by Ari Thatcher
He found some instant oatmeal in the cupboard and had a steaming bowl in front of her in a matter of minutes. She poked at it with her spoon. Slipping into a chair opposite her, he asked, “Something wrong?”
“No milk.”
“Yeah, well. There was none in the fridge. Your body won’t take to animal protein for a while, anyway. Except for…”
Sin raised her gaze from the bowl. “Except for blood.”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
Sighing, she spooned a mouthful and chewed. “I’m not going to wake up from this, am I?”
He leaned across and grasped her free hand. “Hopefully in a few months, you won’t want to.”
“What’s so great about being a vampire?”
“That’s not the point,” he replied. “You’re still Sin. You still have a life. So maybe your diet and sleeping habits change. You are still a part of the community. You can make friends, maybe fall in love.”
Chapter Four
Love. There was the irony. She sucked at love. Maybe as a vampire she’d have better luck. She wrinkled her face as she watched Baen sit opposite her at the kitchen table. “I didn’t come here looking for love.”
“Why did you come?”
“My life was over in L.A. Why not?” Two million dollars worth of cat food funds had sweetened the deal, she had to admit. And the only way to access the money was to live in the house and take care of the cats. “Let’s just say I had suffered some financial losses, so an all-expenses-paid trip to somewhere no one knew me came at the right time.”
He nodded, stroking his thumb across that back of her hand. “Is there a man in your life who’ll be following you here?”
“He’d better not!” She supposed she owed the brothers the whole story, or most of it, seeing as they were helping her adjust to life in Whispering Valley. And suddenly, she realized she wanted to share it. Free her mind of it. “We broke up a long time ago, but I’m still cleaning up the mess he left me in. He got involved in a multi-level marketing scheme and became one of the fall guys when the company was exposed. Somehow he’d tied my finances to his, and all my savings, my 401k and my condo were frozen.”
She smiled wryly. “I never thought I would be grateful that my aunt left her money to her cats. I never told her about Tim’s dealings or losing everything I owned, yet her will was worded in such a way that Tim can’t get at the money, if I ever were so stupid as to let him back into my life.”
Sensing Baen was about to ask, she added, “He’s not coming here and I’m not going back to him. In fact, if you ever see a tall, skinny creep with washed-out red hair you have my permission to bite him. But do me a favor. Don’t make him immortal.”
Baen nodded again and leaned back in his chair.
Pushing away the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, she combed her fingers through her hair and looked around the room. “If my life is supposed to go on as usual, I guess I need to unpack.”
Taking the stairs to her room, she felt something whoosh past her, too tall for a cat, and remembered the shadow she had noticed the other day. Was the demon still here? As she peered around the doorframe into her room, she prepared to call out for Baen.
When she saw her great-aunt’s ghost wavering near the closet, she let out her breath in relief. “It’s you, thank God.”
“Yes, I needed to be sure you’re all right. I am so sorry about the demon. It’s all my fault.”
“Your fault?” Sin asked. “How?”
“I never should have kept the fetish in this house. I tried to warn you away but you couldn’t see me. I knew it was in the closet and didn’t want you going in there.”
“That was you who put the clothes back in the closet?”
Absinthe nodded. “It was silly, I know, but I hoped you would either figure out I was trying to tell you something, or get scared enough to make the brothers move everything out of here. I kept bringing the clothes back in here, and looking around in the attic for something to get your attention.”
“I think I heard you. Something was sure scurrying around when I came here. You tried, Aunt, that’s what counts. Thank you.” Sin glanced toward the ceiling. “Is there anything else in the house that I need to worry about?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I never went through all of those crates of my father’s. And I couldn’t just get rid of them in case some innocent stumbled onto something dangerous.”
“We’ll be careful, I promise. But we do need to get rid of it all.”
Great-Aunt Absinthe nodded again. “I hope you’ll be happy here, dear. I truly do.”
“I will, Aunt.”
Her great-aunt began to fade, and with a wave, she disappeared. Sin inhaled a lily-of-the-valley-laden whiff of air, then gathered some clean clothes and went to shower.
Later, feeling more like herself, she worked with Baen sorting through the dusty trunks and boxes in the attic. Constantly distracted by his nearness, Sin scolded herself. She was attracted to all three of the brothers. Talk about slutty. Yet all three had shown interest in her. How complicated would it be if she chose one and not the other two?
The first box she opened almost sent her shrieking from the room. She should know better than to unwrap Great-Aunt Absinthe’s father’s treasures. Digging through the shredded wood-wool inside a smaller box, she lifted out a shrunken head. With a queasy dry heave, she dropped it. “Please tell me this is a box of Halloween decorations.”
Baen appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek. “Let me look.” He put the head back into the wood-wool and carefully set it aside. After shifting some packing paper, he pulled out a manila envelope which he opened. “Here we are. Contents: one Jivaro Indian tsanta, circa 1900. I think that’s your shrunken head. One XXV Dynasty Canopic jar. Three mummified fingers, origin unknown. Wow, there are some real treasures here.”
He set down the paper, dug through the box and lifted out an Egyptian container with a sculpted dog’s head lid. Opening the jar, he peered inside. “Well, you’re safe here. This one doesn’t seem to have been used.”
“Used?”
“They put the organs into jars like this when they prepared a body for burial.”
“Gross.” She couldn’t stop the shudder that swept over her. “My mom told me about my great-grandfather’s collections, and I know I saw some of them when I was little. But I still don’t get why she hung onto them. My aunt said it was because she was afraid of someone getting hurt, but it’s just creepy.”
Baen repacked the box and put the list back in the envelope. “Maybe because they belonged to her dad, she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them.”
Sin moved carefully on to the next box, thinking they should try organizing them as they opened. Set everything worth keeping off to one side.
“Check this out.” Baen waved her over to the cedar chest he’d opened.
“What is it?” She feared he’d found more carvings or another shrunken head.
She couldn’t be more wrong. Folded inside the chest was an ivory silk wedding gown. She lifted it and held it out in front of her. Fine netting covered the bodice. Tiny seed pearls were sewn in and around ivory embroidered flowers. Judging from the wide waistband-style inset, she judged it to be from the 1940s, when her aunt had been engaged. “I wonder what Aunt Absinthe’s fiancé was like.”
For some reason she felt compelled to carry the gown to the cheval mirror they’d found in the corner. There she pressed the gown to her, as if to see how it would fit. Her aunt had been petite, with a waistline comparable to one of Sin’s thighs in circumference.
Over her shoulder, Baen’s face appeared in the mirror. “You would look beautiful in that.”
Laughing, she lowered the dress and faced him. “I’d need two of these to cover me.”
His gaze traveled downward over curves she knew he’d seen bare. Instead of embarrassing her, it stirred quivers inside her. Heat pooled between her thighs.
Baen’s eyes smoldered when he looke
d back up. “We’re obviously not looking at the same body,” he said.
She couldn’t respond. Had her shape ever inspired such a scorching look in any of her lovers? She’d never worried about what she ate, and the closest she came to aerobics was lugging her purse up the two flights of stairs to her old apartment. Her figure wasn’t one to garner second looks, but she never really cared.
She tore her gaze away and folded the gown. As beautiful as the dress was, fate was cruel to leave it there for her to find since, if it were her great-aunt’s, it had never been worn. Like a slap in the face. A reminder of what she’d never have. Old maid. Cat lady. “I always wondered why Great-Aunt Absinthe never married. There must be more to the story than this gown.”
“I would lay odds Suthu played a role in it.”
Shudders rolled over Sin. “Suthu? How?”
“In the box with the fetish was an obituary for her fiancé. Did you see it?”
Sin remembered the love letters and embroidered handkerchief in the box, too. “Yes. But why would the demon kill her fiancé?”
“Suthu is like a black widow. She seduces men and kills them. My guess is the demon possessed your aunt and killed the fiancé before they could marry.”
“So my aunt was an old maid because of some creepy artifact her dad brought home from his trips abroad? How awful. Now I really don’t understand why she kept all this, in spite of what she told me.” She looked at the stacks of wooden crates around her, having no clue what they held. Her voice rose in pitch with her anxiety. “What else did he bring home? What else do I have to worry about discovering?”
Baen stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “We won’t let anything get to you. I promise you we’ll keep you safe.”
Safe. She hardly knew the meaning of the word. Yet she found comfort in the warmth of Baen’s body pressing against her. So odd to feel like that with a stranger.
The brothers had battled the demon for her. And won. That was definitely more than a step beyond the other men in her life. Did she remember how to trust? “Thank you.”
He turned her in his arms. His hands caressed her back, drawing her closer. Sin’s pulse raced and she was unable to breathe. She barely noticed she was rising on her toes, bringing her lips more in line with Baen’s. He leaned down to meet her.
His mouth was cool against hers, but liquid heat spread through her as he captured her lips. He was gentle, seeking, enticing her to beg for more. She dragged her fingers through his short hair. Hard muscles pressed into her softness, melding them into one pulsing being.
He kissed her jaw, beneath her ear, and moved down to the base of her neck. His nip made spikes of hurt and need shoot through her. She cried out, half in pain, half in desire.
Baen lifted his head. “Are you okay?”
Her head remained tipped back, baring her throat as if waiting for his bite. “Yes. No. I…I’m not sure.”
He sucked in a deep breath but didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”
Sin laughed without humor. “Hey, it’s not your fault, after the way I acted yesterday.”
Grabbing her chin, he forced her to look at him. “That was not you. That was the demon. I know the difference.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“It’s just too soon. I’m the one who should be apologizing.” He smoothed her hair, his gaze looking toward the movement of his hand. “There’s so much to explain to you. So much you need to learn on your own. I shouldn’t be complicating it with sex.”
“That’s usually my role in a relationship, finding sex complicated.” She had her own explaining to do. She couldn’t play the brothers against each other, getting involved with more than one of them. Nor could she decide which one she was most attracted to.
When his lips spread in a grin, she noted how normal his teeth looked for a vampire. Dear God, they were vampires. Herself included. And she was worried about casual sex. She stepped back and turned to face a new stack of boxes. “You’re right, Baen. It’s too soon to think about anything.”
Some of the stuff buried in those boxes was probably family heirlooms, but she didn’t think her dad would appreciate it if she sent the boxes his way. She should sort through it first. But she didn’t want to find out what else lay waiting in the attic. “I think I should just haul all these boxes out and burn them.”
“That’s not the safest thing. We’ll take them to Marrett, the demonologist, to go through. He’s capable of disposing of the icons and fetishes without freeing the demons.”
Whispering Valley had its own demonologist. Why didn’t she find that comforting?
Sin blew the dust off another box and opened the flaps. Books, antiques by the look of them, filled the space. She lifted a few and examined the covers. “These look like travel guides and local histories.”
Baen leaned over her. “Wow, the old man traveled to some obscure places. Tripoli Ankara, Bohemia…”
As he wandered away, a book in hand, Sin opened one written in a foreign language. She thumbed through pages filled with what looked like poetry. She tried to pronounce what she read. “Behem podke po mezi stat, Leko na do mistu—”
“Stop! What are you doing?” Baen snapped shut his book and grabbed hers from her hands.
“Just reading the poem. Why? Do you know the language?”
He scanned the pages. “I’m not sure, but it sounds familiar. And dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
Setting the books back in the box, he roughly grasped her arm before relaxing his hand and stroking her sleeve. “Yeah. Just promise me you won’t read anything aloud if you don’t know what it says, while you’re in Whispering Valley.”
* * * * *
A few days later when she finally felt strong enough to brave the closet in her bedroom, Sin asked Gower to help haul the dresses downstairs to donate to a thrift store. The snow had melted enough to allow them to travel around the valley. The process of getting the clothes out was cleansing for her. “You know, one of these days this place might start to feel like my own.”
Gower tied the last trash bag of clothes and tossed it with the others in the corner of the enclosed back porch. “We’ll have the whole house sorted soon enough, I guess. We can make a trip to Loveland soon and get whatever you can’t find in the valley.”
Stretching, Sin yawned. “I need to get used to shopping at night. Hey, come to think of it, you guys were here in daylight the first day I arrived. I thought the sun kills vampires.”
“Only if you get a severe case of sunburn.” Gower rolled the sleeves of his wool shirt to the elbows and held his forearm next to hers. “It’s not a lack of melanin in our skin that makes us so pale, it’s the lack of blood circulation. That’s why the mountains of Colorado are such a great place to be a vampire. The higher elevation means more UV risk, but the cooler temps allows us to comfortably wear long sleeves.”
“Then why do I want to sleep all day? My body clock is completely turned around.”
“I can’t give you a medical reason,” Gower said. “But I think it has to do with bats being nocturnal.”
She studied him for a moment trying to decide if he was pulling her leg. Giving up with a shrug, she went back through the kitchen and up the stairs. Gower followed. While Sin unpacked her clothes, she asked, “How did you guys become vampires? I mean, all three of you. I would think two of you could have escaped when you saw what happened to the first.”
“It wasn’t like that. We’re actually triplets but we were bitten at different ages. Baen was first. He was mortally wounded fighting in the Napoleonic wars. One of his brothers-in-arms was a vampire, although Baen didn’t know it at the time. His friend couldn’t bear the thought of Baen dying, so he fed his own blood to Baen.”
She stopped what she was doing and went to sit on the bed. The story was too intriguing not to catch the whole thing. “And because he turned into a vampire, he stoppe
d aging?”
“That’s right.”
Snorting ungracefully, she said, “I wish you guys had come along twenty years ago, in that case.”
Gower grinned. “Enos took a mistress eight or nine years later and learned she was a vampire. He had hopes of spending eternity with her and begged her to change him. She was killed a few years later by a group of vampire slayers.”
“How sad.”
He shrugged. “He loved again. We’ve all had a few loves over the years, but family tradition said there was only one woman we would all three love.”
“You were destined to fight over a woman?”
“Not fight.” Gower sat on the edge of the bed beside her and picked up her hand. “Share.”
She almost pulled her hand back. Share one woman? Did he mean her? Of course he did, or he wouldn’t be holding her hand. “Um, look, I like you guys and I admit I’m sexually attracted to you all. But we just met and—”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “No one is pushing. We’re just happy to have met you.”
Watching his thumb move over her hand, she felt the stirrings in her body as if he stroked her breasts or thighs. Her sensitive spots acted as if she’d been hibernating for years. She was so much more aware of these men than most she knew. Was that because she’d been involved with Tim for all those years, and had shut herself off to noticing other men? She didn’t believe in fate or soul mates. Fate would not have allowed her to build a life around a loser. Would it?
How could she be sitting with this gorgeous specimen of a man and end up thinking about Tim? Tim was too thin, balding, and seriously lacking in bed. Not in size, in style. That had to be her answer. She’d been on a sexual diet of missionary position only. Now, presented with this smorgasbord of testosterone, she wanted to try a little of everything.
Heat spread from her core over her skin and up her face. Were these thoughts her own, or had the demon been affecting her all along? She needed to think of something other than sex. “How did you end up a vampire?”
“I had twenty years to watch my brothers stay young and healthy, while my body wore down.” He fingered the strands of gray at his temples. “They had suggested turning me on occasion, but I couldn’t imagine what it would mean. As I aged, it became more clear that I would die while they would get to keep enjoying what life they could find.”