Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) Read Online Free Page A

and leaned close. “With you, there are certain things I can do to take your mind off the process. Fluid is fluid, after all. With your grandmother, however, I’m going to keep it as straightforward as possible.” He gave me a meaningful look and handed me his top hat, then, on second thought, stripped to the waist.
    “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Nana murmured as she nursed the glass of red wine Criminy had given her to further lower her inhibitions.
    With more awkwardness and less predation than I’d ever seen him exhibit, Criminy pulled off his boots and crawled to my drunk grandmother’s side in his black breeches and argyle socks. “Now, Nana,” he said, “you must understand that there’s a fair amount of give-and-take here. It may hurt a little bit.”
    “Everything’s hurt me for ten years past, boy,” she said, eyeing him.
    “And although my general practice is to follow a lady’s wishes, I will not stop once I start, no matter what you say or how you push me away. To do so would ensure your almost immediate demise. Do you understand?”
    Nana tossed back the last of the wine and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Talky feller, ain’t he? I would’ve figured you for a man of action, Mr. Bill. Now, let’s get this over with.”
    Criminy looked at me and smothered a grin. “Reminds me a little of you on your first day here, love. All business.”
    “As a famous man once said, get busy living or get busy dying,” I muttered.
    “Mm-hmm. Morgan Freeman,” Nana said, all dreamy, settling back and crossing her arms. “Do you think he’s God in this world, too?”
    I pulled up a chair before my legs gave out. This process had terrified me ever since the future had revealed that I would one day be a Bludman, too. Discovering I was a glancer had turned out to be a boon in many ways, considering that whenever I touched someone’s skin for the first time, I was afforded a vision of their destiny. It certainly helped me earn my keep in the caravan. Glancers weren’t supposed to see themselves in the future, and yet, touching Criminy all that time ago, my hand flat on his chest, I had.
    It wasn’t even the pain of bludding so much that worried me. As he’d heard but supposedly never experienced, adding a little sex to the mix made the whole thing more enjoyable for both parties. No, what really bothered me was giving up my humanity, the core of who I was.
    Back on Earth, I was a hospice nurse, providing comfort and strength when people needed it most. Here in Sang, a world with no germs, I was a ringmaster’s kept wife with a gift for fortune-telling. As much as I loved Criminy and wouldn’t go back to Earth permanently even if I could, becoming a Bludman meant I stood to lose my home world and the very root of my being. Instead of helping people, I would have no choice but to take from them—even if they gave the blood willingly.
    I had always been fiercely proud and self-reliant, especially after I’d left Jeff and his suffocating ways. Nursing was my calling. And Sang had no use for nurses. With Nana in this world and on her way to being nearly indestructible, there was no logical reason to remain human. Nothing to stand in my way of dropping the twenty years of unnecessary aging the witch had gifted me in exchange for the potion I’d just used. Nothing to stop me from learning to laugh as recklessly as my husband. I couldn’t even have children, thanks to a dangerous miscarriage years before on Earth. All I had to take care of was Crim, and he could take care of himself perfectly well and laugh his way through any challenge. I’d have to find a new and satisfying way to be truly useful.
    But he wasn’t laughing now—he looked like a bull in a china shop. Carefully, kindly, he leaned over Nana, trying not to touch her fragile bones, probably because I’d told him often enough how easily she bruised these days, how paper-thin her skin had grown. A small flare of