It was practically vampire porn, a well-dressed lady draped over a fainting couch with some fanged male inches from her neck. The heroic tales must have been saved for the mantel.
The walls were complex but uniform, panel after panel revealing no defects or other hints of something that could lie behind.
She searched as high as the candle could reach and down to the floor, aware her time was running out as her candle shortened.
Daemon would come looking if she didn’t return by the time the social hour was over.
When she reached the fireplace again, she swung around, the candlelight flickering widely over the stacks of books.
It had better not be a secret door activated by a book. She would be here for a century searching with all these old books.
As soon as she thought of such a futile search, she remembered the only clean stack of books.
William’s healing tomes were the least dusty and the twins had known where they were on the shelves. Twins, who had mysteriously appeared in the library when Elizabeth was sure it had been empty when she first entered.
Her candle nearly gutted as she hurried to William’s stack. She planted the stub on the middle shelf and started tearing books excitedly from their shelves.
Halfway through the stack, she got less excited and more worried about the mess of books around her. A secret investigation required a little more discretion.
The rest of the books she only pulled halfway and replaced, one after another and another, until she was on her knees and dejectedly pulling the last few books. In a manner of minutes, she put the books back.
Well, so far investigating was decidedly less thrilling than stalking vampires.
She plucked her candle stub from the shelf and walked over to the fireplace to dispose of the waxy remains in the piled logs.
Not everything could be daggers and intrigue.
A cold breeze whistled down the chimney and blew the candle out as she bent and tossed it in.
The sudden darkness startled her, and she jerked back upright, banging her head on the hard stone of the mantle.
The stone moved.
She knew her mother thought her hard-headed, but even she wasn’t rock-brained enough to shift solid marble. That was her sister.
Cursing, half for the goose egg on her head and the rest for the candle stub she’d tossed, Elizabeth debated using her lightning to see if what she thought happened to the mantel really had when she hit it with her head.
She decided to be more cautious in the end and bent down to blindly fish for her candle stub, picking up a few slivers of wood as she groped the fireplace grate.
There wasn’t really a candle shape left, just a blob of wax when she finally found it, but that was good enough for her purposes. She didn’t need it to light, just to look as if she had relit it.
She made a show of bending over with the match and hiding the candle from the view of anyone else, sparking a tiny sphere of lightning, shaped like a flame.
It wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny, sparking in a way plain fire never would, but the shape and light were the most important.
Her heart sped up as she used her forbidden lightning. She kept her lightning sphere close as she stood up, slowly this time.
The mantelpiece she had hit was raised only half an inch. A small rectangle about the size of a brick was displaced.
She pushed it back down. The veins in the marble cleverly hid the break in the mantle, fooling the eye into thinking it was a solid piece. Even her fingers couldn’t detect the break.
Blind luck—or was it bad luck?—had been the only reason she found it at all.
This had to lead to the tunnel! Excitement warred with the knowledge that it was too late to continue her exploration. Daemon was waiting for her.
With a sigh, she pretended to blow her lightning candle out. This was still a victory. She would come back.
Quickly leaving the library, she ran to her room.
Drink Me In
Her room was toasty and welcoming.
The fire was burning just right. The bed curtains were only partly closed around the demon waiting for her in bed, again. He’d left one side open for her to enter.
His clothes weren’t hanging off the bedpost this time, hopefully, a sign he would still be wearing all of them.
The fan was missing from her dressing table as she turned her head to check.
How long had he been waiting for her? She’d been maybe half an hour at the library . . . or had it been more like an hour?
He turned in the bed, fluffing a pillow under his head as he met her eyes. He was too far away for her to determine the look on his face.
She was going to try to brazen this out.
As if they were married, she kicked her shoes off at the door and walked over to him.
He had politely kept to half of the bed. All she could tell from his dark form as she neared was that he wasn’t naked.
She lay down beside him and turned away on her side, facing the bed curtains.
Yep, married life.
“Where were you?” he grumpily asked.
“Out for a walk,” she replied. She was so tempted to give him the Spike five-word explanation and tack on asshole, but it was doubtful he would see the humour.
Hell didn’t have television with snarky programming.
“Dinner was over hours ago,” he said, still grouchy.
“It’s a big castle.”
“Hours,” he repeated.
“I have small feet,” she explained, smothering her grin into her pillow as they delved into the ridiculous for excuses.
“So, you were avoiding me?” he asked.
“Do I have reason to avoid you?”
He made a frustrated growl that almost caused her to giggle.
Did that mean she won this match?
“Avoiding me was unwise,” he declared.
Oh, a backhanded return. “The invitation to the ball asked for well-blooded witches, not brains.”
“Did you forget to pack your intelligence along with your maid?” he coolly rejoined.
“Why ever would I need to think when I’m willingly surrounding myself with bloodsucking monsters?” she shot back.
“Is that what you think of me?” he asked, his tone suddenly soft and serious.
“You’re more dangerous than the usual vampire swain,” she admitted, as serious as him.
“I would never hurt you, sweetheart.”
“I left my brains at home, not my claws,” she warned. “Don’t mistake me as defenceless because my air is weaker than yours.”
There were a few seconds of weighted silence as he took the measure of her threat.
Warmth heated her back. He turned towards her, not quite touching but his magic crossed the inches between them. It felt nice.
She wasn’t alone in the dark.
“It’s not me you should fear. There’s plenty of danger in the castle for a young witch unused to court to stumble into when she wanders unaware,” he said, so calm and serious.
Now, he sounded like the vampire that had stolen her from the hallway, then scolded and bitten her.
She wasn’t here to avoid danger but revealing that was against her family’s purpose.
The other vampire had wanted to force her into a harem for protection. Daemon better not get any similar ideas on restricting her freedom.
“You don’t own me,” she protested. “The castle grounds are open for visiting witches to explore.”
“You are mine,” Daemon retorted, his deep voice wrapping possessively around her. “Mine to protect by right of the claim you accepted,” he reminded her.
“It’s not the same,” she said.
The heat behind her back had reached her tattooed shoulder, warmth massaging her tense muscles.
She refused to relax into it.
“No, sweetheart,” he agreed. “You are still your own witch, free to make mistakes, but now you have someone that wil
l hold you to account for them.”
There was a catch to his claim, of course.
“Whatever. Waste your time waiting for me. I’ll sleep in the tower tomorrow, so I can at least have my own bed,” she said, frustrated.
She seemed to be on the losing end of their verbal sparring.
She had agreed to the claim and she had also witnessed its usefulness when the twins turned on her. Damned if she did or didn’t accept, it appeared.
Daemon’s warm chuckle heated her cheeks as much as his fire.
“You will eventually end up here, ready to confess your trespasses. The longer you take, the more time you give me to think about how much danger you put yourself in earlier. I doubt that you plan to do anything about your safety without sufficient motivation,” he said, shifting on the bed behind her.
She felt the bed dip, pulling her back towards his body.
She stiffened up, refusing to roll into him.
“You laid here and thought about ways to motivate me?” she asked, letting a little incredulity colour her tone. “Are you thinking of a gold star chart or a pep talk?”
He touched her back, fiddling with the top of the row of buttons lining her spine.
She had been expecting his touch since she had laid down, but the sudden contact still sent a shock skittering up her back.
His finger flicked the tiny buttons of her gown, giving her sarcastic query a moment of contemplation.
Possibly, he had no idea what a star chart or pep talk were since he was thoroughly Maerenian.
Dinosaurs were more advanced than the average male from Maeren.
“All out of gold stickers?” she joked, her nervousness bleeding through as she pitched her voice too high. “No worries, I’ll take the talk instead.”
“Do you know anything about a vampire’s responsibility towards a witch he has claimed?” he finally asked.
“You mean that hero, bullshit line about the male coming to save his witch, if the claim tells him she is in danger?” she asked. “Don’t worry, I already told you, I can take care of myself.”
One of her buttons snapped off from the gown, between his fingers.
She jerked in the bed.
“You sleep in your gown?” he asked, saying nothing about her clothing’s risk of imminent destruction.
There was no escaping, his fingers were already worrying another button.
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping,” she told him, irritability giving her voice the strength it was missing earlier.
She was exhausted from her extensive search and ready to knock out.
He had other plans.
“Neither am I,” he told her, much too close to her ear. “Get up.”
There was no mistake that was an order.
“Yes, sir, your Royal Highness,” she muttered.
“You really don’t know when to stop your sassy mouth,” he said, snapping another button. This time it was obviously deliberate.
She sat up.
He immediately started unbuttoning the back of her dress. Hopefully, it was too dark for him to notice any dust and dirt from her midnight exertions.
“What is with you and the clothing impairment?” she asked, trying to squirm away.
He had a firm grip on her dress.
“Why are there so many buttons on this damn thing? How on earth are you expected to undo this by yourself?”
Exactly her question when her mother had insisted on the gowns.
“It is meant to be put on and taken off with help,” she said parroting her mother.
He was already halfway down her back, despite his complaints and her struggles.
“Your mother’s help, right? Your family travels light.” He glanced at her suitcase by the foot of the bed, still packed. “Are you only planning a short stay?”
Dammit, he was asking questions, poking his nose where she couldn’t afford it.
“I like to be prepared,” Elizabeth curtly replied.
It helped when her mother had a history of collapsing castles to be packed to leave.
Also, important to have a quick getaway plan when it was very possible she’d be staking a prince soon.
“Is your mother coming tonight?” he asked, still boldly undoing her buttons. At least, he had stopped popping them off of her gown.
“No. I lied to her about getting a castle maid to help me so I could retire early since I didn’t want her to find you here.”
Her tone let him know she was put out by the lie.
When Elizabeth’s family couldn’t lie to her because of her magic, it seemed only fair that she avoided lying to them as much as possible.
Lying to Daemon was a necessity.
His fingers caught on the fine lawn material of her slip, calluses brushing the small of her back as he neared the end of the buttons.
She jumped again in surprise and he growled at her, probably thinking it was another escape attempt.
“You’re such a Neanderthal. Don’t tear my dress or any more buttons,” she instructed him, but still, she settled back down.
It wasn’t as if he gave her much of a choice with his grip.
“Worry less about your dress and more about what I’m going to do to you when I get it off,” Daemon warned her.
She tried to turn around to glare at him, but he had her trapped with his hands on her gown, so she only managed to half look him in the eyes.
The dark promise she saw in them spelled trouble.
“In that case, I would rather sleep in my gown,” she said.
“Not giving you a choice,” he stated, nearly done unbuttoning.
“Why are you always so pushy?” she complained, giving up on trying to dissuade him.
There were probably only half a dozen buttons left. Stubborn determination seemed to make his fingers nimble.
“Why are you always so difficult?” he countered.
She supposed it was a cultural thing. Males in Maeren were taught to care for witches from the cradle, dependent on their blood starting from their mothers and moving up to their own harem witches when they were older and more powerful.
“I have never served,” she said, not fighting his label of difficult. She must seem querulous compared to the other court witches.
He paused the unbuttoning. “Or been serviced?”
She blushed. Were they even talking about the same thing? The Maerenian terms weren’t that familiar to her.
“Human males are made the same way as male elementals, except for the magic and fangs, but they don’t call having sex, servicing a witch,” she said, only able to get that embarrassing explanation out because she was facing away from him. “I’m not a virgin if that is what you are asking.”
“Human males?” he repeated with derision. “I doubt they could meet a witch’s needs.”
He meant feeding and not just sex.
Honestly, she didn’t get what the big deal was about feeding. Priming was a lot like foreplay, but once a vampire or a human male sunk their appropriate bit in the right place, things were over fast.
A witch could do better with a magic wand set on vibrate.
He chuckled despite his anger when she made her suggestion out loud.
“You’re proving my point if that’s the extent of your experience,” Daemon said, his heated breath teasing the back of her neck.
She struggled again when he tried to slip the gown off her shoulders.
Her tattoo was barely visible despite the reinforcement she’d done.
He’d taken that option away now by stealing the tubes from the fan.
“Stay still,” he demanded. He bit his wrist and pressed the wound to her mouth.
She tasted his blood, nothing like the preserved bottled stuff, but still, just blood on her tongue.
She swallowed a few drops before his shallow wounds clotted from the healing agents in her saliva, then licked at it.
Her tattoo tingled, but none of the burning like earlier. She counted to four before
the lightning hit her veins.
So damn potent.
Her little pink tongue licked daintily at his wrist. Not a wasted drop, licking her own lips clean.
He’d like to suck that tongue into his mouth again and feel it slide against his aching fangs.
He’d let her kiss him as daintily as she fed, little laps of her tongue and shallow forays, holding back until she asked him to take over.
He would teach her what her human males or a vibrating toy couldn’t do for a witch.
She dug her nails into her thighs as she broke from her blood induced glimpse into his thoughts with a gasp, blinking the scene away.
It was easier to recognize when she slipped this time, not drugged by priming yet.
Daemon ignored her gasp and traced the fading whorls of her tattoo. She could feel it sink into her skin as he traced.
“Did you know a witch can’t be claimed against her will,” he whispered, still just touching her shoulder, although his blood warmed her everywhere.
She thought about Jill’s claim and her own fading tattoo.
“Then why do you keep on trying?” she asked.
“Your magical soul does the accepting, not your sassy mouth,” he told her. “The tattoo will only appear if the soul accepts.”
Really? That meant they were bonded because her soul wanted him. Suddenly, the claim was much more serious.
He swirled his finger halfway down her bicep, tracing the tattoo even larger than last night. The ink followed his touch, a tingling under her skin.
“How quickly it fades depends on how much magic bleeds from it and the strength of the male that placed it,” he finished explaining.
So, she was sucking magic from the tattoo like a junkie licking a spoon after a hit. It had to be because of what the twins had done to her in the library.
She knew she should be embarrassed, and maybe, a little worried that he suspected her magical drain, but at the moment, she didn’t care.
His potent blood and magic were making her drunk again. She felt the power in her fingertips begging to make bolts and air was finally fully back, a cool whisper under her skin.
“You can take it,” he whispered in encouragement. “Let the magic find your chi.”
Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1) Page 25
