Under His Spell (Blanchard Coven 2): An M/M Vampire Romance

by Frey Ortega

  But honestly, he really didn’t want to have some kind of deep conversation with Julien right now. His coven leader was a sharp man, though not quite as cutting and cold as before. Sometimes, Elijah found himself preferring the old version of Julien rather than the new one, because at least the old one was blind to all these little social cues the people around him were giving off. He was more focused on results, and that meant Elijah could just sidestep awkward conversations for the most part.

  Mating Eos helped him soften the sharpness around his edges, which only made it easier for Julien to talk to his friends and subordinates. But that was a pain on Elijah, because he rarely wanted to do that. With anyone.

  Well…maybe with Bennett. But it was mostly because Elijah wanted to tell him absolutely everything.

  Gods, he hadn’t even claimed Bennett yet, and it was as though he’d had some kind of claim on the young warlock. Was he really actually a lovestruck young schoolgirl? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d thought that of himself. But no, he wasn’t.

  I’m an adult, gods damn it.

  He was acting like a schoolgirl, though.

  Elijah had to calm himself way down. Still, he pulled out his phone and immediately sent a message to his mate.

  Hey, the meeting ran right on time, Elijah texted. See you in front of the club?

  Elijah walked out into the hallway, pressing a button on the elevator. As soon as the bell rang, and the doors opened, his phone gave a little buzz.

  That very same sound made a smile appear on the vampire’s face. He pulled up his phone, checking on the screen.

  I can’t wait.

  Maybe it was a combination of those three words, and the kissy-faced emoji that accompanied it, but Elijah felt like he could shake from sheer excitement. Hell, he couldn’t help the smile that made his face hurt. He had to bring a hand up to his cheeks just to gently rub away the ache that had settled on his features.

  When had he ever felt this happy before in his life?

  Chapter Seven

  When had Bennett Landry ever felt more anxious in his life?

  Obviously, this was the good kind of anxiety. It was the one with the butterflies in the stomach and the heartbeat fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird all because he wanted to see Elijah. Definitely not the terrible kind that only made his nightmares and his multitude of different issues worse.

  No. That kind of anxiety was certainly not good to think about right at this very second.

  Bennett stood outside of Pastiche, the club slowly coming to life behind him as people lined up to enter the nightclub. The walk out of the Blanchard building had been a bit daunting, to say the least, but Bennett powered through it, deciding not to pay attention to the people around him and just…power-walk straight to where he needed to go. Maybe not the best idea, considering it was dark outside and he could have gotten seriously hurt.

  Hindsight’s a bitch.

  That’s why he was huffing and panting when he got to the front of the club, where a steady stream of people was beginning to form, trying to get in. There was a scary looking bouncer out front, and every so often, a long-haired blond Viking of a man peeked out of the doors, looked around as if trying to find someone, and then proceeded to make eye contact with Bennett before winking at the warlock and disappearing back inside.

  Was that flirting? Bennett wasn’t sure. But what he was sure of was that he definitely didn’t know how to flirt. He barely knew how to reply to Elijah’s flirty texts sometimes, and that was pitiful considering he was surrounded by people much, much older than he was, being that they were all mostly vampires.

  He used to be able to, before Marcel, of course, but Bennett didn’t really feel like blaming his lack of flirtatious ability on that monster. He’d been awkward since before that, after all. Bennett’s time with Marcel just made that awkwardness worse, by piling other troubles on top of that.

  Then again, maybe he was underreacting a little bit. Is that even a word? Underreacting?

  Bennett didn’t know. It was a definite sign that he was overthinking, though, and that wasn’t good at all.

  Not. At. All.

  Bennett took a deep breath, holding onto his phone a little bit tighter and swiping his thumb up and down on the screen. It was a nervous tic—something that he did simply because he just couldn’t sit still. This was his first date, after all. Ever.

  But rather than dwell on it, which he knew he could definitely do if left to his own devices, he looked around to focus on something else. Anything else at this point, and that’s when he saw him.

  Even from half a block away, Elijah always made Bennett’s breath hitch.

  Elijah was always so impeccably dressed. He had a suit that perfectly contoured to his body, giving him that sleek, but broad-shouldered silhouette that showed off just how beautiful his body was underneath. His hair was perfectly styled in that slightly messy, effortlessly handsome way. The smile on his face was as impish and mischievous as ever. The suit he had on was a beautiful shade of dark blue, so deep and rich that it was almost black. Under the light, Bennett saw the small swirls and patterns on the shirt Elijah wore underneath the suit, and the whole ensemble made him look so effortlessly stylish.

  Like…a model, or a manager of a club. Someone who knew he was going to be seen by plenty of people, and he had to look beautiful—but not like he was trying too hard at it.

  Bennett couldn’t help but compare himself to the man walking toward him. Elijah was just so…beautiful, and he couldn’t help but feel a little frumpy in comparison. There was this easy confidence in every step Elijah took that made him look like he should have come out of a catwalk in Paris.

  To be fair, Bennett was dressed nicely enough, too, or so he thought. He wore a plain baby pink button-up shirt and a comfortable, light flannel tied around his waist, along with a pair of comfortable shorts. He’d even decided to wear a bunch of these little cloth and rope bracelets on one hand, including a rather thick leather wristband as his accessories. These little details were his way of trying to pay a little bit more attention to his looks, after all, wanting to look as good as he possibly could for Elijah.

  He didn’t want to think about how long it took him to get dressed. Far too long, Bennett thought. Too many outfits were tossed by the wayside to find this one which seemed…adequate, to say the least.

  Maybe it was just a way to highlight the differences between the two of them.

  Bennett fought the intrusive thought, pushing it away as far as it could go. Don’t think about that now. Don’t ruin this for yourself.

  As soon as Elijah looked at him, though, there was a sparkle in those hazel eyes, and a lopsided smile that widened. It made some of Bennett’s worries fall by the wayside, and the tension he didn’t know he was keeping in his shoulders had just melted away.

  When Bennett saw those eyes looking at him, glimmering with happiness and excitement and desire, Bennett had nothing to worry about.

  Well…maybe he had one thing to worry about. A very small thing, but something nonetheless!

  “I thought we were going for a walk,” Bennett said, gesturing over Elijah’s body. “This doesn’t look like an outfit one would wear for a nice, leisurely stroll through the park.”

  “What do you mean?” Elijah asked, looking down at his clothes. “I see guys wearing clothes like these walking around all the time.”

  “I’m not sure what stylish part of the city you frequent, but I haven’t seen guys as well-dressed as you traipsing down the avenue.”

  “Traipsing? Is that really the right word?” Elijah grinned. “You make it sound so…fun. But no, I guess I just wanted to impress you a little bit for our first ever date. Is it working?” Then, Elijah even struck a confident little pose that made Bennett smile.

  “It is,” Bennett replied, nodding his head. “But now I feel a little underdressed.”

  “Well, don’t. You look amazing,” Elijah replied. “So, you wanna get going?”
<
br />   “We could,” but then Bennett gestured toward the club. “Not going to go in and check on things?”

  The vampire shrugged. “Nah, I’m sure they have it under control. Besides, we have a date to get to. How long have you been waiting for me here?”

  “Not long at all,” Bennett said. It wasn’t technically a lie. It had been about twenty-five minutes and forty-three seconds. That wasn’t a long time to wait for a person, especially considering Bennett was a little early to the date.

  But who was counting?

  Elijah gave a little smile. “Well then, that settles that. There’s a nice little park nearby that we can walk through. Shall we get a little of that fresh air everyone keeps talking about?”

  Bennett nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed, smiling at the attempt at a joke.

  As they walked to the park in relatively comfortable silence, Bennett kept peeking up at Elijah and the vampire, in turn, kept looking down at him and smiling.

  “Is there something on my face?” Elijah asked, to which Bennett looked up, feeling the heat rise up in his cheeks.

  Bennett shook his head. “No…I just like looking at you, is all.”

  Elijah chuckled. “Well, good,” he answered. “You’ll see a lot more of me in the future, I hope.”

  The companionable silence continued between them as they walked. Bennett wanted to fill the air between them with conversation—something, anything simply to hear the vampire speak—but he didn’t really say anything, for fear of being silly.

  While they walked in comfortable peace and quiet, Elijah soon entwined his fingers with Bennett’s. Elijah’s hand was so large in contrast to Bennett’s more delicate one. Bennett looked down at their hands, and then up at Elijah, who was looking at him with a satisfied-looking smirk clear as day on his face.

  “What are you doing?” Bennett asked, although clearly, Bennett knew exactly what Elijah was doing. That didn’t really stop him from being bewildered by it, though.

  He really didn’t know why it surprised him so—Elijah had been very demonstrative of his affections in the time Bennett knew him. After all, he had been the one to just outright say that Bennett was his mate in the middle of a crowded dining room.

  “Holding your hand,” Elijah answered matter-of-factly. “Why? Do you not want me to?”

  “No, I like it,” Bennett replied, maybe a bit too fast to try and play it cool. “It’s…nice.”

  There were other words that Bennett could have used, other ways to describe what he was feeling at the moment—elated, ecstatic, happy—but they didn’t quite come to mind right then. All he could really think about was the way Elijah’s thumb gently caressed the back of his hand, and the warmth that spread through him at their merest touch.

  “Well, good,” Elijah said. He lifted Bennett’s hand up, and leaned down to softly press a kiss onto Bennett’s knuckles. “I’m a sucker for these kinds of romantic gestures. Small ones, you know? I want you to know how important you are to me.”

  Elijah turned to look down at Bennett with a beaming smile on his face, and the warlock couldn’t help but return it. He hadn’t felt like this before. Elijah was making him feel things in himself—these little rays of light and warmth that he didn’t know could exist inside himself—that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time…maybe ever. He’d been in such a deep, dark place for what felt like forever, that he’d forgotten how it felt to be wanted, to be needed, to be desired.

  Maybe that’s why he clung even tighter to Elijah’s hand, and wanted to just immerse himself in the moment.

  “So, what are some conversation topics mates might talk about while they’re trying to get to know one another?” Bennett asked.

  Elijah chuckled. “Hell, if I know,” he replied. “Maybe we start with a little small talk. I’d be perfectly happy with talking about anything and everything that pops into your mind.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bennett replied. “My mind gets into some pretty wild situations, I think. Letting me talk about everything under the sun seems like a recipe for disaster.”

  “Then let’s narrow it down a little bit,” Elijah said. “How are you settling in with the witches?”

  The warlock smiled at that, feeling a little bit of warmth in his chest at the thought of Miss Ifi and her house. “They’ve been really kind. Miss Ifi helped me find some clothes for tonight, actually, and my friend Soraya helped me prepare for tonight’s date.”

  “Oh?” Elijah’s grin widened a bit more as he regarded Bennett. “It sounds like you have quite the team working with you.”

  Bennett nodded, feeling the fondness pull at the corners of his lips to widen his smile even more. “I do,” he agreed. “They’ve been nothing but kind and open to me. I owe them a lot.”

  “Well, aren’t you one of Ifeya’s children now?” Elijah asked. “If so, then they’re not really doing anything they wouldn’t do for each other. You’re one of them, after all.”

  Honestly, Bennett hadn’t thought about that at all. Maybe he’d gotten too comfortable with the idea of being an outsider, but the more that he thought about it, the more that he liked the idea of being one of them—a member of the House of Fidelis, though none of Ifeya’s children, even the woman herself, used that name.

  “I guess so,” Bennett finally responded after a moment, strolling alongside Elijah, trying to catch up with the other man’s strides. “I don’t know. They’ve never told me. I still think that I owe them quite a bit for taking care of me all this time. I know it must be hard on them.”

  “If anything, I think a lot of us are more concerned about how hard this has all been for you, actually,” Elijah said. “It’s not a strain on us to have you around, least of all me, anyway.”

  Bennett chuckled. “You’re biased.”

  “Oh definitely,” Elijah agreed, nodding his head as he raised Bennett’s hand and pressed a kiss on one of the warlock’s knuckles once more. “I’m definitely biased, and proud of that fact, too. Besides, I would be a bad mate if I wasn’t.”

  “Well, can I ask you a question about that, actually? Mating, I mean,” Bennett said.

  Elijah nodded. “Go for it.”

  “Aside from wanting to be a good mate, I don’t know a lot about you,” Bennett admitted. “We’ve been talking a lot over the phone, so I know that you can carry a conversation. God knows I can’t. You’re nice, and you’re patient, but…I want to get to know you more apart from that, too.”

  Elijah looked down at Bennett for a moment, before a smirk appeared on his face. “Yes. I know. It’s why we’re on this date. Also, that wasn’t really a question. What was your question?”

  Bennett chuckled. “Okay. So now I know one more thing, at least.”

  The vampire canted his head. “What’s that?”

  Bennett stopped laughing, but the smile was still apparent on his face. “You’re a bit of a wise-ass.”

  “Ah, yes. I’ve been called that before,” Elijah replied. “But I’m your wise-ass now. Is that going to be a problem?”

  This time, Bennett was the one who raised up Elijah’s hand, but instead of kissing it the way the other man did to him, Bennett instead nuzzled his cheek against it for the briefest moment. “No, it doesn’t feel like much of a problem to me.”

  “Sweet, yet cheesy,” Elijah said. “I like it. Nine out of ten for effort and execution. I’m docking a point, just because I think there’s always room for improvement.”

  Bennett snorted, rather unflatteringly at that. “You really are a wise-ass,” Bennett said, laughing.

  “Damn straight.” Elijah turned to look down at Bennett and smiled. “I think this is the first time I’ve heard you laugh so sincerely like that. I like it.”

  “I guess I just feel a lot freer tonight than I have for a while now,” Bennett said, trying to sass Elijah back a little bit, even sticking out his tongue like a child at the vampire. “I only have you to thank for that.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth,
you never have to thank me for treating you the way you should be treated,” Elijah replied. “But I’m glad I could do that for you. You’re welcome, Bennett.”

  Elijah’s hand clasped a little tighter around Bennett’s, and when Bennett looked up into the vampire’s eyes, all he could see was warmth.

  If there was ever any proof that not all vampires were like Marcel, this was one of them. Perhaps most importantly of all, this was the one piece of evidence Bennett needed to know that not everyone was going to hurt him the way he expected.

  And when he leaned up to press his lips against Elijah’s in a soft kiss, all he could think about was how right it felt.

  This felt…perfect.

  Chapter Eight

  Elijah had been on plenty of dates, with men, women, people who oscillated between the two points, and people who were on neither side of the spectrum. All of them had been enjoyable in their own way.

  But none of them compared to the peace and happiness he felt being with his mate.

  And that kiss. That kiss—soft and chaste as it was—sent a fire burning through Elijah’s body in a way that nothing else had. Something inside him was daring him to swipe Bennett into his arms and whisk him off somewhere so that he could show the young warlock just how much he meant to Elijah.

  But Elijah also knew, from the innocence in that kiss, that he needed to take his time with this, and let Bennett set the pace.

  Patience is key, Elijah.

  When Bennett pulled away from the kiss, however, it was all Elijah could do not to follow him as he pulled away. In fact, Elijah did follow for just a split-second before pulling away.

  Bennett chuckled. “You have a goofy grin on your face.”

  “Do I?” Elijah asked, placing a hand over one of his cheeks. “Your kiss has left me speechless, apparently. I had a real zinger waiting to be thrown out there, and instead I’ve forgotten it.”

  “Anything I can do to help you remember?” Bennett asked, as he settled back to Elijah’s side.

  “Maybe if we do it again, I’ll be able to recall what it was I wanted to say,” Elijah replied, grinning down at his mate.