Authors: Marie Hall
Her Mad Hatter (19 page)
“Move aside.”
The vampire moved, stumbling over his stool in his haste. Cian shoved his hand back into his pocket and resumed following the scent of his witch, ignoring the fury-filled stare boring into his back.
It was ten ‘til midnight.
He walked along the medieval stairwell at a sedate pace, pausing to enjoy the antiquated finery. The allure of the club was in its décor. Black, iron chandeliers hung from rafters. Heavy, crimson tapestries adorned the walls, depicting grisly scenes of death, men transforming to beasts, witches gazing into cauldrons filled with bubbling brews. The low yellow radiance cast the stairwell in a sickly light, adding shadow to hollows and turning faces into nightmarish masks of ghouls.
There were four floors to the club, each divided by species. First the vampires, second the witches, third the Weres, and fourth the mixed flock. Yeah, he’d been here a couple times. Mainly to scout out a potential victim, but sometimes simply for the enjoyment of hanging out with creatures that didn’t know what he was. There was a certain solace in anonymity.
Her scent wound up past the first level and into the second. He pushed open the arched wooden doorway and scanned the dancing, shifting bodies of wizards, warlocks, and witches. Scattered throughout was an occasional human or two, but of his dark witch he could not find. He lifted his nose and tracked her unique perfume.
Her scent was a golden wash of color throughout the room. His heart picked up in speed the nearer he came. There was an allure to the witch he’d never before known. It was a burning desire to believe she’d actually seen him. That it hadn’t been his imagination, that for once in his life he wouldn’t be so easily forgotten.
He found her in a dark corner of the club. She was alone, gazing at a floor length mirror affixed to the wall and applying a dark shade of lip-gloss.
Five minutes ‘til midnight.
His heart tripped in his chest at the sight she made. The mass of black curls spilling down her back, her ivory skin sparkling with tints of pink and green glitter, and the tight fit of her violet corset top. A gothic rose standing out amongst the thorns.
He took a step closer. What would she think if she saw him? He looked at himself standing so close to her in the mirror. Would she find the neon blue of his eyes shocking, or would she lose herself in them as she did her human male? What would it feel like to be gazed at with something other than scorn? To be loved? Desired?
He blinked the strange desires away.
Turn it
off. Don’t feel. Don’t want. Never. Not ever.
He was reaper. Killer. Here to do his job. Nothing more, nothing less.
Two minutes ‘til midnight.
A heated argument between two witches, over a male they both desired, broke out on the dance floor. No one noticed yet, but he knew. That was part of his skill. He’d always know what, when, where, and how his victims would die. And this was how she was meant to go. An unfortunate casualty to another’s greed and lust.
The words were quickly escalating to something wild and heated and with it a simmering threat of violence. Dancers nearest the women began to notice and take pause.
A few cleared the floor. His dark witch was still unaware.
She slipped the lip-gloss back into the velvet drawstring purse on her wrist and like a flame to flesh he felt her. Her gaze, it was on him. On his face. She smiled and whispered, “hello”.
A physical warmth spread through his body with rocketing speed. He couldn’t rip his gaze from hers. Transfixed by her gentle beauty. As if her smile was connected to the center of his being, and for a brief moment in time, the darkness inside him washed away at the beauty of it. In her exotic golden gaze he read the truth.
She saw him through eyes without revulsion. To her he was only a man. Not a monster. Not a despised fae. His breath stuttered and his fingers clenched, to know that gaze for the rest of his life would be a small miracle.
The emotions were powerful and foreign and not his own. That’s when he suspected these were not his feelings but hers. She had to be a projecting empath. A being capable of transferring their thoughts and emotions onto another.
One minute ‘til midnight.
The screams in the center of the dance floor rose to cacophonous levels. His witches gaze ripped from him to the disturbance, little knowing she watched the beginning of her end. Her human male sidled up to her side, gripping her elbow with a worried frown.
Thirty seconds.
Cian turned, gazing at a brunette and blonde witch glaring with fury at the other. Panic fluttered desperate wings in his throat. His witch would soon die and with her the smile that ripped through his soul.
Some protective instinct snapped to life inside him. Not pausing for thought, he pulled his glove on over his skeletal hand.
The brunette witch lifted her hand and hazy red curls of power undulated between her fingers. She screamed, “...you’ll never have him!”
From her fingers shot a shaft of pulsating ruby colored energy. People yelled and fell to the floor. The intended target, the blonde, was barely nicked on the arm.
He didn’t think, merely reacted, and threw himself in the path of blast. They never glanced up from the scene before them. The energy ripped through his back, sizzling through the flesh, even as he knocked his witch and her human to the ground. He landed with a hard grunt on top of them.
Then there was chaos. An explosion of sound erupted behind him and Cian bowed into the pain. Sweat stung his brows. The pain ate at him like flames licking at a pig’s carcass, the hot sizzle of burning flesh reached his nostrils and he grimaced.
Undulating waves of heat seeped through the front of his shirt. He glanced down, expecting to see blood. A glowing bubble of silver encased his witch and her mate. She’d thrown up some type of shield.
It wouldn’t have helped. She’d thrown it too late.
He had only seconds before the invisibility left him. The moment for death had passed. Using essence—the magick inherent in all his kind—he weaved a net of illusion around himself. He wanted no one to witness the blood staining his back.
He also didn’t want to stick around long enough to turn visible. Fast, as only an immortal could, he picked himself up and ran out the club. Every step was agony, ripping the wound open further, causing him to grit his teeth against the dizzying pain.
Only then did he realize what he’d done. The irrevocable action he’d committed tonight. He’d broken the single most important rule of the reaper. Spare
none. The Morrigan, his Queen, had preached that with threat of torture to any who dared to disobey.
She would want his blood, unless he fixed this first. Frowning with resolve he turned and fled. He must return.
They had to die.
But not tonight.
Coming Soon!
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Other Books by Marie Hall
Kingdom Series:
Her Mad Hatter (Book 1)
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Sonya, Jennifer, Anne, and C.C. You gals are awesome and I could never have done it without you.
About the Author
Marie Hall has always had a dangerous fascination with creatures that go bump in the night. And mermaids. And of course fairies. Trolls. Unicorns. Shapeshifters. Vampires. Scottish brogues. Kilts. Beefy arms. Ummm... Bad boys! Especially the sexy ones. If you want to see what new creations she's got up her sleeves check out her blog:
www.MarieHallWrites.blogspot.com
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Also, if you loved this story please leave a review, reviews make her very, very happy! Happy reading.
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