Chapter Twenty-Four

  It took a bit more effort than I’d ever admit in order to coax my power back out of the night-of-the-living-dead roadkill, but soon enough, the raccoon had gone back to being a stiff legged little bit of kitsch.

  As to where the other taxidermized things were? I was sure they’d be fine. Without the magic animating them, they’d just be a curiosity at best, and a conspiracy theory at worst.

  I even felt a tiny bit better, what with that power soaking back into me. I still kept my forehead pressed to Lorcan’s shoulder, though. He didn’t need to know I was recovering.

  “It would serve Hughes right if he had to reenact Pet Sematary,” I groused.

  “Sweetling—”

  I held up a hand, interrupting him. “The man deserves some kind of punishment, Lorcan. Who tries to grift the Fae?”

  Lorcan’s hand smoothed up my spine, making me feel almost boneless. “To be fair, love, he probably didn’t know Beddow was a Fae. Or that Fae are even real.”

  I snorted, unimpressed. “My point still stands.”

  I shifted to lean on him more fully, because really, what was super strength for if I couldn’t take advantage of it? But then my foot kicked something in the dark. A long piece of broken shelving slid across the floor, and my heart seized at seeing the jagged length of wood. Just like that, fury detonated inside my chest, and I leaned back to start whacking Lorcan on the shoulder.

  “You big undead dope!” I punctuated each word with another smack, ignoring the way he yelped and tried to grab my hands. “What were you thinking, just charging in like that? You could have gotten hurt! You could have gotten something worse, like dead—as in forever dead! Don’t you ever put yourself at risk like that again! The last thing I want to do is worry about you like you made me worry about you tonight!”

  He was a vampire. It was ridiculous to get so worked up about him getting hurt. I’d seen him shrug things off that would have laid other people out in the hospital for weeks or killed them. But I couldn’t shake that fear that gripped my heart—fear that he’d come to help me, and he’d gotten hurt doing it. Knowing it was silly didn’t actually make it any easier.

  I just kept replaying that moment—when Lorcan’s body had folded from the Nucklevee’s kick, and he’d gone flying backwards through the shelf. That was a memory that was going to haunt my nightmares.

  “Sweetling, I’m fine. Really.”

  I was too tired to really keep up the anger, and it guttered out faster than it normally would have. When he felt my arms drop back to his side, Lorcan reeled me in against his chest and tucked his chin on top of my head.

  And if I melted into the hug, I’d never admit it, not even under oath.

  Truth be told, it was a lovely moment. Peaceful and reassuring.

  Right up until I felt something cool and damp soaking through Lorcan’s coat under my cheek. I jerked back, something way too close to panic bubbling up from my gut and saw the red smear on Lorcan’s coat. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

  “Is that blood?”

  “Darling—”

  “—are you bleeding? Lorcan, why didn’t you say something? Stupid, idiotic vampire, lie down. I’ll get help. I’ll get supplies. Just lie down.”

  Trying to push a vampire down, even one that was apparently injured badly enough for blood to be soaking through the cloth of his coat, was an effort in futility. Lorcan just stood there like a big, dumb brick wall, a vaguely sheepish look on his face. Like he was embarrassed by the giant chest wound.

  “Sweetling, please. I’m fine, really.” He cupped my shoulders, resisting my efforts to make him lie down, or elevate, or whatever people did when they’re badly hurt. Though, ‘resisting’ might have been too strong a word. He just didn’t go along with what I was trying to get him to do, and that was enough to keep him firmly on his feet.

  I was not hysterical. I did not do hysterical. I was simply getting a rush of adrenaline based on the fact that my husband was apparently too dumb to know what was good for him.

  I started pulling at his coat, yanking it down his shoulders so I could take stock of the wound that, at this very moment, might have been killing him. “Don’t worry, Lorcan, you’ll be okay.” My voice came out strange, squeezed down by the pressure of my heart in my throat. My hands were shaking as I undid the buttons of his shirt.

  Lorcan took my hands gently in his and forced them to a stop. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he gave me a soft smile, squeezing my fingers gently. “Normally, I’d be a huge fan of you trying to tear my clothes off, and the concern is absolutely lovely, Sweetling. But I really am fine.”

  He kept saying that. But how could he be? Maybe he was in shock? Maybe he didn’t realize how hurt he was, because he was losing too much blood.

  With a little squeeze, Lorcan let my hands go. He looked down at the mess of red soaking into his shirt, staining the pale fabric. Frustration twisted his face, and he let out a sharp huff of breath as he ran one hand back through his hair. “Well, that’s not ideal.”

  “Lorcan?” I searched his face, fighting back the tide of fear that threatened to pull me under at any second.

  He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sadly crushed box. It took me a moment to recognize the glossy packaging as my very favorite truffles. On the odd time I had a sweet tooth, they were my go-to. The Sistine Chapel of confections—dark chocolate wrapped around a raspberry liqueur center, with a hint of sea salt sprinkled over the top. They were delicious, and decadent, in all the very best ways, and the shop that made them only did a limited run to make them even more exclusive.

  But the box was crushed past all hope of salvation, and thick red filling oozed out from the corners to drip down to the floor. Lorcan heaved an enormous sigh, his shoulders rounding forward.

  “I drove all the way to Portland for these things and was on my way back when I got your request for backup.”

  “Which was why it took you so long to get here.”

  He nodded. “Bloody Fae. Did the Nucklevee not realize what a pain in the arse these things are to get?”

  I blinked at him, still trying to piece together the fact that Lorcan hadn’t, in fact, been stabbed. That the mess on his shirt was just the raspberry center from where the chocolates had burst.

  “You drove to Portland?” He nodded. I shook my head. “To get my chocolates?”

  He grimaced, the busted box balanced on his palm. “I was picking these up, special order. I could have hardly told you that, though, could I? Where would the surprise be in that?”

  I was still so lost. The stress of the evening was catching up to me. It was barely an hour until sunrise, and I ached everywhere. My limbs felt like they’d been carved out of lead.

  “Why would you go all the way to Portland for a box of chocolates, Lorcan? That makes no sense.”

  He reached back to scrub his hand over his neck and thought better of it when he realized his fingers had raspberry goop on them. “Well, they’re your favorites.”

  I would not smile. I would not. It was not cute. It was dumb. And he’d scared me to death. “You drove to Portland to get chocolates for me?”

  As if he could sense the crack in my armor, Lorcan tugged me closer. Luckily for him, he did so with his clean hand. “Well, of course. It was all supposed to be part of your anniversary gift. I had it all planned out.”

  I stared at him, my eyes narrowing dangerously. “You said you had to do a surgery on our anniversary. You said you were busy that night.”

  Lorcan grinned, flashing just the tips of his fangs. “Well, of course I did. How else was I going to convince you that I’d forgotten about it?”

  “Forgotten about it?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I’ve been planning a surprise for our anniversary for a while and the chocolates were just part and parcel of that surprise. Though, I’ll admit, it was getting harder and harder not to give it away. I thought I was going to have to make up a symposium or something and hide in a hotel until Friday, or you’d have had me cracked like a nut.”

  The realization hit me like a sucker punch. Standing here, in the ruins of a gross old pawnshop that should have been condemned, looking up into Lorcan’s face, I could see the faint lines around his eyes. They were a holdover from when he’d still had a pulse. I could see the tiny scar, just above his lip, that made him look a little less perfect, and a little more real. The beautiful green of his eyes, the cornsilk fall of his fair hair. It stunned me a little, how much I loved him.

  A vampire.

  A creature I’d been taught to hate, basically since birth.

  And yet, he was the stupidest, sweetest man I’d ever met. So ruled by his sentimentality that I could almost forget the monster lurking underneath the urbane surface disguise. But he’d showed up tonight, just because I’d called him. And he’d fought, with fang and claw, he’d fought for me.

  And he still did the silliest things, like drive all the way to Portland for chocolates, and sneak around trying to set up surprises, and trying to trick me into thinking he’d forgotten an important date. And more than that, I’d actually fallen for it. He’d pulled one over on me. That was possibly hotter than the plan itself. Who knew he’d had it in him?

  It all welled up in me, a fountain of emotions that I didn’t think I could talk around, not without making an embarrassing spectacle of myself, and I wasn’t that far gone that I was willing to get all maudlin.

  So, to spare myself a little humiliation, I dragged him down to me with a grip on his collar, and I kissed him. I yanked him right up against my mouth and kissed him with every ounce of everything I was feeling, kissed him like I’d crawl inside his ribs to curl around his heart. I kissed him like I wanted to devour him in huge, desperate bites.

  Lorcan made a little sound of surprise at the back of his throat, before his arm snaked around my waist and he dragged me closer to his chest. He kissed me back, and the world fell away. There was no weird old man passed out in the next room. There were no slivers of glass in my knees. We weren’t standing in the rubble of a store like something out of an apocalyptic teen romance movie that I would have refused to watch on principle.

  There was just the hot glide of Lorcan’s tongue against mine, the press of his lips, and the firm wall of his chest under my hands. I finally had to pull away, because unlike some people, I still needed to breathe. Lorcan dropped his forehead to mine, and we just stood there for a long moment, hanging on to each other.

  Then I pushed back far enough that I could see his face, and grinned. Lorcan knew me well enough to know that he should be concerned.

  “Okay, Rowe. Spill it.”

  Lorcan blinked, still a little dazed from the kiss. “Spill? Spill what?”

  I gave his chest a gentle slap, careful to avoid the mess of raspberry filling that was still soaking into his coat. The smell was divine. Way better than the dust and mildew stink of the pawnshop.

  “You have to tell me what your plans are for our anniversary. And then I’ll tell you what I had planned, and we can fight over which of us had the best idea. Whoever wins, that’s the date we’ll go on.” He grinned widely. “So, come on, dish,” I continued.

  “I don’t know,” he began.

  I shook my head, interrupting him. “You have to tell me. It’s the rules.”

  Lorcan’s shoulders started to jerk, and he just managed to turn his head away so that he wasn’t laughing straight into my face. He buried his nose into my hair, doing his best to rein in the absolute guffaws that were trying to burst free.

  “You are ridiculous.”

  I sniffed, tilting my nose up into the air. “Spoken like a man who knows he’s going to lose. What’s wrong, Rowe? Worried your dating game isn’t up to snuff? Come on, tell me. I’m going to win, my idea is amazing, but I want to know how badly I beat you.”

  He could barely get the words out, his chest shaking, arms clutching at me. “It’s not a competition, Sweetling.”

  “That sounds like loser talk to me,” I said with a snort.

  “Ridiculous,” Lorcan wheezed. “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

  And then, before I could say anything else, he pulled me into him and stole my response with another kiss. The laughter shrivelled up, destroyed by the gentle movement of his mouth over mine, and the hands that cupped my face like I was something important. Something precious.

  I barely even noticed the raspberry liqueur that was now soaking into my sweater.

  Honestly, I didn’t care.

  Not one bit.

  The End

  ~~~~~

  Return to Haven Hollow in:

  Memento Mori

  ~~~~~

  Return to the Table of Contents

  MEMENTO MORI

  Haven Hollow #39

  (Poppy’s Potions)

  by

  H.P. MALLORY

  &

  J.R. RAIN

  Memento Mori

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2024 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Memento Mori

  Chapter One

  The three blocks along Main Street between the Half-Moon Bar and Grill and my shop, Poppy’s Potions, had never seemed so far before.

  Huffing out a breath, I readjusted the arm slung over my shoulder, like that would somehow make the guy I was helping along lighter. If anything, it just meant that his constant twisting around threatened to choke me if I wasn’t careful.

  I didn’t even have the worst part of it, either. My boyfriend (and it still made something in my tummy flutter just thinking the word, like I was fourteen instead of over forty), Andre had the man’s other arm and Andre also had the bulk of the man’s weight. Andre wasn’t a huge guy (not like Roy, our town sasquatch), but he was definitely way bigger than I was, so I figured it made sense that he should shoulder most the weight. I was mostly keeping the guy’s other arm occupied, so he couldn’t flail around and hit anyone in the face. Again.

  My witchy BFF, Wanda, was in the lead of our sad, slow little parade. She kept glancing back over her shoulder, impatiently waiting for us to catch up. She never once offered to switch out with me, I couldn’t help but notice. But that was just Wanda. I was pretty sure the thought of giving me a break never even entered her mind. She could be very oblivious, but it was one of the things I loved about her.

  “Monsters,” the guy slurred. “There was a monster. A demon!”

  He tried to twist around to look back the way we’d just come and almost dumped all three of us onto the sidewalk.

  “No monsters here.”

  I tried not to shiver, but even Andre’s voice, with that crisp British accent, was enough to have me mourning the date we’d abandoned in order to deal with our new ‘friend’.

  That seemed to be the way with us. Dates had a fifty percent chance of being amazing, wonderful, the stuff of romantic movies, or a fifty percent chance of ending in some kind of supernatural crisis. I should have figured. Things had been going too well. We were due.

  Still, I wished that Angelo had picked a different way to settle his argument with this guy.

  The man stumbled, and I had to scramble so he wouldn’t drag me forward. “No, no, I saw it. I saw it. Right in front of me! A demon!”

  It was awkward, patting someone’s hand while it was draped over my shoulder, but I gave it my best try. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  The tone more than the words seemed to help him settle down, as Andre and I got our feet untangled to get him moving again. Wanda watched from partially up the street, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Can we speed this up? Some of us were in the middle of something.”

  We’d all been in the middle of something, but I knew from years of long practice, that pointing that out to Wanda wouldn’t be helpful. How long had I been waiting for my busy schedule to align with Andre’s so we could actually spend some adult time together? Way too long. Lately, it seemed like it was always one thing after another.

  And, yet tonight, it had finally happened—we’d finally had some time to ourselves. And it hadn’t been anything fancy—no five star restaurant on the edge of town, but somewhere comfortable, familiar, where we could just be together. I’d always believed in the existence of soulmates, but I’d never really thought about what it would mean to have one of my own. Then Andre had walked into my life and it had felt like a puzzle piece I hadn’t even realized was missing just clicked into place.

  There had been a live band playing at the Half-Moon, though I couldn’t remember the name of the group for the life of me. I’d been too caught up in Andre’s blue eyes, and the way they crinkled up at the corners when he smiled. The way he talked with his hands, all elegant, flowing gestures. Magician’s hands, both by magic and by trade.

  Also too caught up to notice the growing mess happening at the bar.

  Haven Hollow was a serious melting pot when it came to the people who lived here. Not only were there dozens of kinds of supernatural folk that called the place home, but Hollows were one of the few places where they could live side by side in peace with mundane human neighbors. Everyone promised to keep the peace, the magic folk worked to keep their existence under wraps, and any paranormal scuffles between groups stopped firmly at the border.

  The Council of Haven Hollow were the ones in charge of making sure everyone played nicely, and kept the secrets under wraps, where they belonged.

  But no matter how magical, people were still people. And they could only be pushed so far before something had to give.

  Angelo, our town’s resident incubus, had been having something of a night. He’d been at the bar having a drink and a particular young lady had been trying desperately to get his attention.