Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble, a Paranormal Romance

by H. P. Mallory

  “I am en route to a petrol station three miles from here that has a vehicle waiting for me and for you.”

  “With Bella in it, no doubt.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry to mislead you, Poppet, but I do not work for Bella.”

  I laughed with as much sarcasm as I could muster. So, not only did the asshole think I was physically weak, but now he was going to add salt to the wound by assuming I was a nitwit?

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Is there a sign on my forehead that says dumbass?”

  Sinjin’s chuckle was rich and throaty.

  “No, Love, there is not. Start walking and I will explain.”

  I didn’t make any motion to follow him.

  “You expect me to believe you don’t work for Bella?”

  “Yes I expect you to believe it and no, I do not work for Bella.”

  He continued forward and when I didn’t follow him, he turned to face me with mild annoyance.

  “You can come with me or you can stay in the forest and wait for Bella to find you.”

  Even though I had no idea what Sinjin’s plan was, I made the split-second decision to go with him. It came down to the fact that I trusted him more than I trusted Bella. The other added bonus was being as far away as possible from Ryder.

  I followed Sinjin as best I could through the dense forest, but had a tough time seeing him in the dark night. Afterhting against branches that lashed out and caught my face and hair, I relied on my arms to guide me through the shadows of the forest. I’d rather have scratches on my arms than my face. I tripped on something and caught myself before I fell. Thank God, I was wearing jeans otherwise my legs would’ve been cut up like all hell.

  A branch managed to avoid my extended arms and nailed me right in the cheek.

  “Ow, goddamit, I can’t see anything, Sinjin.”

  He slowed down and faced me.

  “Jump on my back, Love, and I will carry you.”

  I hesitated, heat flushing my cheeks at the idea of being so close to him. With a sigh, I hopped up on his back, and he braced his arms around my thighs.

  “Lean into me.”

  I rested my head against the expanse of his back and couldn’t help inhaling the scent of him. It was a mixture of something spicy and cool. The coolness could have just been his body temperature. It felt pretty damn good to be so close to him—even if it was odd not to feel any heat radiating from him. It was sort of like riding on a statue.

  “Are you comfortable?” He asked.

  “You’re a bit cold.”

  He chuckled. “You feel as if you are on fire.”

  He tightened his grip around my thighs making me very aware of his physical power. He was so strong, there’d be no way I’d be able to defend myself if he did decide to attack me. I suddenly wondered why I’d gone with him. Why did I trust him? I returned to the answer that I trusted Bella less. Sinjin was the lesser of two evils.

  After another few minutes, something buzzed in his pocket. He stopped walking and dropped his arms from around my thighs. I slid down his body. Leaning against a tree, he fished in his pocket and produced a cell phone.

  “We are en route,” he said, his voice suddenly matter-of-fact and all business. “Perhaps ten minutes.”

  Immediately my instincts were on alert. Who the hell was he working with?

  He hung the phone up and returned it to his pocket. His eyes glowed slightly yellow as he glanced at me.

  “Ready?”

  I shook my head, crossing my arms against my chest.

  “No, not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “We do not…”

  I took a step back.

  “I’m not going with you until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  He sighed and was quiet for a moment before shaking off his annoyance.

  “I was never working for Bella. I have been allie against her since I met you.”

  My mouth fell open. I wasn’t sure what to think right away. Did I dare believe him? “Then who are you sided with?” I couldn’t keep the wariness from my voice.

  “That is not important now.” He bent down and motioned for me to resume my place on his back. I hesitated.

  “The longer we wait here, the better chance Bella has of finding us, Poppet.”

  I was quiet as I considered it. The call to avoid Bella was stronger than the call to learn what Sinjin’s plan was. As soon as we were in a safer place, I would insist he tell me everything. Well, that’s what I promised myself anyway.

  “Sinjin?”

  “Yes?” His voice almost sounded like the hiss of a snake.

  “Will you promise me something?”

  “Depends on what it is.”

  I wasn’t sure why I attempted to get him, a vampire, to promise me anything. If what he said was true, he’d betrayed Bella without a second thought. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do the same to me?

  “Promise me I won’t get hurt.”

  “I promise you.” His answer was immediate, his voice solid and unwavering.

  I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but for some strange reason, I believed him. Maybe I was just gullible and naïve. Probably such was the case. For all I knew, he could promise to keep me safe and turn around and eat me for dinner in the same breath.

  I forced thoughts of Sinjin feeding off me to the deep recesses of my mind. It wouldn’t do me any good to think about such things now. It would be better to focus on escaping from Bella.

  “Do you think Bella knows we’re gone?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I imagine she is figuring it out.”

  “Where were you when I was escaping?”

  “Keeping Bella pre-occupied,” he said, and I could hear the smile on his lips. There was no way I was asking in what ways he was keeping her pre-occupied. The answer was pretty apparent by his tone.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I have tasted your blood; I can track you anywhere.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Granted, it had helped me out in this instance, but now Sinjin could keep tabs on me. Hmm, and Ryder could too, for that matter. If I thought I wanted Ryder dead before, the thought was never as strong as it was now.

  I will kill him. I vowed to myself. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know where, but as long as there was breath in my body, I would find and kill that goddamned asshole.

  “Why so quiet, Pet?”

  I wasn’t about to share my morose thoughts with Sinjin, so searched for something else to say.

  “So, you what, teletransported here?”

  “Yes, Love.”

  We reached a clearing in the woods, and lights in the distance heralded some sort of civilization. I couldn’t help the elation that filled me upon realizing we’d managed to escape the forest and were on our way somewhere.

  “Nearly there,” Sinjin said as he climbed up a bank. As soon as we reached the wide expanse of grass, he put me down, apparently thinking I could manage on my own the rest of the way. He rubbed his arms against his pants and faced me with a smirk.

  “You have gotten my legs hot.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  “Sorry.”

  “Makes me wonder what other ways you can make me hot…”

  I rolled my eyes. Unbelievable, we were running for our lives, and he was thinking about sex. Sinjin had to be the horniest creature I’d ever met. I’d heard somewhere that your average human male thinks about sex on an average of ten times a day. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sinjin thought about it ten times a minute.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To an abandoned petrol station. There should be a vehicle waiting for us.”

  “Who arranged that?”

  “My employer.”

  “Who is your employer?”

  He smiled. “All in good time, Poppet.”

  I guessed I’d have to play by his rules. I could demand he tell me or throw a temper tantrum, but I doubted it wou
ld do any good. And besides, I was looking forward to getting inside the car and turning the heat on full blast.

  Sinjin brushed aside a low hanging branch, and we made our way into the clearing. Amid the rubble and ruin, an old British taxicab stood like a huge, black mushroom.

  “I expected something better than this old banger,” Sinjin muttered. “But, I suppose beggars cannot be choosers.”

  I laughed and watched him open the door for me like a gentleman. A blood-sucking gentleman. I crawled in, my attention immediately drawn to the dashboard as I tried to figure out how the heating worked. Sinjin sat down in the driver’s seat and started the old car without a problem.

  “Okay, start splainin’ Lucy,” I said, doing my best Ricky Ricardo impersonation. I still hadn’t figured out how to turn on the damn heater.

  Sinjin smiled and flicked my hand away, the chill of his skin sinking into me. He was basically dead for all intents and purposes. Sort of a weird thought when he seemed sontirely alive. What struck me as even weirder was the fact that I was lusting after a corpse. Oh, God…

  He cranked a lever and depressed a button and heat sailed out of the vents.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, for starters, where are we going?”

  “I am taking you back to Randall.”

  That was surprising to say the least. I wondered if Rand had been working with Sinjin all this time. The thought that Rand could keep such a secret from me made my stomach churn.

  “Have you been working with Rand all along?”

  Sinjin shook his head. “No.”

  Well, at least that was a relief. “What if he’s no longer at Pelham Manor?” Rand certainly would’ve been well aware of the fact that Bella knew where we lived. I imagined returning to Pelham Manor might not be the safest thing to do.

  Sinjin nodded. “I have wolves tracking him. I know exactly where he is.”

  “You promise you aren’t going to hurt him?”

  Sinjin laughed. “You and your promises…” He put his hand on his heart and faced me with a smirk.

  “I, Sinjin Sinclair, do solemnly promise I will not hurt him. Scouts’ honor.”

  “You didn’t say his name.”

  Sinjin frowned. “I just…”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt ‘him,’ but that could be anyone. Say his name.”

  He sighed and held up three fingers.

  “I swear I will not hurt Rand..all. Scouts honor.”

  Randall was good enough I guess. And what was more, it was probably all I was going to get. I frowned.

  “Thanks.”

  “I am on his side.”

  That sounded weird, especially given Rand’s intense dislike for Sinjin.

  “Are you sure he knows that?”

  “You certainly are full of questions, aren’t you, little Poppet? No, he does not know. He thinks I work for Bella, but he will soon find out otherwise.”

  I settled back in my seat and glanced out the window. I wasn’t sure Rand would react to the news as well as I had. He had a definite distrust toward Sinjin, and this news would probably make him distrust Sinjin even more.

  “So, where is Rand?”

  He smiled. “He and your friend…Christina…”

  “Christa.”

  “Ah, Christa, are in a hotel in Suffolk County, by the coast.”

  Suffolk County didn’t ring any bells, and I had to wonder why they would’ve gone there. Not finding an immediate solution, I turned the heat vents so they were facing me and dangled my fingers in the stream of hot air, reveling in the feel.

  “Okay, where are we now?”

  “We are in Wales, on the opposite coast.”

  “How long will it take us to get to Rand?”

  Sinjin shrugged, “Six hours or so, plenty of time for you to ask me another million questions.”

  “I probably have that many for you,” I said with a slight laugh. “Why don’t you just teletransport us there?” He shook his head and my attention lifted to his dark hair that obscured his ears and curled up and over his collar.

  “I can only teletransport for very short distances and it takes quite a bit of energy.”

  “Can you teletransport someone else or just yourself?”

  “I could do it with a circus if I could hold onto all of them. Next question.”

  “Okay, who are you working for?”

  “It is a long story, but I suppose we have a while. I am a diplomat of sorts.”

  “A diplomat?” I repeated, thinking Sinjin seemed nothing like a diplomat. I had in my mind’s eye the picture of an elderly man in a navy suit smoking a cigar. Don’t ask where it came from, but that’s what diplomat said to me. Sinjin was anything but.

  “A liaison between the vampires and the Underworld community.”

  “I know what a diplomat is,” I snapped. “I just don’t really think of you as one.”

  “I work for a master vampire whose name is Varick Rapone.”

  Varick Rapone sounded the quintessential name for a vampire. As I continued to consider it, Jolie Wilkins didn’t really sound much like a witch’s name. Maybe Regan, I’d always liked that name. Regan Wilkins…not very witchy either.

  “You called yourself a master vampire, what does that mean?”

  He grinned—he really liked talking about himself.

  “Master vampires are those who have survived longer than five hundred years. We are the strongest of all vampires and the highest in the hierarchy.”

  “So, this Varick…” I started.

  “He is over one thousand, he is one of the few. As you can imagine, he is extremely powerful.”

  I was quiet for a moment as I let all the information seep into me.

  ">

  So, why pretend to join Bella…” I stopped myself when I realized the answer. “Somehow you heard about me?”

  Sinjin nodded. “I was hired to protect you. Varick knew Bella would be after you, so I was tasked with keeping you safe.”

  “How the hell did you get her to trust you?” I asked.

  Sinjin shrugged and looked away.

  “I did what I had to do.”

  I didn’t want to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole. Instead, I turned to the fact that these creatures knew about my abilities it seemed before I did. News travels fast, but in the Underworld community, news travels light-speed fast.

  “Are you going to join Rand’s side then?”

  “I will see what he has to offer and then I will decide accordingly.”

  “How many vampires have joined Bella?”

  “Hundreds, but hundreds are also undecided.”

  I was quiet as I looked out the window. Unsteady thoughts of an Underworld civil war coursed through my mind. It sounded like Bella was recruiting quite the army and I wondered to what purpose.

  The silence became too much and I turned on the radio trying to find something to pull my attention from the thoughts going through my head. Duran Duran’s “Rio” blasted out, and I relaxed back into my seat, not caring if Sinjin were an eighties fan or not.

  “Did Ryder do anything more than bite you?” Sinjin asked.

  The mention of the horrible creature’s name sent shivers down my spine.

  “No.”

  Sinjin said nothing, but nodded, and I fought to find some string of conversation.

  “So , is it true what they say about vampires?”

  Sinjin grinned wickedly.

  “That depends, what do they say?”

  “That you can’t see your reflections?”

  He scoffed. “Rubbish. I can see my own reflection. I could not imagine not being able to wake to my handsome face every day,” he said with a smile in my direction.

  I frowned. “Oh God, vo-mit.”

  “What else have you heard?” He asked, ignoring me.

  “Um that vampires can influence people with their eyes…”

  “Yes, that one is true.”

  “But it won’
t work with me,” I double-checked. If vampire influence did work with witches, then that would certainly explain my attraction to him.

  Sinjin quirked a brow. “No, it does not work with you, Pet.”

  Damn. Fresh out of excuses. I guess I was lusting after him of my own stupid accord.

  “Tell me what other things you have heard about vampires,” he pressed.

  “That they’re sexy.” I regretted that one as soon as I said it. Statements like that just added sprinkles to a cake that was already flowing with too much frosting, whipped cream, chocolate chips, and gummy bears.

  He seemed delighted that I’d said it—his lips spreading into a huge smile.

  “Making love with me would be the best you have ever had.”

  “Tell me what you really think,” I said with a frown, trying to get annoyed with his arrogance. I couldn’t hide the blush that climbed up my neck and landed squat on my cheeks. I also couldn’t help imagining sex with Sinjin. Egad.

  “Well, now that we’re out of danger, you’re back to your sexual self.”

  “We are not out of danger, and this is just how I am.”

  I ignored him. “I’ve heard you can teletransport which you said was true. Um what else? How often do you have to eat?”

  “Every few days.”

  “Only humans?”

  He grinned and quirked a brow. “Or witches.”

  “Be serious. Can you feed on animals?”

  He nodded. “Yes, though the taste isn’t the best. Rodents or a dog will keep us alive for a few days. Mind you, we certainly couldn’t survive on them alone. Human blood is truly what we need.”

  “How did you become a vampire?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “It is a very personal question to ask a vampire.”

  I dropped my gaze and suddenly found changing the radio station a prime concern.

  “I’m sorry.”

  There wasn’t anything but commercials and static coming through, so I just opted to turn the stupid thing off.

  “I am happy to tell you, but just so you know, most vampires might not respond quite so amiably. I was turned in England…”

  “You’re English then?” I guess I already knew that based on his accent.

  “Are you going to let me finish my story or do you insist on interrupting?” He laughed and it was a charming sound. There was something about Sinjin. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but he had definitely been hit with the appealing stick.