Vampires and Sexy Romance (24 page)

Min rubbed her thumb and forefinger at her exhausted eyes, and closed yet another thick, overwritten and musty tome.  She pushed the worn leather-bound book away.  What was this, the third or the fourth book she’d read cover to cover this week?  She was sick of these godforsaken books.  The rancid moldy smell, the abrasive feel of the pages, the endless, cryptic,
utterly useless
words they held, not one of them delivering the answers she required, or the cure she needed.

It was well past midnight already, and she needed to get back to the store early the next morning.  Even though her sister, Andy, would open tomorrow, she still needed to contact the druid in Paraguay who had the copy of
Pathways through the Ethereal Mists
up for bid on eBay.  She needed it.  Not to mention she needed to get on their supplier’s butt about how long it took for special orders to come in that month.  It was ridiculous.

Another book sat inconspicuously not even an arm’s reach away, its cracked, green leather binding called out to her.  It promised nothing, but there was always the chance that what she looked for, a cure for her mother at last, could be held within those tattered bindings.

Her body ached to go home, to fall into her bed and sleep.  But her guilt was a force of nature.  She needed to find out everything and anything that the book could tell her. 

Just one more...
 

She’d reached out to pull the book to her when she heard a woman scream from outside the shop.  Min rose, grabbed her coat, and rushed to the front door and pulled it open with a clamor of tiny bells.  Well into January, the cold air bit into her flesh and forced her to hug her arms about her.  She pulled her coat around her better and looked down to one end of the street—nothing.  She turned the other way and a blonde in a long, thin black trench coat ran into her.  The blonde’s purse fell to the ground where its contents scattered over the concrete of the sidewalk. 

“I’m so sorry,” the blonde sputtered.

Min was about to tell her to watch where she was going when she caught the look of terror etched across the woman’s face.

“Are you alright?”

The blonde was scared out of her wits, and when Min knelt to help her gather the spilled contents of her purse, she sensed a wave of nauseatingly cold energy moving in fast toward them. 

Min let her power taste that cold energy—vampire.

~*~

For three hundred years Luca had given in to the monster within him.  He let himself enjoy the slaughter, to revel in it.  And that was all he was now: a killer.  Then five months ago something called to him: first the scent of blood so potent and delicious that his beast went wild with bloodlust; second, a whispered promise on the wind. 

Peace…completeness…an end to your suffering.

He followed the elusive aroma across the country to Augusta, Georgia.  The smell so intoxicating he could practically taste it.  Once there, though, the smell went from permeating the entire city to vanishing altogether.  Yet every time he tried to leave, the damnable scent would flare up again and his beast would hunt all the harder for its source. 

Luca didn’t like this city.  It was less populated than he preferred, and his prey less willing.  He liked those humans who invite death to them, who call shadows and loss to hover around them like a shroud.  

And he was hunting on that cold January night. 

Luca heard the girl’s heartbeat quicken as she ran down the rain slicked street.  Her blond hair was piled atop her head, whipping about like liquid fire; her high heels clicked a desperate rhythm as she ran away from him.  She stank of fear—he didn’t blame her, she should be afraid. 

Luca’s beast liked them that way.

It loved the taste of fear, how it lent spice to the blood.  Fear imbued even the most mundane victim with the sweetest ambrosia.  And the way adrenaline made the heart thump.  One could drain a victim in seconds with no trouble at all.  

The blonde was scared out of her wits and had been running for nearly two blocks.  She was ripe with what he and his beast wanted most.  And so young, barely twenty, her face smooth and lineless, her hair its true color, her body firm and supple and voluptuous.  To take her would be a pleasure to treasure.  But he knew he would feel remorse if he just ate her, sucking her dry in a flash to quench his hellish thirst.

He and his beast wanted to play with her first.

Maybe seduce her—
maybe in her very own bed—
her naked breasts heaving against his chest as he took her again and again.   And then he’d feast on her love swooned blood until every last decadent drop was his.

Or maybe he would just take her, hard and fast, fucking her forcibly until she surrendered in climax.

It would be so depraved that maybe, just maybe, that would wash away the lingering memories of that elusive blood.  He hoped so.

He zigzagged from shadow to shadow, from doorways to behind lampposts, to even running alongside the frightened blonde.  He bid his time and enjoyed the chase.  He stood across the street when the blonde ran right into a raven-haired beauty, dropped her purse and sputtered apologies.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to the woman as she tried desperately to pick up her things and return them to her purse.

“No problem.”  The woman’s voice was rich and dark like coffee, and she had the faintest of European accents.  She knelt, reached out and took hold of the blonde’s wrist.  “Are
you
all right?”    

The blonde jumped at her touch, on the verge of tears.  “Some one’s after me…a man.”  She shook her head and looked back over her shoulder again.  “I think…I think he wants to
kill me
.” 

“Kill you?” the woman said, her voice even. 

She doesn’t believe her. 
The vampire smiled to himself.

The blonde shook her head again and her expression dropped.  “I feel…really stupid.  I saw this guy looking at me...looking like he wanted to…to eat me…and then I ran.”  She gathered up the last of her things and stuffed them in her purse.  She stood and looked the raven-haired woman in the eye.  “I really thought he was chasing me.” 

They both looked back down the street.  The blonde laughed nervously and shrugged her shoulders.  But the raven-haired one, she turned her head slowly, scanning the street, and then whipped her head around to focus her dark eyes on the vampire.

Luca smiled and nodded his head, impressed with the woman’s alertness, and suddenly seized with wanting her.  Those dark brown eyes flickered golden with curiosity and intelligence.  She would be a pleasure for the mind and the pallet.

But then she tilted her head and smiled back at him, not as strangers do, especially in the pitch of night on a lonely street.  Anyone with half a brain would be on edge, riddled with fear and paranoia—but not this woman.  Her smile was as peaceful and solicitous as it was beautiful.

“Hungry tonight, are we...vampire?”

Luca stood there stunned. Someone had recognized what he was. On sight! The beast in him wanted her. Badly. He stepped forward onto the street. The blonde girl saw him and screamed in terror. A moment later, the raven-haired woman grabbed her wrist again and jerked her out of her hysteria.

“Please be quiet.  I’ve got enough to handle without you bleating your head off.”

“But it’s
him
!” the blonde screeched.

“I know that.  Now if you say another word I’ll let him have you.”  She sounded so calm, her dark eyes never leaving the vampire.  Luca was impressed.  A human who thought she could fight a vampire.  And she was more than a little mean, telling the frightened blonde she’d let him have her. 

Luca chuckled and strode a few paces toward them.

The blonde whined.

The raven-haired woman raised her hand up as if she was about to wave goodbye, and suddenly a fireball appeared.  The flames licked the cool night air and flickered between orange, yellow and red. 

A witch. 

She threw the fireball at him and he jumped back.  When it landed it left the patch of pavement where he’d been smoldering and cracked.  He looked across the street and smiled at her.  She smiled back. 

This could be fun.

His beast howled its agreement.

“Leave now, vampire,” she said, “and I won’t destroy you.”

Nice touch.
But witches, no matter how powerful, were still
just human
.  And humans weren’t near quick enough for a seasoned vampire.

Before the witch could take her next breath he was across the street and had his hand around her throat, his fangs bared, ready to kill.  But he didn’t want to kill her, not yet.  There were so many games he could play with a witch.  So much more he could take from her than a regular human. 

A low hum of power radiated from her flesh into his hand, warm and comforting. 

Maybe he would turn her, make her vampire?  He had never done that certain trick, not in all the years since his mistress had made him; her crazed eyes and silky high voice still haunted him three hundred years later. 

Had he been alone long enough?  Could this spitfire of a witch be diversion enough for another few millennia?

For now he would just show her his fangs, show her how defenseless she was against him, and wipe the glower off her exquisite face. 
Fear me, you foolish human.  Give me what I want!

There was a searing pain in his chest, and the scent of burnt flesh—
his flesh!

He lurched back away from the witch, beat out the flames that engulfed his shirt and left his chest and face burned.  He looked up and saw the witch’s hand was on fire, like a torch, and her dark eyes blazed with golden power.

“That was...hot,” Luca said right before he jumped back again.  Another fireball scorched the ground at his feet.  “But are you just a one trick pony?”

The witches eyebrows bunched and she bared her teeth.  “Did you just call me a horse?”

Luca grinned.  He’d pissed her off. 

He heard the nearly undetectable sound of something large falling through the air.  He bolted to the side just as a monolithic granite angel crashed to the ground, shattering into rubble the size of human heads.  He looked across the street and saw a huge old church. 
Resourceful, this one—to pluck such a thing from its perch and brandish it with such accuracy.

Maybe he’d get more than just a good fight and a mouthwatering meal out of this one.

“You win, witch.  I give up.”  Luca held up his hands, turned and walked slowly away, listening to the witch’s even breaths, but failed to hear her heart.  He touched the tender flesh of his chest that she had burnt.  The pain was comforting; a taste of what was to come.

A scent caught his attention—and the undivided attention of his beast.  There was blood, still wet, no more than a drop under his fingernail. 
I must have scratched her neck.

But then that scent kicked in, and his beast rose up, roaring with wanton hunger.

It was the blood that had drawn and beckoned him to this city; the blood that had kept his beast here, even when it wanted nothing more than to leave.

It was the witch…she was what he’d been looking for all along.

He took his finger into his mouth and licked and sucked the nectar from it.   And though the beast inside him went crazy at the taste, something deep inside him sparked, just for a moment, an entity Luca didn’t know how to describe.

Something that brought joy and terrible pain with it.  Something impossible.

But that flicker of flame vanished as quickly as it had come.

Next time
, he told his beast, ducking down a dark alley. 
Next time more than just a taste!

Min stood still as stone, the flesh of her palm still burning—the fireballs always gave pain along with their protection.  She watched as the vampire swaggered down the street and disappeared into the night. 
Bastard!

She’d needed the adrenalin rush.  After hours holed up in the shop, rummaging through those old texts, she had one hell of a headache, tired eyes and a crick in her neck.  The close call with the gorgeous yet deadly vampire had washed away all her aches and pains.

She cringed just at the thought of what she’d done.  As soon as she’d seen the vampire she should have took the blonde and herself back into the shop and bolted the door.  Not that that would’ve stopped him, but to go toe to toe with the creature on the open street had been sheer stupidity. 
What the hell was I thinking?

Truth-be-told she should have just let the vampire have the girl.  It hadn’t been any of her business—she’d been walking around at night, defenseless…

No, no, no…no one asks to be attacked and eaten by a creature of a nightmare. 
She couldn’t have left her to fend for herself.  It wasn’t like she stalked around the city with a cape, rescuing damsels in distress and little old ladies from the riff-raff scum of the earth.  But she would be damned if she would let it happen right in front of her nose.

Not the smartest or safest way to live.

A flash of how fast he’d moved upon her slipped through her mind.  He could have killed her, had her drained and been off hunting down Blondie before Min’s corpse even hit the concrete. 

The feel of his touch, how something inside him had somehow connected with something in her, it made her tremble.  Every cell in her body wanted him, instantly, soulless demon or not.

She shook her head and tried to dislodge such stupidity. 

Why had she gone for scorching the pavement when she should have gone for the kill?  Her mother and grandmother had taught her better.  Vampires were animals.  Filthy, soulless, and single minded.  If it wasn’t sex, it was food, gorging on blood when they weren’t committing carnal debauchery. 

But this one was different.  This one hadn’t killed her.  He’d wanted to scare her.  So he was one of those fiends that liked to play with their food before they ate it? 

A moment of heated insanity welled up inside Min and made her pulse pound in her throat, and her body to tighten in all the wrong areas.  She felt herself quiver just thinking how it might be to be with a vampire—all that preternatural strength…all that bloodthirsty passion. 

“It would be wild.” she whispered to herself.

“Shit...” the blonde said from behind her.

Min had forgotten all about her.  At least she’d obeyed and stayed quiet and out of the way while Min took care of the
big bad vampire...

Yes, that’s right.  He is the big bad vampire, and to play with such a thing is madness…suicide…what’s wrong with me? 
Min closed her eyes and took in a big breath, trying to gather her wits and center herself. 
Don’t be stupid! Don’t be stupid! Don’t be stupid!

But he’d been so mouthwateringly handsome…no, he’d been freaking beautiful.  And the look on his face when she’d burned his chest and set him on fire.  He hadn’t looked angry.  He’d looked turned on.  And that moment when he’d touched her.  It was like electricity in her veins.  There was something vaguely familiar about it, as if his touch had been…had been something she’d been waiting for.  And now that he’d touched her, she wanted him to touch her again.       

Min sighed, rolled her eyes and turned to face the bug-eyed blonde.  “Why don’t I walk you home?”  

The girl was alternating her terror stricken eyes from where the vampire had vanished, to Min’s hands.  “What was that?  And what was he?” her tone was frightened, but a little pissy.  That gained her points in Min’s book.  Being able to get bitchy in the face of monstrous creatures of the night took guts.

Min turned back to the magic shop and locked the door, then waved her hands.  “That was a fireball.”  And then she shrugged in the vampire’s direction.  “And he was a vampire.”

Blondie gulped as her eyes bulged out even further.  “Oh!”

Min smiled.  “Any more questions?”  The blonde shook her head an adamant no.  Min patted her on the shoulder and then headed her down the street, her eyes ever vigilant.  “Well then, let’s get you home.”

~*~

His flesh had almost healed by the time Luca returned to his lair, changed his clothes, and then came back to pick up the witch’s trail.  It still hurt, and it would until he woke completely rejuvenated the next night.  He smiled at the little pain.  It made him think of her. 

He found them both still walking south on Vine Street.  He could never get over how slow human’s were.  He himself could not pull up those long forgotten human moments.  Everything after his transformation to vampire was crystal clear, if not painfully vivid.  But his human life was lost to him.  All but a few faded, dubious images remained.

He could hear their every word, though the blonde kept her mouth shut, and the witch was busy keeping an eye out for him.  He could still hear the blonde’s heart inside her chest, racing still with fear.  Its beat fluttered at every stray sound.

But he couldn’t hear the witch’s heart.  She was human, he could smell that clear enough.  But somehow her heartbeat was mute to him.  He shook his head. 
Unimportant.  What is important is following her home to watch her there
.  The better he knew her, the better he could hunt her, the better he’d be at seducing her when the time came.

~*~

Min stood at the door to the blonde’s apartment building.  A run down husk of a building, yet the walls were of stone, and the windows were good.  It would keep its inhabitants warm and safe, if nothing else.

Blondie took her keys out of her purse and then hesitated before walking up the steps to the front door.  “What if he’s waiting for me?”

“His kind can’t get in if they’re not invited.” 

The blonde looked at Min mystified. 

“Just don’t invite him in,” Min snapped.  “You’ll be fine.”

The blonde shook her head and grasped the sleeve of Min’s jacket.  “I saw what he can do.”

You have no idea...

“There’s no way I can defend myself against that.”  She wouldn’t let go of Min’s sleeve.

Min reached out and pried the blonde’s hand from her jacket and then handed it back to her.  “Just stay in at night for a week or two.  By then I’ll have taken care of him.”

“But how can you know—”

“He’s after
me
now.”  The prickling truth of what she’d just said froze Min to the core. 
What have I gotten myself into? 
“So, don’t worry.  You’re safe.  Just stay inside for a while and it’ll all blow over.”

“Really?”  The blonde sounded so relieved. 

I should belt you in the teeth right now!
But instead Min said, as reassuringly as she could, “Really.”

The blonde threw her arms around Min and pulled her tight into an uncomfortable yet heartfelt embrace. 
Ah, cripes.  Next she’ll be naming her cat after me!

~*~

The vampire watched as the witch left the blonde at her apartment building, watched as she strode quickly yet elegantly along the sidewalks.  Her boots clicked neatly as she crossed streets.  Her dark silk skirt billowed, and her long leather coat whipped behind her like a cloak.  Her gate never lengthened, her pace never quickened.  She wasn’t acting afraid.  But, then again, she hadn’t stopped to call him out from the shadows, either.

Luca moved in behind her, maybe twenty feet back, and fell into step with her as she turned a corner and headed heedlessly down a long, dank stretch of urban jungle.  He was not the only monster out that night: drug dealers, pimps, gang-bangers, corrupt cops.

Luca picked up his pace.  He wanted to reach out and shake her.  It was fine for him to want to kill her; he was almost positive he was going to bring her back as one of the undead.  He would have to work fast—ridicule her and dodge her fireballs…and anything else she could find to drop on his head.

But as he picked up his pace, so did she. 
Odd…
  He hadn’t expected her to bolt.  She seemed so self-possessed and bold.  Rushing away from a pursuer, even a killer vampire, didn’t seem like something she would do. 

He started to run, using his preternatural speed to catch up to her.  But still he could not overtake her.  She didn’t seem to be running, merely walking at a normal gate.  Luca stopped and listened.  The witch’s breathing hadn’t quickened.  And then he sniffed the air.

Nothing.

He stopped and gritted his teeth.  No perfume, no flesh,
no blood
.

Whatever it was he’d chased, whatever it was that walked away from him even now, it wasn’t her. 

A glamour! 
He chastised himself. 
This one is tricky...