Safe Hex With a Vampire

by Cassandra Lawson

Chapter Ten

  “He doesn’t own her,” I grumbled.

  “He may as well,” argued my brother, Viktor. “You know she can’t leave and she wouldn’t be scrubbing floors if he had any intention of letting one of us marry her. Father will never let you have her, Roman. Have you considered the fact that you might get the girl killed with your obsession?”

  Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

  Tempest was exhausted and irritable. Hunting always took a lot out of her, and the argument with her cousins hadn’t helped matters. She was glad they’d finally caught the monster, but it wasn’t over yet. They still had a lot of work to do.

  She wasn’t sure why she wanted to visit Aiden as soon as they returned. Defending him to her cousins might have made her feel a stronger bond with him. She also couldn’t stop thinking about their kiss. Whatever the reason, she was too tired to deny herself. She’d quickly settled their prisoner into a cell and let her cousins handle the rest of the details.

  “Did you catch him?” Aiden didn’t even look up from his sketchbook when he asked the question. His pencil was moving furiously across the page. He sounded bored, possibly distracted. She didn’t know him well enough to say. His attention was mostly on the drawing. She hadn’t realized he had any artistic talent. For all she knew, he could be drawing stick figures.

  “Yes,” she replied. “At least, we were able to stop one man from torturing women.”

  “You really hate men, don’t you?” This time he did look up at her. “You think we’re all like him.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out why you’re so hot to have a baby without a man in your life,” he explained with a shrug. “I came to the conclusion you must have some serious man hate.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t hate men, but what I do distorts my opinion of them. I’ve seen more ugliness than good in the last ten years.”

  “Not all men are like that,” he told her as he set the sketchpad on the cot.

  She gave him a disbelieving look and walked into the cell with him. “What about you, Aiden? Are you telling me you’re one of the men a woman can really count on? Are you saying you’re one of the good men?” Even as she asked, she felt bad about it. He felt guilty about his past actions, and she was going out of her way to remind him of them. It was a knee jerk reaction she regretted.

  He shrugged and looked away. “There’s no denying I’m a bastard. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. You already know some of it, I’ve also used mind control to get people to do things they might not have otherwise agreed to. Never sex, in case you’re wondering. Even I would consider that no better than rape. I never claimed to be a great guy. I just said not all men are bad.”

  “You can control people’s minds? I sensed you were trying to do that with me before, but it seemed crazy. It’s hard to believe you could control minds.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “This is coming from a woman who can move things with her mind.”

  She actually laughed, and it relieved some of her tension. “You have a point. It must be hard to avoid using it to get your way all the time.”

  “I don’t use it often,” he admitted with a shrug. “I can control most human minds, but I don’t interact with humans too often. They don’t live long, and I can’t get most human women pregnant.”

  “You only get involved with women you can impregnate?”

  “Something happens during pregnancy to transform the woman. She becomes more like what I am. Although, I guess that didn’t happen with Claudia, but I’ve never heard of that before now. You need to understand that if I don’t get a woman pregnant, she’ll live a normal human lifespan, and I’ll have to watch her age and die. That’s if I’m lucky. I had a longer affair with a woman who I really liked many years ago. She ended up contracting some human disease—small pox I think. She died before her thirtieth birthday,” he explained. “I’ve had other brief affairs, but they always ended before the women realized what I am. The older I get, the more I realize it’s not worth the heartache. When I was younger, I had some relationships that were really hard to end. Now, I avoid becoming too emotionally involved.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” she admitted. “Does that mean you don’t have sex often?”

  He laughed. “I should rephrase this. I don’t have long entanglements with humans. I limit them to one night. The woman I tried to kidnap was the first woman I’d ever met who I couldn’t control. I only tried because my cousin wanted me to convince her to go to a party. He was interested in her cousin and thought it would be a great idea if I seduced the other cousin. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really very attracted to her, and I intentionally acted like a complete ass around her. I tried mind control because my cousin was glaring at me. When the mind control didn’t work, I decided we were meant to be together. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel the same. This didn’t really come as a big surprise after the way I’d acted. She was uneasy and afraid of me. I figured if I could just get her alone for a few weeks, she’d get to know me and things would work out. Yes, I realize how crazy it sounds. So, again, I’m not claiming to be good person.”

  “I don’t think you’re a bad person, Aiden,” she assured him.

  He let out a humorless laugh. “After what I told you?”

  “People make mistakes,” she stated. “I think it’s time you stopped hating yourself for yours.”

  “You really are too good for me, Tempest,” he admitted with something like awe in his voice.

  She snorted. “I nearly killed you by slamming you against a wall, I locked you in the basement, and I almost drown you. Yet, I’m too good for you? There must be something you aren’t telling me.”

  His lips curled into a hint of a smile, and he looked at her from under his lashes. “Why do you do this?”

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Run this center, hunt them down,” he thought for a moment before continuing. “It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing. I get the feeling there’s a story behind this career choice.”

  She sat down on the cot next to him and let out a weary sigh. “Shortly before I started medical school, I met a man named Brian, and we hit it off right away. In fact, we moved in together after dating for only a month. I thought we’d finish medical school, get married, and have babies. He seemed perfect.”

  When he didn’t interrupt with a snide comment, she looked him straight in the eyes. “One of my friends, Lucy, was raped at a party. My wonderful boyfriend was one of the men who raped her.”

  Aiden swore under his breath and wished he hadn’t asked. It would be so much easier to think of her as a man hater. Then he could write her off. He could write off the attraction and move on when he left. She’d already made it clear she didn’t want a relationship with him, so why get to know her? No matter how illogical it was, he wanted to know everything about her.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he assured her.

  “It’s okay,” she insisted. “I guess you deserve some sort of explanation for how I started hunting rapists. You did get caught up in my obsession. Ivy was with me when I found Lucy huddled behind the bushes in front of the campus library. She wouldn’t go the hospital or the police. All she did was mumble incoherently and cry. Ivy was able to read every emotion and every memory of the rape. She told me what I would never have guessed. Even after Ivy told me, I had trouble accepting Brian and his friends, my fellow med school students, were rapists. When I confronted him, he told me it wasn’t rape. He insisted Lucy had come on to him. I asked about the bruises, and he told me she liked it rough. I moved out that day. Lucy hung herself a month later. Brian and his friends are all doctors now. I finished medical school with them, and my hatred for that type of man grew every day. So, I figured it was better to put my hate to good use.”

  “I’m sorry,” he uttered.

  “After that, I wanted to help women who’d been abused. Ivy felt the s
ame. We used money from our trust funds to open this women’s center. At first, it was all about offering counseling, medical care, and a haven. It didn’t take long to realize the men guilty of these crimes often went unpunished. Many times, they’re never caught. That’s when I started hunting. It’s not something I’ve had to do often. Mostly, I just provide medical care.”

  When Aiden looked at her, he saw something he didn’t want to see. Tempest looked fragile. Aiden realized he didn’t like seeing her that way. Now seemed like a good time to pick a fight.

  “Why don’t you sit on my lap and let me show you what a good man can do for you?” He patted his lap.

  Tempest shot to her feet.

  He stood too and moved until they were toe to toe and he was staring down at her.

  Tempest didn’t back down. They stood there, much too close. Her breasts pressed against him as he stared into her soft brown eyes. She wasn’t afraid of him. Instead, she was furious, and he was incredibly aroused at the prospect of the fight they were about to have.

  Had she cowered or been intimidated by him, he would have let her go. Granted, he’d have been very disappointed, but he wouldn’t have pushed her. He bent his head quickly and covered her mouth with his before she could react.

  Tempest responded instantly to his lips against hers. Her hands cupped his cheeks, and her tongue pushed past his lips, exploring his mouth.

  He groaned into her mouth and planted both of his hands on her ass. She was incredible—hot, wild, passionate, and the energy level she put off was so strong he had to struggle to keep himself from feeding off her.

  She pulled away from him and shoved at his chest until he released her.

  “Oh, God, that was incredible,” he rasped out.

  “Incredibly stupid,” she muttered. “I’ll come back when you’re not so distracted.”

  When she caught a glimpse of his sketchbook, her mouth dropped open. “You’re drawing me?”

  He nodded slowly.

  She picked up the sketchbook and thumbed through five drawings of herself. Her eyes met his, and she was blushing. “Why am I naked in all these sketches?”

  He grinned at her. “That’s the way I like to imagine you.”

  She dropped his sketchbook as if it had burnt her and walked up the stairs muttering about him being a pervert.

  “Wait, Tempest!” he shouted.

  She turned to him.

  “I need the pills that were in my pocket.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I either need those or I need blood.”

  “Blood?” she asked in a startled voice.

  “My body can’t absorb most minerals, especially iron, from normal foods. There was a supplement in my pocket. I have to take three times a day or I’ll need blood. Without it, I’ll die.”

  “What are you, some sort of vampire?” she asked with a nervous laugh.

  “I guess that’s the best word to describe me,” he admitted a little uncomfortably. He’d grown up in a time when that label would have gotten him killed. Despite the way books and movies romanticized vampires, he was certain the label could still get him killed.

  She stared at him for a long moment before heading to the little cabinet and retrieving his pill bottle.

  “Thank you,” he said as he took it from her.

  “This has been a very strange conversation,” she told him. “I came down here to tell you I’m going to take you back to your car in the next couple days. I’m sorry it can’t be sooner, but I have some things to take care of first. We’ll talk about the other matter later.” She hesitated before heading back up the stairs. “You do understand why I can’t let you go upstairs, right?”

  He nodded. “Sure, but I still don’t like being in a cage. What if there’s a fire or something?”

  “I can’t explain why, but I need to keep up the illusion you aren’t free to wander around.”

  He started to speak, but she held out a hand with a key. He stared at the key, not really sure if she meant for him to take it.

  “In case you want to take a bath or use the computer,” she explained.

  He continued to stare at the key in disbelief for a minute before taking it. “Thank you. The computer will be helpful. I really need to check my work email. I put in a bid last week and should hear back on it any day.”

  “What do you do?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Mostly graphic design work. That’s what this bid is for. I would be working with the advertising department to come up with an appealing new logo. Sometimes I get commissioned to do more interesting things.”

  She looked at the sketchbook and shifted uncomfortably. “You’re very talented. Do you always take such poetic license?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been having some dreams about you, and I think they are inspiring me.”

  Tempest looked like she wanted to say something, but she thought better of it. “Just lock the door to the cell before you go to sleep, or if you hear someone opening the door at the top of the stairs. Keep the key in your pocket.”

  With one last glance at him, she hurried up the stairs and out of the room.