by Kiki Howell
She placed a finger to her lips again to quiet him. Only, she was the one who held back her own giggle when she let her hands run between her breasts then down her stomach, which had made him clap his hands over his mouth. Unbuttoning her jeans, she danced out of them too. Her underwear she lost next. Watching her rubbing herself, over her mound, between her legs, her fingers feeling her wetness, her own hot arousal, Kane bit at her shirt.
When she turned her back to him, bent over and spread her thighs wide, he lunged for her. His hands firmly clamped on her hips, he pulled her ass back against his denim-covered cock. She had to put her hands over her own mouth to stifle the noise of her own excitement at being handled in such a way. Standing up but still falling back, her legs pressed against his, trying for some sort of stability, she finally let go. Her head fell back on his shoulder. His stubble scrapped her cheek. His hands found her breasts and squeezed them tight. With her legs open, she felt deliciously wanton; wanted to only be Kane’s meal.
His warm breath in her ear sent goosebumps down her body.
Then he whispered, “I love you Amberlyn. I don’t care what you are, how we have to be together, what anyone else thinks of us… I love you. I want to be with you forever, just like this, naked, open, in love so that nothing else matters.”
His hand shot down between her thighs then, cupped her sex; he moved his fingers to roam inside her. Each push of his hand took him deeper.,
She ground her ass against his erection. The jean material created a wonderful scathing friction. She turned her head to bite and kiss his neck.
Amberlyn took in his scent, his spicy cologne mixed with the strong, musky smell of the skin of one half human and the other half animal. She knew his earthy taste, one of salt and something not namable, but distinctly him. It aroused something primal in her.
Moving her hips, taking his fingers inside her greedily, she reached back between their bodies to undo his jeans, tug them and his boxers down enough to let his cock spring out against her ass. Letting it fall between her cheeks, she rode his fingers as he groaned and pulled her to him tighter.
Suddenly, he moved them while he kept her body tucked under his. Holding her against the bed, he kissed her neck, her back, with branding kisses. The short hair on his mouth and chin created a burn as his teeth marked her flesh. Soon his mouth traveled down her back, over her ass, then gave her puckered hole a lick before he grabbed her thighs hard and spread her legs wider.
She buried her face in the mattress, not able to hold back a squeal as his finger fell from her. But his tongue replaced them, poked at her opening, lapped up her juices.
Turning her to face him, he pulled her legs out from under her and placed them around his hips. Her hips bucked, wanted him, needed the thickness, the length of his erection inside of her. But, he remained solid, like a rock as he looked at her as if mesmerized.
The candlelight shone, highlighted what the sun had lightened of his hair. His eyes held the intense glow of his wolf, which further illuminated her own animalistic needs. His need for her was poised to enter her depths. She waited as she held her breath.
“Amberlyn,” he sighed her name as the tip of his penis pressed against her moist opening a little more.
“Kane,” she whispered and he pushed into her.
Their breath caught simultaneously. He pushed in and out in time with the rhythm of his accelerated heartbeat, which she could hear as clear as if it was music playing in her ear. She pulled his chest down onto her own so that the beat of his heart felt like it was hers. It didn’t take long until they climaxed together; their muscles clenched and their limbs shook for what seemed like a glorious eternity.
Spent, Kane’s full weight collapsed onto her. He nuzzled into her neck, his hot panting like a trophy to her.
***
Amberlyn’s phone started to ring just as her and Kane had cuddled under the blanket and into each other’s bodies to sleep.
“You never know. I better get it,” Amberlyn sighed as she stretched to the floor without getting out of bed. Kane held around her stomach as she reached to catch the leg of her jeans with her fingertips. She was finally was able to pull them to her and get her phone from the pocket. “It’s Devin?” she questioned no one in particular.
“Hello, Devin. Is everything okay? My mother?” Amberlyn finally answered.
“No, your mother got off just fine. I saw her off with my friends. They had a solid itinerary to get her to New York, layovers for sleep, re-glamouring schedule, food and all. They’ll be fine. Don’t worry about your Mother.
Amberlyn listen though, I’m sorry to catch you right before you go to sleep, but I couldn’t wait until night fell again. I need to talk to you. I need someone to confess to that I hope will understand what I’ve done. Please, after day sleep, can we meet as soon as night falls? I can come to you. We could talk right outside the cave,” Devin rambled on at a fast clip.
“Don’t tell me you are in love with a Werewolf or a Witch too?”
“Worse.”
“Worse?” Amberlyn laughed into the phone, a bit louder than she’d meant to. “What could be worse?” She sat up in the bed now, conscious of how Kane still held onto her, the tension in the muscles of his arms showed his own fears at what was going on now.
“I’m in love with a woman…a human,” Devin whispered.
“Shit.” Amberlyn said, though it came out soft as she turned to look at Kane. She knew he’d heard what Devin had said.
“I know. Please, will you talk to me? I’m scared. I was ignoring it, denying it. But, tonight on my way back from dropping off your mother, I found her in trouble. She’s here at my place. Unconscious, but soon to wake I’m sure. I know that sounds bad, but I had no choice. I won’t hurt her. But, I love her. I’m a fucking Vampire and I’m scared of having my dead heart broken. I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how she’s going to react come tomorrow night.”
“Does she know what you are, Devin?” Amberlyn asked and heard Kane take the same deep breath she did as they waited for the answer.
“Yes, yes she does...now.”
“Have you…ah, you know…”
“No. It’s not like that yet. Shit, I mean, I’ve been with humans, but I didn’t care about them. What if it’s too much for me? Her blood. What if I accidentally killed her and broke my own heart. No, I can’t think of that now. We are not that far I don’t think. Did you hear me though? I kidnapped her. She had a fight with her brothers and she ran away and got hurt. I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t leave her there bleeding with Vampires out. So, I had to take her. Please, I don’t know what to do now. And, even without a definite leader, who knows who would take vigilante justice on me for revealing us.”
“Don’t worry, Devin. What the hell am I saying? Worry, but come over when night falls again, as soon as you can get away. We are kind of in hiding here, so just call when you are on your way. We will all work through this.”
As she clicked the phone closed there was a knock on her door.
“Come in Isaac,” Amberlyn said. She knew that with his hearing, he already knew everything.
“Problem?” Isaac said when he popped his head in the door. “I heard the phone ring.”
“The war. It just went up a notch.”
***
The Vampire’s Witch by Kiki Howell
Chapter One
Rage carried Isaac from California back to Tennessee at a fevered speed even for a Vampire. The night curled in around him, but not as the embrace it usually was. Instead, tonight, it was like a dense fog, which seemed to strangle him. He couldn’t say he was going home, even though that was where his families were. Both of them, or at least, what was left of them. Home meant a place that welcomed, sheltered, and yet he’d had no choice but to run from The Willows. Even now, several years later, he would have to be careful while staying with his Vampire family that his real family never saw him. For all his birth family knew, he’d gone missing a decade ago. Hope
fully they thought him dead – an accurate conception for all intensive purposes.
The voice of his maker’s maker, Achim, a man he viewed as a grandfather now, echoed in his head. Drake, Isaac’s maker, was dead, staked outside the business he’d run. The Willows was to the mortals a peaceful, beautiful resort area in the mountains of Tennessee, full of sun and water and trails in the summer, which switched to snowboarding and skiing in the winter, everything a tourist could want. His clan had moved there a few years before he was made. While Vampires were transient, forced to always keep moving every few decades or so by the fact mortals started to question why they never aged, resort towns were perfect to keep the questions low with so many people always coming and going. Plus, these types of places provided them jobs running the always-active nightlife.
Clans of Werewolves and Witches had already been in The Willows when his clan had arrived. Until tonight, the clans had basically kept apart, recognized and peacefully accepted their hatred for each other. They worked together, amicable enough in public, but that was where it ended. Tonight, his Vampire sister, Amberlyn, had thought it wise to reveal her love for the Werewolf, Kane, of all given creatures. A verbal battle between Vamps and Werewolves at the cove had turned violent and deadly. A young Witch who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, had been killed by a shot that had been fired after a Werewolf had staked to death Amberlyn’s and Isaac’s maker, Drake. While the wolf and Vamp clans had all but declared war, the Witches were already threatening their own special sort of revenge. All of this had happened in the matter of three cursed hours. Now, he was nearly there just a few hours away from sunrise.
Isaac, even in life, had been one to kick ass and ask questions later. As he entered The Willows – the place eerily quiet – a chill, more pervasive than it should be for a spring night in these parts, snaked down his back as he approached the group of houses where most of the Witches lived.
“Blessed wenches,” he grumbled into the air. And, he meant that in an angry, jealous and missed the sun type of way. Witches got to have special abilities and easily blend into society as mere mortals. His boot crushed the yellows, pinks and whites of the spring flowers, which decorated the first lawn he’d come to. They represented spring fever and love, and he relished their demise under his boots.
“Fuckin’ Amberlyn!” Isaac had never gotten to know his sister much, except through a few visits when her, Drake, and Drake’s maker, Achim with his wife, Willa, had come to visit him in Los Angeles.
Someone was going to pay for Drake’s death. Isaac wasn’t going to be picky either. Whatever Witch he came across first would do for information, then possibly revenge depending on how things went down. Revenge was his job in California, and he was very good at it. Tonight though, he hadn’t thought his plan of attack all the way through yet.
His thoughts were still more on what he’d lost tonight. After Isaac had been made, Drake had left The Willows with Isaac, stayed with him, mentored him, became a real father to replace the human one he could no longer see. Isaac pushed the memories aside, squashed them with anger-laced pain. First things first, before that damn strong sun around here rose, some random Witch was going to give him answers about what they had planned. He would go for the Werewolves tomorrow night after he had a planning session with Amberlyn and Achim. Isaac had promised them that over the phone. No one had said a damn word about the Witches. Being one of the new temporary leaders of the clan now – as one of those closest in bloodline to Drake – he had a job to protect the other Vamps.
With strength and speed, he broke into the house. There was no lock or doorknob around that could keep him out if he wanted in. The broken door, the briefest scream of a woman startled out of sleep, were all but seconds, and he was gone. With a hand over the scared-frozen woman’s mouth just in case, he erred on the side of caution somewhat, even though she wouldn’t realize what had happened to her. He ran through the woods with her in his arms at speeds that made her world blur.
He came to a stop when he reached the abandoned cave, now secretly furnished with a man-made room deep inside it where no mortal would dare roam. Drake had lived there, a home away from the one he claimed to live in, in town. Achim had told Isaac he could stay there safely out of sight for as long as he needed to be in The Willows. He used the code to get inside.
Once the door had shut and bolted behind him, he threw the Witch on the leather couch, wondered what magic she could possess to have shocked his whole body just from holding her. Something about the electric sensation that burned through his veins felt familiar, calmed and energized at the same time. It was the first time since he’d been turned that he’d felt, well, secure of all damn things. It was almost too foreign of an emotion to recognize. If he didn’t know better, he would say it felt like something he remembered from home, from the last time he was here, the night he died. Stupid, but seriously undeniable still, like something long ago but never forgotten, always longed for even if pushed from one’s mind. And, on tonight of all nights, the whole idea of home was insane. He’d just lost the one person who’d ever given him any sense of the word since becoming a Vampire. Security had now become an even more vague concept than it had ever been before, a concept he would think upon only when in a piss-poor mood about the loss of his cushy childhood and all-too-soon-gone days of being a carefree young man.
The feeling had to have something to do with being in Drake’s home. That had to be it. Although he’d only been here once before, that dreadful night he’d been turned and a few nights following, until Drake had thought he was strong enough to travel to California and start a new life there. Secure wasn’t a word he’d use to describe those first nights he’d spent as a Vamp, but the place was Drake’s still. He could sense him here in a way.
The Witch must have been beyond terrified from her journey, because she stared at him with her big green eyes that sparkled with gold, even in the dim lights. Of course she would be afraid. Beyond the whole kidnapping thing, he didn’t let many people see him. He worked shady jobs at night, in the wrong parts of town, where a half-disfigured face like his got him street cred, warranted fear, and got the job done with little problem. He was one scary son of a bitch, or son of a Vamp. He had used it to his advantage, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do him with this chick.
“Wasting my breath probably by saying this, but don’t be scared.” He pulled the hood he always wore over the side of his scared face, turned away from her at the same time. “I just want answers. Give them too me, and I’ll return you to your bed. Do it quickly, and I can get you there before the sun rises.” He pointed to his watch. “But, time is ticking. What are the Witches planning for retaliation again the Werewolf and Vampire clans for what happened tonight?”
She just sat there, her red curls wind-blown from her unexpected trip, like a fire raging around her beautiful features, the ones he was losing the battle at ignoring. Against her flaming locks her pale skin glowed, everything about her sparkled. Something in his cold body warmed, unexpected, and as welcomed as it was forcefully, obediently, rejected. Slowly her legs curled up under her, hidden a bit more by her nightdress. The damn thing was sheer, of course, thin strapped, a sunny, golden color, appropriate to sheath such a bright – okay hot – woman as she was.
Fuckin’ stop it! What the hell with the thoughts? Is this some sort of magic she’s using on me already? Damn it all! What the hell is she staring at?
She was under his skin, possessed him, some goddamned fucking way, and it needed to stop. Yes. That had to be it. Possession. He had to wonder though if it was really possible as she sat there, her arms around her body. She curled into the corner of the couch, stared at him like he was some sort of angelic being, like he mesmerized her rather than feared him like most did in his presence as if he was mere devil’s spawn.
Of course, it has to be part of some spell. What else? She doesn’t need a wand or words. These Witches are wicked with mind control. He’d fight fire wi
th fire if he only had the mind to at the moment. What the fuck?
“If you’re using magic, you need to stop it now!” he yelled, finally made his thoughts vocal, but they’d come out more like a muffled roar. The Witch emasculated him. She literally had him by the balls with her magic, and he wouldn’t have it. His fangs came out, his face tense.
She jumped, and he bit back the apology that came unasked for by her and un-welcomed by him.
“You’re alive,” she finally spoke, words so faint he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.
“What?” he barked back, the tone of it far less than he’d planned it to be. He huffed.
“The last time I saw you. You were in that accident…that horrible, horrendous car accident.” She shook her head, her eyes closed tight. He wondered if she tried to recall a moment or shut out a memory. “They used magic…They tried to… I tried to… I didn’t know what happened to you, if they were successful…or I was. Then that Vampire, he just took you. Oh My Goddess!”
Her hand went over her mouth a second, then dropped again. “That Vampire was Drake! Your maker… that’s why you’re here. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He shook his head then, his fangs shortened. Sorry for my loss? Was she for real?
“What are you talking about? My accident? You remember it?” He actually shook his head again tried to focus in on a lot of words that, as he understood them, made no sense. Not a damnable drop of sense. “Yes, Drake’s dead. That’s why I got you. I just need information about what the Witches are planning in retaliation. In exchange I’ll return you safely.”
“I wish I had it to give, the information you seek, that is.” Her legs unfurled then long and shapely. He wondered how anyone’s skin could look so pale and so warm at the same time. In this light, her coloring made her sparkle like a fairy. She tugged what she could of the golden silk nightgown over her thighs. His body came alive even more so than it had when he’d had her in his arms. This time what burned through his veins was pure lust. It had to be. Definitely a feeling he could identify with. But, question was, had she caused it? This ache within him to hold her, to claim her, to drink her blood, which was probably honey sweet. He could smell it as it flowed under her skin. At first in a furious rush of adrenaline, at moments it slowed down a bit, and then it moved along fast again seconds later.
