“Ian!”
All my hope, fear, and love came out as a scream that made his head tick ever so slightly in my direction.
“Ian, please, if you love me, don’t do it!”
He paused. Very slowly, his head turned toward me.
Phanes plunged his whole fist into Ian just below his sternum and then ripped it out.
The shockwave knocked all of us backward. When my net stopped tumbling, I frantically pushed past Ashael’s body to look where I’d last seen Ian.
He was still there, though now he was on his back instead of standing. Phanes was on his knees, smacking himself in the stomach with his fists while that red light waned and dimmed beneath his clenched fingers.
“It’s not working, it’s not working, it’s not working!” Phanes cried out in frustration.
Ashael let out a tired laugh. “Of course it’s not, fool. You can’t reabsorb that power back into yourself. You should have known that, but you believed me because demons are the world’s best liars, and I told you what you wanted to hear, same as I’ve told every human, vampire, ghoul, or other.”
Phanes staggered toward us. “I’ll kill you. I’ll—”
“You’ll do nothing.”
I leapt into a standing position at Ian’s voice. The tight net knocked me right back down into Ashael, but I didn’t care. Ian was alive, gloriously alive, and rolling over to grab Phanes by the ankle so that the former deity tripped.
“You’ll do nothing because nothing is all you’re capable of now,” Ian went on. “That power showed me how to neuter your abilities. Your wings were the source of all your greatness, and now, you’ve been snipped.”
“What? No!” Phanes said, swinging at Ian.
He caught the punch one-handed. Phanes’s eyes widened, and then he screamed as Ian bent his wrist back until it snapped.
“Can’t stop me, can you, even though I currently am as weak as a new vampire,” Ian said in a tired but conversational tone. “You can’t teleport anymore, either. Or do illusions, or fly, or heal instantly, or live an immortal life span, or—”
“That isn’t possible!” Phanes shouted, sounding as if he might burst into tears.
Ian let him go and laughed.
“It’s more than possible; it’s done. I’m not even going to kill you. Living a regular life span while as weak as a human will punish you far worse than a quick death at my hands.”
“Cruel,” Vlad said with an approving smile at Ian.
A tremendous crash jerked all our attentions to the left, where an enormous, floating pile of burned, snapped trees knocked down the remaining line of larches. Remnants also swarmed it, diving through the pile in a continuous, deadly flow to a chorus of fainter and fainter screams.
Now, Vlad’s smile aimed my way as that huge pile floated closer to me.
“Special delivery from me, Mencheres, and Marie.”
The cuffs in my skin unwound. They pulsed with power as I grabbed them and stretched my hands through the net, waiting.
Morana spilled out of the pile and landed on my net. She was soaking wet and also burned in places, reminding me that effigies of her were still drowned in parts of Russia to this day to herald the coming warmth of spring. Perhaps water and heat was the secret to undoing Morana’s power, just as ripping Phanes’s wings off had been the secret to undoing his.
I didn’t pause to ask. I didn’t even wait for her to open her eyes, breaking my previous claim that I’d never kill an enemy in their sleep. Unconscious or no, and weakened or no, Morana was too dangerous for me to hesitate for a second.
I slapped the cuffs around her wrists and held on to make sure that she didn’t freeze blast them off.
The cuffs glowed a bright, vivid orange that seemed to leak onto her skin before it raced over her entire body. Her eyes opened then, and she screamed as that glow turned into liquid flame that drained her straight down into the hole I hadn’t made because I hadn’t used any of my netherworld-splitting powers.
None of the veils would crack today. They wouldn’t crack because of me ever again. Some powers weren’t worth their cost.
When that hole vanished, Ashael and I abruptly fell to either side. It took me a second to realize why, and then I smiled as I stood up to my full height.
Morana had bragged that the magic used to make these nets had come from her power. Now that she was dead, that power had died with her, freeing me.
I was free in so many ways now. For the first time in my life, my very existence was no longer illegal. Neither was the magic I practiced. What would my life be like, now that I didn’t have to hide my real self? I couldn’t wait to find out.
I ran over to Ian, who caught me and then laughed as my momentum knocked us both backward.
“Well, hallo, my strong blonde sweeting,” he murmured as his arms curled around me. “Going to grab my cock and say ‘surprise’ like you did when you found me at that bordello?”
“Sure,” I said, and did. “Surprise.”
A grin slid across his lips. “Careful, little Guardian. You know I don’t care if there’s an audience.”
“Right now, neither do I,” I whispered, and kissed him.
“Get a room,” I heard Ashael say, but he sounded like he was laughing.
“Good idea,” I said, drawing away to stare at Ian. “How are you feeling? Good enough to teleport, do you think?”
“Why?” he asked, with a stifled laugh. “Somewhere else you need to be? Another apocalypse to stop, perhaps?”
“No,” I said, holding his stare. “Just a promise to you for me to fulfill.”
“Ah.”
Ian smiled and then gave a brief wave at Bones, Marie, and the couple dozen of her very soaked troops who’d finally made it back to our spot on the mountain.
“Sorry, can’t stay to have a chin wag about all this. We have somewhere very important to be.”
Bones let out an amazed snort. “Really? Where is that?”
“Home,” I said, and whispered the location in Ian’s ear.
I felt his grin against my cheek. Then, I felt the chaotic drop of teleportation as everything else slid away.
I smiled because I didn’t need to wait for us to arrive at the location I’d given him. Even in the midst of the whirling chaos, as long as I was in Ian’s arms, I was already home.
Author’s Note
As you’ve read by now, there’s a certain plot point contained herein that is similar to what happened after Justice Ginsburg’s death in late September 2020. I want to assure my readers that any similarities to those events are coincidence and not by design. I finished writing Wicked All Night in June 2020, the manuscript was copyedited in July 2020, and in production by mid-September, all before Justice Ginsburg’s passing. However, it wasn’t released until late February 2021, so I’m adding this note to avoid any misconceptions that the scene/plot points in question were influenced by Justice Ginsburg’s demise. As a feminist, I hold the utmost respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I would never have exploited her legacy that way.
Acknowledgments
It’s always humbling to write an Acknowledgements page because that means the book is done. Even after all these years, taking an idea and turning it into an entire novel still feels kind of like a miracle. This is why, among many other reasons, I always thank God first. You carried me through another one, Lord! Thank you, thank you.
Endless thanks also go to the other usual suspects who take this journey with me: my agent, Nancy Yost; my editor, Erika Tsang; Pam Jaffee, senior publicity director; Kayleigh Webb, publicist; and to the rest of the fabulous people at Avon Books. Thanks also to Tavia Gilbert, my audio narrator, for bringing my books alive with your talents. Thanks also to Melissa Marr and Ilona Andrews for your invaluable critiques and even more invaluable friendship. Thanks also to my husband, sisters, father, and the rest of my family for your amazing love and support.
Finally, thank you so much to readers, reviewers, bloggers, bookstore st
aff, librarians, and everyone else who celebrates books. You know they’re so much more than just words on a page. Books are escapes, adventures, mini vacations, moments of solace, and times when we catch up with fictional friends. Speaking of that, I hope you enjoy catching up with Ian, Veritas, and the rest of the gang in Wicked All Night, so I’ll stop rambling and let you get to it. :)
About the Author
JEANIENE FROST is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of the Night Huntress and Night Prince series, as well as the Night Huntress World novels. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to twenty different countries. Jeaniene lives in Florida with her husband, Matthew, rarely cooks, and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking, and traveling—by car. Airplanes, children, and cookbooks frighten her.
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By Jeaniene Frost
Wicked All Night
Wicked Bite
Shades of Wicked
Into the Fire
Bound by Flames
Up From the Grave
Twice Tempted
Once Burned
One Grave at a Time
This Side of the Grave
Eternal Kiss of Darkness
First Drop of Crimson
Destined for an Early Grave
At Grave’s End
One Foot in the Grave
Halfway to the Grave
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
wicked all night. Copyright © 2021 by Jeaniene Frost. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition MARCH 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-269568-0
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-269566-6
Cover design by Amy Halperin
Cover photograph and illustration by Cliff Nielsen
Author photo by Matthew Frost
Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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