by L. E. Wilson
I thought about that for a long, hard moment. Then I shook my head.
“No.”
Chapter 13
Alex
The sense of relief that hit me was so strong I grew lightheaded. “Good,” I told her.
She came to stand in front of me, and I couldn’t stop myself from running my eyes over her. She was so fucking gorgeous with her hair in soft curls and her curves complimented by form-fitted dress pants and a tapered jacket.
“You said you wanted to talk,” she reminded me.
I almost laughed out loud. Talk. Yeah, I’d said that. I’d even meant it at the time. But now that she was here, so close to me, all I could think about was kissing her again. “How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she told me.
Fine. Any man worth his salt knew what that actually meant. She wasn’t fine at all.
She was nervous. Jumpy. It made me want to take her in my arms and kiss her until she was making those little noises deep in her throat and her fangs were bared with lust. I wanted to feel her sink those fangs into my throat, or anywhere else she wanted to bite me, for that matter. I wanted to give her pleasure. Give her life.
I…hungered for her. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. And from the way the tips of her fangs peeked out from beneath her full upper lip when she spoke, she felt the same about me.
I racked my brain for something to discuss, something that would make me sound somewhat intelligent, rather than the jumble of raw emotions I really was whenever she was anywhere near me.
“I think this was a mistake,” she suddenly whispered. Fast as a whip, she turned to leave.
But I was faster, appearing in front of her before she could run off.
Kenya pulled up short with a gasp. “How do you do that?”
“What?” I asked, distracted by the sight of her close up and personal. Gods, she was beautiful. Her skin smooth. Her eyes bright. In the dark, I could see different shades of browns and greens and golds, the vampire she was lighting her up from the inside out.
“How do you move so fast, Alex? You move as fast as I do. Something no human, not even a witch, should be able to do.”
Oh. That. “I don’t really know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve always been able to do it.”
She stared at me for a long time, her hands fisted at her sides. “It’s the djinn inside of you.”
“Perhaps.” It could possibly explain many things about myself, about my magic. But I didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t even want to think about it right now. “Please don’t be frightened of me, Kenya. I’m still the same guy.”
“No,” she said. “No, Alex. You’re not.” She paused, looking away for a moment before she brought her attention back to me. “This isn’t a good idea. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Stop saying that.” The words came out harsher than I’d intended, and I made an effort to get a grip on the whirlwind of emotions slamming around inside of me, forcing myself to relax and not frighten her more.
“Alex, I can’t keep doing this. Someone is going to find out about us. They’ll pull you from my head when I’m not paying attention, and then the secret will be out—”
“So, let it be out.”
She snapped her mouth shut. “We can’t do that.”
“Why? Why don’t we just tell them, Kenya?”
“Tell them what, exactly?”
I opened my mouth to speak, and then shut it again, thinking carefully about my words before I said them. “Tell them that we’re friends.”
She studied me above the rim of her glasses. “Is that what we are, Alex? Friends?”
“No,” I told her.
My honesty seemed to surprise her. Unable to stand the distance between us anymore, I reached out and took her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. Her hands were graceful, slender, so fragile feeling, even though they could crush my skull with very little effort on her part. “Come here.” She let me lead her between two large graves. Two smaller tombs stood between them, providing us a secluded area of sorts. I didn’t like having to hide, and honestly, I was tired of it. But I thought it would make her more comfortable to not be right out in the open.
Tucking her into the corner, I brushed a stray curl from her face.
She swallowed visibly. “Alex.” There was an admonishment in her tone, and I smiled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told her. “I just couldn’t stand you being so far away and looking at me the way you were.”
“Looking at you in what way?”
“Like I’m some sort of monster,” I told her softly.
Her expression softened. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” I forced myself to back off and leaned against the tomb beside her. “I want to kiss you,” I told her. “I won’t if you don’t want me to, but I just wanted you to know what’s going through my head right now.”
“What else is going through your head?” she asked softly.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
I stared out at the cemetery. All of those dead souls. The bodies decaying until they were nothing but ash, ready to be brushed aside when the time came to make room for the mortal body of the next family member. “Tell me about your life,” I said. “Before you were a vampire.”
She turned her head to look at me. It wasn’t what she’d expected me to ask. But if she was going to shut me down, I couldn’t keep talking about all of the things I wanted to do to her. What I wanted her to do to me. Not if I wanted to retain any kind of self-control.
“Um, what do you want to know?”
I turned toward her, crossing my arms over my chest and propping my shoulder against the tomb. “Everything,” I told her. “Tell me everything. What’s your full name? When were you born?”
“Darce,” she said after a pause. “My last name is Darce.”
“And when were you born Kenya Darce?”
“Sometime in the 1960s. I’m not sure exactly. I was given up by my birthparents.”
“Mmm…not as old as I thought.”
“Are you saying I look old?” she demanded. But then she smiled. It was a ridiculous question and she knew it, as vampires didn’t physically age past the year they were when they were turned.
She dazzled me. It was the only way to describe it. “So, you were adopted by a family?” I asked when I could speak again.
She looked down at her hands, twisted together nervously in front of her. “No. I went into the foster system. I never knew what family was until Killian found me.”
In those few simple sentences about her past, she had just explained so much to me. I could also tell it pained her to speak of it. “I’d heard that Killian never turned anyone who wasn’t already dying. Is that true?”
She visibly relaxed, and I could tell she was relieved to be off the subject of her upbringing. Someday, I would ask her to tell me more. But not tonight. “Yes. And even then, he asked all of us if it was what we wanted first. Well,” she pushed her glasses up on her nose, “all except Jamal. He was the first vampire Killian turned.”
I could tell by the way she frowned and glanced away this was another sensitive subject, so I didn’t pry anymore.
“How are you doing?” she asked. “Since finding out.”
There was no need for her to elaborate, I knew exactly what she was talking about. “I don’t really know,” I admitted. “Part of me is relieved to know why I’ve always felt different than the rest of my family. And part of me is absolutely horrified and scared to death I might accidentally hurt someone I love.”
“Alex—”
I cut her off. “I can feel it growing within me, Kenya. Like it was just lying there dormant until that night at the swamp house. Strange, don’t you think?” I glanced up at her, but I couldn’t take the look of sympathy on her face, so looked away again. “Hell, I’m in my thirties. Why is that side of me just now making itself known?” I shoved my han
d through my short hair.
Kenya was quiet for a long time. “Is he still around? The djinn?”
“Yes. I can still feel him.” Like a storm cloud hovering over the city. “But it’s okay. It’s safe for us to be here right now. He’s nowhere close.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do,” I told her. Pushing myself off the tomb, I came around to stand in front of her. I didn’t want to think about Marcus. “I’m still thinking about kissing you.”
Slowly, her hands came up between us and she flattened her palms on my chest. I closed my eyes, her touch burning through the thin cotton shirt I wore. I waited for her to push me away, but she didn’t.
“You said you wanted to talk,” she reminded me.
Lowering my head, I ran my nose along her hairline near her temple. Her hair smelled like coconut and some kind of sweet spice I couldn’t name. “I am talking. I’m talking about how much I want to kiss you.”
I felt her turn her face into my neck. “You smell so good,” she breathed.
My body hardened at her words. She’d spoken so quietly, I don’t think she’d meant for me to hear her. But I answered her anyway. “So do you. Although I think you probably meant it in an entirely differently way.”
She recoiled as far as she could, hiding her thoughts from me, but her eyes were on my neck and her fingers twisted in my shirt as she breathed in through her mouth.
“Go ahead,” I told her gruffly.
Her eyes flew to mine. “What?”
“If you want to feed,” I said. “I’m offering.”
She flashed her fangs on a hiss, and every hair on my body stood on end. My heart began to beat hard and fast, and she focused on the side of my throat, on the pulse pounding with the rush of my blood. My cock swelled to a painful state.
“I want to feel your teeth in me,” I whispered. “I want to feed you. Fuck, Kenya, it makes me hard just thinking about it.” Taking her hand again, I pressed her palm against the front of my jeans. “Do you feel that?” I asked her. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
With a groan, she flattened her back against the tomb behind her, drawing as far back as she could even as she squeezed the bulge in my pants. “I can’t, Alex.”
“Yes, you can,” I insisted. “It’s okay. I want you to.” And because I thought if I could get her to drink from me, she wouldn’t share that intimacy with anyone else. It was a fucked up reason, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be everything for her. It was more than attraction. More than the fact that I liked it. So much more.
Gods, I was about to come just thinking about it.
But she shook her head and pulled her hand away from my cock. “No. No, I can’t.”
Bracing my hands on either side of her head, I leaned down, touching my forehead to hers, unable to keep myself from touching her. “Why not?”
There was a long pause. “Because I don’t think I’ll be able to stop,” she confessed. “Please, Alex.”
She could’ve easily pushed me away from her. Hell, she could’ve sent me flying out of the cemetery. But instead, she was asking me to give her some space, and so that’s what I did. “Okay.” I back up a step, then two more just for good measure. I wanted to scream my frustration to the sky. I wanted to rail at her. Wanted to insist she admit she felt the same unexplainable yearning for me that I felt toward her.
Instead, I scrubbed my face with my hands. When I had myself as under control as I was going to get, I only said, “But stay with me a little longer.” Because I could feel the darkness welling up within me, and I needed the distraction.
Chewing on her bottom lip, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and looked up at the sky.
“We have hours until sunrise,” I told her.
“I can’t stay that long.”
“Okay.”
She exhaled loudly. I could see in her eyes that she was torn, and it gave me hope. “Okay,” she told me.
And so we talked. We talked about everything except the reason we were sneaking around to find time together. I learned we shared some favorite books, and what she did when wasn’t at The Purple Fang. I told her everything I could about my life and being a warlock.
And while we talked, I got the chance to hold her hand, to play with her fingers, to touch her face, her throat, to listen to her soft voice and enjoy the sound of her laughter. I got to see her as she finally relaxed around me. I got to see her as herself.
And she was more than I ever imagined.
“I need to go, Alex,” she finally said.
“I don’t want you to.” And I really didn’t. I enjoyed her company more than I thought possible.
“I have to.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t.”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t like you roaming The Quarter alone.”
“I’ll run,” she said with a smile. “Vamp speed.”
Although she was smiling, I could tell there would be no arguing with her, so I gave in. “Let me know when you’re in the house.”
“Deal,” she told me.
I walked her to the wall where she’d come in. She stopped and listened for a moment, then graced me with one last smile before she backed up a few steps and leapt the wall, landing silently on the other side.
By the time I let myself out of the gate, magically locking it behind me, she was gone. I’d only made it to the end of the block when I received a text.
Home. Thank you for tonight.
Then a few seconds later,
We can’t do that again.
I laughed. Little things like agreements between covens and a scary djinn were not enough to keep me away from this female.
Chapter 14
Kenya
I waited until Alex had left the graveyard before I hit send on my phone, alerting him to the fact that I was home safe and sound and not following him down the empty streets of New Orleans.
I was taking a huge risk. I knew this. But I had to know if I could trust him or if he was just feeding me a bunch of bullshit.
Djinn were known to be liars. Manipulative. Power hungry. It truly frightened me that this was in his blood. And if what he’d said was true, if it was activated the night he’d saved me, then perhaps he really wasn’t the same guy he’d always been. Not that I’d known him well before, but I’d always had the impression he was a well-respected member of the Moss coven.
Besides, if anyone was a wild card there, it was the witch with the bright red hair and rebellious pale green eyes. I’d put money on that one any day.
But I couldn’t help but worry that this was nothing but a game for him. What if he was lying about his power? What if Alex had been in cahoots with his djinn uncle all this time?
And did the entire witch coven know? Were they all just playing with us? What if the curse that almost killed me had been planned all along? Same as Alex being the one to save me? It would explain why I, the only female vampire and completely insignificant as far as coven hierarchy, was the one who was attacked.
Perhaps I was saved only so he could earn my trust. So he could seduce me and have an “in” into my coven. Get close to me, and therefore close to Killian.
I was an easy target for a male such as Alex.
My stomach dropped at the thought. But why else would Alex, who just a few weeks ago was insisting I didn’t go anywhere alone or even stay at the club after closing time by myself, suddenly deem it perfectly safe for me to ditch that guard and have a secret meetup with him so we could make out in a graveyard? He’d told me I didn’t need to worry about the djinn tonight. How would he know that? And why go from super cautious to completely blasé about the whole thing seemingly overnight?
Yeah, I wasn’t stupid.
Even if he hadn't been in on the djinn's plans all along, maybe something had happened. He'd turned Alex somehow. Used our attraction to each other against him. Manipulated him.
Maybe the d
jinn was playing a game with the both of us.
I ground my teeth together as rage flooded through me. How dare he play with me this way.
And at that very moment, I couldn’t have said which "he" I was talking about exactly, or which one I was angrier with, but I was done being at the center of their game. Done being the victim.
He didn’t go to his car as I expected. Instead, I followed Alex as he walked past the high-rises all the way through the Warehouse District and under the expressway. Past the homeless humans living in tents. Hanging back, I watched with a mixture of feelings as Alex stopped and said hello, handing out cash like it was Monopoly money, even staying a few minutes to chat with one elderly man before continuing on his way.
Waiting until he got a couple of blocks ahead, I followed him, running past the humans too fast for them to see me.
At the corner of Jackson Ave and Saint Charles Ave I stopped, unable to follow him any further as he continued down the street. Magic pulsed in the air around The Garden District neighborhood like a forcefield, sure to alert the witches if I dared to cross the boundary. But that was okay because I’d found out what I’d needed to know. Alex was just going home.
With a sigh of relief, I turned down Saint Charles, following the tracks that ran down the center of the street all the way to Lee Circle. There, after making a face at the statue of Robert E. Lee, I took a seat on the steps of the monument and pulled out my phone. By some miracle, no one had tried to find me yet. Perhaps they assumed I’d come home with Brogan and was now tucked safely away in my bedroom for the day with a book. Brogan assuming I’d called Jamal, of course, and gotten home way before him.
Relieved, I set my cell phone on the step beside me. I needed some time to think away from the curious minds of my coven, where I didn’t have to constantly monitor my thoughts for fear someone would accidentally—or purposely—pull something out of my head I wasn’t ready for them to know.
I just needed a minute to figure out what I was feeling so I could shove those emotions way down before I was around the guys again. Because right now, I felt like a hundred different emotions were buzzing around inside of me, and the only commonality between them was that they all had something to do with a certain warlock named Alex Moss.
