Pretty When She Dies (Pretty When She Dies #1)(76)

Santos looked stunned as the floor of the room kept heaving and buckling.

“Shit!” Etzli exclaimed. “It's all the bodies you buried under the house!”

“Whoa,” Amaliya said in awe as the first dead bodies appeared, struggling to escape their graves.

Cian stared in amazement as the mummified corpse of a woman struggled out of the ground at his feet. He sidestepped her as she stumbled forward and another corpse rose up behind her.

Etzli screamed as several lurched toward her. But most of the dead struggling out of the ground under the house were moving toward Santos. A few beat against the door to the patio trying to escape and get to the vampires partying outside. They were in various degrees of decay and some were nothing more than bone.

Santos recovered his shock and dove for a decorative sword on the wall. As the dead moved toward him with their hands raised to grab hold of him and pull him down into their grave with them, he began to slash at them.

Cian quickly leaped upward and landed on the ceiling. Crawling quickly over to the shocked Amaliya, he began to work on the rope binding her to the chandelier. She slowly looked up at him, her eyes glowing white.



“Wow,” she whispered, staring at him as he moved about on the ceiling.

He held onto her as the knot came free and swung her up next to him.

He held her close as he pulled out a switchblade and began to cut through her bindings.

Santos was now sliding up the wall, slashing downward as the dead drew blood from his flesh, trying to tear him limb from limb. They were eerily silent as they reached for him.

Somewhere outside, several men and women began to scream as the dead attacked them, seeking vengeance.

Cian finally got the plastic cuffs off Amaliya and pulled her along behind him. None of the dead seemed interested in them. The corpses filled the room below them with their rotting flesh. Etzli continued to scream and leaped up onto the chandelier where Amaliya had hung.

The two vampires from Austin slithered along the tops of the walls and made their way out of the house as it filled with the dead. As they crawled upside down, they saw a few of Santos' women curled up in the corners of the ceiling, trying to evade their resurrected victims below them.

Though Cian knew the vampires could probably tear the corpses apart with their bare hands, there was something inherently terrifying about the raised dead. Even he felt it. A vampire felt pain and could be stopped. These things seemed immune to pain and even as some of them were ripped apart by the struggling vampires trying to escape them, the dead continued their assault with silent determination.

The front door was open and Cian pulled his body through, then reached back to help Amaliya out. Together, they leaped to the ground and ran to Cian's car. The dead did not even acknowledge their presence.

“Why aren't they attacking us?”

“It was your curse. You told them to attack the ones who killed them,”

Cian answered, unlocking the car.

“Oh,” Amaliya seemed unaware of her glowing white eyes. “Oh, yeah.

I said that.”

“Get in the car. We should be more worried about Santos than the dead.”

She wrenched the door open and crawled in. “But my bag,” she cried out. “They took it.”

“I'll buy you new things,” Cian assured her and slammed his door shut. He quickly turned on the car and began to back up.

Santos erupted from the house, slashing at the dead creatures that relentlessly pursued him.

“Think you could call them off? We've scared him shitless. He will respect us and our territory even more now.” Cian was grinning with satisfaction as the Master of San Antonio looked after the car with desperate fear.

“I can try.” Amaliya rolled down the window. “Hey! Hey! Dead guys!”

The dead stopped their assault and turned as one.

Cian felt his skin crawl at the sight.

“Go back to the earth and rest,” she ordered waving her hand at them.

Instantly, the dead began to sink back into the ground.

“It worked,” Amaliya whispered. “I can do it.”



Santos fell to his knees in shock and stared at Amaliya in terror.

Cian gave the man a curt nod, then he turned the car around. It sped down through the gates and away from the great house.





Chapter Nineteen


Amaliya waited until they were on the highway before slugging Cian as hard as she could. The Mercedes veered sharply to the left.

Luckily, a car wasn't traveling in that lane.

“What the hell was that for?” Cian demanded.

“Dumping my ass here in San Antonio! What the hell was that all about?” She was furious. The pain in her face and chest were a throbbing reminder of Santos' lack of hospitality.

“I did not do that,” Cian said to her sharply. “You should know that!”

“You wanted me gone so you could marry Samantha! You told me that yourself! You could have just told me to get the hell out of Austin and I would have!” she screamed at him.

“Did you just miss the fact I rescued you?”

“It was more like I rescued myself and you just happened to be there,”

she huffed, and restrained herself from slugging him again.

“Well, I came to rescue you,” he said with a growl in his voice.