by Lisa Ladew
Carick’s voice stopped her, filled with strength and conviction, louder than it had any right to be. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and turned to hear him better. “You are called switches because many years ago your undead enemy, ever clever, declared you the most savage witches he’d ever seen. Sa-witches, he cursed, as he staggered under the weight of their magicks. Your aunts, your cousins, your grandmothers, all those alive to hear of the jab thought it was amusing and complimentary. They made it their own. You have been switches since that day.”
Shit. And if she wasn’t a switch, she was insane. Cora made her decision, then pulled her feet together and hopped forward. The two men stared at her, mouths open and eyes agog. She pointed at her feet. “Oh, that. That was me hopping on the crazy train. What’s the next stop, Conductor?”
Carick regarded her curiously, then looked to Jameson. Jameson sniggered as he translated. “She’s in and she wants to know what’s next.”
Cora swung her purse over her shoulder. “All-in, baby. What’s this job pay, anyway?”
The two men exchanged a glance. Shit. Of course. Big fat el zilcho. “We’ll talk about that.”
She swung her purse strap over her shoulder and headed out the door, glad she’d brought her own car. She needed some time to herself.
Carick called after her. “Training starts when you are able. Now. This evening. Tonight. You find me and we start. If you don’t find me by tomorrow, I’ll send the Keeper to get you.” Jameson said something under his breath and the two men argued for a second. Carick spoke again. “Fine, tomorrow next.”
Guy was bossy. Training? Would they bring in actual… vampires? Cora grimaced at the thought and kept on a path to the door. Before she could make a clean exit Bryce caught up to her, a heavy-looking kayak under his arm.
“Cora, hold up.” The grin on the younger man’s face was so sweet, Cora couldn’t help but return it. Sweet and wholesome. Far too sweet for her, but he did make for nice scenery.
He dropped the kayak. “Our date? You wanna do something tomorrow?”
She threw a look at Jameson, but he was talking to Carick, not even looking at her. And the date was just friends. And Bryce knew these guys; maybe he could spill some dirt. “Let’s do that. I pick ‘Inspired by the Bard’ at the Local. A bunch of films all based on Shakespeare’s plays.”
The good humor drained from Bryce’s face. “Uh, well, see, me and Shakespeare, we aren’t really what you’d call close.”
Cara grinned. “No, not like that. It’s ‘inspired by’, so no fancy language or men in tights. Promise. Like how the movie Clueless was based on Emma.” Emma was based on Austen, not Shakespeare, but Bryce wouldn’t know the difference.
Jameson, who hadn’t seemed to be paying a bit of attention a moment before, growled without looking up, “Emma is Austen, not Shakespeare.”
Point for the hottie. Impressive. Gonna need a bigger scoreboard.
Bryce grinned wide and gave Jameson a thumbs-up. “Whatever you say, Grandpa.” He turned back to Cora. “You’re on. What time?”
Cora knew the movie times by heart. “10 Things I Hate About You is playing at six.”
“Julia Stiles. Righteous.” Bryce picked up the kayak and made for the back of the store, grinning once over his shoulder as he pushed through the rear door. Cora waved goodbye to Flint, who was helping a customer pick out hiking boots.
When she turned to say goodbye to Jameson, Cora caught a flare of heat in his eyes that was quickly extinguished as he gave her a tight smile, his lips firmly pressed closed. Cora found herself wishing the heat would return, seeking to make a connection. “Good catch on the Austen. Not a lot of men your age care about that kind of stuff.” Yeah she was fishing for his age. So what?
Jameson didn’t give. “That’s why they call them classics.”
Ok, she’d go super sleuth then. Not a problem. Cora had never met a man like him, one who’d play hard to get even though he liked her. That was what he was doing, right?
As she pushed out the door into the blinding sunshine, Coralie admitted to herself she had no idea what Jameson was doing. Nor any of the rest of them, herself included.
Chapter 22
Jameson sat in The Bear Claw, swirling his glass of beer in his hands, drawing designs in the condensation. It was almost 8:00. Cora was on a date with Bryce. She hadn’t come in to the BBOC. She hadn’t called. Did she even have his phone number? He’d gotten Carick his own smartphone, and a computer, so he had his phone back. Maybe she had Bryce’s number. Jameson groaned and leaned back in the booth.
He couldn’t handle the thought of Bryce and Cora together. Cora was… intelligent. Mature, with the most wonderful sense of humor. She was dainty and feminine and bright. Guys like Bryce were well-meaning, but bulls in china shops when it came to women. Good looks, sweet personality, but no depth. They didn’t realize how hard women fell for them, and never imagined the pain they put one through when they moved on.
Besides, Cora should be with him.
Never gonna fucking happen. Carick had said as much, again, when he’d seen Jameson staring out the window after her as she gotten in her car the day before.
“Keepers are only twined with the cause, not bound by the coven. Your duty is to serve all switches, not only one, and not with your body. It has always been so. She is not for you.”
Right. He had his duty to keep him warm at night, to fold into his arms with a soft sigh just for him.
Cora’s laughter played through his mind and he snarled. Fuck, but he wanted her so badly. And she was attracted to him. Maybe she didn’t want him, but she would let him take her on a date. Maybe kiss her neck under the stars, tell her how enchanting she was. He knew enough about women to know she would.
Wait, was he actually hearing her laughter? Oh fuck, he was. She and Bryce were in the diner, in the adjoining room. Jameson froze, not sure what to do. In order to leave he’d have to go past them. Wait them out?
An unseen Bryce laughed good naturedly.“She didn’t have to be so hard on him. He liked her for real, he just didn’t realize it until after he’d gotten to know her.”
Coralie came right back, laughter also. “Like he was paid to do. Believe me, that’s always a deal breaker.”
Bryce teased her. Jameson could see the broad smile in his voice. “You’re not very romantic. I expected different from you.”
Cora teased him back. Jesus, they sounded like they were together already. “I tell you what, the next time that scenario happens to me, I’ll give the guy a break. Just for you.”
Jameson sipped his beer out of habit and considered the back exit.
But they must have been there for a while, already. Plastic scraped against wood. Bryce picked something off the table. “Let’s see, Cora, your part comes to… eleven-fifty. I’ll get the tip.”
That was interesting. Bryce wasn’t paying for dinner? Maybe they weren’t together.
Jameson kept quiet. They paid and went to leave. He could see them at the front door and his heart seized at Cora’s petite form and long hair. They never turned around to see him.
He finished his beer, thinking about nothing very much at all. Duty, maybe, a little.
After enough time that they had to be gone, Jameson paid his own bill and slipped outside into the hot dark of the parking lot. But the two of them were still out there, closer to the road than the diner. Had they been talking? Kissing? Shit. Bryce climbed into his Jeep, cranked the engine and gunned it out of there. Cora leaned against a sporty blue car and stared at the sky, her face unreadable. Jameson was stuck. He wanted to go back inside, but why hide from her? It wasn’t going to get better. In fact he was going to see worse than that if they really did this thing with the vampires.
Jameson froze and watched Cora instead. The parking lot was only dimly lit and they were out in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t seem to notice any of it, only the dark sky above. They stood that way for several minutes, her studyin
g the stars, him studying her, and then she spoke. “This staring is not helping to convince me you aren’t a serial killer who plays the long game, contriving a way to make his victims think they’re crazy before he kills them in the basement.”
Shit. Caught. Was he flushing? Jameson couldn’t tell in the heat. “I wanted to make sure you were safe. Didn’t want to disturb you.” Even if she didn’t buy it, it was something for him to say.
She turned her eyes back to the sky. “Safest place in the world to live, right here in Five Hills. Did you know that?”
Jameson moved to stand next to her, tipped his head back, and leaned against her car. “There’s a reason for that, you know.”
She snorted. “Figures there would be. Magic. Savage witches. No one would dare pull some shit out here.”
Jameson could only agree. “Maybe.”
Cora looked straight at him. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I know there’s a reason, but I don’t know what it is. Magic seems as good a reason as any. That’s what the Native American legends refer to. Magic.” He sighed. “Magic, fate, accident, I don’t know, but I lean toward the first two.”
She stiffened like she didn’t like that, still staring at him. Before he knew what was happening she’d stepped in close enough to put her hand on his shoulder, reach up on tiptoe, and kiss the skin two inches from his lips.
Do it again, shot through his mind like a lightning bolt as her fresh, pure scent overtook him. He lost himself for just a moment, gazing at her, forgetting what came next in normal human behavior.
A blush covered Cora’s cheeks and her green glow, barely visible a moment before, surged like the northern lights. Cute as hell. Sexy as sin. Jameson wanted to touch her face but she stepped away, hurried into her car. He came to his senses and lunged for her window, tapping on it, still no words in his head. See her again? Yes. Definitely.
She smiled at him as she rolled down her window, her face turned up to him. “Yes?”
Jameson grasped her doorframe and blurted the first thing he thought of. “Training. Tomorrow. Killing vampires and all that.”
Her face fell and Jameson realized he was making a stabbing motion with his free hand. He stuffed it in his pocket. “Pick you up after lunch?”
She nodded, but with no smile this time. “Yes,” she said, finality in her tone.
“Good,” he replied, but she was already speeding away, the cab of her tiny car glowing green for as long as he watched it.
Jameson watched her go, his heart aching to realize he’d hurt her somehow. Couldn’t have been the kiss. She hadn’t meant anything by it. Couldn’t have. He frowned, some realization dancing just out of his reach as duty drop-kicked his heart. Cora glowed green. Jameson didn’t think he’d ever seen another woman glow like that, but maybe that was because he’d never paid attention. Or because there were switches out there who weren’t glowing yet; Carick had mentioned switches only glowed once they’d been in close proximity to a vampire for the first time.
Cora couldn’t be the last. What if he sent out word to the shifters: watch for glowing women-
Shit. He had seen that glow before, but it hadn’t been green. It had been magenta, almost fuschia.
They didn’t all glow green. And he fucking knew of another switch. One who’d been switched on by getting close to a vampire. Auntie. Every strange thing she’d said to him over the years came flooding back. It all checked out.
Time to talk to Carick.
Chapter 23
Cora glanced up as a car approached her house, holding her breath until it passed. She’d canceled on Jameson. On training. She just couldn’t deal today. Her tenure hearing was two days off and she’d yet to decide if she was going to bring up what had happened to her. She’d already been asked if she’d ever been arrested, ever had any depression or other mental illness, and said no, because back then it was the truth. The tenured professors on the panel wouldn’t ask her again. Technically, if Cora didn’t tell them, and they hadn’t heard, she might still get tenure. But was that honest? Could she do that? She didn’t know, but every time she thought about it she felt like puking. Every minute she expected someone to call and say don’t even bother coming in.
When she made it back out to her living room, a shadow graced the damn see-through window on the front door. She had to replace that. Jameson’s large, broad form. For a moment Cora allowed herself a tiny fantasy. She would open door and he would pounce on her, apologize for rejecting her kiss the night before with one of his own. One she felt in her whole body. One that-
He peeked in at her, eyebrows raised, making her blush to her toes. Oh God.
She hurried to the door and opened it up, searching his face for any indication of how he felt. About things. Not about her, really. Bryce had been clueless when she’d grilled him, so she really was no better off than she’d been before the date.
Oh yeah, Jameson, hell of a guy, he’d said. Good guy. Carick? Seems like a good guy. Not much of a talker. More of a yeller. Vampires? Yeah, they totally exist. I saw one as a baby but I don’t remember it.
She spoke before Jameson could get a word out. “I texted Bryce and told him I couldn’t come. Didn’t he tell you?” She’d said she didn’t feel good. Was true, her stomach was heaving and knotting even as they spoke. It was all getting to her, and she couldn’t face training. Or Jameson.
Jameson stared at her, his face saying he didn’t like something about that statement. The Bryce part? That had been when his lips had tightened. He spoke. “I got the message. This is about something else, entirely.”
She waited. He seemed to be drinking her in, his eyes searching her face and… body. His nostrils flared as he inhaled through his nose.
“I do want to know,” she said, her snark-defense going up. “So if you’re waiting for me to beg you to go on, consider it done.”
His lips twitched in an almost-grin. “I might have found another of you, another switch.”
Relief flooded her. Cora hadn’t even known that was bothering her, but it was. The fact that she was the only one of these vampire warriors? She’d never killed anything, and it didn’t impress her as the kind of hobby she should race into. A year or two between murders seemed like a good pace to her, but that Carick guy looked like he wanted Cora on a steady two-a-day vampire diet, stat. Jameson wouldn’t let him get away with it, though. She loved that about him.
Cora forgot her vow to herself of the night before to never touch him first again, to not give him the opportunity to reject her, and leaned forward to place her hand on his. “Who?”
Jameson didn’t even twitch, but she could feel the wall he’d put up between them nonetheless. “I’ll take you to her, if you’re well enough.”
“I’m game.” She left him on the porch to grab what she needed and in a few minutes they were on the road, heading into town.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked after several minutes of brooding silence that made her squirm. “You and Carick building an army of vampire killers? Your own Buffy-covey?” She snickered, gratified when he did, too.
He shrugged, his eyes on the road. “The bossman doesn’t share as much as you would think.”
“Fire him, then. You should be in charge anyway.”
Jameson threw her a glance. “It’s not like that. He’s… I don’t know what he is exactly, but he’s not a sh-” He glanced at her questioningly, like he almost spilled a secret. “Sometimes I forget that you know even less than I do.”
She nodded, hard. “Yeah, time to fix that.”
He gestured at a squat, modern building as he pulled into the parking lot. “Except we’re here.”
“Raincheck,” she said, pinning him with her eyes until he agreed. “Raincheck.”
She read the sign. Five Hills Nursing Home.
“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said dryly, then hopped out of the truck, her hope deflating as they neared the entrance. “Carick isn’t coming?”
Jameson shook his head. “I told him about her but he wasn’t even interested; one hundred percent focused on you. His exact words were, ‘do what you must but get that breath switch back here today’.”
Cora frowned. “Breath?”
“It’s a type of switch. Which coven you belong to.”
Details. Finally. “Coven? Like real witch shit?” She looked at her hands. If she was really a witch, wouldn’t she have done magic sometime in her life, or did that only happen if you knew what you were doing? In the books she’d read it was always the first clue.
Jameson held the door open for her. Swoon. No! No swoon! “Yeah. Magic. Coven houses. Real witch shit.”
The building was cool and quiet, the waiting area empty except for one nurse busy on a computer. Cora caught Jameson’s arm. “Breath?”
He shook his head. “Not sure. An element, he said. There’s four more, but he didn’t explain them. It’s like every piece of information he gives up takes something away from him. It’s the only way I can explain his behavior since he showed up.”
“Showed up from where?”
Jameson blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, like she wouldn’t believe him if he said. She tugged at him, leaned in and whispered, “Come on, I bought the vampires. Witches hasn’t fazed me. I’ll take it like a champ, I promise. Try me.”
He smiled at her, dropping his head until their foreheads almost touched. So sexy! And he smelled goooooood. Masculine and woodsy.
He whispered in her ear. “He’s been asleep for one hundred and sixty seven years in a cave in the forest.”
She threw her head back and laughed, before sobering. Fuck. He was telling her the truth. The unbelievable, ridiculous truth. And she’d promised to buy it. “Why a cave?” she said weakly.
“I asked him that.” Jameson nodded absently. “He said to protect the cause from the ultimate danger. And when I asked what that was, he said I was better off not knowing.”
Cora frowned. “Just him and the switches against the ultimate danger, huh?”
