by J. R. Thorn
Devon grinned. “I’m going to find some more cats.”
Edwin rolled his eyes. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t send some innocent human to hell.”
“Hey,” Devon complained as he rested a hand on the doorknob, “that only happened once. You’re never going to let me live it down, are you?”
I smiled as the door closed behind them and I listened to their voices retreat down the hall.
Jeffery’s gaze roamed over me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. His thumb ran small circles at the small of my back, a teasing trick he used to do that would drive me crazy. “Is it weird for you?” he asked.
“Which part?” I asked with a laugh. “The fact that three guys are hitting on me and acting like it’s completely normal, or that you’ve come back from the dead?”
He smiled. “Technically, I’m still dead.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed away from him, but it was a teasing motion. I knew he wasn’t going anywhere and I could roam freely in my tiny apartment without the constant weight that had been weighing down on my shoulders. For the first time in years, I felt like I was finally free.
I wandered back to the window and drew open the curtain just far enough to see Devon running down the street chasing a poor cat. A laugh bubbled out from me, abruptly stopping when Jeffery’s hard chest pressed against my back. His arms wound around my waist and pulled me against him until I could feel his pressing need between the curve of my asscheeks. “Wow,” I breathed, “you’re not shy, are you?”
His hands roamed up and ran soft, teasing caresses under my breasts, but he didn’t slip his fingers underneath my bra. “I never stopped wanting you.”
I twisted, forcing him to wrap his arms around me and hug me close. He growled and buried himself in my neck. I froze when sharp fangs pricked against my pulse. “I don’t recall you ever wanting my blood.”
His tongue flicked the small hurt. He hadn’t broken the skin, but his fingers dug into my hips with the restraint from clamping down on me. His hot breath puffed against my skin and made me tremble. “Now it’s all I can think about.”
I’d never heard that kind of growl in Jeffery’s voice. I wiggled away from him, both put-off and secretly intimidated by a vampire craving my blood. “Tell me what happened,” I said, shifting to the singular chair at a small round table that doubled for eating a quick breakfast and practicing my readings. The small deck of cards rested in a pile on the corner and I absently drew them into my hands and began to shuffle. “From the beginning.”
He sighed, his desire clouding his gaze as he continued to stare at my neck. “I thought I was supposed to be the tease,” he complained.
I smiled. That was the Jeffery I knew. “You can’t just sneak back into my life and grope me and pretend nothing’s changed.”
He grabbed a footstool I usually propped my boots on and joined me at the table. He sat too low, so he rested his arms on the table and grinned. “If nothing had changed, you’d be topless right now.”
I frowned, because he was right. I was impatient when it came to sex and clothes never stayed on my body for very long. Edwin resonated with me in that I was not ashamed when it came to sex. Call it gypsy blood, call me a whore, whatever but when I feel something for someone, I’m not going to pretend that connection isn’t there. I’m not going to bury something that needs to be expressed and explored. That’s the one thing I never denied myself. Maybe I denied my magic, the truth, my beliefs, but I never denied touch. Jeffery was how I’d explored an unspoken bond I’d never understood, but now I knew it was something stronger than fate itself. “Did you know what I was?” I asked him as I continued to shuffle the cards smooth and worn from use.
He shook his head. “Not at first. It wasn’t until your mother took me aside and explained it all.”
I stopped shuffling. “She told you what I was before she told me?” Actually, she never told me. She let me find out from two supernatural angels I’d accidentally summoned the night of her death. My teeth ground together as anger unfurled in my chest.
Jeffery had somehow inched closer to me and his fingers played across my arm. “I didn’t believe her at first. She rattled on that she was going to die and you were going to inherit an important role. I thought she was just saying in a roundabout way that you were going to inherit her shop and take over as a fortune-teller, but that’s not what she meant. When she gave me those pills—”
I flung the cards across the table and half the pile fell to the floor. “She gave you the pills?”
He tilted his head with sympathy. “She knew I was supposed to be the third protector. Fate had already caught up with me and I was going to die either way. She helped me turn into a vampire strong enough to protect you, and in exchange, I had to promise to leave you alone until she died.”
Absently I moved to the floor to pick up the cards that had fallen. I stopped when I found only one was overturned… the bat. I picked it up and ran my thumb over the image. “How did it work? The pills, I mean.”
He sighed and joined me on the floor. I didn’t complain when his arms wound around me and his fingers covered mine as we held the card together that displayed Jeffery’s fate. He would always be a vampire—and that’s exactly what he was meant to be. The cards read fate—but also purpose. If Jeffery hadn’t become a vampire, this reading meant that he’d have been left to wander the world lost and unfulfilled, never having completed his destiny. “Ancient vampire blood and witch magic is bound to the pills and given only to those who draw this card. Even then, it has to be approved by an elder witch.”
“A witch like my mother,” I said.
He nodded, the smooth caress of his cheek soft against mine. “She knew everything. That was her gift, and her curse. When she told me that I could save you, and showed me that the spirit world was real, the world of vampires and angels and demons were all real, it was an easy decision to make.” He curled into my neck and breathed me in. I sighed and found myself relaxing and tilting my head to give him better access. His tongue lazily ran circles across my skin, sending goosebumps cascading down my arms.
“Two years,” I whispered. “Why would she take you from me and make me suffer for two years?”
Jeffery’s grip ran around my wrists and forced me to let go of the card. The visage of a bat flitted to the ground as if it had wings of its own. His kiss turned into gentle nips beneath my earlobe and I didn’t pull away. I wanted this. I wanted to feel Jeffery again as we’d once been, carefree and young and naive. “That’s how long it took for the transformation to take hold. I would have been useless to you a mere six months ago. I was still recovering from the desiccation.”
I grimaced and turned to him. “Desiccation?”
He grinned, his fangs wet from his kisses. It wasn’t my imagination. They’d gotten larger. “Turning into a vampire is not an overnight glamorous event they like to show on TV. It involves blood, dirt, and lots of chanting. All the blood in my body has been replaced three times over with the most ancient bloodlines of the living undead.” His grin widened at my shock. “Your mother has quite the influence. My turn was finalized by the king himself.”
“King?” I asked, wanting to know more, but now it was Jeffery who was getting impatient. He pushed me to the floor and Tarot cards flattened under my back. My memory flashed to the vision of Jeffery over me, his breath hot on my face, and jade beads poking my spine as I allowed myself to be consumed by the flames of desire that only he’d ever been able to awaken in me.
His hand ran under my shirt and this time he cupped my breast over my bra with a firm grip, making an involuntary sound of need escape my throat. “Becoming a vampire changed me, Ren. Do you still want me, even when I’m not the same guy you knew?”
I thought about Jeffery and how he’d been. Sweet. Charming. Able to get me to strip naked in five seconds flat. “Show me how different you are,” I whispered, challenging him.
A sharp fang grazed the skin
just under my earlobe, and this time I cried with pleasure and pain as he pricked. His tongue followed, lapping up the small droplet of warmth that trickled down my neck.
Pleasure radiated from his small bite, rampaging through my body with an unexpected tidal wave of electricity that ran through my limbs and echoed back, collecting between my thighs. I attempted to clench my legs together, but Jeffery wedged himself between my knees as he grinned. A light hue of red tainted his fangs. “My bite has some magic in it… just for you.”
I blinked to prevent my eyes from rolling back in my head. “Do it again,” I demanded. I pulled down the edge of my shirt to expose my breast. “Do it here.” A blush crept up my face, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be marked by him… to be branded in the most intimate of places.
He cupped my breast and squeezed, forcing the flesh to bulge for him. My back arched when he lowered and wet the skin with his tongue. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Jeff,” I hissed, “you better do it now or I’ll—”
He sank his bite into my flesh and I bucked against him, but his immovable body kept me pinned to the ground. A wound like that would have hurt by any other device, but Jeffery was right. His bite had magic in it and raw pleasure made my nipples tighten and rub painfully against my bra. When Jeffery pulled free and my blood ran over my clothes, hopelessly ruining them, he licked over the wound and surprised me when the flesh knit closed. Two discolored marks remained where he’d sunken his fangs into me and then he licked over my skin to drink in my blood. “Delicious,” he breathed when he’d tasted the last drop.
My breath ragged, I wiggled under him. Pleasure made me swollen and uncomfortable in the most intimate of places. “You’re not going to stop, are you?” I hated how I sounded like I was begging. I was totally begging.
He appeased me and ran a hand down my leg, nestling his grip between my thighs and he squeezed. I cried with frustration; the touch wasn’t enough for me. I couldn’t stand the barrier of clothing between us. I needed to feel every inch of him against me. I needed to know that he was here, right now, and back in my life. I’d never have to live another day thinking that his death was my fault, and that I’d lost a part myself that I’d never get back. I needed his acceptance and his assurance that he needed me just as much as I needed him.
“Off,” he said, and I didn’t realize he was talking about my clothes until a whisper of cool air hit my skin. I looked down to find my clothes shredded and Jeffery panting. His gaze roamed over my breasts and his fingers trailed down the soft line of my abdomen.
“Did you just use vampire powers to disintegrate my clothes?”
He smirked. “Maybe.” He popped the button of his jeans and I sucked in a breath as the swollen length of him escaped.
“Why don’t you do the same for your clothes?”
He peeled down the zipper, taunting me with every second he made me wait. “I don’t plan on going back to Berlin any time soon. It took me ages to find a pair of jeans that made my ass look this good.” He grinned, that arrogant, adorable side of him making me want to kiss the smirk right off his face.
“Berlin?” I marveled as I fulfilled my impulse and leaned up to press kisses along the strong line of his jaw, followed by flicks of my tongue that I knew he’d like. He shuddered and closed his eyes and I took my opportunity to run my fingers over his and urged him to hurry with his zipper until my fingertips met supple skin. I froze.
His grin made me want to melt and he pressed a kiss to my throat, avoiding pricking me with his fangs. He didn’t wait to pull his jeans all the way off, he nudged at my entrance and I parted for him. I wanted this more than he could ever know.
“This will solidify our bond,” he warned. “Are you sure you don’t want to turn back, just pretend none of this is real?”
That’s what I’d done my whole life. No matter how many miraculous things I’d seen my mother do, I’d turned my back on her gifts. I’d called her eccentric, crazy, a little off kilter, even though a deep part of me knew there was something I was missing, I’d pretended it wasn’t there.
I clawed my nails across his back and he groaned. “Bury yourself in me,” I commanded. “I’ll never turn from you again.”
When he sheathed himself inside me in a final, possessive thrust, I cried out, not caring if Miss Stacy or anyone else heard me. Pleasure so much more powerful than his bite shocked through me and I bucked against him when he pulled out and shoved himself into me again.
“You’re safe, Ren,” he growled as he pounded into me, his motions going faster and turning my mind to mush. “You’ll never have to run again.”
I closed my eyes and let him take me through the pleasure that threatened to break apart my mind.
He was wrong. I was going to have to run, and run hard. I had to chase fate itself.
Chapter 6
Vampire speed paired with stamina left me impossibly sore the next day. Sunlight crested the dusty drapes and my stomach growled loud enough to wake me up.
I was tangled in bedsheets that smelled like my protectors. It should have surprised me to find all three of them in the room, Edwin and Devon having returned from their cat-adventures sometime after I’d passed out from too much sex. But another part of me knew that they belonged by my side just as much as Jeffery did. I’d solidified the bond between my most familiar protector, and my mind ventured into curious places wondering what it would feel like to complete the ritual.
Jeffery appeared with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and I smiled. It was a simple breakfast, but he knew that’s what I liked. I sat up and took the offering. Devon and Edwin slept soundly, either completely comfortable around us or too exhausted to bother to wake up.
“How are you feeling?” Jeffery asked.
I ran the spoon around the edge of my oatmeal and watched as the steam escaped the milky grains. “Better,” I admitted, then straightened. “Stronger, too, I think.”
He nodded. “Your body is embracing immortality that comes as part of being the Keymaster.”
I popped a spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth. “Immortal, huh? That sounds pretty cool.” I wanted to chide him that a Keymaster wasn’t really immortal. My mother roamed the spirit plane and even if she was only a phone call away, my stomach twisted with the knowledge that I’d never see her again—not in this life, anyway.
When I tried a second bite, I frowned at the cool mush that should have been hot. I looked down just in time to see my oatmeal freeze over. Ice overtook the small grains and crested the bowl. I shrieked and it fell to the floor and shattered.
“That’s your cue,” Jeffery said as he elbowed Devon.
As I blinked at him, he sauntered to me as if my breakfast turning into an icicle was the most natural thing in the world. He knelt and pressed a light kiss to my mouth. I glanced at Edwin and Devon, but they didn’t seem bothered by the display of affection. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, hating how my voice came out shaken.
Jeffery stroked a thumb over my lower lip and a soft tendril of frost escaped my breath and my mouth parted. “We all awaken a part of you that’ll help you fulfill your destiny. You’re a powerful creature, Ren, and I love you for that, and for your spirit, and for the girl you used to be. You are a fighter and you are a lover. You’re exactly what this world needs.” I wasn’t accustomed to compliments, but Jeffery said them with such assurance that I couldn’t even tell him to shut up. He pressed another kiss to my forehead, then motioned to Edwin. “Want to grab a bite?”
Edwin grinned, giving me a wink as he followed Jeffery out the door. “Sounds good to me. You two have fun.” His smile faded when he glowered at Devon. “And you behave. Only demons get sent to hell. That’s the rule.”
Devon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I get it.”
When the guys had left, leaving me alone with an angel of hell who offered a hand and helped me off the ground, I decided I was tired of being at the mercy of three sexy men. “You’re going to tell me what’s
going on,” I demanded, trying not to flinch when ice spread out from my feet in a sharp spurt at my words.
Devon backed away just far enough to keep the ice from touching his toes. My carpet was already a hopeless mess, but now it crunched under my feet. No way would my landlord replace it. Yeah, sorry, I slept with my ex and it unlocked magical powers and I sort of destroyed what was left of my carpet.
“We need to give you a target,” he explained. “You’re angry. Your vampire protector unlocks the night in you, darkness and cold.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You bet your ass I’m angry! You guys just come into my life and confuse me and mess with my heart. Now I have uncontrollable powers and my carpet is ruined.”
He smirked. “The carpet was already in dire need of replacement.”
“Not the point,” I snapped, and ice inched out in another lurch that claimed the bedsheets where I’d slept with Jeffery. The sight made me calm, reminding me that I had him back in my life. It bothered me that there was an equal connection to two other men. I couldn’t look at Devon. His midnight hair hanging in his eyes that watched me with unnerving precision made me want to run my fingers through the strands so I could see all of him. I could kiss him and feel what it was like to have his strength wrap around me. I knew he would be different from Jeffery. Jeffery was hard and soft at the same time. Devon was sleek, teasing, and painfully sexy. I made the mistake of glancing at him, and that wicked grin made my thighs clench.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling the connection to your protectors,” he explained and stretched out a hand. His long, graceful fingers enticed me to go to him.
