2. Morrie

Irubbed my hands together as I emerged from Mina's office. She gave me a faint wave from behind her phone screen, her hair mussed around her face and her gorgeous green eyes all blown out from the orgasms I gave her. She was already re-reading that email.

I longed to reach into the screen and do something rather unsavory to this Jen Whately. How could she say that to Mina? How could she think that no one could relate to Mina's story?

Mina had overcome challenges. She'd used her brain and her creativity to get us out of many sticky spots. She'd been at knife-point, gun-point, garrote-point, and still she believed the best in people. She touched the hearts of every person in this village. She'd worked alongside Heathcliff for over a year without once cowering in fear.

She defeated a centuries-old fictional vampire.

She changed me, a feat I'd never have thought possible.

I used to be an uncaring, unfeeling criminal mastermind who hid myself behind a mask and a wicked tongue, until she split me open and forced all my darkest secrets to spill out.

I'm still a criminal mastermind, but I am so much more powerful now that I have a family – a real family – to care about and protect.

How was that not relatable?

I knew Mina too well to believe that she'd forget about that email. She was stewing over Jen's words right now, her beautiful features all twisted up with worry. I wanted to make it better, but barring my idea to transform various parts of Jen's anatomy into wearable accessories, I didn't know how. And unfortunately, I had to get back downstairs.

My visit to her office wasn't for selfish reasons – I was on a mission.

I stole back downstairs, past Quoth who was rushing around the communal art studio, singing along to a Taylor Swift song on the radio as he picked up drop cloths and slotted paintbrushes back into their cubbies. He'd tied his silken hair back off his face at the nape of his neck by a scrap of velvet ribbon, and despite his frenzied movements, his fire-rimmed eyes were serene.

Quoth was never happier than when he was doing something disgustingly thoughtful for Mina or working on his art, and our current project combined both his talents.

Relief swept over me to see the large space in the corner of the studio that had for the past three weeks been occupied by something large and ungainly hidden beneath a black cloth. The mission was a success.

I leaned over and flicked off the radio. Quoth continued singing, not even noticing that the music had stopped.

My pulse quickened as my eyes darted around the Nevermore Gallery, searching for the mastermind behind today's shenanigans.

There he was. Leaning against the doorframe, rubbing his muscled arms and looking every bit like he'd just maneuvered said ungainly object through narrow Butcher Street to the waiting truck, was Heathcliff.

A familiar butterfly flapped its wings inside my chest as I approached him. Mina Wilde was the love of my life, the woman I would burn the world for, but this man also held a special piece of my black heart in his thick fist, and he squeezed so tight that his love made me struggle for air.

I'd been living with Heathcliff Earnshaw for years, and still, the sight of him majestic in his wrath made me recall the first day I entered Nevermore Bookshop and met my villainous match. I'd had many men in my bed over the years, men who fell to their knees to worship me, but Heathcliff was the only man I'd ever kneel for.

But I never dreamed that he felt anything for me other than annoyance.

All we'd needed to close the chasm between us into a debaucherous entanglement was Mina Wilde breaking open our hearts and laying bare our every hidden desire.

Worth it.

I sidled up to him and leaned in close, my lips brushing the stubble where he'd attempted to trim his unruly beard. "You did it?"

He grunted in reply.

I leaned back and placed my hand to my ear. "What was that? ‘Why, thank you, Morrie, for brilliantly distracting Mina with your wicked tongue and impressive cock so I could sneak Quoth's photo booth down Butcher Street and onto the back of Jo's new pickup.' Oh, 'tis nothing, really. I can't help my altruistic heart. Someone had to take one for the team?—"

He glowered at me. "Yes, altruism. That's the reason you volunteered to be the distraction while I dragged a half-ton monstrosity up the hill and loaded it onto the bed of the pickup by myself."

"You had Quoth."

Quoth shot me a look over his shoulder that said, please don't bring me into this.

Heathcliff snorted. "Some help he was. He saw Dorothy Ingram strolling across the green and got all feathery, didn't he? He would've smashed his corner on the stone wall if I hadn't taken all the weight."

"Did she see you?" I asked.

"Mina? I bloody hope not. That's what your wicked tongue was for, to make sure that she didn't happen to look out the window at the exact wrong time, just when the light was enough for her to see?—"

"I made certain our girl wasn't anywhere near the window." I grinned, my cock dancing a little jig at the memory of having her bent over her desk. "I was referring to our favorite village sourpuss."

"Thankfully, Dorothy Ingram had those beady eyes of hers fixed on some teenagers loitering outside the pub. I got the thing tied down without her seeing it, and now I'm going to need surgery to fix my busted shoulders." Heathcliff's dark eyes searched out Quoth, who was cowering behind a desk. "You owe me, birdie. You'd better have some Scotch stashed somewhere in the gallery."

Quoth scurried away to fetch Heathcliff his medicine. Heathcliff slid onto the paint-splattered leather sofa under the window and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked more harried than I'd ever seen him, which was unusual considering that Nevermore was temporarily closed and he hadn't had to deal with customers for a week.

After Dorothy Ingram chased us away from our first wedding venue of the town hall, Mina's friend and fellow member of the Spirit Seekers Society, Cynthia Lachlan, offered to host the wedding for us at Lachlan Hall at no charge. Cynthia is yet another person who owes a debt to Mina, as our girl saved her from being blamed for several murders of Banned Book Club members, caught a killer at her Jane Austen Experience weekend, and then rescued her ex-husband Grey from the clutches of Dracula.

The only problem was that Lachlan Hall was booked solid with events, and Cynthia had only one day when she could fit us in between the end of the British Heritage tour season and before a crew of stonemasons moved in to start repairs to the east turret. And that day just happened to be one night before Mina's book launch.

Mina wanted to have all our friends in the village for both events, so we decided to go for it. Even my ex Sherlock was coming down from London for the occasion. But it meant that Mina wouldn't have time to organize the wedding on top of the book launch, and it was outdated and sexist to assume that the woman was the one in a relationship who would plan a wedding. For three villains conceived by Victorian white male writers, we are the epitome of modern feminists.

I assumed that Mina planned to ask me to take over wedding planning since I'm used to forcing minions to do my bidding. Or she would perhaps choose Quoth, who has an artistic eye.

But Mina asked Heathcliff. Or he volunteered. I couldn't actually remember. But somehow, literature's great gothic antihero, a man who loathed people and fuss and everything about weddings except for the vows and the open bar, had turned his obsessive nature to the world of table runners and invitation fonts.

Truthfully, he'd proven surprisingly good at pulling together a decadent, book-themed wedding in a few short months. One glower from Heathcliff and the vendors caved to his every whim.

And he had many whims.

Such as today's shenanigans. Because we were having the wedding in a bonafide castle, Heathcliff decided that he was going to try to recreate scenes from one of Mina's favorite Disney movies, Beauty and the Beast. She often said that Beast giving Belle a library was one of the most romantic things that she'd ever seen.

So Heathcliff had this idea to transform the Lachlan Hall library into the library from the movie for our photos. He asked Quoth to help him make props, and our birdie went a bit overboard.

Quoth constructed an enormous faux fireplace that exactly matched the one in the movie. That's what we'd transported today, as well as models of the inanimate object characters enchanted to speak, and a large trompe-l'?il that would hang on the ceiling to make the library appear four storeys high instead of merely two, all of them bedecked with fairy lights and sparkle so that Mina could see them.

Mina would flip when we unveiled the library. Provided all of Quoth's sculptures made it to the venue in one piece. This was why Heathcliff wanted the two of us to join him at Lachlan Hall now, while they were installed, to ensure everything went perfectly.

Heathcliff glared at his watch. "We'd better get going. I need to chat with Cynthia about the floral arrangements before we arrange the Disney sculptures."

"There's a sentence I never dreamed I'd hear you utter."

"Can you make that smart mouth of yours useful and call the birdie? He seems to have disappeared." Heathcliff winced as he rolled his shoulders.

"Quoth?" I headed into the back room, where Quoth had gone to wash his hands but had become distracted by a library-themed seating chart poster. "Birdie, Sir Snarkleton of Snozzberry wants to leave now."

"Oh, sorry." Quoth tossed his brushes into water and packed away the seating chart into a corner of the studio so that Mina wouldn't accidentally find it. He was going all out on the wedding prep, just like Heathcliff, and he even had his art students working around the clock on the various installations.

If I was being bitterly honest, all their activity made me feel a bit…superfluous. This was not a feeling I was accustomed to…well, apart from that unfortunate episode some months back when I had to go into hiding with my ex-boyfriend, but that ugliness was behind us.

Still, I wished I had more to contribute to Mina's surprise wedding than my beautiful body.

Quoth seemed to sense my unease, because he raised his head, his orange-rimmed eyes meeting mine. "You are needed, Morrie. Always."

"I never doubted it."

"Good. Because right now, I need you to pick up my clothes for me." He smiled that genuine Quoth smile and forced his shift. Before my eyes, he shrunk into his clothing, his face contorting as his nose and mouth became a beak, his spine and ribs twisting as he unfurled his arms into sleek black wings.

Quoth flapped twice to dislodge the sleeve of his shirt from his wingtip, then flew over to perch on my shoulder, leaving a pile of paint-splattered clothes on the floor.

I picked up his clothing and folded it neatly on a chair, then called an Uber to take us to Lachlan Hall. (If I'm being factual, I called two Ubers, because the first one refused to allow a raven in the car. Heathcliff thumped on the window as the driver pulled away in a hurry. "This is discrimination! He's my emotional support raven!")

Given how tightly wound Heathcliff was over the wedding, that felt accurate.

"Croak." Quoth hopped over the back of my seat and nipped Heathcliff on the ear – a corvid attempt to calm him down. It had the opposite effect, causing Heathcliff to yelp and drop his phone between the seats, which made his face go redder than I'd ever seen it.

Heathcliff was a ball of nerves as we pulled up to Lachlan Hall.

The stately home was buzzing with people. This was why Quoth didn't want to attend in his human form. Two men shoved past us on the steps, carrying a heavy oak table. A woman nearly brained me with an armload of crockery, and someone driving a golf cart stacked with wine glasses saw Heathcliff and hastily performed a U-turn to flee in the opposite direction.

Not all of these people were for our wedding, surely? Cynthia was hosting a National Trust conference this week, but that was mostly in the orangery…

Heathcliff nearly bowled over the butler as he stormed inside. Luckily, Iwan Carew poked his head out of a reception room, stopping the two of us in our tracks with his disarmingly genuine smile.

"Heathcliff, my friend." Iwan wrapped his arms around Heathcliff's shoulders, taking his life into his hands. "How are you, mate? Excited about the big day?"

Heathcliff's mouth started to twist up into his signature scowl, but it didn't quite reach its destination. Iwan's infectious personality had disarmed even Sir Snarkypuss.

Heathcliff had gone to every local celebrant in the area to find someone to officiate our unconventional wedding. In England, our ceremony wouldn't be legally binding, but it was common for couples to hire a celebrant to perform their wedding ceremony and then to go to the registry office and have a registrar do the legal stuff later, so we figured we'd just do that sans legal nonsense.

However, what we hadn't counted on was Dorothy Ingram's campaign against our nuptials. She was so convinced that her god cared enough that Mina was fake-marrying three men that she'd got in the ear of every celebrant within a thirty-mile radius and ensured they knew that if they married us, they'd receive so many complaints that they'd never perform another wedding ceremony again.

But when Heathcliff found Iwan, the Welsh celebrant had smiled his huge, friendly grin at Heathcliff and told him that this wasn't his first encounter with Dorothy Ingram. She'd come after him for his campaigning for gay marriage before it was made legal in 2013. "I wasn't afraid of her then, and I'm not afraid of her now. If the four of you are madly in love and you want to make it official and have a smashing good party, I'm honored to be part of that. And I want to help with the planning, too. I happen to be Loamshire's most sought-after wedding stylist."

So Iwan became our new favorite person. He was a font of wedding knowledge and had basically moved into Lachlan Hall to help with the last-minute plans. In Mina's absence, he'd kept Heathcliff's head from rolling off his shoulders.

"I'll be excited once I know that everything is perfect," Heathcliff muttered, drawing back slowly, his eyes darting around nervously. "Did Jo arrive with the fireplace prop?"

"She's around back unloading it now." Iwan patted Quoth on the top of his head, then waved us deeper into the house. "And the flower samples came, but they were terrible, so I sent them back. New ones will arrive tomorrow, and they will be perfect. Some bastard stole the wait staff's uniforms, but I've ordered more, because if we have naked waitstaff it will be quite a different event! And Oliver sent over two cake options to choose from, and I told him that of course Mina is a triple chocolate raspberry girl?—"

Of course,Quoth said inside my head as we followed Iwan through the ornate foyer toward the ballroom, where the ceremony would be held. We were just about to step inside when Cynthia Lachlan burst through the double doors, nearly bowling us over.

"Oh, Morrie, Heathcliff, bird, it's lovely to see you again." Cynthia's over-lipsticked mouth curved downward. "I'm afraid I have some distressing news."

Heathcliff froze. "What?"

"Don't look so terrified. I'm certain that it's nothing, but, Iwan, could you liaise with the event staff while I talk to them about our little issue…"

"Of course." Iwan gave a jaunty bow. "Don't worry, friends. This is a minor setback. Everything will be perfect for your wedding!"

"What minor setback?" Heathcliff looked ready to explode.

"It's all rather odd." Cynthia led us into a drawing room, where several boxes had been scattered across the furniture. "This morning I took delivery of the chair covers."

That's right.Quoth hopped excitedly on my shoulder. Iwan and I decided on blood-red chair covers with contrasting gold bows so that Mina could see the contrast and?—

Cynthia upended one of the boxes. Ribbons of torn red and gold fabric tumbled out, like blood and glitter.

"This is a rather avant-garde interpretation of chair ‘cover'," I said.

Heathcliff's mouth hung open. "What happened…"

Cynthia picked up a scrap of fabric between her fingers and pinched her face, as if the ruined fabric offended her every sense. "This is how they arrived. Every single box is the same. I called the company and gave them an earful. According to them, they delivered the order yesterday, not today, and they said that someone at the house checked and signed for them. I don't understand how this could have happened! They've also told me that they won't have time to remake the order before the wedding. I'm so sorry."

Heathcliff dug his hand into the pile of scraps, his face scarlet with rage. "Someone's head will roll for this."

"It gets worse." Cynthia pushed a folded piece of paper into his hands. "I found this sitting on top of the first box."

I peered over his shoulder as Heathcliff unfolded the paper. Letters cut from magazines were glued onto a sheet of printer paper, like an old-school ransom note. (I'd seen a few like this in my lifetime, although I've never personally sent one. Arts and crafts weren't my forte, and when James Moriarty sends a ransom note, he handwrites it and signs his name. A criminal should have a little class.)

The note read:

MINA WILDE, YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE HAPPY.

I'M HERE TO RUIN YOUR WEDDING.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.