“Come on, my dear,” Mark says, reaching over with his free arm, inviting Isolde to his side.
Unwillingly, she steps into his embrace. They look disgusting together. He’s a red-haired serpent looking like a fucking alien, embracing a pretty doll he’s about to start chewing.
“How long has it been, Tristan,” Mark says in that voice of his that could make any human’s skin crawl. “Two hundred years since I left you hanging on the dais, unconscious and bleeding?” The bastard still relishes the memory.
Isolde cringes.
I feel the growing serpent presence, and soon we stand surrounded by men in leather jackets or black turtlenecks, all of them lanky, and with the livid faces specific to this kind of serpent. The other attendees notice something’s wrong, too, because they stare at us.
I tense, the blades ready to shoot out from the sidearm straps under my sleeves.
“Tell me, my love,” Mark addresses Isolde. “How did the vampires find out about us? You know very well I wanted our love to remain secret for a while.”
“Serpents are a rare presence in this country,” I intervene. “Vampires, warlocks, witches and feral shifters rule here. You’ve been around for a year now, Mark, we were bound to find out.”
His arm tightens around poor Isolde, whose lips press together, her chin trembling. Hell, she’s terrified. What the fuck has he been doing to her?
“Really, you just found out?” Serpaint reacts. “Or did my little wifey here send word?”
“Had she done that, both Lord Dracula and his brother would be personally all over your operations, don’t you think?”
His serpent eyes narrow even more. “But Dracula is all over my operations. He sent you, didn’t he? Tristan DeKnight, his left hand, the deadliest assassin who ever lived.”
He glances at the tumblers that are now on the table. He pulls Isolde roughly to the table. My jaw tightens, but his lady companion, Soraya, licks her thin red lips. She loves seeing him do this to Isolde.
I take a step forward, but the big guy who accompanied him and Soraya as they sauntered over from the back tightens his presence beside Mark, his chest puffed out, his face even meaner.
“This is Darius, my right hand,” Mark introduces, motioning to the huge brute. A scar mars his face from the left eyebrow to the corner of his mouth, and he has a glass eye. Everything seems thick about him, from his fingers to his nape, tattoos covering every visible inch of him, even his bald head. Only his angry face with the lopsided mouth is ink-free.
“Darius is an alligator shifter, and has a natural killing talent. I’d suggest you don’t make any sudden moves around him. Not that I wouldn’t like to see you two have a go at each other, but all in good time.
“Now let me tell you what I think about your presence here, Tristan.” Mark takes a tumbler and smells it like he would examine wine. “I think Lord Dracula is no longer the impulsive, hot-headed Vampire King he used to be. Ever since he got married, he’s been conducting his affairs with much more wisdom than belligerence. If I were him, I’d send my best assassin to get rid of my enemy.” His eyes shoot at me over the tumbler. “Using a special kind poison, for example. Keeping things clean.”
“I assure you, I’m not trying to poison you.”
Mark sets the tumbler down, looking at the other two on the table—one is meant for him, one for Soraya; Isolde’s is empty. She drank all the champagne in an attempt to muster her courage and do what she had to do. Mark pushes her tumbler aside, then raises one of the other two.
“Then let’s have a test.”
The circle of serpents that has formed around us tightens. They shield this scene from the rest of the party, but people everywhere crane their necks, trying to peek and eavesdrop.
“Here. For you.” Mark offers me the tumbler.
To avoid suspicion, I reach for it without hesitation, but then Mark withdraws his hand. He grins at me, revealing small, sleazy teeth, his expression that of a scheming creature.
“Oh wait, you’re a vampire, you may be immune to it. Let Isolde test it.”
My eyes dart to her.
Isolde’s lips are drawn, and her chin trembles. She stares at me with a plea to be saved, and I feel something that I haven’t felt in centuries. An odd emotion that comes with the salty scent of the sea—tenderness. Poor thing has been a victim of this monster’s abuse for over a year, no wonder she’d take any risk to be free of him.
She takes the tumbler, her fingers shaking. Everybody watches her raise it to her mouth, her husband and his female serpent assistant watching closely and greedily. I don’t need more than a glance at each of them to read their thoughts. Mark is eager to see Isolde die if she betrayed him—he looks at the girl with a sick possessive stare that screams, ‘either I have you, or no one will’.
As for the woman, she would love to see Isolde die in pain, and not because of jealousy. She’s not interested in Serpaint, and I have the feeling she sleeps with the alligator. She eyed me with lust as well, so it’s clear she’s into another type of guy, more physical, more military, more incisive than Serpaint. But her entire demeanor betrays she considers Isolde a little worm that deserves to be squashed, which is probably what she secretly thinks about all humans.
My eyes rest on Isolde just before she touches the tumbler to her lips.
Maybe this is the best thing that can actually happen to her—falling in love with her husband, if there’s no way out of this. Even if she manages to get away from him, even if I help her, he will stop at nothing to get her back. And when he gets her back, he’ll hurt her so badly she’ll wish she were dead. There’s no way out for this girl, and the realization makes my heart twist in my chest.
But just before the liquid laps to her lips, Mark raises his hand, stopping her.
“On a second thought,” he says, turning his head to me with a grin. Fuck, I could whip out my dagger, and slash his throat right now, letting him bleed to death, even if that means getting an entire squad of serpents on my back. Even if I die, it’ll be worth it watching this shit bag end his filthy worthless existence in agony.
Mark takes the other tumbler from the table, and offers it to me.
“Why don’t you and my wife drink at the same time, Tristan? If it works on vampires, too, the poison will take you both, and the one left behind won’t have to live through torture. Because, if Isolde does die of poison, I will torture you again, Tristan, and it will be much worse than the first time.”
I hear bloodlust behind his words, and there’s a twinkle in his eye, too. It’s the same twinkle from centuries ago, as he whipped me in front of the Devil’s Son for having tried to assassinate him. The twinkle of pleasure. Now I understand the son of a bitch is a sadist, which is why he torments Isolde the way he does.
My lips curl in disgust. I take the tumbler, and slowly raise it to my lips, eyes on Isolde.
This is it. We both sip, the crisp liquor prickling my tongue. As I look into Isolde’s eyes, I feel the connection between us—we both suffered at the hands of this sadistic bastard, and we are both at his whims right now. Except that she is afraid of him, while I am not. I make a vow to myself that I’ll deliver this woman from Mark Serpaint’s evil, and then I will kill him in the cruelest way of all the ways I imagined over the years.