Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

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I crumble into the limousine’s long leather seat, my puffy wedding gown billowing around me like an embroidered parachute, and try not to cry as the cameras flash outside and the crowd cheers.

The moment the door shuts and I’m cocooned inside the vehicle, the waterworks start.

I don’t know what I’ve done to make him change his mind about me — to make him so angry.

Maybe he’d realised the moment he killed Giselle that he’d made a mistake. Maybe it was afterwards, when he was being interviewed about his choice as I was left to stand beside the body of the woman he’d always favoured.

I thought by winning The Games I was winning his heart. What a fool I’ve been.

His cold expression and hateful words at the pulpit were like a bucket of ice being thrown over me, and nothing in the world will ever warm me again.

Throughout both ceremonies I was frozen. A frozen smile hiding a frozen heart. I’d gone through the motions, yet I was not really there.

I thought I might manage to draw him out between ceremonies when I told him I hadn’t changed my mind about the obedience bite, that I still didn’t want it. But he couldn’t care less.

“I wouldn’t taint my mouth if you begged me,” he’d snarled. “We’ll make a show of it for The Families, as we’ve done for the past few months,” he’d added bitterly, “but not a drop of your befouled blood will touch my lips.”

“Befouled? Wait, what?”

I’d reached out to grip his arm, to make him explain, but he’d pulled away roughly and stormed off to await me in the cathedral for the next ceremony.

I would have followed, but his best man, Jag, and groomsman, Wolf, barred my way.

Escorted to the next ceremony I’d once again said my vows and smiled for the guests, while inside I was dying. The whole time I was wondering what the hell was going on with him, why the sudden change.

But now I think I get it, and the shock and despair have turned to rage.

It’s clear he knows he made a mistake – he doesn’t want me. And I’m angry. Angry with him, with the show, the universe, but mostly with myself for ever dreaming someone like him would choose me. For ever imagining that a cold-blooded serial killer could feel anything, anything at all, for a human.

‘Idiot. I’m the world’s biggest idiot. When will I learn that people don’t change? When? Too late now.’

I wipe my eyes on my gown’s sleeve and wince as the pearls and sequins scrape my cheeks. The driver meets my eyes momentarily in the rearview mirror. I don’t know what he sees, because he doesn’t offer any congratulations, just quickly looks away and rolls up the dark screen between us.

The limousine has all the usual comforts, and I dampen a corner of my hideous gown in the champagne ice bucket and pat my face.

It takes me a long time before my face resumes its normal colour, because all the while I wait I’m rehearsing what I’ll say to my bachelor when he appears, and rehashing the horror of the past few hours.

‘No, not my bachelor. My husband. I married this bastard. We’re husband and wife now. Surely we can work this out? Surely he wasn’t just pretending to have feelings for me all that time? Feelings? He never said he had feelings… Oh God! What have I done? Why didn’t he just choose Giselle? Is he really planning to get me pregnant and then kill me?’

Finally, I see a man walking towards the car.

I wish I wasn’t one of those people who cried when they’re really angry, but I am and always have been. It’s why I school myself so carefully to keep my mouth shut when I’m annoyed, to consider my words, to take a deep breath and count to ten.

But not today.

As the door swings open I turn to confront the man tearing my heart into confetti. But it’s not the vampire I’ve married who steps in and settles across from me with a grim expression. It’s his handsome and usually funny best man.

“Jag?” I frown at him, puzzled.

He stares at me, his fangs descending as he bangs on the black glass screen to indicate to the chauffeur to start driving.

Despite my best efforts to be strong, my voice trembles as I face his terrible expression.

“Jag, where’s Falcon?”

“As if he would ride with you,” he spits, his eyes deadly.

“Ride with me?” I echo. “He just married me. For Christ’s sake, Jag, what did I do? What did I do to make him turn from wanting me to hating me?”

“How dare you?” He snarls. “Stop all the pretext. You may have played my friend for the fool, but you won’t play me!”

I feel my face drain of all colour, and then the reverse. When I’d spent time with Jag during the family meeting he’d been so jovial, so friendly. This is a side of him I never thought I’d see. And still, I don’t know what’s brought it on.

“I don’t understand,” I shake my head, my anger causing more tears to trickle from my eyes, much to my disgust.

“Don’t think your false tears will influence me,” he laughs harshly. “You got what you wanted, Lady Dragonspur.”

“Got what I wanted?” I snap, wiping away more angry tears. “I never wanted a husband who regrets he married me! If anyone’s been played the fool it’s me for falling in love with a vampire who told me he could never love me in return. And how the fuck dare you !”

I see slight puzzlement cross his face, but his fangs are still well and truly out.

“I know he’ll want to do the right thing, for honour,” he mutters, his eyes darkening, “sacrifice himself. But I won’t let him, not this time.”

I gasp as he lunges at me.

Pushing against his chest I shout for his attention before it’s too late.

“For fuck’s sake, Jag!”

He pauses, and I rush on.

“At least tell me what I’m supposed to have done before you do whatever it is you plan to do. I’m at least owed that.”

“You’re owed nothing,” he sneers, grabbing my wrist and twisting it up to my face, the lace from my long, bell sleeve falling back to reveal my scar.

“My scar?” I gasp. “He doesn’t want me because of my scar?”

“He doesn’t want you,” he says, inches from my face, “because you’re Spider’s minion.”

I slap both hands around my neck and stare wide-eyed at him.

“Minion?” I whisper.

‘Where the hell has this come from?’

“Let’s not make this uglier than it has to be,” he growls. “Expose your throat, let’s be done with this.”

“Expose my?... Fuck off, Jag!”

I roll my eyes and frown at him.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that Falcon has gone back to thinking I’m a super spy?”

He narrows his eyes and his fangs slightly retract as I take my hands from my throat and give him a wobbly smile.

“God, I’m so relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“I thought,” I half-laugh, “I thought he’d just realised he’d chosen the wrong woman, that he didn’t feel anything for me after all.”

“He feels.” He growls, fangs lengthening again. “Your victory is complete.”

“Victory?” I shake my head. “It’s no victory to marry a man who doesn’t trust you. I can’t believe he honestly still thinks I’m a spy.”

“You bear the mark,” Jag murmurs, nodding towards my arm. “How can you deny it?”

“My scar?”

I hold up my arm and push it towards his face. “He knew about this months ago. I told him exactly how I got it. What has my scar got to do with being a spy?”

“You’re under the influence of Spider. Perhaps you don’t know it,” he shakes his head, moving back to the seat opposite me, “that is possible. But it’s true.”

“I’m under no fucking vampire’s influence,” I snap. “My scar is from a motorbike accident. Look! See for yourself.”

I move to sit beside him, my over-the-top gown enveloping his thighs and knees as I try to get closer to push my arm to his surprised face.

After a long, long stare into my eyes he takes my arm in both of his hands, surprisingly gently, and studies it closely in minute detail for what seems like forever, before looking back up at me, his eyes thoughtful.

“I see no obedience mark,” he sighs. “But it would be nigh on impossible to do so given your foul disfigurement.”

“Thanks,” I snort, withdrawing my arm from his hands and pulling the lace back down over it. “I love being told I’m disgusting.”

He shrugs.

“It’s of no matter. Falcon knows you were placed in The Games deliberately — he confirmed it with the mole. Spider visiting you simply helped peel back the layers of the deception he’s been labouring under all these months.”

“Hang on,” I hold up my hand. “Are you saying someone told him I was deliberately chosen for The Games?”

He nods.

“Who?”

“That’s not for me to reveal.”

I begin to laugh, hard this time, and the tears rolling anew down my cheeks are due wholly to relief and mirth.

“Why do you laugh so? Are you hysterical?”

He scowls as my giggles turn into hiccups and I reach for a bottle of water from the limo bar to my right, changing my mind at the last minute and exchanging it for whisky.

“I laugh,” I shake my head as I take a deep swig from the bottle, “because I don’t know anyone, and I mean anyone , who inhabits the same world you do. I’m a fucking home economics teacher, Jag, in a shitty school in the middle of nowhere who works pay-cheque to pay-cheque and whose highlight of the week is spring cleaning my apartment before taking a bubble bath and scrolling TikTok. My idea of being bad is to eat more carbs than I should. I have zero survival skills, as evidenced in The Games, zero self-defence skills, zero ability to lie convincingly, unruly hair, a mouth that often gets me into trouble, trust issues, and a quick temper. No one in their right mind would pay someone to plant me in this game. If you think otherwise you’re as deluded as Falcon.”

He takes the bottle from my hand and takes a deep, long, drink before returning the liquor to me and leaning back in his seat, meeting my eyes.

“Then we have a problem,” he sighs.