“Listen to me,” Astrid said frantically, pacing my suite like a Vampyre on fire. “I’m seriously worried I might behead them accidentally on purpose. That would be so, soooo wrong even though they technically deserve it. I need your help.”

“You want me to behead them?” I choked out, running my hands through my wild curly black hair while trying to figure out where my best friend was going with her line of thought. With Astrid, one could never be certain.

“No! I mean, yes… but no. Absofuckinglutely not. We can’t behead them. Samuel loves the sequined old nut jobs and they saved his life,” she went on, still making very little sense.

“Your son loves everyone. He’s a child,” I reminded her. “Would Sammy really miss Martha and Jane?”

“Fine point. Well made,” Astrid agreed thoughtfully. “But I’m the jackwad that gave the okay to have them turned. It would be like committing patricide if I had them offed. Right?” she asked, clearly looking for someone to give her permission to eliminate the banes of her existence.

“Actually, you’ve already done that,” I told her, trying not to laugh.

Astrid halted her pacing and looked wildly confused. “I’ve done what?”

“Committed patricide,” I replied.

“Wait. What the hell does patricide mean?” Astrid asked, flopping down on the over stuffed Shabby Chic chair in the cozy den of my suite.

“It means kill your father.”

Her groan echoed in my suite. “Oh, well… shit. I guess I have done that. He was a total dick.”

And that was the understatement of the century. Her father had been one of the most vicious and deadly Demons known to our world. Even his brother, Satan, appreciated Astrid for ridding the Underworld of such a blight on humanity.

“Then what does matricide mean?” she asked with a wrinkled brow.

“Kill your mother.”

“Well, hell, I’ve done that too,” she shot back, letting her head fall to her hands. “You know when you say it out loud like that, I sound like a bad fucking person.”

“Yes… but your mother was literally ingesting your father-in-law, our King. Not to mention she’d tried to kill you numerous times,” I told her as I slipped into my running shoes and tied them.

“This is true,” she said with a shudder. “I’m not that bad then.”

“No, my friend, you’re not. You’re Compassion. And you’re my hero—not to mention my Princess. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you. However, even though Martha and Jane make me want to grind my fangs down to nubs—committing wrinkly old lady batricide would be, um…”

“Satisfying?” Astrid asked with a wide grin.

I laughed at her toothy smile. “Yep and wrong.”

“Okay then, is it wrong for it to be my secret fantasy? I won’t actually do it, but can I dream about it?” she inquired, looking frazzled.

“If it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right,” I told her, unsuccessfully trying to bite back a grin. “I daydream about it frequently.”

“Crap. You might be the wrong person to train them,” she mumbled through splayed fingers.

“Wait. Whoa. Train them?” Wincing, I shot Astrid an alarmed glance. “They already know how to fight. They’ve killed plenty of Demons, and Dark Fairies, and God only knows what else—and shockingly, lived to tell about it—in great and gory detail.”

“I know,” Astrid lamented in her outdoor voice. “But they’re sloppy and short in the brain cell department. I don’t want the old fuckers to get killed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I totally want to kill them, but I don’t want anyone else to do it. And since there’s no way in hell I would do the deed, it can’t happen. Does that make sense?”

“Alarmingly, it does.” I shook my head, amazed that I could follow her discombobulated train of thought. That possibly made me as crazy as she was, but then again we were all a little crazy. Immortality did that to a person.

“Apropos of nothing, are you still bumping uglies with Edward the German exchange weenie?” Astrid asked with a raised brow, clearly searching for a less life-threatening subject.

“Umm… no.” I cringed and covered my eyes with my hair. “As usual, you were correct. He’s a gaping butthole and annoying as hell.”

“In your defense, he is pretty and the German accent is a novelty around here in Kentucky,” she offered up a pathetic excuse to make me feel better.

“Yep.” I nodded and groaned. “But pretty doesn’t make up for vapid, conceited and loser-y.”

“True,” Astrid agreed with a shrug, and began picking through my laundry basket of clean clothes. “What about Gareth?”

“What about Gareth?” I shot back with my eyes narrowed to slits.

“Hmm…” Her smile grew wider and I wanted to slap it off her face. “Your reaction is very, umm… passionate.”

“He’s a disgusting, manwhore, pig from hell. You’re mistaking passion for intense dislike.”

“Interesting. Maybe you should try online dating.”

“Maybe you should shut your cakehole. I might have horrible taste in men, but I’m not desperate. I have no problem getting them. I just don’t want to keep the ones I get,” I informed her, as I removed three pairs of brand new Lululemon leggings from her sticky fingers.

“Roger that,” Astrid replied, giggling. “If you change your mind let me know. I would love to set you up with a hot, smexy Vampyre.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Not.” My eye roll made her laugh harder, but I wasn’t joking at all.

“Fine, little missy. Back to business. I’ll make training the fashion-challenged dorkholes worth your while,” Astrid promised, dangling a metaphorical carrot in front of my nose. Metaphorical because the undead couldn’t eat food.

“How worth my while?” I asked and then smacked my own head for even considering doing something that could end in actual death—either mine or theirs.

“Three full shopping days in Milan. My treat.”

“Oh my hell, you’re a mean, heinous, undead woman,” I hissed, knowing I was going to cave. Prada was Prada after all.

“I know. Right?” She punctuated her glee with a little dance around the room.

“Materialistic hooker,” I snapped, mentally cataloging all of the shops I wanted to visit.

“Takes one to know one,” she shot back with a laugh.

“True,” I admitted.

Now I was the one pacing. Could I actually train Martha and Jane without tearing their heads off? I enjoyed a good challenge—and Prada—but…

Thankfully my suite in the Cressida House—the massive Vampyre compound we all lived in—calmed me. It was one of the very few places in the world that was totally mine and reflected me. I favored Shabby Chic—big overstuffed furniture in soft cottons and fuzzy chenille mixed with rich crushed velvets. The patterns were faded cabbage roses in peach and pale pink, mixed up with equally faded tulips and daisies in lavender and periwinkle. The walls were a pale celery green dotted with pieces of crazy cool folk art and Aboriginal Dream art I’d collected over the years. None of it went together individually, but together it was perfect—eclectic and weird—just like me.

However, at the moment even my sanctuary didn’t help. Decisions sucked. Decisions involving Prada and training trash-talking, politically-incorrect, dumbasses really sucked.

“Can I damage them?” I inquired, running my hands over the velvet pillows on my couch.

“Of course,” Astrid replied. “Dismembering is completely acceptable too. Arms and legs grow back. No biggie.”

“Not sure that a shopping spree is a big enough incentive,” I muttered.

“You know what? You’re right,” Astrid said, making me realize I’d spoken my thought aloud. “How about I throw in pole dancing classes with Mother Nature?”

“Um… how about no freakin’ way in hell?”

Astrid’s grandmother was every kind of insane rolled into one frighteningly beautiful package. Even her sons, Satan and God, feared her. Mother Nature aka Gigi was under the very mistaken belief that she could pole dance. She couldn’t. However, that didn’t stop her.

“Not for you,” Astrid insisted quickly with an evil little smirk hovering on her lips. “For Gareth.”

Now that stopped me in my tracks. An enormous belly laugh escaped me as I pictured Gareth—the Vampyre Prince of the Asian Dominion—pole dancing. The ridiculously gorgeous brother of our Prince Ethan was a thorn in my ass and a wildly regrettable notch in my bedpost.

“No way you can make that douchebag pole dance,” I told her.

“Dude, dude, dude.” Astrid shook her head in mock-insulted horror. “I’m a True Immortal—one of only nine in the Universe. You underestimate me. With the title comes a lot of bullshit and apparently an assload of clout. Normally, I use it wisely and for the good of our people, but Gareth deserves a little payback—he’s been a royal pain in the ass—pun intended. Besides, I’ve got dirt on everyone—or at least the baby Demons do. You teach the foul-mouthed sorry excuses for Vampyres to fight better and Gareth pole dances.”

“The shopping spree still included?” I asked, mentally weighing the pros and cons.

“Absolutely,” she swore.

“You drive a hard bargain,” I said, laughing at the crazy woman who led our people. “I’m in.”

“Excellent. You won’t regret this,” Astrid promised as she stood up and hauled ass out of my suite before I could change my mind.

Smart girl.

Plopping down on my smooshy couch, I let my head fall back and grinned at the impending stupidity of what I’d just agreed to do. I would so live to regret this. But life was long for a Vamp—very, very long. Challenges helped pass the time and pushed the loneliness of living forever to the back of my mind.

As long as removing a few limbs wasn’t off the table I could do this—I hoped.

The thought of Gareth’s utter fury at having to pole dance delighted me. That bastard had been starring in my dreams for months—not to mention we couldn’t be in the same room together without wanting to kill each other. Wait. That wasn’t exactly accurate. I wanted to kill him. He wanted to shag me—his words—definitely not mine.

Hell would freeze over before that would happen again. I’d made that mistake once in a moment of weakness and stupidity. He was a manwhore-jackass. Sadly—for me—he was an ungodly beautiful manwhore-jackass who was outstanding in the Big O department. I’d even thought that maybe we were… Whatever. Wishful thinking did not real life make.

Letting reality hit me for a moment, I curled into a ball on my couch and buried my face in the soft pillows. Gareth was aging and dying. He’d been cursed by Vlad—the evil bastard now on the run from every Vampyre in the world. Prince Ethan and Astrid were certain Vlad and the Angel he’d worked with would be found and the curse could be broken. I wasn’t as positive.

As much as I despised Gareth, the thought of him dying was unacceptable. Why? I didn’t know. The man made me angrier than anyone I’d come across in my over two hundred years on earth.

Tossing the pillows aside, I pushed my panicky thoughts away. I was good at that. Time and experience had taught me to compartmentalize. A brain can only hold so much information without breaking. Sometimes to make it through each day of my eternal life, I had to focus on only the immediate. The future was vast and uncertain. The past was the past.

Screw introspective thought. It would just get me in more trouble when I was in enough trouble as it was.

I had some unpleasant old bags from hell to teach and I was going to train the living shit out of them.

Martha and Jane had no idea what they were in for.

Unfortunately, neither did I.