Spent, he lowered his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. He needed a moment, just one moment to collect himself.
Having caught his breath, he moved back. Eyes on each other, they straightened their clothing. The air was thick with tension, and he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake.
Following his gut, he caught her wrist, the one with the cuff, in his hand and kissed it before taking a good long look. The blood had done her good—the scorched skin was no longer peeling and had faded from an angry cardinal red to a neon pink.
He ran his finger between the cuff and her skin. She hissed in agitation at the pressure.
He wished that he knew how to pick locks. And as he wished, he was astonished to see that damn blue light surround the tip of his finger.
The light heated until Aubrey cried out in pain and he felt as if he’d pressed a finger to the lit element of a stove.
But he’d melted right through the silver of the cuff. One twist and it fell to the ground.
What was he?
* * *
Aubrey was slightly amused that it had taken being turned into a vampire to kick her coffee habit.
The smell outside the chain coffee store didn’t repulse her, but the caffeine-laden air no longer held the same kick to her senses, either. She couldn’t sense any trace of Malcolm in the night, either, and that was a problem.Though it was a long shot, Aubrey couldn’t think of anywhere else to turn—she didn’t know anyone else who could answer their questions.
“He’s not here.” She couldn’t explain how she knew. There was almost an electrical charge in the air when her maker was near, alerting her to his presence.
Gavin growled and slammed his fists against the glass window in frustration. Aubrey could see several patrons inside the shop jump, startled, and she hastily took Gavin’s hand and led him away and down the street.
“Easy.” She tried to ignore the warmth that the feel of his fingers entwined with her own brought to her skin. They had other things to worry about.
“How can you say that? Look at your wrist!” His fingers squeezed hers as if involuntarily, and she felt a warm glow despite the danger that they were in.
She didn’t answer, though, because she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she changed the subject.
“I know a place we can check.” She noticed that although he was trying to give the outward appearance of their just being a couple out for a stroll, Gavin was subtly scanning the street.
She was chagrined. She was the one with the supersenses. She would see danger far before he ever would.
Or maybe not. He did have new, inexplicable powers that had proven invaluable.
“Where are we going? Is it far?”
“Just another block.” They moved at a brisk pace that once would have left Aubrey breathless. “It’s a magic shop. I think Malcolm lives somewhere close to it. He mentioned it a few times, and once I saw him coming out of the store.”
“That’s all we have to go on?” Gavin cast her an incredulous stare without breaking stride. “Do you have a better idea?” Aubrey snapped because she wished she knew more. But up until a few weeks ago, she’d lived a completely average, even boring life. Running from vampires who belonged to some kind of council was foreign territory. So was needing to find answers that might save her life.
It was all she could come up with.
They reached the shop quickly, but as they approached the small square structure, Aubrey felt something icy dance chilly fingers over her skin.
“He’s here.” Of that she was sure. “But something’s not right.” She felt the electrical buzz that she always experienced in Malcolm’ presence, but it had a different…energy.
“Stay behind me.” Gavin moved in front of Aubrey, shielding her with his body and accidentally jostling the cuff that still pressed against her skin. She winced and then scowled, nudging him in the small of the back.
“I don’t need you to protect me.” Once she might have, but not any longer.
“I know.” Gavin stopped, flat against the building beside the smudged glass door. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it anyway.”
Aubrey furrowed her brow. That was one to puzzle out later.
“Are you sure he’s in there?” Gavin’s fingers twitched, and Aubrey saw a faint shimmer of light surround them. It was mesmerizing.
Tearing her eyes from the glow, she closed her lids and tested the air of the hazy purple night with all her senses.
“Yes.” She was sure that Malcolm was close by, almost within touching distance, but she still sensed that something was wrong. “Be careful.”
Gavin opened the glass door quickly, and they both slithered in. The store was full of shadows, odd for a retail establishment, and Aubrey was puzzled until she realized that the overhead lights were out.
She also heard breathing, a deep rasping that sliced the ears, and knew that they weren’t alone.
The smell of blood hung heavily in the air, and it wasn’t blood still contained within skin. No, this blood had been spilled, released from its prison.
But it was still fresh. Buttery sweet, it tickled her nostrils and made her throat dry.
“Who’s there?” Her question was followed by a slight moan. With a sideways look at Gavin, she cocked her head in the direction that the voice came from to indicate that she was going to go see.
As she moved, she felt Gavin right at her back.
She saw the figure clearly as she rounded a wooden shelf stacked with glass bottles. The body of a woman, a plump woman with pale, pale skin and heavily hennaed hair was stretched on the black-and-white-tiled floor, shaking and, Aubrey could see quite clearly, bleeding from savage tears in her wrist.
“Darkling.” The woman, who Aubrey now recognized as the owner of Esme’s Magic Emporium, started when her eyes tried to focus. Aubrey felt as though her innermost secrets were being examined, even as the woman began scrabbling backward, trying to get away from her. “Darkling!”
“It’s okay.” Aubrey found herself shushing the lady quickly, repulsed that someone would be scared of her. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” If only she had the willpower not to drink, not to lap at the spilled blood with her tongue.
“Who did this to you?”
The woman again looked at her, her bottle-glass green eyes intent. “Witchling?” But her gaze wasn’t on Aubrey. It was fixed behind her, on Gavin.
The two exchanged a look. Gavin moved closer. The woman seemed to relax with him in proximity, too.
“Here.” Crossing his arms at the waist, Gavin stripped off his T-shirt and tore a length from the bottom. He wrapped it tightly around the woman’s wrist, his movements brisk and professional. “You need to call an ambulance.”
“Right.” The scent of blood was dulling her senses, keeping her from focusing on the danger and on Malcolm. Dully she crawled to the shop’s phone, which had been thrown from the high wooden counter.
“Why aren’t you thirsty?” She felt as if she were trying to walk through water.
“He’s a Witchling,” the woman answered before Gavin could, her voice breaking as he propped her up on a satin cushion that he’d found on the floor. “He’s a Witchling, you’re a Darkling. That’s why.”
Aubrey and Gavin exchanged another look as Aubrey made the quick, anonymous call to 911. She crawled back their way, sensing a ripple in the energy that was Malcolm as she did so.
“Malcolm is here somewhere, Gavin.” She tried to keep her voice to a whisper, because she was certain that the shop had secrets it hadn’t yet told them. “We need to go. The ambulance will take care of her.”
“I can’t leave when I could help.” He looked at her helplessly, clearly torn between leaving with Aubrey to find Malcolm and staying to help the woman.
&
nbsp; Aubrey bit her lip, then gestured at him with her hand. “Hurry.”
Gavin placed his hands on the woman’s wrist. There was a crackle like static before the air began to hum with energy. The blue light emanating from Gavin’s hands cast an ocean-tinted hue over his face.
Aubrey could feel her blood heat in response to his power. It made her want him in more ways than one.
How was he doing this? What was a Witchling?
What was a Darkling?
As if she’d spoken aloud, the woman turned her head to face Aubrey. She still seemed more apprehensive with Aubrey than with Gavin.
She also seemed not at all surprised that Gavin could shoot light from his fingers and heal her arm.
“Witchling. Darkling. Both vampire…but different.” Her words gained in strength the longer Gavin hunched over her wound, but she still sounded weak. Aubrey inched closer. It didn’t seem like the right time, but she needed to know.
“What do you mean?” The woman closed her eyes as if gathering strength. When she opened them again, they glowed with a liquid sheen that told Aubrey she was something more than human.
“Darklings…most vampires are Darklings. They drink blood, they walk at night. They are stronger, faster.” The woman sighed as Gavin stroked a final hand over the skin of her wrist. Aubrey could see that it was now smooth, no longer torn open, though the new skin was an irritated-looking shade of red.
Gavin sat back on his heels to listen also, looking drained.
“Witchlings… Witchlings are rare. Once plentiful. Now no more.” The woman cocked her head to one side, listening. “They have the thirst, but only need a sip once in a while. They walk in the day, they live, they breathe.”
Aubrey and Gavin exchanged a look. That explained a lot.
“Why… why can I do this?” Gavin gestured to the woman’s wrist with hands that still glowed faintly.
“Witchlings…not stronger. Not faster. But they have powers. Different ones. You heal.” Finished speaking, the woman made a shooing motion. “Now go. The ambulance is coming. But so will they. The Karpaty Council. I will be safe. They were already here. You will not be safe.” With that she again closed her eyes, and Aubrey knew that their conversation was over.
“Let’s go.” Aubrey could hear the faint wail of the ambulance siren in the distance. She was still unnerved by the charge in the air that told her Malcolm was near, but they needed to leave.
Gavin nodded, then touched his fingers to the area between her shoulder blades, indicating that they should leave out the back of the store.
The charge electrified the closer they got to the rear door, and the fine hairs on the back of Aubrey’s neck stood straight up. She slowed, suddenly reluctant to step through that door, but Gavin urged her onward.
A dark shape sprawled on the crunchy pavement outside the door. Hesitant though her steps were, Aubrey nearly tripped over the prone figure.
Bile would have risen in her throat if she’d had any left.
“Is that Malcolm?”
Aubrey nodded dumbly. She didn’t need to look any more closely to know that he was dead.
She felt a spasm of grief shiver through her body, a grief stronger than she should have had over someone she barely knew, someone who had, in fact, killed her.
Frozen in place, she stared down at the body. Gavin stroked a hand quickly over the tangled mess of her hair before tugging firmly on her arm.
“We have to keep moving.” His fingers squeezed hers, and the warmth helped to ease her chill. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”
They walked, Gavin leading Aubrey, Aubrey paying no attention whatsoever to their surroundings, lost in her inner pain. The streets were eerily quiet, no yellow cabs, delivery trucks or other vehicles to be seen. Twice she thought she heard footsteps behind them, but when she perked her ears toward the sound to listen again, it was gone.
She blinked when they stopped. The garish neon light of a motel sign hurt her eyes.
“I want you to go in and rent us a room.” Gavin pressed the cool, smooth leather of a wallet into her hand. “I’m going to stay here and watch. Come right back out when you’re done, and we’ll go to the room together.”
Aubrey nodded automatically. Gavin grabbed her chin in his hand hard enough to catch her attention.
“Can you do this?” She nodded again, dimly thinking that it was a dumb question. Of course she could. But deep down she knew that he was protecting her yet again, and while she didn’t need it, she found that it brought a nice sensation flooding through her.
“I’ll be right here.” She felt an odd little flutter around her heart as he spoke, especially odd because that heart no longer beat. “Right here waiting for you.”
* * *
Gavin cringed when the words left his mouth. They sounded cheesier than he’d intended them to.
But he was rapidly finding that Aubrey brought out a softness in him that few others saw.
He’d never allowed anyone close enough before to do the same, not even Aubrey.
He leaned against the dirty paneling that made up the outside of the cheap motel. His eyes scanned the street constantly, and he wished that he had the enhanced hearing that Aubrey had displayed.
Why was she so upset over Malcolm’s death? He hadn’t sounded like a real prince of a man. He could only assume her feelings had something to do with the fact that Malcolm had made her what she was.
No, that wasn’t right. Malcolm may have turned her into a vampire, but Aubrey was who she was because she’d fought to be that way. She was a gifted doctor, one he’d pushed mercilessly both because of her potential and because he needed to deny the cosmic pull of his attraction toward her.
His desire for her hadn’t been at all appropriate in the hospital.
Now that he’d tasted her skin, and she his blood, he wondered if there was any going back.
“Here.” Aubrey shoved through the filthy glass door of the office and pushed a key into his hand. It was an actual jagged metal key, a throwback to the time before plastic, rewritable key cards.
She still seemed numb, but at the same time he trusted her.
But first she needed to rest. He could see her fatigue with every step she took. He was tired, too—using his power, or whatever it was, drained him—but he could and would wait until she’d rested. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt the need to keep watch.
She also needed to drink. He wondered if he should be ashamed that the thought of her suckling from his neck made him hard.
Their room was number sixty-six, a fact that made him raise an eyebrow, but he refrained from commenting on it or from ruminating on any other meaning. Sixty-six wasn’t six-six-six, after all, though the superstitious side that he tried to deny screamed at him in warning.
They key stuck in the lock, but after a few vigorous shakes they were in.
He squinted into the dim light, envying yet another of Aubrey’s enhanced senses.
Then he found himself pushed back against the cool metal of the door, and he forgot all about the decor.
He hadn’t thought that Aubrey would want to be touched at all, given her current state of mind. But she undid his pants with a hard yank, freeing the cock that was already hard and ready.
He knew that often death needed an affirmation of life. Though they would be better off using this downtime in another way, he wouldn’t deny her that.
Not that it was hard for him to comply, at any rate. And it would distract her from worming out the fact that he was going to leave.
The council wanted him. He was a Witchling, whatever the hell that was. If he left, Aubrey would be safe, or would at least be able to find her way.
With a groan he threw his head back against the door and let her slant her lips frantically over hi
s own. His skull bounced off the metal, causing stars to dance in front of his eyes, but he didn’t care.
He fisted both hands in her long silken hair when her lips slid down to caress his throat. Her tongue danced over his pulse, and he tensed, waiting for the sting of her fangs.
Anticipating it.
It didn’t come. Though she lingered in that place where the blood rushed hot and fast, and though he heard her moan, she didn’t bite. Instead, she dropped to her knees, still fully clothed, and pulled his pants down.
A strangled noise escaped his mouth when her mouth closed over the tip of his cock. It was a thrilling sensation, his hot flesh inside the cool cavern of her mouth.
It was even more thrilling when she began to suck. She pulled hard, her attention focused on making him shake. Her right hand held him firmly, stroking up and down slowly while her mouth suckled fast, and her left hand weighed the warmth of his testicles.
Within minutes he felt as if he would explode. He tried to draw back—he didn’t want to end things yet. He wanted to be inside her when he came. But she had him trapped between her willing flesh and the door, with nowhere to go.
As he felt his cock and sac tighten and begin to draw up close to his body, Aubrey released him from the heaven that was her mouth. She pulled his low hanging globes away from his body lightly, and with her free hand tore the shredded remains of his shirt off his torso.
She took a strip of the cotton and tied it firmly around the erection that had never been so hard.
He wondered where on earth sweet Aubrey Hart had learned about cock rings, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain.
It was the sweetest kind of pain imaginable.
Gavin watched through a haze as Aubrey sat back on her heels and looked up at him. He wanted to grab her, to throw her on the bed and lose himself in her again and again, but this was her time. He’d suppress what he wanted in order to let her explore.
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