stubborn animal. “Maybe Aster is free.”

“Liar,” she said mildly, setting the garment bag on the island like a weapon she didn’t have to brandish. Between two fingers she held a black envelope, thick and expensive, wax seal gleaming like a coin. “This came for you. I suggest you read it.”

At her raised eyebrow, I held out my hand. It was one thing to give Corvin sass, but Styx had saved my sanity and my life. Telling her no wasn’t exactly an option.

Styx’s mouth tipped, not a smile exactly, but it was a knowing that raised all the tiny little baby hairs on the back of my neck. She crossed the kitchen, stopping at a distance only apex predators would use and placed the envelope in my hand.

Black paper, cool under my fingers. The seal: gold, circled, a serpent coiled through stars. Pretty. Meaningless. I didn’t know the insignia and didn’t like that I didn’t know. I slid my thumb along the edge and broke the wax.

Translucent parchment slid free. The ink itself seemed to glimmer—glamour, not cheap shimmer—and the letters curled like smoke.

A night of mischief, magic, and mayhem awaits you.

You are cordially invited to the first All Hallows’ Eve Ball at Crossroads.

Arrive by the stroke of ten, dressed in your finest enchantments, or forfeit your place.

Masks are optional. Secrets are not.

See you soon, Penny Blackwell.

I read it twice, then flipped the card for a back that wasn’t there. “Who the hell is throwing random Fae parties in our backyard?”

“Vaelora,” Styx said. “She came through months after the portal opened. She throws events .”

“I don’t know her,” I said, my gaze snagging on the serpent again. “And why does she know me?”

Styx’s eyes were rain-dark and unreadable. “Because everyone worth knowing in Crossroads knows you. Or wants to get to know you.”

I fought off the urge to grind my teeth as I tossed the wretched thing to the island. “That’s not a selling point.”

“She’s expecting you.” Styx tapped the garment bag with two fingers, like a percussion cue. “You’ll want this.”

I absolutely did not want whatever she had in that bag. In fact, I would take just about anything but that. “I want soup and silence.”

Not that I’d get it.

“You’ll have both— after .” Her not-a-smile widened into a grin.

“You seem very confident about my schedule. You know something I don’t?”

“Almost always.” She paused. “Put the dress on. Or don’t. You’re still going.”

“Styx.” I kept my voice level. “I don’t do crowded. I don’t do strangers. I don’t do curated merriment.”

There was no way the woman who barreled into our lives all those years ago was forcing this on me. I almost missed that prickly version of the kelpie.

“I know,” she said, and somehow there was gentleness in it without pity. “And yet .”

I crossed my arms like the petulant teen I never was. “And yet what?”

“And yet the threads knot tonight.”