by Pace, Pepper
His eyes dropped. He stood and looked past me. “I’m going to start driving over.”
“Already? But it’s so early.”
“I know, but I need to think.” He placed a gentle kiss on my lips.
He was almost out the door when a dawning realization hit me—Paul wanted to think about leaving.
I was at his side in a flash. I gripped his arm. “You’re thinking about leaving me, aren’t you?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I think it would be for the best if I went away for a—“
I smacked him hard enough to break a human’s neck! He touched his cheek as if I had done little more than tap him.
“You bastard!” I yelled, trembling. “You goddamn, bastard! Am I a game to you?”
Paul bit his lips and looked at the floor.
“Don’t you know how hard it was when you left?” I cried. When he didn’t answer, I threw my hands up and stepped back. “If you want to leave, then leave.” I shook my head and walked out the door.
I felt his hand grip my arm. He pulled me to him. “Come here, Kim. I’m not going to leave you, baby.” He wrapped his arms around me as I stood stiffly against him. “I’m never going to leave you.” He kissed my forehead, the top of my hair, and the bridge of my nose, and my anger slowly melted. “I’m sorry,” he murmured against my temple. “I love you.”
I brought my hands up and held on to him. I felt tears slipping down my cheek. I swiped them away because I didn’t want to be that woman who cries whenever a man does something stupid and thoughtless. I gasped when I looked at my wet fingers.
Paul lifted my chin and looked down into my face. With his thumb he touched one of my tears. “Kim …”
My tears were clear.
They were no longer blood.
“What’s happening to me?” I moaned.
He examined his wet finger. “I don’t know, but do you think …”
I shook my head.
I didn’t want him to jinx it by saying it out loud.
Was it possible that a Vampire dead over a year could become human again?
CHAPTER 14
Paul wiped away my tears and kissed me.
“What is happening?” I said, barely above a whisper.
He shook his head. “We’ll figure this out. The meat, the tears, your creature—we’ll figure it all out. But baby, I want you to know that the last thing I ever thought I’d do was to hurt you. When I was with the others, I didn’t have any feelings of aggression toward them.”
My body stiffened. “The others?”
He shook his head quickly. “I never had sex with a Werewolf. I haven’t made love in over a year.” He shrugged and stared into my eyes. “I knew what I wanted.” He released me, went back to the desk, and began straightening up documents.
Damnit. He had waited for me, and I hadn’t waited for him.
“Paul,” I said. “There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about you. To be in love with more than one man is really a fucked-up thing. When I’m with Tony, I’m haunted by Alexis and missing you. When I’m with Alexis, I’m worried about Tony and you.”
“I only think of you,” he said. “I only worry about you.”
“I know that,” I said, thinking that I was a whore, a slut, a bad woman who did bad things.
“Kim,” he said, “I know you’re not going to stop having feelings for the others. I don’t expect that. And I know that you are more than just a human. I can’t have human expectations when we have a superhuman relationship. Your succubus means that there will always be passion and desire whenever you feed. But more than that, I think it means that you love those who surround you with much more intensity.”
I listened, quietly, the stinging in my eyes receding.
Paul’s gaze on me never shifted. “I am human, a souped-up human, but I’m still human. And I only want one woman. That’s it. You’re succubus and your desires are not controlled by any human will. You have a strong physical and mental connection to three men.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine how hard that must be for you. But I have to deal with that if I want to be married to you. And I want to be married to you more than anything in the world. So I’m saying to you that I don’t care. I have you. The important part of you.”
This man wanted me despite my faults. He surprised me, he always had. It warmed me and made me feel alive. I felt the truth in his words in my very soul. “I want a monogamous relationship, too, Paul. I want all of my …” I searched for the right words. “All of my desire to be focused on one person at a time. Not three.”
Paul shook his head. “Kim, it doesn’t matter, okay? I’ve felt the succubus. What we want may not matter.”
He was right. I had no control of my desire, only of how I acted on those needs.
I looked at him wide-eyed. “And you really are okay with that?”
Paul nodded. “As long as I’m your husband and I’m the first in your life. If the succubus causes you to … slip.” His gaze wavered but refocused on me. “Just don’t fall in love with a fourth. I don’t think I can deal with another love in your life.”
“I can’t either.”
He looked at a document and picked it up. “Mara brought over our marriage license.” He looked at me with wide gray eyes. “Monica’s a notary. Should we have her come down and sign it now?”
I came to him and put my arms around his waist, leaning in to him comfortably. “Yes. Let’s do that.”
His arms wrapped around me loosely. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”
Was that his fear, that I would rather be married to one of my other loves and I was stuck with him in their absence?
“Baby, we are bound,” I said. “It has never broken even after all this time. You are my first. It’s already done. And yes, I want to make it legal, even if you can’t legally be married to a dead woman.”
He laughed. “You’re the least dead woman I’ve ever known.”
I kissed him, and he closed his eyes and kissed me tenderly.
Paul lifted his head and frowned. He seemed to be listening for something. I heard it, too—footsteps on the front porch.
Paul released me and started out of the room for the door. “Are you expecting anyone?” he asked as I followed him.
“No, but it’s probably one of the girls.”
The doorbell rang, which blew that theory. The girls never needed to ring, and each of them had her own key.
Paul looked at his watch as he continued toward the front door. “It’s almost one o’clock. Do you get guests this time of night?”
“No.” I kept up with his long stride. “Not unless it’s a meeting day, and those are always scheduled.”
Without looking at me he brushed me back with his arm. “Let me answer it. You’re getting a security camera as soon as possible!”
I let him lead but continued to stay two steps behind him. The doorbell rang again, and Paul looked out the peephole. He froze, staring at God only knew what.
“Who is it?” I asked.
He seemed to remember I was there. He glanced at me over his shoulder, his face pale. “Back up.” He pointed to a spot across the room. “Over there. Hurry!”
I did what he said, too curious to be offended by his command. It better not be Amanda, Paul’s ex. She had slapped me the first time she’d shown up at my doorstep looking for Paul. That was her one and only freebie. Vampire or not, I would whip Amanda’s ass if she came up in here starting trouble!
Paul opened the door and stood there silently. I couldn’t see who was on the stoop because of where I was standing.
Monica came to the top of the stairs to see who was at the door. Her long blond hair was pulled up on top of her head in a ponytail, and she wore capris and a sleeveless silk blouse. She was about to retreat back to her quarters once she saw that Paul had the door, but something made her stop.
Paul opened the door wide and allowed whoever was on the porch to enter. He st
ill hadn’t said a word.
A tall, thin man entered wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat. The brim was so wide that I couldn’t see his face. He wore a trench coat. Who the hell wore trench coats these days? And who was it?
“Paul,” the man said.
I could see the man’s severely deformed face, and it scared the holy shit out of me. His face was covered in coarse black and gray hair, and his eyes squinted too close to his nose. That nose wasn’t human. That nose was the snout of a canine.
He was a Werewolf, but not like Lon Chaney or Michael Jackson from “Thriller.” This man was utterly deformed.
Monica inhaled sharply. The man glanced up at her but hadn’t yet seen me. “Did you think we would not find you?” His accent was so heavy that I had a hard time understanding him.
“That’s exactly what I thought.” Paul crossed his arms over his chest. “Who else is here?”
“Many,” the man said.
I could hear the inherent threat, even with the accent.
“Well, you made a long trip for nothing,” Paul said. “I’m home, and I’m staying.”
“You owe us a debt,” the man said. “We’ve come to collect.”
“Paul?” I asked.
Paul glanced at me, willing me to stay back.
But now the man was looking at me. He appraised me before returning his attention back to Paul. “You may bring your women. But you will come.”
“Yosef, I’m sorry for the lie,” Paul said. “But I’m not going back there. I needed Lycan blood to protect my family, this family.”
Yosef stepped to the side, and three more men entered the house. They looked around, and I could see they were impressed. Each of them was less deformed than Yosef but still not normal in any sense of the word.
“Shit,” Monica cursed under her breath. “Kim,” she thought at me urgently. “There are three cars out there and at least twelve other werewolves in the yard.”
One of the new werewolves watched Monica with open desire. I glared at him. Another leered at me, not impressed by my fierce expression.
Paul shook his head. “I’m not going back with you. If you think you’re going to take me against my will, I’ll just come right back here.”
The four of them laughed.
“We need your seed,” a darker, shorter man said. His English was much better. He didn’t have the hair on his face, but he still possessed the long snout and sharp teeth with eyes that were too close together. Damn, they were ugly. “We don’t need your willingness,” he continued. “It is all the same to us if we keep you chained in a cellar while our women have their way with you.” He stroked his crotch while watching Monica. “You can bring your women. They can have our babies and make us more human again.”
Monica’s eyes popped.
I looked at Paul. Vampires can’t bear children, and if they didn’t know that … “They don’t know,” I said.
Paul shook his head. “I couldn’t tell, remember? Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t.”
The blood oath. I had willed him long ago never to tell anyone about me.
Yosef looked from Paul to me. “The brown one speaks in code. We will have you all. You have shown that you cannot be trusted, but your blood is strong, stronger than we have ever seen. But these two are strong, also. I can feel it. We will have you all.”
Oh, you will have something, all right …
My brow arched. “Yosef, is it? If you want my blood in order to refresh your inbred family, then I’m sorry because it’s not going to happen. I can’t have babies because I’m dead.”
Yosef dismissed me either because he thought I was talking gibberish or he didn’t care about my silly little words.
They moved once again to the side, and this time there were a dozen men in my entranceway. They were communicating in some hidden way.
We were being ambushed.
“It can be easy, or it can be difficult,” a taller man said. He was shaped strangely beneath his clothes. I believed his body was more wolf than human. His face, while still ugly, was at least human.
I didn’t like being dismissed so easily by Yosef. “Okay,” I said. “I don’t think you understand. Do you want to know why Paul’s blood is so strong? Because he’s my blood donor, and I am a Vampire. So, you can’t have him because he was mine first.”
The werewolves began to laugh. Those who could understand what I was saying gave a translation for the others, and then they laughed, too.
Paul had retreated until his back was almost against the banister of the stairwell. Those bastards laughed so long that some of them doubled over.
“You Americans and your need to role-play,” Yosef said. “You want to be monsters so you dress up and run around Europe like Dracula, drinking blood and thinking that makes you a monster!” Yosef’s eyes glistened. “Let me show you what a real monster is.” Yosef swung his head, and it instantly turned into that of a beast. His mouth was fucking huge and filled with teeth, his head had doubled in size, and his growl thundered across the room.
I’m sure that in another place, this exhibition would have made the average human shit his or her pants.
But this was my house.
This shit wasn’t happening in my house.
I sucked in a deep breath and hissed. The sound was like a pit of vipers, and it carried throughout the room. My teeth dropped, and my muscles thickened. I felt the tendons in my neck bunch together, and I knew I no longer looked like a human. I had gone, what Paul called, all hissy-faced.
The werewolves quieted instantly.
“What trick is this?” Yosef asked. “You turned her into one of us.”
Paul shook his head. “No.” But he couldn’t say more because of the blood oath. His brain wouldn’t let him.
“I’m a Vampire, I told you,” I hissed.
The werewolves seemed to understand there was real danger. They came to attention and glared at us as if we had invaded their territory instead of the other way around.
“You are in my home, uninvited,” I said. “You’ve threatened us, you’ve insulted us, and if you don’t leave I will be forced to kill you.”
“Perhaps we misjudged you,” Yosef said. “But three against …” He spread his hands and gestured to the others in the room.
“Julie! I need you. Bring Ran and as many others as you can. Hurry!”
“Tige! I’m in trouble. I need you.”
“Frank, Tony, Keada, Cyrene, Kaniji—to my home! We’re being attacked!”
The air in the room seemed to thicken. Anyone with a sense of the supernatural could tell that something huge was about to happen.
Before their eyes, Vampires began to appear. They dotted the room out of nowhere. Julie was first and didn’t have to ask any questions. The sight of the roomful of werewolves was self-explanatory. Ran was a step behind her along with both of their Vampire assistants. They all stared at the werewolves, who were busy turning here and there trying to protect themselves on all sides from attack.
Tige appeared already with dropped teeth. He had four Vampires with him. He glanced at me to make sure I was okay then focused on the obvious threat.
Tony was next. He had dropped teeth as well. He mimicked Tige by making sure that I was okay then he too focused on the werewolves. The rest of the Council appeared, minus teeth. Frank’s expression was calm and slightly amused. Even Kaniji appeared, though she was dressed too sharp and looked too perfect to throw down in battle. All in all, fourteen Vampires appeared. We outnumbered the werewolves in the house, but there was no telling how many were outside.
Yosef looked sick.
“Yosef,” Paul said. “You need to leave. I apologize for how this went down. I’m sorry I misled you. But I won’t have a child of mine growing up with this affliction. This was my choice. I won’t sentence a child to it.”
Nobody budged.
“If you don’t leave now,” I said, “we will all have a feast—a feast of Werewolf meat.”
&nbs
p; Half of the Vampires’ eyes gleamed in anticipation. If they were like me, they hadn’t known of the existence of werewolves either. Some of them were bored enough to try something new, and Werewolf blood would certainly be a rare delicacy.
Yosef’s people backed out of the door. Yosef went, too, but he gave me one last lingering look. When they were all safely outside, Paul shut the door. The closed door did not keep out the sound of their animal howls of anger. I shivered. Paul was looking at the floor in deep thought. When he looked up all eyes were on him.
“Did you just say ‘Werewolf?’” Frank asked. “I thought they were circus freaks. You can’t be serious.”
“They are werewolves,” I said.
Everyone in the room began talking at once.
“Why the hell were they here?” Tony said, and the room grew quiet.
Paul looked at him. “Hello, Tony. Long time no see.”
“I heard you were back,” Tony said. “I just hadn’t heard that you were a Werewolf. I see you got your wish, to be stronger than a human. It remains to be seen if your Werewolf is stronger than our Vampire.”
Paul’s eyes gleamed yellow, and something was changing subtly in his face. “Yes. That remains to be seen.” They squared off at a distance.
Tige came to me and put his hand on mine. “I had heard that you were healed.” His light brown eyes absorbed the sight of me. I smiled at his pleasure. Tige was a Rasta with the dreads and the Jamaican accent, the whole nine yards. “You are so beautiful.” He hugged me for the first time since he was imprisoned. He no longer had to feel guilt because of my injuries. “Alexis did this for you so I will always be in his debt.”
I smiled and released him.
“Well, if your emergency has ended,” Kaniji said, “I have a Council meeting to prepare for.” Then she disappeared.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming,” I said.
Julie was stroking Monica’s back, Ran was introducing himself to Paul, and Tony was staring hard at me. He looked at the ring on my hand, and I had to stop myself from hiding it.
Tony strolled over to me. “So I heard correctly. Paul is your husband.”