by Anya Breton
He’d been remarkably good for the past two hours. His hands had remained above my clothing and away from my hot spots. Forty-five minutes of smoothing my hair away from my face had passed before I’d relaxed my muscles enough to fully rest against him. His arousal had faded long ago. If it hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have been able to relax at all.
He was definitely right about my needing him to go slow. I may have been with men before him, but I’d never been with a man who could kill me quite as easily. Or one who was dead.
“¿Sí?”
The voice on the other end of the line was male, but I couldn’t make out what words he was speaking. Part of it was because he spoke rapid Spanish.
Responding in what I was beginning to think was his native tongue, Maximo said, “Yes, apologize for my absence. And tell him I will be there shortly. Do what you need to do to keep him there. I won’t be long. Adios.” He disconnected the call and then drew both of his arms around my middle for a gentle squeeze. “Nadir has arrived,” he said in English.
A spike of fear shot through me. Every muscle in my body froze. Jacqueline had warned me of this, but I’d held onto the hope she was wrong.
“Shhh. You’re safe.” He brushed a kiss against the soft skin beneath my ear. “I’ll keep him entertained for the night. Tomorrow I may call on you. We need to establish we’re together before he discovers your identity. I’ll delay it as long as possible. But you,” he paused for another kiss, “must not leave your apartment after dark without me.”
The idea of being under house arrest after the sun went down irritated me, but I didn’t argue. I wanted to live more than I wanted to gallivant around Wipuk at all hours of the night.
“This has been enjoyable.” His careful pronunciation made me take note. “I wish I could stay longer.” After one last nuzzle, he lifted me to my feet.
I scrambled away so he’d have room to stand.
The left corner of Maximo’s pink lips curved upward in a half smile. He set his hands on my cheeks, thumbs hooking beneath my chin. Maximo paused, perhaps to give me the opportunity to protest as his mouth hovered over mine for a breathless moment. I didn’t dare inhale.
The vampire’s lips feathered against mine before settling. His kiss was a slow, sensual slide of his tongue that promised this would not be the last kiss, only the last kiss of the night.
He drew away with a soft laugh. “It’s probably good we were interrupted. I may not have been able to go slow with kisses like that.” His cool fingers dropped away from my face. Dismay dimmed his smile until he rallied with a lift of his shoulders. “Good night. Rebecca.”
I was barely able to draw in enough air to reply before he was past the door. “Goodnight.”
****
Desmond’s BMW was parked in the Sedona lot when I popped down to turn on the lights in the shop at five minutes to noon. I unlocked the front door so I could find out what he wanted. Veronika perched in the leather passenger seat, gesturing toward the windshield while Jacqueline stared out the back window in my direction. Was that a plea in her eyes?
The high priest unfolded himself from his car and shut the door, perhaps to keep our conversation quiet. Or by habit.
“Nadir arrived last night,” Desmond said once he’d traveled half the distance to me. “Maximo kept him entertained with red tape. I learned the news shortly before sunrise when they called to set up the meeting.” He glanced at the storefront. Searching for Nell? “I tried to call you. I would have left a message, but I wanted to talk to you.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Tonight he’ll be meeting with the coalition under the guise of a diplomatic visit,” Desmond said. “But you need to seek safety in case we don’t keep him busy the entire night.”
After his reaction to the photograph of Maximo and me at the Mexican restaurant, I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to come clean about my latest deal. What could I tell him instead that wouldn’t be a lie?
“I think you should leave Wipuk,” he said.
My insides clenched in anger. Was he still trying to get me to move away?
“Temporarily,” he said. “Until we decide how to handle Nadir. Do you have family you can visit?”
I shook my head. He knew my father was dead and that my mother had “passed on to the other side”.
“I’ll book you a room in Phoenix for a few days. Nell can run the shop while you’re gone.”
“I’m not running away from the situation I caused, Marino.”
“It’s not running away. It’s…” His gaze darted around the sky, perhaps for inspiration. “Temporarily avoiding the situation until we’ve evaluated the options.”
“I’m not temporarily avoiding the situation either.”
He dropped his head to eye level. “What will you do if he attacks you? Can you kill him?”
“I can,” I said, knowing full well I was dodging the question.
Desmond proved he was a little too intuitive, a side effect of his being a Water witch. “Will you kill him?”
“No. I don’t kill people.” I refuted the next inevitable argument using a bit of my own intuition. “Even already dead people.”
He ran a hand over his hair. “Please, Kora.”
My jaw went slack upon hearing both his use of my nickname and the pleading tone. He was actually worried about me?
No. He was worried his chance at a mole would be enthralled out from under him.
“I’ll be fine.” I softened the bitterness lacing my voice. “I’m staying inside after the sun sets. He won’t get a chance to recognize me.”
Until Maximo calls on me as he’s warned.
“He may not need to.” The Water witch paused for grim effect. “He need only persuade one of his thralls to tell him who you are.”
“I’m not running away, Marino.”
His eyelids slid shut as he inhaled a heavy sigh. “I’ll call you when he leaves the coalition.” Desmond’s eyes reopened. “But I really wish you’d reconsider.”
“I’ll make it through this just fine, Marino. You’ll have plenty of time to blackmail me into being your mole.”
Desmond glanced at the store and then over his shoulder toward the car. His lips thinned. No doubt he was worried I’d been overheard. Nell’s opinion of him definitely wouldn’t improve if she knew what he’d asked me to do.
“Call me if you change your mind,” he said. “I can have a room booked and transportation arranged within a half hour.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m staying right here.”
I turned for shop but paused, remembering something equally as important. I turned my head toward him. He’d not moved from his spot.
My attention shifted to the car. “Take care of them for me, Marino.”
“Take care of yourself.”
That was one thing I was good at.
****
After Desmond left and Nell had settled into the shop downstairs, I called Dr. Yates. She needed a warning about Nadir’s arrival. Rather like Desmond had done, I suggested she contact Dea Woods about escaping Wipuk before dusk.
Vanessa shared the news that the blood had remained stable. She’d already made the appointment for Dea in Flagstaff. Both would head to the larger city to our north after Vanessa completed her rounds for the day. She asked me to pay a visit when I got off work. I despised that I had to decline. I promised to visit Dea in the morning before work—when the vampires would be dead to the world—so I could check if she had fewer of the foreign antibodies in her blood.
I was torn—impatient to be finished with work but worried what the night would bring. Would Nadir learn my identity from one of his thralls? And why hadn’t Maximo warned me of that? The excuse he hadn’t known a Dark witch had been staying with me was no longer valid.
Nell offered to get me dinner around six. I didn’t feel capable of eating. My stomach was knotted with anxiety. I’d eat when I was safe again.
Dr. Yates updated me on De
a’s progress. They’d successfully completed her first treatment and planned another for after dinner provided she still felt up to it. The Healer hadn’t been able to visually isolate the antibodies in the Earth witch’s blood like I’d done for her. She wanted to meet me in the morning with Dea so I could teach her how I’d done it.
Thus far I’d avoided admitting I was a Healer. That would change tomorrow. I had to hope they’d keep the news quiet.
My mobile phone rang at eight o’clock with a familiar Sedona number. “Hello?”
“Hola. Rebecca.” Maximo’s resonant voice piped directly into my ear. The way he paused before using my given name was every bit as potent from afar.
But I hadn’t given him my phone number and he’d refused to give me his. Apparently it took a dangerous colleague arriving in the colony before he’d give up his digits.
“I’m sending Javier to you. My assistant with the dark, medium length hair?”
I pictured the vampire who had handled the arrangements at Maximo’s charity auction. “The one who let me into your house?”
“Yes, that is him. He’ll follow you to your apartment and ensure you arrive safely.”
I’d fought Maximo on the guard point. Clearly the deal was off now that Nadir was in town. After Desmond had pled with me to leave Wipuk, maybe having a guard for a day or two wouldn’t be a bad idea. Javier’s race meant he’d be gone before the sun rose in any case.
Still, I infused my voice with a heavy dash of hesitance. “Okay.”
“We’ll be making a diplomatic visit to the Centralized Coven Coalition tonight.” He adopted a stilted tone. “I expect we’ll be busy for several hours. Tomorrow at the latest I will call on you to visit me.”
Could Nadir be within earshot? It was definitely possible. Vampire earshot was far greater than a human’s.
“In the meantime…” Maximo’s voice smoothed out into his sensual tone. “I’ve sent you a gift for my next visit. Please accept it as a token of my affection.”
Was it my ring?
No. He’d at the very least expect sex before he’d decide I was “devoted to this relationship”.
I said nothing because I wasn’t foolish enough to accept a gift I hadn’t seen.
“I’ll see you no later than tomorrow. Rebecca.” My given name softly spoken earned him a shiver up my back.
I settled into my seat behind the display case to ponder what sort of gift Maximo had sent.
****
Javier arrived in the black Cadillac Escalade minutes after I’d gotten off the phone with Maximo. He remained in the vehicle until nine o’clock. Nell’s heavy steps meant an awkward moment was near.
How would I explain Javier’s appearance? I couldn’t lie because soon enough it would be common knowledge I was dating Maximo de Sole. But I was unwilling to get into an argument about it just yet.
Her eyebrows lifted the moment she spotted him. She jutted one hip out, settling her hands across her chest. “There’s a vampire outside the door. I assume he’s safe since you haven’t blasted him with Air?”
“He’s safe,” I said. “Maximo sent him to make sure Nadir didn’t get me on my way home.”
Nell sent me a pointed look. “Maximo did, did he?”
I nodded at her sour question.
“What did Maximo ask for in return?”
Styx take it. We were going to get into the argument now anyway.
“Uh, another date.” Or three hundred.
“I can’t believe you.” She stomped out of the shop.
Her car door slammed shut seconds later. I winced even though she had every right to be furious with me. In her mind, Maximo was an evil mastermind who sifted the colony’s supplies through ever tightening fingers. And I couldn’t prove he didn’t. It didn’t help that Desmond had been showing up more and more in his quest to capture a mole. As Nell saw it, I was socializing with Wipuk’s worst.
I dearly wished I could tell her this was all temporary. The reality was I no longer knew how long it was going to take before the covens viewed me as a legitimate member of their society rather than a fringe rogue element to be feared or dismissed out of hand.
The vampire stepped away from the shop door while I locked it from the outside. I faced him once finished.
He lowered his head in a move of respect. “I’m Javier,” he said without a trace of an accent. “First sent me to see you safely home.” Maximo was both Wipuk and Sedona’s First … and only vampire ruler. “He regrets he can’t do it himself.” Javier gestured that I should go to my car.
His frosty professionalism made it easy to hurry to my Nissan’s driver’s side without comment. I slipped inside, fastening the seat belt in case Nadir decided a head-on collision would solve his sorceress problem. With the radio turned down low, I started for home at a legal speed so the Escalade would have no trouble keeping up. Javier managed to stay close to my bumper the entire drive home. I supposed his rolling through two stop signs to avoid someone cutting between helped accomplish it.
Javier insisted I give him the keys to the apartment so he could go in first. He made me stay just inside the front door as he checked out the place. Likewise he told me to stay inside behind the locked door while he went to get my “gift”.
The bodyguard role he’d adopted made me terribly uneasy. I wasn’t helpless. Maximo knew that. He knew I had power at my fingertips. Was Nadir Khan truly so badass to merit a guard reminding me to lock the door?
Javier appeared with a box as large as he was. The full color photograph printed on the outside showed a thin television. I gaped in shock, face heating from an emotion I couldn’t name.
Maximo had bought me a television! And it was a big one from the looks of it. That was one mondo “gift”. I’d expected roses or a box of chocolates. I couldn’t accept a freakin’ television.
“Lock the door behind me. I have another load to bring in.” Javier was gone by the time I’d worked the word what to my lips. Maximo had said gift. Not gifts.
I dashed to my purse and rummaged for my phone. Searching the recent calls, I hit the one that read de Sole.
“You’re home safe?” he said rather than greet me.
“This is too much. A television? It’s bigger than I am!” At least I thought it would be when it was out of the box.
Maximo let out a quiet, almost incredulous laugh. “It’s as much for me as it is for you.”
“I can’t accept it.”
“Rebecca,” he said, crooning my name. “If it helps, don’t think of it as a gift. Think of it as holding something of mine when I’m not using it. Find a nice place to set up the table where we can see it when I visit next. If you’re daring, put it in the bedroom.”
My face heated until I realized what he’d said. “Table?”
Javier knocked then. I tugged open the door to find him hauling another, larger box with a photograph of a glass television stand.
“Good grief, a table, too?”
Javier made snuffling noise that reminded me I was potentially in danger. I moved out of the way.
But not without continuing the protest. “This isn’t a gift, de Sole, this is you furnishing my apartment!”
“Max,” he said softly.
“Max, I can’t accept these.”
“I insist,” he said, voice crisp and verging on impatience.
Clearly I couldn’t push him on this or he’d grow upset. Inhaling a weary breath, I relented. “Okay. For now. But no more ‘gifts’, Max.”
“Okay. For now. Was that all?”
I grumbled. “Yes. Sorry I interrupted.”
“You are never an interruption. Rebecca.” And just like that, he was back to sensual-vamp mode.
“Bye.” I disconnected before he could say anything else to lift my body’s temperature.
Javier had popped the top off the television stand’s box. He glanced around the room, opening his mouth as if to ask a question but closed it without speaking. A moment later he told me to
lock the door behind him again.
He returned with a tool box, yet another box—this one with the photograph of a game console on it—and a bag from a big box store hanging from his wrist. I clenched my jaw in anger but said nothing apart from gesturing that the glass table should go in between the windows.
Then I retreated to the bedroom so I could pretend I hadn’t received expensive gifts from a vampire I barely knew.
Chapter Thirteen
It was sunrise when I called my mother for my weekly report. Javier had left in the nick of time. He’d remained inside using the excuse of tightening up this screw or that screw all night. Had that been Maximo’s plan, or had Javier simply decided it on his own? Whatever the case, he was gone.
I was alert for my conversation with my mother thanks to the hammered silver cuff she’d given me. I hoped a conversation was all we had. I was still reeling from her last “favor”. I couldn’t handle another one so soon.
I fixed two mugs of coffee with two heavy pours of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar and then tramped into the living room. I closed my eyes to visualize her in her overalls and lime T-shirt, whispering, “Hecate, I summon you.”
“You’ve had quite the week,” she said before I’d opened my eyes. Her overalls were folded down on one corner to show her baby blue Carebears T-shirt with the heart in the middle. Her eyes flicked to the television from her pose nearly upside down on the chair. As always, she had a curious quirk of refusing to sit on a seat properly unless Hades forced it of her.
“He’s going to give the ring back as soon as he feels I’m devoted to this relationship.” I handed her the mug of coffee. Sometimes I could follow the pattern of her thoughts. She may be a goddess, but she was also my mother.
Her burgundy hair fluttered as she nodded. “So he says. Watch him. Their kind isn’t to be trusted.”
She sounded so like Trip. Was she also concerned my soul would be trapped on the Mortal Realm inside an undead body?
And what had happened to my childhood nemesis? Dare I ask?
“I’m working with a Healer doctor in an effort to cure the witches of their blood bond,” I said even though she’d already know all of this. “Dea Woods, the former ambassador for the Earth witch Monarchy, is the guinea pig. My hope is to cure her and earn her respect.”
