Page 3 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

“Try not to bleed on the furniture. None of this is the maid’s fault.

” Sighing, she grabbed Mark by the wrist and tried to pull him over to the corner.

He was already going weak, but he still tried to ball up his other hand into a fist and punch at her.

It was easy enough to move out of the way of the pathetic swing.

By the time she dragged him into the corner, he was twitching in the last throes of death.

Brushing off her hands, she looked down at his crumpled form. Blood was seeping through his shirt. It’d likely be a decent-sized puddle on the black marble floor by the time she woke up in the morning. But, importantly, it wouldn’t get on the carpet.

Reaching down, she pulled her hairpins out of his back.

They were custom-made, and she was hardly going to let Mark keep them.

She let her glamor drop—well, part of it, anyway—as she headed to the door to ensure the deadbolts were thrown.

There wasn’t any need to keep wearing the face of the prettiest woman she’d ever seen, now that her target was taken care of.

Being a shapeshifter was useful when one was an assassin.

Though the shapeshifting had definitely come first in her life before the killing-for-hire had.

Heading to the bathroom, she tossed the two bloody weapons into the sink and switched on the hot water. She’d have to boil them when she got home, but scrubbing them in soap and hot water would do for now.

Oh, shit. The bathroom was nice. Mark hadn’t been cheap. The tub was enormous. Definitely meant for more than one—and very likely more than two.

Extremely discreet.

Shame to let such a wonderful tub go to waste. Sitting on the edge of the marble platform that surrounded the large oval basin, she reached over and flipped open the brass taps, letting the water rush out. Smiling, she decided there was only one thing that could make it better.

Booze.

Humming to herself, she headed back to the main room. There was a silver bucket by the wall filled with ice, and an uncorked bottle of white wine shoved into it.

First, she figured it didn’t hurt to go through his coat.

She had plenty of money. Being an assassin paid extremely well, and she really didn’t know what to do with what she had, so she didn’t need to raid his wallet for cash.

But after growing up fae in the darkest corners of the city, it was hard to turn down free money.

And there might be something useful in his pockets.

His wallet had a few paper bills amounting to a not small but not incredible sum of money, a few business cards that seemed uninteresting but she’d keep just in case, and a paper ID card she’d leave with the corpse. She had no need for it. In fact, better if it weren’t on her person.

It was the other pocket that had something more interesting.

A crimson envelope with a broken black wax seal that had a stylized decorative N stamped into it. She knew that symbol. She knew that symbol very well.

Flipping open the envelope, she pulled out the card and read the delicate crimson text scrawled across the expensive off-white linen card inside.

Of course it was blood red. Of course it was. Egotistical shit.

You are hereby cordially invited to the wedding of Raziel Nostrom and Monica Valan on Everdeen the 4th, 3435, at the Wellingham Estate Courts.

It didn’t even include instructions on how to RSVP. He just assumed whoever was invited was coming. Naturally. Egotistical shit.

Tossing the card onto the bed, she took the whole bottle and one of the delicate crystal glasses, then headed back to the bathroom.

Flipping off the electric lights—they tended to hurt her eyes, though she preferred them to the smell of the oil lamps they were replacing—she let out a sigh as the darkness flooded the room.

She was used to the darkness. She had grown up in the Wild, after all. Placing the bottle and glass on the edge of the tub, she stripped out of her clothes and tossed them aside.

The Wild stretched for miles underneath the island of Runne, sprawling in endless caverns, rivers, oceans, lakes, and fields. Larger than the humans and the vampires who all lived topside could probably imagine.

Filled with creatures and wonders the likes of which they could never dream of.

And it was where most fae clans lived. Those that hadn’t overtaken the plains between the walled cities where the humans and vampires had driven them out, at any rate.

It was dangerous in the plains, and while there was always a chance for war and raids anywhere in the Wild, the plains were notoriously worse.

But being underground, where it was supposed to be safer, meant that most fae never saw the light of the sun. So they adapted to live without it.

It was another advantage she had over those that lived above. Even the vampires, who were also creatures of darkness, had poorer night vision than her kind.

Her clan had lived underground.

Had being the operative word there.

Oh, by the two moons , this place had that soap that made the water all bubbly!

She’d been in this hotel before, but never in this nice of a room.

“Mark, you really know how to treat a lady you planned on fucking once.” Laughing quietly to herself, she unscrewed the top of the glass bottle and poured the contents into the bath, loving the feeling of the steam rising off the surface of the water.

Slipping into the water, she let out a satisfied groan and sank into the liquid up to her neck. She could really stretch out in the enormous tub. Once it was full, she turned off the taps and poured herself a glass of wine.

She sipped it, leaning her head back against the lip where the porcelain met the marble and let out a sigh. Her good mood didn’t last long as a name came into her mind as it had so many times over the past eighty years of her life.

Eighty years that she had spent learning to kill. Learning to hunt. Learning to survive. Because of that name. That one name. And the face that went along with it. She had spent eighty years honing her skills. Knowing that someday she would have a chance to take her revenge. On him.

Raziel Nostrom.

Her stomach twisted in hatred at the thought of him. She had to bite back the memories. The night that ruined her life—that took everything she cared about.

She remembered those red eyes—his silhouette. The look in her human mother’s eyes as he told her to slit her own throat.

And his laugh as she’d done it. That monster’s laugh.

Downing another mouthful of the wine, she swallowed too much and coughed.

Raziel had destroyed her life.

And she had been on a quest to destroy his ever since.

Nobody wakes up one day and goes “ You know? I think I’m going to murder people for money.

” Everybody had a reason. She didn’t talk much with other assassins.

It was a pretty lonely trade. But the few she’d bumped into—usually because they were going after the same mark, which was always extremely awkward but usually wound up with a game of rock-paper- scissors followed by beers at a bar—all had similar sob stories to her.

Some were better, some were worse. But they all had a name to point to.

The names were always different—but there was always someone.

Point being, Raziel Nostrom was a difficult hit for several reasons.

He was a vampire. While his two siblings were older and arguably stronger, that wasn’t saying much.

Raziel was powerful, ancient, and notorious for being able to hypnotize his victims into effortlessly killing themselves.

And he didn’t just have his victims kill themselves quickly—that wouldn’t be brutal enough to prove a point.

Not to mention, usually Raziel didn’t simply just target the victim.

He wanted to ensure that the message was sent loud and clear.

Crossing him usually meant losing more than just the right to continue living. It usually meant losing everything else, first. Family. Friends. Loved ones.

Even after over eighty years, the sound of her father’s screams, begging for mercy, still woke her from her nightmares.

She had vowed, a long time ago, to make sure that Raziel suffered just like his victims. She wanted him to watch everything he loved be taken away from him, bit by bit, before she ended his life.

And she was going to kill his bloodsucking, criminal family first. Just like he had hers.

For the longest time, it had seemed like that was impossible. That there was no way that she could get close enough to the Serpent to exact her revenge.

That was, until she’d met the dead fuck in the other room.

The wedding was in a week.

That gave her not a lot of time to go to work, but she had all the information she needed. But for tonight? Tonight, she could relax, enjoy the luxurious hotel room, and rest. It might be the last night of good sleep she’d get in a while.

So, for the first time in a long time, and probably for the last time, she let down her glamor.

All of it.

She felt the knot of tension between her shoulder blades, which was seemingly always there, slowly release. She didn’t fit in the tub anymore, enormous as it was. But that was fine.

Her long tail draped over the edge and along the marble platform and over the side. She’d get cold eventually, but it was worth it for now. Sinking as far down into the water as she could, she shut her eyes and basked in it. It felt like bliss.

Animal. Beast. Savage. Abomination. Liar. Cheat. Murderer.

Okay, that last one was accurate. But it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t wanted to be this way.

There was a mirror on the side of the tub. Lifting it, she looked at her reflection in the silvered glass. There was just enough moonlight drifting in through the big, tinted windows to see by.

Some parts of her might have almost passed for human, as fae went. Many of her kin were monstrous, twisted things—with too many arms or eyes, or who had their bones on the outside or all their organs the wrong way around. She looked fairly human…

Her hair was the color of pure onyx, flowing down around her in long waves and currently floating in the water, reflecting back shades of green and blue in the faint light.

Her ears were only a little pointed and easily hidden within her hair.

Her skin was pale, and only in the direct sunlight did it seem tinted just slightly sea-green around her temples or at her wrists.

Even her eyes, which were the color of black opal and flecked with every color in nature, could be disguised with tinted glasses.

She could almost be mistaken for a human at a glance, if nobody looked down.

Since it was her eight-foot-long gods-damn fucking fish tail that generally gave it away.

It was the same color as her hair. Pure black and shining in the moonlight, tinted like spilled oil.

It was like the tail of the colorful “laced fish” that her mother had brought her to see one day.

Their fins had flowed through the water like the most delicate fabric, and many of them had more than one.

As a child, they’d looked like elegant dancers to her.

Lifting the end of her tail, she studied it for a moment before dropping it back down. Sighing, she rested her head back and thought over her next steps. Memories of a home she no longer had weren’t going to do her any good.

Shutting her eyes, she took a deep breath and put the glamor back over herself that only altered her appearance enough to remove the tail.

It was one she had been used to wielding ever since she was a child, as being an aquatic fae with a land-based clan was…

inconvenient. Pulling her human legs into the hot water, she felt the tension return to that spot between her shoulder blades like an old friend.

She hadn’t hunted Denton with the intention of it leading to anything. She had only been pursuing him because he had an association with the Nostroms and a decent price on his head. It had been a way to both secure a few months of funds, and be a thorn in their sides, if even just a little.

But now? Now that the stupid wedding invitation had landed in her lap?

A plot was forming in the back of her head. It was insane. It was absolutely ludicrous. And if she succeeded, she would probably wind up dead. This was a one-way trip. She didn’t have time to plan or to take care of any kind of contingencies. But this might be the best chance she’d ever have.

This “Monica Valan,” the human who was being married off to Raziel, was coming from one of the outer human cities. The trains would have to move through contested areas, which was dangerous. Nadi doubted Monica’s family would risk making the trip with her.

That meant Monica would come alone for the wedding.

And that meant a switch could be made.

Nadi chewed her lower lip.

A bribe and a switch.

Raziel had a…reputation, when it came to partners. A reputation that would precede the Serpent even in the distant settlements where Monica lived. And Nadi could use that to her advantage.

Her thoughts flashed back to the first time she had set eyes on the vampire. On the grin that had been burned into her soul. That too-smooth, fanged smile when he’d seen her. And the one word he’d spoken that had cut through her very soul.

“ Run. ”

Her jaw ticked in rage.

Nadi was going to make Raziel Nostrom suffer.

Or she was going to die trying.