Blood Magic

by L. J. Red

  “I didn’t,” she said, “not really. I just…” She sighed. “I thought it would make me look guilty.”

  “Thought what would make you look guilty?” I asked. “Because you know what definitely makes you look guilty? Lying.”

  “It’s not like that.” She ran her hands through her hair. Her shoulders hunched. “I didn’t want to get in trouble. All I did was introduce Oliver to the court.”

  Aha, and here was my missing link. “Tell me how.”

  “He saw one of the trinkets I had. A silver necklace one of the vampires gave me after feeding. They do that, they give you a little gift. It’s not a big deal. Kind of like a thank you.”

  Kind of like buying you off, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I thought of the designer labels in Oliver’s wardrobe. “He saw your flashy bling and wanted a bit of it.”

  “He thought it was cool.” She shrugged. “Edgy, you know.”

  Yeah, I knew. Sheltered rich kid just stretching his wings in a new city, looking for something to set him apart from the rest of his classmates. Vampires were just the thing. The edge of danger, the allure. What a fucking idiot. I uncrossed my arms. So, Oliver and Sevda. Totally different backgrounds, different lives, both of them fell afoul of vampires. But which vampires? And why? If Alexandra really was coming down heavily on vamps since what happened to Violet and I, why would any vampire go against her? She was a bitch, sure, but she was a scary fucking bitch. She backed up her bark with a serious bite. I’d felt her power before. Hell, I’d seen it just recently used on Kyran. I knew what she was capable of.

  “That’s all,” Eve said, shifting her weight, her eyes flicking off to the side. “I just introduced him. It’s not like there’s any law against signing up to give blood in the court.”

  “But that’s not all, is it?” I pushed, sensing a lie. “Stop lying to me Eve, you don’t want to piss me off.” I used every inch of my height to loom over here. She hunched down, unable to look away from me.

  “I… I…”

  “You what?” I snapped, widening my eyes.

  “I recruited him,” she finally admitted.

  “I knew it.” I said, though I hadn’t known any such thing. Still, thinking about it, it made sense. Vampires had to get their supply of fresh blood somewhere, who better to seduce into it than innocent, gullible students. A fresh supply every year. “What do you get for it? A perk? A bonus?” She shifted uneasily.

  “It’s not like that. They’re not paying me.”

  “No,” I said. “Because that would be illegal.” Paying people to give blood or to recruit blood donors was illegal in Washington state but gifts like those trinkets, like the gold ring Eve was twisting around her finger, that was totally okay. Fucking loopholes. “How many of you are there?” I said, making a snap decision. She stared at me in confusion. “How many of you recruiting for the court here at the university?”

  “Only a few,” she said, and then blushed. “I mean, no, there aren’t. It’s not—there aren’t any.”

  I pulled out my notebook and passed it over to her. “Names,” I snapped. “Right now. Or I’m reporting you to the cops.” She didn’t take the notebook, her face going white.

  I pulled out my cell phone and started to dial. “Your choice.”

  She glared at me but finally gave in and started scribbling in the book.

  “I don’t know them,” she said. “It’s not a plot or anything. Oliver just asked where I got my jewelry from and I told him. I gave him the address of the vampire court and told him when the next party would be.”

  “Yeah,” I said bitterly. “You’re a real angel.”

  She finally finished writing and I took the notebook back from her. “So, you met Oliver here at the stall and you led him to the vampires and then that was it. He was hooked.”

  “It’s not like it’s a drug,” she said, affronted.

  “You’re telling me you’re not addicted to the way the bite feels?” I asked, stepping close and looking down at her. I caught the tremble in her lip, the widening of her pupils, the flicker of her eyes to the side. Yeah, she knew exactly what I was talking about. I stepped back. “You better hope there’s nothing else you’ve neglected to tell me about, Eve,” I said warningly. “Because I’m not going to be so lenient next time.”

  “That’s it,” she said. “I swear. I didn’t know him. I just introduced him to the vampires. I don’t know why he ended up dead or how. And I’m telling you they’re careful nowadays. Stuff like that doesn’t happen.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked away from her. Stuff like that is exactly what happened to Oliver and to Sevda, and I was going to find out why.

  Chapter 23

  For the third time in so many weeks I was woken abruptly from an uneasy sleep. My dreams broke apart and faded before I could get a good grip on them. Had Violet visited me again?

  A renewed knocking came from my door and I realized that was why I’d woken up. I rolled out of bed and scrambled into my jeans. “Coming, coming,” I shouted, straightening my T-shirt and walking over to the door. I pulled it open, staring blearily out at the two uniformed officers standing in the hall, Raven stuck between them.

  “Ms. Waters,” the one on the right said. I dragged my gaze away from Raven’s guilty face.

  “Yeah?”

  “This girl here says you’re her guardian.” Guardian? A frown appeared between my eyes. “She gave this as her home address,” the officer continued, skepticism entering his gaze. I looked back at Raven, denial on the tip of my tongue. But she caught my eyes with a pleading gaze. My mind was working slow, still half asleep, but something in her expression got through to me. I forced myself to straighten.

  “Right,” I said slowly. “Yeah, sure, that’s it. Home address. Guardian. Got it. Raven.” I pinned her with my eyes. “Inside.” I pointed.

  She tried to slip past the police officers, but the one who had been speaking gripped her more tightly. “She was caught shoplifting,” he said.

  “Shoplifting?” I looked at Raven. “For fuck’s sake. You’re eighteen, Raven. You’re not a kid anymore.” She shrugged, one-shouldered. “It won’t happen again, officers,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  But instead of his suspicious expression fading away, it only deepened. “Can you please confirm that you are, in fact, her guardian, Ms. Waters,” he said, his gaze flicking up and down, taking in my appearance.

  I glared at him. Okay, I might not look exactly like prime guardian material, but I’d just been dragged out of my bed for fuck’s sake. “Seriously?” I said. “She’s my sister’s kid, okay? I’m looking after her.”

  “Can you please call your sister and get her to confirm.” I glared at him. Well no, I thought, I can’t, because A, my sister is dead, and B, she never had a kid, and C, if she’d had a daughter, I was pretty sure any child of Violet’s wouldn’t be such a complete fucking handful like Raven. I didn’t say any of that out loud.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” I said flatly.

  He stared straight back at me, unmoved. Fuck. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of this one. I could call Jazz, but she wasn’t Raven’s guardian either. As coven leader she had some pull, but not enough to trump a guardian’s rights. I could call Detective Pierce but it wasn’t really her department and I didn’t know if she’d have any luck. Damn it, why did I even care? Raven had real guardians somewhere in the city. I looked at Raven’s face and the answer was obvious. I’d been that kid, dreading going home to a foster family that hated me for my magic. At least I’d had my sister. Raven didn’t have anyone. Just me.

  “Look, officers,” I said. “She’s not going to appreciate being woken up at this hour. Can we please let it go and I’ll get her to call you tomorrow morning if that’s what it takes.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough. We’re going to have to take her down to the station.”

  Shit. Taking her to the station meant booki
ng her, and booking her meant a permanent record. She really wasn’t a kid anymore. I glared at Raven. How did she get in messes like these? “Wait, we can work this out—” I broke off as something moved in the darkness of the hallway behind them. Valerian appeared at the top of the stairs, striding toward us down the hall.

  “Officers,” he said, smoothly drawing their attention to him. Even from this distance I could see his pupils expand, his gaze going black. I felt a shiver through the half world as his vampire magic reached for the officers’ minds. Fuck. I hated this shit. “Please excuse my niece,” he said. “She can be a handful.” He smiled and I didn’t understand how the officers couldn’t see the mouthful of fangs he was sporting. I wanted to grab them, shake them out of it, but I forced myself to stay still. He wouldn’t harm them, and Raven would be okay. “You can leave her with us,” he said, his voice a low hum urging them to listen and obey. “She’ll be safe here,” he continued, finally coming close.

  The officers both nodded jerkily in creepy unison. “Of course,” the first officer said slowly, his voice a little lower than before. “I can leave her with you,” he said. “She’ll be safe here.”

  I stared at Valerian, guilt winding around my spine. I was such a hypocrite, accusing vampires of using their powers to get their way, then letting Valerian do exactly that for me.

  “Thank you, officers,” he said, his hands coming to rest on Raven’s thin shoulders. I saw her jump. Interesting, a spark of curiosity burnt through my guilt. His voice wasn’t working on her just like it wasn’t working on me. Something to do with our magics?

  “You can leave us now,” he purred, his eyes moving past the officers to land on me. I swallowed thickly. His voice might not be sucking my mind into a daze, but the seductive burn in his eyes said he knew exactly what the purring tone was doing to my body. He didn’t need magic to turn the air thick with seduction.

  I forced myself to straighten from the lean I had sunk into against the doorway and watched as the officers stiffly walked down the hall behind Valerian. I dropped my gaze to where his hands were still on Raven’s shoulders. “Let go of her,” I said, clearing my throat roughly. He lifted his hands and I jerked my head. Raven shot past me into the apartment.

  I glanced down at my feet and stepped back so that I was fully inside the doorway. “The fuck was that?”

  “That was me helping you out.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “I think you did.”

  Damn him for being right. “I don’t want your help.” I said, but I knew I just sounded petulant. “Don’t pull that shit again.”

  “And leave you to talk your way out of trouble? You were doing so well.”

  “I’d have thought of something.”

  “It was easier—”

  “It shouldn’t be easy.” I snapped. “Life shouldn’t be that easy. It’s a trap, you treat people like objects, you lose your humanity, a bit at a time.” I tilted my head. “Do you have anything left at all?” I said, my voice sharp. “Is there anything human about you, or is it all a mask?”

  “You tell me,” he said, his voice a low, winding rumble and he leaned forward, his presence a furnace against my front, his eyes magnetic, I could fall into them for days.

  I stepped back. It took me a second to find my words. “What were you even doing here?”

  “You know what I’m doing, Tiana,” Valerian said. “I’m here to protect you.”

  “Right,” I said, mouth twisting, my voice growing stronger, “on Alexandra’s orders. Wouldn’t want your investigator disappearing while she is on the case, right?” It wasn’t disappointment curling low in my belly.

  He said nothing. For a second I could have sworn I saw something in his eyes, a flicker in his gaze, a secret behind a veil. I remembered his words in the dream. His frustration over things he couldn’t say. Violet’s warning. Nothing was as it seemed. I blinked. but that was a dream, I reminded myself. It couldn’t really have been Violet. I hadn’t seen her ghost, not once. I’d reached for her many times, and while her presence wasn’t wiped clean like Sevda’s and Oliver’s, the threads connecting her to me were snapped and frayed, blowing in a ghostly wind.

  None of that helped me with the vampire standing in front of me.

  “You’ll have to trust me eventually, Tiana. You will need me.”

  “How can I trust you after what you did?”

  “I’ve apologized and I know”—he said quickly, before I could cut him off—“I know it will never be enough. I can’t give you a reason. But I will never do it again. I swear to you Tiana, I will never hurt you again.”

  I let my tired eyes close for a second. I was so exhausted. Part of me wanted to believe him. I wanted to go back to the person I was four years ago, the person who still had trust left in her. But you can’t go back; you have to keep moving forward.

  “You never told me what you were sorry for. Sorry for lying to me? For hurting me? For abandoning me? Sorry you lost your regular supply of blood and sex?”

  He moved up close to the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the hallway light, casting me in his shadow. “Does it matter?” he said, his voice a purr that went right through my bones.

  Yes, I wanted to say, because one tells me there’s something worth saving inside you and the other tells me you’re a psychopath. But my words tangled behind my lips. I remembered Violet telling me to trust what was in my heart, and between us, like smoke from a flame, rose that strange, otherworldly connection, thickening the air between us. The heaviness in my limbs drew me toward him, both of us leaning in, attracted like magnets. It wrapped us up and bound us together, throbbing deep and heavy all around us. I felt the ghostly half-remembered pressure of Violet’s hand on my chest. Trust this. Her voice echoed through my mind.

  Was I insane? How could I trust a dream memory of my sister over the cold facts of the past? This was a mistake. But I couldn’t deny the way he made me feel. Despite everything Valerian had done, I still wanted him. Being with him still felt right.

  I stepped back, holding his gaze, my eyes measuring, and then I said, “Come in, Valerian.”

  “Tiana,” he purred, his eyes lighting with need.

  His hand was at my waist, sliding between the edge of my jeans and my T-shirt, burning hot against my skin. There wasn’t a hair on my body that wasn’t standing up. His touch was electric and I was all current.

  “So, are you guys an item or what?” Raven’s sharp voice punctured the aura of lust around us. I jerked back as if burned.

  “No,” I snapped, “we’re not.” I turned away from Valerian. It felt stupid showing a predator my back, but then I’d just given him a free pass to my entire apartment. Today was the day for stupid decisions apparently. Thinking about stupid decisions. “Shoplifting, Raven?”

  She shrugged and turned back toward the kitchen. “You got anything to eat in this apartment?”

  I stared at her. “Are you going to explain why you gave me as your contact?”

  She didn’t even shrug this time, just pulled open my fridge and started rummaging around. I rolled my eyes and stomped back into my bedroom for a sweater. “Put the coffee machine on,” I shouted over my shoulder. If I was going to deal with these two at this hour of the night, I needed coffee.

  I was still feeling half asleep and I decided to duck into the bathroom for a quick cold shower. It had nothing to do with the way my body was still tingling from Valerian’s touch. Then I pulled on my warmest, comfiest sweater. It was threadbare and poked through with holes but it gave me the sense of protection I needed as I ventured back out into the apartment. There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

  Raven was sitting at the breakfast bar, her legs tucked into the stool. On the table in front of her was a stack of steaming pancakes. Beyond her Valerian had his back to me, messing with something on the stove. He turned around, a pan held in front of him, and slid another pancake onto the stack.

  “You made pa
ncakes?” I said, dumbfounded.

  “I did,” he said, and looked up at me with a sharp grin. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing thick muscled forearms. I felt a low pulse of lust turn deep in my belly and right down to my core.

  His grip on the saucepan tightened.

  “I didn’t—” I coughed to clear the sudden block in my throat. “I’d forgotten you could cook,” I said. I caught his eyes and, for a second, something passed between us, a shared memory, a shared regret, and then he turned back to the stove.

  “I had to make do with what you had,” he said, indicating the almost empty bowl of apples Jazz had brought.

  I walked up beside Raven and pulled out the stool next to her. “You don’t have syrup,” she said, shaking sugar onto a pancake. “What kind of animal doesn’t even have syrup?”

  “Hey, you’re getting free pancakes out of this deal.”

  She took a big bite. “They are pretty good,” she said, though I could barely understand her with her mouth full of pancake.

  “Give me some of that,” I said, grabbing a plate and sliding one onto it. This was surreal. I wondered if I was somehow still dreaming, still in bed, imagining all of this. Only it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt sharp-edged and real. The sugary pancakes sweet on my tongue, the apple melting and hot.

  I couldn’t hold back a hum of satisfaction. “Delicious.” I looked up, straight into Valerian’s eyes. I was caught, held like a fly in amber.

  “You’ve got…” he said, his voice low, and reached forward. Time seemed to slow, molasses thick, as his thumb touched the edge of my mouth and swiped down my lip. My heart stopped as he raised his thumb to his mouth and sucked it between red, red lips.

  All he’d done was touch the edge of my mouth and I was burning up with desire. Holy fuck, this was a terrible idea.

  “Jeez,” Raven said from beside me. “Get a room, you two.”

  For the first time, I was thankful for the teenage kleptomaniac in my apartment. I coughed and tore my eyes away from Valerian, keeping them down on my plate.