Page 21 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

ELEVEN

If she lived to see the dawn, she’d call it a win.

Nadi felt like she was having an out of body experience throughout the entirety of the so-called “wedding.” Wearing a dress meant for someone else. Wearing a persona that wasn’t hers.

Marrying the man she had vowed revenge upon.

Carrying a bouquet of flowers the color of blood.

Smiling. Shaking hands. Posing for photos.

Forcing herself to look demure as she stood at the altar, saying the vows in front of the human priest. It didn’t feel real.

It was all happening to someone else. It was the only way she could go through it all, like she was watching someone else go through the actions.

She was playing a part on a grand stage—reading lines from someone else’s script.

The vows had been the most surreal.

Listening to Raziel say the words as he placed a ring on her finger. Repeating them back to him as she did the same. Lines in a play.

None of it was real. To either of them. A gesture of a motion of a feeling.

Only the kiss had any attachment to reality.

It was chaste—they were in front of a crowd, after all—but that was the first time Raziel looked at her and truly seemed to see her.

The first time those red eyes hadn’t been glassy, faraway, and utterly bored.

She wasn’t the only one going through the motions.

What a fucking mess.

When she finally had a moment to sit down at the head table in the reception hall, she could actually take a moment to assess the situation.

They were in a giant, expensive hotel that matched the same kind of hyper-modern elegance of his home.

It looked extremely fancy, yet somehow devoid of detail—so foreign to the way she grew up in the Wild.

It seemed…somehow austere to her. Cold. Unwelcoming. Too fancy.

Insincere.

That was it. The whole damn thing. The hotel. The decor. The food. The feelings. The people. The smiles. The friendship. The family. The love. It was all fucking insincere.

The humans mingling among the guests were fascinating to her. Most of them seemed to orbit one or other of the vampires—serving as thralls, or toys, or temporary playthings. Just as Monica was expected to do for Raziel.

But she was not Monica. She was Nadi. And the people around her weren’t her new family. They were her victims. Each one could have had a name tag on them that had a number etched to it.

Ezekiel Nostrom, third cousin, drug runner. Number eighty-seven. She could kill him in the back stairwell and make it look like an overdose. Make him eat all the powder he was peddling to people from his coat pocket and trying—and failing—to make it look subtle.

Timothy Verrik, human, slave trader. Number thirty-four. That one, she’d bludgeon to death in his hotel room. Make it look like the women he was just introducing into the market had turned on him in a fit of desperation.

Mael Nostrom, older brother, kingpin. Number one .

There he was, sitting at the head table to her right, with all the other immediate Nostrom family.

He was smiling and laughing, telling some grandiose story that had the table in rapt attention.

He was charismatic, handsome, and always the center of attention.

By the pit, he even had the mayor of the metropolis sitting at the table with him, smiling and laughing at his jokes.

Mael was the smiling face of the vampiric influence upon the human race. The constant, benign protector who had long since vowed to shield the humans from the Wild in the name of his ancestors who had done the same.

The sun to Raziel’s moon. No one would guess by looking at him that he was the mastermind of an entire drug empire and the one who made sure that all of the mayor’s problems quietly disappeared—and therefore the most powerful person in all of the isle of Runne.

Vampires were an obnoxious bunch. Each one was “blessed” with their own version of their blood-gifts. No two seemed to have the exact same powers, though there were definite patterns that formed in families. Turning to bats, or into mist, or rats—those seemed to be common.

Raziel’s gift of hypnotism? That was truly unique. But it didn’t make him any more or less durable than the standard vampire. Whereas Mael and his father seemed to share the trait of being exceptionally difficult to murder.

Yeah. Nadi had no clue how to kill him.

She’d heard stories of people who had tried. Poison hadn’t done it. Stabbing hadn’t done it. Setting him on fire hadn’t done it.

No, it’d require something more permanent to take him out.

Then it hit her.

Like father, like son.

Dismemberment. She’d have to knock him out, saw his limbs off, and…she looked down at the plate of food in front of her, and found she suddenly wasn’t at all hungry.

Raziel leaned close, whispering in her ear. “Eat something. You’ll need it.”

The meaning was clear. We can’t have you passing out when I drink your blood and make you regret teasing me for the past few days.

Gods below, she prayed her glamor would hold on her blood long enough for him not to detect what she was. Otherwise, her revenge plan wouldn’t last until morning, and she wouldn’t have to worry about convincing him to delay the sacrificial honeymoon.

Nodding once, she picked up the fork and knife and forced herself to eat as much of the roast beef as she could.

“Nice of your father to provide the beef for tonight.” Raziel was clearly unimpressed. “I hope he will enjoy the photographs we’ll send him. A reminder of the daughter he dismissed from his life.”

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.” The sarcasm was thick in her voice as she took a sip of her champagne.

Fuck, she hated champagne. Somehow too bitter and too sweet at exactly the same damn time.

How it managed that, she had no idea. But it was a moment for celebration, so…

here she was. Eating overcooked roast beef and drinking champagne.

Next to the man she hated. Who had killed her family.

Who she was now married to.

Who she was extremely attracted to.

Who was going to kill her if she didn’t beat him to it and kill him first.

The whole situation was so farcical it was hard to be upset by it, really. That was probably why it was easier to smile over the whole ordeal than she would have expected.

Raziel sat back in his chair and watched the crowd in front of them. Laughing, sharing drinks, clearly having more fun than they were. “Parasites.” The single word was said with such disdain—such hate— that she was taken aback by it.

“These are your family and friends.”

“Are they? Look at them. Do you know how many of these humans I’ve even met before? Let alone even care about?”

“No?”

“None of them.” He sneered. “They circle about us like vultures. No. Worse than that. They are hyenas, waiting for the lions to make a kill so they can lick the bones clean. They’re weak, powerless, insignificant little things and if it weren’t for us, the savages would have rendered them all extinct long ago. ”

If the Nostroms were lions, Raziel wasn’t even the king of the pride. Mael was the brother with the most influence, the most standing in the family. Even Lana outranked him. She opted not to point that out to him.

Shaking her head, she went back to her food and drink. “If you aren’t a fan of humans, why have us around at all in the first place?”

He was silent for a long time. “Isn’t it obvious? We can’t feed on each other. And we certainly can’t feed on the fae.” He gestured vaguely at the scene in front of him. “So, we protect the meat.”

“Why can’t you feed on the fae?” Oh, now this was interesting.

“They’re vermin. They taste utterly vile .” He took a sip of his wine. “Unmistakably so.”

Was that true…? Well, fuck. She had no idea if it was true or not. Would Raziel know the moment he sank his teeth into her neck? She could only continue to pray that her glamor held out.

She downed her glass of champagne and poured herself another. If he noticed her sudden exasperated and slightly panicked expression, it didn’t stop him from continuing his rant.

“Look at them. Celebrating like this is some kind of momentous occasion. They all know this is just as fake as we do. They don’t care about me.

They don’t know me. They’re simply hiding in the safety of our power.

” He grimaced, revealing his dangerous fangs.

The fangs he planned to sink into her throat—or elsewhere—before the morning.

“But they celebrate the death of one of their own, don’t they?

They know the moment we leave for our ancestral home, only I’m coming back.

Yet they have the gall to toast you. You might as well be on the plate with the fucking beef.

” He almost sounded offended on her behalf. How…oddly sweet.

She huffed. “I’m almost flattered that you rank me on par with what the chefs did to this poor slab of meat.

” She poked the steak in front of her. “They really didn’t need to kill the cow a second time, I wonder if they knew that when they cooked it.

At what point do I graduate to ‘properly cooked dinner’? Or is that never going to happen?”

“You’ve turned out to be more than I expected, I’ll give you that much.” He trailed his hand over her shoulder, tracing the line of the shawl she was wearing. “But if you think a pretty face and a willingness to stab Hank is going to win me over, I have terrible news.”

She laughed. She didn’t know why. The farce of the situation finally caught up to her. Or maybe it was the champagne. She turned her focus to the crowd in front of them. Tables upon tables of people, many who were known to her—but not a single one of them his friend.

Ivan and anyone else Raziel might actually consider friends were working, after all. The bull in question was standing nearby, arms folded.