Bound by Flames

“Stop burning him, you’ve made your point,” I tried again.

Vlad glanced at the screaming man without remorse. “If he valued his life, he shouldn’t have ignored your refusal. Even if he didn’t know you were my wife, he knew you were my guest.”

Did I mention Vlad tended toward the brutal side of archaic? To him, burning the Joker to death for his forceful come-on was a perfectly appropriate response. A modern man would’ve considered the matter closed after a punch to the face.

I went over to Vlad, slipping my arms around his neck despite his hands still being lit up with flames. His feelings were locked down, keeping me and all the other vampires he’d made from tapping into his emotions like we usually could. Still, he had to be seething. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have blown my cover in such a spectacularly violent way.

Then again, he hadn’t wanted me to go undercover tonight in the first place. I’d had to argue for days to get him to agree. Now this. Pleading wouldn’t save the Joker—the only word Vlad hated more than Dracula was please. Instead, I stood on tiptoe, my mouth brushing his ear as I whispered into it.

“I haven’t touched him to learn what we need to know, so you can’t kill him. You know how hard it is for me to get the information through his bones.”

He said nothing and his body continued to feel statuelike in its stiffness. Then, the flames on his hands vanished as he wound them through my hair, pulling it free of the bun that had mostly come undone anyway.

“Do it.”

Two clipped words, but his tone was no longer scathing. The flames on the Joker’s face extinguished as abruptly as if he’d been blasted with a fire hose.

I waited until the Joker’s face returned to normal, if soot-smeared, skin. Supernatural healing was one of the perks of being a vampire. Otherwise, he’d need to wear a mask for the rest of his life.

“Don’t move while my wife touches you,” Vlad ordered. He didn’t need to add a threat. His tone was menacing enough.

“Your wife?” the Joker repeated, appalled. He must have missed that while he was trying to put out his face earlier. Then he glanced at his hand, as if remembering that it had been plastered to my ass only a few minutes ago.

“I’ll take that,” Vlad said coolly, and ripped the Joker’s hand off with a single, brutal twist.

I winced. So he’d seen that, too. I had to act fast, before Vlad yanked something off that wouldn’t grow back. I approached the Joker, who clutched his new stump while grunting harshly. He didn’t scream, though. Losing a hand must not have hurt as much as getting his face torched.

“I need to touch Khal Drogo, too,” I said, referring to the vampire who’d come costumed as the warlord from Game of Thrones. No need for me to be stealthy about copping a feel from anyone now. I gave a frustrated glance at the silent, costumed crowd. This was exactly the way I hadn’t wanted tonight to go.

What did you expect? my hated inner voice whispered. Everything you do ends in failure.

I tried to ignore my nasty internal critic—and the hundreds of people staring at me—as I touched the Joker with my bare right hand. He jerked at the currents that flowed into him since I didn’t bother to hold back my voltage. Why waste the strength? Everyone now knew who I was, so they knew what I could do. Vlad’s oldest enemy, Mihaly Szilagyi, had made sure of that.

As soon as I touched him, colorless images flooded my mind, morphing the ballroom into a farmhouse and me into the Joker.

I kicked open the wooden door, taking in the single room with one glance. Two pallets lay on the floor closest to the hearth, the blankets thin and frayed from repeated use. Something bubbled in the earthen pot above the fire and a stack of wood looked like it had been hastily dropped. I smiled. The small farmhouse appeared to be empty, but it wasn’t.

It didn’t take long to find the trapdoor beneath the single table in the room. The screaming started before I opened it, making me smile wider. I liked it when they screamed. Liked it when they fought, too. The two girls I hauled out of the crawl space were too young and skinny to put up much of a fight, but I’d take what I could get . . .

His hand had grown back by the time I came out of the memory. I stared at it while I fought the urge to vomit or tear my skin off, whichever made me feel cleaner faster. Reliving peoples’ worst sins as though I were the one committing them frequently disgusted me. Sometimes, like this, it was worse. When my psychic abilities first developed, all the darkness I experienced drove me to a suicide attempt. Now, I focused until I channeled my anger and repugnance into more useful emotions.

“Rip his clothes off,” I stated.

Vlad’s guards rushed to obey. As I was his wife, they’d do whatever I told them unless Vlad countermanded it, and he knew why I needed bare skin for what I was going to do next.

When the Joker was wearing only his scorched mask, I ran my right hand over him, starting with his shoulders. I didn’t relive his worst sin again; thankfully, that only happened the first time I touched someone. However, essence trails flared beneath my fingertips, marking the invisible imprints from people who’d left emotional impressions on his skin. Many were from former victims of his violent tendencies, though some were affectionate, reminding me that even monsters had people who loved them. After I’d touched his shoulders, neck, arms, and legs, I dropped my hand. I’d felt dozens of essence trails on the Joker, but none of them had been familiar.

“I can’t find any trace of Szilagyi,” I finally said.