by L.H. Cosway
Opening his fridge, I found the ingredients for a Spanish omelette and proceeded to throw them all together in a pan. While I did this Ethan watched me. I felt his eyes on me, and my arousal grew.
He might be mad, but he still wanted me.
“Your face is bruised, and I think you might have a couple of bruises elsewhere, too, given the hits you took before I got to you,” he said a few minutes into my food preparation. He was angry about my injuries, but he needn’t worry. I wasn’t too badly hurt.
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
Once the omelette was done, I dished it onto a plate and sat down to eat. Ethan watched me for several moments before leaving the room. When he came back, his shirt was off and the button at the fly of his jeans was undone.
Gulp.
He walked to a cupboard, rummaged around for a minute, and pulled out a new bottle of body wash.
“The one upstairs is empty,” he said, referring to how we used it all up. “I’m going to take a shower,” he continued. “Call me if you need anything.”
I need you to put some clothes back on so that I can physically close my gaping mouth. Even though we’d had quite a bit of sex in recent days, this was all very new, and I still found myself staring at his body in slack-jawed amazement sometimes.
The bastard knew it, too.
This was his punishment for me going out without telling him. I inhaled a deep breath and summoned up the willpower not to climb right up those stairs after him.
I heard the shower come on, and a couple of minutes later, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, Finn, Alora, Ira, Gabriel, Alvie, and Delilah were standing on the doorstep.
“Delilah, welcome home,” I greeted. “The rest of you, come on in.”
“Just thrilled to be back,” Delilah deadpanned.
“Look at this place,” Alvie cooed. “Very swanky!”
I led them all into the living room, helping with bags. Next, I gave them a tour of the downstairs. Once finished in the shower, Ethan came down, looking just as sexy as he had before he went upstairs. He kissed me briefly on the lips and began to guide everyone to their rooms. There were a lot of bedrooms in this house since it was comprised of three floors; one bedroom downstairs, four on the first floor, and three on the top floor, plus Ethan’s study.
I went to check in with Amanda and Rebecca, who had taken to each other like ducks to water. Unlike me, Amanda knew exactly how to act around kids since she had a tonne of younger cousins growing up. I found them both playing an elaborate game of Barbie dolls on the floor of Rebecca’s room.
“Where did all these toys come from?” I asked.
“Ethan got them for Rebecca,” Amanda replied, and I was momentarily touched that he’d gone to the trouble.
“That was nice of him,” I said, taking a seat and watching them play for a while. Their giggling made me smile until I got a tingling sensation in my brain. The tingling transformed into an itch, and suddenly, I was seeing Roman in my head.
I need to talk to you, Granddaughter, he said.
Amanda and Rebecca’s game of Barbies had become the background and Roman’s face the foreground.
Where? I asked.
Come to the roof.
You’re on the roof?
Yes, come. And hurry.
Leaving Amanda and Rebecca to their game, I went up to Ethan’s study on the top floor and crawled out through the window. There was a part of the roof that jutted out, allowing you to climb to the top. I whined a little as I pulled my body up since I had a few bruises from this morning’s attack. Roman was perched on the roof, his arms folded, as he watched me struggle.
“Hey, Gramps, care to give me a hand up?” I asked.
“Why, of course,” he replied smoothly and took my hand into his. A little zinging spark of recognition ran through me, my magic identifying him as kin.
I sat down next to him, taking him in now that we were meeting in the flesh and not in one of my dreams. If I thought he was handsome in a dream, it had nothing on him in reality. His face was almost too perfect, his eyes shining like bright blue sapphires.
He touched a finger to my cheek where there was a bruise blossoming.
“What happened here?”
“I mistakenly used magic in front of an angry mob. They thought I was an abomination and attacked me.”
“Why would you do that?”
“They were going to kill a man who didn’t deserve it, and I was trying to stop them.”
“Ah, so you were being a hero.”
“More like a fool.”
He grinned now. “Hmmm, that, too.”
Cheeky bastard.
“So, what’s the big urgency to speak with me?”
“I have visited your city’s barrier and managed to easily slip through. Most magical folk would be able to pass it, just not humans or vampires. Also, it wasn’t constructed by Theodore.”
“Wait a second, what?”
“Magical folk can move through it,” he repeated.
“No, not that, the other thing,” I said, flustered.
“Ah, yes. It wasn’t constructed by Theodore. In fact, it shows all the signs of being a witch’s doing.”
“Was it Rita, Theodore’s daughter?” I asked.
“I’m certain it wasn’t. Actually, I know intimately the person who did it.” He made meaningful eye contact with me, and it took me a second to understand.
“Are you saying it was Emilia?” I asked in disbelief. “When I spoke to her, she acted like she knew nothing about who constructed it.”
I quickly thought back to that conversation, and it suddenly all made sense. Emilia had basically said the barrier was a good thing because it would keep the humans from fleeing the city and informing the outside world of the supernaturals living here.
Roman watched my face as though he was reading all my thoughts. “I believe Emilia constructed it to bide herself some time. I suspect she wants to cast a mass memory cleanse of the human population so that they won’t remember that vampires and magic exist. It’s one of the most difficult spells to cast, especially for a witch who is not yet a sorceress.”
I eyed him speculatively. “Could you do it?”
He looked at me like I’d just insulted him. “Of course I could do it.”
“Okay, I’ll rephrase that question. Will you do it? Something needs to be done about the humans, and I think that forgetting everything that’s happened these past few weeks will be the best solution. That way they can go back to their normal lives without living in fear.”
Roman eyed me speculatively. “I might do this for you, but only if you give me something in return.”
I bristled. “What do you want?”
His blue eyes gleamed. “I want you to allow me to train you to become a sorceress.”
I stared at him, saying nothing for at least a full minute, my mouth hanging open in surprise. When I finally gathered my senses, the best I could come up with was, “Uh … what?”
“I have never had a granddaughter before, so I have never had the opportunity to pass on my knowledge to another person. I want to pass on that knowledge to you, Tegan, if you’ll allow it. Besides, haven’t you considered the negative aspects of your mortality? You will age and die while your vampire lover will remain exactly the same as the night you first saw him.”
I narrowed my eyes and folded my arms. “How do you know about my vampire lover?”
“I’ve been doing my research,” he answered with a knowing smile.
Suddenly, I remembered Alora’s vision where she said I was older, but I hadn’t aged. The idea that I might actually become a sorceress in the future was a little overwhelming.
“I need time to think about this,” I said, rubbing at the back of my neck, where a tension ache was forming.
“That’s quite alright. I need a few days to gather what I need for the mass memory cleanse. I’ll also need to find Emilia.”
“Theodore has her,” I volunteered.
Roman grimaced. “Ah, that makes things a little more difficult but not impossible. But not to worry, I will find her.”
“Could you get Rita for me, too, while you’re at it?”
Before he had the chance to respond, Ethan appeared at the edge of the roof and climbed easily to the top. His face was free of expression which usually meant he was either bored or pissed. In this particular situation, I was going with pissed.
“Who is this?” he asked in a low voice.
Yep, definitely pissed.
I placed a hand on his chest, meeting his gaze when I replied, “Ethan, this is Roman, my grandfather.”
“How did you …”
“I didn’t,” I cut him off. “He found me.”
“Mr Cristescu,” Roman said, getting to his feet. “It is an honour to meet you. Or should I be addressing you as governor?”
Ethan shook his head. “I have no interest in titles.” He reached out and shook Roman’s hand, and there was a moment of silence as they measured each other up. I held my breath, waiting for them to break the handshake.
Finally, they did, and Roman’s attention went away into the distance. “I must be going. I’ll be in touch soon.” With that, he made a couple of strange hand gestures before disappearing into a cloud of silver and gold smoke.
Ethan stared down at me, a questioning look on his face.
“He’s going to help us,” I said, not ready to tell him about the whole becoming a sorceress thing yet. I needed time to hash it all out in my head before I told anyone else about it. I slipped my fingers through his, and a second later, he scooped me into his arms and dropped us effortlessly inside his large bedroom window.
10.
Finn
I’d say one good thing about Cristescu, his house was bloody fantastic. Vampires happened to be considerably fond of themselves, which meant they only settled for the very best in luxury. Back in my early DOH days, I had to break into a vamp home one night. The place had heated floors, solid gold taps, and in one room, there was even a glass ceiling.
I know, a glass ceiling for a vampire. How dumb could he be? I later discovered that they’d invented this kind of UV filtering glass that negated the effects of sunlight.
Clever bastards.
The room I was staying in had an amazing shower and a mattress that had to have cost a few grand. I lay in bed, about to turn off the lamp and catch some z’s when there was a tentative knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I called sleepily.
“Alora. Can I come in?” came a quiet reply.
“Sure,” I answered, wondering why she’d come looking for me.
She stepped inside and closed the door. Her hand glided along the wall as she felt her way to the bed, and I had a momentary flash of her hand gliding along something else—because as we’ve established, I was a massive pervert.
“What’s up, Goldy?”
“I don’t want to sleep alone,” she said.
Those words shouldn’t have been like music to my ears, but they were.
“Why not? You’re safe here. No one’s going to harm you,” I reassured her, you know, trying to be a gentleman and all that. There was nothing I’d like more than to drift off with a beautiful half-elf in my arms, but I didn’t want to take advantage.
“There are two vampires in this house,” she replied. “There are also several standing guard outside.”
“You don’t like vamps?”
She shook her head. “A couple of years ago I had a vision of a woman being murdered by a vampire. He was sick and got off on her pain. He tortured her for a long time before he killed her. It’s one of the worst things I ever saw.”
She was still standing by the bed, so I took her hand in mine and gently pulled her down to sit. “Hey, you know the way in the human world there are good people and bad people?” I asked.
Her gold eyes were staring in the direction of our clasped hands. “Yes.” There was a hitch in her voice, but I wasn’t sure if it was down to fear or something else.
“Well, it’s kind of the same with vamps,” I continued, surprising myself with my logic. There was once a time when everything was black and white for me. Vampires were bad, humans were their prey. Now I was coming to see that there was a lot of grey in the mix. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t about to go declaring my undying love for Cristescu, but I was slowly coming to learn that he might not be as bad as I used to think.
I know, shock horror.
I’d probably killed just as many vampires in self-defence as he’d killed slayers who were trying to stake him. To be honest, vampires were just as wary of humans as humans were of them. Vampires might be strong, but humans outnumbered them by a huge margin.
“Some vampires can be pretty decent,” I went on. “They feed on humans, but they don’t kill them, and the humans they feed from want it. There are, however, other vampires who are complete psychos, and I’m guessing it was one of those you saw in your vision.”
“So, you trust the vampire who owns this house?”
I exhaled heavily. “Yeah. He’s a cocky prick and too good looking for his own good, but I think we can trust him. Well, as much as I ever trust anybody. There’s always a slim chance people will do something crazy that you don’t expect.”
I shut my mouth when I saw Alora tensing up again. Damn, I’d almost managed to relax her.
“Hey, come on. You can stay with me tonight. Will that make you feel safer?”
“Yes, thank you,” she inhaled a relieved breath, and I mentally prepared to keep my hands to myself. I mean, it was some feat not to touch a beautiful woman when she was lying in bed with you all sleep mussed and soft and …
Okay, I needed to get a handle on this.
I pulled open the covers for her to climb in, then turned off the lamp. I lay on my side and closed my eyes. A minute or two later, Alora slipped her hand back into mine. I didn’t breathe a word, just silently accepted the comfort of holding hands.
Her breath hit the back of my neck, and I turned to face her, reaching out to caress her smooth cheek.
“You’re very beautiful,” I whispered, and her breathing hitched.
“I didn’t come here to—"
“I know. I just needed to say it. You’re gorgeous.” I paused and let out a long sigh. “Okay, now I should be able to sleep.”
“Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for needing to say it. Sometimes a girl needs to hear it.”
I chuckled. “Well, in that case, you’re welcome.”
When I finally did fall asleep, I did it while holding her hand.
***
I must have been moving around during the night because the next morning I woke up with Alora in my arms, her back to my front. I had one hand on her thigh and the other had slipped under her T-shirt to rest on her bare stomach.
Morning wood was an issue.
She stirred, and a soft whimper escaped her, but I wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming. My eyes were drawn to the rise and fall of her breasts. Unable to resist, I pressed my lips to her neck in a tender kiss. She gave a quiet moan. Maybe she was awake. I swear I could’ve blown my load from that noise alone. On instinct, my hips moved, pressing my erection to her backside.
I heard her gasp, my name a husky whisper on her lips, “Finn.”
I groaned and kissed her neck again. She let out a shaky sigh.
“God,” she murmured, her hand coming up to grip my shoulder as she arched her spine back into me. The feel of her soft, plush arse pressing into my hard cock made me lose my mind for a second. I gripped her chin, pulling her mouth to mine and brushing my lips across hers.
“We shouldn’t,” she whispered shakily.
“Tell me to stop, and I will,” I said against her mouth.
“I don’t want you to stop.” The second the words left her, I took her mouth in a hungry, wet, claiming kiss. I thrust my tongue inside, and her entire body trembled against me. I fl
ipped her and positioned myself between her curvy, heavenly thighs, seating my throbbing cock against her softness. We were a perfect fit.
I continued kissing her, and her sweet little gasps and whimpers drove me crazy. I had to touch her. Slipping my hand under her T-shirt, I caressed her bare breast, her nipple a hard bead under my palm.
“Please,” she begged, writhing beneath me.
I broke our kiss, pushing her T-shirt up to bare her lush breasts. I’d never seen such an exquisite sight. After such a long dry spell, just seeing her was maddening. I was a starved man gazing upon a hearty buffet, and I didn’t know where to start first.
Lowering down her body, I took her pert nipple into my mouth, sucking hard. She cried out, and I smiled as I swirled my tongue around the delicate pink peak.
When I trailed my hand along her inner thigh and between her legs, she shuddered. I rubbed my thumb over her clit on top of her underwear, and she moaned, holding my head to her breasts now as I continued to lick and suck. I needed to feel her, all of her, so I slid my hand beneath the fabric of her underwear and groaned when I felt how slick and wet she was.
“Christ,” I muttered as I found her entrance and thrust a finger in, noticing how tight she was.
“Finn,” she breathed shakily.
“Relax,” I urged because I felt her tensing up. I circled her clit with my thumb, and her eyes drifted shut as her head fell back into the pillows and she relaxed again.
“You feel so good,” I rasped, my eyes intent on her face as I coaxed her to orgasm. I loved that moment when a woman just completely shattered beneath you, pleasure taking her over. I loved even more being the one who got her there.
And now I wanted to taste her. I wanted to make her come with my mouth.
Her eyes were still glued shut as I moved farther down her body. Her chest was rising and falling in quick breaths of anticipation. Then I dipped my head between her legs, quickly pulling her underwear to the side and touching my tongue to her clit. Her entire body jerked.
