Wicked Soul

by Nora Ash

  Moving slowly, because everything hurt, I shrugged out of the leftovers of my winter coat and pulled my almost equally demolished top over my head, discarding both items on the floor. At least my bra had remained intact during this week’s near-death experience.

  Warin’s fangs descended with a snick that made me jolt a little. “Sit still—it won’t hurt,” he murmured. And then he flicked his tongue out, catching it on one pointy tip.

  I frowned as blood dripped from his tongue, but the next second, Warin bent over my shoulder and put his lips on my skin, and my thoughts got well and truly sidetracked.

  I stared wide-eyed at the vampire’s bent head as he let his tongue swipe up along the deep bite on my shoulder, and then—ever-so-gently—brushed across the wound itself.

  If someone had asked me what it’d feel like to have a fresh wound licked clean, I’d have guessed something in the region of “painful and unhygienic.” The truth was something else entirely.

  Heat bloomed from Warin’s cool lips against my skin and spread down across my chest and up my neck, until I felt like my entire body would have to be the same color as my Aunt Edna’s favorite pants.

  Seemingly oblivious to my full-body blush, Warin continued lapping at my shoulder, making small noises of pleasure—presumably at the taste of my blood— that did nothing to keep my thoughts purely medical.

  But to my surprise, it did help. When he moved his head from my shoulders down my arm to care for the scrapes and wounds there, my shoulder no longer stung like it had before. Sure, it felt like there would still be a massive bruise come the morning, but when I twisted my neck to catch a glimpse of the it, my skin was healed.

  “How does your blood do this?” I asked, partly in an attempt at distracting myself from the sensation of his tongue dancing up along the inside of my arm. “When you think about vampires, you don’t really think ‘magical First Aid kit,’ you know?”

  If Warin heard me, he didn’t respond.

  All righty, then—awkward silence it is.

  I leaned back on the couch and did my best not to think sexy thoughts as my strictly platonic vampire friend licked my entire torso. It was a feat that proved increasingly difficult as he moved first to my chest and then down my stomach, crouching between my legs.

  When he got to my navel, I was squeezing a throw pillow so hard my knuckles turned white, chanting “he’s your friend, he’s your friend, he’s your goddamn friend” in my head while desperately begging my heated body to focus on the not insignificant pain still radiating through it.

  “I need you to turn over,” Warin said, lips still hovering over my navel. His voice seemed oddly husky, but it was hard to tell with the way my blood was rushing in my ears.

  “Huh-m?” I croaked.

  “I need to get to the wounds on your back.” He pulled his head back a little, but I purposefully avoided catching his gaze.

  “Oh. Right, yeah…” Awkwardly, I shifted on the couch to lay on my stomach, my aching muscles and remaining wounds sending shocks of pain through my body strong enough to dull the inappropriate fantasies running rampant in my mind.

  Warin took care of the deep wounds on my side and back, and I managed to keep my thoughts somewhat appropriate until he said, “I will need to look at your legs as well,” and proceeded to reach around me to undo my pants, then carefully pull them over my hips and down my legs.

  To my great relief, I didn’t have any wounds in need of his healing blood too high up on my thighs, and it didn’t take long before he pulled back from me, wiping his mouth with one hand.

  “How did I taste?” I blurted, mainly to avoid the awkwardness of prolonged silence after having just been licked from head to toe.

  He blinked. “You wish to know if I enjoyed the taste of your blood?”

  “Well… yeah. Sorry, is it off-putting having your dinner quiz you on your meal?” I grimaced. “I’m not entirely sure what’s appropriate after-licking conversation, here.”

  Warin’s rumbling laugh was unexpected, but welcome. He got to his feet and shook his head, the echo of a smile playing on his lips. “You are a peculiar human, Liv.”

  I sighed. “So you keep saying.”

  The silence spread between us, long enough for the darkness of my attack to set in—along with the realization that I was only in my bra and panties at the moment.

  Wordlessly, I padded into my bedroom to get my bathrobe. When I returned to the living room, Warin stood in front of the windows, hands clasped behind his back as he stared into the darkness.

  “Warin, we need to talk,” I said.

  He turned toward me, eyebrows raised in question.

  I waved a hand as I slumped into the sofa again. “What were those things that attacked me? Werewolves? And why is this happening? I know you know more than you’ve told me. And I know you’re probably just trying to shield me, but… this is the second time I’ve nearly been killed by whoever’s out to get the vampires in this city. I think I have a right to know.”

  He sighed, turning back to stare out the window. “We’ve been at war for a very long time. Witches and vampires—until one party exterminates the other, there will never be true peace. Since the Night of Revelations, when vampires became known to the human race, we have managed to keep a precarious truce, of sorts.

  “For a long time, I assumed the disappearances in my territory were linked to the human fanatics, that they had finally grown clever enough to organize into splinter groups. But your encounter at the slaughterhouse suggests otherwise. I have tried to track down the witch you met there, but he may as well not exist. Until tonight, they have covered their tracks perfectly. Almost too perfectly.

  “We have a long and bloody history with witches, and they have undoubtedly learned much about us—but not this much. Not how to counter our Compulsion, not how to avoid detection. I didn’t realize, until tonight… until that skinwalker… that there may be one of my kind involved. But why—and who—I do not know. And I do not know why they are targeting you this aggressively. Five skinwalkers in their shifted forms, so close to human dwellings… they risked exposure to get to you.

  “Why they believe my human companion is so valuable, I am uncertain… but they will not get another chance, I promise you that.” His voice gained a low, dangerous edge, though he didn’t so much as turn to look at me. “I have been passive for too long. Awaited their next move. No more.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought through what he’d said. I looked down at my hands and felt the echo of the green light rushing down my arms and bursting out of my palms.

  The skinwalkers had called me a traitor.

  “Are they… are they witches, these skinwalkers? Or something else?”

  “Both,” he said. “They were witches who traded their souls to gain the power of shapeshifting. They are dark creatures, and very strong.”

  “Not as strong as you,” I said, remembering how he’d butchered them within minutes.

  Warin didn’t answer, and I went back to staring at my hands. On one hand, he was the only supernatural being I knew, but on the other… He’d made it plenty clear what he thought of witches.

  Not that I was suddenly a witch or anything.

  Right?

  But what in the goddess’ name was that light? I knew it’d come from within me—felt it too keenly in the very core of my being to deny it.

  Nothing like that had ever happened before, that’s for sure.

  Except…

  Except once. I stared blindly at my shaking hands as long-suppressed memories flashed through my brain.

  There’d been one time I’d been as certain I was going to die from a violent assault as I had been tonight. I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened; I’d been too scared and too young to retain the details. But I remembered a bright green light.

  Saving me.

  Was I a witch?

  Was that why the skinwalkers called me a traitor?

  Why the witch at the slaug
hterhouse warned me to stay away from Warin?

  “This… war, between you and the witches… what’s it about?”

  “Survival,” he said, eyes still trained on the darkened windows. “One cannot live while the other still walks the earth. They wish to rid the world of our darkness, and their power makes them dangerous to us in a way humans are not. And my kind…”

  “Let me guess—you’re not keen on being hunted?” I said with a grimace. It was the same struggle humans had been dealing with since vampires revealed their existence. The knowledge that there were people out there who could—and would—kill you was distinctly uncomfortable.

  “No. We will kill witches strong enough to pose a threat. Though it would seem I’ve been too lenient these past few decades. I’ve allowed them their gatherings, their shops… and it would seem magic has festered and grown in my city while I’ve shut myself away, stubbornly thinking there was some way… that if we showed a willingness to coexist, there could be some semblance of peace.” His voice darkened, sending tendrils of ice up my spine. “I’ve been a fool. And you almost paid the price for my idiocy.”

  I stared at his back, forcing down the panic churning in my gut. “But, uh, I’m sure there are good witches too, right?”

  “No,” he said. “There are weak witches who do not pose a threat. But weakness is not the same as being good. I will not forget this again.”

  I swallowed thickly and clenched my shaking hands in my lap. “Warin, I—“

  He turned his head, his gaze locking on something outside. “Carina is here.”

  “Huh?” I frowned as he walked to my front door and opened it as he pressed the buzzer. A few seconds later, the air outside my front door swooshed, and a gorgeous blonde woman wearing a pants suit and black pumps suddenly stood in my doorway.

  “My lord,” she said. “The bodies have been disposed of, as you asked.”

  “Thank you,” Warin said, turning to me. “Liv, this is my second-in-command, Carina. Please invite her in.”

  I got up, staring at the blonde as I walked to his side. “Fuck, no.”

  Warin blinked, possibly in surprise at my less than hospitable greeting.

  “Apologies, my lord,” the blonde said, biting back a smile at the dark-haired vampire’s expression. “The last time your human saw me, I—"

  “She was definitely going to eat me,” I interrupted with an indignant huff. “If that tall guy, your brother, hadn’t told her and the others to stuff it, you’d have come back to my dried- out husk in your hallway.”

  Warin snapped his head back to Carina, eyebrows raised.

  “I wouldn’t have, actually… She was bleeding everywhere, and her arrival was a surprise,” the blonde woman said meekly. “I’m sorry for my unfortunate reaction at the time, my lord. You know I would never touch your property.”

  This time, I was the one to blink. “His property?”

  Warin turned to me. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder, capturing my attention fully. The magnetic pull from his blue gaze calmed some of my ire. “I promise you, Liv, Carina will never hurt you. She is my most trusted servant. Please, invite her in. There is much I need to do before the night’s over, and we need her help. This has gone too far for me to handle alone—I am not willing to risk your life again.”

  Well, when he put it like that… I fought back the heat rising from my chest to my cheeks at the velvet steel in his voice, then turned to the door. “Fine. Come on in.”

  The blonde vampire nodded and stepped over the threshold. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Warin moved his hand from my shoulder, and I felt the loss more keenly than I had any business doing. It was as if he’d been transferring his strength to me during that brief touch, and now I was somehow struggling to find the energy to even stay upright.

  “I will be back tomorrow evening,” Warin said, pulling my attention from the loss of his touch with a snap. “Carina will remain here until sunup, and then my day helper will stay with you until I return.”

  “What?” I blinked rapidly three times in a row. “You’re leaving?”

  “I need to attend to… some business.” He reached out again, a bit hesitantly, and touched my cheek with a featherlight brush of his fingertips. “Don’t worry—you are safe with Carina.”

  I frowned. “Look, I appreciate the rescue tonight, but this is ridiculous. We both know you’re going to look into the witches who attacked me—I’m coming with. Our deal was that I’d keep my nose clean so long as I didn’t get dragged in again—and I dare say getting nearly eaten by five werewolves or skinwalkers, or whatever, classifies as ‘getting dragged in.’ You can’t just—"

  “I can,” he interrupted me, his voice still soft, but with a core of steel. “And I am. Now, I must go. I will return tomorrow evening.”

  And with that, he was out the door before I could so much as sputter a protest at the complete shut-down, leaving me alone with the the blonde vampire.

  “Well, isn’t that just great?” I huffed at the now empty doorway. I slammed the door shut and turned to my unwanted house guest.

  Carina was watching me with a small smile playing on her perfectly shaped lips. “You’ll have to excuse the lord. He’s in a bad mood.

  “He’s in a bad mood? I’m the one who nearly got eaten.” I folded my arms across my midriff, shielding some of my very comfortable, very hideous bathrobe from the beautiful woman in front of me. She looked absolutely immaculate, not a hair out of place. I hadn’t felt self-conscious about my looks around Warin, but in Carina’s company, it was hard not to feel like a troll.

  “Skinwalkers attacked his human—it’s a grave insult,” she said, the smile slipping off her face as she looked around my small apartment. “Would you mind if I checked the security of your home?”

  I shrugged, still feeling pretty miffed that Warin had stranded me with this stranger. But I guessed she was better than being alone, if I was now a witch-slash-skinwalker target… so long as she kept her fangs to herself. “Sure, I guess. You’re the babysitter, after all.”

  While Carina wandered around my apartment, I set about fixing myself a sandwich. Unwanted house guest aside, I hadn’t eaten all day and I was starving. Something about being dragged through the bushes and attacked by wolfmen really did give a girl an appetite.

  Carina came out from my bedroom as I sat down by the breakfast bar with my tuna sandwich. “Your security is lacking,” she said as she sat down next to me. “Has the Lord not had any protective measures installed?”

  “Uh, no. That would be wildly overstepping—and my lack of alarm system isn’t really Warin’s problem. Also, ‘the Lord’? Really? Please tell me he doesn’t make all his employees call him that.” I frowned when the uninvited thought of what it might mean if Carina actually was the only one to call him that sprung to the forefront of my mind.

  Oh, goddess, don’t let this be some weird sex thing.

  I wasn’t prepared for the hot stab of jealousy that thought produced.

  “The lord rarely demands, but yes… all his subjects call him this.” Carina regarded me with some contemplation. “He hasn’t told you who he is, has he? What he is?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, he’s… some kind of vampire cop, right?”

  Carina blinked. “He is the Night Lord of Chicago. He rules the city and its surrounding territories.”

  I stared at her for a second. Then a laugh bubbled out of my throat. “Get the fuck out of town, no he is not! Night Lord? What, so he’s the vampire king of Illinois?”

  She nodded, her face as serious as ever.

  My laugh died as I stared at her. “You’re fucking with me.”

  “You and the Lord—you are lovers?” she asked.

  I nearly choked on my tuna sandwich at the change of subject. “What? No! We’re just friends.”

  “Hmm.” She watched me, the doubt clear as daylight on her pretty face. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah.” My face flushed hotly up under h
er scrutiny. “He’s great and all, but it’s not like that. We just talk a lot.” An twinge of something unpleasant in my gut made me ask, “Why? You’re not… Are you his girlfriend, or something?”

  Carina’s laugh pearled through the room, light and beautiful. “No. I am merely curious. He has been… different, these past few weeks. I suspect you are the cause.”

  “Oh.” My face heated by several degrees, and I returned my focus to my sandwich so I didn’t have to look at the blonde’s knowing smile. “Well, we’re just friends.”

  Carina chuckled, and I got the distinct impression her amusement was due to my uncomfortable squirming. “How very… unusual.” Her tone made it quite clear she thought I was a big, fat liar.

  Just fabulous.

  I wolfed down the rest of my sandwich as fast as I could without choking and decided to go straight to bed. I was tired and aching all over, and I so wasn’t in the mood for any more awkward conversation about my relationship with Warin.

  13

  I was still a little sore when my alarm woke me up just after dawn the next morning.

  It wasn’t too bad, though. I took stock of my bruised body as I lay in bed, trying to find the will to push the covers aside and get up. My muscles ached, and I was pretty sure I had a couple of nasty bruises, but it could have been so much worse.

  I shuddered at the memory of knowing I was going to die, and I spared Warin a grateful thought. As irritating as it was that he’d just up and left me with a glorified babysitter while he went off to play lonesome hero, it was nice to know that I didn’t have to face potential skinwalkers on my own.

  Even if I’d never had to entertain the idea of men who turned into freaking wolves intent on shredding me like a brisket before I met Warin. No one gave two fucks who I was before him.

  Skinwalkers. Christ on a cracker.

  I lifted my hands up above my head and stared intently at them in the faint filtering through my curtains. Maybe I’d imagined that green light?