Home > How to Kiss an Undead Bride (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #7)(2)

How to Kiss an Undead Bride (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #7)(2)
Author: Hailey Edwards

Heart palpitations, here I come. Who knew weddings cost so much?

“Eleven is an odd number,” Lethe protested on her way to pour herself a glass of milk. “I say twelve baby cakes.”

I wished I could reach her with my foot to kick her in the shin. “That would give us thirteen, still odd.”

“Thirteen is lucky.” The milk in her glass half gone, she brought the carton back with her. “Trust me.”

“How about this?” I slid off my stool. “You two iron out the details. As long as the big cake and the bride cake are as requested, because I am not sharing my peanut butter cake, Lethe, I won’t nitpick the rest.”

“Vroom?” Keet cocked his head, twitching his feathers. “Vroom?”

“Come on, Keetimus Prime.” I offered him my finger, and he hopped on. “I’ll put you up so you can digest.”

“He prefers Keetatron, thank you.” Lethe wiped off her milk mustache with her thumb. “Do you feel better now that you’ve yelled at me?”

“A little.” I rubbed over Keet’s ear holes. “Ranting helped.”

“You can’t let this wedding stuff stress you out.” Lethe claimed my stool, right in front of my picked-over plate. “Let me be all matron-of-honorly. You go relax and think happy bridal thoughts.”

Any happy bridal thoughts made relaxing impossible this close to The Big Day.

The front door opened as I rounded the corner, and Neely bustled in cradling a black silk garment bag that dragged four or five feet behind him. Cruz followed, wheeling a steamer his husband had convinced me to buy, not just for the wedding, but all the events that came after.

Ugh.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He shook the bag at me. “Guess what’s in here?”

“My dress?”

“You said that with as much enthusiasm as Cruz shows dinner theater.”

“Oh. My. Goddess.” I gasped and fluttered my free hand at my throat. “Is that my dress?”

“Ingrate,” he huffed. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“I gave you a black card for fashion emergencies, and I let you pretend I’m a life-size Barbie doll?”

“All right, sassafras.” He looked me up and down. “Keep up the attitude, and see where it gets you.”

Living up to my maturity level, I stuck my tongue out at him. Keet, who had been known to join in, drooped on my shoulder, too full to squeeze out a single boop.

Neely shot out his arm, and for a split second I was convinced he was making a grab for my tongue, but he pinched my side instead. He got maybe a quarter inch of skin that desperately wanted to be a love handle when it grew up. “How do you keep losing weight the way you eat?”

Explaining to him how Linus and I were experimenting with how much of his blood was required to keep me running optimally was personal. The potentate gig had thrown me all out of whack. The bond I shared with the city burned more than psychic energy, but we hadn’t figured out the right balance yet. Good thing Linus was a pro at blending strawberry smoothies heavy on the Vitamin L.

“I’ll eat an extra churro before, during, and after each meal until The Big Day.” I crossed my heart with a fingertip then secured a dozing Keetatron in his cage. “Promise.”

“See that you do.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t want to call Javier back for another round of alterations.”

Javier was a fantastic tailor. He was also a fangtastic tailor. Newly turned, he had trouble when he pricked me and my retinue while pinning us. He kept popping dental erections, which made everyone uncomfortable no matter how apologetic Javier was after slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Lethe and I had the final, final cake tasting today, and we’re doing the final, final, final tasting for the menu in two days.”

Seven days until Linus Lawson became Linus Woolworth.

Seven teeny, tiny days, and my happily-ever-after could begin.

I could hardly wait.

“I know that look.” Neely spoke to me but fluttered his lashes at Cruz. “Daydreaming about your man?”

Slow heat spread in a prickling wash across my cheeks. “No?”

“What would you say if I told you that your dress wasn’t the only thing the tailor had waiting for me?” A mischievous smile crinkled his eyes. “What if I told you I sent Linus upstairs not five minutes ago with his tux?”

Squirming in place, I fought against the temptation. “Isn’t it bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding?”

Neely shot me a saucy wink. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Two

Woolly, as it turned out, was a bit of a traditionalist. Each step I took up the stairs creaked to the point I worried about boards snapping, even ones that hadn’t squeaked since I moved in as a child. She was tattling on me, and I had had about enough. “Stop it.”

The old house slanted her steps in a way that promised to send me slipping down them like I was running up a freaking kiddie slide at the park.

“I give up.” I took one cautious step back. “I won’t spy on Linus. Happy?”

The stairs realigned themselves, the light above me brightening with the glow of her approval.

Much to my delight, the commotion lured the groom-to-be out onto the landing.

Linus had secured his dark-auburn hair at his nape, and the black frames of his glasses turned his navy eyes a richer blue. He wore a fitted tee that all but concealed the ink covering his chest tucked into black tuxedo pants that did amazing things for his butt and made me want to run my hands over…the fabric.

Yeah.

The fabric.

A tiny smile perched on his mouth when he caught me ogling him. “What’s going on out here?”

“I heard a rumor you were half-naked and came to investigate.”

“I’m trying on my tux.” He gestured down his pants, which were zipped but not buttoned. “For the wedding.”

Zipped.

But not buttoned.

“Hmm?”

“Grier,” he said dryly. “My eyes are up here.”

“Darn stairs.” I tilted my head back, forcing my gaze higher. “I can’t help they put me at crotch height with you.”

The wood groaned beneath me at the weak joke, but it was Woolly’s fault I had missed the show. He probably zipped those pants before coming to investigate. A few seconds earlier, and I might have gotten lucky.

Literally.

“Tradition states the bride can’t see the groom before the wedding.”

I whipped out my best pout, the one that had let me get away with murder as a kid. “Not you too?”

Linus, who had known me since I was six, was resistant to my charms. “You don’t care about tradition?”

Slowly, I dragged my teeth over my bottom lip. “I care more about half-dressed grooms.”

For two years, he was a part-time fiancé. There was no helping it, and I didn’t hold his absences against him, but it was hard having Linus split his time between Savannah and Atlanta while he trained their respective potentates. We came out stronger on the other side of it, but I never wanted to do it again.

I was ready to start living a life where the longest we had to be apart were the four hours we spent at our respective jobs each night before we hit the streets to patrol. And even then, his tattoo studio—The Mad Tatter Too—occupied the top floor of the building he bought me for my ghost tour business on Abercorn Street.

A low moan came from Linus’s old room, and Cletus drifted to hover between us, obscuring my view.

“Not you too?” I curled the end of his tattered cloak around my finger. “Since when is it a crime to want to see your fiancé naked?”

Tempted to fib about checking on Oscar to slip past Cletus, I surrendered before trying my luck. Cletus kept tabs on all of us. He would have noticed the ghost boy had gone wherever it was ghost boys went to recharge. Oscar had big plans, secret manly plans I was too girly to know, and he wanted to have a full battery when Corbin arrived for the wedding.

Goddess help us all.

“We showered together at dusk,” Linus reminded me. “And then an hour ago—”

“Hey.” I huffed the bangs out of my eyes. “I can’t help if your clothes fell off halfway to the carriage house.”

Until we tied the knot, if anyone asked, he was living there. Though we used it for storage these days.

Tucking his chin, he cleared his throat. “The garden is lovely this time of year.”

“Isn’t it just?” I put my weight on a stair one step higher, but Cletus kept up the buffer act. “Spoilsport.”

Backing down the way I had come, I snickered as Cletus ushered Linus back into his old room to finish his solo dress rehearsal. At least I wasn’t the only one getting bullied around here.

I was trudging toward Neely’s office to report my failure when I heard the thud, and then…a moan.

The old house lit up in a panic, and I sprinted for the kitchen, skidding through the doorway in my socks.

“I don’t know what happened.” Leslie clutched her tablet to her chest, her eyes wide and her fingers trembling. “She was sampling Jordan almonds, and she…”

“Did she choke?” I hit my knees beside my unconscious friend. “Lethe? Can you hear me?” I checked her pulse. “Lethe.”

“S-s-she didn’t make a sound,” Leslie stammered. “She couldn’t have choked. She couldn’t have.”

Woolly brought Linus racing down the stairs, and he nudged me aside to examine her. “Call the doctor.”

Doctor? What doctor? No one treated gwyllgi except for…

Oh.

The pack’s healer. That’s who he meant. He was speaking in code because of the human gawking at us, and I was losing my cool because the off-white buttercream on Lethe’s mouth was darker than her skin.

“Okay.” I botched the number on the first try, got it on the second, then waited for Jaya to answer. “Lethe’s down.” Buzzing filled my ears until all I could hear was my best friend’s labored breathing. “I don’t know, I…” I lost my patience. “Just get over here.”

   
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