by Romi Hart
Skidding into the parking area of the complex, I came to a stop in the spot Crina’s tiny car had usually been parked. It was the middle of the day and we were happy to find that only two other cars were in the parking area.
Freedrick nodded as he looked at them. “Working folks. Good for us.”
I led the way to the door of Crina’s place. Outside of it is where I got rid of the thing who’d dared to bother my love. “Here. This is where I did it.” Holding out my hands, I tried to find the warmest spot in the cool air and finally did. “Get ready.”
Freedrick got into a fighting stance, ready for the creature to jump out as this had to have been his only chance to escape. “I’m ready. Open it, brother.”
Focusing on the area, I waved my hands until it began glowing green.
“Can I help you two?” came an old woman’s voice.
I stopped my progress, letting the dim green light disappear as Freedrick turned his body to shield the beginnings of the portal from the old woman’s view. “We’re here to see Crina,” he came up with on the fly.
“She’s out of town. Working.” Her old eyes had lost every ounce of color in them. I had my doubts that she could see that well at all. “I’m not going to let you into her apartment, so don’t ask.”
“We wouldn’t ask,” I let her know. “I’m her mate. Man. Boyfriend.” Stumbling on my words raised her radar.
“You boys get going.” She came toward us with a broom in her wrinkled, frail hands. “Shoo. Scat.”
Freedrick and I moved along as she came behind us, moving the broom back and forth. He looked over his shoulder at her. “We came up the other way. Our truck is back that way.”
“I don’t care where you came from. I only care where you leave from,” she cackled. “She told me someone had broken into her place and that’s why she was leaving for a while. I had to change the locks too. And here’s the thing. I didn’t find no busted lock. I didn’t find no busted door neither. Whoever went in, went in without breaking in. So, if it was one of you, then you should know that I will find out.”
Freedrick’s smirk made me worry a bit as he said, “And how would you find that out? Your crystal ball, Hagatha?”
“Why you!” Smack! She cracked the broom over my brother’s back.
He laughed as we ran, outrunning her with ease. Leaving her with her broken broom, we darted around a corner that she didn’t notice and took the wrong turn, thinking she was still after us.
“Quickly, back to the portal.” I made a mad dash for Crina’s door and got there before the old lady could catch up to us.
With a quick swish of my hands, I had the green light beginning to glow again. Into the area, I went, with Freedrick on my heels. “Finally!”
Blinking as we stood at the threshold of the portal, we looked around at the grey space that seemed empty. “Hello?” he called out.
Jabbing him in the ribs with my elbow, I whisper-hissed, “Hush. He’ll know we’re here.”
Scratching his head, my brother nodded then stopped and took a huge sniff of the air. “He’s not here. Smell.”
I inhaled deeply, coming up with nothing. “How did he leave?”
Across the misty greyness, another green glow shown only a bit. Turning to look at the portal behind us, the one I’d made, I noticed it glowed much more brightly than the other one did. “He went right out that way not long after I sent him through this side.”
Going across the area, we stepped out of the other portal and there we found ourselves in a very familiar place. “Our cave,” Freedrick said with a sigh. “He came here that night.”
“And you didn’t even know,” I pointed out. “He might’ve hurt you, Freedrick.”
“He didn’t though. I was working on a trap that night. Do you remember that, Zanthe?” Wiping his face with one hand, my brother looked confused and irritated. “He left you with the girl and came here to me. But why? And why didn’t he attack me?”
“He watched you.” I found my skin crawling. “He just watched you for some reason.”
We both jumped as the cell phone in my pocket rang. Yanking it out, I saw that it was Crina and swiped the screen. “Hi. How are you doing, my sweet?”
“I miss you. I was wondering if you would come here to visit me tonight. You can stay the night of course. It is a six-hour drive to get here after all.”
“I will.” There was no reason to even think about it. “I’ll leave straight away. Kisses, my love.”
My brother frowned at me as I put my phone away. “Straight away? We’ve just found out that this thing has some type of an infatuation with me and you’re going to leave me to it?”
Going back into the portal we’d come out of, we crossed through the grey area I’d made and came out of the other portal in front of Crina’s door. “We don’t know that he has a thing for you. It might well be our cave he has a thing for. He did flood it. He did have the dwarf bats attack it. It. Not you.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. The bats were attacking me. And the flood was meant to keep us in the cave, I do believe.” He followed me to the truck then got into the passenger side as I got in behind the steering wheel. “Zanthe, what if this thing has only ever been after me?”
I didn’t believe that at all. “What would he want with you and only you?” Starting the truck up, I had a grand idea. “Look, I’ll take you with me to Bran Castle. I’m sure there’s some other female who you can chat with while I have my visit with Crina. It’ll be like a mini-vacation of sorts. I’m sure she’ll find you a room at the castle where she’s staying.”
With a loud huff, he shook his head. “Just drop me at home. I’m not afraid of this thing, whatever it is. It’s just unnerving is all. I can handle him if I must.”
“I think you can too.” And I didn’t think there was anything to worry about either.
After dropping him, I hurried to get to Crina. The long drive didn’t feel like six hours as I pulled in to find her standing outside with the sun setting behind her.
Waving at me, she ran toward the truck. “There you are!”
Hopping out of the truck, I caught her in my arms, kissing those sweet lips that I’d missed so much. “You are a sight, my love.” I carried her with her feet off the ground.
“As are you, my teddy bear.” She placed her hands on both sides of my face. “My hairy teddy hear.”
“I’ll shave for you if you want me to.” I ran my hand over my thick beard. “I haven’t shaved since you left. And I wanted to get to you as quickly as I could. So I grabbed a bag at home, threw some clothes into it, then jetted straight to you.”
“Come inside. It’s getting cold out here as the sun falls out of the sky.” She hung on tightly to my neck as I carried her with me. “It’s so nice to see you, Zanthe. It really is. I’ve missed up so much.”
“I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you anyway.” I kissed her again. “Maybe you can come home soon.”
Her eyes shone brightly as she asked, “Why would you think that?”
“I am sure that I ran off the man who attacked you that night is why I would think that.” I carried her inside the door she’d left open. “In here, right?” I’d been following her scent to get to her quarters.
Putting her down, once we were inside, I realized something as I took a whiff of her hair. The scent was the same, but it did nothing for me. It didn’t make my dick hard at all.
She smiled at me, running her hands over my chest. “You think that was a man, Zanthe?” With a quick shake of her head, she added, “That was no man. That was a monster. You don’t run off monsters. You have to kill them.” She ran her hand along her throat. “Zip. Their heads have to be separated from their bodies. I’ve learned a lot from working at what some consider Dracula’s Castle. I know it’s not his. But the folklore that I talk about each day stems from truths.”
So, my love has been away, learning how to kill shifters it seems.
18
Crina
His face pale, he crossed his arms over his chest as he pulled one hand over his thick beard. “Severing heads isn’t a thing you should be thinking about doing.”
“But I can’t seem to stop myself from thinking about that.” I took his hand, pulling him to come to my room. “I’ve put together a small collection of things. You know – in case it comes for me here.”
“Maybe you should come live with me if you feel uncomfortable being alone,” he offered. I knew he would make that offer and only shook my head as I kept pulling him along. But in true Zanthe nature, he had to try a little harder to get me to lean on him. “It’s not that I think you’re not in need of protection. I know that man attacked you and meant to do you great harm. And I know that you want to be able to defend yourself. Even if we’re not talking about a monster, but a mere man, you still can’t be on guard all the time. You need someone to watch your back for you so that you can get some sleep.”
“Yeah, I know that. I’ve already handled that problem.” I’d had lots of time to come up with plans while I’d been away. “I’ve set up a series of alarms that will go off if it comes for me again. Or if anything does for that matter. Three different things are set at all times to go off if I’m approached in my room here.” I opened the door to my small room and gestured to it. “And here it is, my home. Well, sort of. I don’t spend a great deal of time in here. Mostly I just come in here to sleep. There’s safety in numbers, so I hang out in the kitchen with the staff. They like that I help out with the cleaning.”
“So, you admit that there’s safety in numbers.” Moving into the small bedroom, he tugged me inside then kicked the door shut. “But you would rather have the safety of kitchen staff rather than the safety of the man who loves you?”
I didn’t know how to explain things to him. And I didn’t want him to be hurt by what I thought. Chewing on my lower lip, I tried to figure out how to let him know what I thought about the connection between him and the thing that came for me. “So, here’s the thing, Zanthe. And it’s even one of the reasons that I asked you to come here.”
“You had more reasons to ask me to come, other than you missed me?” Taking a seat on the small bed, he moved me to stand between his legs as he ran his hand through my hair, then pushed it away from my face. “How I’ve missed this face.” He kissed my hands. “And these hands. All of you, baby. I’ve missed every last part of you. But the thing I’ve missed about you the most is your company.”
“It’s true what they say about distance making the heart grow founder then, huh?” Pulling my hands out of his, I ran them down my sides then over my hips. “I’d been thinking that you were just interested in my body.”
“Time has proven otherwise,” he let me know and the words were music to my ears. “While I am ravenous to taste love’s sweet kiss, I’m hungrier for conversations with you. I’m starving just to get to be near you, my sweet. This is as new to me as it is to you, I assure you.”
Knowing that he wasn’t just after my body made me happier about why I’d wanted him to be with me. There was something I needed to do and having him with me to do it would make things better. I hoped so anyway.
I’d also missed him terribly as well. But I didn’t want to need to be with him all the time. And I certainly had to have space to get things in order for when we would be together. Running my hands over his shoulders, I let him know what I thought, “I think the monster came for me because of your desire for me. The Carpathian Mountains have long been riddled with tales of monsters set on taking the virginity of young women. And you’ve been living within the forest. I’ve been hiking through the same forest, leaving my scent around. It wasn’t until you gained interest in me and our combined scents were cast out into the wild that this monster came for me and the innocence I held.”
“Then you’re no longer something it wants. If that was the case.” A sly grin moved over his lips. “You can thank me for that.” Pulling me close, he took my ass into his big hands, squeezing it.
“Maybe.” There was a bit more to it than that from the old tales I’d been hearing. “But if these things only come for virgins, then why were so many sexually active females taken and murdered as well?”
With a wink, he answered, “Probably because no monsters ever took human women at all. Crazed human men did all those dirty deeds.” Wrapping his arms all the way around me, he pulled me in even closer, kissing my neck softly. “I don’t believe in monsters, Crina. I believe in reality and that tells me a man was to blame for coming into your home and trying to hurt you. He must’ve seen you around and had been stalking you for a while before he went for it. But I thoroughly kicked his ass and he ran like a puppy with his tail between his legs. I doubt seriously that he would have the poor judgment to come back your way at all.”
“Romania is known for its creatures of the night.” There were just too many old stories for there to be no truth behind any of them. “Zanthe, that thing wasn’t human. I know that for certain. The darkness that came with that thing was beyond dark.”
“The thing about the human mind is that it can manufacture things when it’s afraid. Things like time slowing down and light fading away to absolute darkness can happen inside of your mind, but not in reality.”
“Speaking of that, there was also an unnatural light that came in with you, Zanthe.” If he was right about things, then my mind had made more of that too.
“There was a fair amount of light. I hit the switch for the porchlight as soon as I got through the door. And then I turned on the flashlight app on my phone too.” Kissing a line up my arm as he held my hand, he went on, “I think it’s common for a person to see more light than is really there when they’re terrified. It just stands to reason if they see things darker. Don’t you agree?”
“Zanthe, how can I agree to something like that when my line of thought is geared in another direction?” His kisses were working like magic on me, taking me away from all I’d been thinking of. “Maybe we should get something to eat.”
Unbuttoning my shirt’s top button, he agreed, “Yes, let’s get something to eat. I think a delicious breast sounds appetizing.”
He was right, so I let all my thoughts go, falling into his desire while adding mine to it. “I can’t believe how much I’ve missed this without knowing that I was missing it. But now that you’re touching me, kissing me, holding me – well, I know that I missed this more than I’d allowed myself to believe.”
“Please don’t let a month go by between us again, my sweet.” His tongue ran in circles around my nipple as he gripped my hips.
The way my body reacted to him told me that he was right. “Yes, I think I can make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“If you won’t move in with me and my brother, why not move back to your place so we can see more of each other?” His hands moved up my back, underneath my shirt before he took that off completely and unhooked the bra he’d pushed up over my tits. “That is so much better.”
There was still something we hadn’t done. Up until that point, I hadn’t thought about it. But my hunger had risen to the surface. Dropping to my knees between his legs, I ran my hands over his jean-covered bulge. “How about you get rid of these jeans? I think that would be so much better too.”
Shimmying out of them, he pulled his shirt off too, leaving him bare for me. But he wasn’t about to let me keep a thing on if he had nothing on. “Strip.”
I had to stand up to take what was left of my clothes off but did it nice and slow to further entice him. “You want some of this, teddy bear?”
Leaning back on his elbows, he presented his erection to me as he wore a grin. “You want some of this, baby?”
Licking my lips, I held the massive beast with both hands. “Let me see what I can do. You might have to coach me.”
“Lesson number one, no teeth.” He pulled his lips over his teeth. “Do this before you slide your mouth over me.”
“Is it normal to
have so many butterflies moving around my stomach before I do this?” Being my first time, I had no idea what I was going to feel or experience. “And just one more thing. Will I gag on you? And what if I throw up.” It could happen, I supposed. “Will you be grossed out and end up hating me?”
Running his hands through my hair, his encouraging smile made me feel a little better. “I could never hate you. I know that now and really mean it.”
I had no idea what he meant by that. “Okay. But won’t it gross you out? And what about if I don’t throw up but I do gag really ugly?” If I was him, that would be a deal-breaker.
“Kiss the tip. Run your tongue up and down the shaft a bit. Use your hands to get a feel of what your mouth should do. Up and down, nice and slow. No reason to rush at all. And you don’t have to take it way into your mouth if you don’t want to. Baby steps.”
Baby steps?
Snapping my fingers, I remembered something that was pretty important. “After this, please remind me to tell you something.” I was a little afraid that in the afterglow of sex, I might forget about what I wanted to do while he watched.
“Sure thing.” Placing his hands over mine, he moved them up and down the way he wanted me to do it. “No pressure, baby. None at all. I don’t even want you to think about sucking me off until I come. We’re not going to go that far.” He jerked his head at his jeans that lay in a pile on the floor. “I made one stop before I got here. I’ve loaded up on condoms this time. Just the way you wanted me to the first time.”
Scratching my head, I wondered if I should do what I was going to do now, rather than later. But decided that it didn’t matter. “Okay. So, kiss the tip then?”
