Page 4 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

TWO

“I told you.”

Raziel shrugged. “Do you want a trophy?” He stared out the glass of his brother’s high-rise office, looking down at the street below. The cars in this area of town were like the buildings themselves—huge, new, clean, expensive. Far away from the soot and grime of the people who made them.

Far away from the homes of the laborers who cheered when the girders of each skyscraper were riveted together. But they weren’t Raziel’s concern. Nor were they the concern of his brother.

Mael leaned back in the leather-padded chair of the office he occupied in the metropolis’ statehouse. The piece of furniture creaked with the strain of his weight. Raziel was taller and broader than most but looked like a rail next to his elder brother.

He would never admit aloud how much he hated that fact.

Flicking a coin into the air, Raziel caught it as it danced back down toward his palm.

“Fae will never be happy with the scraps we let them scavenge. They will always try to claw up from their holes like the fetid beasts they are.” Grimacing, he fought the urge to extend his fangs.

“We should have exterminated the Iltanis when we had the chance. Every last one of them.”

“They can be useful, brother. You know that.”

He rolled his eyes. “There are other beasts down there who will bring us the narcotics we need. We don’t need that thing who fancies himself a man. He grows too bold. It’s only a matter of time before he does something remarkably stupid.”

“No.” Mael stood from the chair behind his desk.

Raziel glanced over at him. A stranger on the street would never think them related.

Raziel with his long dark hair and red eyes, and Mael with his blond strands and golden orbs.

“Luciento Iltani is a dog. One we’ve trained to obey.

He snaps at his leash from time to time, and we correct him with the rod. ”

“And I am the rod.”

“Yes.” Mael smirked. “You are. And you like it.”

With a heavy sigh, Raziel headed for the door. “Someday, this rod might snap, brother. Then what will you do?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

Sneaking onto a train filled with armed guards was easy…when you could become an armed guard.

Well.

Sort of easy.

The first step was to find a man posted on the edge of the security checkpoint where the train was going to be stopped to be searched. Someone of lower rank on the edge of the outpost, who had his back turned. Taking the man’s shape was easy enough.

Even if suddenly having a dick and balls was really distracting. How men walked around with those things dangling around all day, Nadi would never know.

One quick hit upside the back of the head with her pistol and she dumped his unconscious body behind the checkpoint building. By the time anyone found him or he woke up, she’d be long gone and wearing another face.

Taking his place, she waited until his superior officer walked by. “Sir? Sir, a moment in private?”

“Keep it brief, the next train is almost here.” The older man rolled his eyes. He jerked his head toward the small station building and she followed him inside.

A few minutes later and he was unconscious underneath his desk. And she walked out wearing his face. And trying not to scratch his crotch.

She seriously hated having to glamor as men.

Putting on her best scowl, she waited for the train to arrive and barked the appropriate orders for “his” troops to search the train.

Gods forbid any fae get inside the city, or any smuggled goods—well, any that the bastard Nostroms hadn’t bribed them to ignore, at any rate.

Climbing aboard, she was pleased when the train staff stepped aside to let “him” on board with no questions.

The train was packed.

From the informant at the telegraph office she’d paid off, Nadi learned that Monica would be up near the front with only a couple of guards. How much Raziel had paid for a private cabin for eight , Nadi had no idea. But it must have been absurd.

It would make her easy enough to find.

Especially with how heavily guarded the train car with the one said passenger would be.

Getting the contact information of the informant had required burning a lot of leads. The one that hurt the most was cutting off her contact with Betty, the woman she got her assassination contracts from.

The older woman had sighed when Nadi had briefly explained what she was after, but she hadn’t tried to stop her.

Mostly because she didn’t care that much if Nadi wanted to throw her life away.

And part of the older woman understood that revenge was what drove them all to do what they did, at the end of the day.

“A shame to lose one of my best,” Betty had said through her cigarette. Nadi hated the smell of them, but she put up with it without complaint.

Betty was as close as Nadi had to a friend, sad as that was.

And it was pretty moons-damned sad.

But now was time to focus on the present, on the train, and on finding Monica. The only thing that might have given her away was the small bag she had slung over her shoulder. But as “captain,” no one would question her as she peered in each window going along the front of the train.

This was the right train. Monica was in here somewhere. Nadi didn’t know what the young woman looked like, but there couldn’t be two trains with a young woman with guards posted outside and?—

There.

Two hired goons standing outside of a door, doing their best to look both serious and incredibly bored at the same time. They weren’t any of the Nostroms’ usual hires. Probably from wherever this Monica Valan came from.

With a sigh, Nadi reached into her pocket, produced out a wad of cash, and peeling off a few thick bills, stuffed a handful each into the hands of both men. “Get lost for the next half an hour.”

The two guards glanced at each other. At the apparent captain of the guard. At the large sums of money they’d just been paid…and then they both obediently shrugged and walked off. Funny thing about hired goons. They could always be rehired by other people.

Let them think the captain of the guard was about to do something lascivious and horrid with the single, unescorted woman on the train. The truth was somehow both worse and better than that.

As Nadi glanced through the door of the room, sure enough, there she was. She had to be Monica Valan. A single woman, sitting in the train car by herself, was peering out the window of the train, up at the tall buildings like she’d never seen skyscrapers before.

Opening up the door without warning, Nadi stepped in and shut it behind herself with a click. “Papers.” Her voice matched that of the captain of the guard perfectly.

“Here you go, sir.” The woman handed her up a folded stack of papers with a bright and beaming smile.

Yep. Monica Valan. The young woman was very pretty with a round, friendly face and giant puppy-dog eyes.

Painfully innocent. She was looking up at Nadi with such wide-open curiosity it almost made her heart bleed.

Raziel would absolutely destroy her. Snap her into tiny pieces, drain her of blood, and leave her an empty, soulless husk. The Serpent delighted in breaking his partners—men or women, anybody stupid enough to sleep with him.

Pulling the curtain down on the door, Nadi sat next to Monica and, in the same movement, pulled a silenced pistol from her pocket and dug it into Monica’s side.

Then she smiled at Monica with Monica’s own face. “Hello.”

Monica squeaked, her hands flying over her mouth.

“No screaming. No running. I’m not here for you. You’re going to walk away from this unharmed and with a lot of money in your pocket if you do what I say.”

“Wh-wh-what do you want?” Monica stammered. “Please—please, I?—”

“Do you know who and what Raziel is? Do you really know what you’re walking into? What happens when a human is married off to a vampire ?” She arched an eyebrow.

The way the other woman chewed her lower lip told Nadi that she did know who Raziel was. And what was going to happen to her.

Monica’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t have a choice. Papa…”

“Sold you off like cattle?”

Monica nodded.

“Here’s what I’m offering you.” Nadi shifted, dropping her canvas bag from her shoulder onto the ground at her feet.

“In this bag I have cash, credits, a new identity, and priority passage rights from here back to anywhere else you want to go. Monica—you’re going to feel ‘sick,’ and I, as captain of the guard, am going to take you off the train to recuperate.

The guards will assume I’m having my way with you or something disgusting. ”

Monica snorted.

Nadi shrugged. “From there, you leave. Go anywhere you want. You’ll be free. And I’ll get back on board the train to take your place.”

“You—you want to switch places? But…but why?” Monica blinked, astonished.

“I have a bone to pick with your fiancé.” Nadi gritted her teeth.

“And if I won’t…?” Monica asked the obvious follow-up question.

“Then I kill you, stuff you out the window, and I go on in your stead, anyway.”

Would she? She honestly didn’t know. Probably. Monica didn’t deserve to die. But that was the nature of revenge, sometimes. The Serpent and his family needed to be stopped—how many lives could she save by stopping them?

Monica looked down at the bag at Nadi’s feet. “How…how much exactly?”

Greed really was fantastic, sometimes. “One million.” Nadi smiled, still wearing Monica’s own face. “Call it a wedding gift.”

“I don’t want to marry that vampire fuck .” Monica’s cussing sounded surprisingly natural on her. Farm girls—always full of surprises. “One million dollars to go live my life, and not get tortured and murdered by that unholy monster?” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I can say no.”

Nadi let out a small breath of relief. “Great. Then I’m going to lower the gun. I’m going to take the shape of the guard again and follow you off the train. Do not do anything stupid. Please.”

Monica didn’t do anything stupid.