I'm a What? [BOOK FOUR]

Could Peaches from three weeks ago have done that, working at Kmart and hearing about Lisa's God-awful relationships? Ha! Not even if Zeno had been made of chocolate would I have stepped up and put my foot down, but here I was, the heroine in my own personal Karen Marie Moning or Jeaniene Frost book.

"I will not die for you," Zeno said after a long minute.

"I hope not," I smirked. "Casper would kill me if that happened."

She tilted her head in that sexy-curious way hot chicks did, but on Zeno there was a heavy dose of cool analysis and military style assessment mixed in. "You have changed, Peaches."

I slapped my thighs and blew out a huge breath. "God, I hope so, or the inner monologue I have going would sound really conceited right about now."

A smile touched Zeno's lips. Oh my God, had I just made my sexy, almost murderer, sister-in-law smile? Pigs must be flying across the Atlantic right about now.

"I will not die for you, Peaches—"

Hadn't she just said that already?

"—but I will fight for you."

That was probably the nicest thing Zeno had ever said to me, and probably ever would. It almost had me cry, probably would have made me cry if I hadn't felt something warm at my back.

Zeno's eyes moved over my shoulder, eyebrows rising. She spoke in Arabic and I heard Bane's response. Well, if I'd had any doubt in my mind the person standing behind me wasn't my husband that was crushed now.

Zeno flipped her gaze back to me. Her lips twisted before she glanced back over my shoulder, nodded her head, and left. I wondered if that was a good or a bad sign. Knowing Zeno, it was a "Peaches is about to get her ass chewed out, and I'm going to enjoy using my vampire super-hearing to listen to it" sign.

I pivoted slowly, taking my time to try to gather my shields before I faced my husband. But no matter how many barriers I had around me, they all crumpled the minute I saw him. The look in his eyes, the expression on his face, hit me with the impact of a semi on the highway. All the barriers around me came crashing down and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around Bane, hug him, and beg him never to look at me like that again.

"Didn't you see me waving?" They were the first words he'd spoken to me in over two days. His voice sounded rough, like he'd been drinking all night.

I couldn't blame him; I'd been doing the same thing. The only reason I wasn't drunk now was because Samantha had been with me, holding my hair back as I threw up. She'd forced me to drink water and eat crackers all throughout the night. Of course, I still looked like shit with bags under my eyes, stringy hair, and pasty white skin while Bane looked... great as usual.

He was dressed in a black suit that Casper had either given him or helped him pick out with a crisp white shirt underneath and a dark purple silk tie. I looked him up and down wondering if I was drooling. I hoped not. My eyes caught on a silver band around his ring finger and I gasped. When had he started wearing a wedding ring? As if they called to each other, the ring on my finger heated and warmed against my skin.

"I was talking to Zeno," I whispered, pulling my gaze away from the ring and up to his eyes. They were still cool and expressionless, but at least he was wearing the ring. "I was going to come to you after we finished."

I watched his jaw clench, red bleeding into the brown iris. "Fine." He turned on his heel, ready to leave me. "We're going to the reception now."

I reached for his arm needing to touch him, needing to feel him. Bane was mad at me. That was okay; we got mad at each other a lot. I was used to it. Life would still go on for the two of us, that was whom we were. We fought, we fucked, we lived.

"I will never voluntarily leave you, Peaches." He pulled away from me, and I felt cold. "But right now, I can't even stand to look at you."

I balled my hand into a fist and lowered it to my side. I watched him walk away, and I knew there was nothing else I could do but follow him. Follow him, and hope one day he looked back, saw me, and accepted my faults because the good parts of me outweighed them.

Chapter Nine: This is Why You Don't Call Humans to Do a Supernatural's Job

"Just divorce me already." I crossed my arms and my breasts hit my chin in the too-tight corset peasant top. "You know you want to."

Bane didn't take his eyes off the road, didn't even acknowledge me except by turning down the volume. I wanted to kick him in the shin when I heard his voice. "Something wrong?"

Habibiti, I thought. Something wrong, habibiti.

That's what he should have said—that's even what I imagined him saying—but the words didn't leave his lips. I gritted my teeth and adjusted in my seat, nearly screaming when my short skirt rode up near my panty line and he didn't even glance over. I looked out the window and thanked my lucky stars that the sun was setting and we were speeding too fast for me to give any driver a show.

One week. One awful, tear-filled, lonely week. Bane had been with me through all of it, standing by my side, handing me a tissue, putting away all the food people brought my mom. He was there, but damn if he was present. He never spoke unless I directly spoke to him, never commented on my inner monologue even though I made sure to broadcast it to every freaking person. Even my mom had heard my thoughts and she'd compared them to something out of 50 Shades of Grey, which I then corrected her by saying, "That book wishes it had sex as good as I do."

I sighed, loud and long. "I want out, Bane. I can't be married to a man who doesn't give a shit about me—who doesn't even want me."

I watched his reaction, searching for the smallest detail to tell me what he was thinking. Nothing gave him away. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Peaches, but even if I wanted to divorce you, vampire law forbids it. You know that."

"Fuck the law," I snarled.

"I neither have the time nor the patience."

Because we were kind of on the lamb. A majority of the royals had called a meeting that we'd skipped because it was about us and Bane, Zenobia, and Luther had all been convinced it would end in a war when they tried to either take or kill me. It hadn't been an if, but a when. Even as Samantha had more or less wiped the video completely away with some pretty funky magic, she couldn't exactly manipulate vampire minds to make them forget that they'd seen it. So while there was no physical evidence, memories didn't fade as easily, instead making shadows of what-ifs into monsters of when.

The car stopped and I jostled in my seat. I looked around, surprised that it was dark. Our private plane loomed a few hundred feet away looking like a prison. Two cars were near it, Casper's and Luther's. I wondered if I could jump out of our car, run to theirs, and drive away from all my problems.

Sounded awesome. Sounded stupid. I mentally sighed. I didn't run from issues. I'd never been that person and I wasn't about to start.

"You're the king. Divorce me. Yell at me. Hurt me."

Bane cut the ignition, but didn't get out. His voice was so low that I almost missed it. "Like you hurt me?"

I flinched.

He turned his head to me, but I couldn't see his expression in the darkness. "If you want to leave me, then I'll send you to a convent on the other side of the world."

An asylum I could see, even a prison, but a convent? "Why would you send me to a convent?"

He leaned close to me and I felt his breath heat my cheeks. "I meant what I said the night we were married." His voice dropped, coolly dangerous like a snake coiling around its prey. "There will never be another man in your bed. And if I ever found out you took a lover after me—" He leaned closer until his lips brushed my ear. "—I would skin them in front of you, then burn their body."

Holy hell! I didn't know how to react to that, so I didn't. I placed Bane's threat in a place in my mind where nightmares and boogeymen roamed. My husband wasn't a monster, even though he seemed to desperately want me to see him as one.

"Do it," I whispered against his ear when he didn't pull away. "Send me away."

"Is that what you want?" I shivered at the words. The position we were in should have been one step away from us doing it in the car, but it felt more like one step away from having his hand wrapped around my throat.

I wondered if Bane would kill me. I might love him, but I've never been the self-sacrificing type. If he tried it, I'd do what needed to be done; rip my soul out, turn my heart to stone, and kill the one man I'd ever truly, unconditionally loved.

I pulled back, and put some much needed space between us. "What I want is my husband back. What I want is for you to stop looking at me like I'm the enemy." I paused and willed all my frustration and love into my eyes. "What I want is for you to decide how our future is going to be."

Bane pulled away and settled back in his seat. "Five days is not enough time to get over what you did, Peaches."

"I got over what you did in four!"

"I was protecting you—us," he snarled, "What you did was completely different."

I should never have pulled him into my grief and drowned him in it. I'd known Bane was strong enough to keep us both afloat, but I'd panicked and hurt us both even more. But it wasn't purposeful or malicious. There weren't calculations and evasions in my grief. I'd been out of my mind, but whenever Bane pulled his shit he was in full control.

My husband moved quickly, vamp speed on, out of the car. I scrambled out right after him. I stared at him over the hood of our car, freezing from my lack of clothes and the ice slowly taking up residence in my heart. I wanted to scream, "Fuck you, Bane!" and run away. I wanted to spit acid at him and run away. I wanted to do everything and anything that ended in me running away.

"I'm afraid we can't let that happen, Malika."

Bane was in front of me in the next second. I felt acid move up my throat after that. Why was I not surprised that at the moment where I really needed all the bad guys to just disappear, they were suddenly in my face?

"Banks?"

"Yes, Malikati."

Ugh, I'd completely forgotten about the poser bad guy, and this was not the time for him to show his true stripes.

"What?" Bane hissed, blood red eyes flickering to me.

Shit. So much for keeping it to myself.

"I do not mean you harm," Banks replied smoothly. "I have discovered that Rajamar was working as an... associate of several Royal houses. Unsanctioned as it was."

"Uh-huh. And?"

"It is no longer unsanctioned." The story reeked of bullshit, or maybe there was a grain of sand in it, but either way Banks wasn't any kind of ally here. "Come willingly. You are still a queen. You have rights."

"No thanks."

"I am not as diplomatic as Banks," another voice interrupted as both Barney and Oscar slithered from the shadows to cage us into a triangle. "You will come. Dead or alive."

I watched Banks spread his hands in supplication. "Give us the girl, Miliki. Both we and the Royal houses have determined she must be restrained."

I sidestepped Bane and spit on the ground. "I'm not a fucking dog." Man, I'd said that line more times in the last few days than I'd said in my entire life.

Oscar smiled coolly at me and crooked his index finger. "Come."

I didn't let his taunt get to me. Instead I shook my head pityingly at them and clicked my tongue. "I find it so sad that three men have to prove their manhood by ganging up on one woman." I stared at each of their pants and lifted my pinkie. "Is it this big or smaller?"

Fangs came out and the slurs started rolling. I didn't pay their words a single mind and instead tried to reach out for Casper and the gang. Where were they? Their cars were here. They'd been ahead of us on the highway. Had the Merchants killed them all?

I looked back at the three vampires dressed in impeccable clothes. Banks wore an evil guy suit with a signature blood red tie, hair slicked back and away from his face to showcase that wicked looking scar while Barney and Oscar looked like rich sheiks fresh off a flight from Abu Dhabi.

I knew Zeno and Casper wouldn't have gone down without one hell of a fight, and I also knew that Luther was a cunning enough S.O.B. to kill at least one of them. The other Merchant had so many tricks up his sleeves, I was sure he even lost count of them. I also couldn't see Samantha suddenly turning mute either.

I searched, trying to find them. I finally did, though the links were staticy. Guess mind phones got bad reception too. "Casper?"

"Luther."

Well at least I'd gotten someone. "You all okay?"

"They... another witch... spell... first..."

The connection was too broken to get a full sentence but I got the gist. I sent the message to Bane before the Merchants finished their last curse.

Banks slashed a hand through the air. "Stop!" He turned and glared at the other two Merchants. "We are better than this."

Barney and Oscar quieted immediately, but didn't stop shooting daggers at me. I waved my pinky at them, just for fun. Banks saw the gesture and smoothly ignored it in favor of Bane. "We saw the tape, Miliki. We know she is dangerous. Perhaps you cannot see it because you are too close, too emotionally invested. Do not let this child be the downfall. Do not allow her to cause dissent among us."

"There was already dissent the moment you all thought to act against me. Do not accost me and my wife and then spin it to a more palatable narrative. Neither myself nor my queen will be the downfall of our people, we will be the ones to lead and guide them. It is only unfortunate you will not be there to witness our success."

Banks looked Bane in his eyes, the distance seeming to evaporate as each vampire took their stance. "This is the path you choose?"

Bane's smile was sardonic. "This is the path I made."

Inclining his head, Banks bowed low, taking a second to fully realize Bane for the ruler and leader he was, before straightening. "I never wished to betray you."

"Yet you did."

And that was the cut for Bane. I'd betrayed his trust inadvertently, taken from him. That was the real issue between us. But unlike Banks, it wasn't calculated, it was involuntary. And it could happen again. Bane wasn't angry at me, he was angry at the thought of not being able to trust me, not being able to rely on me, because I'd inevitably hurt him. Just like I did.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, only for Bane. Even as death loomed over us—when didn't it—there was still time and space to admit I'd fuck up, and might fuck up again, but that I'd do better. Because I would.

Her reached back, hand grasping my own and squeezing tightly. "I'm sorry, too." I'll be better.

"You have a choice, Peaches," Barney shouted as I felt my hand itch with the need to slap him. I was a queen. I'd accepted that, gotten used to it. Hell, even earned it! There was no way some creeper vampire was taking that away from me.

"You call me 'Malikati' or you don't call me at all."

Barney continued like I hadn't even spoken. "Come with us now and your friends and husband live. Fight, and I can assure you they will die."

I was getting real sick of fighting. Getting real sick of having to walk a tightrope and constantly stick my head out. Kill or be killed. Fight or be captured. This or that. Two choices. God was I sick of two choices.

There had to be another way. There had to be another choice. I wracked my brain, searching through the dusty archives of vampire lore that I knew. Sure, it was crap, but maybe there was an answer in there. When faced with a group of bad guys, what did the heroines and heroes do?

I mentally groaned. Fight. Fight a lot. Fight to the death. I wasn't about that. Three ancient vamps to Bane and I with a witch holding our friends hostage? Those odds were bad.

I looked around wildly, and tried to find a solution in the darkness of the airstrip. Nothing; there was nothing. We were outnumbered, in the open, with no way out.

I glanced at Bane. God, I loved him. I loved him too much to watch him fight for me and die. I also didn't trust Banks enough to just walk toward him, surrender, and hope he kept his word.

Why were there no options? The cards I was holding didn't matter anymore because no matter how I looked at it, there was no way out. The Merchants had had time to plan this, a week to set all their traps. I was in a cage trying to see an out where there was none. They'd thought of everything.

Hmm... I could always spit acid at them or try to get my blood down their throat. Might be tricky, and only take one of them down, but two against two were better odds.

"A wonderful engineer in Brussels created a gel that neutralizes acid and acts as a blocking agent for all other liquids," Oscar said, smiling like a cat playing with a mouse. "It's quite impressive and has been studied extensively."

Unbelievable! I wanted to scream and cry and rage. Life was so unfair. How could it give me mind-blowing sex in the most attractive package and then take it away? How could it give me the title of queen, and then reduce that to nothing? How was it with all my powers, all the special abilities that were supposed to protect me, I ended up cornered. I was getting real sick of being cornered.

Real. Sick.

I turned to my husband. I hated my voice in that moment, the resigned quality to it. "Bane..."

He turned to me and his fangs lengthened. "Don't."

He would fight for me, die for me. I knew it, because I would do the same thing for him. However I couldn't let that happen—would never let that happen.

I looked at the Merchants, anger turning my eyes red-hot. I wanted to kill them so badly; I could feel it in my bones. But that wouldn't happen. My options were too limited, too constrained. There was only one thing I could do.

I turned around fully, reached for my husband, and kissed him like this would be the last time. I wrapped my arms around his body, and plastered myself to him. I left my mind wide open the entire time, shifting between anger and pain over the position I was being forced into, and regret and love over my situation with Bane.

Everyone noticed when I cupped Bane's ass, but no one noticed when I palmed his phone. I moved my hands up him, let tears stream down my face and my emotions soar. I made sure I broadcasted my utter loathing of the Merchants as I turned the phone on. I let my sorrow over my friends filter out as I pressed the emergency button. And I let resignation flow over my mind as I turned down the volume and pushed the speaker button.

I pulled back, and looked into my husband's eyes. He'd figured out why I palmed the phone. I wanted to smile from ear to ear.

"I love you," I said the words loudly, and clearly.

"Don't do this." Bane reached up and gripped my hand that had the phone in it, then turned it towards him as if to kiss my palm. "They'll kill me anyway."

Damn he was such a good actor.

I whipped to the Merchants and snarled, "Four against two? How is that fair?"

Bane stepped away from me and looked at his would-be killers. "You accost me on my way home, at the Burlington airstrip, for fuck's sake. Too chicken to come at me head on, you have to skulk in the shadows like rats waiting for someone to drop dead so they can feast."

Oscar flicked Bane a dismissive glance and turned to me. "Come with us now, Malikati, and we let them all live."

"Do you promise?" I shook my head and let crocodile tears leak from my eyes. I prayed it wouldn't be much longer, because I really wanted to kill him. "You can't just cut his head off when I'm not looking."