This Time Tomorrow (Phenomenal Fate 2)

Good.

Killing bloodsuckers was her job. She was friend to no vampire.

Except for a few, damn them.

Roksana whirled back around with a curse and leaned on her bent elbows, staring out at Coney Island without really seeing it. What are you doing here?

She could answer that question in the form of lies. Or she could be honest with herself.

Lie: she merely wanted to wish her good friend, Ginny, a happy wedding day.

Fine, that wasn’t a total lie. She hadn’t made a real friend since that nightmarish evening in Vegas three years ago. And God knows she’d been reluctant to form a bond with the human she’d been asked to protect, but the guileless mortician had crept under her skin. So yes, she wanted to see Ginny marry her mate, Jonas, the new vampire king.

A lot more had gone into Roksana’s decision to detour into Brooklyn on her way to JFK Airport tonight, however.

Truth: she couldn’t stop herself from seeing Elias one last time.

One last time. A memory to carry her through the trial to come.

The mere whisper of his name within her mind caused her fingers to tremble.

The tingling at the back of her neck was courtesy of the forty vampires sitting in neat rows just beyond the shadows. But the twisting ache in her stomach was all for him.

Elias.

The man who’d smashed her life to pieces with a sledgehammer.

Enough thinking. She needed to get this over with.

Roksana pushed off the wall and smoothed her hands down the soft silk of her dress. She might have been more confident in leather and boots, but Ginny had personally made her the dress and for some stupid reason, she didn’t mind seeing the girl smile.

You are weak. That’s why.

You pander to those you have sworn to kill.

Roksana’s breath released on a shudder and finally, she stepped into the light. Just ahead, Ginny waited by herself behind a decorative screen, flowers clutched tightly in her hands. Preparing to walk down the aisle and greet her destiny. What must that be like? To know that no matter what happened, one person would remain steadfast beside her through all of it? A person who had passed all tests and earned absolute trust, instead of putting her heart through a meat grinder?

“Must be very nice, indeed,” Roksana murmured, passing along the back of the waiting crowd, her gaze straying unerringly to the dark head in the front row. Through the jacket of Elias’s suit, his strong shoulder blades tightened, letting Roksana know he was aware of her presence. She gave it a minute or less before he approached. She and Elias being drawn back into one another’s orbit, time and time again, had proven inevitable.

Tonight would be no exception.

But it would be the last time.

Nearly to Ginny now, Roksana staunchly ignored the yawning pit in her stomach, throwing back her shoulders and putting some swagger in her walk. “Easy there, tiger,” she drawled, noticing the way Ginny peeked from behind the screen, undressing her soon-to-be husband with her eyes. “You’ll give new meaning to the term ‘blushing bride.’”

“Roksana?” Ginny breathed, whirling around to face Roksana, her skin several shades paler than it had once been. “You’re wearing the dress I made you.”

“I am.” Roksana pinched the hem of the crimson skirt and raised it, showing off her arsenal of wooden stakes. “Very convenient for hiding weapons.”

That got a laugh from the mortician-turned-vampire queen and it set loose warmth in Roksana’s chest. “Are you going to complain if I hug you?”

Roksana sniffed. “I’ll endure it on your wedding day. Even though you’re a bloodsucker now.”

The force of Ginny’s embrace caught Roksana off-guard. It was…nice, she guessed. And anyway, what choice did she have but to return it? “I guess this means you’ll have to slaughter me now,” Ginny whispered in her ear.

“Yes.” Roksana blinked away the moisture in her eyes, giving the answer she always did when asked when she’d finally visit death on the vampires she’d been tasked with killing. “Tomorrow.”

Ginny stepped back, a serious expression on her face. “Walk me down the aisle?”

Roksana scoffed, but her throat was suddenly two times too small. “You want a slayer to walk you down the aisle at a vampire wedding?”

“Yes. Please?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but the words remained trapped. Choked off. Electricity surfed over her skin and she knew without turning that Elias was behind her. Taking up more space than anyone else in the universe. A dark, sexy, traitorous planet that she couldn’t seem to stop circling in her spaceship. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, she wanted to turn around and scream at him. She wanted to beat his chest with her fists. Or better yet, remove one of the stakes from beneath her dress and drive it into his cold, dead heart.