by Renee George
I slowed my breathing and did as he asked, while mentally preparing a spell if the situation when south. Like if he attacked my jugular.
This close, I could smell his cologne, masculine and woodsy. The pleasant scent compounded the problem with my throbby bits, and I worried I was going have an embarrassing orgasm if the man didn't find a way to let me go. After a few more moments, I watched the red bleed away in his eyes to reveal the gold once again. He dropped my hand like it was a hot potato.
Baz looked completely unnerved. "I don't think we should touch again until we figure out what's going on."
I pointed a finger back and forth between us. "Congratulations," I told him. "We're finally on the same page."
Chapter Four
"These are not all Malachim," Baz said after several hours of studying the mish-mash of markings. "If you look at these here, the ones that look like that have little triangles on the end of them are from a long-dead language called Akkadian."
Reluctantly, I moved closer to him. "It's called cuneiform, right? I mean the wedge style."
He gave me an assessing glance. "Yes, that's right. Mesopotamian in origin."
"Well, don't look so surprised. I'm not all brawn and no brains." I wiggled my fingers at the ancient lettering. "Do you know what any of it means?"
Baz gave me a sour look. "Unfortunately, I do. I'm afraid this is a vampire trap, not created by our current enemies, probably, but definitely triggered by them."
"What kind of trap?"
"The kind meant to keep us from ever escaping."
I gulped. "I magicked my way in. I will magic my way out."
"I'm afraid, love, the proverbial writing is on the wall. There is no way out."
"First," I said. "I'm not your love. Second, soooo cliché. Third, where are all the rabid vamps who proceeded our arrival or the piles of their bones? Whoever pulled clean up duty has a door that goes both ways."
"Hmmm." He tapped his chin and nodded. "Fair point."
"I'm glad you approve of logic."
"We could be the first to be ensnared here," he said.
I glared at him. "Be a problem solver, Baz." I was tired and hungry, both things making me snappish. "There has to be a way out."
"I am problem-solving." He bristled with irritation
I yawned, unable to fight it back.
Baz took his jacket off and placed it on the floor. "We've been at this for hours," he said. "Why don't you take a nap?"
"You take a nap." I countered.
"I'm a vampire," he said. "I don't require sleep, just like I don't require air." He gave me a meaningful look. "But you do. The more you yawn, the more you speak, the more oxygen you're going to eat up in here. I may eventually find a way out for us, but not before you suffocate."
"Do you know how much time I have left?" Because I was willing to risk zapping my ass into a block of concrete to avoid a slow death.
"I'm not sure about the math," he said. "But if I had to guess I'd say maybe a day at the most."
"It's already been four hours. I think I should just chance magic."
"It won't work," Baz said. "There are wards in place to prevent any escape. Even by magical means."
"But I managed to pin you to the wall, so it's not like magic doesn't work in here."
Baz nodded grimly, and I had to admit that the vampire's serious look, the way he fanged his lower lip as he contemplated our possible demise--mine before his, of course--was pretty damn sexy. It didn't hurt that his chest, without the suit jacket on, was simply spectacular. I contemplated what it would be like if we practiced impaling each other, me with a silver spike and him with his... Dear Goddess, some stop me. "I think the lack of oxygen is already setting in," I said.
Baz laughed. "You know, it's perfectly normal to be hot for me without it being a side effect of suffocation."
"What makes you think I'm hot for you?" I asked with a little too much aplomb.
"Vampires, like Shifters, have heightened senses."
"If you say you can smell my v-jay, I'm going to punch you in the family jewels."
He laughed again. "I would never be so crass." He gave me a knowing grin.
My fist shot out toward his package, but he grabbed my wrist before I could connect. Once again, I was filled with heat and lust. My breaths came quicker, shorter, then deeper as my whole body was electrified by his touch.
His eyes began to turn again, and he pushed me back. "Stop doing that," he said.
"I'm not doing anything," I told him as I regained my composure. "That's all you, dude."
"You say you don't want sex, but my own hunger is being overwhelmed by yours."
"I don't have a hunger," I denied fiercely. "How would you like to be pinned against that wall again?"
"That's another thing," he said. "Why does your magic work on me?"
"Uhm, because I'm a powerful witch. Duh?" The nerve of him! "Do you actually think Baba Yaga would okay a security team that isn't up to the task of protecting his stupid brother?"
He glared at me, red bleeding back into his eyes. "It doesn't seem to me like either one of us will be protecting my king anytime in the near future."
"Kiss my lily-white ass," I said. I raised my hand and gathered my magic, because fuck this asshole, I was so getting out of here, with or without him. I focused on the yard in front of the secret cabin and hoped like hell I didn't land in the middle of a tree trunk.
"Don't--" Baz started.
But he wasn't the boss of me. I grabbed his sleeve, avoiding skin to skin contact, and said, "I hope you have good insurance."
The air around felt as if we'd stepped into a sauna and someone had cranked up the temperature dial to five hundred degrees.
"Goddess," I croaked as Baz yanked me against his body and protectively wrapped his arms around me as he threw us to ground. His natural coolness was the only thing that kept my flesh from baking on my bones in the few seconds the inferno raged.
When it finally stopped, Baz, his eyes practically glowing with ruby menace, said, "Are you okay?"
I could hear the concern in his voice, which surprised me, considering I'd braced myself for a reaming of epic proportions. I nodded, my gaze meeting his. "What happened?"
"The translocation spell triggered one of the wards."
"Fuuu-ck."
"Yep," he agreed. "Now, do you want the good news or the bad news."
"Good news," I said.
"The heat probably consumed most of the air left in the room. You probably only have about three hours until it's completely gone."
My tongue was so dry I couldn't swallow. "What's the bad news?"
"I'm afraid I used up all my energy reserves when I lowered my body temperature to protect you from the scorching air."
"And that means?"
"You won't have to worry about suffocating if we don't find a way out soon, because the blood-hunger will force me to kill you before the air runs out."
I shivered, my cheeks feverish from the where the heated blast had grazed them. I'd done this to him, to me. He'd tried to warn me, but I'd been too stubborn to listen, and now, we would both pay the price. "I'll use my magic and make more air."
"You can't," he said. I saw a ward that prevents food, air, and water from entering this place magically. You might end up cutting your time even shorter."
"Great." I blinked up at him. "I'm sorry."
He nodded, his face more solemn than I'd seen it all evening. "So am I."
Without thinking, I pressed my palm to his cheek. A different kind of warmth speared through my body, the kind that brought pleasure instead of pain. "Why can't I feel your magic? Or any magic, for that matter?" The wards should have set my nerve-endings on edge from the moment we'd arrived, but just like back in the woods, I didn't feel anything. At least, not anything unpleasant.
"I don't know what you mean," Baz said.
I noticed then that the color in his eyes wasn't static. Instead, it constantly swirled like
a whirlpool. I was fascinated by the way threads of gold occasionally broke through the scarlet. "I have always been sensitive to magic," I told him. "I can feel it in the most minute of creatures, so much so, that I had to learn how to block my ability most of the time. It's insanely uncomfortable when I let down my internal shields, but I can pinpoint where a source of magic is coming from better than any GPS system. But since I've met you, I can't feel a damn thing." Which wasn't completely accurate since I had, without realizing until now, spread my legs, and his hardness was currently pressed against my jean-clad aching nub of fun.
"Mmm," Baz said. His finger had found their way to my hair. He gently pushed strands away from my face. "You have the most beautiful brown eyes," he said.
I moved against him, not on purpose, mind you. I'm pretty sure there was a cramp in my thigh or something of that sort, but the minor repositioning fed that throbbing bundle of pure need.
"How long before you go feral?" I asked him.
"You keep moving like that and it's going to be sooner than either of us would like," he said.
"Right," I told him as I silently ordered my libido to stand down. I dropped my hand from his face and waited for him to remove his body from mine before shimmying away. "Now, what were you saying about my magic? Why wouldn't it work on you? Are vampires null? Is that why I can't sense your level of power?"
"Vampires are dead," Baz said. "Magic doesn't work on the dead." He furrowed his brow. "At least, it shouldn't."
"Maybe you're not as dead as you think?"
"My father took my life in 1891 and turned me into his child of night," he said. "I may walk and talk, but I don't need to breathe, my heart doesn't beat, my flesh is in stasis. I am as dead, or as undead, as they come."
"Do you poop?" I asked.
His eyes widened for a moment before he finally chuckled. "That's not something I do anymore either."
Now I felt sorry for him. "That sucks. A good poop is one of life's precious joys."
He laughed again. "Being a vampire has some perks."
"What about peeing?"
"The excess water from the blood has to go somewhere."
"Right." I nodded. "I knew I couldn't animate a corpse or affect a ghost, but I guess I never considered a vampire dead because you all look so..." I waved my hand at him.
"Handsome, charming, desirable," he filled in.
"I was going to say alive." But he hadn't been wrong with his choice of adjectives. Baz Delgados was making me reassess everything I thought I knew. "Okay. If you're dead, and I can use magic on you, what does that make me?"
"If I had to guess," he said. "I'd go with a necromancer."
Chapter Five
"I am not a necromancer!" I was up on my feet now. "That's forbidden magic, and I wouldn't never risk witch-jail just raise the freaking dead."
"Necromancy isn't natural for witches," Baz said. "That’s why it's forbidden. But there have been a few documented cases of natural-born necromancers."
"Well, that isn't me," I told him. "I come from a long line of very boring, very normal witches and warlocks. I think if I had any flesh animating genes in my ancestry, it would have come up at the dinner table." I hesitated. Maybe the reason my parents had been so happy to get rid of me is because they knew they knew I was a freak of nature. I shook my head. "Someone would have told me."
"Not if they didn't know."
I punctuated my speech by jabbing my chest with my thumb. "I would have known!" I took a few steps away from Baz to catch my breath. I shook the front of my shirt, trying to get some kind of breeze against my hot skin, but there was nothing. "Shit, I'm using up all the oxygen in the room."
"I can bite you," Baz said.
"And that helps me how?"
"Once I bite you, I can mesmerize you into taking tiny sips of breath every few seconds. Enough to keep you alive for a while longer."
I'd heard about a vampire named Hugo who'd bitten a mesmerized a bunch of warlocks into doing his bidding, along with some honey badgers, which is just gross. He'd been working with a bitter witch, Zelda's mom, who was using the vampire to help her steal power from her own daughter. Which was even more disgusting. My parents might have not wanted me around, but they weren't quite the jackholes the Shifter Wanker's mother had been. The point is, these warlocks had reported doing having no memory of the terrible things they'd been made to do while under the vampire's control.
My waning distrust returned. "Trying to keep your snack fresh, eh?"
He shrugged. "The bite will help me, as well. If I take a little blood now, it can keep the hunger at bay for a while."
"Or," I said, "Since my magic works on you. I can just cast a spell that reshapes you into a legless, armless lump of vampire-goo. Or I could cast a spell that turned your fangs into marshmallows." I wasn't sure I could do either of those things, because transmogrification wasn't in my normal wheelhouse, but I was willing to give it a witchy-good try.
Baz grimaced. "I'd prefer to keep my appendages, all of them, where they are."
"And I'd prefer to not be a vampire's last meal."
"Then let me bite you," he said with a reasonable tone. "It's a solution for both of us to stave off death and hunger until we can figure out how to get out here."
"I thought you said there was no way out," I said suspiciously. "Are you just trying to give me hope so I'll offer you my neck?"
He shrugged. "It can be a wrist. It doesn't have to be the neck."
It petrified me that his bare skin against mine had sent waves of lust through me. What would happen if I let him puncture me with his fangs? "I'm afraid," I said, the truth popping out before I could stop it.
He closed the distance between us, his irises swirling faster than before. His voice was soft and hypnotic. "My saliva has a mild analgesic property. I promise it won't hurt."
"That's not what I'm afraid of," I told him.
"What do you mean?"
I wasn't sure how to explain it, but I tried my best. "You feel really good to me. Like really, really good. In a way that makes me want to yank down your britches and screw you blue. I'm a little worried what sensations your bite might stir in me."
"I've always looked good in blue," Baz said with a hint of amusement. "You know, if that’s a selling point."
"It absolutely is not."
"Fine," he said. "How about if I swear on my family honor that I won't let you molest me in any way. If you try to undress me, even with your eyes, I will dissuade you."
"You mean, you could mesmerize me into ignoring my libido?" That suggestion did have possibilities.
He wiggled his brow. "I'm not sure I have enough power to make you think I'm unattractive."
"Ope! You just did it. No chance of my jumping your bones now."
"I'd love to test it," he said, leaning forward, his lips inches from mine.
I stuck out my tongue and flicked his lower lip with my silver piercing.
He jerked his head back as the contact sizzled. "Ouch."
"I usually wear stainless steel. It doesn't have a taste to it like silver, but I wore this, especially, for this mission. You know, just in case one of your kind got bite-y, and I had to bite you back."
"You are full of surprises, Drag." He walked to where he'd placed his jacket on the floor and sat down. He crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and began to hum.
"What are you doing?"
"Meditating."
"Is this really the time and place?"
"Honestly," he said. "As long as your heart beats, I can't concentrate on deciphering the texts on these walls. So, I'll just wait until you're too weak to put up a fight."
"Who says chivalry is dead?"
He narrowed his gaze on me. "Make no mistake, I don't want to harm you. I like you, Drag, more than I think I've ever liked any living soul, before and after becoming what I am. But I won't be able to help myself. That's the part that you must understand. I am already feeling the stabbing pain inside me as my cells wh
ither. The organism that makes me a vampire feeds on the iron in my body, and when it is depleted, it forces me to find more. Most of the time, I am a willing participant, and I have several human servants who had volunteered to be my regular donors in exchange for very long lives."
"And have you ever lost control?"
"Once," he said. "When I was first turned." He closed his eyes briefly as if reliving the moment, then turned his red-eyed stare at me. "I drained an entire family."