by Ruby Loren
Jo was sitting in the centre of the group. Of course, January thought, feeling a familiar stab of annoyance. Before the other woman had a chance to register what was happening, January grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her free from her circle of admirers. Her sister’s dark, lightly curling hair, shone in the flickering candle light. Her looks might even have leant her a vampiric air, had it not been for the wild spirit flashing so brightly in her dark eyes. It screamed ‘I’m alive’ in a way that vampires’ eyes never did.
No one ever believed that she and Jo were siblings.
“We are leaving right now,” January said.
Jo opened her mouth to protest, but she closed her ears to it. Her sister knew exactly what she’d risked by coming here, but that didn’t stop Jo from pretending that she was the one who was in the wrong.
The head vampire blocked the exit with his arms folded across his expansive chest. He didn’t look happy. Why can’t vampires just accept that their mind games don’t work on everyone? She thought, knowing he’d want an answer to how she was able to resist his glamour.
“What are you?” He asked, searching her eyes, as if he would find some grain of truth hidden there.
“Just a little pony. You guessed right,” she said and gave Jo a quick shove, so she managed to slip past him. Her sister wasn’t the one he was interested in.
When January tried to follow suit, she found herself up close and personal with a vampire for the second time that evening.
“I think you should let me leave your pub, Mr Drax,” she said and realised - just as the words left her lips - that he hadn’t introduced himself that way.
There was a moment of surprise, which she used to slip past him and out of the door. It was not often you managed to put a vampire on the back foot.
The cool night air smelt better than ever after the inside of the pub. She turned back and discovered Gregory Drax had fixed her with his penetrating gaze. He could easily come and get her - there was a good chance no one would even notice with all the glamour floating around - but he remained in the doorway. Perhaps the vampires are less reckless than they appear, she thought. He was playing it safe in case one of the un-glamoured saw.
His icy stare told her that she was right.
She felt the back of her neck prickle, as her animal instincts whispered in her ear. This wasn’t the last she would be seeing of Gregory Drax.
“January is a cold, cruel month,” he called out from the entrance.
Did he think taunting her was going to make her turn around and walk back into his tastelessly decorated pub?
“Not as cold and cruel as you are, you walking corpse,” she said under her breath, but saw his face light up when he heard. In her annoyance, she’d momentarily forgotten about the extra sensitive vampire hearing. It was all-too easy to lose track of the many physics-bending traits of the vampire population, but she should have known better. Mistakes like that got you killed.
She tried to toss her almost pure white hair when she spun on her ridiculous high-heeled cream sandals. Her chin length, tight curls refused to move in a satisfactory way. Hair tossing was probably something best left to her sister.
She refused to give Gregory Drax another look and stalked after Jo - who was doing some angry stalking of her own. Apparently they’d finally found something that did run in the family.
“Jo!” January shouted after her, hoping she’d slow down so they could discuss exactly what the hell she’d been doing hanging out in a vampire-owned pub.
Her sister evidently didn’t want to talk about it. January felt the familiar sensation of energy being siphoned, and then there was the sound of tearing fabric. She sighed when a big white horse galloped across the road and up the hill, which was all there was separating Witchwood from hundreds of acres of forest.
The vampires weren’t the only ones throwing caution to the wind tonight.
She glanced around but couldn’t see anyone watching.
January walked over to where her sister had changed and discovered that she’d just destroyed a dress that she’d borrowed before January had moved to Paris. Her sister’s clutch had also been abandoned on the ground. She opened it, discovering that Jo’s house keys and phone were inside. There was also enough cash to buy January a replacement dress.
Actually - it was enough cash to cover the cost of buying a new car.
Where did you get that from? January thought, biting her lip, thoughtfully. Her anger evaporated and turned to worry as she considered this new mystery.
It had to be bad news - especially when you considered where Jo had just been caught spending her time. January never liked to admit her parents were right, but this time they might not have been overreacting. Something was going on, and it may actually justify the uprooting of her old life and return to her hometown.
She had to get to the bottom of this mystery, or Jo was going to do a vanishing act and reappear dead. That was what happened when you tried to cross vampires.
You’ve also got your own set of problems to worry about, January realised, as she looked up and saw the first streaks of the pale dawn appear in the eastern sky.
Gregory Drax was not going to forget her immunity to the best vampire trick in the book. He would come knocking with questions, she could feel it in her bones. She was going to have to work hard to make sure that she was permanently unavailable.
Of one thing, she was certain: The Witch’s Wand would not be getting a good review on TripAdvisor from her.
2
“Looks like you didn’t get much sleep after you ran off from my barbecue last night. I hope he was worth it,” Charlie Rose, the owner of Madam Rose’s Tearooms, greeted January with a wink.
She tried to summon up a plausible smile in return. “He was… unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” she replied.
Regarding Gregory Drax, it was true – just not in the way Charlie would assume.
Her employer raised her eyebrows inquiringly, as she passed over a frilled white apron with ‘Madame Rose’s Tearooms’ embroidered in green thread on the pocket.
January gave what she hoped was a mysterious look and Charlie chuckled before dropping the subject.
“Would you mind making the daily special cake and some of those chocolate orange flapjacks? You can make whatever you like for the cake. Recipes are on the bookshelf and ingredients are… well, everywhere - as you probably know by now!”
January nodded, pleased that Charlie was already giving her more responsibilities. She’d only got the job a week ago when she’d seen the position advertised in the window, but she already felt like she’d known Charlie forever. There was something about her chubby-cheeked, open face, with its light scattering of freckles, which made her so very inviting. She was the perfect person to own and run a successful tearoom.
January felt the slightest twinge of envy when she slipped off to the large country kitchen at the back of the property. No one would ever say the same things of her.
January pulled an ancient looking recipe book from the well-stocked shelf and gave it a casual flick through, wondering if Charlie was expecting anything in particular. She inspected a random page, but she already knew which cake she was going to make. The ingredients list jostled around in her mind, memorised from the many times she’d used the recipe. She’d discovered many new baking ideas during her time in Paris, but this was a relic from her past. Being back here was the reason she’d thought of it. As she reached for the cocoa powder, she suddenly realised that she’d never made it since she’d left, four years ago. That also made sense. She’d done everything she could to make a clean break from her old life.
Now she was back, and it was time to resurrect the best chocolate cake recipe she’d ever created.
“Mmm, that smells wonderful! Where have you been all my life?” Charlie poked her head around the kitchen door when the cake had just been taken out of the oven.
January smiled and shrugged, feeling a familiar
pang of guilt as she did so. She’d mentioned to Charlie that she’d grown up here, but she hadn’t said a thing about her family – namely her sister. The position January had filled had in fact belonged to Jo, who’d been fired after she’d stopped turning up for work a month ago. There was no way she wanted Charlie to know that they were related. She’d even given Charlie a false last name - just until they got to know one another. It was one of the few times she felt she’d been fortunate to avoid the dark, glamorous genes of her family.
“I’ve done the flapjacks,” January said, thrusting a tray towards Charlie. “I’ll ice the cake as soon as it cools, so it should be ready for coffee time.”
Charlie gushed over how good the flapjacks looked for a little while longer, before rushing back out to serve customers.
January suddenly felt the effects of a night with two hours of sleep. She’d had to start work at eight in order to get everything ready in time for the coffee time customers, who started arriving at ten. It could have been worse. Charlie had opened the café at six to serve breakfast to their few early morning weekday regulars. Fortunately, this was something she always chose to do on her own.
The kitchen door slammed. January spun round, just as Lucy dumped her overlarge bag on the counter. The other waitress marched over to the chocolate cake and gave it an experimental prod. It didn’t escape January’s notice that she hadn’t bothered to wash her hands.
January cleared her throat and Lucy turned, flicking her annoyingly short fringe as she did so.
“Oh, it’s you. Is that cake yours?”
“Yes, it is,” January said, fighting the urge to add ‘so keep your hands off’.
Lucy fixed an unimpressed expression on her face, as she glanced down at the cake again, but January wasn’t fooled. She’d seen her eyes light up when she’d entered the kitchen.
“I was planning on making a chocolate cake for the special tomorrow,” Lucy said and January found she didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t about to apologise for something she’d had no idea about.
“Maybe we should start writing our cake plans down,” she offered, and Lucy frowned at this far too logical suggestion.
“Mine’s different anyway.”
January turned away, so the other girl didn’t see her roll her eyes. By the way she said ‘different’, it was all too clear she’d really meant ‘better’.
She turned her attention back to the pan of cream and sugar, which had almost reached boiling point on the gas hob.
Lucy’s cakes were terrible.
Even Charlie had admitted that to her last night after a few glasses of wine, and Charlie never spoke ill of anyone. But it was the unfortunate truth. They always looked great – pleasingly tall and all dressed up with complicated icing – but the cake itself was invariably dry and tasteless.
January tipped the cream and sugar over the broken bars of dark chocolate and failed to avoid smiling at the way Lucy’s cakes were a perfect metaphor for the girl herself.
Fortunately, Lucy had gone to bother Charlie out front, so January was left to sandwich together her triple layer chocolate cake with buttercream, leaving the ganache to cool and thicken.
There was something incredibly therapeutic about baking a cake. You could forget everything else in the world and just focus on your creation. It wasn’t the first time that January had thought that this might be what she’d been put on the earth to do, but now wasn’t the time for daydreaming. Perhaps one day things would be different.
“Ciao, bella,” Matt, one of Charlie’s other employees, breezed into the kitchen in search of a bag of coffee beans. He claimed to be of Italian descent. Charlie had confided that he referred to himself as ‘the Italian stallion’, but January remained dubious. That accent sounded more like it had originated from watching too many bad mafia films to her. She suspected he was seriously milking any genuine tie he might have in order to seem more qualified to make the coffee.
“See you later, eh?” He said, dropping January a salacious wink and running a hand through his dark, greased hair, before he slid back out of the kitchen.
She frowned when his thickly applied aftershave wafted everywhere, ruining the mouth-watering aroma of her chocolate cake.
January shooed away the horrible perfume smell and then returned to smoothly applying the ganache, allowing herself a brief smile at the finished result, before she rushed it out to take pride of place on the daily special stand at the centre of the counter. The bell above the door chimed as the first coffee time customers started to arrive. January stepped forwards to seat them.
“Hey Mike, what’s up?” She greeted the man with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail with surprise, before looking guiltily back at Charlie, who deliberately turned away. She took it as a sign that she’d been given a few moments’ grace to talk to the lead guitarist of the covers band she’d just joined.
“I just wanted to let you know we’ve got this gig on Saturday evening at this bar in Witchwood? I’ll send you the address and stuff later. Gonna be great, yeah?” He grinned.
January mentally checked her work schedule, realising she’d have to juggle some of her hours around in order to get off in time.
“Great, can’t wait to play with you guys for the first time,” she said, hoping to end the conversation, so that she didn’t waste too much more of Charlie’s time. She was hyper aware that her sister had been fired, and it would only be a matter of time before someone let slip just who her family was. Nothing stayed quiet in her hometown for long. Her reputation had to be spotless by that time. Fortunately, Mike wasn’t the chatting type and he sloped out of the door, leaving January to work her socks off waiting the tables and serving chocolate cake left, right, and centre.
Even though she was busy, she already felt the telltale signs of pre-gig nerves. She’d only applied to join the band on an impulse, having seen an ad in a newspaper shop window. Since then, she’d had one practice with the group. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! Plus, she hadn’t played her bass guitar in front of anyone since she’d last been in town, and that felt like a very long time ago. Rusty didn’t quite cover it.
“You’ll be fine,” she told herself under her breath and smiled at another customer who had sung praises to the chocolate cake.
“I think your cake is already going down as legendary,” Charlie said when January breezed past carrying dirty cutlery.
January smiled after she’d walked by Lucy, who had overheard that little comment.
Her face looked like a smacked bum.
Small victories still tasted sweet.
3
A knock on the door at six in the morning is never a welcome sound when you don’t have to get up until ten.
January was instantly in a bad mood when she walked to answer it in her zebra print pyjamas, not even bothering to throw on a dressing gown. It was either going to be her parents or her sister, and she wasn’t in the mood to chit-chat with either of them. She’d been staying in a hotel for two weeks and had only moved into this property three days ago. No one else knew she lived here.
Or so she’d thought…
She wrenched open the door and found herself face to face with a tall man, whose arms were covered in detailed sleeves of tattoos. A nose ring, rash of reddish-blonde stubble, and a military style undercut haircut, further marked him as someone who most people wouldn’t want to cross.
January wasn’t most people.
He looked her up and down and January realised she’d just answered the door wearing pyjamas and no bra. She folded her arms across her chest and tried to look as tough as possible. It was probably a lost cause.
“Wearing cousin Alice?” The well-muscled man said as an opening gambit, smirking at January’s zebra-striped pyjama bottoms.
She automatically flared her nostrils and caught a strange smell of carnivore and raw aggression. Alarm bells started ringing in her head. He was a shifter all right, but she couldn’t work out what it was
he turned into.
It sounded like he knew more about her heritage than she did his, judging by the ‘cousin Alice’ remark.
January narrowed her eyes and drew herself up to her full five foot eight. “Who are you and how do you know where I live?”
The shifter smirked again. “They said you might be difficult.”
January felt her frown deepen. No one needed this kind of harassment so early in the morning. “They?” She inquired, certain she already knew the answer.
“Your parents.”
At least that solves the mystery of how he knew where to find me, January thought.
“But I’d have found you soon anyway. You don’t walk into The Witch’s Wand and cause a scene without us finding out about it. Good thing we discovered your relation to Jo Chevalier, or we’d have taken action immediately.”
January smiled wanly, trying to look grateful that she’d avoided the implied threat. At least her parents hadn’t told this tough-guy enforcer all of her secrets.
“Well, it’s lovely that you wanted to welcome me to the neighbourhood. I’ll see you around,” January said, trying to close the door in an effort to curtail what she knew was coming next.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected when he stuck his foot in the door.
He tore it open again with one hand. His sudden movement gave her another breath of the unfamiliar predator’s scent that made her want to run or fight. He was something unusual.
“I’m here to invite you to the pack meeting tonight. It’s in the large clearing in Witchwood Forest. You’ll find it easily.”
January nodded like she was thinking it over. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m more of a lone horse.”
His left bicep tensed with ill-concealed annoyance. January noticed the Aztec style tattoo of a jaguar crawling up his arm. Something clicked in her mind.
“Wait, you said it was a pack meeting?”
He nodded, obviously wondering if she was about to reconsider.
