Wait, Am I A Zombie? [BOOK 3]

So, witches were in now. Which meant fairies, dragons, and mermaids were fair game too. Well, maybe not mermaids. Unless they could swim through sand. Was that a—

I tripped. Freaking tripped on invisible air, which made Rajamar's knife dig and nick something I was pretty sure I needed. The pain was so excruciating, I blacked out for like a solid minute.

"Move."

I couldn't. I literally couldn't even think. My body and mind weren't in sync at all.

"I don't have time for this," Rajamar muttered, switching the hand at the knife to my waist and picking me up. I heard the telltale clicks of a phone and forced my pain-hazed eyes to look at his hands.

Texting. The asshole was texting someone. Which meant this wasn't a solo mission. Noooooooo, of course not. Another assumption on my part that bad guys just came in singles like Snickers, not packs like freaking Twinkies.

Focus. Easier said than done, but I tried. His thoughts came to me a little distorted, like a call with bad reception, but I got the gist of my situation. The knife was magicked with an immobilization serum that—as my toes twitched—I could already feel fading. I also found out that the marble he'd crushed had been mirages of us that looked as if we were having a conversation. I doubted that would last much longer because my friends weren't stupid.

Aside from that there were the almost stereotypical villain plans that I just flat out ignored because they weren't gonna happen, like reading the ingredient list on a cake mix. Just a waste of time. Nope, I was getting out of this period.

Uh-huh.

Absolutely.

I hope.

Chapter Twelve: I Ain't Afraid of No Centuries-Old Vampire

Rajamar, classy villain that he is, dropped me like a sack of potatoes the second we got to wherever we were going. An unfinished conference room by the looks of it. Of course that wasn't before I saw his phone with words on it in a language I, of course, didn't know.

Not that it mattered what he was texting. Dude was bound to be dead as a doornail in a second cause my toes weren't the only things wiggling now. But there were right moments and wrong moments, Zeno'd told me as I'd stared at a beautifully made burger and fries that she kept just out of arm's reach. Right moments. Trial and error had grilled that lesson into my brain. Hell, all the lessons I'd learned from the vamps were there.

So I knew to wait for the air, the sounds. Wait for my breathing and my body to tell me it was ready. Formulate a plan that didn't end with Rajamar's death but everything after that. Think about all the things that could go wrong and what I could do to stop them from going there.

Even though Rajamar's back was to me, he was on high alert. My first move would be my last. Disarming him was the best way, but moving to do that was the wrong choice. So...

"Aren't you gonna tie me to a chair and blindfold me like Ariel?"

I couldn't even blink before his hand was around my throat, and his other digging that knife more firmly into my side.

"You can talk."

"No shit, Sherlock."

His hold tightened, nails cutting into me. I think he was waiting for me to move, but I knew better. So I let him choke me, all the while waiting for that moment. Waiting. And waiting. Oh God, I see black!

"Ariel is dead," Rajamar said calmly as he released me and my head slapped against the floor giving me an instant headache. "Repeating mistakes will lead to the same end."

"I think whatever you do is gonna lead to the same end," I wheezed, looking at the ground as my body gave the all clear that we were good to go.

"That's where I think you're wrong," he said with a heavy dose of male arrogance. "Bane will not be coming to save you this time."

"Why?"

"Magic."

I coughed out a laugh. "Tinkerbell's gotta be even smaller than I thought. I didn't notice her pixie dust."

"What?"

"Peter Pan? Fairies?"

"It is not Peter Pan or fairies."

"Sure, sure, sure. Can you just get to the part of this lovely evil villain scene where you lay out your plan? The faster you do the sooner we can wrap this whole thing up."

"It was an oversight on my part not to bring a needle and thread to shut your mouth. But I'm sure that will be remedied soon enough."

Don't picture it. Don't picture it. Fuck, I pictured it.

"Just..." I let out a gusty sigh to the floor. "Why me? This just all seems like a lot of trouble and some serious bridge burning for me."

The silence was long, but I knew it was coming. I was just a silly little woman. Captured. Imboile. I had no power but my voice, and I knew he would want to strip that from me. Not by force. Men like Rajamar accomplished the necessary by force, but the will breaking? I figured he was into that psychological shit. The two piece suit and scarf in Egyptian heat gave it away.

"Did you think you and Bane," he sneered my husband's name with all the contempt and more, "were succeeding in hiding what you could do? That he caught one of you, surprised me to say the least. But there is a reason he is king."

"One of me? You know what I am?"

"Was it a secret?" he scoffed. "Risen from the dead. Eater of flesh. Poisonous blood. Eyes that change color. You are a demon."

Demon? I let the word bounce around my head, trying to settle it into the slot I'd carved out for when I discovered what I was, but it didn't sit right. Demons were corruptors, they targeted people to try and get something out of them. It didn't make sense to slum it with vampires who were, ya know, undead.

"... remove his mark," Rajamar finished. Except I hadn't been listening and had no clue what he was talking about.

"Whose mark?"

"Your masters. My king."

"Bane marked me?"

Rajamar was in front of me again, the light from his cellphone making his face look ghoulish. "You play your part well. I'm not sure if it's the bargain he struck or how he branded you that keeps you so inane, but I suppose I will find out when I remove it. It's that right... Amaimon."

He said the name like it was some kind of revelation. The flip to get me speaking in tongue and growling and shit. It took everything in me not to raise my brow, it was bad enough I was moving my lips and jaw to speak. "Uh... that's not my name."

"Berith."

"Nope." I could hear his jaw pop as his eyes narrowed.

"Verrine."

"Nah."

"Soneillon."

"Oh now you're just making stuff up."

His hand was around my throat again, pulling my body up and shaking me like a rag doll. "Enjoy your games now, demon. When I have your name, I have your power. When my mark is on your body I will have—"

Idiot didn't expect it. Didn't even flinch or turn away when I opened my mouth. Probably because he thought I was going to give a smart alek response, if his little squeeze said anything. But villans gonna be villans, and underdogs are just gonna win. It's the way of things.

I opened my mouth, the acid already coming up my throat and his additional squeeze just made the whole thing work like a spray bottle: instead of a clear stream it was a deadly mist that got everywhere and started to eat away at everything instantly.

He dropped me. Instead of staying and taking my chances that I could win against crazy Rajamar with his magicked knives and mirage-inducing exploding marbles, I ran screaming, "Help!"

The handle of the door was in my grasp before my shoulder was yanked back, my arm popping out of the socket as I flew toward the wall, only to be pinned again.

I never stopped screaming, stopped fighting. But it didn't matter, didn't last. One minute he was pressing me into the wall, grinding my bones and the next he was gone. Well, not all of him, just a key component. His head.

What the hell just happened?

Everything was spinning, and the gushing of blood from where Rajamar's head should have been wasn't helping. There was just something intensely wrong about seeing a head away from a body.

Why wasn't he shriveling up, or turning to dust or exploding? Rajamar's head just sort of looked at me, eyes calling me a bitch even from the grave.

"Malikiti," a man—no, vampire—no, Merchant stood a few paces away. Light from Rajamr's discarded cellphone caught on Bank's hand, highlighting a thin wire that he covertly tucked into his pocket.

"H-He's dead, right?"

He inclined his hand and clasped his hands behind him. "Yes."

Oh God, I was gonna be sick. I was gonna pass out. I was gonna slip and fall in the blood still oozing out of Rajamar's stump. I swallowed and tasted blood. His blood was in my mouth. I turned my head and vomited. I looked down. Saw my hands. Saw the blood. And my dress and shoes and just kept vomiting. Threw up until a dry heaved, clutching at my body.

No matter how much TV I'd watched, how badass I'd become in the past two weeks, there was just nothing like seeing a dude without his head. Nothing, nada, zip.

Between the kidnapping, the certain torture session and horror show Rajamar had planned, my near escape, and now his brutally efficent murder, my body was done. All the adrenaline poured out of me along with any strength I'd had until all I could do was sink to the ground, gagging as I crawled away from the puddle of blood trying to drag me in.

Bank's palm entered my vision, clean of any blood. Nails blunt, palm lines a deep brown. Didn't look like the hand of a murderer at all. Weird. "Finished?" he inquired politely.

I whipped my head up to his face and wiped my mouth on the inside of my arm, the only part of me that hadn't been splattered with blood. "Why isn't he shriveling up or turning into sand or something?"

His expression was calm, and I was pretty sure that was for my benefit, but I didn't need calm. I needed explanations. "The minute the spinal cord is severed, we lose our powers and revert back to what we were. Humans."

"But you're centuries old. Wouldn't you be the same age you were?"

He frowned, and I watched Rajamar's blood zig-zag a path to Banks from the left. He sidestepped it and continued. "No. Our bodies are frozen the minute we become vampires, sustained only by blood. He just fed, which is why there is so much of it."

"You killed him." The fact was finally catching up with me, along with the disbelief, because I was pretty sure this didn't normally happen. "You killed a Merchant."

"No, I killed an impetuous idiot who would have brought about the ruin of a kingdom for his own selfish needs."

"He was still a Merchant."

Banks sighed and held out his hand to me. "Come now. Let's get you up."

I refused his hand and got to my feet myself. Shaking feet. Well, shaking body. But I did it.

"Better?"

I snapped back to his face, a hysterical laugh popping out of me. "Nope! Not even remotely alright because I was just kidnapped by a lunatic who kept calling me a demon. A demon! That's the best he could come up with like I'm over here speaking in tongues and making pacts with the Devil. Witch trials are over and were proven false. Learned that in freaking highschool, and he's ranting like some lunatic..."

I trailed off as Banks' thoughts flowed to me from the hand resting on my shoulder. "Be calm, Malikiti."

Another laugh took over, this one veering into straight-jacket, cushioned room territory. It would be my luck that Banks wasn't here to save me. Of course not. No, Banks was the person Rajamar was texting. Banks also thought I was a demon. Well, had, I should say. Because as he helpfully thought, "She ran, like a human. Didn't even try to take down his magic or use her powers."

How did this crap even happen to me? Like what could I have possibly done in my past life to warrant this kind of nonsense. At least with Rajamar I'd had some sort of energy, enough brain power for an escape plan. With Banks? It was everything just to keep standing, to keep from curling up in a fetal position, closing my eyes and wishing the world away.

Because I knew no one was coming, I didn't have the strength to run or fight, and Banks was a baddie.

"So what are you going to do?" I finally asked, defeated.

"Call a crew to remove the body and escort you back to your husband."

What? That didn't sound right.

There was no caution to throw toward the wind because that mess was for people not talking to murders near decapitated corpses, so I just pushed into Banks' mind. Not deep. Oh no, no, no. Just enough to get his intentions.

"If she's not a demon, then what is she?" Despite his outward appearance, his mental state was a wreck of uncertainty and beneath that fear. "Does she even know what she is? Acid. She spits acid. I've never even heard of a creature like that. No, there's too much unknown. Too much at stake. I'll stay close. She'll trust me now. I just have to wait."

Of the things I saw coming—torture and death being top of the list—getting back to my husband and friends with a villian-playing-hero wasn't even in my line of sight. Probably not his either. But Banks was a lot more adaptable than Rajamar. Smarter. Yup, that was gonna be a problem.

"I think I'll find my way back myself," I said stiffly, taking a step away and nearly falling over.

"Malikiti," Banks was at my side instantly, picking me up princess style. "I am not like Rajamar. I am your Merchant. I will not betray you."

It was on the tip of my tongue to go tell him to go fuck himself, but I held off by the skin of my teeth. This was a long game, a Luther move that I had to play even if it chafed every atom inside me. "Thank you."

His smile was sociopath fake and chilled me. "There is no need."

Chapter Thirteen: Hold What You Love in Your Hands and Don't Drop—Oops

"Damn," I moaned as Banks carried me down a hallway I was praying led back to the ballroom. Though I wasn't exactly in the partying mood, at least I knew that Bane and the gang would be there. Small mercies.

My body yelled at me that it hurt and my mind did the same. Well, actually my mind sort of yawned and told me to find a bed because it was nap time. I couldn't care about that though. I had stuff to do, a party to get back to, and a husband to assure that everything was alright even though it definitely wasn't. I still had no clue how, or even if, I was going to tell Bane about Banks.

So yeah, the guy currently holding me in his arms, who killed my assailant is actually bad. So out of the seven Merchants at least two are scheming kidnappers and who even knows about the others because just because they're nice doesn't mean they won't stab you in the back. And you better believe I'm talking about Luther.

Didn't see that going over well. There would be enough craziness with Rajamar the traitor. Adding in Banks wouldn't help. I mean, maybe I could prove her was in cahoots with Rajamar and maybe Bane could do something about it, but that didn't solve the problem. The problem was until we knew what I was and everything I could do, supernaturals were going to keep coming after me. At least with Banks I knew where he stood and could keep him close. The same couldn't be said about the hundreds of others milling around, drinking blood from champagne flutes, and pretending like they were civilized when I was pretty sure they were all one comment away from going for the jugular.

Executive decision: I was keeping Banks a secret until I could figure out how to handle it.

"Peaches!" Warm arms lifted me from Banks, crushing me into a harshly breathing, damp chest. Bane's fear rolled off him in waves as he buried his face in the curve of my neck and shuddered. "I thought I'd lost you."

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine," my husband growled, not even trying to hold his mask of civility. That was long gone.

He hugged me tighter, forgetting that vamp strength of his. "I'm not coal, Bane. I won't turn into a diamond if you keep squishing me."

Pulling back, my husband raked his eyes over me. Taking in everything in a second. "What happened?"

"Rajamar took her," Banks supplied.

Bane didn't spare the Merchant a glance, totally focused on me. It took everything in me to block out his thoughts and to block him from mine. Bane didn't like that, not one bit. "Peaches..."

"He's telling the truth." Part of it.

Bane opened his mouth at the same time all hell broke loose. A sudden burst of air and five different voices screaming in my ears. My eyes widened as I looked at the vamps and one witch surrounding me. "Shut up! You all are giving me a migraine the size of Texas."

Samantha was the only one who didn't stop. Soft brown eyes raked over me. "You're covered in blood, Malikati. What happened?"

I didn't move from Bane's arms. "Ugh, don't call me that, Samantha. Unless you want me to call you Sam?"

She wrinkled her nose and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. "That is a boy's name. Malika is your title."

I shrugged as much as I could in Bane's arms. "Okay, Sam."

Her eyes flashed before settling back to their normal brown hue. "What happened, Georgia?"

Banks purposely stepped into our group, positioning himself beside me. "Rajamar kidnapped and experimented on her."

"How do you know this?" Bane asked, finally looking away from me.

"His phone." Banks pulled the device from his pocket, handing it to his king easily. "It's all there."

I schooled my expression because this was not what I thought Banks would do, which was really making me question the whole bad guy thing from him. I prodded at his mind and found his wall was back up, better than ever. Nah, no matter the stress I knew what I saw. He played concerned Merchant here for his king and queen well, but I knew better.

"Where is he now?"

"Dead."

The satisfaction in Bane's eyes did weird things to me, and I was not ready to deal with that at all.

"And the witch?" Samantha chimed in. "That was an active spell. They needed to be close to perform it."

"Look everyone," I started as all the fight suddenly zapped out of me. "Can you talk about this without me? Or better yet, tomorrow? All I want to do is go up to my room, take a shower, and forget this night. You can grill me tomorrow, but for now..."

I trailed off. My look said it all, anyway. It was probably past midnight, which meant that all the shit that had just happened had happened in the span of a few weeks. Not months, not years. Weeks. That was just one step above days and completely unacceptable. I deserved a break and they all knew it.

Zeno, bless her heart, actually had something good to add. "I'll let the guests know that you have retired for the evening. You will speak with them tomorrow night during Calling Hours."

"Let them know tomorrow night is the only time they can call on her. We leave the morning after," Bane interjected with his predatory side barely leashed.

She nodded, and then we were gone, walking human-slow down the hall and away from the conversation still in full swing.

"When did you know?"

"During the dance. I smelled your blood."

Oh shit. I could only imagine what Bane was going through. The waiting was always the worst part for me. I'd nearly died myself when my dad had his brain tumor removed. He'd gone into the operating room on a gurney, covered in a hospital gown, with a shaved head and a smile. I'd been a whiny wreck of tears and pleas that he come out of there alive. Six hours later he had, but it had been the longest six hours of my life. I wondered if it was the same for Bane. Or were we not at that stage in our relationship yet?