Blood of the White Witch (29 page)

I moved in front of him and hurried to the
sealed door, waving my hand over the lock to release it. I pulled
it open, and Vance brushed past me heading down the steep stone
stairs.

I let the others pass through the door
before I closed it behind me, sealing the lock once again.

We moved quickly down the passageway, trying
to catch up with Vance. He was already placing Darcy on the cot
inside the cell by the time I rounded the corner and stepped
through the illusion barrier.

He came back out immediately. Grandma, Dad
and I joined him, and we resealed the glass shield around the
cell.

“That should hold her good,” my dad said,
stepping back to survey everything. “I want someone with her around
the clock until she wakes up,” he added. “Who wants to go
first?”

“Me,” Vance said without hesitation.

“All right,” Dad said, placing a radio into
his hand. “Let us know when you need someone to trade places with
you.”

“Will do,” he said, turning to look at me.
“Do you want to stay with me?”

“Yes, but I think I’ll run upstairs and get
us some chairs to sit on first so we can be a little more
comfortable,” I replied.

“Oh!” Grandma spoke up, turning to the
neighboring cell. “I forgot we have an extra cot in here that you
can use.”

She went inside and pulled it out, setting
it against the wall for us.

“Thanks, Grandma,” I said.

Vance and I both sat down on it leaning back
against the stones behind us.

“No problem,” she said, and she patted my
shoulder. “Just let me know if you need anything else.”

“Okay,” I said, watching the group disappear
from sight.

Vance put his feet up on the edge of the
thin mattress then, resting his arms over his bent knees and
leaning his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

“Are you tired?” I asked him.

He opened his eyes to look over at me
through hooded lids.

“Not really,” he answered. “Why, are
you?”

“No,” I replied to him. “You just seemed
tired.”

“I’m tired of waiting on everything,” he
acknowledged. “I’m just ready for all this to be over. I want to
get my mom and be done with place. I just want to move on and live
our lives.”

“Hopefully that will happen someday soon,” I
replied with a small smile.

He reached over and patted me on my
knee.

“There she is. My ever-the-optimistic
lover,” he smiled softly at me, before he closed his eyes
again.

When he didn’t remove his hand from my leg,
I slid my hand over the top of his, threading my fingers through
his, before I leaned my head onto his shoulder to rest against
him.

I didn’t close my eyes, though, instead
looking at the blood pulsating through his veins, signifying that
he was real, alive, and he wanted to be with me. I kept wondering
when I would wake up and find that he had only been a figment of my
imagination.

“You don’t need to worry,” he chuckled
softly. “I’m real, with all of my flaws, and, yes, you’re the only
one I want.” He squeezed my fingers with his.

“I just love you. You make me so very happy.
I feel like I don’t deserve to be this blessed. I keep waiting for
something to come and rip it all away from me,” I explained.

“I’m not planning on ever leaving you for
any reason,” he assured me. “But can I point out one thing?”

“Go ahead.”

“Even if the worst were to happen and we
were somehow parted, let’s say by death, you and I have experienced
a love that most people wait their whole lives just to have a small
taste of,” he said.

I thought about that for a few seconds.
“Yes, but that’s what makes me so scared,” I replied. “It’s such a
wonderful thing that I don’t ever want to lose it.”

“So would you have rather not have ever had
the taste than to risk knowing what you’d be missing?” he asked
me.

I didn’t have to think long about that one.
“No. I’d take every second with you that I could get before you had
to leave,” I replied and I wrapped my free arm tightly around
his.

“Well, then my suggestion is we live each
moment we have together as if it were our last, and then whenever
the end does come, we won’t have any regrets. Besides, death will
only be a short separation for us. I fully plan on being with you
in the next life,” he said seriously.

“Do you really believe all that stuff?” I
asked him.

“What? God, religion, and the
afterlife?”

“Yeah.”

“Absolutely, don’t you?” he asked me.

“I always have,” I said. “It’s just scary to
me now when I don’t have any proof. What if something happened to
you, and that was it? Poof, the end?”

“Have faith, Portia,” he said, squeezing my
hand. “What kind of cruel God would send us here to earth if he
didn’t have some sort of plan for us? I just don’t believe he’d do
that. Plus I plan on you and me living together until we’re very
old anyway.” He smiled.

“Great!” I said facetiously. “Then I’ll have
to worry about all of my wrinkles and whether or not I’m able to
keep you interested in boring old me.”

He laughed then. “Have you ever looked at
your family?” he asked me. “They hardly share a wrinkle between
them. I think you’ll age just fine, and you could never, ever be
boring to me, even if you tried. The real question is whether
you’ll still love me when I lose my six-pack and have a beer belly
instead.” He laughed again.

“Yeah right. You’re Mr. Perfect Physique.
That’ll never happen,” I replied with a smile. “Your family looks
pretty fit too.”

He sobered up at that comment.

“I just wish they had the personalities to
offset their looks,” he replied with a faraway look in his
eyes.

“Your mom does,” I said, trying to cheer him
up.

He nodded then.

“Yes, she does, doesn’t she?” he
responded.

“She does, and I really like her,” I
replied.

He gave a small laugh then. “Isn’t it
ironic? You always hear about the horrible mother-in-law stories,
and she’s the only person in my family that you even like.”

“I probably would have liked the others,
too, in the beginning,” I said. “They just made some bad choices
and ended up losing themselves as a consequence.”

“Yeah, all choices have consequences,
whether they’re good or bad. They just happened to make all the
wrong choices.”

“That’s what is different about you. You try
to make good choices. Your mom tries to make good choices.”

“It hasn’t helped either of us much though,
has it?” he answered. “We’re still wrapped up in everyone’s bad
choices around us.”

“But still you fight for what you know is
right. You’re a warrior for what’s good.” I smiled, and he laughed
right out loud.

“I wouldn’t exactly call myself a warrior,”
he stated humbly.

“What would you call yourself then?” I
asked, truly wondering how he would describe himself.

He thought about it before he answered
me.

“A dreamer,” he replied, and I was surprised
because I never would have thought he would choose that word for
himself. “I dream of a wonderful life in a wonderful future with
the people I love surrounding me.”

I could feel the rawness in his soul as he
spoke, and I knew he had revealed his most tender emotions to
me.

“Well, then I’ll make that my dream, and
we’ll dream it together,” I said back to him.

He let go of my hand and wrapped his arm
around my shoulders, pulling me toward him so he could kiss the top
of my head.

“I love you,” he said as he hugged me.

“I love you, too, more than you’ll ever
know.” I smiled.

“Are you sure I didn’t just lose all of my
appeal to you, though,” he said with a chuckle. “I know how you
enjoy being married to a bad boy. Now I’m just a dreamer,” he
teased.

“Regardless of whatever you think you are, I
want every part of you there is to have, Vance. Bad boy, dreamer,
lover, tease, I’ll take them all,” I said seriously. “I want you to
know I love all of it.”

“Good, I’m glad,” he said with a smile.
“Because I want to give it all to you. I enjoy giving it all to
you.”

I laughed at him then, choosing to turn his
words back on him playfully.

“And I’ve certainly been enjoying the
‘getting’ of it,” I flirted back with him, and I turned around then
to face him, pulling his face to mine so I could kiss him.

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me,
pulling me up onto his lap, thoroughly kissing me back while he
wound his fingers through my hair and held my face gently up next
to his.

I let my arms twist around his neck when he
deepened the kiss, sighing, and I leaned in closer to him.

“Ugh!” An unexpected voice broke into our
moment. “I see the lovers are still going at it. Give me a break
and get a room.”

We both stopped immediately and turned
toward the cell.

Darcy was awake.

Vance slowly slid me off his lap, stood and
walked over to the cell. He looked Darcy up and down.

“Well, you’re awake much earlier than
expected,” he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his
jeans.

“I assume you’re referring to the little
drug I was given? You should know that demons are much more
powerful than regular witches and warlocks. We recover from things
much quicker,” she goaded him.

“Is that so?” he said, and he removed his
hands from his pockets to fold one arm across his chest. He rested
his other arm on it and raised a finger to tap on his lips. “Nope.
I just don’t recall those demons that I killed being more powerful
than I was.” He turned to look at me. “What do you think, Portia?
Should we dig up Brian and ask him?” He turned back to Darcy then.
“Oh, that’s right! We can’t because he lost his head. Unless he’s
still recovering, that is.”

I could see that despite his proclamation
otherwise, Vance’s inner bad boy was still running strong and
flaming to the surface.

Darcy’s face twisted into her demon form.
She let out a large hiss at him and jumped, slamming her body
against the glass.

Instantly, the current running behind the
magical pane shocked her, and she fell backward to the floor.

Vance looked at her, a long low
wicked-sounding laugh coming from deep inside him while he watched
her climb to her feet.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Darcy?” he
baited her, his eyes flashing in enjoyment. “I’ve got to say, I’m
still not impressed.”

“You killed Brian?” she asked him then, her
disbelief evident in the tone of her voice.

“Yes, I did. Would you like to see?” Vance
said in an accommodating voice, and he waved his hand slightly,
gesturing toward the hallway behind him. “I could run out and get
him for you real fast.”

“I believe you,” she said, hanging her head
in a way that almost made me feel sorry for her.

“Are you sad, Darcy? Surely a demon isn’t
capable of any real emotion,” he continued to push her.

She lifted her head to glare at him.

“He was my lover!” she spat at him. “The two
of us shared something special together!”

“Did you now?” Vance asked, stepping up to
the glass, and I could feel the anger course through him. “Then
perhaps you could explain to me why I caught him here, trying to
feel up my wife!”

“You’re lying!” she screamed at him, her
voice making an earsplitting sound. “Brian would never leave
me!”

“Well, Darcy, apparently you just weren’t
meeting his needs well enough because he was definitely off looking
for greener pastures than you have to offer,” Vance replied with
irritation. He had to turn away from the glass for a moment then to
cool down. The very thought of Brian in the kitchen with me was
threatening to overwhelm him again.

“He was the one who came to comfort me,” she
said, raising her chin a notch, “after you killed your father.”

He turned quickly back to the glass at that
remark.

“What are you saying, Darcy?” he said
seriously, a glowering look crossing his face. “Were you intimate
with him, too?”

She paused for a moment as if she were
weighing her answer.

“Yes, not that it’s any of your business,”
she answered, returning his stare. “He was good to me. I think he
even loved me,” she added almost as an afterthought.

Vance let out a quick choked laugh. “Boy,
Darcy, you’re really off your mark when it comes to judgment,
aren’t you?” he asked incredulously.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes
narrowing toward him.

“You are aware that he was still married and
that he was flying here to Scotland to have regular relations with
his wife?” he asked her, not sugar-coating it at all.

“Yes, but he didn’t like it. He said it was
just a means to an end,” she replied haughtily. “He said I was the
only one for him, his soulmate.”

Vance laughed right out loud at this
comment.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was just wondering if you knew why he was
also putting the moves on Portia then while she was his prisoner.
He made it very clear that he intended to take her as his lover.”
He scratched behind one ear as if completely puzzled.

Darcy turned her glare to me then.

“You’re lying! She was just a pawn to him. I
don’t know why anyone would ever want her.” She sent me a sizzling
look of pure hatred.

“Well, I could personally give you a
thousand reasons off the top of my head,” Vance returned. “But that
isn’t why we brought you here.”

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

“We need some information,” Vance said with
a smile.

“And why would I tell you anything?” She
smiled, baring her rows of uneven teeth.

“Well, because if you don’t, I might be
inclined to melt your head off your body just like I did to your
sweet lover boy, Brian,” he replied in a voice that sounded way too
chipper about the idea.