“We really are going to talk about that later,” Noah scolded. “You also jumped in to save Hannah without a second thought.”
Nathaniel took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “I didn't tell anyone where I was going. Of course, the idiots at the house know I went after Hannah but they don’t know exact details. I won't tell anyone that you helped Hannah.” There was a long silence as he stared at the ring on his finger. “I won’t tell anyone about our mother.”
“You aren’t like your father. As for Hannah, you don’t love her. You were ready to settle down, and she could give you a child. That’s not a good reason to marry someone.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I really do care about her.”
“I know, but that doesn't mean that you love her.”
Nathaniel stared up into the trees that shaded them. “All I could think about when she fell was how I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to my son, or his mother. I may not be in love with her, but I do care.”
“I should warn you that Hannah’s sure she’s having a girl.” He watched Nathaniel’s expression.
Nathaniel’s gaze met Noah’s and after a long silence, he smiled wistfully. “A little girl would be even better. I think I would have really liked having a daughter.” It surprised Noah that he hadn’t dismissed the idea.
His smile quickly faded. “The last thing I want is for my child to be warped by my father's influence.” His eyes filled with self-loathing.
“Then don't let that happen.” The words sounded so simple coming from Noah's lips.
As he rose to his feet, Nathaniel tried to pull the twigs off of his wet pants but finally gave up and looked into Noah’s eyes. “Will you take care of them for me? Make sure my child is happy and well cared for?”
After a long moment, Noah surprised him by shaking his head. “We are not adding absentee father to your list of sins.”
“Noah,” Nathaniel said in a tired voice, “I’ll make sure that they have enough money, but I can’t be part of their lives. My father will ruin everything for you, Hannah, and my child. You know that.”
Noah’s lips curled up into a devious grin. “If I knew a way to work this out, would you walk away from your old life? Think about what I’m saying before you answer, because I mean give up the name, the power, and the money.”
“If you had asked me that yesterday I would have laughed at you. Those were the most important things in my world. Now? They all seem so trivial.”
“Where's your phone?” Noah asked quickly, his eyes alight with excitement.
“In my car,” He pointed toward where his car was parked. “It’s about half a mile away. Why?”
“I’ve got a plan, and mine was in my pocket when I jumped in the water.” Noah took off in the direction of the car with Nathaniel by his side. “By the way, the plan has one aspect that you won’t like very much.”
Nathaniel froze. “What is that?”
Noah stopped for a moment, and then he cleared his throat. “We’re gonna have to sacrifice your car.”
“Which car?” Nathaniel asked hesitantly.
“The Cobra,” Noah responded, and started walking again.
Nathaniel stood frozen. “I love that car, Noah. Think of another plan!” When Noah didn't respond he raced after him. “I'm not kidding, Noah!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Clad in a short black dress, Trish knocked on the door marked, Morgue. The only employee at this hour was a twenty-two-year-old man who worked on cars in his spare time. According to his Match.com account, he had a thing for curvy brunettes. It was amazing how easy it had been for Isaiah to obtain that information.
“Can I help you, Miss?” He wasn’t very tall, probably only five feet eight inches, with brown eyes, curly black hair, and tanned skin.
“I'm having some car trouble.” She smiled innocently at him. “Do you know anything about cars?”
He hesitated. “I'm the only one here tonight. Don’t you have a towing service, like AAA?”
His eyes had not left hers since he’d opened the door, not once had he gawked at her breasts, which were barely covered. Trish began to worry that she wouldn't be enough to convince him to leave with her.
She shook her head. “I don’t have a towing service. I tried calling my friends, but no one would answer their phone. I can’t really afford to pay for a tow. I guess it’s silly, but I was just hoping it might be something easy.”
He thought for a moment, and finally nodded. “I know a little about cars. Let me lock up, and I'll see if there’s anything I can do.” He moved across the room to the table, and closed the Anatomy textbook.
“I really appreciate this.” Trish gave him her best smile.
He handed her his jacket. “It's not safe for a woman to walk around dressed like that.”
Trish thanked him quietly as he walked her out.
Lurking in the shadows, Justin watched cautiously until he was certain that they weren’t coming back.
“Let's go.” He motioned Caitlin and Isaiah toward the door.
Isaiah picked the lock in less than a minute.
“My brother, the cat burglar,” Justin grumbled to himself, and then motioned Caitlin in.
“Why couldn’t you just do your vampire mojo thing to get him to let you in?” Caitlin asked.
“You know that doesn’t always work,” Justin explained, sounding more than a little irritated. Then he smiled, and admitted, “Mostly, I was really bored and this sounded like fun.”
Caitlin headed into the room where the bodies were stored, and started going through the drawers.
Justin had trouble containing his delight as she nonchalantly examined corpses. He put Isaiah in front of the computer so that he could familiarize himself with their system, and then went in to look for suitable bodies with Caitlin.
He was lucky with the first drawer. “Female in drawer seventeen, Isaiah!” Justin called out.
Isaiah's fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as Jane Doe's records changed from unclaimed to cremated.
“How's it going, Katie?” Justin asked.
She turned to scowl at him. “If you call me Katie again the male body we use will be yours.”
Her threat made him laugh.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something since the great vampire reveal.”
Justin looked annoyed. “What great vampire reveal? I told you what we are, and you had me use a compulsion to make Trish cluck like a chicken to prove it. There was nothing great about that. I would also like to remind you that I don’t like the term vampire.”
“Whatever.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Why don’t you just have Isaiah hack into the computers and falsify records instead of going to medical school all over again? At the very least you could skip the undergrad stuff. You really seem to hate it.”
“That was what I planned to do. I went down to the college three years ago to plant some memories of me in the minds of some professors, and ran into the most irritating woman I’d ever met. She was buying the last Cherry Coke, and I really wanted it. I put a suggestion in her head that she wanted to let me have it since I was so sexy. Then the annoying woman called me a prick, and drank it right in front of me. I had just heard her mention that she was going to be a doctor, so I registered for classes and I’ve had Isaiah hack into the school’s computers to make sure we had the same classes each semester.”
She groaned. “Here I thought I just had the worst luck in the world. Instead, I have a vampire stalker.”
“Consider it a courtship.”
That caused her to snort. “You’re a prick.”
“And you’re a bitch,” he said with a delighted smile.
She snorted again. “You may as well find someone else to stalk, because I’m not interested.” Then her face lit up. “Bingo! I've got our boy.” She spoke directly to the corpse. “Didn't you always hope that a woman would want you for your body?”
“Sixty-four!” Justi
n called out to Isaiah who quickly finished his work, and turned off the computer.
Justin guided Isaiah into the next room, hoping that he wouldn’t have another episode and get them caught. They lifted Jane Doe, soon to be known as Hannah Montgomery from the drawer.
Beads of perspiration formed on Isaiah's face.
“Stay calm, Isaiah,” Justin soothed him gently. “You want to help Hannah and Noah, right?”
As Justin’s words registered, Isaiah nodded. “I want to help them. I think I can do this.”
“He’s just like the little vampire that could,” Caitlin said softly.
That earned her a scowl from Justin.
They shoved the bodies into the back of the Range Rover.
Isaiah’s mind was slipping, but at least he was reminiscing and not screaming. “Noah used to bring me food. Hannah hit Drew when he was mean to me.”
It was another six hours before they reached the spot where Nathaniel’s Shelby Cobra was waiting. The scene had already been rigged so it would look like the car had hit a patch of black ice, and skidded off of the cliff.
Justin’s eyelids were heavy as he leaned against the back of the car, causing it to roll forward. When it hit the bottom, he was relieved that it went up in flames, because he was too tired to go down there and torch it. He knew from research that cars rarely caught fire after an accident so they had tampered with it some. Still, he had feared it wouldn’t work.
Isaiah still had a little hacking to do, but the hard part was done. From that moment on, Nathaniel Draksel, and Hannah Montgomery were dead.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Noah had been miserable for the two weeks that he’d been away from Hannah, but it would have aroused too much suspicion to miss his own brother’s funeral. What a strange event that had been! It was a small gathering for family only, and some of those people knew that it was a farce. Roman had actually hugged Noah at the end of the services and told him to be happy. Now, that was seriously weird, but then again Roman was probably in a state of shock. Noah felt guilty for the deception, even knowing that it was the only way he could be with Hannah.
He smiled as he walked down to the lake and found Hannah exactly where he’d expected to. She was sitting in the grass reading. In just those two weeks he’d been gone, she’d blossomed with her pregnancy. He still couldn’t believe that she was his; couldn’t believe that he could do all of the things that he’d fantasized about for so many months.
When she heard his footsteps, she looked over her shoulder and smiled. “You’re back!”
He jogged the rest of the distance and sat down beside her on the grass. “You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.”
She leaned into his side and sighed. “It’s a good thing you’re here. I’m not sure I could have gotten back up off of the ground with my huge belly.”
He kissed her softly on the mouth and stroked her belly. “You look beautiful.”
“I look like a Weeble,” she grumbled.
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about falling down,” he teased.
“Hmmm, maybe I picked the wrong brother,” she mused.
He leaned forward and covered her mouth with his. He drank in her sigh and slid his tongue playfully across her lower lip before pulling away. Her dazed look made him grin.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll let you have your way with me now.”
He laughed. “I think we’d better wait until we get home. My brother doesn’t need to see us together again.”
“That’s for sure,” Nathaniel said as he walked out from behind the trees.
“When did you get here?” Hannah asked.
“Did you really think I’d just let you wander off to the lake alone while you’re pregnant? Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that you can’t swim.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I knew we should have gotten him a bell to wear.”
Noah laughed. “You can blame me this time. I was worried and I asked Nathaniel to keep an eye on you while I was gone.” Then he turned to his brother. “You know, you really have been handling this well. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “I’m still not sure how we’re going to work all of this out when the baby gets older. I mean what’s he going to call you? Uncle Daddy?”
“She will do just fine with it,” Hannah insisted.
“Fine, she,” Nathaniel conceded. “As for the rest, I guess it’s kind of a relief.”
“Gee, thanks,” Hannah said.
“Don’t pretend you’re offended,” Nathaniel said. “It didn’t take you very long to drop me for my brother.”
Hannah sighed. “Fine, I see your point.”
“I still think you’ve been handling this a little too well and that worries me,” Noah said.
Hannah laughed. “He’s been in a much better mood since he met the linguistics professor at the local university.”
Noah looked confused.
Nathaniel looked embarrassed. “We’re just friends.”
Hannah nodded. “They’re very good friends. They have sleepovers and everything.”
“Wow!” Noah said around a laugh. “That was fast.”
“It’s not like that,” Nathaniel insisted. “Okay, maybe it’s a little like that, but we’re mostly just friends.”
“It’s always nice to have a good friend,” Noah drawled.
“Did you hear anything about Lydia while you were there?” Hannah asked anxiously. Noah knew she’d wanted to ask him the moment he’d arrived. Leaving her cousin behind was the hardest part for Hannah.
“Not much,” he said. “She’s out of the hospital, but I don’t have many details. Justin says she’s doing well but has a long way to go. Don’t worry; when she recovers we can find a way to bring her out here to visit. I think it’s unlikely that she’ll have any contact with Roman so we don’t have to worry about her letting things slip. Oh, and Justin promised not to tell her you were dead. I wish I could make this easier for you.”
Hannah squeezed his hand. “I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and for Lydia. I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” Noah said with a smile.
“Well, this is definitely my queue to leave,” Nathaniel said as he started to walk back toward the path.
After Nathaniel disappeared from sight, Hannah pulled Noah’s head down until his lips were mere inches from hers. “You’ve been gone for two weeks. I think you’re going to have to show me how much you love me.”
“Every chance I get, for the rest of my life,” Noah said.
Safe Hex With a Vampire
By Cassandra Lawson
Available November 2013
After a year of hunting, Tempest believes she has finally captured the serial rapist who has plagued the San Francisco area. Her sense of triumph is short-lived when she realizes that she has the wrong man. Before she can decide what to do with the unconscious man in her possession, she discovers that they share a secret; neither of them is human. Could he help explain the origins of her family’s unusual talents?
When Aiden regains consciousness he is none too happy to find himself locked in a cage. He is, however, fascinated with his captor who bears a striking resemblance to a mystery woman from his uncle’s past. He soon finds that she arouses more than his curiosity. Could she be the one to end his loneliness? Or will her past prevent her from opening her heart to him?.
About The Author
Cassandra Lawson lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and her two youngest children. She has always had a very active imagination and is often prone to fantasizing. These fantasies occasionally claw their way out of her mind and demand to be given a voice. That is how this book came to life. She is currently working on the second Psy-Vamp novel.
You can follow Cassandra Lawson on Facebook.
CassandraLawson
xens (Psy-Vamp)
Vampires and Vixens (Psy-Vamp) Page 20
