Cherry Blossom (Vampire Cherry Book 2) (17 page)

I expect her to straddle him and compound my misery, horror, and disgust, but she passes her palm over his face. “Sleep.”

“Didn’t you get the memo?” I snark, therefore I am. “He’s already asleep. We’re in his dream. And if you’re done perving all over him, it’s time for us to wake up, and for you to go back to being nothing but a memory.” Is that a quaver in my voice?

I’ve almost forgotten Willoughby, until he speaks. “You still believe you’ll wake from this? That there is an after for you?”

I snort. “There’s obviously an after for her, and Constantine twisted her overly made up head off!” Until now, I’ve more or less been flying by the seat of my pants, going for the what-if scenarios. ‘What if Alex’s subconscious kind of hates me?’ turned into, ‘What if psycho bitch and her boy toy are really real?’ and to, ‘What if I can keep her talking?’

Now I realize that, to see where the latter may lead, I have to focus on the hows.

“How is she here, anyway?” I ask.

Ádísa approaches us. I can see Alex’s prone form behind her, his face placid and body limp. “
She
is eternal.” The bitch says.

I laugh. “Not the tune you played when Constantine got rid of you.”

“But I’m still here.” Her calm grin is disconcerting.

“So you say. Prove it.”

“I need prove nothing to you, girl.” Her voice turns deeper, older. It bounces off the trees surrounding us, as though they were walls, and reaches my ears in a rumble. “I am who I am. You can only see my aftereffects, and you will—as have those who came before you.”

There we go with the riddles again. “Are you being cryptic on purpose,” I ask, “or simply unable to carry a normal conversation?”

I don’t see her move, but I feel the sting of her slap on my cheek. Tears of anger burn my eyes. I’ve never felt so vulnerable. Not even last time she tried to kill me. I won’t give her the satisfaction of showing it, though. “So it’s door number two, then.” If I could, I’d toss my hair back.

Ádísa kneels in front of me. Initially I’m irrationally afraid she’ll kiss me too. She seems about to, with how close she brings her lips to mine. “Maybe I
should
fuck one of you. See what all the fuss is about.” She scrutinizes my face. “Nah. I think I can live with not knowing.” She stands again, and now I’m looking at a pale thigh. Creepy crawlies make their way up my spine, when she says, “I’d rather just get rid of you.” Alex’s subconscious can’t possibly be making up the hatred in her tone.

“But why?” My bravado deflates as the certainty she is who she says, and not a faded memory, takes root.

She walks backward, until I can look into her face. “Because I’m done, Cherry. I’m tired of seeking your line up and down the world, vying for the attention of mortals whom I wouldn’t spare a second glance. I’m fed up with rejection upon rejection, for the sake of the same women who ultimately spawned you. That’s why I had Willoughby turn you.”

To my left, Willoughby preens as if she’s given him a compliment. ’Cause bleeding an unsuspecting woman dry in the back of a limo, while making out with her, is apparently an accomplishment.

I don’t voice my thoughts, because Ádísa is still talking. “As a vampire, you’d be the last of your line, and I could focus my efforts on you. I mean, look at us. How hard could it be to convince someone to leave
you
for me?”

Too hard, as it turned out.

“I guess I could have waited for you to have a loving boyfriend, and then killed you. That way, I could take advantage of his grief, but I tried killing the women before. It never works. The men won’t get over them. They just won’t. Constantine didn’t, even after you made it clear you didn’t want to see him again. It’s been what? Six months?”

“Four years plus change—but who’s counting?”

“Whatever. You were together for less than it takes me to braid my hair. You should have been nothing to him, yet he killed me for you.”

Ah huh! “So you
are
dead.”

“Not as dead as you’d want me to be. Tell me, Cherry Stem, what is it about women in your family that makes their men so loyal?”

This is the complete question. Now I finally know what she meant last time we’d met. “Maybe we simply don’t fall for men who would go for deranged murderous bitches,” I say.

She gives me a strange look, devoid of the anger I expected. “I will never understand the attraction, and I’ve made my peace with it. I just want it all to end, and I want to return to my rightful place. It is why I planned for Constantine to become your lover. Stealing him back would seal the deal and release me from this limited shell.” She looks at her immaculate body with as much disdain as I usually save for my belly rolls.

If she dislikes
this
form, how stunning did she originally look? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I have enough complexes already.

“So you wanted to get your Valkyrie cred back, but Constantine threw a wrench in your plans when he wanted to win me back.” I can’t entirely suppress my smugness.

“Valkyrie? You believe that?” She laughs, the sound too beautiful to be coming from a creature as evil as she is. “Valkyries don’t exist. I was so much more. So much stronger. I brought men to their knees, and they begged me to kill them with my love. I was a succubus, favored by Satan himself.”

My turn to laugh. “I see death has amplified your delusions of grandeur.”

She acts as though she hasn’t heard me. “Constantine was one of my greatest disappointments. No matter what I did, his soul was never far from yours. And this is why I’m going to take Alex from you.” There’s the devious smirk that makes my stomach lurch. I don’t believe for a moment she was what she claims to have been, but she’s still lethal.

If I’m to save Alex, I have to save myself first. “You have him. Now leave me alone.”

She shakes her head. “What I have is a man convinced the woman he loves is in love with another. He may do many interesting, deliciously depraved things with me, but he hasn’t chosen me. Not until he kills you.”

“But that’s—”

“A loophole.” Her smile is like a shark’s. “The way the condition was worded, he has to kill you for me, because I say so, not because he loves me.”

Fuck. Can we get back to trying to wake up?

“It won’t make a difference what you do.” Willoughby’s face appears impossibly close to mine, his pupils taking up most of his irises. “This dream is my playground. What I say goes, and I say Alex will drain you for her. For my maker. She will return, and bathe in your blood.”

“I thought I’d be drained by then. Best she’ll be able to do is snort my powdery remains.” My boldness is completely fake. Right now, I don’t believe there’s a way to survive this dream. Not unless Constantine figures out something’s wrong, and magically jumps in here with me.

“You can jest all you want, but the result will be the same.” Willoughby snaps his fingers, and my limbs shift. Lift. Straighten. My ass glides up the tree trunk I butted my head on, until the entire length of my body presses ramrod straight against that same trunk.

“Alex will drink you to death, proving Ádísa’s victory.” Willoughby brushes invisible specks of dust off his shoulders. He takes his time unbuttoning his sleeves, and rolling them up to his elbows. “Then I will carve out his heart with my fingers, and offer it to her. She will be restored, and after I’m done with your friends and family, there won’t be anyone left to remember you ever existed.”

I try to swallow past the knot in my throat, but find it impossible. Killing me won’t be enough for the twisted dynamic duo. They have to obliterate all traces of my passing from this world. “How are you doing this? You’re not even Alex’s maker, I am. I should have more power over his dreams than you do. Constantine said you can visit the dreams of someone whose blood you’ve tasted. But to control them?” It’s imperative I understand before I die.

“I am more than a thousand years old, Cherry. I know more than you ever dreamt of.”

“Constantine is older than you,” I say.

“But he hasn’t spent that time learning. Researching our nature. That’s why I knew how to bring her back.” His eyes are burning with fanaticism. He’d lay his life on the line for Ádísa. There’s no talking sense into him. “The only thing I didn’t know was that Ruby walks in the sun,” he says, “but now our dear Alex has informed me, I am certain your mother will eventually tell me all I need to know, to duplicate Ruby’s elixir of life.”

“She doesn’t know how,” I whisper.

“She doesn’t know she knows. I can dig into her memories. It’ll be painful, of course.”

My dead heart constricts in my chest, but I can’t let myself believe he can get to my mother. I have to trust Constantine to protect her, as he’s done before.

“With you out of the way and the curse broken, Ádísa and I can finally realize our plan,” Willoughby says.

Right. The world-domination thing. I’ll give you one guess how that went down last time.

If your answer was, ‘Like a lead balloon,’ congrats, you have more common sense than your run-of-the-mill megalomaniacal vampire.

“Let’s take over the world today, Pinky,” I mutter under my breath. I look at Ádísa. She’s standing over Alex, looking down at him with pure hunger. I’m not sure she’ll spare a moment’s thought to Willoughby, once she’s back to her true nature—whatever that may be—but he won’t believe me if I try to warn him.

Constantine will stop them. He will. He has to.

“No, he won’t.”

I should have realized sooner. The fucker can read my mind.

“It’s not that hard. You basically broadcast your thoughts. More to the point, I already told you this dream is mine to play with.”

“Then why don’t you get on with it? Have Alex kill me, if you think you can.” I have no doubt he can, but at this point, death may be easier than listening to these two planning my demise, and I’m not going to beg them for my life.

“Oh, we first had to make sure you’d convince your lover to do what we need,” Ádísa says.

Huh?

“He’d never kill you just because I asked him to.” She fiddles with the end of her braid, the gesture almost innocent. “But if I told him the only way to ensure you stopped wanting Constantine was to drink all your blood, he might.”

I narrow my eyes. I can do that much now, even if I can’t flex my pinkie.

“Oh, wait,” she says. “I’ve already told him that’s the way to your heart. I’ve made sure to keep him company in his dreams for a while. I’ve warned him about Constantine’s efforts to steal you back. Fed into his jealousy. But he needed to hear it from you. And now you’ve spent your precious last moments thinking how Constantine could help you. Only Constantine. He’ll be the one to save your parents. He’ll stop Willoughby and me. Such faith in a man who’s betrayed you.”

She tuts. “Pity Alex heard those thoughts as clearly as we did. He’s heartbroken, the poor dear. He’ll do anything in his power not to lose you. Even if it means killing you.”

No! I have to wake up!

I have to open my eyes before Alex does. Open my eyes open my eyes open my eyes open my eyes

I opened my eyes to complete darkness.

I was awake. I had to let people know what was happening. I tried to get off the mattress—why was it wet, anyway?

I wasn’t in bed.

I smelled moist earth and dead leaves, and the electricity in the air that usually meant a storm was near. Before I could focus my night sight, I heard a rustling.

“Constantine?” I croaked.

“Guess again.” My vision adjusted just in time to make out Alex’s disdain. The storm was in his eyes, as his fangs popped out, the right one nipping his lower lip enough that a drop of blood welled up to the surface.

“You’ll be mine,” he said, and planted one hand on my mouth, silencing my scream. “Shhh. It’s okay. Things will soon be as they should.”

I shook my head from side to side as violently as I could, but it didn’t stop Alex from grabbing a fistful of my hair, yanking it to one side until my neck hurt, and slicing his fangs into my throat. The memory of him doing the same thing earlier—how being incapacitated and waiting for death had felt—made my panic flare.

This time there was no doubt in my mind he’d finish me off. The long pulls he drew of my blood proved he was determined to.

His body squashed me to the wet ground. We were in the forest. The fucking clearing. How had he brought me here?

I let my own fangs descend, and buried them into the flesh of his palm. Surprised, he yanked it away. He only stopped drinking to say, “Scream if you want. Call for Constantine. He’s not coming this time. Nobody is.” He was set on finishing what he’d started.

I screamed until my voice was hoarse and my throat raw.

I screamed until I no longer had the strength to pull in my lungs the air necessary for another call for help.

Alex kept drinking.

What undid me—what made my gut hurt and revolt at the same time, was the way he stroked my face while he did so. Tenderly. Lovingly. He really believed this was the way to truly be with me.

We were both doomed.

“Alex,” I whispered, “I never cheated on you. I never would. Ádísa made you believe I still wanted Constantine, because she needs this. She needs you to kill me.”

He pulled back, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and looked at me incredulously. “Kill you? I’d never hurt you. I love you.” He seemed wounded at the thought. “I’m consuming you. Making you mine.”

My fault for not filling him in on the basics of vampirism. I spared a thought to lamenting the loss of VSS. Under the old council, the first thing VSS taught every fledgling was ways we could die, and being drained of blood stood prominent among those.

“You
are
killing me. Once you’ve drunk the last of my blood, I’ll turn to dust.” Was it possible to reason with him? Was there still hope? “Ádísa wants you to believe this will make our bond stronger, but she’s lying. Why would she come on to you, if she wanted us to be together? She’s using you to regain her Valkyrie status.” Easier to believe in Valkyries than Succubusses. Succubi. Whatever. “Don’t you see?”

Doubt clouded his eyes. “She said you’d try to persuade me not to do it. That Constantine’s hold on you is too strong, and you don’t want to break it.”

I coughed, the strain to keep talking quickly sapping the last dregs of my energy. “She’s a liar, Alex. A fucking liar. She wants you to kill me. It’s her endgame.” Had my eyelashes always been so heavy?

“Hush, baby. You’re confused. You just relax, and I’ll make it all okay.” He touched his lips gently to mine.

“No, you won’t,” I said in a breath. “She made you attack women who looked like me. She made you doubt my love. And now she’s making you kill me. We’re all her puppets.” With every word, I felt my second life slip away.

He snapped his head back, his expression bouncing from stricken to horrified. “I’m killing you?”

I tried to nod. Speak. Nothing. I hoped he read my blink correctly.

He shook his head, like a horse shaking off a horsefly. “That’s… No. I’m not. I’m giving us another chance.”

“Says who?” Only his vampire hearing could catch that; my voice was barely audible.

“Ádísa. She said… She said you still love Constantine.”

“She lied. Now she wins.” My lips were numb. Frozen. Near impossible to move. “I love you,” I mouthed, before I could no longer keep my eyes open.

“Cherry? Wake up!” He lifted me from the shoulders, and pulled me to him. I forced my eyes open, just a sliver. His gaze was completely clear. Ádísa and my asshole of a maker didn’t control him in that moment. “This isn’t working like she said it would!” he yelled.

No shit, Sherlock.
I felt like laughing, but it was too much effort.

“I love you too, baby. Fuck. I’m such an idiot. Fuck!” Alex scrambled upright, holding me to him. “Blood. You need blood. Then we’ll—”

I didn’t hear the end of that sentence, because I was harshly thrown back down. I felt rocks digging into my back. Leaves scrunching under my weight. Grass scratching my bare arms.

Dazed, but with adrenaline giving me a second wind, I looked around. Willoughby had tackled Alex to the ground. He sat on Alex’s stomach, and pummeled Alex’s face with his fists. Alex kept trying to block or return the hits, but Willoughby moved fast as lightning, his eons of experience putting Alex’s police training to shame.

Hey, stop that,
I thought I said. I made no sound. I made no move. I lay there and watched my maker rain hits on my lover, berating him for being unable to follow through.

“You had one job,” Willoughby said. Alex blocked a punch to his temple just to gain himself another in the nose. The crunching sound raised my hackles. “I incapacitated Constantine for you, and even dragged her all the way to the middle of nowhere.” My maker closed his fists together, and brought them down full force into Alex’s sternum.

He’d kill him, and then he’d have to kill me himself, to keep me from going to the council. There was a twisted sense of vindication in the thought Ádísa wouldn’t be getting her loophole salvation after all.

Alex and I would still be dead, but you win some, you lose some.

“You have to stop getting into these damsel-in-distress scenarios.” I knew the voice, and I knew the cologne scenting the pale skin of the wrist filling my vision.

Constantine.

“Bite, woman. Take enough to stay awake, while I clean up your mess.”

Of all the arrogant, sexist things to say… When I bit into his vein, I made it hurt a little. I took barely half a pint, the whole time watching the pitifully uneven fight unfolding in front of me. Willoughby was too busy turning Alex’s head to pulp, to notice the three of us were no longer alone in the clearing.

I didn’t bother to lick the wound closed. “Go,” I said. “I’ll be okay, as long as you keep him away from me.”

Constantine didn’t have to be told twice. He literally flew into Willoughby’s body, lifting him in the air and slamming him down on a log. It was the one Alex had sat on, when he’d sleepwalked to this clearing. I hoped Constantine broke the asshole’s spine.

Willoughby scissored his legs in the air, kicked, and twisted his body, torque setting him upright, just as Constantine reached for his head. Spine intact, then. Bummer. Judging from the murder in Constantine’s eyes, that wouldn’t remain the case for long.

Alex tried to sit up, but before he could lift his body off the ground, Willoughby avoided a high kick by Constantine, produced a stake from his jacket pocket, and slammed it into Alex’s upper chest.

“Alex!
No!
” This time my voice was loud. My throat still hurt, but not as much as my heart did. It took an eternity for me to realize Alex hadn’t dusted. Willoughby hadn’t found his heart. He’d merely—
merely
—staked him to the ground.

Constantine tried to repeat his attack through the air, but this time Willoughby was prepared. He rolled to his back, and kicked both legs into Constantine’s stomach. It was like watching a superhero movie, with bodies and fists taking off and descending like rockets, kicks connecting with the force of minivans, and nobody making enough headway to be deemed the winner.

I absentmindedly noticed the real forest came with real forest sounds. A squirrel scurried up the tree to my right, and scared a bird into flight.

“Ádísa wanted to take care of you herself, but she’ll have to settle for my avenging her death.” Willoughby managed to smash a knee into Constantine’s lower back, making him jackknife backward.

“She will not have a say in the matter, because she is not coming back. Ever.” Doing a close resemblance of a backflip, Constantine grabbed Willoughby’s lapels—seriously, who wore a button-down to a fight in the woods?—and sent them both hurtling into the thick foliage surrounding us.

“Oh, she is.” Willoughby knocked him backward, his entire bodyweight behind the blow. “Even if I have to slice your whore’s throat and let the blood drip into Alex’s mouth.” He feinted to the left, and when Constantine mirrored him, dove toward me.

“No!” Constantine’s roar was deafening. Willoughby was almost upon me, when Constantine wrapped both arms around his waist and pulled him away.

My maker used the momentum to roll around, and pin Constantine to the ground beneath him. They were inches from me, and I was too powerless to stop Willoughby from locking Constantine’s head in a vice-like grip.

“You’ll dust for what you did to Ádísa,” Willoughby said. His eyes held the same murderous glint they had in the dream, as he began twisting Constantine’s head around.

“Cherry!”

I glanced up to see Alex grasp the stake buried in his chest. It’s funny what the mind focuses on in times of grave danger. I saw his knuckles turn white with the effort it took to drag the piece of wood out of his flesh. As soon as it cleared the wound, he tossed it to me in a high arch, and his head fell back, his last reserves of energy depleted.

I raised my hand, and prayed his aim would be true. There would be no second chance to do this.

The moment the rough, unpolished piece of wood touched my palm, I closed my fingers around it. With strength and precision I didn’t know I still possessed, I swung, and slammed it into Willoughby’s back.

I felt flesh give way under the pointy tip, muscle shred, and bone shift.

And I felt his black, shriveled heart tear.

I felt it. Inside my own chest. I’d died and come back before, but had never experienced the violent ripping sensation I did now. Or the sad,
sad
hollowness that unfolded in my chest. Was that how it felt when someone’s maker died? If I hurt like someone stomped on my stomach and squeezed my throat at the same time, when I’d barely known and completely hated my maker, how had Constantine felt when he’d ripped his own maker’s head off? She’d been his companion. His lover. His love.

A puff of dust exploded all over Constantine and me, getting into our eyes and mouths, and dispersing the blackness inside me, until it was little more than a dull ache. I spat out the foul, bitter taste, but could feel a ferocious grin threatening to split my face in half.

We’d done it. We’d fucking done it. The bastard who’d ended both my and Alex’s lives was no longer.

Exhilaration faded away, giving its place to exhaustion. I wished I could pass out, so one of the men would carry me home, but A) I’m a vampire, and we don’t pass out when we’re tired, and B) no way was I giving Constantine fodder for more damsel-in-distress jokes.

Alex crawled to me, and Constantine sat back and let him gather me in his arms. My ex’s gaze was watchful, and when Alex tried to offer me blood, Constantine stopped him with a gentle shake of his head. “You look as if you spent the night in a meat grinder, and you’ve been staked. Let me.”

I looked up at Alex’s face. It was beginning to heal, but it was still bloody and raw, his nose at an odd angle. He glanced at me, then Constantine, and I was relieved to see no hint of speculation or distrust in his eyes. “I’ve taken a lot of her blood,” he said. “I have enough to spare. You’ve already fed her.”

“Twice,” Constantine said, “but I don’t need as much as you do to sustain me.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re ancient.” My joke fell flat. I let them maneuver me into Constantine’s lap.

“Do you want me to fix your nose for you?” he asked Alex.

“Nah, I got it.” Alex closed his fist over the bridge of his nose, and gave it one hard yank, twisting his wrist. “Fuck!”

I was pondering whether to ask how much pain he was in, or tell him it served him right, when I felt Constantine’s tongue on my neck. I shivered at the cool, wet stroke. “What..?” My voice came out way too breathy, for someone who’d been through Hell and back.

“Just taking care of your wounds first.” His voice was emotionless, but his grip on my arm quivered. The intimate gesture had rattled him.

It had rattled me too. “How did you find me?” I asked. “Us.”

“I’ll always find you,” Constantine replied.

His words soothed and unsettled me at the same time, but before I could ask more, I felt a whisper close behind. It was the same sensation I’d had in Alex’s dream—the familiar-yet-not presence. I snapped my head around, almost head-butting Constantine. Nobody was there. “Did you feel that?”

Constantine gave me a smile too wide to be honest. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Before I could explain or demand a straightforward answer, Alex kneeled by my side and took my hand. “I’m so sorry, Cherry. I’m willing to spend eternity making this up to you.”

Constantine cleared his throat. “Let us start by getting her back to her feet. Then you two can patch things up, while I take the time to sunbathe, like it is going out of fashion.”

I half chuckled, half choked at his choice of phrasing.

“You want my wrist again?” he asked.

The way I sat, my face so close to his, drinking from his throat would have been infinitely easier. Natural.