Enjoy a Free Preview of The Forbidden City, Book Four in the Last Deadblood Series
My Dearest Love
I didn’t pack a brush. In my haste to get somewhere safe, I didn’t remember to pack a hairbrush. I guess I was more focused on escaping the city after Nico—my childhood best friend—publicly spat on me, then kicked and punched my face until it was black and blue.
At least I have a toothbrush, so there’s that silver lining.
Actually, Orlando did the packing for me, but I try not to blame him for anything that was forgotten. He got me safely out of Mayfield, which was the right call.
Of all the twists and turns I anticipated when I moved back to Mayfield, intent on opening up a business that served both vampires and humans in Midtown, ending up in this rickety old cabin in the middle of the woods outside the city proper wasn’t in the plan. Though I don’t disagree with Orlando’s insistence that I relocate here temporarily until Nino-Bear can be sorted out, this whole situation is less than ideal.
Not Nino-Bear. Nico. Nico Valentino is the man who beat me up. Nino-Bear is the mischievous boy I used to make mud pies with, back when life was simple and loving people was easy.
Nino-Bear doesn’t exist anymore.
What a coincidence; neither does the girl in pigtails who used to make him laugh when he grew afraid of the big men with guns.
Though, as he is now one of the big men with guns, I imagine he has fewer things of which to be afraid.
Not me. I have plenty to fear, not the least of which are the spiders in this pre-war cabin in the middle of nowhere. Certainly this is a place a girl goes to be murdered and never heard from again. My cell phone doesn’t have reception, though perhaps this is a good thing. I don’t want to hear what the people of Mayfield are saying.
I’m sure the lie of me taking up with a vampire is well circulated by now.
It wouldn’t have been a lie two months ago, yet here we are.
I wanted to be my mother—to pick up her mantle of being a vampire rights activist and lead the way for not just tolerance but acceptance of those different than us. She met with dignitaries and important policymakers, weighing in on issues with the gravity of someone who had been elected as a public servant.
Funny that nature selected her to be a weapon.
She was the Last Deadblood until she had me, and now I am the final weapon. My blood can be used to kill vampires, who generally live far sturdier lives than humans. But I don’t want to be a beacon for war. I love the Valentino family—the head family of the vampire people. Or at least I used to.
Now I’m not so sure.
Nico was supposed to pretend to be my boyfriend. It was a dreadful plan, to be sure, but when Governor Ingrid Mason stops by, you go along with whatever she says. What I wanted was for the education budget to be divided equally in Mayfield, so that the vampire children in the West End had the same quality of books, computers and education as the privileged human East End children. What I wanted was for the city’s public works budget to be split evenly, as well. That shouldn’t be so hard a feat to accomplish, but apparently, I picked a stubborn issue for my first one to tackle.
I wanted to be like my mother and affect change with an effortless smile so the world wouldn’t be so grim.
I didn’t realize how much effort goes into concocting an effortless smile.
It was an uphill battle with no hope of success until Governor Mason promised to throw her weight behind the proposal if I did one thing.
I needed to pretend to be dating a member of the Valentino family.
If only she knew the head of the Valentinos had recently broken my heart and ran off with the thing. Had she asked a month earlier, I would have proudly come out as dating the handsomest, noblest and most accomplished man I’d ever known.
Unfortunately, Mister Valentino turned out to be nothing short of ordinary. The moment things got too real for him, he split, ending what I thought was love without so much as a conversation.
It’s just as well. I don’t have time for silly things like love. I have history to change and minds to open. A pretend boyfriend is far better for the sort of life I lead.
I didn’t expect it would be Orlando—the Valentino cousin who acts as their sentry.
I also didn’t mean to mate with him. Though, to be fair, little is known about the vampiric mating bond. We’re still learning the ropes as we go. For example, we learned that if I drink a little of Orlando’s blood before bed in my evening tea, ailments that have taken a toll on my body for years seem to vanish. But if I miss a night, I am so cold by morning that not even the hottest bath can warm my skin.
Orlando gave me a flask of his blood to keep at the cabin while he’s away dealing with Nico. He is also juggling the mess Mister Valentino left him in the West End when he split so abruptly. I’m to splash a few drops of Orlando’s blood into my tea at night, giving Orlando a longer tether so he doesn’t have to come back here every evening and risk leading a tail to the cabin who might want to abduct me.
It’s laughable that anyone might believe the man a decade my senior, this family friend, might be the man I end up with. But for the sake of getting the education budget revisions passed sooner than next fall, I pray the world believes the staged photo of Orlando and I getting cozy in the backseat of his car is real.
I was in love with Orlando’s cousin, but only Orlando, my brother, and his boyfriend know that.
My blood could kill Orlando. Still, the mirage of me dating a Valentino is what the governor requires, so that is the show we have given her.
Declan positioned the photo so Orlando’s face was obscured by our hands, leaving it uncertain which Valentino I am dating, since Rome and Orlando look so similar. But the gold ring all the Valentino men wear with the family crest was visible, so the people have all the ingredients needed to make a rumor truly grow wings and fly.
I am far removed from the internet or any living thing (other than the spiders), so I have no idea if anyone bought the lie or not.
Either way, I decide to occupy my time this evening scribbling in a notebook Orlando brought me.
He does that sometimes—brings me something I desperately long to have but never asked for. It’s part of the mate bond. He knows me well, even if he doesn’t mean to be paying attention.
I wanted a journal to keep myself company while I remain isolated, so the next day, he showed up with groceries, a few changes of clothes and a journal, even though I never mentioned I wanted one.
It’s silly, really. And Orlando is the opposite of silly. But my pen drags across the unlined beige pages, writing a letter to Orlando to make him laugh, and also to share my madness with someone.
I start out the letter in grand fashion, pretending we are soulmates separated by fate’s cruel hand. In my lonely life overseas before moving back to Mayfield, I dreamed of having a dearest love to whom I could write sappy sonnets.
Orlando will tolerate my goofiness.
‘My Dearest Love,
I pine for you daily, as is my ritual. Everything reminds me of you. For instance, a spider landed on my toothbrush this morning. I missed you so badly that I plucked off six of his legs and paraded him around, pretending he was you. I was so good at conjuring your likeness in my imagination that I only remembered the spider was not you when I was kissing the hairy pest, and he up and died in lieu of returning my affections.
How I pine for your songs.
I snicker at the idea of Orlando singing at all. I can barely believe I’ve seen him smile.
When you sing of my beauty, it makes my breasts grow three sizes. They rise to your song like unrequited mountains. Sing to me, my love. For without your melody, I fear my melons might shrivel up to mere raisins, and my soul shall in turn wither. For you are the sun, the stars and the entire solar system, while I am but a helpless, demure flower.
Pluck me, my dearest love. My big sweetie pie.
-Colette
I read it again, laughing at my prose. I plan on reading this to Orlando in grand fashion in a lilting voice with plenty of theatrics.
If he ever comes back here. If he doesn’t, I might die in the woods without anyone knowing where I’ve gone.
No, no. I shake that thought away because it simply isn’t true. Declan knows where I am. He won’t let me disappear, and neither will Orlando.
I haven’t seen anyone in four days, though. Orlando brought me more than enough food to last the week, but after that…
I’m sure he’ll come back any minute now.
Any minute now.
Continue the series with The Forbidden City today!