Prince Michael the Bad Read online

  “I met him, Mattie.” I look up at her, feeling so relieved to be able to do it without the mask of confidence that was so hard to wear all night. “I actually met Michael the Bad, the Devil’s Son.”

  Mattie drops into her chair, hands around her own mug. The blood drains from her thin face, her skin as pale as death, her tired blue eyes wide and puffy. But I need more time before I can talk again, sipping the hot tea and not even minding that I burn my lips. I can’t focus past the image of Michael the Bad in my head, that impossibly beautiful man with the most sensual lips I’ve ever seen. And then there were those dimples that formed in his cheeks every time he gave me that smug bad boy grin, and that patch of bronze-skinned, perfectly muscled chest between the lapels of his black suit jacket.

  “He wasn’t wearing a shirt.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry.” I shake my head, realizing I’ve said that out loud. “It was just... He’s just so beautiful, Mattie. I’ve never seen anything like him before.”

  “If he is what we think he is, unnatural beauty comes with the territory,” Mattie says. “It is also a deceiving kind of beauty, so don’t let it fool you. There’s a monster in there.” She leans in close, reminding me why we’re doing this. “A monster that can get us to the Flipside of reality, where all the supernaturals live. All the creatures of all the stories we ever read, of all the fairy tales ever told to us. Creatures that can help Nina.” Her voice fades as she says her daughter’s name.

  My eyes wander over Mattie’s face and her delicate frame as I listen to her. She’s lean, her face lined from anguish and worry, and she’s barely been able to eat enough to keep herself alive since she learned about Nina’s illness.

  “Those rumors about Michael the Bad being not only a half demon but also a vampire,” I say. “After meeting him, I can tell you without needing any evidence that those rumors are true, Mattie. You know—” I search her eyes as I carefully say it. “That could also be a way to save Nina. If vampires do exist, we might not need the Flipside—”

  “Jesus, Angelique, how can you even say it?” Outrage sets her short blonde hair on end. “Nina is a child. She would be stuck at this age forever which, to be honest, I don’t know if it’s better or worse than what that fucking cancer has in store for her.”

  She lowers her head, her face distorting with tears, which sends a poisonous arrow through my chest. I kneel down in front of her, wrapping my hands around hers over her mug of tea.

  “We’re on this, Mattie, all right? We finally got to him. He admitted to the supernatural stuff. I mean, not directly, but he did.”

  She shakes her head, the lines under her eyes deepening. “We have to dig deeper into their world until we find a way. I don’t Nina drained by some bloodsucker.”

  “Then cheer up.” I squeeze her hands, forcing myself to smile. “Michael’s father—adoptive father—Octavius de Vandenesse, took a special liking to me. He invited me to go with him to a fundraiser next weekend. It’s sort of a date. So if Michael doesn’t help, Octavius will. Or at least I’ll have a chance to persuade him.” Even if that idea is enough to make my skin crawl. “We’ll save Nina, Mattie, one way or the other.”

  Mattie’s eyes wet with both hope and fear. “I can’t risk Nina becoming a vampire, Angelique, and you already risked your life getting to these people. I wasn’t sure I’ll even get to see you alive tonight, you could have come out of that club in a body bag.”

  I can’t argue with her on that. A chill runs down my spine as I remember the feeling in that VIP lounge, it felt like being cornered by ravenous beasts. Even if the most dangerous of them was mind-blowingly handsome.

  “What we need is a way into the Flipside,” Mattie insists. “That must be our goal, and we have to keep our eyes on it. I can’t risk Nina being stuck in the body of a nine-year-old forever, or de Vandenesse forcing you into things I can see you don’t want.”

  “I accepted Octavius’ invitation, Mattie,” I say in a small voice. “If he can show me a way into the Flipside, I’ll take the chance, no matter what I have to do.” The words alone put a knot in my throat, but the thought of saving Nina makes it bearable.

  Mattie places her hand on my shoulder.

  “Be careful, Angelique. Once you start playing this game you might never be able to get out.”

  “I’m already in this game, Mattie, and I knew what I was getting into from the start. I’d do anything for you and Nina.” I say that from the heart. “Is she already asleep, or can I see her?”

  “She’s asleep, but I’m sure your presence will do her good. It always does.”

  Mattie smiles, and leads the way into the girl’s room. She sits down by her daughter’s side, caressing the child’s hair with a light hand. As for me, all I can do is stand here and watch. Every step I take closer to the girl, a piece of my heart breaks.

  We have to move fast,” Mattie whispers. “Nina doesn’t have much time left.” Her eyes fill with tears as she watches the skeletal girl lying on the bed. Her flaxen hair is spread over the pillow in a mess, thin plastic tubes emerging from her nostrils. The smell is a mix of disease and freshly washed sheets that sends knives through my heart. I walk behind Mattie, and touch her shoulders gently.

  “We’re going to make it, Mattie. We’re going to save her, I promise you that.”

  She rests a hand over mine, still watching her child. “If you succeed, your sacrifice won’t be for nothing, Angelique. There’s an entire world of magic on the Flipside. There are no limits to all the wonders you’ll find in there.”

  I pull a chair behind her and sit down. This is my favorite part of our conversations, the only thing that soothes me.

  “Tell me about it. Tell me about the Flipside.”

  She begins the story I’ve been hearing every night for months now. Actually she first told it to me shortly after we met, about a year ago. She was managing the day-care centre where I got my last temp job. I’d been working temp for a several years already, without much of a chance of getting something stable that could actually pay the bills for living alone, so Mattie’s offer to move in with her came as a blessing.

  Her offer also came with a part-time job, watching Nina, but soon I stopped cashing in on that, and did it out of love instead. Started my vlog on naturist healing, which caught on surprisingly well. Manufacturers contacted me for advertising, but I only worked with those that truly had something to show for themselves.

  I won’t lie, the first time Mattie opened the door to the obscure room where she kept all the yellowed articles about supernaturals, the ancient books, and the first time she showed me the experiments she’d been working on in order to prove the supernatural existed, I thought she was crazy. And when she first told me about the so-called Flipside, the other side of reality where supernaturals dwelt, I kind of freaked out.

  But then she introduced me to her secret circle of friends that studied vampirism, claimed they had proof that shifters existed and that ghosts sometimes roam this Earth. It was one of those friends who pointed us to Michael the Bad, aka The Devil’s Son, who owns half of London’s nightlife. Mattie looked into it more than me, and it was her and this special friend of hers that gave me the fodder that I put into my latest video. The video that reached Octavius de Vandenesse, and which gained me access to his highly exclusive group. And to Michael the Bad.

  Whom I can’t get out of my head now, and not even Mattie’s enticing stories about the Flipside help. Her friend warned me about him. That he’d be unnaturally beautiful, and that he has secret powers that can mess with my senses. But I never expected I’d come to obsess about him.

  Better snap out of it, Angelique Serrano, and you better do it quick. These things are never mutual, and most certainly not with the most desired bad boy of entire London. I’m after Michael the Bad because of what he can do for Nina, the doors he can open, and not because I’m in any way into him. Besides, that crow of a woman with red lipstick, Geneva Daniel, seemed madly poss
essive of him. She glared at me like she could have ripped my head off my shoulders just for drooling over him, which I pray to God wasn’t that obvious that I was doing.

  No, I should forget about Michael the Bad and focus on his adoptive father, Octavius de Vandenesse. He may be the slimiest and most disgusting man I’ve ever met, but I’ve got him in the palm of my hand.

  Michael

  THE SCENT OF ANGELIQUE Serrano’s blood just won’t get out of my system. I’ve been alive for centuries, my body remembers smells and sensations that can never be forgotten for all the terror they caused, but her scent, it awakens entirely new cravings.

  “Anything else you need, Milord?” Virgil asks with his usual calm detachment.

  I just wave my hand, and go on swiping through the girl’s IG pictures as he finishes clearing the blood whores out of my room. He’s a lean, quiet guy that never seems to have an opinion, which is mainly why I chose him as my personal servant. He’s also a vampire with the ability to make things levitate, which is how he gets the sleeping women out of here, a skill that also comes in handy. He does it quietly, smoothly, whisking them like the breeze away from my cliff castle by the sea.

  “Make sure they wake up in their beds, with their bite wounds healed,” I tell him, my eyes not leaving the display of my phone. “Wipe their memory, too.”

  “You’re keeping none of them for seconds?”

  “Not this time. Just put them through the usual drill.”

  “I’ll make sure I’m through by the time Mrs. Daniel returns,” he says, and makes to leave.

  “No.” I stop him. “We’re done sparing Geneva’s feelings. It’s been a year now, she has to accept that we’re over. So take your time, don’t rush things on her account.”

  “As you wish.”

  But just before he gets to close the door, something else slips out of my mouth.

  “And Virgil.”

  “Yes, Milord.”

  “Prepare the car. We’re paying someone a visit.”

  I return my attention to the phone, going through her pictures. Virgil hesitates for a second. I gather he’s surprised that I’m taking a car ride in the middle of the night, when I could be shifting into fog and traveling to London faster than the wind, then drifting to whatever location I wished.

  But Virgil driving me to see Angelique Serrano means that I have to control myself. It implies a measure of accountability that I need, given the circumstances. If it weren’t for the special interest that the Serpent Lord has taken in her, I would just indulge myself, hypnotize her and pierce the enticing olive skin of her throat with my fangs, take her blood. I’d probably fuck her while I do it, too. It’s been a while since my body has felt the need to feed and fuck at the same time, maybe over a century. There’s no doubt I wouldn’t be able to stop until I’ve sucked her dry, but I would give her a soft death, make her feel as high as cocaine. I’d make death really sweet to her, but it would still be final, and there’s still of her videos going viral if she dies. No, I need to keep a cool head, and only having a companion such as Virgil can help with that.

  Hours later, in the middle of the night, I’m staring up at her window. She doesn’t exactly live in a posh area of town, and I find myself scanning the streets for strange guys that might become dangerous to a woman of twenty with juicy curves. There’s sure as fuck no shortage of them.

  Get a grip, Michael, if she survived this neighborhood so far, she’ll survive it from now on.

  But I still can’t stop zeroing in on the guy at the corner slipping little plastic bags in passerbies’ pockets, his eyes darting around from under his hood. A dude with a thick beard and a leather jacket bursting on big muscles stops to talk to him, and I think he glanced a few times at Angelique’s window. Soon I have the same feeling about every guy that sways down the street with a bottle in his hands, or even with their arm around another woman. My muscles tighten and my fangs descend, putting me in fight mode.

  Fuck damn it. The last time I fell in bloodlust with a woman was over a century ago. I’d forgotten the possessive feeling it comes with. Except that my craving for Angelique’s blood is different. As I stare up at her window I fantasize about keeping her for the long term, having her strapped to my bed at the caste on the cliff, at my disposal to feed from and fuck as I please. And that’s not the only thing that’s different. I want her to want me, too.

  The fuck, I’m making myself crazy. I should just back off, let the Serpent Lord have his way with her. I’m ready to tell Virgil to go, but my body just won’t react. My nostrils flare as I instinctively search for her scent.

  The Serpent Lord clearly wants her for himself. He wants to impress her, to explore her, to get under her skin. He’s probably just as hooked on her scent as I am. The Serpent Lord doesn’t feed on people’s blood, but he does assess the chemistry of their bodies by their scent, and Angelique’s is exquisite. Of course he’s intrigued.

  My cock reacts with both jealousy and need. I scan the streets, ready to take just any woman, and think about Angelique as I use her for my pleasure, something I would never do if I were in complete control of my faculties. I spot a crack whore, one for whom my attack could actually be beneficial.

  “Wait here,” I order Virgil, and slip out of the car.

  The corner dealer scans me up and down as I arrange my suit jacket. I’m not wearing a shirt, which tends to draw attention, especially when you’re well over six feet tall, and your deceivingly beautiful face stands out like a sore thumb.

  I walk over to the crack whore as she leans against the wall by the dump she just came out of, taking a bottle of liquor to her mouth. My shiny black shoes click against the wet pavement, my hands shoved into my pockets. I stop in front of the woman, ignoring the dealer measuring me up and down, and smile when she lifts her eyes to my face, make-up smeared all over hers.

  Her breath stops for a moment, and she tries to balance herself on her feet, pushing a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear.

  “Anything I can do for you, handsome?” she croaks, struggling to focus her eyes.

  The dealer and his friends gather behind me, one of them swinging a bat in his hand. I can hear the door of my Rolls Royce click shut as Virgil closes it, ready to intervene at my signal. It’s not like me to fight street thugs, they’re crumbs that I usually leave to him, but the idea that these men lay their lecherous eyes on Angelique every day is doing nasty things with my instincts.

  “Actually there is,” I reply to the woman, my voice luring, hypnotic. “Been living in this neighborhood for long?”

  “A few good years, hunk.”

  “Then you know Angelique Serrano?”

  She scoffs. “Everybody does.”

  I give her a seductive, but dangerous smile. “Let’s go to a nice a place for a drink. There you can tell me all about her, and get richly rewarded for it.”

  CHAPTER II

  Angelique

  I whip around, squinting down the dark alleyway behind me. For days I haven’t been able to shake off this feeling that I’m being watched, followed. Even when I think about my plans with Octavius de Vandenesse, the absurd sensation that someone might be reading my mind yanks me out of those plans.

  I shake my head and keep going, but the entire neighborhood feels different. Even though I pass by the same faces, the same hookers and pimps, the same dealers with their foxy gazes, the same street vendors packing up to go home, tonight it feels like someone else is watching me through their eyes.

  When I finally close the door to my studio I breathe out in relief. I throw my bag on the couch, drop into my IKEA chair, and open the lid of my laptop. I prepare for recording, set the mike, and make to get up and set the kettle, but a voice stops me mid-motion.

  “If you agree to work exclusively for me, I’ll pay you twice as much as all your other sponsors.”

  Jesus Christ! It’s Michael the Bad. I would recognize that voice anywhere.

  I freeze in place, shocked. He emerges fr
om the shadow, hands in his pockets.

  I swallow hard, Fuck me on repeat in my head. There he is, with those green eyes that pierce the half-shade, that sensual smile on his lips, those irresistible dimples and the perfectly sharp jaw with the dent in his chin. The man is so attractive that my pulse quickens. He’s wearing a fitted dark suit that makes him look like some kind of sleek city panther, a predator that would survive just as well in the jungle as he would in the wild underworld of London.

  “You could rule the world from anywhere, couldn’t you?” I whisper, barely aware that I’ve spoken that out loud.

  “Where did that come from?” he says in a low voice that makes my eyes feel heavy. Don’t tell me it’s true that vampires can hypnotize their victims. I can’t even think anymore.

  He keeps that smug grin on his face as he forces me back against the wall. This place was once a huge loft in an old factory building, but the spaces have been compartmented in such a way that the size of the average office here resembles a fucking matchbox, so there aren’t many options for me to run to. The office has a minuscule kitchenette, and the toilette is outside, on the landing, which means I have to share it with the next-door neighbors, but that’s not the only reason it wouldn’t exactly make a good hideout either.

  “How did you know where to find me?” I manage.

  “You’re one of Britain’s best known influencers. You’re not hard to find.”

  “I keep my office address secret.” And Mattie would have never disclosed it, but I won’t mention her even under murder threats. I can’t risk him tracing her as one of my sources.

  “Yes, well, I run most of the Londoner nightlife. When I want information, I get information.”

  I’m compelled to stare up into his eyes, even though everything inside me screams for me to look away. The man smells of expensive cologne, virility and danger, sending a cocktail of chemical reactions all through my body. The kind of chemical reactions that make me want to rip his clothes off.