Once Bitten (4 page)

When
she no longer felt as if she was about to fall over, she turned on the little
radio that sat next to the sink and listened to a local country station as she
began pulling items out of the fridge to make herself and Gabriel some
breakfast. She had no idea how long he had been awake, but she guessed he had
to be hungry since her own stomach was rumbling.

The
bright noon sunlight poured in through the large windows as she flipped the
bacon in the pan to get a nice, even crisp on it. The bathroom door opened a
few seconds later and Gabriel stepped out into the kitchen, his nose raised in
the air.

“I love
bacon.” Small drops of water fell from his hair and landed on the hard defined
muscle of his bare chest. He wore the same jeans he had had on the night
before. They hung low on his narrow hips, barely hanging on without a belt to
hold them in place.

The
tongs slid in her fingers and she tightened her grip before she let them fall.
Her stomach clenched and she jerked her attention back to the sizzle of the
pan.

She
cleared her throat. “Did you sleep well?” she asked when he came up behind her
to pour himself a cup of the still hot coffee.

“Yeah,
did you?”

Nodding
in response, Lila pulled the plates down from the cabinet next to the stove,
happy to have something to do other than turn around and face him. “I hope you’re
hungry.”

“Starving.
It smells great.”

Laughing,
she said, “Does bacon ever smell anything other than good? I hope you like it
slightly floppy. I can’t stand overcooked meat.”

“A
woman after my own heart.”

Lila’s
stomach dropped and her back became rigid. He didn’t mean anything by it, she
told herself. Nope. Nothing.
Flip the
damn bacon, Lila!

She
pulled the bacon from the pan and put it on a paper towel lined plate. “Well,
when one of your best friends is a restaurant manager and aspiring chef, you
learn pretty quickly that the best meat is served at medium rare. If I ever
asked Maggie for something that was well done, she’d smack me upside the back
of my head.”

The
grease was still popping in the pan when Lila removed the carton of eggs from
the fridge. One by one, she cracked the shells and let the yolks fall into the
bacon grease.

His
hand shot out like lightening next to her. A piece of bacon disappeared from
the plate and before she was fully turned, the piece was gone.

Guilt
was plastered on his face. “I guess you really are hungry,” she said.

“I don’t
joke about food.”

“Apparently
not.”

When
the last of the eggs were done, she pulled them from the pan and shut off the
gas burner. She piled the plates high before handing one to Gabriel and picked
up the other, along with her refilled cup of coffee. They carried the plates
over to the table before she returned for silverware.

He
inhaled the food faster than she thought possible. It was gone before she was
even a quarter of the way done.

“That
was delicious,” he said when his plate was clean. Stretching back in the chair,
Gabriel surveyed her from across the table as she ate. “I called my brother
before I got into the shower. He’s going to come by with some of my stuff. I
figured it would be better if I just crashed here for a little while, if that’s
okay with you. On the chance that the warlocks come sniffing around here, I don’t
want them to find you by yourself and I think it would be better than bringing
you to my apartment. You’d be more comfortable here.”

Lila
raised a brow. She hadn’t anticipated him wanting to stay with her for more
than one night, but she couldn’t deny that she would feel safer with him
around. Unlike her, he knew what they were dealing with. And he was right that
she would be more comfortable in her own home than staying above the bar with
him and his brother.

“You
really think they’ll be back?”

“I
think it’s a possibility that shouldn’t be ignored. After all, they did find
the town you lived in. I think it’s only a matter of time before they’re
knocking on your door. Or knocking it down. You live far enough from town that
I think it’ll take them some time to figure it out.”

“Should
I leave?”

“It
doesn’t matter where you go. You might as well stay in your home where you know
your surroundings and your exits. We can set up protection for you here, rather
than going somewhere else entirely.” He tilted his head a fraction of an inch
as he studied her. “Did you have some place in mind that you wanted to go?”

“No,”
she said, shaking her head. “My only family, besides Andrea, lives in northern Aroostook
County and I haven’t talked to them in almost three years. Otherwise everyone
else I know is around here and I’m not about to put any of them in danger. I
guess I could go stay at a motel somewhere, but I don’t exactly have the funds
for that. Not for more than a few days. Besides, what’s to stop them from
finding me there?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly.
I’d know if someone around here doesn’t belong. If they come here and I can get
away, then I’ll take off.” She shrugged, silently hoping it never came to that.

Gabriel
placed his silverware on his empty plate and rose from the table. He picked up
her empty plate and took the dishes to the sink. Lila followed, her empty mug
in hand.

“We
have until the next full moon. Being human, whatever magic you practiced should
wear off by then. They won’t be able to sense you anymore, at least no more
than any other human,” he said, turning on the water at the sink.

Lila
leaned against the counter next to him as he began washing their dishes. “So
after a few weeks I won’t have to worry anymore?”

“They
can sense witches in the same way one werewolf can sense another is close by. I
can’t explain it very well. I guess you can think of it as a homing device, but
far less precise.”

“Like a
GPS locator?”

“Let me
give you an example,” he said, putting the now clean plate on to the drying
rack. “We’re north of The Wolf’s Den right now. So say a warlock is standing
outside the bar, he would feel a little twinge of something to the north. That’s
it. He then heads north. That twinge will get stronger the closer he comes
until he’s at your door.”

“I
would think then that they would be here sooner rather than later.”

“Here’s
my thinking. First, you’re human, not a real witch. Anything they feel will
most likely be considerably weaker compared to a true witch. Ultimately, they
may feel as if you’re farther away than you actually are. By the time they’ve
figured it out, they would probably have gone too far.

“Second,
what attracted them initially to this area wasn’t only you. You said that you
did this spell with your friends last weekend?”

He
looked at her and she nodded. He continued, “Then they were initially attracted
to this area from the surge of power that was created when the spell was
originally cast. Since you cast the spell with your friends, I think it’s safe
to assume that they’ll show up on a warlock’s radar in the same way you do.”

Her
stomach dropped. She had six friends who were in as much danger as she was at
the moment, and while she had been lucky enough to have Gabriel there to
explain the dangers to her, they were nothing more than sitting ducks.

“Oh
shit. That’s not good.”

He
turned off the water, the last of the dishes done. Turning to face her, he
shook his head. “You need to call them. Let them know what’s going on.”

They
were never going to believe what she had to tell them. It was too far out
there. She set her empty mug down on the counter and faced him. “And what do I
tell them exactly? That I’m sitting in my kitchen with a werewolf right now who
has just informed me that a bunch of warlocks are trying to track us down as we
speak because they believe we’re witches and they want to kill us? Oh yeah, I
really see them believing that. I bet they’ll show up here, but only to have me
committed.”

“Just
get them to come here. We’ll all sit down and when they don’t believe you, we’ll
prove our point.”

“Prove
it? And just how do you intend to do that?”

“I’ll
show them.”

“How—Oh.”
How could she have almost forgotten the way he had looked the night before when
he had begun his transformation in front of her? She couldn’t help but be
curious to see what he looked like when he changed completely. She shivered.

His
eyes narrowed, catching the small movement. “I frighten you.”

“No.”
Her response was automatic.

“You’re
lying.”

“I’m
not. Your crazy teeth are scary as hell, but you don’t scare me.” Maybe when he
changed completely it would be a different story, but Gabriel as he was now—standing
in front of her kitchen sink with dishtowel in hand—he was just Gabriel to her.
The same man who had brought her and her friends drinks for the past several
years. The werewolf thing was just an unexpected extra.

“You
fainted last night when you saw me and that was only a glimpse of the whole
thing.”

She
waved her hand in the air and rolled her eyes. “I was caught up in the moment.”

“Oh,
yeah?” The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Yup.”
She nodded vigorously, unsure of who she was trying to convince, him or
herself.

“Okay…”
he said with a sigh as he tossed the towel down next to the sink.

Folding
her arms across her chest, she glared at him. “Look, I’m not some little girl
who is going to go running and screaming out of the house like some mad woman
if you start sprouting fur.”

“Uh
huh.”

“Seriously.
I’m not that weak minded.”

The
smirk on his face faded as he spoke to her. “I would never think you were weak
minded. In fact it would make complete sense if you did run away screaming. It’s
not like you were brought up around this stuff. It’s all new to you and let’s
face it, when your world is turned upside down, it is scary.”

“I’m
adjusting just fine.”

“You
are. All I’m saying is that if our roles were reversed…” He shrugged. “Well, I
would probably run out of the house screaming like a little girl.”

She
laughed, unable to stop herself from picturing him screaming and waving his
arms like a lunatic.

He
smiled at her and when she finally stopped laughing, he said, “You should go
call your friends.”

“You’re
right.”

Lila
left him standing there while she went to retrieve her cell phone and make the
calls from her bedroom. Her smile lingered when she glanced back at him. He was
hanging the dishtowel on the rod, a frown on his face.

* * * *

Oh,
crap-tastic. Out of six friends, the only two who answered were Natalie and
Beth. She had left voicemails for everyone else telling them to call—making
sure to stress the word
urgent
and
tucked the phone into the pocket of her gray cotton lounge pants.

When
she walked back into the living room, she found Gabriel sitting on the couch,
flipping through the TV channels. He glanced up when she opened the bedroom
door, a questioning look on his face.

“Natalie
and Beth will be on their way soon. No one else answered.”

“Damn.”

“Tell
me about it.”

“I
thought women always answered their phones? Don’t all girls just live to talk?”

“Ha ha.
No.” Sighing, she plopped down next to him on the couch and kicked her bare
feet up on the coffee table. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “I
wasn’t surprised when Maggie and Heidi didn’t answer. They’re up in New Freedom
at Maggie’s Dad’s hunting cabin for the week.”

“New
Freedom?” She looked at him when she heard the surprise in his voice. He
quickly looked away from her, focusing on the television.

“Yes.
What about it?”

“Nothing,”
he said too quickly. “They’ll be off grid then, I guess.”

She was
quiet for a second, wanting to prod him about what he knew of New Freedom, but
then decided to let it go. New Freedom wasn’t exactly a town that was well
known. Perhaps she had misread him and he just hadn’t heard of it before. But
somehow she doubted that.

“Carey
didn’t answer. She probably threw back a few shots of Old Crow to help her
sleep since she has to work a twelve hour shift tonight. My cousin, Andrea,
didn’t answer either.”

Out of
everyone she had called, the fact that Andrea hadn’t answered the phone
bothered her. It wasn’t like Andrea not to answer when Lila called her,
especially at one in the afternoon on a Saturday. She worked a normal nine to
five job, so it wasn’t as if she was sleeping.

“What
is it?” Gabriel asked. He was staring at her.

“When I
talked to Andrea yesterday morning she said she was going into the office to
catch up on some paperwork today and to do a couple of interviews she had lined
up. I don’t know why she’s not answering her phone.”