A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

Chapter One

Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly the event of the season, and their daughter had been successfully launched into society.

Unfortunately, the noise, the heat, and the crowd combined with Charlotte’s pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.

“I’m sorry.” The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.

Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at her fiancé. “John! I thought you were dead!”

John dropped the woman in his arms and rushed to Charlotte. “You’re okay?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then why did you think I was dead?”

“I was being sarcastic! I haven’t seen you all night. You didn’t even join me for the toast. After our fight in the car, I assumed you wanted some space. I don’t know why you can’t agree to allow a priest to marry us.”

“Charlotte, I’m a scientist, I don’t believe in—ah, forget the argument. Don’t you realize what’s going on?”

“Besides me finding you in some woman’s arms? Really, John?”

“Forget her, too,” John said, indicating the woman draped over the balcony railing like a doll dropped on her stomach. “They’re here,” he said ominously.

He glanced over the balcony and Charlotte followed his gaze. On the rose-laden grounds below, a scatter of party-goers screamed and fled from the motley gang of lumbering zombies pursuing them.

“No,” Charlotte gasped. “The zombies—the ones you’ve been studying—are here?”

“Not the ones I’ve studied, in particular. Probably from some other nest.”

News stations had been reporting contained patches of zombies springing up across the state ever since terrorists had unleashed a strange virus during a local fair’s pie-eating contest. John’s research lab had been granted access to a couple of the captured monsters, and he said he’d been making great strides in finding a way to manage the “condition,” as he called it.

“It’s going to be okay, Charlotte.”

“Okay? Oh, I hate your research!”

“Disease control is necessary research, Charlotte. My work saves lives.”

“I know, but— How can you talk about “controlling” them? They’re zombies! They eat people’s brains!”

He kissed her forehead then nuzzled against her hair, a sensual touch that always sent shivers up her spine. “I won’t let anyone touch your beautiful brains.”

Charlotte clung to John’s tall, muscled body. Despite the fact his research had taken a strange turn of late, she loved this man. She wanted to marry him. Even if they had argued all the way to the party about it. They’d both agreed on a small ceremony, but Charlotte insisted they should have a Catholic priest officiate the marriage, while John—being a scientist—preferred no religion be involved.

But right now the argument didn’t matter, as the screams from below were making her heart pound like bongos.

“Don’t look.” John’s deep brown eyes found hers. “I will protect you.”

Charlotte locked her gaze with John’s. Never had she seen her geek of a fiancé act so manly. Normally he had his eyes glued to a computer report or on a petri dish. This powerful, determined side of him stirred a wanting in her she’d never experienced. For the first time, she regretted their agreement to wait until after they were married to have sex. “Promise?”

“I’d die for you, Charlotte.”

“Don’t say that! Oh, John, don’t let them get us. Not before we’re married. Not before we’ve…”

He smirked. “You think I’m going to let a zombie chew on me before I’ve had a chance to make love to the most beautiful girl in the world?”

Basking in his adoration, Charlotte blushed. “Aww—”

Just then she saw John swing a wrought-iron patio chair straight toward her. She screamed and ducked. Behind her, a zombie’s head went flying off its neck as the wrought iron easily cut through its decaying flesh and bone.

John helped her to stand and wiped a chunk of zombie from the shoulder of her pink satin evening gown. “Close one. This must be an older nest of zombies—the older ones are not as durable. That could prove to our favor.”

“Durable?” Growing queasy, she wilted into his arms. “I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have to, sweetie. Stay by me. I’ll get you to safety.”

“Wait, first we’ve got to find Tina. I don’t want my best friend to get eaten by zombies!”

“Right. But we gotta move, and fast.”

He lifted her and carried her over the zombie’s still-twitching body, then set her down. She brushed bits of something she didn’t want to examine too closely from her floor-length gown, and then they both dashed through the eighteenth-century mansion where Tina’s family had hosted her party.

Social event of the season? More like six o’clock news disaster. John swiped a silver candelabra from a marble-topped table as they rushed by. “Arm yourself,” he said. “They are intelligent. After their initial feed they only have to consume small portions of flesh to survive, and there is very little mental depletion.”

Charlotte accepted the candelabra with a wince. Yet she couldn’t help but swoon a little over his take-command attitude.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, she steeled herself to stay strong and not turn into a weeping Wilma that John would have to abandon to the zombies because she was too frantic to deal. They were in this together. And they would have their wedding day.

Then she remembered the seemingly compromising position in which she had found her fiancé just minutes before, and Charlotte couldn’t help but ask, “John, who was that woman on the balcony?”

“What woman?” John kicked open a pair of swinging doors that led into a gallery, only to be greeted by delirious moans and groping arms. A fresh stew of zombies in fancy evening dress—guests of the ball—lurched toward them.

“Wrong door.” John grabbed her hand and they raced away from the approaching horde, taking a sharp turn into the kitchen. John grabbed a steel-legged bar stool and shoved it through the door handles, forming a sturdy barricade. “That should keep them back. For now.”

Charlotte wondered if her ribs could withstand the torture of her thudding heart as she looked around her. The deserted kitchen was beautiful in the moonlight, the stainless-steel appliances shimmering silver.

Their lives had been blessed up until now. Would it all end tonight?

A strange hissing noise alerted her.

Candelabra in hand and prepared to swing, Charlotte crept around the butcher-block counter. Hunched on the other side and clasping a rosary sat the priest whom Tina had introduced to her earlier. “Father!”

“Back!” The priest wielded his rosary cross as if it were a weapon.

“I’m not a zombie,” she said, kneeling before him. “Are you okay?”

John swung around the other side of the counter to join them, which startled the skittish priest once again. He swung the rosary like a lariat and clocked John on the eyelid.

“Ouch. Is that what I get for missing confession for the last five years?” John rubbed his bleeding brow.

“He’s not a zombie, either?” the trembling priest asked Charlotte.

She shook her head.

“So sorry, son.” The priest sighed. “Demons I can exorcise. Spirits I can cast out. But zombies? What do I do with zombies?”

“Best option?” John shrugged. “Run.”

“I can’t run. My ticker can’t take it. It’s the end of the world. You two are young, the lucky ones.”

“We are.” John clasped Charlotte’s hand. His eyes—the right one now a little clouded with blood thanks to the skittish priest—reflected all the love she held for him. “And since it’s the end of the world, I have a favor to ask of you, Father.”

“I can perform final rites, if that will give you peace.”

“Final—no!” Charlotte protested. “We’ll survive this. We have to. We’re to be married soon.”

The priest wobbled his head as if to say good luck with that.

“Right now,” John said, nodding encouragingly to Charlotte. “Will you marry us, Father?”

“Really?” she asked on a gasp. “You’d be okay with a priest officiating our vows?”

“I know how important it is to you. If we’re going to die tonight, I want to die in my wife’s arms.”

Chapter Two

“Oh, John, that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me. I want to be married tonight, too.”

“You two are crazier than the zombies,” the priest muttered.

A loud bang shook the kitchen door.

“It’s them,” Charlotte cried. She gripped the priest’s arms and helped him to stand. “Please, do it now!”

John made a frantic search of the dark kitchen, dashing to the counter where florists had been preparing the flower arrangements earlier. He gathered bits of damaged calla lilies and shredded leaves into his frantic fingers then shoved the makeshift bouquet at Charlotte. “Can you forgive me for being so stubborn about the priest?”

She wanted to grab him and kiss him, but the doors to the kitchen were starting to splinter and bulge inward. “Forgiven. Hurry,” she ordered, giving the priest a rough shove.

“Dearly beloved—”

“Skip the prologue and get to the necessary stuff.” John tugged Charlotte over to the patio doors and opened them. A small breeze brought in the scent of the fragrant gardens, and the dazzling moonlight fell upon their joined hands. No sign of the living dead stalking the rosebushes. Yet. “Father, hurry up!”

“Do you take this man to be your wedded husband?”

“I do!” Charlotte sucked in the corner of her lip, eyeing the kitchen doors. The groans on the other side were increasing.

“And do you take this woman—”

“Yes, yes, I do. Always and forever, no matter what the world forces upon us.” John squeezed her hands, sending bits of calla lilies across her gown. “I love you, Charlotte Masterson.”

Her new surname suited her perfectly. John’s calmness centered her, bringing her into the moment. She would remember this moment always, the moonlight, the adoration on John’s face—

The kitchen doors smashed inward. Wood shards scattered. A horde of zombies stalked clumsily inside.

The priest shouted, “I now pronounce you man and wife, may no man put asunder—”

John swept Charlotte into his embrace. He kissed her deeply, lovingly, perfectly. And there, amidst the full moon’s spotlight, they became man and wife—till death did part them.

The priest’s dying yell didn’t disturb their kiss. Charlotte clung to her husband’s hard muscles. She could cling to him forever.

She felt his desire harden against her thigh.

“I want you so badly,” he said, his dark eyes arrowed onto hers. An intensely dark beauty unlike any she’d seen captured his features and Charlotte wanted to touch him, hold him, please him. “Your skin. Your taste. Your…flesh. I need you. Now.”

She understood. She wanted to strip him bare and love him passionately for the first time. She prayed it wouldn’t be the only time.

“They’ve killed the priest,” she said.

“They’ll go to hell for that.”

She didn’t even notice his gallows humor as she fell into his mesmerizing gaze. The sounds of hungry monsters segued to the background, her pounding heartbeat surging to the fore.

“Let’s find a place to be alone,” he said. “I crave you, Charlotte.”

“You’re skin, it’s so hot, John. You’re like…a beast.”

“A beast who needs you, only you.”

John tugged her out into the garden as the swing of a zombie’s arm clocked Charlotte on the shoulder. Her party dress tore, leaving behind a slimy trail on her skin. John dodged the zombie that stalked toward them.

The creatures were much more stealthy than Charlotte had expected of the living dead. They lumbered, but quickly, and their arm and leg movements were fast. Their faces were whitish blue and their lips black; some had blood smeared on their faces and hands. Intelligence glimmered in their eyes. These were not mindless things, just as John had warned her.

“How could they have gotten here? I thought the outbreak was contained,” she said. “Doesn’t your research—”

“There are nests everywhere, and our research is just that, Charlotte. We’ve only begun to study the ones we have. They can speak, but they won’t speak to us, slowing the progress of our research.”

John swung Charlotte into his arms and leaped over a woman in white chiffon, crawling along the ground as she tried to get to her detached arm. It seemed to have a mind of its own as the fingers dragged it toward the lily pad–dotted koi pond.

As soon as they were in a protected spot, John set her down, planting his hands on the wall behind her and pressing his body against hers. Aggressive and determined, he bit kisses down her neck and to her breasts.

“You’re so lusty, John.”

“I need you. Mmm, your skin is so salty.”

Charlotte ripped open his black shirt and ran her hands up his chest. Hot and sweaty from running, his muscles pulsed under her touch. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“What question is that?” he asked, scanning down the hallway in both directions.

“The woman I found you with! It looked like you were—”

“No time, Charlotte. We need a safer place. It’s too open here.”

With a sigh, she nodded and shoved him down the hallway. But had she made the biggest mistake of her life by marrying a man who may have been making out with another woman? No, she knew John, she trusted him. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt until the coast was clear and they could have a rational discussion.

If the coast would ever be clear… “Tell me the truth, John. Can you really get us out of this mess?” she called, following him through the dark hallways. “When all around us the world is coming to an end?”

“The whole world isn’t ending, Charlotte. Just a small chunk of it.”

“Yeah, but in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re on that chunk.” As they paused outside a door and John listened acutely, Charlotte’s nerves prickled the hairs all over her body. “John?”

He nuzzled her into a firm hug and kissed her. “I’m scared, too,” he whispered. His voice gentled her fears expertly. “We’ll be scared together.”

They crept inside the room, listening for any noise and scanning the darkness. Charlotte turned and flipped the light switch.

“What did you do that for?”

“I hate those stupid horror movies where they never flip on the light,” she explained.

“But what if the zombies see the light under the door? Remember, Charlotte, they are rational, thinking creatures. It is only when they consume massive amounts of carrion that their intelligence seems to wane.”

“Right. So in other words, don’t feed the zombies. I just wanted to look around better.” She searched the room, realizing it was Tina’s. “No signs of the undead.”

Hearing a shuffling sound on the other side of the door, Charlotte slapped the switch off. John tugged her toward a closet door highlighted by a beam of moonlight. “In there,” he said. “Hurry!”

Chapter Three

The closet was huge, stocked with every brand of shoe in the universe. Classic Tina.

Charlotte kissed John’s bruised eyelid softly, the blood dried now, and then whispered, “So they’re as smart as us?”

“Yes, but they are ruled by their hunger. Consuming flesh makes them stupid, and…”

“Less durable?”

“The older ones, for sure.”

She let out a tiny, fearful moan.

“I’ve got you,” John said as he tugged down the torn sleeve of her gown and pulled her closer. “Mmm, you smell good. Your skin, your neck.” He kissed her there, laving his tongue along it in a delirious wave of sensation that set her nipples to tight buds. “Your brains.”

“Please, not now with the humor,” she muttered.

“Right.” He paused, turning serious. “Mrs. Masterson…I need you. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can. As inappropriate as the timing should be, it seems right.”

“Mmm…I’ve wanted you for months, but the desire I feel tonight? It’s a craving. Let me make love to you, wife.”

Bending over her petite frame, he kissed the top of her breast and dashed his tongue over her nipple. She arched her back, silently begging him for more. He tore aside her dress and kissed the other breast. The urgency of the moment heightened every touch and sensation. Adrenaline raced through her veins, making her drunk with desire and want.

Beneath Charlotte’s roaming hands, John’s muscles flexed and hardened, and she responded in kind. She gripped his erection through his dress pants, and he hissed at her breast then nipped her none too softly.

“Do you know how many times you’ve accidentally brushed over my cock when we’ve been making out and I’ve wanted to tear away your clothes and have my way with you?”

“I’m yours now, love. Let’s make up for all those times—”

He kissed her to silence. Many a night she’d lain in bed imagining her lover’s hands on her. It was real now. And nothing was more real than the two of them, skin against skin, urgently seeking satisfaction when around them the world was being consumed.

“End-of-the-world sex?” she asked as he lifted her against the door and she wrapped her legs around his hips.

“Wish it didn’t have to be this way.” Gliding his burning hands between her thighs, his fingers found her folds and he danced them into her wetness, igniting an erotic flash of fire that surged through her core and responded to his deft manipulation. “You’re so hot, Charlotte.”

“Not as hot as you.” His skin did seem unusually warm. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

“Not exactly,” he muttered.

Somewhere, not far off, the clang of steel against wood furniture alerted them both.

Breaths panting, Charlotte gripped John’s head and kissed him, sharing her desperation. “I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered urgently. “Your big, hard strength. Please, John. Take me.”

They heard the bedroom doors crash inward, and John shoved down his pants. His erection sprang out, heavy against her folds. Charlotte wriggled, directing his entrance. And when the groans of the living dead echoed in the next room, she cried out at the intense pleasure of her husband’s possession of her body. Finding a frantic rhythm, they became one.

John’s gasps stirred next to Charlotte’s ear. He clung to her, his fingers digging into her skin, his body like molten steel, their joining a culmination of strained patience and desperation.

Everything slipped away. The threat of death, the terror of the living dead, the agony of watching others they had known fall. Lost in one another, they surrendered to the brilliance of desire and trust. Together they could defeat any horror.

“I love you, Charlotte,” John cried out and his body shuddered against hers.

Her core tight and twisty with imminent orgasm, Charlotte sighed, and released. Something banged on the closet door. She screamed—not out of fear, but instead with utter bliss, as orgasm captured them both.

Chapter Four

Blissfully sated, Charlotte wanted to hold this man forever. Her husband. Her giddy smile was undefeatable. “That was amazing. I wish we could do it again.”

Clinging to John’s panting body, Charlotte winced as the door behind her moved a bit with every growling pound from the other side.

“Bad timing, sweetie. Sorry about this. Oh, man, you taste so good.” He laved his tongue along her cheek, and Charlotte’s skin prickled with delicious heat.

Another vicious thumping vibrated the door against her bare skin.

They’d had their moment.

“What do we do now?” she whispered. “Did your research determine how to escape a pack of zombies?”

He nuzzled his nose into her neck and kissed her, then gave a quick little bite. She smiled. Still his humor remained, even with the flesh-eating zombies beating on the other side of the door.

But he was serious when he raised his head and looked into her eyes. “We fight,” he said.

Her man had become…well, a man tonight. Or maybe she was finally seeing the real John Masterson, a man who rose to the challenge no matter the danger. Stuffy research coordinator? More like an adventurous hero.

Her hero.

Setting her down, he tugged up her dress and pulled up his pants. His shirt was somewhere on the floor. He wandered into the depths of the closet.

“If we can get through this,” he called, “I’m going to make love to you all day, every day, in every place but the closet. Here.” He slapped a few high-heeled shoes into her hands.

“John, I know you think it’s sexy when I wear heels, but is now really the time?”

“Weapons,” he said. “It’s all I could find.”

“Clever.” She fit the toes of the shoes into her hands, heels pointed out and ready to stab.

A thick shard of wood splintered and sailed over their heads.

“You ready for this?” he asked as they turned to face the growling horde.

“With you at my side, I can handle anything.”

They smiled at one another. And then the hordes tumbled through, decaying appendages clawing and gaping jaws moaning.

John caught the first one in the eye with a heel, and shoved the creature off. Charlotte lobbed a Jimmy Choo at a growling matron in purple taffeta, which managed to take off her ear smartly. Shoes were tossed, thrown and lobbed into zombie skulls, faces and guts. They went down easily, which Charlotte was thankful for as she twisted to grab more ammunition from the shoe rack beside her.

“This isn’t exactly my idea of wedded bliss!” she shouted as hands groped at her skirt.

“I’ll make it up to you. I will get you to safety if it’s the last thing I do.”

She hated hearing him put it that way. It would not be his last thing. They’d live to see tomorrow.

“Follow me,” John directed, and she fit herself against his side, beating at the clawing hands and teeth with a metal-spiked black leather number she remembered helping Tina pick out at Macy’s. “Stay close.”

“I am close! Oh dear, I really hate to destroy this one. It’s Manolo!”

Charlotte felt something tug at her ankle. She shook her foot, and brought the shoe down, beating the zombie who was attempting to chew on her. She screamed and John swung about, taking out her attacker with a thigh-high boot.

“Come on, they’ve thinned out, we can make a dash for it!”

She grabbed his hand as he tugged her through a slew of lurching zombies. Limping from the attack, Charlotte managed to keep up and they soon landed in the hallway. Alone, they huffed and clutched at one another.

“Down the hall,” John said. “I think there’s another bedroom.”

She suspected that was the master bedroom, which Tina had said was where her parents spent most of their time because it was private and cut off from the noise of servants and kids. But if Charlotte and John went in there, they would be trapped, with no means of escape. It could become their grave.

“John, I’m not sure.”

He stopped at the bedroom door. His broad shoulders heaved. His determined gaze reached out and grabbed her firmly, reassuringly. “Trust me?”

Charlotte nodded, giving him permission and promising him her trust. He gripped her head and kissed her long and deep. Hungrily. She knew he loved her, and would stand before her when their final moments arrived.

Opening the door, they slipped inside the bedroom, done in soft violets and pink damask. The low glow of a night lamp illuminated their tattered attire and bloodied arms and faces. They looked as if they’d been battling zombies.

Charlotte started to laugh.

John joined her, and they both fell into each other’s embrace as their laughter segued into tears.

Chapter Five

“I knew you were the only girl for me,” John said as he stroked the hair and tears from her face, “the moment you sat on my lap in the coffee shop.”

“That chair was empty when I was going for the sit.”

“I do have the moves, don’t I?”

She managed a small laugh, then nuzzled her head aside his neck. He was feverously hot now, and she worried he might grow too weak to fend off another attack. She thought she heard him sniffing at the crown of her head, but he was probably sniffling back tears. They had been through so much today!

“I’m glad we were able to say our vows,” she offered.

“I’m glad we were finally able to make love.”

“Men,” she said. “Is that all you think about? Sex?”

He stepped back and, taking her hand, he spun her around in a dance move. One of their favorite pastimes was watching the dancing competitions on television together.

“Mostly. And football, and pizza, and…” He twirled her and she collided with his chest. He kissed her forehead, muttering, “…and brains.”

“Stop it.” Charlotte pushed away from him, having lost her patience for his humor. “I don’t want to hear you make another zombie joke.”

“Sorry, I— I’m under a little stress here, Charlotte. You know humor helps me deal.”

She sighed, acknowledging the truth of that statement. It was one of the things she loved about him. “Let’s problem solve. Are there fire escapes outside the windows? There must be a balcony.”

He shrugged and wandered over to the patio’s French doors. It was odd that he was being so nonchalant when zombies were likely sniffing them out at this very moment.

It was the stress. Or maybe he’d become very comfortable with the undead. After all, he had to be. He studied them.

But he’d never brought his work home—until now.

Charlotte winced at the pain stinging her ankle. She didn’t want to look at it. She would not. Lifting her chin, she decided to go the stoic-heroine route. Nothing would come of mourning what could have been. She’d face the future with the cards she’d been dealt.

John stopped in the patio doorway. “No fire ladders, but there are bushes with big fluffy flowers below. We can jump for it.”

“They’re hydrangeas. Those’ll provide a softer landing than the thorny rosebushes.”

She tilted her head, noticing how the moonlight shimmered over his livid face. But that niggling worry still hadn’t left her. When she’d found him out on the balcony…

“John, who was that woman I saw you kissing earlier?”

“Kissing? You think I was kissing her?” He chuckled and made an exaggerated effort to grimace and wince it all away. “I wasn’t kissing her, Charlotte.”

“Sure looked like it to me.”

When John had seen the zombies and thought the world was going to end—and apparently couldn’t find her, his fiancée—had he grabbed the first woman to hand? Because she’d denied him sex for six months?

“I need to know, John. No matter what the answer is, I won’t judge you or blame you for a thing. Promise. What were you doing with that woman?”

He approached, his slow, easy gait that had once enraptured her, now irritated her. “Charlotte, don’t do this.”

Squaring her shoulders, and hiding another wince from the pain at her ankle, Charlotte insisted, “Tell me now, or I’ll shove you outside for the zombies.”

His I’m sorry face switched to utter shock.

She continued, “Did you think you could fit in a quickie before the zombies attacked?”

“Charlotte, I would never— Seriously? You believe I’d be unfaithful to you? I love you.”

“But you two were in an embrace.”

With a nod, he bowed his head, letting the silence hang. Finally he exhaled heavily, and then confessed, “I was gnawing on her.”

Charlotte’s jaw dropped open. John’s words pounded in her ears. Her gut swirled. She shook her head frantically.

Her new husband walked closer. Suddenly she noticed how bloodshot his eyes had become. And his skin…it was livid and turning blue. And he was so hot to the touch. She’d thought he was coming down with a fever, but in reality he’d been…

“No, you can’t be. You’ve been…?” Even while they were being chased by zombies, the man hadn’t been able to put aside his hunger for her skin, to touch her, and—taste her. “All this time?”

Charlotte’s heart stopped beating.

“I was bitten out in the garden when I was looking for you, wanting to apologize for our fight. I’m sorry, Charlotte. I love you so much. I thought once I got you to safety it would be best for me to leave you. But now that we’ve made love, I can’t imagine ever being apart from you. We belong together. Until death.”

She put up her hand to stop his approach. “Don’t touch me.”

“But your brains…” He winced and she could see he struggled to keep from touching her by clasping his hands to his chest. “…they smell so good.”

Reality gripped Charlotte by the throat. Who was she trying to fool? The future would never be as she’d dreamed. The brick mansion, fancy sports car and 2.5 children? No longer. She had married a man who studied zombies—and had become one himself—for heaven’s sake. Nothing would ever again be normal.

“John, you have to make me a promise. You’ll never go after my brains.”

His sorrowful eyes glistened.

“You promise me that, and I’ll make the same promise.”

“The same… Charlotte?”

Dropping her shoulders, she inhaled then lifted her tattered skirt to reveal the festering bite wound on her ankle. “They got me in the closet. I can feel the heat overtaking my body already. Is this how you feel? So hot, and so…wanting.”

“Wanting. Yes. Like I need skin and flesh and brains.”

“Anything meaty and warm.”

“That’s exactly the craving. Charlotte, I’m so sorry.” He pulled her into a hug, and she allowed it, because he was all she had, her only salvation—and her death. “I promise, I won’t go after your brains. Not even a nibble. Consider it an addendum to our marriage vows.”

“Agreed. But I’m so hungry. Oh, John.”

Suddenly the bedroom door slammed inward. The frantic, tiny form of a white-satin-clad debutante staggered in, huffing, her body trembling, her eyes wide and manic.

“Tina!”

“Oh, thank God, Charlotte.” Tina rushed to them, and the threesome embraced. “They’re everywhere. This is a disaster. They’ve torn up all the bouquets and changed my grandmother into a freaking zombie. And now I’ll never get my picture in the society page. It’ll end up in the obits section. I don’t want this to be my funeral dress. And my hair! One of those creatures tore out a chunk when he tried to bite me. Oh, Charlotte!”

“I’m so glad you’ve found us,” Charlotte said. “Everything is going to be fine now.”

“You think so?” Tina sniffed and squeezed the twosome closer into the hug.

John nuzzled his nose across the top of Tina’s red hair, messily tangled within her bloodied tiara. “You smell good, Tina.”

“She does smell good,” Charlotte agreed.

He met her eyes over Tina’s head and winked. The man was hers until the end of the world. Till death…and ever after.