Ever After Series: Paranormal Romance Box Set (Steamy Vampire Romance)

by A. C. James

  “Fine,” Toren said. “We’ll meet you back down here.”

  When I stepped onto the elevator and turned, I saw him already heading for the brunette. Toren stepped onto the elevator and the doors slid closed behind us. Luna pressed the number three.

  We got off on the third floor and headed for Arie’s old apartment. Luna unlocked the door, and Toren and I stood in silence in the living room as we waited for Luna to fetch the locket that had once belonged to her sister. The place looked a lot different than the first time Arie had brought me here. Of course, he’d long since moved out, and Tessa had been remodeling the place. My face flushed as I thought of what we’d been doing in the spot where Luna’s futon replaced some pallets and lumber planks that the contracting crew had left. I fidgeted with the edge of my tattered gray sweater, my favorite, and Toren noticed.

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tell me.”

  “I was just thinking…about the first time I came here with your brother.”

  Luna returned with the locket.

  “Please.” She handed it to me. “Give this to her when you find her.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  I knew what she really meant was to make sure she was safe and that Toren didn’t follow through on his threat, but I couldn’t make any promises. We all headed back to the elevators, and I sincerely hoped that Arie had finished feeding from the brunette. My jaw felt like lead as my teeth ground together just thinking about the look in his eyes when we’d left him downstairs.

  I barely noticed Toren put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Holly, we’re going to find her.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  I’d already made up my mind. “Toren…”

  He looked down at me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “What?”

  “If this doesn’t work out…”

  -Don’t talk like that.-

  “If Arie doesn’t get his memory back…”

  “Holly, don’t.”

  “I want you to dazzle me. I want you to make me forget. Make me forget Arie, make me forget everything.”

  His breath hissed in, and for a moment I didn’t think that he’d heard me. I expected an argument, but I didn’t get one. He only said one thing, and it shocked the hell out of me.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.” He let go of my shoulder.

  I was glad he’d let me make my own choice—that he didn’t try to change my mind. If this Arie, the one down at the bar probably digging his fangs into the brunette, permanently replaced the one who I’d fallen in love with, then I didn’t want to remember any of it.

  Chapter 9

  The brisk air hit me as our footsteps echoed through the parkade. Arie had been otherwise occupied, and it didn’t seem likely that either Toren or I could pry him away from the bar. So we’d left him with Luna, who had strict instructions to call us immediately if there was a problem. I was grateful that he’d wanted to stay behind while we went to find Rue, because I didn’t think I could stomach him looking at me like I was nothing. I’d woken Rue up when I called her to tell her we were coming; she had an apartment above her shop. Tessa was in the bar after we’d retrieved the locket, and we figured that she and Luna could handle Arie. I didn’t fail to notice that Toren had been eager to leave, exit stage right, as soon as he saw Tessa, whose cat-like eyes had sharpened as soon as she’d seen him.

  “Are you okay?” Toren asked as we made our way to the BMW.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Are you?”

  He smirked. “I’m always fine.”

  “Then I call bullshit.”

  He laughed. “And why is that, darlin’?”

  “What’s with you and Tessa?”

  “There’s nothing with me and Tessa.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m not asking you to, but there’s nothing with me and Tessa and there never will be.”

  The way he said it made it sound like the statement should have ended with ‘there never will be again’ instead. There was definitely something between the two of them, or at least there had been. I didn’t need the Sight to tell me they shared a history so electric that the air crackled with energy any time the two of them were in the same room.

  “Again, I call bullshit,” I said as I opened the passenger door to my car and slid into the leather seat.

  There was no sense in arguing that it was my car and I preferred to be the one driving it. He seemed quite capable, and I thought it was best to pick my battles. Besides, at the moment teasing Toren was keeping my mind from wandering to Arie, and what he might be doing while we left him at HFC. And my curiosity had been peeked since the first time I’d seen the two of them interact while sitting in her office.

  Toren started the ignition and took the wheel. “If I tell you the story, will you leave me the hell alone about it?”

  “I can’t make any promises, but now I’ll never leave you alone since you mentioned there’s a story.”

  He glared at me. “Fine.”

  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was silent as he whizzed around the corners of the parking garage on the way out. I thought he’d forgotten that he was supposed to be telling me why Tessa looked like a cat ready to pounce whenever he walked in.

  “I fucked her.”

  My eyebrows rose. “And…?”

  “Are you always so damned nosy? I can’t imagine that goes over too good with my brother.”

  “It didn’t. He got over it.”

  He drew the windshield wipers over the fine mist that clung to the glass as we drove through the damp spring night. Toren sighed.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “The last time I saw Tessa I fucked her and left her tied up.”

  My jaw dropped. I couldn’t imagine anyone topping Tessa. There was just no way she’d let anyone do that.

  “Yeah, right. Tessa would never do that.”

  Toren smirked. “She likes to switch things up when she’s with me.”

  The first time I’d ever met Tessa Green was after a performance at the club when she’d caned a man strapped to a chevalet with two dommes as her assistants. Watching her work him over was both fascinating, frightening, and a complete turn-on. It seemed impossible that a woman like Tessa would let anyone tie her up.

  “But she’s always the one in control.”

  “Not always.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Toren shrugged. “Beats me, darlin’. Maybe I’m just that good.”

  “Ego much?”

  “Only when it’s true.”

  If Tessa let Toren tie her up, well, then that meant…

  “Do you love her?”

  Toren looked at me quickly, and then back at the road. “What?”

  “Tessa. Do you love her?”

  “Darlin,’ I’ve been around long enough to know that love is for two kinds of people. Fools and children. And I’m not either one of those.”

  -I don’t need love.-

  “Everyone needs love, and you’re a fool if you think that you don’t.”

  Toren smirked again. “Darlin,’ I’m far from a fool.”

  “Love is why you stay.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s the only reason you stay.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not for me, and it’s not my reason.”

  “You may have come here because of some rumor about Katarina’s death, but you stay because you love your brother, and that’s why you’re driving me at two o’clock in the morning to visit some witch you don’t even believe in. If that’s not love I don’t know what is.”

  His hands tightened around the wheel. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then why are you helping me… helping us?”

  “We’re here.”

  I hadn’t even noticed him turn onto the street where Rue’s Attic – Goddess &
Goth, Thrift & Gift stood darkened and empty. It was a convenient way to change a subject that made him uncomfortable. He parked, and we walked down the dark, damp sidewalk to Rue’s Attic. She stood just inside the door, her blonde curls jutting out wildly around her shoulders. Her pale blue robe covered a white night gown that reminded me of the pale, shimmering dress I’d first seen her in when she visited me in a dream. Then again, dreams had a way of making themselves very, very real.

  * * *

  She unlocked the door and let us in the shop along with a cold gust of air. “Well, let’s get to it then. What did you bring me?” Rue rubbed her hands together. “Something good, I hope.”

  “It’s a locket that used to belong to her sister. Will that work?”

  “Depends on how much you care about a thing. Sometimes you can leave a little bit of yourself in something, and there’s no way to know for sure how much she left behind.”

  I nodded slowly. I could understand how you could leave a little bit of yourself where you loved. I’d felt it for the first time in my life when I was tangled in Arie’s arms, sheets twined between our legs, his limbs over mine. I’d known then what it meant to lose yourself to someone.

  “Horseshit,” Toren said from where he stood on my right, eyeing a book about astral projection dubiously. “Can we just get this happy show on the road?”

  “You’re funny,” Rue said as she turned toward the back of the store.

  He smirked. “Funny?”

  “Yup. A vampire who doubts the supernatural.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. Not at all. I doubt little hovels like this one that proclaim if you do x, y, and z and then spin around widdershins that it actually means something. I’ve found more mystery contained in the nuances of everyday life than in silly superstitions, but I’ve got to give you credit. At least it’s a clever cover.”

  He put the book about astral projection back on the shelf. I couldn’t tell whether Rue liked him or not, but I thought she found him amusing at least. I had to bite my lower lip to suppress a laugh as she gave him a stern school-marm look.

  “You might find that to be a useful skill to learn,” Rue said, as she nodded toward the book, its high-gloss cover slightly dusty.

  “I’ve got all the skills I need.”

  “Suit yourself, but it’s a decent read.”

  Rue headed to the back with us following on her heels. She stopped behind the counter and opened a drawer. I couldn’t tell what she’d pulled out of it because it was way too tiny. The beaded curtain jangled together as we headed to the hodgepodge backroom where she gave readings, drank tea, and ate her lunch. Spread out on the round table where she usually had her tarot cards was a large paper map of the United States.

  She sat at the table and gestured for me to take the seat across from her in a metal folding chair identical one she sat in. Toren had crossed his arms and was waiting for her to proceed. Rue closed her eyes. I imagined she was meditating; I’d seen her do it a bunch of times when she was getting ready to do something. When I asked her why, she said she was grounding herself. She told me that it anchors you to the present and to reality so that you can fully explore that reality in ways that most people can never see except in dreams. I gave this vague sort of look and nodded like I understood, but honestly I was still learning.

  Rue opened the hand that enclosed whatever she’d retrieved from the drawer, and she dropped a red plastic thumb tack on top of the map.

  Then she reached across the map with her arms on either side of the push pin and grabbed my hands. Hers were cool and calming to the touch.

  “Holly, I want you to close your eyes.”

  I did.

  “Take three deep breaths. Relax your muscles.”

  Something about the cadence of her voice drew me in, commanded me, and my muscles were like liquid, my mind like ripples on a pond.

  “Let the air remove any worries, any thoughts or feelings that are weighing you down. Breathe them out.”

  An odd sort of pressure seemed to be pulsing up through my body and out of it with each breath, as if her words were influencing my body’s reaction like some sort of mystical pied piper.

  “Move your awareness to your feet. Visualize that roots are growing out of them and into the floor. Feel those roots penetrating the floor, cracking through the concrete, and moving down toward the dirt, to the earth below.”

  But I didn’t have to visualize, because I could feel the roots spiraling out of the soles of my feet, pushing to connect with the soil as if to suck up the energy from the ground beneath us rather than from the moonlight above. For a moment I looked down at myself and Rue, sitting at the table with our hands clasped across the map. Then I saw Toren looking at what appeared to be a very expensive watch. On its face was a dragon, and it looked like it was made from jade to me. Hovering in the air across from me was Rue, and she grabbed my hand, which seemed to pull us both down toward the map.

  We were miniatures of ourselves walking across the paper, which crunched beneath our feet.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  Rue smiled. “Our thoughts combined, our forces combined, for one singular purpose.”

  “To find Daeveena…”

  “Exactly.”

  She pulled the locket from her pocket and her miniature version of herself started walking around the red push pin, in a circle. “Follow me,” she said.

  My footsteps made that strange crunching sound across the paper as I walked behind her. It reminded me of what a bear might sound like walking across a gravel driveway late at night. And like a mama bear in love with her cubs, who’d do anything to protect them, I followed Rue in circles.

  I stepped across some line that designated a river. My boots felt wet, as if I’d gone sloshing through a creek while wearing them, and the bottom of my black cargo pants were soggy.

  We kept trekking around that red pin. Crunch, crunch, crunch went our footsteps, until finally the pin began to vibrate; or perhaps we were the ones shaking. No, it seemed like some outside energy that had formed at our core had vibrated out and taken hold of us, the pin, and the map. The pin looked larger than life as it lifted above the heads of our miniature selves and thrust over us, stabbing the paper somewhere so far ahead that our shrunken versions couldn’t see.

  “Well done,” Rue said.

  It was all she said before she turned and took my hand. Suddenly the projection of myself retracted into the hovering version that looked down on me, Rue, and Toren, before finally it spiraled back into my body, still sitting in the metal chair with my hands clasped with hers.

  I opened my eyes. “I know where we need to go.”

  Somehow I knew it without even looking at the map to see where the tack had landed.

  “So do I,” Toren said, pointing to the map.

  As I followed where Toren’s finger was pointing my grandmother’s words came back to me with haunting clarity yet again:

  Bright city lights. It will be bad, and you’re going to need him.

  Yes, I would need the man in the leather jacket—but which one?

  I thought this as I watched Toren pull his cell phone from the pocket of his leather jacket, which resembled the one that Arie wore.

  “We’ll need to book the first flight tomorrow morning,” Toren said.

  The beads shifted as he moved back through the curtain toward the front of the store. Hold music, interspersed with airline instructions, played as he put his cell on speaker phone.

  “What can’t you ever get a human being on the line?”

  Rue laughed, and I couldn’t help laughing with her as we heard Toren muttering to no one in particular from the other room. I could have sworn I heard him cursing at the phone, but couldn’t tell what creative language was coming out of his mouth.

  “Would you like some tea, dear?” Rue asked.

  I nodded.

  Now that was funny. A vampire complaining about not being able to get a real person on the line and cursin
g the automated system on the airline’s customer service number. I looked at where the pin had landed. This would be an interesting road trip.

  Chapter 10

  The tea slid down my throat as my eyes drifted to where the pin had landed. New York City. When I’d thought of the two of us taking off, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I’d imagined walking hand in hand as we visited museums, gazed across candlelight while we ate amazing food, and then rode in a gondola against the backdrop of Venice. Funny that when I’d finally figured out where I wanted us to go, I didn’t know if we’d ever get to take that trip. My finger felt naked without the engagement ring. I hadn’t put the promise ring back on, either. That didn’t seem right. Nothing did. Rue was sipping her own tea, and I caught her studying me.

  “Thanks for the tea,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. It’ll calm your nerves for the flight.”

  Although I doubted Toren would be able to get us on a plane before morning, the prospect still had my stomach swirling with discontent. The river of chamomile wasn’t really helping, but I wouldn’t tell Rue that. Not that it mattered. I didn’t have to tell her anything, because she always seemed to pick up on my mood.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about flying. I always wanted to travel, but the propelling through the air in a tin can part never really appealed to me.”

  “I should come with you,” Rue said as she pursed her lips.

  My laugh was hollow. “Oh, you don’t have to do that just because I’m afraid of flying. I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not why I’m going with you.” She sipped her tea.

  “Why then?”

  “Someone needs to be able to do another locator spell, in case she’s not there once we get there. Manhattan is a pretty big place. It’d be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

  I nodded.

  The Big Apple.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Rue was rarely wrong; her intuition was stronger than mine. “I’ll go tell Toren while he’s still on hold and have him book another ticket.”