A Vampire Bewitched (Deathless Night Book 1)

by L. E. Wilson

  “Is there something else you wanted to know?”

  Her face and neck were burning, and she knew they were red, giving her thoughts away. She quickly looked away in an attempt to hide it. “No.”

  Chapter 10

  Nik bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Actually, he found her innocence endearing. Old-fashioned would not be a term he would use to describe himself, yet he thought most females these days were much too bold. And judging by the variety of colors she was turning, he could easily guess what she had been about to ask. “Yes, I can do that too.”

  “You can do what?” she asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

  “I can have sex. That’s what you were wondering, right? I wasn’t lying when I talked about being in your pants before.” As she got impossibly redder, he couldn’t hold back his grin anymore.

  “That’s not what I was going to ask!” she exclaimed.

  “You’re lying again,” he countered.

  Clearing her throat, she swiftly changed the subject. “So, now that I know you’re a…what you are. What do you know about where Keira is?”

  Unwilling to upset her more after the shock he had just given her, he let her steer the conversation to safer ground. This time. “That’s what I need your help with.”

  Frowning at him, she asked, “Don’t you think if I knew where she was, I would’ve found her myself by now?”

  Nik studied her. He sensed her frustration and tried to gauge how much more she could take. Although she seemed to be recovering quickly from his big reveal, she still looked a little off. It might be a good idea to give her a minute before he laid anything else on her.

  Plus, although it didn’t bother him, the temperature was dropping and she didn’t have a coat.

  “Why don’t we go inside where it’s warmer to continue our talk?”

  She glanced at him, distrust all over her features.

  “I give you my word you’re safe with me. Have I done anything yet to make you think otherwise?” He gave her his most innocent face. It didn’t seem to help.

  “Come on. Let’s go inside. I promise to behave. And…” Standing up, he stretched his arms over his head. “I’ll tell you everything else you want to know.”

  It took her a moment, but his acting all chill must have worked.

  She stood a bit shakily and walked to the front door. Not waiting for him to follow, she went into the house, letting the screen door bang shut behind her.

  He watched through the screen as she turned on the lights, put her bag down and went into the kitchen to fill the teakettle with water.

  He waited for her to notice he hadn’t followed her in. Other than not being able to go out in the sunshine, this was the second most frustrating thing about being what he was.

  Finally, she came back to the door to find him still standing on the porch.

  “Why are you just standing there? You’ve been dying to come in here all night.”

  “Uh yeah, about that…” Sticking one hand in his pocket he reached up to rub the back of his neck with the other. “You need to invite me in,” he grudgingly admitted.

  Leaning back against the porch railing and putting his hands low on his narrow hips, he tried to make it look like this wasn’t weird at all.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You need to invite me in,” he repeated. Casually surveying the area around him, he looked anywhere but at her.

  “You mean you can’t come in unless I invite you?” Reluctantly, he raised his eyes to hers with a sigh. He nodded, and watched a gloating smile spread slowly across Emma’s face.

  “Well, well. Doesn’t this thicken the plot?” She frowned a bit as something occurred to her. “But you walked right into the bar tonight. How did you do that if you need an invitation?”

  “The bar is a public place, not a private home. I only need to be invited into personal residences. Unless it’s owned by another vampire, of course.” He held her gaze.

  “Huh.” Emma leaned against the doorframe. “Maybe we should just continue this conversation from right where we are then.”

  She was laughing at him, now that she knew she was safe inside her home. “Come on, Emma. Invite me in.”

  He didn’t like her being out of his reach. It made him nervous.

  He chose not to dwell on the reason why.

  “What if I don’t?” she asked with a rebellious gleam in her eye.

  Starting to really feel antsy now, he told her, “I can make you invite me in, but I’d rather not. I prefer not to mess with your head like that.” He pushed away from the railing and walked up to the door. “And I don’t think you would appreciate it either.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said in all seriousness. “Promise me you’ll never do that to me.”

  “I swear I will never alter your thoughts or memories.” And he meant it.

  But she wasn’t done yet. “How exactly does this work? Do I have to invite you in every time?”

  “No. Just once.” His patience was wearing thin. It was getting harder to resist the growing urge to “suggest” to her that she just invite him in already, dammit, in spite of what he just told her.

  “Can I take the invitation back once I give it?”

  Nik pressed his lips together, and then grudgingly admitted, “Yes.”

  “Really? And how do I do that?”

  Looking her square in the eye, he admitted, “You can rescind the invitation.”

  “And you have to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” he confirmed.

  She hesitated just for a moment. “All right, then. Come on in, Nikulas.”

  Finally!

  Nik took a relieved breath as he yanked open the screen door and stalked over the threshold, forcing Emma to scramble back out of the way to avoid being plowed over.

  Marching around her and heading into the house, he told himself this weird protectiveness he felt only stemmed from the fact that he needed her to help him save his brother.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he walked from room to room, checking the windows and looking in the closets.

  Ignoring her, he continued to prowl around the lower floor of her home. When he reached the stairs, he didn’t hesitate, but started climbing them two at a time, paying no mind to her frantic “Hey!”

  He tromped around upstairs repeating the same security check, until he heard her yell, “You’d better not be getting my rugs all dirty with those boots you’re wearing!”

  He took a last glance around and then reappeared at the top of the stairs. “I just wanted to see your house. It’s…nice.”

  He jogged down the stairs and walked right past her into the kitchen, where he pulled out a chair and nonchalantly sat down at the table, the picture of innocence.

  Emma stared at him like he’d lost his mind, and maybe he had. Giving him one last unsure look, she went to the stove to make that cup of tea. Putting the water on to boil, she grabbed a cup and a tea bag, and then went over to sit across the table from him. “I would offer you something to drink, but I don’t have any bagged blood here.”

  Nik held up a hand. “That’s okay, I ate before I came.”

  “Oh.” The teakettle started to whistle, and she got up.

  Leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table, Nik looked down at his laced fingers. “So! Now that you know about me, do you think you can tell me now what really happened that night your sister disappeared?” He listened as she poured the hot water into her cup, and then dunked her teabag a few times.

  When she didn’t come back to the table, he raised his head to find her motionless at the counter. “Emma?”

  He was about to get up to go see what she was about when she finally turned around. Her hands were shaking as she walked back to the table with her tea.

  “I’ve already told you what I remember about that night.” Her tea sloshed around in the cup when she tried
to set it on the table.

  “Here, let me help you.” Nik jumped up and took it from her before she burned herself.

  Emma gave him a funny look, but let him set the tea on the table while she found her chair. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Nik set her tea down and then went to get the agave sweetener out of the pantry. He grabbed a spoon and brought both over to her.

  “How did you know I like agave in my tea?” she asked him suspiciously as she added some to her cup.

  Sitting down again at the other end of the table, Nik told her the truth. “I’ve been watching you.”

  She stopped stirring and her head snapped up. “Watching me? Here? When?”

  Feeling not in the least bit uncomfortable at how this was going to sound, he told her, “I’ve been hanging around outside your house every night for the past week. Watching. Learning your habits…” he shrugged as he trailed off.

  She stared at him a moment, then started stirring again. “Why?”

  “I was trying to discern who you are, what you know…who you know…before I contacted you.” He looked at her, kind of surprised to find nothing but mild curiosity on her face instead of the expected outrage.

  “So you’ve been sitting outside my house every night?”

  He nodded, unashamed.

  “And what did you find out?”

  She seemed genuinely intrigued. He’d expected her to feel intruded upon, offended, creeped out, but he wasn’t sensing any of that.

  “I found out that you work too much, and you come home too late every night. You run into the house, shower, eat, tea, TV and bed. Same time, same order. Every day.” He paused, uncertain if he should continue. Ah, what the hell. “You’re a vegetarian, or maybe just a healthy eater? You wear an old, blue, ratty robe…probably because it’s familiar and it comforts you. Just like the routine you keep.” Then he said quietly, “You don’t like the darkness.” He paused. “Last night I stayed here so long, I was still here when you got up to go jogging. You ran right past me.”

  “I did?” She sounded horrified. “But, I thought you can’t go out in the day?”

  “I can’t. Not the direct sun. But it hadn’t quite come up yet, and I’m really fast.” He grinned at her. “I hightailed it out of here as soon as you got to the road.”

  She smiled slightly, a pensive look coming into her eyes just for a second before she seemed to catch herself. “Your stalking doesn’t seem to have given you any useful information about me, though,” she observed.

  “On the contrary. I’ve learned all I needed to know.” Thankful she wasn’t freaking out on him again, he relaxed and sat back in his chair, stretching out one long leg.

  Raising an eyebrow, he asked her, “One thing though…Marilyn Manson? Really?”

  “I happen to like Marilyn,” she said indignantly, taking a sip of her tea. “Besides,” she murmured, “the music makes it go away.”

  “Makes what go away, Emma?” he prompted softly.

  Chapter 11

  Emma looked down at her hands, wrapped around her warm teacup, and figured there was no dancing around the subject anymore.

  But what if, in spite of his reassurances, he didn’t believe her? What if he thought she was crazy? The things that attacked her and her sister that night don’t exist in real life. She’d spent the last seven years convincing even herself they didn’t, that she’d made them up in her mind to deal with the trauma she’d been dealt. And she’d nearly succeeded.

  Then again, vampires like him weren’t supposed to exist either. Yet there he was, sitting at her kitchen table, real as could be.

  It was time to face reality. Much as she didn’t want to talk about it, if Nik was legit and she wanted to help her sister, there seemed to be no more avoiding it. So, after a long silence, she finally admitted, “The nightmares. The music chases away the nightmares.”

  He sat very still. “What are the nightmares about, Em?”

  Speaking very softly, like she was afraid they’d hear her, she stared out the window as she told him, “They’re always the same. I’m with Keira and we’re leaving the carnival. They hit all the little towns around here every summer, you know. It was a perfect summer night, and we’d had so much fun. We rode all the rides, played all the games, and ate every greasy thing we could find…and for once, no one had bothered us.” A wistful smile played around her mouth as she remembered the last time she’d been with her sister. “It was getting really late, so we'd decided to leave. We were chasing each other through the field, running to our car. We were laughing…”

  She stopped talking, lost in the memories she’d tried so hard to forget, intentionally recalling the details for the first time in years. Her mind recoiled against the memories, trying to go back into self-preservation mode, but she struggled through it.

  “Keira suddenly stopped running, and I turned around to see why. She wasn’t looking at me, but past me toward the tree line where our car was parked. She was white with terror. I thought maybe it was a bear or something; we have them around here sometimes. So I turned around to see for myself…”

  Nik could feel her chaotic emotions, the main one being terror. It radiated from her across the space between them, and hit him right in the center of his chest.

  The urge to go back in time and slowly, painfully, kill whatever it was that was making her feel so scared rushed through him without warning. He didn’t want her to be afraid. Ever. He tried to look away, knowing his eyes would be glowing, full of the primal need for revenge rolling through him. But he couldn’t tear them away from her face.

  She paused, and tears ran down her cheeks as her hands started shaking again.

  Nik’s fangs slid down and his lips pulled back in a sinister snarl, instinctually preparing for battle. Muscles tensed and thickened, squeezing a low growl from deep within his chest.

  Emma must have heard, for her tear-filled eyes found him. She raised her hand to wipe the moisture from her eyes, and before she could clear her vision, he jumped up from the table. She couldn’t see him like this.

  “Be right back.” He rushed down the hall to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. In his current state, he’d forgotten to keep his speed at a human pace. He hoped he hadn’t startled her.

  Nik took several slow, deep breaths and tried to get a grip on himself. The close walls of the small half bath didn’t make it any easier to calm down. Spotting a small window over the tub, he opened it wide.

  What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d finally, finally, gotten her to talk, and he had to go all Neanderthal just because he felt she’d been afraid seven years ago.

  Seven. Years. Ago. When Luukas had disappeared.

  He had to find out the details of her sister’s abduction, if that’s what it was. Hopefully, his little Flash imitation hadn’t startled her too much. She was dealing with enough tonight as it was. Upsetting her more was not going to accomplish anything.

  Also, why had Emma been left alive to bear witness?

  When the news of Luukas’ capture had reached them, debilitating shock had rippled through the Council. There was no way anyone could overpower a Master Vampire, at least no one they’d ever known. And, unfortunately, they definitely knew Leeha. It was impossible for her to have overpowered him on her own.

  Putting two and two together, Nik knew having a witch on her side was the only way Leeha could keep Luuk anywhere he didn’t want to be. A witch, if powerful enough, is the only other being who can overpower a Master Vampire. But this type of ability was rare, and the whereabouts of all of the witches they knew had been accounted for.

  It was only recently that one of the Hunters heard about Keira and brought it to Nik’s attention. They hadn’t even known she existed until just recently when they saw one of the missing person alerts. The Council wasn’t certain how they’d missed knowing about a Moss witch, as they kept careful track of all the witches in their area. But their focus right now was getting Luukas back. Th
ey’d worry about the slip up later.

  So, Nik and Aiden had set out to investigate. They’d discovered Keira was, indeed, a very powerful and practiced witch. And she had a sister who was looking for her, claiming she’d been abducted.

  Had Keira really been taken against her will? Or had she been in on it the entire time?

  Maybe they could’ve answered those questions if they could’ve found any trace of them at all. However, Leeha had pulled the greatest disappearing act she’d ever done.

  Until now.

  One thing was for sure; his Emma was an innocent victim in all of this.

  His Emma. He really needed to stop thinking like that. She wasn’t his. And she never would be.

  Turning on the faucet, he splashed some cold water on his face and checked himself out in the mirror. Back to his normal self, he was eager to return to the kitchen. Hopefully she hadn’t freaked out and withdrawn again. He didn’t know if he’d have the patience or the time to get this story back out of her of her own free will.

  He wasn’t lying earlier when he said he could mess with her head, he totally could. Human minds were easily manipulated when need be. But he also wasn’t lying when he told her he’d rather not do that. He didn’t like playing with people’s heads.

  If the guys ever became aware of how he felt about it, they’d hand him his balls on a platter. It was bad enough they busted him about his feeding habit.

  He made his way back to the table, at a more human-like speed this time. “Sorry about that. I, uh…needed a minute.” He sat down and pushed his hair out of his face. “Please, continue. What was it you saw?”

  When she just continued to stare out the window, he tried to prod her along. “Was it a bear?”

  “A bear?” she repeated. “Um, no. It wasn’t a bear. It was, um…” Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “It was…” She rubbed her temples, like her head hurt just trying to think about it. “It was…I can’t…”

  Dammit, what the hell had happened to her that night? Moving very slowly, he pulled out the chair between them and slid over next to her. He figured this move would go either really good, or really bad, but he wanted to try to comfort her if she would let him.