Randal sighed, the sound distorting my daydream. His hand came up and ran through his thick, dark hair. “I apologize. I should have known how this situation would worry you.”
“It’s okay.” Wasn’t that what I was supposed to say, even if it wasn’t true?
“I wasn’t aware performing the spell would cause Lexy pain as well. That must have been why she hesitated to help.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well.” There was a playful glimmer reflected in his eyes. “I plan to make sure you are very preoccupied tomorrow night, so you will not think about any part of this ordeal.”
I enjoyed this side of him a lot. “Is that a promise, Mr. Vincent?”
Randal’s tongue swept across his bottom lip as he kept his steady gaze on me. “Oh yes, Miss. Blake, it most certainly is.”
Burning desire bloomed through my stomach as the double-edged sword of the situation pressed against my throat once more. How could a woman in her right mind turn down this fine specimen of a man in front of me? I couldn’t. Randal Vincent was my weakness.
A woman sitting at the table beside ours coughed into her hand, interrupting my thoughts. It wasn’t a cough of sickness, but of shock. I didn’t think she had been paying close attention to our conversation, not until that last little bit. When I glanced at her, she was holding a paperback in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Her cheeks were pink, leading me to wonder if the words Randal said managed to turn her on more than the ones she was reading. There was no doubt the book was something from the erotic romance category. The cover was deep red, which I already knew better than anyone represented the color of lust, with an image of a man holding a woman in a tight embrace as ocean water splashed around their bare feet.
“Are you ready to head back?” Randal asked. He hadn’t seemed to notice the woman.
My insides cringed at his question. I wasn’t ready, because that meant Randal would be leaving me for the night, but I grabbed my cup and stood anyway. “Yeah.”
He slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me into his side as we exited the little café. His fingertips pushed the fabric of my T-shirt out of the way so he was able to stroke along the sensitive skin of my hip. Shockwaves of heat flickered through me from the touch. I guessed he was ready to distract me one more time before he went to work. A girl could hope anyway.
Chapter 3
It was a little after ten when Randal left my apartment. I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed having him around until now.
Without his energy filling the space, my entire apartment felt hollow and strange. Was it possible to become accustomed to having someone around so quickly?
I glanced at the book he had tossed on my coffee table earlier. It looked as discarded and abandoned as I felt.
Smoothing my hands through my hair, I let out a loud sigh. It bounced off the walls of my living room, and echoed back to me. My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. It was already nearing eleven fifteen. Randal had been gone for over an hour, and yet here I was, still pining after him.
Dear God, I truly had become one of those girls.
I headed to the kitchen and spun the carousel of coffee and tea until I spotted some tension taming tea I’d forgotten I had. The stuff Lexy had given me was sure to calm me, but it would also knock me into a coma-like sleep within a few minutes. One, I was in no mood to create a happy dreamscape for myself. And two, I wasn’t tired. My mood was growing crabbier by the second as I realized how dependent I had become.
I clutched my tea in my hands and headed back toward the couch. Once I had situated myself, I found my cell and opened my favorite music app. After I tapped play on the most upbeat station I could find, I set my phone in the docking station on my end table along with my tea and reached for my laptop.
One hour, that was all I was giving myself to finish the cover I had been working on. After that, I was heading to bed—alone for the first time in almost a week—to get some sleep. Nearly thirty minutes in, my eyes were growing heavy. Tension tamer tea might not have been the best choice.
Darkness had swallowed me whole. The ground beneath me was rough and cold, while reeking of earth. I wrapped my arms around myself in an effort to hold on to the warmth my body harbored a tad longer. The second I realized I was naked was the exact instant I knew where I was—in the wraith’s clutches.
“How is this possible?” I whispered into the darkness.
“You didn’t drink the tea,” a familiar voice called out.
No! I was not back in the dreamscape the wraith had created. There was no way possible. I had drank the tea, hadn’t I? I remembered making the calming tea and working on my cover. No! I must have fallen asleep!
My heart raced against my rib cage as I glanced around the darkness surrounding me, searching for where the wraith was or a way out. I couldn’t see a single thing. Where were the pulsing red lights when I needed them?
As if on cue, the red lights illuminated the space around me in their flickering glow. I narrowed my eyes, trying to zero in on the backdrop to this nightmare. It was different from the others. Mountains. A creepy shack perched on a hill a few yards away from me. Twisted, bare-branched trees formed a thick forest around the area. The ground beneath me was nothing besides crystals made of frozen dirt and hard-packed soil. And five feet away stood the wraith with his back to me. He was staring at a large ice-covered pond in front of him.
I stared at him, unblinking, fearful if I made even the slightest noise it would break his concentration, and he would turn his attention toward me. My eyes trailed along the length of him. Something was different, something was off, because he was… more.
The time before, there had been a vapor-like sense about him, and the time before that, he had harbored an oily, liquid quality. Now, there was something whole about him.
While he was still created of shadows and darkness, which seemed to swirl and shift, sections of him were more solid. The outline of his clothes and build was more evident, and I wondered if when he did turn to look at me, if he would actually have a face. Before there had been hollow sockets where eyes were supposed to be, and a mouth that moved with lips made of smoke.
How was he gaining the strength to do all this though? I hadn’t been feeding as frequently as I was sure he needed to achieve such a thing, and Lexy had given me the tea to make the energy break down much slower. I assumed the same applied to any type of energy I would gain he might be able to use for such things, but maybe I had been wrong. Was it possible the type of energy I gathered from a feeding was different from the type I gained when Randal and I had sex?
I remembered having this conversation with the wraith once before, but I had foolishly thought the tea would be my loophole. A gasp slipped past my parted lips. I cupped my hand over my mouth to trap the noise, but it was too late. The wraith was already turning to pin me in place with his vicious glare.
“Have you missed me, sweet succubus?” His voice was condescending and cruel, but his face sent cold shivers along my spine.
Sharp lines, sunken cheeks, and a set of eyes that were no longer hollow and empty stared at me. I was unsure of their actual color, mainly because of the red pulsing light reflected in them, but I could quickly spot rage brightening them. He had pale skin that seemed stretched too tight across the bones of his face, and dark hair that blew across his forehead in a breeze that was unfelt by me.
“Well? Have you?” He arched a dark brow at the same time his lips curved into a smirk. Lips, they were full and normal, surrounded by a scruffy goatee. “I’ve missed you.”
I squeezed myself tighter and shook my head. “No, I haven’t missed you.”
“Honesty.” He started toward me with his hands crammed into the pockets of what I assumed to be pants. While I could make out details of his face, I couldn’t yet about the rest of him. I assumed this was a good thing, because it meant he hadn’t reached his fullest power yet. “I admire that about you. You’re a strong one; stronger
and smarter than you give yourself credit for.” He made a tsking noise with his mouth that irked me.
Inhaling deeply, I gathered my courage to stand. While I knew he had seen me naked before, considering every freaking time he trapped me in these creepy dreamscapes I seemed to be, that didn’t mean I was comfortable with it.
When I finally stood, his eyes slipped over my exposed areas. There was a glimmer of appraisal flickering across his face as he continued in his torturously slow walk toward me. I took a step back and glanced around.
“Where are we?” My lips trembled. Why did every place he brought me have to be so cold? Was it because he was cold? My mind sifted through random knowledge surrounding what I knew of ghosts and wraiths. There was always a temperature drop in the movies whenever one was present. Maybe there was some truth to that theory. “What is this place?”
“You don’t like it? I assumed you would enjoy the change of scenery.” Mock hurt darkened his features further.
I licked my lips and pulled my shoulders closer to my ears to fight off the chill stemming from him. The closer to me he came, the colder I felt. “I didn’t say that.”
“This is my home.” A sly grin twisted his lips. “Well, it was, I guess I should say. Now, it’s a figment of my imagination, right?” Something about his words and tone struck me as odd.
Was that a trick question? He seemed to be toying with me. Could this place be real? Or was it a figment of his imagination?
A group of black birds flew into view. One of them landed a few feet away from me. Its beady eyes shined red in the pulsating light as it stared at me.
“Real or not real, Kenna? You tell me,” the wraith muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for me to hear, as though even in this nightmarish dreamscape he could read my thoughts and was testing me. “Go.”
Go? Was he talking to me? I lifted my eyes to glance at him; he was staring at me. His hand slipped free from his pocket and moved in a swift shooing motion, leaving behind a trail of the dark vapor.
My brows pulled together and I opened my mouth to ask where exactly he wanted me to go, when a bird flew at me. My arms lifted to cover my face out of pure instinct as I blocked its attempts to peck at me. Even over the flap of wings and the screeching of the bird, I could still make out the vicious laugh of the wraith as he watched on.
“Real or not real, Kenna?” he teased. “Do you have an answer now?”
Everything around me faded in and out. One second I could feel the bird’s sharp beak pecking at the top of my hand, and the next it was gone. My arms fell to my sides as the scenery around me began to melt. The wetness of it dripped against my skin, smelling oddly of chamomile.
“No!” The wraith lunged for me. “I’m not done with you yet!” His face twisted into a venomous expression that sent panic slicing through my insides.
I flinched as his hand reached for me, but before he could grasp me, I was gone.
I woke to the remnants of my tension taming tea in my lap. A laugh bellowed from me as I realized that had been the chamomile smell I noticed. Spilling my cup had woken me. Nothing in the dreamscape melted, it was my subconscious telling me I had spilled something on myself. Either that, or else the two worlds—reality and fiction—really were colliding.
Chapter 4
Once I cleaned myself up, I drank the tea Lexy had given me and ventured off to my room. The wraith couldn’t touch me now, and I was exhausted. My bed seemed big without anyone else in it, but I was too tired to dwell on the thought for long.
The shrill sound of my cell woke me after what felt like minutes, but when I opened my eyes, I noticed it was daylight out. I rubbed the grit from them, wondering how long I had been asleep. My cell went to voicemail, reminding me why I had woke, and I bolted out of bed. The thought that it could have been Lexy calling to tell me she had found another spell had my heart racing and me lunging across the room.
It was only Bree.
Frowning, I decided I would call her back later. I tapped on my text messages, wondering if a new text had come through from Lexy, and I just hadn’t heard it. Nothing. Had I gotten her number right? I searched for my purse to dig out her business card and check. It was the right one. Why the hell couldn’t she respond, even if it was with something she knew I wouldn’t want to hear? A new text came through then, but it was Bree again. She was being pushy today.
Call me when you can. I have something funny to tell you.
Something funny? While I could use a good laugh, nothing Bree thought was funny ever truly was. It was always juicy gossip or a story that was actually pretty damn cruel, but now that she had called me, and sent a text, I had to answer her with something. If I didn’t, then this would be happening nearly every hour until she became panicked, and then it would be every few minutes until I picked up. I hit call and tucked my cell into the crook of my neck.
“Hey, I was waiting for you to call me back.” Bree answered after the first ring.
“So, what’s up?” I started toward the kitchen to rummage through the fridge for something small to eat.
“Okay, so…you remember how my house got broken into while I was visiting you?”
“Yeah…” How could I forget? Her surprise visit had put my trip to Avalon Bay to search for Lexy on hold. While I would never wish for something as horrible as her house being broken into, I had to admit there was a slight level of relief that had trickled through me when I learned of it. Lying to Bree or coming up with a believable reason for her to cut her trip short had never ranked high on my to-do list. Her house being broken into while both she and her fiancé, Kellen, were away had been the best thing to happen to me in a while.
“What about it? Did they catch the person who did it?”
“Well, no… but some new evidence showed up.”
Her tone piqued my interest. I grabbed some eggs from the fridge and set them on the counter. “Like what?”
“A book of matches from a nightclub you might know.”
“Oh really?” I hated when she tried to play the cryptic card. I always thought it was her idolizing my mother, who was the queen of cryptic.
“Yup.” When she didn’t elaborate further, I assumed it was because she was counting in her head to a certain number to drag the suspense out.
Jesus, I was crabby.
I bent to retrieve a pan from the cabinet beside my stove. “Does this club happen to have a name?”
“Red River.”
My heart stopped and then restarted with a ferociously hard beat. Her words had gained the reaction she had been shooting for. I was shocked.
Why would there be a book of matches from Red River at Bree’s house? If the place had been open for years, I could say it was a wacky coincidence, but it hadn’t. Red River had been open for barely a month. Then, I remembered there was more than one. I vaguely remembered Sage mentioning there was one in L.A. as well. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I found it mixed in with some crap that got strewn around my living room floor. I knew it wasn’t Kellen’s or mine, because there isn’t one anywhere near here. Besides, we don’t go to places like that anymore.”
The level of annoyance in her voice left me imagining her rolling her eyes. There must be trouble in paradise, but I was too focused on the book of matches, wondering how in the hell it had gotten there, to do my best friend duties and ask if they were doing all right. Besides, I was sure it was the stress of the break-in and their upcoming wedding taking a toll on them.
“Anyway, isn’t that the club you went to—the one Randal owns?”
I cleared my throat, hoping my voice would sound normal when I spoke. It was silly for me to sound guilty, right? This was just a freak coincidence. Had to be. “Yeah. It is.”
“I thought I remembered you mentioning the name.” She crunched on something in my ear. “I wonder how the person who trashed my place got it. I mean, that club just opened, didn’t it? Like a month or so ago?”
There wasn’t any ske
pticism directed toward me in her words. I could tell this was only her thinking out loud, but it still didn’t ease my nerves. I leaned against my kitchen counter and thought carefully about what I should say next. “Was it for the one here in North Carolina, or the L.A. location?”
“He owns more than one?”
My muscles relaxed. It had to be for the other location. It was a crazy coincidence that it fell out of the guy’s pocket. “Yeah.”
“Dang girl, he must be loaded!” I could hear her shuffling something around. “It’s for the NC one. The address is printed on the back.”
My heart dropped to my toes. How the hell had it gotten there? What was I supposed to say now? Actually, why the hell did I feel obligated to say anything? Randal wouldn’t have broken into Bree’s house. Or would he? Sparks of anger mixed with tendrils of doubt that he would do such a thing spiraled through me. There had to be a rational answer for this. I just needed to think of one. “Oh, well sometimes clubs send out promotional packets filled with various items before an opening. Maybe your robber is an avid clubber and gets access to crazy stuff like that.” I attempted to go for a light tone, comical and humorous, but wasn’t sure I had pulled it off until I heard her chuckle. When had I become so good at being deceitful?
“Probably. Heck, robbing places is how he most likely gets the money for his door fees and drinks.” She crunched on more of whatever she was eating. “Sleezeball. So, how have things been going?”
I exhaled slowly, grateful we were switching topics, but still unable to believe the situation. “Not bad. I was off yesterday, and I’m off again tonight.”
“Got any plans with that smokin’ guy of yours?”
My lips curved into a smile, but my heart was still pounding from the bomb she dropped on me. I riffled through memories from around that time. Randal was here, in Newvale with us. He couldn’t have dropped the matches at her place. “Yeah, actually I do. He’s supposed to be picking me up later for a surprise of some sort.”
Succubus Kiss The Complete Series Page 35