Undead and Unforgiven (7 page)

CHAPTER

EIGHT

I was still figuring out the whole “now that you're in charge of Hell you can teleport to and from there even though you were an ordinary human for most of your life” thing. (It sounds totally made up, right? Right.)

But for whatever illogical reason, it was true. To focus my will, my subconscious obligingly produced Dorothy's silver slippers from
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
.
3
When I'm wearing them, I just think about Hell and I'm there. Or vice versa. (It sounds easy. It's not.)

But the ability was dependent on my mood and my intent. It had taken me five minutes to will myself into Hell for the meeting today, because I just wasn't keen on
going. But now I really wanted to go home. And I really wanted to fuck the king of the vampires.

And like that: I was there. Even better: Sinclair was, too. He was better than there; his six-feet-many-inches frame was stretched out in the middle of our emperor bed, the dark sheets a deep contrast to his pale skin (he'd hated losing his farmer's tan when he died). He had one hand behind his head, the other on his cock, and he beckoned me closer without moving, which was a wonderful trick. (
He might be hypnotizing me with his dick. If so, I genuinely can't think of an objection.
)

“I'm back!” I cried unnecessarily. I was already starting to tug at my clothes, stupid clothes, stupid stupid
stupid
clothes, there should be a law, I would
make
a law, Sinclair should only be naked and I should make a law about stupid—

“Wait!”

Eh? Annoyed, I rounded on the voice. “Marc! Can't you see we'd like some privacy?”

“You teleported us in here with you, shithead!” Marc kept trying not to stare at Sinclair lolling nudely

(nudely!)

and failing. “Bad enough you're the luckiest shoe addict on the continent, you have to flaunt your no-doubt epic sex life, too?”

“I'm fond of you, Marc,” came Sinclair's voice in a sort of rolling deep purr that made me want to bite him
everywhere
, “but I won't share Elizabeth—”

Marc was peeking at him through his fingers. “She's not exactly my—”

“—and she won't share me. Run along, there's a good fellow.”

“I'd like to! But your skank wife is between me and the door!”

“Not for long.” I took a big step and bounded onto the
bed with Sinclair, hitting the mattress hard enough to jar his hand loose from his cock. That was fine, he could touch me instead. Screw raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens; a naked Sinclair was one of
my
favorite things.

“Oh, Eric, really,” Tina said, sounding like a fond elderly spinster aunt. Which she was, come to think of it. It's just, she was hot, also.

“You're still here, too? What the hell, you guys?” I bitched. “Go the fuck away, I mean it!”

“You brought us here.”

Tina took Marc's hand and they walked to the door. “Never mind, Marc.”

“Never mind? But—they—she—ugh—”

“Do you want to watch season three of
Sherlock
again?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You love ‘The Empty Hearse.'”

“I do. How come a dead woman from the antebellum South is the only one in this house who understands me?”

“Out!” Sinclair and I roared in unison.

“We're going, shut up. Tina, honest question: flushing my eyes with bleach won't cause permanent damage, right?” Marc was walking so fast he was now leading them both (I'd never realized how big our bedroom was before), and Tina tripped a little to keep her balance. “If I only do it for five minutes or so?”

The door slammed on her answer. “Ugh, sorry,” I said. What little clothing I still had on was getting rapidly ruined as I yanked and tugged. “They really don't get boundaries.”

“So inappropriate,” Sinclair agreed, dark eyes gleaming. His brunet hair was cut short and neat, and he had what appeared at first glance to be eight miles of limbs. His broad shoulders were sleekly muscled—he'd been a farmer's son in life, before a vampire destroyed his family—and tapered to a narrow waist and tight abdomen. You know how people joke about bouncing quarters off abs? You
could bounce a rock so high off his you'd be in real danger of losing an eye. “And though I derive much pleasure from disrobing you myself, watching you shred your clothing in a frantic bid to get naked for me is easily as erotic.”

“. . . stupid . . . buttons . . . passing a law banning them . . .”

“As you wish, my own, so long as you don't—ah.” I'd yanked too hard and started to tumble off our bed; Sinclair's hand shot out, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me on top of him.

“Oh,” I said. I smiled down at him. “This works.”

He grinned back, showing teeth. “Show me.”

I did. For a lovely long time. Reason #27 not to let Sinclair have the run of Hell: if the vampire king was there, it wasn't really Hell.

At least, not to me.

CHAPTER

NINE

“Hell pretty much runs itself,” I told him, panting. Silly, really—we didn't need to take more than two or three breaths a minute. But energetic marital banging had rocketed my pulse to at least ten bpm. I'd literally run a mile (stupid fleet-footed serial rapist!) and not had my heart pound this hard. “Half the time I'm overwhelmed, and the other half I wonder why I'm even there.”

“And this surprises you?” Sinclair was leaning on one elbow, gently stroking my belly with his other hand. He'd missed a drop of blood—we often fed on each other during sex, making an incredible circuit of feeding-orgasm-feeding-orgasm-ohGodpleasedon'tstop-feeding. I reached up, thumbed it off the corner of his upper lip, licked my thumb. He kissed my thumb on the retreat and added, “It's a system that has been in place for countless millennia. They've had ample time to work the kinks out, so to speak.”

“Yeah. Good point.” But I wasn't thinking about Hell just then. His mouth on my thumb reminded me of his mouth being everywhere just a few minutes ago. I've never seen this put quite so bluntly in any women's magazine, but I loved fucking my husband. Loved it like cake. Loved it like shoes.

I loved him on me and in me and behind me. I loved getting on my knees for him. I loved when he knelt, too. I loved riding him. Sometimes no matter how good he was making me feel, I just had to shove his hands aside and climb on top of him. The different angle was delightful, and that was the least of it. I loved his hands on my hips, gripping so tightly I'd bruise for a week if I were alive. I loved swooping down for teasing kisses that steadily deepened.

But best of all I loved watching him shake apart beneath me. Seeing him lose his mind, unable to say clever, cutting things, and just groan my name. Watching his eyes roll back as he lost even that small verbal ability, feeling his brain essentially white out and go off-line

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

was as big a high as the blood.

“Elizabeth? Are you with me?”

“Kind of,” I muttered.

He snickered. “I'll need at least ten minutes, my own.”

“Boo.”

“And while we wait, we can continue the discussion. Are you worried your new role essentially makes you a figurehead?”

“I wish,” I snorted. “I would
love
to be a figurehead. No, it's that on one hand, I see lots of things that could be changed, but on the other, how do I know more than Satan? She was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. So I'm scared to make too many changes, y'know?”

“At least, not right away,” Sinclair suggested.

“But there are kids there! In Hell! I mean, some of
them aren't technically kids anymore, but they're still running around in their old-timey braids and long dresses and saying things like ‘forsooth' while some asshole whips them until their backs are all bloody. It freaks me right the fuck out.”

He looked at me, unblinking, for a few seconds, and I barely caught his stray thought

(but not my darling sister)

it was so quick and quiet and I'm not sure he was quite conscious of it. “She's not there,” I said before I overthought it. Or underthought it. “Your sister. Of course she's not there. She never did one thing to deserve Hell and if there was a terrible mistake and she
was
in Hell I'd save her. I would. I'd do that. Sure I'd do that.”

He'd started frowning halfway through my save-the-sister babble, then his expression lightened and his hand cupped my cheek. “Of course you would, my own. And my stray thought did not do her credit . . . or you.”

Being able to read the vampire king's mind was pretty great . . . usually. Sometimes it was weird, often it was sexy, and occasionally it was really, really uncomfortable. Like the time I lost my damned mind and tried a whale tail with a red thong and jeans I should have tossed five years ago—whale tails had gone past trendy, past irony, past the backlash, and were now just hopelessly outdated; what had I been
thinking
? His reaction

(by all the saints in Heaven she looks ridiculous)

wasn't at all what I was going for.

Wardrobe malfunctions aside, I wouldn't give up our connection for anything. Another reason I cordially loathed Hell: I couldn't hear Sinclair's thoughts there, and he couldn't hear mine. Thus, I allowed texting in Hell. And, weirdly, so did AT&T.

I knew, even though the thought wasn't at the front of his mind, that he was wondering why I hadn't invited him
back to Hell since that first visit, so I kept talking about his family and the steps I'd taken to make sure they weren't being tortured.
Sure, I'm blocking you from this huge new part of my life, but I've kept an eye out for my in-laws, too!

“I asked my magical clipboard if your parents were there, and they aren't, either. None of the people you asked about are there. So they've been reincarnated or they're in Heaven or something.”

“Almost a pity,” he murmured, lying flat so I could snuggle my head into his shoulder. I could kiss the hollows in that man's shoulder and collarbone all day and all night. “What a way to impress them!”

I giggled. “Hiya, Mom and Pop. So, in the decades you've been dead I've become the vampire king and I'm married to the HBIC in Hell.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I would never refer to them as Mom and Pop.”

“Whatever you say, honey-bunny.”

“And I forbid the use of that nickname.”

“You bet, snuggly-wuggly.” Over his groan, I added, “And something in the cool-but-weird category, Marc made a new pal this time. George Washington's mom! Who holds grudges for centuries, apparently. But he definitely wasn't bored.”

“Excellent.” Sinclair liked Marc, but at the same time was a little freaked-out by the trials and tribulations of living with a zombie. And we
all
liked for Marc not to be bored. “Well worth the trip for that alone.”

“Mmm.” I looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, thinking. “Y'know, I have to say I get why Satan was such a huge bitch. The Hell gig is a headache on the best of days, and if you do it right, nobody gives a shit. It's gotta be like running the DMV.”

“Perhaps worse. You aren't compensated for running the netherworld.”

“Maybe Satan wasn't so awful.” I thought that over for another two seconds. “Nope. Still hate her.”

“Perhaps I could come with you next time. You dislike acknowledging it, but I'm quite a bit older than you and certainly have more experience in management.”

I held back a snort with difficulty. Management. Sure. If that was how he wanted to refer to keeping the former king of the vampires off his ass by wielding the cruel fist of a tyrant, that was fine. Whatever, pal. “Someone has to stay here and be a vampire monarch,” I said. “And I acknowledge your creepy ancientness all the time, you fogey.” I did, when I wasn't trying not to think about it too hard. My husband was eligible for social security, and had been for decades. I regularly boinked an octogenarian. By contrast, I was barely a triplegenarian! (That's the word, right? Triplegenarian?) “So what'd I miss this time? How long were we gone?” There was a pause and I left off the shoulder snuggling to sit up. “What? What's wrong?”

“Nothing is
wrong
, exactly,” he soothed, which made me groan in despair. Sinclair had a high tolerance for
wrong
. The mansion could be in ashes and he'd classify it as “well, we had a bit of a setback this morning.” Know how I knew this? Because before we were married, he lived in a mansion, and it ended up in ashes. And he was as perturbed as I am when we're out of ice. (It's easy to get ice. So I find a lack of ice to be mildly annoying, but not much else.)

“What, what? How long was I gone? What happened? Is it terrible? It's terrible, isn't it?”

“Not . . . exactly. You were gone just over two weeks.”

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sinclair put a hand to his forehead. “Ouch.” Like me, he cherished our telepathic bloodsucking bond . . . most of the time.

“Christ, when am I going to get the hang of this?” I just about screamed. Thing #842 I hated about Hell: time
moved differently there. If I had to guess, I would have thought we were there maybe half a day, long enough for the meeting and for me to chat with some locals, slurp down an Orange Julius, and listen to George Washington's mom bitch about her rotten kid who founded a country while disobeying her. Instead, half the month had gone by.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Ah . . .”

“Right. We both needed all the sex.” Good God, I didn't think Sinclair and I had gone without a marital boink for more than seventy-three hours since . . . I had to take a second and think about it. Ah! Since I accidentally fucked him upside down in the deep end of a swimming pool, simultaneously marrying him and making him king of the vampires. (Long story. Weird week.
4
Also, vampires don't need church services to be married, for obvious reasons.)

“But why didn't you ask me to come back sooner?”

He remained silent, and I realized it was a dumb question (even for me). I knew why. It was a point of pride:
I shall support my wife in the job I did not want her to take and wish she did not have, the thing she won't share with me, and I will do this by refusing to give in to lonely horniness and beg her to come back. I'll do that for a day. Three days. Five. A week. A week and a half. Two weeks . . . now where did I put my phone?

Goddammit.

I slumped back into the pillows. “Fine, fine. Better tell me the bad news. Did Jessica's babies disappear and take longer than usual to reappear?”

“No.”

“Did my mom break up with her boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Please tell me she broke up with the guy who looks like a giant baby . . . That big round head, I can't
not
stare at it when I visit . . .”

“Nothing like that,” he soothed.

“Well, good.”

“But the Antichrist has been trying to out vampires to the world, and it looks like she may well be succeeding.”

“What?”

He looked at me, and I swear there was more than a note of reproach in his tone as he added, “I didn't call you back to me
just
to have sex, you know.”

Silly me.