Halloween Choose Your Own Adventure® - Day 4

From now until Halloween, the Manuscript Mavens are running a Choose Your Own Adventure® story, in which YOU vote on what happens next! Every morning brings a new author, from the Mavens to the just-sold, to the best-selling. And every night brings a new twist!

Get your Choose Your Own Adventure® votes in by 8:00pm EST (5:00pm PST) and you'll be eligible for random prize drawings. Vote every day, and you'll be eligible for the Grand Prize--autographed books from Maven pals and Guest Mavens!

(Already read the intro? Skip to today's story. No idea what's going on? Read the "rules.")

Continued...

Mary pushed snow-crusted hair from her eyes and gasped at the sight of Sarah, her sister, holding Viscount Nightshade up over her head, the muddy tails of his coat swirling around her gray body like tendrils of death.

“S-sarah,” Mary quavered. “You never used to be so strong.”

“No, dear sister,” Sarah moaned, her voice as cold as a really cold icicle. “But then I never used to be dead!”

And with a girlish twist Sarah threw Lord Nightshade at her sister’s feet.

“Damn me,” that epitome of pale British aristocracy grunted as he hit the ground. “I hate it when she does that.”

“Dear Sir, never say she has done this before?” Mary cried as she helped the viscount to his feet. “Sarah was ever a gentle soul.”

Her sweet sister was advancing toward them and Mary had not seen such a look on Sarah’s face since that unfortunate incident involving a borrowed white pelisse and a bowl of cherry preserves.

“Not so gentle anymore,” Lord Nightshade muttered as he elbowed Sarah smartly in the face. The girl staggered back, but recovered with inhuman speed, advancing once again. “Not since the night of the tragedy. The night when she became—“

“The undead!” Sarah shrieked. She flew at the gloomy viscount’s face, her fingers like claws. “Doomed to this half-life, this shadowed existence, forever doomed, doomed, DOOMED!”

With each doomed Sarah slashed at Lord Nightshade. He parried her blows, but it was evident that he was tiring under her otherworldly strength.

But Mary had no sympathy for the viscount. “O, vile despoiler of womanhood! You have cursed my sister, taken her natural life, and stolen her innocence—“

“Er, actually—“ the viscount started.

But Sarah kicked him in the stomach and screamed as he bent and oofed out air, “Not a despoiler, not a stealer of innocence—“

Mary looked from the viscount, now on the snowy ground with his legs curled around his most masculine bits, to her gray and grim sister, still kicking him in a rather un-cricket-like way. “You mean . . . ?”

“He couldn’t perform!” Sarah shrieked to the heavens, a woman truly scorned. “I’m doomed to an eternity of virginhood!”

Which certainly explained her ire.

“That never happened to me before. I think it was the wine,” the viscount began to explain, but at that moment . . .

A) The werewolves showed up.

B) Sarah turned to Mary and said, “And you will spend eternity with me!”

C) The door to Hemlock House burst open and an army of zombies staggered out, prompting Lord Nightshade to curse under his breath.

D) The Marquis of Moonlight galloped across Satan’s Fury, his long, golden hair flying behind him.

YOUR TURN: You decide what happens next! Leave your vote in the comments by 8pm (5pm Pacific) every day between now and Halloween---Tomorrow's story continued by Tessa Dare with the twist YOU choose!

Today's continuation brought to you by Elizabeth Hoyt.