by Stella Blaze
Min rolled her eyes then turned to the mirror again. Besides the little band-aid, she had never looked better. Min couldn’t see even a shadow of the bruising, and her skin really looked flawless. The hairstyle and the expert application of mascara and eye shadow really made her eyes pop. “Remind me to have you do my makeup for my next date.”
“And when would that be? I haven’t seen that blissfully happy look on your face since that first time.”
Min shook her head. Maybe she would’ve had that “blissfully happy look” if she hadn’t had so much to think about. “You ready to go?”
“Just one more thing.”
“What?” Min sounded so tired, even to herself. She took a double take at the intense look in her sister’s eyes.
“So the thing…whatever did that to mom…it was here last night?”
You can’t tell her…but god, the look on her face…
“In a way, yes.”
“And it’s tough?”
“Kicked my ass but good,” Min tried to smile.
Andy got a scared look on her face that melted almost immediately to determination. “Are we going to be able to beat it?”
Min was about to say, “I’ll beat it. You’re not going anywhere near it.” But she saw the look on her sister’s face. Andy needed more than anything right then to feel like she would be able to help. “We’re Boccherini women, aren’t we? We’ll beat the shit out of it in the end. We always do.” Min was surprised at how certain she sounded, for she certainly didn’t feel it.
Chapter 15
Exhausted from the sale, and the relentless conventioneers, Min came home and crashed on the couch. Her head aching, her body stiff—both demanding Motrin…and to never move again. It hadn’t been a completely unpleasant experience. Some old friends stopped by the sale, witches and practitioners of the craft she hadn’t seen in years, even a minor deity that usually only bothers to venture out of his lair once every ten years, and only on All Hollows Eve.
She was shocked to see him, and he bought some lavender bath salts…and funny enough, a small pewter likeness of himself. He thought it was cute. She had to agree. She’d always thought Ptah, the Egyptian God of Craftsmen had been extremely good looking.
Finally she had to ask why he was out and about, and he gave her the most salacious look.
“Because something big is coming.” He smiled wickedly as he leaned down and looked into Min’s eyes. It was only when he wanted you to that you realized he was not only a god, but mightily intimidating. Nearly seven feet tall, broader shouldered than two men, and brimming with supernatural strength. His eyes flashed silvery as he gazed deeply into her. Not a soul gaze, not merely a trick where it seems someone is looking into you, but the real thing. He was looking right into the core of who she was.
The Egyptians called it your secret name, to be able to see everything that you had been and were. A secret name was a very powerful and a very dangerous thing—especially in the hands of as wily a heavy hitter as an ancient Egyptian god.
“But you know all about that, don’t you?” he stood there, staring into Min’s eyes for maybe another ten seconds, and laughed as he straightened to his usual height. “Just remember Min, daughter of Katarina of the Boccherini Clan, there are things in this very store that can help you in most any task. All you have to do is use the right one.” And then he turned and majestically swept from the magic shop, his form fading into nothingness before he reached the front door.
Okay, that had been majorly creepy.
Min closed her eyes now, too tired to move or to get the Motrin she so desperately wanted. She’d use magick to summon the bottle of Motrin, but that would probably lead to a worse headache.
She listened to the wind outside, and to the stillness of the house. But she felt him. Luca was standing right beside her. It should have scared her. It should have at least made her flinch. But she sighed with relief as she reached out and touched his face an instant before her eyes opened.
“You’re hurting worse than yesterday.” He hadn’t made it a question.
“That happens,” Min replied. “Get your butt kicked, feel even worse the next day.”
Luca’s eyes looked so worried. Jeez, another one! Who’d have thought I’d see the same look in both my sister’s eyes and my vampire’s. She knew she couldn’t think like that, that he was her anything. But she did think that. Not that he was her lover, but her vampire, and that thought infused her immediately with such cool comfort.
Luca moved closer and very gently picked her up in his arms. He took her upstairs to her bedroom, helped her off with her clothes, and somehow just his touch took most of the pain out of her injured arm and shoulder. He took his shirt off too, and holding her bare flesh against his own cold, smooth skin made her muscles loosen, made the riot of pain in her head fade. He placed her in bed, enfolding her in his arms, planting chaste kisses on her face and over her shoulders as he held her.
Min finally drifted off to sleep. Not smart, she thought as he gently undid the braid of her hair with his nimble fingers, caressing away the pain as she faded into nothingness.
~*~
The dream had been strange and irritating—about five ninja hamsters and their Siamese Sensei. When he wasn’t trying to eat them, he taught them assassination martial arts style. When Min awoke she was calm and if anything, relieved to be out of her dream. To her surprise her shoulder was only marginally stiff, and all her other pains were just gone. She trudged, still rather tired, into the shower. She washed her hair, and then stood there under the spray of water until the hot water ran out. She wrapped herself up in a big fluffy towel and headed back into her bedroom. There she looked into the mirror and the gash in her head was now only a healing scratch, and the bruises were all but gone. They were only a shadow of what they should’ve been.
Shit…
What the hell was going on? How did she just suddenly heal those wounds like…like what? Like a vampire? No, not that fast…but still. Then she thought of how good Luca’s touch had felt last night, how it had eased her pain. And then she thought of how quickly his wounds had healed after she’d burned him that first night. Not instantaneously, no, he’d still felt them. And hers weren’t healed completely, but they were pretty miraculously faded and healed up. Had she somehow borrowed his ability to heal last night? And what the hell did that mean?
Min shivered. Creepy.
Arriving at work a half hour later, her sister looked at her appraisingly and asked, “Did you go out and by some mineral makeup? I mean, I can still kind of see a shadow of the bruise, but it looks tons better.”
Min didn’t get too close, because she wasn’t wearing any makeup. “Something like that.”
Andy raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you did some sort of glamour. I forgot you could do that.”
Min let her believe the glamour explanation. It was convenient and neat, and truthfully she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of hiding her wounds that way in the first place. She silently kicked herself; she could have kept the entire episode from her sister.
Between the two-day sale and the Sci-Fi conventioneers, they were hit hard again—which strangely made Min start to feel better. Less sore, and even the shadow of a bruise she had was almost completely gone by closing time.
Andy told Min she should go home. “I can clean up.” Min made to object but Andy headed her off. “After all, we’re closed tomorrow—might as well rest those weary, old-lady bones.”
Min gave Andy’s smart assed words the dirty look they deserved, but she took her up on her offer, deciding to go home instead of clean and restock and place special orders over the laptop that hummed and sneered at her on the back counter of the storeroom.
She stopped and inhaled deeply when she got out of the shop. Freshly polluted city air was better than the stale, musty aroma of the shop any day. She walked down the street, but didn’t take her usual turn, and instead found herself wandering the streets, subconsciously trying
to kill time…inwardly dreading going back to her home, where Luca was no doubt waiting for her.
It’s not like I didn’t know what he was…or is. Min felt the headache from the night before knock dimly, yet persistently in her head. It wanted to come back in and do a repeat performance.
And it’s not like I can stay away from home forever. Though it did sound tempting, to just cut and run, to never have to face her problems again. Maybe start over in a new city, a new state…hell, a new country. She stopped walking and shook the need to run from her body—the idea of taking the easy way out—out of her head. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some bigwig faerie bitch and one lone vampire drive me from my home.
Not that Min believed Luca was a threat like the mysterious winter faerie was, but she really, really didn’t like having this kind of link to him. Every ounce of common sense she had screamed that she was in deep, deep shit. It also told her the only trustworthy vampire was a dead one.
But she knew she couldn’t just kill him. He’d surprised her, really surprised her, and now with how she’d healed so quickly; not vampire fast, but faster than any human had any business being able to do so. She hadn’t taken any of his blood, so there went the whole True Blood explanation. Could it just have been him being skin to skin with her? She really had felt so much better just from touching him. Or was there some sort of link? She stopped in her tracks as she remembered how he seemed to know what she was thinking and feeling.
Cripes! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
Do I love him, or is it just some Jedi-vampire mind trick?
Whatever her subconscious might have answered, she stopped across the street from a familiar place. The bar, which was literally humming with human patrons, called to her. A drink was exactly what she needed. Maybe two or three. The sun was setting, and she somehow knew that Luca would be at her home soon. He wouldn’t be able to keep away. She found herself crossing the street, yet worrying if he’d fed enough as of late, and then shaking her head in disgust. Whether he had taken care of her or not, he was still a killer. Vampires didn’t just go to the blood bank and sip at a cup of O Negative like it was coffee. He was out there, probably right this minute, sinking his fangs into some poor innocent’s neck.
Min made her way through the throng of people and took a seat at the bar that happily just became vacant. She ordered a glass of cabernet and settled into her seat. And then she got the strangest feeling, that that had been exactly what he’d been doing. Not drinking his blood from the source, but from a plastic bag. She could practically feel how it had cost him, weakening him. And he had done it for her…
She called out to the bartender, changing her order to “Bourbon, neat.” Chugging it the instant it was placed in front of her, she ordered another before the bartender had a chance to get away. He gave her a hard look, but she just glared right back at him. She needed some medicinal reinforcements. Hell, she needed an entire bottle of reinforcements.
She was halfway through her second drink, her mind starting to loosen up, when Min felt a sudden rush of guilt; she had stopped thinking about her mother.
She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, loathing herself. She shouldn’t be obsessing about the vampire, or anything that was happening with him. She should be thinking exclusively about what he’d told her, about the faeries. The Sidhe, he’d called them. How could they have done this to her mother? And how the hell hadn’t she remembered anything about them. Her mother had to have taught her about them.
Again, as she tried to focus on what had to have been in her memory about the fae, she simply couldn’t get hold of it, as it slipped and rushed away, out of her grasp.
It was fucking infuriating.
And then, just like that, she had the abrupt feeling someone was watching her. It made her body tighten, her heart thud and her breath catch in her throat. Was it the vampire? Or something that wanted to hurt her? Was she just being paranoid?
As she turned, she looked around the barroom. It was filled with every kind of human, from corporate suits to nurses in scrubs, even some brawny construction workers. But who she saw standing in the corner near the jukebox made every alarm in her body go off. And not all in a bad way.
He was a few inches taller than her, with thick, defined muscles a pro wrestler could only wish to obtain. His head was shaved clean and smooth. She could see some of his multiple tattoos running down his forearms. Intricate black blades, the sign of his pack, and their mission. Min knew he had no other tattoos, as she knew he had nearly insatiable appetites in the bedroom. He was able to use all his god given strength and body to the most erotic intent. As he moved toward her, Min could easily remember how his flesh and muscles felt as he moved against her, making her writhe against him like a feral animal.
Günter.
But those wonderfully distracting thoughts ended when she realized that he wasn’t there by accident. He belonged to a pack of werewolves that tracked and killed vampires. It was their quest and calling in life. It had been why he’d left her all those years ago, and it was the only reason he was back in the city now. He was there to hunt vampires. Which made perfect sense since the town was lousy with them. But then she had one probably waiting for her at home as she stood there.
I have to act like nothing is wrong, she thought as he sauntered over to her. And she had to think of a way to get Luca to leave town, at least until the pack moves to other hunting grounds. She focused, and smiled solicitously at Günter. She tried to eye him with some heat, instead of the cold suspicion she was really feeling. And he responded as she had hoped, with a sexy smile of his own. His skin was so tan, and he was so utterly alive. After being with the vampire she had somehow already become used to his coldness, the coolness of his touch, of his body, even of his cock. How he felt while he was inside her. And now she was remembering how warm—practically feverish—Günter had felt inside her. Werewolves always ran hotter than human.
And then he stopped, not quite close enough to kiss her, but close enough she could feel the heat and lycanthrope power flowing off of him. That energy suddenly spiked as he scented the air, looked remorseful for a moment, and almost apologetic. She thought for a moment he was going to say, “Sorry dear...have to run. I smell a big bad vampire that’s in need of being torn limb for limb.”
Looking very hard right at her, he moved in close enough for a kiss. But instead he breathed in her scent, long and deep, and the look on his face was just this side of hate.
“You stink of vampire, Min,” he said as his dark eyes sparked with golden light and then faded. “Why is that?”
Min hadn’t thought she smelled like Luca. She’d stood in the shower for almost an hour this morning, letting the water wash over her injuries. But she wasn’t a lycanthrope, and freaking Günter was. He could smell him on her still. She reached a shaky hand out and took another swallow of her drink. Think fast, sweet-cheeks. Why would you have vampire scent on you? And then she thought to use her shaking hands and the fact she was drinking hard liquor to her advantage. “I just got done slaying one, that’s all. Close call too. He was on me and nearly had me to rights when I slipped a silver blade into his ribs, then finished him off with—”
Günter smiled. “Let me guess. You charbroiled the fiend with your trademark fireballs.”
“That’s not my only line of defense,” Min said defensively, giving him a dirty look.
“Yeah, but if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” He moved in closer, and very gently kissed her cheek, his lips hot against her skin, his body hard and full of promise as he pressed just so slightly against hers. Then he moved back and leaned against the bar. “You really should come out and hunt with us while we’re in town. It could be fun.”
“I thought the pack didn’t take civilians out with them; something about it being too dangerous to have humans getting in the way.”
“Yeah, but you were pretty capable back when I last saw you, and I can just tell you probably have all kind
s of new tricks under your belt.”
Min smiled. Günter, master of the double entendre.
Min felt the heat of his attentions, how he still yearned for her. And deep down, Min still remembered how good he felt inside her, on top of her…under her and—she shook herself out of her sexual reverie. She couldn’t get sidestepped. She needed to keep her head on straight.
Her new lover might be a murdering vampire fiend, but he was her murdering vampire fiend.
Okay…that just wasn’t right. What a terrible thought to have. What’s wrong with me?
She needed to get out of there and back home. She needed to warn Luca. As much as she simply despised the thought of being parted from the vampire, a knot of anxiety formed in her stomach and her chest at just the thought of it, she needed to get him out of town. If Günter and his pack were in town, they would be out on the streets all the time, hunting for Luca’s kind.
Something just occurred to Min. “So how long will the pack be in town?”
He gave her a knowing, rather sensual look, and then smiled. “A couple of weeks. However long it takes to catch the vampire we followed to town.”
“Some vampire has been evading you?” Min hoped to hell it hadn’t been Luca, though he’d obviously been in town for a while. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Yeah, usually I’d agree. But this one, she’s tricky. She was murdering a half dozen innocents a night; real conspicuous. Not even draining her victims, just biting them, and snapping their necks, or tearing them in half, or other otherworldly mutilations. I’m surprised her own kind hasn’t tried to quiet her, but we picked up her trail in New Orleans, followed her through Atlanta, and now here. We really want her dead. But it’s not like she’s twisting around and all.”
“She’s keeping out of your grasp, though. She must be pretty slippery.”
“Yeah, but it’s like she’s heading somewhere special. A straight shot up the country, like she’s leading us somewhere.”