Page 19 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

TEN

Nadi wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself the following day. She had an appointment to get her dress fitted. Neither of which—the appointment nor the dress—she had been consulted about.

There was absolutely no point in getting upset over it.

This wasn’t her wedding. This wasn’t her body.

This wasn’t her name. This wasn’t her face.

This wasn’t her. She was exactly just another luxury object to Raziel and his family—something to be purchased and put wherever and immediately disregarded.

Well, that much was at least clear when it came to everyone else in the house. As for Raziel?

Their exchange only seven hours earlier was the reason why she was pacing around her room, fidgeting with the sleeve of her blouse.

Raziel.

Shutting her eyes, she forced herself to recall the horror. The gunfire. And the sound of his laughter. The sound of her mother’s screams. “ Run. ”

Holding onto that moment was the only chance she had in the world. Otherwise…otherwise, she’d have to come to terms with the fact that she was attracted to him. In a way that she hadn’t ever felt with another person in her life.

Maybe it was because he was the person she hated more than anyone else in the world? Maybe that was a part of it? It had to be. It made no sense, otherwise. But even when he had been about to end her life…something in her craved him. Needed him, in some deep and twisted way.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she put her head in her hands and tried to think. Tried to reason with herself.

He was a murderer.

And so was she.

He had killed her family.

And soon, I’ll do the same to his.

But he had made her laugh.

A real laugh.

And the look in his eyes when she had cleaned the blood off his knuckles was so confused as if nobody had ever done that for him in his life. As if nobody had ever cared. He was like a junkyard dog shown affection for the first time in its life.

Rubbing her hand over her face, she sighed. No. This was all just a game to him. She wasn’t special to him—she wasn’t unique. She was just a puzzle. A curiosity. The moment he had sex with her, the mystery and allure would be gone, and she’d be tossed away with all the rest.

Right now, she was just teasing him, dancing outside his reach until the moment they said their so-called vows. Then he’d take her to his ancestral home, as was tradition, and slaughter her.

That also meant she would have to work quickly to dismantle everything around him.

She hoped she could prove useful—or at least inoffensive—enough to be kept alive for a little while after the wedding.

She assumed she wouldn’t be shuttled onto a boat the morning after—she’d have a little time to work her “magic” before their bloody honeymoon.

Maybe she could convince him to stall and keep on a seemingly human wife for a little while.

It depends entirely on how breakable you turn out to be. Maybe if she proved entertaining and useful, he’d postpone the trip long enough for her to complete her mission.

We’ll see which one of us breaks first, buddy-boy.

“Oh, no, no, no. We can’t have that hideous birthmark of hers visible. Are you insane ?”

Nadi decided she very much disliked Volencia Nostrom.

“Ugh. And do something about her nails ,” the vampire matriarch scoffed.

Yep. Raziel’s mother was instantly and firmly on Nadi’s shit-list. Not like she wasn’t already there, to be fair. It was more about the order that she was going to murder them all in.

Volencia was just starting to show her years.

Although vampires and fae didn’t age, they did still somehow show age, like old furniture.

How they held themselves, how they dressed, how they acted.

She had also been turned later in her life.

Her skin was creased at the eyes and at the corners of her mouth, but she was beautiful all the same.

None of the gray hairs that were mixed with her black strands were hidden or dyed.

All were simply tucked into the carefully braided bun.

Pride.

That was what this woman was. Pride.

Volencia would be a difficult target to kill. She was old. Easily five hundred years or more. And, if the stories were true, she’d dismantled her husband, the father of her children, into tiny pieces and walled him up in the family estate in separate buildings to ensure he never came back.

That kind of deranged bloodlust would be dangerous to take on. And, it explained a great deal about Raziel. The apple didn’t fall far from that particularly rotted-out tree.

Volencia also never went far without all her bodyguards. She was always flanked by at least two big, burly, vampiric men the size of Ivan who were likely loyal to the death.

But where there was pride , there was a way. Pride was one of the easiest emotions to use against a person, second only to greed. Nadi just had to wait for her opportunity and be clever about it, that was all.

The vampiric woman’s unnatural amber eyes watched her with a mix of disgust and haughty disdain.

Like Monica was a cow patty in the fields of her father’s ranch.

But Nadi held her head up high and kept her gaze fixed firmly on the three mirrors in front of her, ignoring the red, iron glare of the older woman.

Nor did she argue with any of the vampire matriarch’s orders.

The dress was a beautiful champagne color. She was very glad it wasn’t stark white. That would be as comedic as it would be hideous, in her opinion. It was a lacy, off-the-shoulder number that could be easily edited to cover her hideous birthmark.

It took everything in her power not to roll her eyes or pick up the shoes on display and dig the pointed heel directly into Volencia’s eye socket. No. Now wasn’t the time. Once the wedding was done and Raziel’s guard was just a little lower, she could begin dismantling the family.

“Give her—something for that thing. We can’t have our guests losing their appetite. A shawl.” Volencia gestured, her long nails painted pitch-black and sharpened to points.

Volencia had just bumped everyone else off the top of her main family to-do list, however. The woman was definitely going to die painfully.

The attendants around her muttered apologies and affirmations as they bustled around Nadi, pinning things or rushing off to find various shawls that would work with the lace dress.

“Does she speak ?” Volencia finally addressed her.

“I wasn’t aware I was welcome to.” Nadi shrugged idly. “You’ve been treating me like a prop this whole time, I figured that was what you wanted.”

The vampire huffed, a faint twinge of a smile to her darkly painted lips. The dark crimson velvet suit dress that the woman was wearing was expensive, custom-made, and was clearly advertising that fact. “So you aren’t an idiot. How charming.”

“Everyone keeps acting surprised that I’m not.”

“You don’t come from the brightest stock in the world.”

Nadi let out a hum. “That’s fair.”

Volencia laughed dryly. “I cannot imagine how it must feel to be sold to us by your father without even any consultation.”

“I’m used to being treated like a possession by him. He’s never much thought about what I’ve wanted.” Nadi didn’t know if that was true. But she figured it fit the narrative well enough.

“At least you seem to have some fight in you.” Volencia moved to sit down on the edge of a round velvet ottoman. A few of them were scattered about, clearly meant for giggling bridesmaids. “And you wear it well enough.”

Nadi wasn’t sure if Volencia meant she wore the dress well, or acting the part of a prop well—or both. She settled on both. Staring at a stranger’s reflection in the mirror, she couldn’t help but feel just the slightest bit of pang in her heart.

She would never get to stand in the mirror as herself. Never wearing her own face, let alone her own shape. She would never have her mother beside her, smiling as she tried on a dress.

Her mother was dead.

That woman in the mirror wasn’t real.

It was a lie. A ghost of a future that she would never, ever have.

Because Raziel, Volencia, and all the rest of their miserable family had taken it from her.

It wasn’t new information. It was what she had carried for over eighty years since that fateful night. But it was rare that she saw such a perfect example in front of her of…exactly what her future could have been.

She could have danced around a fire with a boy from another fae clan. She could have been wed under the glow of the yubi bugs.

“Raziel told me you have become…acquainted with our business practices.”

Nadi watched the older woman in the mirror for a moment before turning her gaze away. “I have.”

“And what is your opinion of the family venture?”

“I wasn’t aware I was expected to have an opinion. Same as the dress. Same as everything else.”

Volencia smiled. “Very smart girl. Well. I will rephrase. What do you plan to do about it?”

“Stay out of it, best I can. Unless I need to act in any way, in which case…life has chosen a side for me.” Nadi shook her head.

“For as long as I survive, Raziel will be my husband. My loyalty is to him and his family. I will support him in any way I can until he decides I’m no longer of use to him. ”

“The rumors do travel far, don’t they?” Volencia crossed one leg over the other as she pulled a cigarette out of her purse. “Tomorrow will be a very important day, girl. My youngest is getting married for the first time.”

Nadi overcame the urge to say “Probably not the last time” and let Volencia keep speaking.