The evening of the coronation, I’m beyond nervous. I can tell something bad is going to happen, but I can’t decide what, exactly, that is. Somebody’s going to try to kill me, that’s for sure. But are they going to use something subtle, like an arrow from afar? Am I going to be friggin’ jumped on my way downstairs? Maybe on my way down the aisle to marry the king?

Oddly enough, none of those things happen.

The Stiltz kin watch me with varying levels of frustration as I dress myself in the black gown with the plunging back, plunging neckline, and the spider-web patterned skirt that drapes out across the ground behind me.

“How do you think the king will react when he finds out we can’t fuck until I’m pregnant with another man’s baby?” I ask and Wolfe scoffs. Sorrow just laughs at me, but at least Vyce answers normally.

“Once you’re crowned, we’ll lay down the law for him. You don’t have to worry.”

I chew on my lower lip and wonder once again if Rumpel doesn’t have something else in mind. Like, say, taking down House Verenim. Putting a puppet-dhampir on the throne would certainly help shake royal confidence in their leader. After all, he was stupid enough to make the declaration that brought me here in the first place, a half-breed mistake that shouldn’t be breathing their air let alone ruling them.

Fuck.

At least I know that for now, the boys will have my back.

But shit...starts to go down before we even leave the room.

The king bursts in, red-faced and panting, and behind him, there’s the tall, dark man with yellow eyes and a pinched but handsome face. There’s a weight behind those eyes that makes my stomach drop.

“Rumpel,” Vyce says, smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t sound worried, but there’s a tightness to his shoulders that’s scaring the shit out of me.

“Vyce,” the man says, pushing the king into the room with a hand on his lower back. Vesnic looks at me like I’m twice as weird as I was before. Fantastic. What the hell is going on now? “Sorrow, Wolfe. I’d like to apologize to you,” Rumpel says as the king just stands there and glares at me with something odd and unreadable in his eyes. “But your bargain.” Rumpel twirls his hand in the air my stomach drops. “Is null and void. Not only is this woman already royal, but she already belongs to me.”

He smiles at me as I feel my stomach drop.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sorrow asks, stepping up beside me, almost protectively. But no fucking way. No way a dude I’ve known for a handful of days gives two shits about me. I’m on my own here.

“This is the daughter of the last Verenim king, and Vesnic’s sister.” Rumpel delivers this news like it doesn’t mean shit, but I swear to God, I almost pass out right then and there. I can’t breathe; my throat is tight. White spots dance in front of my eyes as I struggle to get out a single word.

“Mom was already pregnant when you made the deal with her,” I choke out and Rumpel smiles. I don’t care that I’ve just confirmed that he’s right. Doesn’t matter. The second he decided to come here, he knew. There wasn’t going to be a chance to lie. My only hope now is to run...or fight.

“No, she wasn’t,” Rumpel says with a long sigh, like this is all a serious inconvenience to him. “She became queen with the use of my magic, became pregnant with the king’s child, and then she ran.” He takes a few steps toward me and leans down to look into my face.

It takes everything I have inside of me not to lunge at him.

“Not only do I already own you, my dear,” Rumpel says as Vyce and Wolfe exchange a glance over my head. “But you are in breach of contract and yet, you used the magic I gave you anyway.” He reaches out to touch my chin, but I jerk my head away.

I’m only going to have one chance to run here.

One chance.

And then it’ll all be over.

“So I’m taking what’s rightfully mine,” he continues, nodding to the three Stiltz boys in turn. “You’re dismissed,” he tells them, just before I turn and run as fast as I can toward the open window. I can survive a fall like this. But so can he. Still, it’s the closet exist and the only one that isn’t blocked.

But I don’t make it that far.

Instead, Rumpel’s fingers tangle in my hair and jerk me back. Magic washes over me in a wave and I collapse to my knees. The last things I see before I pass out...are the three faces of Rumpel Stiltz’ kin, men that I’m coming to like...but who I’ve had no chance to love.

I pass out before I have the opportunity to count my many, many regrets.

The smell of decaying leaves teases my nostrils, making me sneeze as I come to and sit up, blinking into the solid blackness of a forest. The city never gets this dark, not even when I'm hunting a badass undead vamp and all the streetlights go out, all dramatic and shit. They like to do that, vampires, cause all that drama.

"Where the fuck..." I start, just before it all comes back to me.

Rumpel Stiltz.

He knows who I am.

Chills chase across my skin as I wrap my arms around my chest and squint against the faint flicker of a fire. The flames are an unnatural blue-green color, and there's no heat coming from it at all. In fact, it feels colder in that direction and to be quite frank, it's cold as fuck out here.

I don't bother asking where I am or what's going to happen to me, blah, blah, blah. What's the point? The bad guy found me after all these years and it's over. It's over. Harry was right. Hopefully when he has a drink and toasts my memory, it'll be something that's properly mixed and doesn't taste like gin and tequila. Either that or a nice, clean Scotch. Shit, I hope he marries Miri and they make cute little ogre mixed breed babies together.

As I adjust myself, I feel the thick, heavy length of rope at my ankles. When I reach down to touch it though, there's nothing there, just magic.

"Fucking hell," I curse, putting the palm of my hand up to my forehead. I'm still dressed in that nightgown from earlier, sans panties. I can feel the wet, mucky ground leaching through the silk and soaking my ass and cunt. It's beyond uncomfortable.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, layering the forest in fifty shades of gray (see what I did there?), I notice a pair of yellow eyes watching me from a nearby tree stump. Rumpel Stiltz was a handsome man in his day, and although he's an immortal undead vampire, he's been through a whole hell of a lot of shit. Magic has twisted his face into something unrecognizable, scars from battles with mages or faeries or angels that can't be reversed.

To say he's repulsive would be an understatement. Not only is his face reminiscent of melted candle wax, but his smile is dark and empty of emotion, and those eyes...I can't look away from them. My guess? He was wearing a glamour when he confronted me in the castle and now, this is his true form. It's hard to go around such beautiful people looking like a monster. Trust me, I know that from personal experience.

"Your mother..." Rumpel begins with a long sigh, his voice as beautiful as his fake face was just hours earlier. Or, at least I think that was mere hours ago. It's hard to say, considering I passed the fuck out in my attempt to flee. Some badass heroine I am. "She was clever, wasn't she? Just enough to be impervious to magic. That's a one in a million trait, you know. It means you're quite special."

I tuck my legs to the side, like a mermaid. They might be bound together, but I can still move them. Inside my chest, I can feel that constant running trickle of magic that Sorrow broke open with a single kiss. I know it's not enough to fight this man though, not even close. But if I could get by myself a small opening to escape, that should do the trick, right?

"Can we bypass the whole bad guy speech and just get on with it? You going to kill me or what?"

"Kill you?" Rumpel asks, rising from the stump with unnatural movements. His legs don't look right. Instead, they seem to be bent backward at the knees, like a cricket or something. I find that I can't look away as he hops down and moves over to me, yellow eyes sparkling. His pupils are the square shape of a goat's and they're freaking me the fuck out. "I've been searching for you for over two decades. What a waste that would be. Besides, you have such useful skills."

"Sooo," I started, reaching up to pick rotten leaves from my hair. They're wet and slimy from the recent rain; my stupid curly hair doesn't want to let them go. Plus, I mean, I don't just have freshly fucked hair today, I have orgy hair. Orgy hair is substantially more tangled and hard to deal with. "Why did you drag me out into the middle of a dark and ominous forest?"

"Does that get you far in life?" Rumpel asks, reaching out and taking a handful of my hair in his long, gnarled fingers. "Being clever like that? Because I don't find it amusing." He jerks me forward and stares into my face for the longest time.

"Then what do you want from me?" I snap, literally snap at him with my teeth. I yank back as hard as I can and even though it hurts, even though it pulls hair from my head and makes me shiver with pain, I do it anyway. Being contrary is the only way I can feel powerful in this situation right now. "You want to train me up like one of your Stiltz kin?"

"Something like that," Rumpel says, standing back up with those strange legs of his, the black pants he was wearing earlier now wrinkled and disheveled from bending into such an unusual shape. "The thing is, with my kin, I require complete and total obedience."

Rumpel moves back over to the strange blue-green fire and opens up a black bag, extracting a metal canister and unscrewing it. Unsurprisingly, the contract I signed with the Stiltz boys is inside.

"Do you know what usually happens to those that try to skip out on payment of their contracts?" He reads the paper in his hand over and then tosses it into the flames. Even though I can feel the icy kiss of the fire, it burns like any other, turning the contract to ash.

"You have them torn limb from limb inside their own homes?" I choke out, hating the emotion in my voice. I don't need to show my cards to this asshole. Whatever he's going to do to me, it can't be as bad as what he's already done. Mom is dead, and she's the only person in this world that ever loved me. What harsher punishment could I possibly suffer?

"If you're referring to your mother," Rumpel continues, pulling out a few more items from his bag. One of those things is a hot metal poker with a brand on the end of it. A brand. As soon as I see that, I start to sweat, cold droplets running down my spine and staining my flimsy nightgown. "Then you have to understand that by the time I found her, I was quite angry." Rumpel lays the brand in the fire and then moves over to me with a small glass bottle, similar to the one hanging around my neck.

"So it was you?" I ask, and I hate, hate, hate that I'm relieved to hear it wasn't the boys that did it, like it gives me some sort of license to like them or whatever. Not that it matters. I betrayed the terms of the contract. And fuck, I shouldn't even have been able to sign a contract. My whole existence is a breach of contract. "You killed her?"

"Your mother owed me," Rumpel snaps, grabbing me by the hair. I hardly have a moment to register the surge of magic in the little clearing before tendrils of it are wrapping around my wrists. The creep shoves the small bottle against my lips and dribbles bloody liquid in my mouth. Of course, I thrash and fight, but inevitably some of it slides down my throat, choking me. "And now I'm collecting on that debt."

As soon as Rumpel releases my hair, he also releases the magic on my wrists and ankles. Only...I can't get up. I can't even move. My muscles lock tight and it feels suddenly hard to breathe.

"You're mine to do with what I want," he says, looking down at me with those bright yellow eyes for a moment before heading back to the fire. "And I've spent years looking for the right bride. With your natural resistance to magic, you're perfect for the role." Rumpel pulls the brand from the fire and starts to hum under his breath. I can taste the magic in the air as he goes about weaving a spell with his words.

My body is still frozen in place, locked down with that strange magic. I can even feel it sweeping over that natural still of power in my chest, blocking me from using a damn drop of it.

Rumpel starts to sing, this strange off-key tone that makes my teeth hurt. I don't recognize the language either, but it's something old and broken, like shattered teeth in a rotten mouth. He twirls the brand around in the air as he moves, dancing around the fire with strange, jerking movements, like a marionette or something.

The spell twists above the trees like a tornado, snatching limbs from trees and dropping them into the clearing. One of them hits me in the leg and sends violent pain ricocheting through my body. The green and blue flames rise higher and higher, licking against the canopy and leaving icicles clinging to the branches.

"Please don't scream," a voice says from behind me. I can barely hear it over the din of Rumpel's raucous singing, and the violent surge of the wind. But it's deep and low and kind of...grumpy? It's gotta be Wolfe.

A bottle appears over my shoulder, pressing against my mouth. This time, I don't fight it; I drink the liquid down and within seconds, I can feel my muscles unwinding, the paralysis drifting away in the wild wind.

Rumpel pauses his song and dance, but the storm doesn't stop and the air only seems to get thicker with magic. I follow his gaze across the clearing as Wolfe hauls me to my feet. I'm a little unsteady at first, but as soon as he hands over my I Love Lucy family, I start to feel like myself again. I might be wearing a wet, soggy nightgown but I've got Ricky, Ethel, and Lucy to back me up now—them and their assorted sheaths, straps, and holsters. I promptly put them all on. I might not be wearing underwear, but I'm packing serious heat.

"What are you guys doing here?" I ask, glancing over and finding those cold gray eyes on mine. Wolfe scowls like he doesn't give a shit, but he's here, isn't he? And he did give me back my weapons.

When he doesn't answer, I turn back to the clearing and notice that Rumpel's staring at something in the shadows. Since I'm only a half-vamp, it takes me a moment to register what it is that I'm looking at.

Vyce.

And Sorrow...on a leash.

Vyce is holding a long silver chain, the end of it looped around the demon's neck. I'm sure it's all for show, but I have to admit: the pair of them look pretty damn cool. Vyce is lounging in black leather and buckled boots while Sorrow lifts the corner of his lip up in a snarl I can't quite hear over the storm.

Rumpel doesn't look all that surprised to see his kin here. Me, I'm floored. Are they rescuing my ass? Why? We've only known each other, what, two weeks? And there was a whole week gap in there where I didn't see them at all. Why the hell would they care one lick about me?

Vyce leans down and unhooks the leash from Sorrow's neck.

As soon as he does that, it's like a signal to start the fight. The red-furred demon darts forward and leaps over the fire, crashing straight into an invisible shield around Rumpel. Instead of letting it knock him back, he clings to it with his claws and tears into the magic with his teeth.

"Try not to get killed, okay?" Wolfe says, whipping his revolvers out from beneath the dark brown leather duster he's wearing. He takes aim at Rumpel and fires several shots that stick in the invisible bubble of the shield. They hang there in midair for a moment before Sorrow tears the magic wide and the ammo lodges itself into Rumpel's side.

Blood blooms, staining the white button-up he's wearing a dark crimson, but the man himself doesn't look concerned whatsoever, not even when Sorrow drops to the ground, bounces off and slams into him.

"What the fuck is going on?" I ask, grabbing onto Wolfe's arm. In my mind, it's four against one, so we've got this in the bag, right? But then, I should've known better. This is Rumpel fucking Stiltz we're talking about here.

"What's it look like?" Wolfe growls out, dropping his gaze down to mine. "We're rescuing your ass—even though you lied to us."

"What the hell was I supposed to do?! Tell you I was infertile so I most definitely didn't get the deal I wanted? Be realistic."

"Infertile?" Wolfe asks, like I'm some sort of crazy person. "I was talking about the fact that your mother pulled one over on Rumpel. He's been looking for you for twenty-five years."

"You don't care that I'm infertile?" I ask, my heart thundering in my chest. I don't have time to hear Wolfe's answer though because Rumpel's just pushed the bullets from his side, letting the tiny pieces of metal fall to the forest floor.

It takes me a second to realize that he's already thrown Sorrow off and into a tree, cracking the wood and leaving the demon struggling to get to his feet. Vyce is still standing in one spot, his blood-red eyes focused on his boss, his father for all intents and purposes.

That's what's so confusing to me; I can't wrap my head around the idea that these men would choose me over him. I don't work well with unknowns. What can I say? I'm a suspicious motherfucker on the best of days. And when it comes to something as serious as this? I can't help it; I have to know.

"Are you insane?" Wolfe asks, shoving his guns back in their holsters and turning to me. His gray eyes are deadly serious as he grips my shoulders and looks into my eyes. "Do you want to get us all killed? Can't you just fight and ask questions later?"

"No!" I shout as Rumpel turns in our direction. He doesn't get very far though because Vyce is on him, knocking them both to the forest floor in a clash of magic that ripples out and makes my teeth chatter, my skin erupt in goosebumps. "He's your dad, isn't he?"

"Dad?" Wolfe asks with a scoff and a sharp shake of his head. "He's a goddamn tyrant, a jailer." I blink stupidly in the big man's direction as he cups the side of my face in his hand. "You're annoying and weird, but you rank higher in our esteem already. That's how much we hate him."

Wolfe presses a hard kiss to my mouth that's all heat and want and need. I rise up on my toes to meet the frantic press of his tongue, the warmth of his lips.

"Oh," he says as we break apart, a slight grimace to his expression, "if you really are infertile, then Rumpel's magic is strong as hell." Wolfe lets go of me and pulls both his guns out again. "Because you're pregnant. Try not to let him stab you through the stomach."

My mouth gapes open as Wolfe takes aim at the wild mess of fists and magic made up of Vyce and Rumpel.

"It's too early for you to know that!" I scoff, but like, magic. Magic can tell as soon as a sperm meets egg. What the fuck?! I'm not sure what my reaction is supposed to be, but I don't get any time to think on it. Rumpel shoves his hand through Vyce's stomach—thus, the warning from Wolfe makes sense—and throws him at me.

The vampire hits me like a rock and we go stumbling into the shadows of the forest.

"Are you okay?" I choke out which seems like a weird question to ask someone who's bleeding all the hell over you.

"I'm just fine," he snarls, looking like he wants to rip Rumpel's head off. Vyce pushes himself off of me and helps me to my feet. "But he isn't going to be when I'm finished with him."

"You came to save your future baby?" I ask and Vyce gives me a weird look, like I'm stupid or something. Fantastic. The same look from both Wolfe and Vyce.

"We came to save you," he says, giving my weapons and nightgown a look. "And it's been a long time coming for Rumpel to be taken out." Vyce runs his fingers through his blue-green-purple hair and exhales. "Did you hear that song he was singing?" he asks as Sorrow and Wolfe take on their boss in a flurry of bullets and blood.

"I didn't understand a word of it. But isn't this guy, like, invincible or something?"

Vyce's red eyes shimmer as he runs his tongue along his palm and then rubs his hand across the wound in his belly, healing it with his saliva. Vamp spit is some seriously powerful shit.

"You guess his name and he loses the bargain?" I joke. It's totally not the appropriate time for one, but what can I say? I excel at being inappropriate.

"He has a tattoo of his name. We have to find it and cut it off." Vyce glances down at me and smiles slightly. "If I die, and the baby turns out to be mine, give it an interesting name for me?"

"You're ridiculous," I snort, but my cheeks flush slightly with red. Wouldn't Harry love to see that shit? "So we have to find his ink, huh? How do we go about doing that?"

"Like this," Vyce says, taking off and hitting Rumpel as soon as there's an opening, slamming him back into a tree. The asshole's shirt is already hanging in tatters, and I don't see any ink at all. I move forward, noticing that Wolfe's ditched his guns and entered into the hand-to-hand combat with his brothers.

While I have a moment, I stand there and try to think. Where would I hide a tattoo that valuable? My first thought is it's on his dick, but maybe that's just because I want to cut his cock off for what he did to my mother.

But no.

Whenever he had sex, it would be exposed.

So probably nowhere near his genitals then. Under his hair? Nah, too obvious. All someone would have to do is catch him in the right light and they might spot it. That's when I remember one of the ogre girls that Harry picked up. She had a tattoo inside her lower lip. It said Eat Shit. She flashed it at him after she stormed out of the bar the morning after they had sex in his upstairs apartment.

The mouth.

Why not?

I slide Ricky from the sheath on my back. And even though I'm barefoot and...pregnant?! Eww! Okay, even though I'm barefoot and wearing a dirty silk nightie, I intend to kick some Rumpel Stiltz ass.

For what he did to my mother, I'd walk through the fires of hell for a little revenge.

I take off and leap over Sorrow's back, stabbing my sword through the man's throat. I manage to push my blade all the way through before he knocks me aside and sends me rolling across the wet forest floor.

Rumpel does the same to the guys, with a speed that's twice as fast as any of the Stiltz boys can move. And they move so fast that even I can't see them. So I'm not quite prepared for him to grab me around the throat. Rumpel lifts me up and slams me into the trunk of another tree. The brand is in his left hand. Our eyes meet as he thrusts it at my midsection. I'm fully prepared for the pain, but Sorrow stops him by grabbing his wrist in his long, red muzzle and squeezing hard. He yanks his master's arm aside, but Rumpel doesn't drop the brand. Even with a demon clinging to his arm, he holds onto it.

My sword is still sticking through Rumpel's neck, so I yank on it, spattering my body with blood. With my right hand, I reach out and pull his bottom lip down. I don't think he expects that, and I'm able to catch a glimpse of muddled black ink before he knocks my arm to the side and breaks it.

A scream tears from my throat as Wolfe grabs the metal brand from Rumpel's fingers, spins it around and slams the end into his master's chest. This time, it's Rumpel Stiltz' turn to scream.

"It's in his mouth!" I yell as the wind from the storm sweeps down and around Rumpel's body, ruffling up what's left of his clothing. Tendrils of magic wrap around him as the power in his own spell takes hold. It lasts for all of one second though before he breaks it, the brand on his skin fizzling away like it was never there.

Vyce grabs the man from behind as Sorrow shifts right in front of me, fully nude and not giving two shits about it. He yanks down Rumpel's lip and reveals his full name, tattooed right there in black. Yanking Lucy from the sheath on my thigh, I manage to slice down the length of Rumpel's lip as he screams.

Flesh falls away and I stumble back, expecting him to burst into flames or some other dramatic shit. Instead, he hits Sorrow so hard in the face that crimson liquid sprays out and I hear the distinct crunch of bone.

We're all going to need a lot of blood and sex after this to heal, huh?

Vyce wrestles Rumpel to the ground as I tear Ethel from my holster and lunge forward, sliding on my knees in the wet leaves. I put the barrel of my gun, loaded with my rowan ash bullets, to the man's skull.

Our eyes meet one last time, and I give a sad little smile.

"This is for my mother," I say, and pull the trigger.