Dead Over Heels Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Undead and Wed: A Honeymoon Story

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Survivors

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Speed Dating, Werewolf Style - Or, Ow, I Think You Broke the Bone

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Teaser chapter

  More Praise for MaryJanice Davidson and Her Novels

  “Delightful, wicked fun . . . Erotically passionate!”

  —Christine Feehan

  “Entertaining, wicked, and delightful.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A must-read for fans who appreciate a humorous out-of-this-world tale . . . fast-paced and filled with zingers.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “One of the funniest books I have ever read! MaryJanice Davidson has once again brought to life an independent, wisecracking heroine . . . The story is fast-paced, the sex is hot, and the humor outrageous! I highly recommend this story to everyone.”

  —Paranormal Romance Reviews

  “Classic MaryJanice Davidson, in that it had me laughing throughout the book. It is one of the most original story ideas I have read in a long time also . . . [and] has the steamy love scenes that Ms. Davidson is known for . . . awesome.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “[A] wickedly clever and amusing romp. Davidson’s witty dialogue, fast pacing, smart plotting, laugh-out-loud humor, and sexy relationships make this a joy to read.”

  —Booklist

  “A hilarious romp full of goofy twists and turns, great fun for fans of humorous vampire romance.”

  —Locus

  “A bawdy, laugh-out-loud treat!”

  —BookPage

  “Smart, sarcastic, frequently profane, and maniacally inventive.”

  —The Fort Myers (FL) News-Press

  “[A] hilarious, outrageous romp that . . . has more than one unexpected twist.”

  —Library Journal

  Titles by MaryJanice Davidson

  UNDEAD AND UNWED

  UNDEAD AND UNEMPLOYED

  UNDEAD AND UNAPPRECIATED

  UNDEAD AND UNRETURNABLE

  UNDEAD AND UNPOPULAR

  UNDEAD AND UNEASY

  DERIK’S BANE

  DEAD AND LOVING IT

  SLEEPING WITH THE fiSHES

  SWIMMING WITHOUT A NET

  DEAD OVER HEELS

  CRAVINGS

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Rebecca York, Eileen Wilks)

  BITE

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris,

  Angela Knight, Vickie Taylor)

  MYSTERIA

  (with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)

  DEMON’S DELIGHT

  (with Emma Holly, Vickie Taylor, Catherine Spangler)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2008 by MaryJanice Alongi

  Excerpt from Undead and Unworthy copyright © 2008 by MaryJanice Alongi

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY SENSATION is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Davidson, MaryJanice.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-63092-7

  1. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.A949D436 2008

  813’.6—dc22 2007046407

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This anthology is dedicated to the victims of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis. My cousin missed it by an hour, for which I give thanks every day. And my heart breaks for those who did not.

  This will be the third time I’ve had to rewrite a novella /novel due to current events. One of my heroines was stabbed by a manta ray (as was the late Steve Irwin), and originally Betsy and Sinclair were going to spend their honeymoon stopping a nasty-bad vampire from blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge (the third is too embarrassing to get into, so I’ll save that for another time).

  I’m either getting psychic in my old age, or there’s nothing new under the sun. Either way, my editor has to pay the price (“Hi, yeah, I have to completely rewrite the last hundred pages of the novella you’re waiting for so it’s going to be late—don’t hang up!”) and has never said so much as a bad word to me, no matter how often I must rewrite history, or how late the manuscript is as a result.

  During one of our P.R. meetings, my rep asked after the Brooklyn Bridge story. “Well, I can’t do it now,” was my reply. “And it’s a real shame I have to rewrite . . . an
d not just from a personal standpoint.”

  “Creepy,” was my friend Jessica’s comment, and I couldn’t demur.

  So this book is for her, too. Many thanks, Cindy Hwang. And many thanks to those employees at Berkley whose lives were made more difficult because I’m apparently seeing the future in my old age.

  Undead and Wed: A Honeymoon Story

  No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it . . . the honeymoon would be as short as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON

  I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage. I want progress, and I want problem solving which requires my best efforts and also your best efforts.

  —GERALD FORD

  Too fucking busy, and vice versa.

  —DOROTHY PARKER,

  in response to her editor’s request

  for work on her honeymoon

  Author’s Note

  The events of this novella take place a week after the events in Undead and Uneasy.

  Prologue

  The king and queen are coming to New York.”

  The vampire, an ancient creature even by the standards of the undead, smiled. “Don’t tease, Robert. It’s so unkind.”

  “I’m not teasing, my dear one. They’re coming.

  They’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”

  “What fun!”

  Although he had made this vampire, as he had made many others, he was a little afraid of it. “Or, we could leave town.”

  “Leave? This is our territory!”

  “Yes, and since they took power, no one has been able to stand against The One and Sinclair.”

  “The One,” the vampire scoffed. “Barely—what? Two years old? I don’t believe she even exists.”

  “She killed Nostro,” he said quietly. “And Marjorie.”

  “They were sloppy and complacent.”

  And we aren’t? he thought but did not say.

  “Someone killed them, but I’ll believe in this The One nonsense when I actually see her. No, it’s too too good. If I believed in such things I would say it’s meant to be. The king! Coming here! Of all the places he could have chosen, he’s coming here. Oh, I can’t wait!” The creature frowned. “Robert, you don’t seem terribly enthused.”

  Terribly terrified was more like it, but he had no intention of admitting that. Instead, he sighed soundlessly, without breath. “So I take it we aren’t leaving town?”

  Siamese blue eyes narrowed at him. “I will, of course, do as my sire commands.”

  But that was a lie. He wasn’t in charge here, and they both knew it.

  “Then we stay,” he said, surrendering. And the thing he had made chortled and bounced and giggled, and he smiled at it, and hated it, but he loved it, too.

  Because he had made it, all those years ago when there were more horses in Manhattan than automobiles.

  Chapter 1

  I was so excited to land at the airport in New York City (La Guardia or the other one . . . I wasn’t paying attention to the pilot’s intercom ramblings) that I didn’t even bother with the stairs leading from the private plane to the ground. I just jumped, putting one hand on the railing and vaulting over, my black Gucci pumps dangling from my first two fingers. Didn’t even feel the shock in my knees when I hit.

  This was not a trick I could have pulled off while I was alive.

  At the head of the stairs, my husband (husband! bridegroom! Yessssss!), Sinclair, king of the vampires, shook out the Wall Street Journal, folded it, and scowled down at me.

  “How completely indiscreet, Elizabeth.”

  “Aw, Cooper doesn’t care.”

  “Didn’t see a thing, mum,” Cooper assured me in his adorable Irish accent. He wasn’t our pilot, and this wasn’t our plane. It was my best friend, Jessica’s. She’d lent it to us for our honeymoon, told us we could go wherever we wanted. Cooper had worked for Jessica for ten years and, as they say, knew where all the bodies were buried. “An’ by the way, glad to see you’re not dead. That was a nasty business a couple of springs back.”

  “Horrible practical joke,” I said, referring to my firing, death, thirtieth birthday, and return from the grave as the long-foretold vampire queen. The people who didn’t know I was a vampire either never knew I’d been killed, or thought it was a nasty trick thought up by my (late) evil stepmother. My friends and I did absolutely nothing to disabuse them of their silly-ass notions. “Really really bad taste. But it all worked out in the end.”

  “Yes indeed, mum,” Cooper said, his blue eyes twinkling. Before Sinclair, I’d been a real sucker for Black Irish . . . that thick dark hair . . . those big blue eyes . . . umm . . .

  Meanwhile, Sinclair (who wasn’t Irish . . . in fact, I had no idea what he was) was gliding down the steps like a beauty queen (all he lacked was the tiara and bouquet of roses . . . and the tearful wave), when I knew perfectly well he could step off the IDS Tower and not even rumple his tie.

  “Try to contain yourself,” he sighed, moving past me toward the waiting limo.

  “But it’s New York City! And we’re married! And we’re in New York!” I, the country mouse, ran after him in my bare feet. I was wearing a sky blue shirt dress, no stockings. Oh, and my wedding ring! Not to mention my non-cursed engagement ring. But that was a whole other story. “Don’t you think it’s going to be a blast?”

  He muttered something that I, even with my super vampire hearing, couldn’t catch. Probably just as well. Behind us, Cooper was calling, “See you in a week, mum! Sir!”

  I flapped a wave over one shoulder and practically dived into the limo (fortunately, the door was being held open by the driver, a tall, lean, gorgeous black guy with cheekbones you could cut yourself on and the most amazing green eyes). Sinclair got in on the other side and shook out his paper once again.

  “The Grange Hotel?” the driver asked.

  “Yes,” Sinclair replied absently as his pants made the dreaded chirrup. He fished out his cell phone, flipped it open, and blinked at the screen.

  I sank back against the luxurious leather seats, halfway to full pout. “Don’t even tell me. Tina called again.”

  “No matter where I am in the world,” he reminded me mildly, “I still have business to attend to. And so do you.”

  “Dude! It’s our honeymoon, all right? If that thing beeps in your pants one more time, I’m going to eat it, understand? Now shut the fucking phone, toss the fucking paper, and bask in our mutual love and joy, dammit!”

  “I’m not sure bask is the verb I’d choose,” he replied, but at least he put the phone away.

  “Nice of Jess to arrange a limo,” I commented, relieved to finally get a fraction of his attention. We’d been married for three whole days and I still couldn’t believe it had really happened. Of course, according to my bridegroom, we’d been married since the first time we’d had sex. Don’t even get me started. “It’s not like her to throw her money around. And the plane! You believe she let us have her plane?”

  “Point.” Sinclair frowned. With his dark good looks, dark suit, broad shoulders, and strong jaw, he looked formidable anyway; when he wasn’t smiling it was almost frightening. “She’s the least pretentious billionaire I’ve ever known.”

  “Well, it’s her dad’s money.”

  He gave me a long look and I nearly drowned in those dark dark eyes. “Correction. He’s dead. It’s her money.”

  “Hwhuh?”

  “It’s. Her. Money,” he repeated, well used to me being a little slow to pick up on current events.

  I licked my lips. Jessica’s dad was a touchy subject. Fucking incestuous greedy arrogant asshole; if he was alive, I’d kill him. Seriously. And I am not a girl who kills lightly, as anyone who knows me will totally understand.

  “I mean, she doesn’t consider it hers. It’s not like she earned it. Hey, I’m not putting her down, but that’s the way it is: she
didn’t earn any of it. That’s why she doesn’t throw it around, and that’s why she has a day job.”

  Sinclair just looked at me. He knew me well enough to know when I wasn’t coughing up the whole story. But in this case, it was just a theory. And the theory was, because Jessica had so recently (like, last week) recovered from terminal cancer, she was giddily celebrating life. (In all modesty, I must say that I cured her cancer. Yep. It’s true. But that’s a whole other story. Yay, me!)

  “Including throwing planes and limos our way,” I continued. “God knows what is going on in the mansion back home in St. Paul while we’re away.”

  Never mind. I didn’t want to know. I’d landed Sinclair—officially landed him, with paperwork and everything—and that was that. It was all I’d ever wanted, once I got over hating him and decided he was the vampire for me.

  Sinclair, bless his cold, dead heart, tossed the newspaper on the floor and moved over until he was sitting beside me. He gave me a long, sweet kiss and cuddled me into his side. “Now, Mrs. Sinclair—”

  “I told you, I didn’t take your name!”

  “—what would you like to do first?”

  “I want to check into the hotel and have nasty kinky sex. Oh, and then go see a Broadway show.”

  “Odd,” my husband commented. “I’ve never been alternately intrigued and terrified at the same time.”

  “Shut up. There’s lots of good ones.”

  We discussed the pros and cons of live theater all the way to the hotel. I’d only seen high school stuff, and the plays at Chanhassen. And although those were pretty good, ergo Broadway would kick ass.