Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (12 page)

“I think you already know the answer. That glow you’ve been seeing around your new friend, that’s his aura. Well, what you can see of it right now. It all depends for me on how hard I’m looking. I can overlook them completely if I want. Some people’s auras…well. If you concentrate you’ll be able to see much more clearly.”

“Great, Yoda, thanks. Would it kill you to answer a question directly?” My jeans pocket pinched off the circulation in my hand while I rooted for a couple of bills to pay her.

“Maybe. Twenty-five dollars.” She held out a chubby, freckled hand and took my money, tucking it into her bra. I decided to let her keep the change. We might both be chicks, but whoa.

Lane turned and sashayed down the narrow walkway to the back room. I wasn’t sure what she did back there, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t baking cookies.

“Don’t forget to use a circle dear. We wouldn’t want even more nasties at your door.”

I was left standing at the counter with a crammed paper bag, swearing under my breath about busybody witches with a penchant for playing the oracle-that-doesn’t-tell-you-anything-useful. It was always this cryptic crap that kept me up all night, worrying over what she’d said and trying to puzzle out what she hadn’t.

There was a rack of dried lavender on the counter next to the register. I ripped off a bunch out of spite and threw it in the bag.

When the bell jingled on the way out, I fought an intense urge to rip it down and throw it across the street.

I picked up Chinese on my way home again. Promising myself I would grocery shop was ridiculous, so I promised to stop doing it. I hate to cook, so why keep promising to do it when I can pay other people to? My budget was tight, but with lunch specials and careful stretching of meals, I could live on takeout. I wandered into the drugstore next door to China Sea to stock up on essentials.

Anna was at the register, her pretty face lighting up with a quick smile when she saw me. Looked like the fight from the other day was forgotten. One of Anna’s best qualities was that she never held a grudge. When I’d first started coming in here, I’d thought she found my candy purchases amusing. Then one morning I walked in and saw her scarfing a handful of gummy worms.

Turns out she was just happy to see someone else with as much of an addiction as her own. We’d bonded over my sometimes twice-a-day sugar stops.

The front center section of the store beckoned to me with open arms and shiny-shiny plastic bags. The bulk candy aisle: nirvana on Earth. Two one-pound bags of jelly beans, one blue raspberry licorice (for experimental purposes), four rolls of Chewy Sprees, and a decent bag of peanut M&M’s later, I sidled up to the counter and dumped my haul. Anna smiled at me and started hitting barcodes with the zapper thing.

“You’re in early for your fix. How you doing?”

“All right. You?”

She shrugged and held up the bag of blue raspberry licorice.

I ripped it open in response and offered her a piece. We both took a bite. “Pretty good. Might be better if it had sugar coating the outside.”

She nodded and swallowed. “Could be a backup for emergency purposes.”

I handed her some cash and chewed while she fished for my change.

“I’m tempted to ask about the chocolate, but I won’t.” She smiled slyly and put the receipt and change in my hand. In her way she could be just as annoying with the half answers as Lane. The candy got dumped into a plastic bag. I threw the paper bag from Lane’s in on top. I really needed to remember to bring one of those reusable ones. The darned plastic bags were like out of control bunnies—replicating every time I turned my back.

“Call me later. I want to hear more about the strip club and the Stache-master.”

She giggled and rolled her eyes. “Gotta rub it in, don’t you?”

“No. Just, it has hilarity potential. I mean, think about it. You being how you are and never getting a clue…and then you go to a strip club and still no clue until…”

“Argh! Shut up!” She threw a gummy worm that materialized from beneath the counter at me. “You’re right, it does. It is funny with a little distance. How about I call you when I get off for the night?”

“Sure.” I blew her a kiss with an eyebrow waggle, and she snorted at me but grinned.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, I’d demolished an egg roll, some wonton soup, and Kung Pao Pork. I’d double ordered so there was plenty for lunch and dinner tomorrow. I actually liked my spicy dishes better the second day.

I washed up and brushed my teeth. I didn’t want anything distracting me from my casting and meditation. I gathered my supplies and took them into the bedroom where I closed my curtains and stripped. Part of the reason my clothes were all over the floor was because I commandeered my closet as an altar space. I don’t do any heavy-duty spelling, but it is meant to be a sacred space, so I like to keep it clean.

I emptied the bag from Lane’s shop onto the bed and took the new candles with me to the altar, setting each in its respective space on the compass. Then I set a circle and cleansed my space for meditation. I concentrated on asking for the presence of only good and helpful spirits to come to my side during the casting and keeping negative energy away. When I arrived home today from shopping my kitchen drawers had been hanging open again. It happened at least once a week. My invisible roommate didn’t seem harmful, but it was better to be safe and do the ritual right.

First, I renewed the protection around my apartment with a good mixture of sea salt and brick dust across the exterior door and windowsills. When I finished, I returned to the altar and sat on the floor cross-legged in front of it and closed my eyes. This was my favorite place to meditate.

Straightening my back and taking a new deeper breath, I forced it out slowly and sunk to the floor. I imagined I sat on an endless, empty beach with nothing but the turquoise waters of the Caribbean in front of me and white, sugary sand beneath and all around me. The musical whisper of the water rolled in and out with the tide. I stared at the far horizon where the water and sky met one another.

The events of the last few days flooded my head, but this time I detached myself and examined them. What did I want to ask for guidance with and protection from? Stella had always been very clear—when asking for help from a deity, you had to know exactly what you wanted or risk being stuck with a nasty case of buyer’s remorse with no one but yourself to blame.

Meeting Daniel had made me realize how lonely and isolated I’d become. I didn’t want to live the way I had been any longer. He said the dark-haired vamp was my king, but I wasn’t going to give in that easily. If I possessed an ability, a magic strong enough to drain humans of their life force through nothing but sexual contact, and could call—albeit unconsciously—vampires to me, who said I had to just go with the guy?

The sun in my imaginary space shone bright and hot. A trickle of sweat ran down the nape of my neck and between my shoulder blades. The gritty sand itched under my legs and butt. It was then I realized I was no longer meditating.

I also wasn’t alone.

A tall, red-haired woman stood a few feet to my left, letting the waves run over her feet.

I rubbed my eyes and stared. This couldn’t be happening. She stood in the water watching me, long, red hair flowing to her lower back and a baby bump protruding under her white gown. As she approached, she morphed into a muscular brunette wearing leather body armor, a quiver of arrows poking up over one shoulder and a short sword gripped in her right hand. Blue body paint and rust-colored spatters covered her cheeks, hands to the elbow, and legs.

I stared, dumbfounded, as her appearance continued to shift. She became an old woman with white, thinning hair and wrinkled cheeks. Even in the elderly form, her posture was ramrod straight, and she walked with long, fast strides over the sand. Holy crap.

I pinched my thigh in an attempt to wake myself and scrunched my eyes closed, hoping when I opened them she would be gone.

She stopped directly in front of me, once again the pregnant redhead. Her stern, green gaze bored a hole in my forehead, and I wriggled my backside into the sand. I stopped and held still, the way a mouse trapped in an aquarium with a hungry boa constrictor freezes. Maybe if I didn’t move, she’d go away and not kill me.

A shimmer danced over her hair and down her body, right to where her toes peeked out under her hemline. When it stopped, a braid fell over one shoulder and a circlet nestled in her hair. A stunning emerald green gown with a square neckline and those big bell sleeves like something right out of a medieval faire took the place of the shapeless white shift.

“You should have come sooner, Miranda.”

I fought the urge to stand up or to try to cover myself. I had a feeling either would be highly frowned upon by this…person. I could do naked with men. Around other women—not so much.

She sat down opposite me and folded her legs criss-cross-applesauce like mine. My skin crawled. With her sweeping gaze traveling over me, filing everything away for some unknown purpose, I wanted to find some place to hide. I squirmed and stuck my tongue against the roof of my mouth so I wouldn’t blurt out something asinine and regrettable.

“Daniel Red Sleeves has already told you what you are, so I do not understand why you wish to question me.”

I looked at a point somewhere over her right shoulder while I formed my question.

“I do not understand what it means though. I was never taught—”

“Why must it always be so with the young? Why, why, why. Always asking why. Be it a blessing or a calamity, your kind is always asking why.” She sighed, put one elbow on her knee, and dropped her chin to her palm. “Did you not listen to T.T.B.? He told you that you will help bring fertility back to the covens. And you really must stop thinking of yourself as human. You are much more than that.”

Rude much lady? Ooohh look at me, I’m a shape-shifting entity who gets off on berating naked people. “How did you know I call him that? And what if I don’t want to bring life back to them? They don’t seem to have many redeeming qualities.”

“I am a goddess, I know things.” She smiled in a superior way, and I narrowed my eyes. Her smile grew. “You really need to re-evaluate how you separate yourself from the others of your race. You will need them one day. You were born and selected to help return life and fertility to the barren wombs of your kinfolk. Why do you find this so onerous a task? The vast majority live in balance with humanity, like any intelligent predator. One does not cull a herd so badly she leaves herself without sustenance if she has any brains.”

“I don’t know, let me think…the vast majority of males have treated me like nothing more than a Happy Meal? This gift I was given sucked a poor teenage boy dry? And now I have a complete jerk telling me I have to show up at his court because he says he’s my king, and I’m just supposed to drop my entire life for him?” I punched the sand next to my knee and huffed.

“You’re whining.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. Many of the situations you have found yourself in have been directly caused by your own choices.”

My hand curled around a handful of sand. I wanted to fling it at her, but I let it run through my fingers instead. “If you’re really a goddess, could you maybe conjure me some clothes? I think I’m burning.” I dared to meet her eyes for a millisecond and nearly wet myself.

“This is a vision you initiated. The physical reality of it is controlled by you.” She tapped me on the nose.

I swiped at her hand and leaned back. “What the fuck, lady?”

“If you want clothes, make them yourself.” She leaned in, crowding me, and chucked me under the chin. “And don’t ever call me ‘lady’ in such a way again.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again with a snap when a faint wrinkle appeared between her eyes. I still wasn’t sure who or what she was, but that little line in her skin and her tone telegraphed a deep annoyance with me. Perhaps I was pushing my luck. But, seriously, she was treating me like a disobedient pet.

I concentrated on dressing myself mentally in a beach cover-up, something with little cap sleeves so my shoulders wouldn’t turn crispy. Oh, and an empire waist.

It shimmered into existence over my body. I gasped. “How cool is that!” Then I thought for a few seconds about how nice it would look if it was light blue with a pattern of summer flowers along the lower hem, and it changed colors. I settled on purple with daises along the lower edge and a floppy straw hat.

Then I thought about imaging my new friend right outta there, but when I looked up at her she frowned.

“It is considered extremely rude to try to evict a deity from a vision if one deigns to meet with you.” She plucked a thread from the hem of my sundress. Her fingernails had blood beneath them. I shivered. “Especially since you invited me here in the first place. Did no one teach you any manners at all?”

A blush stained my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. “Sorry.” I peeked at her face before giving my attention to the ocean behind her once more. Looking at her face for any length of time scared the crap outta me. I really didn’t want her to morph into the bloody warrior version with the weapons and armor. The chiding mother with bloody nails was bad enough. “So if you’re a goddess, just what goddess are you anyway?”

“You may address me as Macha.”

“I don’t want that dark-haired creep for my king!” I blurted the words out and clapped a hand over my mouth in horror. If she really was a goddess, I probably shouldn’t scream in her face.

“One king is as good as another.” She shrugged. “It is a woman’s body that brings life and nurtures that new life, not a man’s.”

“How do I learn to control this power, this Hunger that lives in me?”

“You must complete what you started with Tommy Henderson.” She split her hair into three sections and began to braid it. “The ceremony was never borne to its fruition, leaving your gift only partially awoken.”

“If that’s what it can do only partially awake, I don’t think I should complete the ritual.” I shuddered and goose bumps popped up all over me. “Wasn’t your hair braided already?”