Page 18

CHAPTER 18

K hill palmed the werewolf’s skull and tossed him to Riordan.

He’d deal with him later.

Right now, he had bigger things to focus on. “Did you just say you love me?”

She gaped at him for a second or two before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Is that really the first thing you want to do at this moment? Ask me to repeat myself? Rather than, say, getting me out of this fucking chair?!”

Oh. Yeah. That probably would be a better way to go.

He reached down and snapped the plastic ties that bound her to the chair, then scooped her up into his arms. He didn’t set her on her feet, though.

“So,” he asked now that they were eye-to-eye, “did you just say you love me?”

“Of course I love you, you big idiot,” she grumbled. “I think I’ve been in love with you for years. I just didn’t recognize the feelings for what they were until now.”

“I can relate to that.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He captured her lips with his and kissed the crap out of her.

When they broke the kiss, she tucked her cold nose into the spot where his shoulder and neck met and asked, “How’d you find me?”

“Your stupid ex helped us figure out it was a werewolf that took you. Then we pulled the records from the Monster Match to find the guy. He was dumb enough to take you to his real address, the one he put on his entry form, after kidnapping you.”

She snorted. “That was dumb. He—wait.” She lifted her head off his shoulder. “You said ‘us’ and ‘we’. Who’s ‘us’ and ‘we’?”

He turned her so she could see who was behind him. Riordan gave her an awkward wave with his free hand. His other hand was busy holding up the squirming werewolf. And next to him, was Viktor, beast of Spellman Manor himself.

While Khill was a bit of an oddity in Sanity Falls, Viktor Adamovic was THE oddity—a literal one-of-a-kind.

Sometime in the 1700s, a mad scientist took it upon herself to sew together parts from the men she’d murdered and reanimate the result. That result was Viktor.

Khill wasn’t a good judge of what was considered handsome , but he’d heard plenty of women in town (even Justine, much to his annoyance) say that Viktor was good looking. Not classically, of course. With the scar down the middle of his face, bolts in his neck, and mismatched eyes (one was brown, the other pale blue), there was nothing “classical” about him. But even Khill would admit all the pieces and parts had been pulled together in a way that was…aesthetically pleasing, he supposed.

Viktor offered her a half smile. “I’m glad you’re safe, Justine,” he said. Khill hated how sophisticated the guy’s Croatian accent sounded. Orcs didn’t have accents. He could sound threatening, angry, or feral. But sophisticated, unfortunately, was beyond him.

“Hi, guys,” she said. “What are you two doing here?”

“I teleported them,” Riordan said at the same time Viktor said, “Lucy would kill me if I hadn’t helped rescue you.”

“Wow,” Justine said, rubbing her temples. “I feel like I just walked into the punchline of a weird joke. All that’s missing is a bartender.”

Riordan and Viktor looked confused, but Khill knew what she meant. An orc, a werewolf, a demon, and a reanimated dead-guy walk into a bar…

“Are you alright?” Khill asked her belatedly. It should’ve been his first question, he realized. But once he heard her say she loved him, his brain kind of shut down.

“Yeah. The asshole bit me, though,” she groused.

Khill growled. “I’ll fucking feed him his own heart.”

“I can chuck him into a feral hog dimension,” Riordan suggested eagerly.

Viktor, ever the adult in the room, sighed and said, “Perhaps we could at least consider calling the authorities?”

“I like my idea better,” Khill grumbled.

Meanwhile, the werewolf in question didn’t seem to have any concern for how precariously he was clinging to life at the moment. He was too busy staring at Justine with wide, confused eyes. “I don’t understand,” he murmured. “Why didn’t you feel it?”

“What’s he blathering on about?” Riordan asked.

“The fated mates thing,” Justine answered. “He was sure I was his fated mate and he doesn’t understand why I didn’t feel a bond or anything when he bit me.”

“Clearly it’s because you’re not his fated anything ,” Khill said.

“I know, right?” Justine said, incredulous.

“It should’ve worked,” the werewolf whispered. “I felt it as soon as I saw her. Why didn’t she feel it?”

Riordan snorted. “Human women don’t operate like monsters, idiot. Not even fate can make them do something they don’t want to do. And clearly, she did not want to do you.”

David went limp in Riordan’s grip, raising sad eyes to Justine. “I-I’m sorry.” He swallowed hard. “I made a huge mistake.” His gaze shifted over to Khill for a moment. “A really huge mistake.”

Khill glared at him. “I don’t care. You kidnapped my wife and bit her. You deserve to die.”

His head fell forward. “You’re right.”

Viktor cleared his throat. “Am I the only one who thinks death might be an overreaction here?”

“Yes,” Riordan and Khill said in stereo.

Justine rolled her eyes. “No. Death is an overreaction. I’m fine! OK, I have a little headache, but that might be because I haven’t eaten?—”

“You didn’t feed her?!” Khill roared, baring his teeth at the werewolf, who flinched and closed his eyes, clearly waiting for a death blow.

Justine grabbed Khill’s chin, forcing him to look down at her instead of at her kidnapper. “He tried, OK? I’m just saying that other than the bite, I’m fine. It’s definitely not worth murdering anyone over.”

“But…but…” Khill sputtered. “He terrified you! For that alone, he should die.”

She shrugged. “Honestly, once I realized who it was, I was more annoyed than terrified. Then I was just pissed about the bite. And the Thai food he threw at the wall and wasted.”

Riordan sighed, dropping David on the concrete. “I guess killing him doesn’t seem especially fair if all he did was annoy her while she was already hangry anyway.”

Justine nodded. “I am a little hangry.”

Khill let out a sigh of the damned and set her on her feet. “Fine. Let’s wrap this shit up and get you fed.”

Viktor grabbed the werewolf by the collar. “Excellent. Riordan, if you wouldn’t mind dropping us at the police station, I’d appreciate it. This one will confess to what he’s done. I’ll let them know Justine will be by tomorrow morning to give her statement.”

Riordan nodded. “Sure.” He turned to Khill and Justine. “Do you mind waiting here for a second? I can come back for you and take you wherever you want to go eat right after I drop them off.”

Khill opened his mouth to object, but Justine answered, “Yes, that’s fine. And thank you both so much for coming to my rescue. That means a lot to me.”

Riordan gave her a nod and Viktor offered her a warm smile and said, “You’re family. Of course we came for you.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Well, shit. That’s really sweet.”

Khill made a shoo-ing motion. “Yes, you’re both sweet. Now get out of here so I can feed my wife faster.”

After the werewolf muttered yet another stupid apology and Khill’s quasi-friends/quasi-family disappeared, Justine locked her arms around his neck and said, “I like the sound of that.”

“I’m not surprised. If you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, you must be starving. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t let me kill that motherfucker.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about food. I mean you calling me your wife .”

Warmth the likes of which he’d never felt before bubbled up inside him. Was this… happiness ? Like, true happiness?

As he stared down at his hangry-but-gorgeous, smiling-but-generally-grumpy wife, he knew what he was feeling was without a doubt true love and pure happiness. “I love calling you my wife, too,” he murmured.

“You realize we’re going to have to repeat that ceremony, right?” she asked with a crooked grin. “Nothing fancy, but definitely with less Elvis and tequila?”

“Baby, I’ll marry you in whatever kind of ceremony you want, as many times as you want. You can invite the whole town if that makes you happy.”

She grimaced. “That’s way too much people-ing. Maybe a nice, brief-but-official visit to city hall?”

He chuckled. “Sounds perfect.”

“This whole thing is so surreal,” she said. “We’re talking about our happily ever after ending in a kidnapper’s basement. A werewolf kidnapper’s basement.”

Khill shrugged. “In Sanity Falls? I’m sure there are weirder stories out there.”

“I’m just wondering how we ended up here, you know?”

He eased a curl behind her ear. “Just lucky, I guess.”

She grinned up at him. “Normal does sound pretty boring.”

“You got that fucking right, baby.”