by L.H. Cosway
Checking the dash, I saw that the tank was three-quarters full. Handy. I slid in and turned the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life. Sticking my head out the window, I called, “Hop in boys and girls, we’re off for a picnic.”
Delilah gave me an irritable look. “You always have to be such a fucking piss taker,” she muttered, slipping into one of the back seats with Ira. “Now’s really not the time.”
“I won’t let your brother take the shine outta my sun,” I shot back.
She huffed, narrowed her green eyes to slits, and turned her head away, ignoring me.
“All aboard?” I shouted jovially, letting my arm hang out of the open window and banging hard against the metal door. Nobody answered. Guess my attempt to lighten the mood had failed. I pulled away from the side of the road.
We were only driving for about five minutes when all of a sudden a white stretch limousine appeared out of nowhere. There were tendrils of pearly, effervescent light shining from the windows as it sped by and overtook the minivan. With my driver’s side window open, I heard a sharp female cry for help erupt from inside the limo.
What the fuck?
“Oh, my goodness,” Alvie gasped.
“Where is all that light coming from?” Delilah questioned.
“Looks like magic,” Gabriel said.
On instinct, I increased my speed, following the limo. The door flew open a second later, and a woman dressed in a shimmery white evening gown jumped from the vehicle. She rolled along the road, huddled in a crouch for a moment, then got to her feet and broke into a run. She was about to come face to bumper with the minivan so I slammed on the breaks and came to a screeching halt seconds before I would have hit her.
Up ahead, a tall man emerged from the limo. He came marching determinedly after the woman, who was now staring right into the minivan, shaking like a leaf. She had long, curly blonde hair and bright hazel eyes. When they met mine, I saw her desperation.
Without thinking, I hopped out and hurried to her.
“Are you okay?” I asked as her gaze flickered over me in an unfocused manner.
“Stay away,” she croaked, holding out her shaking hand at the same time the guy from the limo called, “Touch her and die, slayer.”
I looked to the tall guy, recognising him as Michael Ridley, one of Theodore’s warlock cronies and also the prick who set fire to Rita’s house.
Delilah, Gabriel and Ira emerged from the van, coming to stand beside me.
“I’ll do what I like, warlock,” I sneered back at him.
His attention went to the woman. “Alora, come back here now. You are being completely unreasonable.”
Alora flinched at the sound of Ridley’s voice and took a step toward me.
“Please, don’t let him take me. It hurts … he hurts me too much.”
At this statement, my protective instincts kicked into high gear, and I pulled her to stand behind me.
“You hurt women, eh?” I asked, levelling my stare on Ridley. “Why don’t you try hurting me instead? See how well you fare?”
Ridley huffed out an angry breath and raised his hand into the air, on the verge of casting a spell. Luckily, Ira leapt at him with a snarl and clamped his big teeth down on Ridley’s hand before he got the chance to finish. I winced when he didn’t just bite him, but jerked his head and tore the hand clean off.
Well, Ira did have some, uh, issues with magic, so I couldn’t really blame him for overdoing it slightly.
An almighty wail erupted from Ridley. He stared down at his now handless arm in horror as blood gushed out. Ira dropped the hand to the ground with a wet thump and walked away with doggy style disinterest. Yep, I just said doggy style. It’d been way too long since I last had a woman beneath me.
“I’m going to kill that fucking dog,” Ridley screamed.
“You’ll be killing no one unless you get yourself to a hospital real soon, my friend,” I called out, grimacing at the sight of his severed hand.
He swore profusely, picked up his hand, and hurried back to his limo. The door slammed shut and the vehicle tore down the road. I turned to see Alora running away from us now, in the opposite direction of the limo. Gabriel and Delilah stared after her, dumbfounded. Ira sat by the side of the van, licking the blood off his paws, and Alvie still sat inside, too shaken by the night’s events to get involved.
I guessed it was my job to go after her then. I ran down the road, but she must’ve heard me coming because she quickened her pace. She was in her bare feet and I knew it had to hurt running without any shoes. A second later, I caught up to her, grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her to a stop. She wriggled in my hold, struggling to break free.
“Let me go, please,” came her throaty cry. It sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “I need to get as far away from him as possible. I need to find my family.”
“Hush,” I whispered soothingly. “You’re not going to get very far in your state. Let me help you.”
She went still when I spoke and turned in my arms to look up at me. Her eyes, which I now decided were far more gold than hazel, continued to roam in an unfocused way. Suddenly, I realised why. She was blind.
Now that she’d stopped struggling, I took the opportunity to study her more closely. Her eyes were amazing. I’d never seen gold eyes in a human before, only in vampires. I felt like a dick noticing, especially since she was in obvious distress, but she had a fantastic rack and plump, heart-shaped lips. Her skin was lightly tanned and smooth, and her hair was a mass of silky curls. In other words, she was beautiful—and still trembling in my arms.
“I know your voice,” she whispered, her forehead crinkling in thought.
“I don’t think so, baby. We’ve never met before. I would definitely remember meeting you.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand …”
“Are you hurt?” I asked. “What were you doing with that son of a bitch Ridley anyway?”
Her soft breath hit the base of my throat as she breathed frantically. “He kidnapped me when I was on my way home from work two years ago. I haven’t seen the outside of his house until tonight.”
“He kidnapped you?” I asked in disbelief. “Why? Is he some kind of sicko?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking. He called you a slayer. Does that mean you know about supernatural creatures?”
“Yes, you can speak freely,” I replied.
She exhaled in some kind of relief, and then her small hands were cupping my face, moving over my features in concentration. “Can I trust you?” she asked as she tried to see me through touch. I stood stock-still, utterly entranced.
“Of course you can. I’m one of the good guys, Goldy.”
She seemed to blush at my response but continued moving her hands over my face. Next, they slid down my neck before resting on my shoulders. I swallowed hard, struggling not to get turned on. As I said, it had been a while since I’d been with a woman.
“I’m half-elf,” she said then, presumably concluding that she could trust me. “I have the talent of seeing into the future. At first, Ridley tried to drain my power to use it for himself, but he didn’t succeed. The spell went wrong and ended up blinding me. He decided to keep me prisoner so that whenever he needed a prediction, he could use my ability.”
“Christ,” I muttered, staring at her with wide eyes. “I bet you’re glad my friend Ira bit off his hand, eh?”
“Hearing his pain was a small revenge,” she said, nodding. “Where are we? Can you bring me back to the city? My parents live there.”
“The city’s a no-go area at the moment. You probably don’t know this, but there was a reason why Ridley was leaving. The vampires have taken over. They’ve been slaughtering humans, and there’s also been some magical business making the humans go crazy and kill each other. You don’t want to go there for a while.”
Suddenly, tears sprang to her eyes. “Are all the humans dead? My parents …”
“No,
no, they’re not all dead, but it’s still not safe to go there yet. Not with the vampires so bloodthirsty. Oh, and there’s a mad sorcerer on the loose.”
She slumped in my arms, her small frame resting against me. I guessed what I just recounted was a lot to take in.
“Come on, stay with me for a little while, and we’ll figure out how to return you to your family.”
She nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Yes, thank you. I appreciate your kindness and help.”
“It’s no trouble. Listen, I’m going to carry you back to my vehicle because I don’t like the look of those bare feet on the road.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said, nodding. She gave a soft gasp when I slid my arm under her legs, scooped her up and carried her back to the minivan.
2.
Tegan
“Let’s go outside,” I said, my sated, naked body on top of Ethan’s, our limbs intertwined in rest.
We spent half the day having sex, but I didn’t feel tired. No, I felt wired. His blood was better than cocaine … not that I knew what taking coke felt like, but this had to be better. I could run a marathon right now.
Ethan chuckled deeply. “Okay. Where would you like to go?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere. I just want to see you out in the sun.”
I hopped from the bed and began jumping up and down, completely hyper. I suddenly had all this energy that I needed to burn off. I only became self-conscious when I remembered I was naked, and Ethan was watching my breasts as they jiggled.
A hot, affectionate expression crossed his features, and a little jolt of panic hit me. There was so much love in his eyes. I’d never considered myself a commitment-phobe, but committing to the most powerful vampire in the city would give even the most relationship-needy person anxiety. What made me even more anxious was the love I felt in return.
I loved him.
Maybe it was the blood high, but I was feeling everything way too intensely. Bringing my hands up to my eyes, I could see every tiny line on my skin, every pore. It was like I had super detailed vision. Not only did I want to see Ethan in the sun, but I also wanted to see other things with this new sight before it ran out.
No high lasted forever.
Ethan pounced on me, scooping me up into his arms and carrying me to his bathroom, where he turned on the shower. He settled me under the spray and began lathering both of our bodies with soap. His hands roamed my skin, exploring every inch, before he turned off the water and wrapped me in a towel.
I didn’t have any clothes here, but Ethan laundered the ones I’d been wearing. They sat neatly folded on the arm of a chair, and I had a strange vision in my head of him doing laundry. So out of place.
I slipped on my jeans and T-shirt and laced up my boots. Once dressed, I found Ethan standing in his front garden, his face held up to the sun. He’d been doing the same thing when he was sitting in his chair this morning. My heart fluttered at the knowledge that I gave this to him. I gave him my blood, but he didn’t turn into a monster. He’d simply been made better. He was no longer imprisoned to live only in the dark.
I stepped up beside him and laced my fingers through his. His eyes turned down to meet mine, and he smiled fondly.
“What’s been going on in the city while I was sleeping?” I asked warily as we walked away from his house and down the quiet street. I really didn’t want to ruin my good mood with reality, but I was worried about Finn and the others. In fact, I was antsy as hell to know where they all were.
“My people cleared away the dead as I instructed them to. Much of the human population tried to flee, but they couldn’t.”
I arched a brow at him. “What do you mean they couldn’t?”
Ethan sighed as though he had been hoping we could avoid the heavy subjects for a little while longer. “There’s some sort of magical force field surrounding the city. Nobody can get out. There’s also a block on all forms of electronic communication. No calls, emails, messages of any sort can get to the outside world.”
I gasped, my heartbeat speeding up. “What?! Did Theodore do this?”
My skin crawled with claustrophobia. We were all stuck in Tribane. Indefinitely.
Ethan shrugged, and I found the gesture far too nonchalant for the topic we were discussing. Just because he was now indestructible didn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about being imprisoned in the city. “He’s the most likely candidate.”
“We have to find him, Ethan. I can’t abandon Rita, and if you leave Theodore to his own devices for too long, he’ll come up with something … I don’t know, something bad. The fact that he can imprison us all is frightening enough. Aren’t you scared?”
“I wonder if I could kill him,” Ethan pondered, ignoring my question. “Well, I’d have to find him first.” He shook his head. “Normally, the only person who can kill a sorcerer is another sorcerer. A pity I don’t have any of those in my address book,” he joked and squeezed my hand, placing a kiss on my temple.
I narrowed my eyes at his louche attitude. Being out in the sun had made him a little too carefree. Then my thoughts raced at his statement. I may not have any sorcerers in my address book, but I did know of one out there. I glanced up at Ethan. “Um, there’s something I need to tell you.”
His eyes flickered with interest. “Oh?”
“You remember Emilia? My grandmother? The one who took Pamphrock’s daughter?”
“I do.”
“Well, before she went all Hand that Rocks the Cradle on us, she told me that my mother was the result of an affair she had with a sorcerer called Roman. My grandfather is a sorcerer! There must be some way that I can get in contact with him. I mean, maybe he won’t want to kill Theodore, but he might be able to offer us advice.”
“So that’s why you have so much magic,” Ethan breathed, stopping to stand in front of me. He ran his hands from the ends of my hair down to rest on my shoulders. He seemed to mull the idea over a moment before dismissing it. “We would never find this Roman. Sorcerers are notoriously elusive.”
“I could ask Emilia. That bitch owes me after all the trouble she caused, pretending I could trust her and then running off with Rebecca.” I also still planned on getting Rebecca back. I couldn’t leave the poor girl with Emilia.
“Aha,” Ethan said, flashing me a hint of fang. “Shall we pay her a visit?”
I sighed. “Yes, but not today.” Lowering my voice shyly, I continued, “I want just one day with you. One day that’s just … us.”
He squeezed my hand and bent down, his voice a husky whisper. “I like that idea.”
We continued our walk through the unusually quiet city. Normally the streets were packed, the shops, restaurants, and cafes bustling. Sure, there were some people on the streets, but not the crowds there used to be. Lots of shop windows were boarded up, and others were simply locked tight, not open for business as they would normally be in the middle of the day.
Things were far from back to normal.
And I would tackle that lack of normality, try to figure out a way to restore some sanity to the city, but for today, I refused to lose myself in worry. Today I was just a woman madly in love with a handsome man named Ethan.
I let go of his hand and broke into a run. His laugh drifted behind me as he watched me take off. I’d never run this fast before in my life. I was supercharged with vampire blood.
I hopped up onto a ladder affixed to the side of a three-storey building and climbed it effortlessly. I sensed Ethan was somewhere behind me even though I couldn’t hear a single rustle of movement. I raced over the rooftop and went flying through the air, sailing over the narrow distance between this building and the next one. I felt like a little wingless bird. My heart beat wildly, and I grinned like a crazy person as my feet crashed down onto the hard surface.
Not a single stitch.
This was amazing.
I stood and got ready to continue my roof jumping antics when Ethan grabbed me and flipped me over his shoulder. I wriggled in his g
rip, but obviously it was a useless effort.
“What’s gotten into you?” he growled before setting me down on the path. We were already off the roof and back on the street. Yeah, he moved that fast now.
“I’m having fun. You should try it sometime,” I answered with a cheeky sideways smile.
“You could have severely injured yourself. What you’re feeling isn’t real, Tegan. It’s a chemical high. You can’t actually fly, you know.”
“That’s not what I thought,” I said, pouting, because that’s exactly what I thought. For a second, I truly believed I could fly.
He pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around my waist. “It’s just the blood,” he whispered. “Your human bones can still break if you fall.”
“I know that,” I answered, feeling embarrassed now.
All of a sudden, the sun was too bright. It dizzied me. I stared into the window of a boutique across the street where there were all sorts of glittery dresses on display. Despite the distance, I could see the stitch in every sequin, every thread weaved throughout the fabric. The details hurt my brain.
Somewhere close by, a seagull cawed, and I heard too many notes in the one sound, too many levels of noise. I clamped my hands over my ears to block it out.
“Tegan, are you alright?” Ethan asked in concern.
Before I had the chance to reply, I passed out.
***
When I woke up, I was lying on the couch in Ethan’s living room, while he held a cool, damp face cloth to my forehead. It felt soothing.
“Hey,” he said when he saw my eyes flicker open.
“Hey,” I replied, a little croaky.
“I think you might have drunk too much from me,” he went on apologetically. “That’s why you passed out.”
“I felt like I was going to go crazy from sensory overload,” I said. “Is that what it feels like to be you?
A small smile curved his lips. “I have the natural ability to turn it on and off at will. Since you are human, you don’t have that ability. My blood had fully hit your system when we were out on the street, which is why you fainted.”
