Last Bitten (The Emerald Night Series) (7 page)

Come home to me
, Nia. Marry me, my Nia. It’s always been you, for all eternity. As the stars grace the sky and the moon sings, join me now, my Nia. Sing with me forever. Walk with me this glorious night—a night of nights where two dark hearts join as one and escape the sun!

My Nia
.

“Yes
,” she whispered, splitting the crowd in her emerald gown, her train spraying behind her like a comet’s tail.

As the three reached the alta
r, the green swirl of lights moved to highlight the bride and groom, as if stuck in their own little galaxy.

A shadowed man stood bef
ore them—the red glow of some face hidden under a black, hooded cloak. His words boomed loud and clear as the music eased away, “Dearly departed, we are gathered here today under this Emerald Night. Even love and death lasts the ages. It doesn’t just abandon after mere mortal love. Love is timeless. It binds us all as we walk through this valley in the shadow of death. Answer me, fallen angels.”

Johnny
and Nia held hands, gripping the magic ring between them.

“Johnny, do you take Nia to be your wedded wife, to
flourish together after His ordinance in unholy matrimony? Do you promise to love her, to honor and cherish her, in joy and in sorrow, under the night and in death, and to be to her in all things a good husband as long as you both shall exist?”

“I do,
” said Johnny.

“Nia
, do you take Johnny to be your wedded husband, to flourish together after His ordinance in unholy matrimony? Do you promise to love him, to honor and cherish him, in joy and in sorrow, under the night and in death, and to be to him in all things a good wife as long as you both shall exist?”

“I do,
” said Nia.

“Father in hell
, You ordained marriage for Your fallen angels. We present to You Johnny and Nia, who come this day to be married. May the covenant of the love they make be blessed with true devotion.”

Lifting Nia’s hand and placing a single kiss upon it, Johnny slipped the large
, emerald heart upon her left ring finger. He finally spoke, “Nia, my Nia, I love you, I always have—in eternity we dance.”

Emelle passed
Nia Johnny’s band to do the same. It was a perfectly smooth platinum band with a one carat round emerald in the center, large fang prongs holding it in place.

Ta
king Johnny’s hand, Nia closed her eyes, and as she slid the ring on his finger, he allowed her one single memory.

It was another place, another time.

The crescent moon lowly lit the plush
, humid garden. Nia and Johnny sat on the edge of an extravagant fountain with a naked statue of Amphitrite at the center, water springing forth from all around her.

“We will never drink of these waters again,” said Johnny
, dressed all in black as always, slowly sliding his hand under the glow of the blue current.

“I will,” said Nia
. “I want to be human again. I want to feel all there is to feel. I want to taste . . . a grape, a juicy piece of chocolate, bread upon butter, salt upon my tongue.” She felt the dawn of time weighing upon her lifeless body. There was more to eternity than this, and she knew it. “I will find a way. I will.”

“As long as you find your way back to me,” said Johnny
.

Flashing back to the current moment, Nia focused in on her husband, the man she once knew. She pulled her hand back and away, tucked it tight in against her chest. “You brought me back to this? You brought me back to this world of death and pain and suffering? Why would you do this to me? You knew I didn’t want this life again.”

“I love you
,” Johnny said. “I can’t bear to be without you another day.”

“You should have left me
. . . you should have left me alone in my measly human existence!”

“You agreed twenty years
. The twenty years is now over, and we are to be united.” Johnny moved toward her, but she backed away, searching the room for a way out.

As
the lights spun, so did her mind. “It is too late. This is it. That was my twenty years; there is no going back now. I do love you, Johnny. I do. I’m just not ready for this life again.”

Voices whispered amongst the crowd, making plans, speaking of things to come
. A few stood, preparing for the fight.

“You cannot go
.” Johnny nodded to Bruce. “You are Queen. You can never leave.”

“And you can’t
hold me hostage. I am Last Bitten. I have the power. I have the say.”

The crowd closed in as did Bruce
, with Bruce at the lead. Emelle watched . . . she had waited years for this moment that was about to happen. Everything had been perfectly calculated. She waited for Johnny’s signal, anything to tell her that she was going to be his one-and-only.

“Last Bitten
.” Johnny lowered his head, ran a hand through his spiky, black hair. “State your terms then. You only have twenty-four hours and then you’re mine. You will belong to me, to all of us.” Johnny’s words dowsed the crowd, which cheered and clapped under his statement. All except one—one bitter, purple-eyed female, who’d hoped for a chance to kill.

“I want away from here, to be alone, to say goodbye to the ones I have come to know
.”

“Who? Who would that be? You despise your human mother
; your father has been absent; your friend is dead or will be. Who could you possibly say goodbye to? What did they offer you? Nothing! That is all they had to give. We can offer you more. I ask you not to leave on our wedding night. I have waited so long for this, my Nia. I love you, can’t you see that? I let you be on your own for all that time. You agreed to come back to us. Awful things were done to give you the human life you wanted, and now it’s time to return the city to its normal state.”

Nia fell to her knees crying
. “I know, Johnny. I know. You let me be. You did give me that. Everything is a blur from before. I just don’t remember. I know that I was sad. That is what I feel. How could it be any different a second time around? Just kill me, then, if I have nothing to go back to. It’s too late anyway. I am just a vampire.”

“No
, no . . . you cannot ask this. You cannot use your Last Bitten request just to die. Please don’t do this to me, please.” Johnny knelt down next to her and took her in his arms rocking back and forth. “Is it not enough that I love you? Is it not enough that I waited for you for twenty years? All this time my lonely heart has bled. You are all I have thought about. You have consumed me.”

“This is my request
, and it’s too late now. You should have just let me go.”

Johnny fell back against the hard
, unwelcome marble. He looked at Bruce; he looked at Emelle. They had nothing for him. The crowd inched closer as they all knew their place now in that wedding of weddings. The terms had been set. Nia would be put to death, and they would all make sure it happened. Emelle hid her smile, hid her happiness, and dragged Nia to the center of the room, where the green lights danced a dance of endings.

I’m being tested
. Is this what Bruce hinted at in the car? What would I choose if it was revealed to me who I really was? Of all the memories Johnny could have picked and he picked that one. Is he in on it too? Is death the right choice, or should I reign as Queen—Queen of the Emerald Night?

Nia watched the
porcelain faces, hundreds of pairs of ivory fangs ready to feed. She’d seen this before, she’d participated herself in such horror fairs. The blood of a Queen would be better than anything any of them had ever tasted—blood like nectar. The sheer power of it would seer through their veins, as if they were alive again. She could smell their angst, their wants, and their starvation for something, anything to give them all a glimpse of what they once had so long ago.

Being alive again had been simple but glorious now that Nia knew exactly what it was she had witnessed
. She thought of her little job at the coffee shop, frothing hearts in lattes, scrounging for tips so she could buy that one pair of shoes, smiling at her regulars whom she had come to memorize . . . every order and the exact time they would frequent the place, which glittered with yellow lights and fake violet posies.

University had
delivered more ups than downs. She was failing her statistics class, but excelled in all else—math just wasn’t her thing. She wanted romance, and there was romance in history, foreign language, and astronomy. She understood now exactly why she hadn’t fallen hard for anyone in particular; there was only Johnny, trapped there in the recesses of her human mind. He was the dark figure that had frequented her dreams of desire, the headless man, the man that gave her everything she wanted in sleep.
The dreams were so real. They were real.

Ignoring the group that was about to pounce, she eyed Johnny
, who now kneeled before the gothic altar and the cloaked figure. They were speaking in the primordial tongue forged from their vampiric demigods eternities ago. Unable to discern what they were saying, she saw her husband shake his head in a defiant manner then stand angrily—fists in a bunch.

What is it about Johnny that gets me
so?
She thought hard, knew the memory was there, deep inside.
Come on, come on. You know you can remember . . . you know that you can. How did you meet your Johnny; why is he “the one”? Think . . .

The
answer flashed in her mind just before her the first set of fangs sunk into her flesh—awful, purple eyes smiling while sucking her life away. The hungry hoard pinned her to the ground. Oh, they took their time and they shared. It was agonizing. She knew she deserved it for all the heinous things she had done in her past. It was time to repent. The old memory came forth as the pain deepened simply because she had been turned originally under a sense of agonizing pain and torture, during a time of black death—the bubonic plague.

She glanced down in memory at her gangrenous fingers, at the ripe old age of twenty, married to a fat, sweaty tavern owner named Sal. She had wished she was dead—the horrible things he made her do at night, traded by her own mother for a little coin. The Great Plague was last of the black death and had washed London down just like the rest of Europe, and Nia had done all she could to catch the bloody horror. She got her wish, and Sal had given her the boot—freedom at a cost.

Nearing the end of it all, she found herself milling about
the fire-ridden city. Frankincense filling the air, she wafted alone with the smoke, till she met him on her last hours. He went by John then. He was just a simple John, and the two of them had leaned up against one another, trapped down the end of a dank alley—total strangers surrounded by squeals of rats and blackened bubo’ed bodies. They had not uttered a single word between the two them, just kept each other warm as the Grim Reaper paid them a visit.

But it wasn’t
that
Grim Reaper; it was another creature entirely. Death did open its door, and out stepped Johnny and Nia, born to the pits of hell where blood spews from the fountain of life. He was her beginning and she was his; they fell in love, eye to eye, hand in hand, souls spent from their bodies entwining as one, locked away in His place, unable to fight as the creature fed upon their bodies and returned a single drop of his own blood to each of them. That same creature, their creator, stood before Johnny at the altar: Daddy Dearest.

Feeling that first ounce of something, feeling her origins, she opened her mouth and cried out, “Johnny!” She flicked her bright blues back and forth at the frenzied crowd that now sucked away her dark life force—it was all a mistake. “Johnny!” She couldn’t see him. She called out to him with her thoughts,
I don’t want to die, Johnny. I love you. Help me please.

It’s too late
,
he answered in thought.
You stated your will. Oh, Nia, I don’t want you to go.

Then don’t let me go
. . . save me, Johnny.
Her mind cried.