He turned around and eyed me. I didn't understand the look that he gave me, but it felt like he was trying to figure out something. I knew I could figure it out. All I'd have to do is push a tendril of my magic out to him and I'd know everything that he was thinking, but the fact was I was too nervous to know what was going on behind those eyes. I didn't want to know.
"As you wish."
He moved towards the front door, and I paused. "You...wanna fight outside?"
He eyed me. "Is there a problem?"
"Maybe not for you, Mr. My Heart Doesn't Beat, but I'm a living breathing woman, and it's all of twenty degrees out there. I'll freeze my butt off."
He raised one brow at me, and the tiniest glint of humor flickered through his gaze. "Do you think your enemies will care if it is twenty below? Or colder?"
Ugh. I hated that he had a point. "Fine. But if I get hypothermia, you are going to feel really bad."
He nodded. "I will."
I ignored the tiny little jump in my chest that liked the fact that he'd feel bad. It was stupid to feel anything like that, anything even close to that now that I had told Zane that I was going to be with him. I made some comment about putting on real clothes rather than pajamas, and Wei gave me the space to change.
When I was ready, I followed Wei's back outside and towards the small patch of land that was behind my grandmother's place and to one side of the garage. There was a little square of wood, about ten by ten, that would have made for a nice garden if it weren't the middle of winter. As it was, my boots crunched over the frozen earth.
My breath came out in misty clouds as Wei and I began to move together. The beginning of our lessons always started with the Kata. Kata might have been a Japanese word, but it was practiced in forms of Chinese martial arts too. In slow, controlled movements, we took our bodies through a series of strikes, blocks, and turns. It was almost like a dance, but by the time it was over, I had forgotten that it was cold.
I was, however, intensely aware of him. I was aware of the way his lips were parted ever so slightly, the way his braided hair swung nearly the length of his back. I closed my eyes, trying not to think of him, but when I opened them, my eyes had slipped into magic sight.
A witch, and a few other magical beings, could see magic. Most people, if magic was cast around them or even against them, couldn't see anything. But a witch could see the lines that wove through the earth. The last time I had done this it had been mid-fall, and everything had been living. Now, with winter sliding along our part of the world, the lines were foggy and muted. I glanced down at myself and resisted the urge to gasp.
Usually, my magic looked like a snarled bit of thread, sliding through me in shades of gold and pale shimmering blue. I had been working on fixing that, but tonight...tonight, it was different, completely different. There were tinges of green throughout my own cords of magic, and while the source was no longer one big ball of cat-trounced yarn, it was savaged, broken in some places. The few tendrils I had that slithered from me all reached towards Wei.
As soon as it was over, he struck out at me. I moved out of the way.
"Do not let magic distract you," he said.
He struck at my middle, and the air whooshed from my lungs, but I had pulled away just enough that I wasn't completely breathless.
The lines of magic that made up Wei were the same icy blue that interwove itself with my gold, but his had tinges of obsidian and ruby mixed in with his. All the vampires had the red; I think it is the magic that made them what they were, but I wondered what the blue and black were about. As I focused on them, I realized something. I could see where he was going to move just a fraction of a moment before he did it.
He struck, and I blocked. He tried to feint, but I knew where the real hits were coming from. I couldn't seem to land a strike on him either, as much as I tried. His skill was pretty incredible, what with there being a few hundred years of practice and some super natural biology behind it. But with my intuition and his skill, the two of us were locked into a series of movements with neither one of us getting any ground on the other.
"You've been practicing," he said.
"Yes."
I hadn't been practicing martial arts, not without him, but I had been practicing magic, and that apparently was giving me an edge. I didn't know it could, but now that I did, I wondered just what else could happen. As I thought that, I sent a tendril of that particular necromantic magic to my fist and hit hard.
It connected with his face. He went flying backwards. He didn't stay down long at all, barely more than a second, but when he stood up, there was a tiny line of red beneath his nose. I hadn't known a vampire could bleed.
"It has been a long time since a person has drawn my blood." He looked a little surprised. To be fair, I was pretty surprised myself.
"Sorry?"
The look of shock in his eyes was replaced by stubbornness and pride. God, there was something so lovely about him when he got all stubborn about something. Maybe it was some wild streak in me, but I liked it.
I was so busy watching his eyes that I didn't see his leg sweep out and take my stance. I tumbled back, but I dragged him with me, sending us both to the cold ground.
His body landed on top of mine, and we both went still. I could feel his masculinity pushing against me and I ground against it, spreading my thighs to feel him that much better. He made a sound like a hungry animal, and I reveled in it. A single drop of his blood touched my skin, and my magic flared. It spilled through me white hot and vibrating. I was aware of everything: the cold ground at my back, the press of his body against mine, every flicker of color in his eyes. I could see every lash of magic through the world around me no matter how small or minute. I could feel them all flowing. I could have pulled them to me if I wanted.
Then, it all pulsed, and I was blind with the power. The world faded, and all I could see were Wei's vampire eyes staring at me, a light of magic spilling out of them like shadows dancing in his gaze. I squirmed again, not just from the feeling of him so close, but from the itchy sensation of trying to hold all of this power inside of myself. It sought something, someplace to go.
Wei's mouth slid along my neck, and I purred.
"Yes, Wei, yes," I gasped, offering my neck to him. I could feel the hard press of his teeth. His hands gripped my shoulders, and he held me down against the unforgiving ground. I could hear my pulse in my ears, fast and frantic, and I knew he could too.
"Lorena," he whispered against my skin.
"Do it," I purred. I had no idea that I wanted to be bitten so badly, but right this moment, there was very little that I, or the magic that spilled through me, wanted more.
He shivered once and pulled away. I hated that. I hated that he could pull away when all I wanted to do was give in. I grabbed him and pulled him back and begged him. What I said I don't remember, but whatever it was, it worked.
The bite was hard, almost violent, but it was bliss.
My magic poured into him, spilled life into him. He went warm against me first, the gold of his skin taking on a rosy hue as his body filled with my blood. I felt his heart pound beneath the hand that I pressed to his chest, a wild beat to match my own. I felt him suck on my neck, and it made parts of me I had too long ignored flare to life, hungry for some touch, some attention. When he pulled his head back from my neck, his teeth red and exposed, the lower half of him ground against me, and I shivered in response.
"Lorena," he whispered again, followed by something in a language I didn't know, but it had the elegant rhythm of Mandarin; then again, it could have been whatever his mother tongue was.
"Wei," I said back, "please."
My body had never felt so alive, and to that point, neither had his. I pushed myself against him, and his hips jerked automatically.
"No," he whispered, pulling back. "I cannot."
"Why the heck not?"
He laughed. I didn't expect it, but he looked down at me and saw the expression of compl
ete and total exasperation, and he laughed. Then, as quickly as it’d started, it had cooled. "Because you do not belong to me. You do not love me."
I growled. "So?"
He pushed a hair out of my face, his lips so close to mine that I was sure he was going to kiss me. "We both know that matters a great deal. I cannot."
"Because of...her?" I said, unwilling to say the name of his long dead wife.
He slid away from me. "Yes, in part. But because you have promised yourself to Zane."
I blinked. Oh, right. I totally had done that. How could I have forgotten? God, what kind of person was I that I forgot a promise that I had made all of seven hours or so ago? A terrible kind of person, that's who. I cursed vehemently and surged to my feet.
"Crap, crap. What are we going to tell him?"
"The truth," he said matter-of-factly.
Right. There was that. There was a conversation I really didn't want to have. Hey, Zane, I know we just started this potential relationship, but I totally got to second base with Wei, or is fangs third base? I dunno, you're the vampire. You tell me. Nope. Definitely not.
"Ohhh, this is gonna suck." The word 'suck' brought a blush to Wei's cheeks that I would have found amusing were it not for the ache in my neck. Man, that was going to be one hell of a hickey. "Not funny."
He grinned. "It is a little funny."
"Where the heck is this sense of humor coming from?" I demanded. "My Wei is all stoic and grumpy-faced, but you are sitting there with a ‘cat ate canary’ grin."
His dark eyes flickered up to mine. "You are what you eat."
Now, it was my turn to blush. Dirty innuendos. Dear god. All I wanted to do was take him into the house where it was warm and see how far that teasing could go.
"Okay, if there is no chance of me getting you out of those pants, you are going to have to chill out with the dirty jokes. Pervy puns are the best way to get me naked."
He grinned, and I could see amusement dance in his eyes. "Forgive me, but your magic is...potent."
"I don't even know what that means." I remembered the way the magic had spilled out of me and into him, the way life had poured into him. I couldn't quite resist the urge to reach out and touch his cheek. "Holy crap, you are alive. You are breathing."
He nodded. "I am; my blood...flows."
I did not look down. Ohhh, I wanted to. But I don't think my very loose relationship with control could handle knowing that he was still ready for more. "Dude."
He stood up and bowed. "Forgive me, Lorena; it has been many, many years since I have felt life in my veins, and your life is tinged with magic."
I remembered what Zane had told me about the dietary preferences of vampires. "Do you like witches?"
He raised one brow. "In particular? No. I have no great preference for a particular taste of blood. At least, I didn't think I did." He eyed my neck with naked hunger, and all I could do was think about what else ought to be naked. I clapped a hand over my wound.
"Dude...yes or no?"
"Hmm?"
"You are telling me no, but you keep making jokes and telling me about your blood flow. Be honest...yes or no?"
He thought about it. I could see the thoughts flying over his face. The raw desire followed by aching need followed by that streak of stubbornness that I knew too well.
"No," he finally said, sounding more like Wei than he had in the past few minutes, "no, I cannot. I will not. I'm sorry, Lorena. I should not have...teased. Your blood is like a heady wine, and it made me forget myself. It made me remember a me that has long been dead. I cannot have you. I will not have you. It would only end in heartache."
Before I could argue, he turned into mist and vanished into the softening night.
"Damnit!" I cursed, stomping one foot against the cold ground. I was mad. I was so damn mad, and I wasn't sure why. So what if I didn't get any action from Wei the grumpy vampire? Okay, Wei the usually grumpy, weirdly complicated, sometimes funny vampire. Who cared? I still had Zane, and if Zane decided that me fooling around with Wei was a deal breaker, which I would totally understand, then there were still Alan and Dmitri. I could get action.
Yeah. Sure, I could.
I stomped inside and went immediately to a mirror. A large bruise was on my neck. It was the same dark blue as a midnight sky, but there was a softness around the edges that told me it would heal. With a snarl, I poured some antiseptic on it--who knew where that boy's mouth had been? -- and then slapped a Band-Aid on it. Good enough.
Then, knowing that I had lost a pretty decent amount of blood, I went to the kitchen and made myself a glass of juice, which I finished in three long gulps, and a sandwich. I poured myself another glass of juice and plopped down at the kitchen table.
Screw Wei. No, I amended, no screwing Wei. That was half of my problem. I took a large bite of my sandwich and grumped privately. I did my best not to think about that smile, the dance in his eyes, the dirty jokes. Man, who knew that all of that was hiding beneath that perfectly frigid mask? Well, point of fact, I did. I had known there was more dancing beneath all that veneer. I'd just ignored it because he hadn't wanted to show it.
I liked that guy. I liked that glimmer that I had seen of the man that he had been. I also liked when he was hiding it all away behind that cool emotionlessness mask, probably because I knew how deep that still ocean seemed to go.
Oh crap, I thought. I liked him. I really liked him. Not just his body, but everything else. I liked his stupid complications, and I liked the way he tried to hide himself because he was afraid of feeling too much. I liked the way he could go from hot to cold and back again with just a few words from me. I liked that he made me feel the same things. I liked that he was my mirror, opposite and similar all at once.
"Crap." I tossed down my sandwich. I was falling in love, and I really didn't have time for that. "Crap." I said again with more emphasis.
I heard a car pull up, and I turned to look out the window. A moment later, Jenny and Reikah came towards the front door. They weren't paying any attention to me. Instead, their fingers were laced together, pale brown and darker brown, one set of nails perfectly manicured, the other completely lacking in paint or lacquer. Their giggles were bright, cheerful, and soft.
They paused on the doorstep, but the door itself was thin enough that I could hear their conversation.
"Thank you," Reikah said, a little breathlessly.
"For what?" Jenny asked.
"For listening to me, for not...pushing. For just accepting me."
"I like you, Reikah. I don't know why, since you drive me nuts, but if you need to figure yourself out, take all the time you need to do that. You want to snuggle and hold hands and dance outside the school until four in the morning? That's great. That's all I need."
"Promise?"
"I swear."
There was a long silence, and I turned my head to peek out the window, feeling like a terrible person but not terrible enough to stop myself. They were standing in the moonlight, oblivious to the cold, their foreheads pushed gently together. If I had a camera, I would have taken a picture; they looked that beautiful.
"Will...will you kiss me goodnight?"
Jenny's eyes flicked open. I could almost feel the hope from here. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"I've never been kissed. I'd like to...from you."
Jenny's grin was a mile wide. "You want me to give you your first kiss?"
"Please?"
Jenny didn't say anything else. She dropped Reikah's hand and tilted her head. I looked away. I could be a little bit of a voyeur, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I steadfastly focused on my sandwich and silently rooted for them. Here was hoping their relationship could work out because, as far as I could tell, all of mine were headed down the garbage disposal.
A few moments later, I heard the car again, and Reikah came inside. She didn't notice me; there were stars in her eyes and her makeup had long since faded. She looked lovely.
Unable to re
sist, I cleared my throat loud enough to make her jump. "Young lady," I said, doing my best mother hen imitation, "you had me and your father worried all night."
She gave me an embarrassed look that bordered on mortified. "Have you been awake all night?"
"No," I said honestly, "but clearly you have." I used my foot to push out one of the other chairs. "Details. Give them."
"Are you serious?"
"One hundred percent."
She eyed me. "Is there another sandwich?"
I smirked and tore mine in half, offering her that. She took it and then opened a bag of chips. "You went to the grocery store?"
House Of Vampires 2 (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy) Page 12
