Destined for an Early Grave Read Online Free PDF

That I was even more fucked up than previously believed. Having a month of my life forcibly removed regarding a stranger I might or might not have married? Hell, where did I start?
    “I wish people would just leave us alone,” I said. “You remember when it was just the two of us in a big dark cave? Who knew that would be the most uncomplicated time of our lives?”

F OUR

    B ARON C HARLES D E M ORTIMER, WHO RENAMED himself Spade so he’d never forget how he’d once been a penal colony prisoner addressed only by the tool he’d been assigned, had an amazing home. His house was a sweeping estate with immaculate lawns and high perimeter hedges. With its eighteenth-century-style architecture, it looked like it was built while Spade had been human. Inside, there were long, grand hallways. Ornate woodwork along the walls. Painted ceilings. Crystal chandeliers. Handwoven tapestries and antique furnishings. A fireplace you could hold a meeting in.
    “Where’s the queen?” I muttered irreverently after a doorman had let us in.
    “Not your taste, luv?” Bones asked with a knowing look.
    Not nearly. I’d been brought up in rural Ohio, where my Sunday best would have been a dishrag in comparison to the fabric on the settee we just passed. “Everything is so perfect. I’d feel like I was desecrating something if I sat on it.”
    “Then perhaps I should rethink your bedchamber, see if we have something more comfortable in the stables,” a voice teased.
    Spade appeared, his dark, spiky hair tousled as if he’d recently been in bed.
    Open mouth, insert foot. “Your home is lovely ,” I said. “Don’t mind me. I’ll get manners when pigs fly.”
    Spade hugged Bones and Mencheres in welcome before taking my hand and, oddly, kissing it. He wasn’t usually that formal.
    “Pigs don’t fly.” His mouth quirked. “Though I’ve been informed that you found wings earlier tonight.”
    The way he said it made me self-conscious. “I didn’t fly. I just jumped really high. I don’t even know how I did it.”
    Bones gave me a look I couldn’t read. Spade opened his mouth to say something, but Mencheres held up his hand.
    “Not now.”
    Spade clapped Bones on the back. “Quite right. It’s nearly dawn. I’ll show you to your room. You’re pale, Crispin, so I’m sending someone up for you.”
    “If I’m pale, it has little to do with lack of blood,” Bones said in a bleak tone. “When I came to, she’d drained most of her blood into me. If Mencheres hadn’t arrived with those plasma bags, she might have changed over before she was ready.”
    We followed Spade up the stairs. “Hers isn’t just human blood, as has been more than evidenced, so I’m still sending someone up.”
    “I have other things on my mind than feeding.”
    Spade hadn’t heard yet about the cherry on the sundae of our evening. He only knew about the ghoul attack.
    The door opened into a spacious bedroom with period pieces of furniture, a canopied bed Cinderella might have slept in, after the Prince carried her away, of course, and another large fireplace. A glance at the wall enclosing the bathroom showed it was made entirely of hand-painted stained glass. Once again I was struck with unease about touching anything. Even the silk-stitched blankets on the bed looked too beautiful to sleep under.
    Bones had none of my qualms. He threw off his jacket to reveal the bullet-riddled shirt and pants he still wore, kicked off his shoes, and flopped into a nearby chair.
    “You look like a piece of Swiss cheese,” Spade commented.
    “I’m knackered, yet you need to be informed of something.”
    Spade cocked his head. “What?”
    In a few brief, succinct sentences, Bones outlined the revelation of those lost weeks when I was sixteen…and Gregor’s claims that I was his wife, not Bones’s.
    Spade didn’t say anything for a minute. His brows drew together until, finally, he let out a low hiss.
    “Blimey, Crispin.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    I