I had just seen her a couple of nights ago when Masarelli had dropped me off. You’d think she’d remember seeing me covered in dried blood and beaten to a pulp.
“How about a rain check? I just picked up some lunch from the diner, and I’ve, uh, got company,” I looked at my watch. It was quarter to three. It was the dead of winter, and the sun was already hidden behind a wall of clouds that said snow was in the forecast. I wasn’t sure how much longer Aidan would be asleep.
“All right, dear, another time. I’ve got some of your mail here. I’ll just go get it for you.” She left me in the doorway. “Now where did I put it?” I heard from inside her apartment.
“It’s okay, Ms. Costa. I can get it later. Nothing but bills anyway.”
She didn’t say anything. It was suddenly quiet inside her apartment.
“Ms. Costa?” I leaned inside the door.
Where was her little yappy dog? What was its name? Was it Triscuit or Biscuit? I called out both names, followed by the fail-safe “Here, boy!” No response.
Damn it. Setting my bag of food down, I stepped inside. Moth balls and must assaulted my nose s soon as I crossed the threshold. I had a feeling something was up when she had said that she hadn’t seen me in a while. She was old, but she wasn’t senile. Amulet secure on my wrist, I decided to go a little further into the apartment.
The silver started to burn my wrist with each additional step. Fear rose with the hairs on the back of my neck. The Afrit was here, and that was bad news for Ms. Costa. She was probably dead along with her dog, but I had to be sure. Guilty of nothing but being a nice, old lady unlucky enough to live in the apartment beneath mine, Ms. Costa didn’t deserve her fate.
A quick rundown of what’d learned about Afrits so far meant traditional weapons were useless, which also meant grabbing a kitchen knife and stabbing it to death was out of the question. With no magic of my own, I was pretty well screwed.
It was only one flight up. I turned to make a run for the sword, and the door slammed in my face. Smoke started to fill the apartment. He had to be right here in the living room with me, but I couldn’t see anything through the smoke. Flames licked at my feet. The heat from the fire was oppressive, and I struggled to breathe.
“Where are your friends now, Maurin?”
I spun around, certain he was behind me, but there was nothing there.
“I know you’re here. Show yourself!”
Smoke and ash filled my lungs. My throat burned. Razor sharp nails raked across my calf, forcing me to my knees as blood soaked into my leggings. Bracing myself, I waited for him to pounce on his wounded his prey. Instead of jumping on my back or knocking me down like I expected him to, he clawed at the silver chain wrapped around my wrist. The amulet and the chain were both glowing red hot.
My skin flared up, blistering where the metal touched it. He could cause me physical pain, but he couldn’t drain me of the energy he so desperately needed as long as I was wearing it. Afraid he would succeed in stripping me of the only defense I had against him; I forced myself to stand and shoved my hand in my pocket. Wincing, I held back a cry as the chain, pressed tightly against my wrist, burning deeper into my flesh.
Wedging myself into a corner by the front door, I wrapped my free arm across my chest and gripped the back of my sleeve in an effort to keep him from prying my arm loose.
With a ferocious roar, he slashed at my hand repeatedly, but I held on and tightened my grip. The smoke started to roll back, and the flames flickered out. He was gone.
Looking around the apartment, I expected to see the typical carnage a fire left behind, but he place looked just the way Ms. Costa left it, every crocheted afghan and macramé throw pillow in its place. Limping into the kitchen, I grabbed two hand towels hanging from the oven door handle and tied one around my calf and the other around my hand.
After doctoring myself up the best I could, I searched the apartment for Ms. Costa and Biscuit. Triscuit? Whatever, her dog. It didn’t take long to search the two-bedroom apartment. There was no sign of them anywhere. Maybe she hadn’t been here at all. I could only hope she had gone out for the day.
With nothing more to do at Ms. Costa’s, I grabbed my breakfast, lunch, and dinner and headed up to my apartment. My appetite was pretty much gone after the run-in with the Afrit, but I needed to refuel. I had to come up with a plan to kill the Afrit, and good decisions were not made on an empty stomach. Plus there was the phone call to Masarelli. We didn’t get along on a good day, never mind when I was hangry, and I wanted to tell him about Ms. Costa. I’d feel better if I weren’t the only person looking for her.
Chapter 17
“There’s this thing called a note. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the closet. You’re up early. It’s only like 3:30.” Setting my bags down on the kitchen counter, I did my best to ignore his mother hen routine.
Aidan came in behind me. He had changed out of the T -shirt and sweats he’d had on last night and into a pair of designer jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt while I was gone.
“I’ve always been an early riser, especially in the winter. I got up, and you were gone. I was worried about you. I’ll be sure not to make that mistake…What the hell happened to you?” he asked when he caught sight of the blood-soaked dishtowels.
“I was hungry so I went to the diner down the street,” Unpacking the bags, I tried to explain.
“You were attacked on the street?”
“Are you going to let me tell you what happened, or are you going to interrupt the whole time?”
“Sorry, go on.” Waving me on, Aidan’s eyes seemed glued to the bloodstain on the dish towels.
Graciously thanking him for allowing me to continue my story, I proceeded to tell him everything that had happened just one flight down from where he slept.
“Take off your pants.” Arms crossed over his chest, Aidan all but barked the order at me.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very witty. Would you just show me the wound please?”
Much to his chagrin I didn’t have to take my pants off, thanks to the leggings. Propping my leg up on the kitchen chair, I unwrapped the towel and hiked my pants leg up over my calf. With a wobbly spin, I turned around, balancing my leg on the toe of my shoe so he could get a better look.
Aidan sucked in a breath.
Twisting around again, I looked over my shoulder to see the back of my leg. The gashes were already starting to close, but the skin around them looked like a fiery-red spider web. The lines went under the fabric bunched up at my knee. I took the towel off of my hand, as I feared it looked just as bad. Shedding my coat for a better look at my arm, I followed the red lines spreading up my forearm and curling around my elbow.
“We’re going to have to lance them.” Aidan held onto my calf with one hand and poked the wound with the other.
“What? No we’re not.” After a few hard tugs, I realized freeing myself of his grip would be impossible and gave up before I ended up face down on my kitchen floor. “I can heal almost as fast as you can.”
“So you’re impervious to infection then?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know.
“You may heal like a vampire, but you’re not one. We’re lancing and cleaning the wounds. End of discussion.” Aidan got up and yanked open the small drawer next to the refrigerator.
“No, it’s not. I’m just getting started.” My good leg gave out, and I went down like a sack of potatoes. Thankfully, I slowed my decent with my face on the table. I was obviously not impervious to infection.
“I think we should lance it.” using the back of my hand, I wiped away the blood from my newly-split lip.
“I think that may have actually knocked some of the stubbornness out of you.”
My head hurt to watching Aidan use his vampiric speed to move around my kitchen. Within seconds found my firs
t aid kit, grabbed the filet knife from the set on my counter, and got a fifth of vodka from the freezer.
“This isn’t the eighteen-hundreds. There’s rubbing alcohol and iodine in the first aid kit.”
It seemed like a waste of time and energy to get up. He wasn’t going to lance my leg while I was standing anyway.
“The vodka’s for you. Not the wound.”Scooping up his surgical supplies, Aidan joined me on the floor.
I grabbed the fifth of vodka and took several swigs. In truth, I consumed enough of the liquid courage to get an elephant tanked while he sanitized the knife. My head was already spinning as I rolled onto my stomach. That was too much too fast on an empty stomach. My body tensed as soon as he wiped my leg with the rubbing alcohol.
“Try and relax. It won’t hurt as much.” Aidan stroked my calf.
“I don’t care how much vodka you give me, this is about as relaxed as I get when someone is about to cut me open.”
I tried to look over my shoulder so I could see what he was doing.
“Would you hold still? The idea is to reopen the cuts you already have, not give you new ones,”
I turned back around, resting my forehead on my good arm. He’d be coming for the injured hand soon enough and the vodka was already wearing off.
“Maybe I should just call Amalie. She could probably get some allicorn.” A nasty tasting potion trumped field surgery any day.
“No.”
“Why? That stuff really works.” I may have been whining a little.
“We’re not calling anyone from the coven. They’ve done quite enough already.” Aidan’s tone brooked no argument. Not that ever stopped me before.
“Amalie’s my friend. She wasn’t involved in this. She would never do that to me,” aware that it sounded like I was trying to convince myself more than I was him, I stopped myself.
“Do you really want to find out if she was truly your friend at this moment? Now, if we can skip the argument, I need to concentrate.”
I didn’t answer. He was right, of course, but I couldn’t tell him that. Thanks to the coven, I had endured enough disappointment to last me a lifetime. As far as I knew, Amalie was my friend. She was one of the few friends I had. It wasn’t the time to find out if I was wrong about Amalie. It might not ever be the right time.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll draw the poison out myself.” There was frustration and…something else in his voice.
My breath hitched. A flock of butterflies had apparently taken up residence in my stomach. This wasn’t how it had happened in my dreams, but my heart was pounding nonetheless. Knowing he could sense the reaction I’d had to the mere mention of his mouth on my skin and the thought of his fangs piercing me, I tried to slow my heartbeat.
“We could always skip past this and go right to the part where you drive your fangs deep into me.”
Nope, the vodka had not worn off. I could not believe I’d said that. The blush of embarrassment burned its way across my face.
He laughed and ran his hand up my leg. The tips of his fingers brushed the top inside of my thigh before working their way back down. Holy hell. Heat danced along my skin in the wake of his touch. Or maybe that was from the blood poisoning?
“Hold still.”
His voice sounded different now. It was rougher, deeper. Maybe I wasn’t the only one having dirty thoughts. Or maybe it was because he hadn’t fed yet and was about to open a floodgate.
Inappropriate thoughts were quickly replaced with inappropriate language as he made one cut and then another and another. I could feel the blood run down the side of my leg and pool on the floor under my shin.
The cuts bled for what seemed like an hour before he finally wiped them with what had to be the roughest paper towels ever made. And then h poured rubbing alcohol over my leg.
I let loose a chain of expletives that would have made even the most hardened sailor blush.
After another pass with the sandpaper towel, he bandaged my leg. “Okay, let’s see that hand.”
I rolled over and pushed myself up to a seated position.
He took my hand in his, examining the claw marks and red lines running up my arm.
“This is worse than your leg. The cuts aren’t as clean.” He reached for the cursed rubbing alcohol again.
I grabbed the vodka and took a few more tugs from the bottle as he cleaned the knife again.
“I don’t know, Maurin. There are too many scratches where he clawed at your wrist. That’s a lot of cutting.” Aidan turned my arm to get a better look at the spider web of lines working its way up my arm.
“So what now?”
“I had really hoped to avoid this. You’re malnourished and dehydrated, and you’ve already lost a lot of blood, but I don’t see any other way.” He shook his head, his voice thick with regret.
Aidan’s mouth was on my wrist before I could say anything. He looked up at me, hazel eyes peeking through his long, beautiful lashes. Why did guys always get such amazing lashes?
A soft moan escaped my lips as his fangs pierced the thin skin at my wrist.
He pulled me closer with his right hand wrapped around my left arm, his mouth never leaving my wrist. And then suddenly he was cradling me.
Now this was like the dreams I’d had. The immediate danger, the poison, and the Afrit were all forgotten as he drank from me. Wave after wave of ecstasy crashed into me with each pull he took from my wrist.
I slipped my right arm out from in between us and ran my fingers through his hair. My tongue traced his jugular while it pulsed with my blood. He moaned, and I busied myself with kissing his neck, nibbling his ear, anything else that would cause him to make that sound again. The pleasure was building and building until I felt like I was a dam about to burst. It rushed through me like a flash flood. My head fell back, and I went limp in his arms.
Aidan removed his fangs from my wrist and lapped at the two little punctures he had made, removing any trace of his bite.
Cursed my body for not producing blood fast enough to let this last longer, I tried to open my eyes, but the room was spinning. Nausea set in. I decided throwing up all over him was not the most romantic way to end whatever this was and kept my eyes closed. Wanting to be certain the poison was out of my system, Aidan examined my arm. I took the trail of kisses up my arm as a good sign.
His lips found their way to mine, kissing me with a passion I had never experienced before, sending little tremors through my body. It was official. I was a fang banger.
“You’re shivering.” More than a trace of worry was in his voice, enough it should have given me cause for concern
But I was too far gone.
“I think it’s from the aftershocks.” My voice sounded husky, and my throat was dry.
“I think it’s just shock.” He stood effortlessly with me still cradled in his arms; his body warm since he had just fed from me.
I curled up against his chest so more of me was touching him.
He carried me to my room and set me down on my bed. In the few seconds it took to get to my room, the spins had gotten out of control.
I put my hands on my head in an effort to slow them down, surprised at how clammy my skin was. The chills set in, and I couldn’t stop my body from shaking.
Aidan started to cover me up.
I reached for his hand, but it was already gone. Damned vampire speed. My eyes wouldn’t focus enough to tell me if he was still in the room. s. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t explain how, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me unless I ordered him away, and probably not even then.
There was a beeping noise. Before I could process the fact that it was my microwave, Aidan was at my bedside with my breakfast from the diner. The smell of eggs and meat hit me. My nose and mouth said yes, but my stomach said hell no. I made a weak attempt to push the tray of food away.
“I know that you don’t feel like you’re up to eating right now, but I need you to at least drink the juice. Your appetite will return afte
r that.”
“I have juice? I don’t remember buying juice. I doubt it’s any good.” I muttered.
“I checked the date. It’s fine. Come on, take a sip.”
the end of a straw touched my lip. When I asked him where he got the straw, he told me to shut up and drink the juice. Managing a few sips, I was pleasantly surprised when they stayed down. I took a few more. Aidan said something about taking it easy, but I ignored the advice as usual. I sucked down the rest of the juice in two long sips and actually felt a little better.
I still couldn’t get over how fast my body could fix itself. Well, from most things. Whatever the Afrit had poisoned me with certainly seemed to be a problem.
T the room stopped spinning, so I tried to sit up.
Aidan was right there helping me, propping up pillows behind my back. “Do you want to try to eat a little something?”
I gave a little nod, and he set the plate of food on my lap. when I looked down, I couldn’t help but laugh. He’d already cut up the steak and linguica for me. “You cut my steak?”
“I thought that it would be difficult to manage a knife and fork the way your hands were shaking.”
“Thanks,” The one word felt inadequate somehow. “For everything.”
“Don’t thank me. I should have stopped sooner, when I couldn’t taste the poison anymore.”
“So why didn’t you?” I asked.
The look in his eyes was so intense I wished I could take the question back. Would his answer be good or bad? I didn’t even know what I wanted him to say. So why was I so nervous?
“Because I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. Because last night wasn’t enough. I fear it won’t ever be enough.” Aidan reached for me, and then changed his mind, pulling his hand back at the last second.
How should I take that last part? Was that a good thing, like he was totally into me, or a bad thing, like my blood was lacking something?
The bewildered look on my face had Aidan elaborating. He probably thought further explanation was unnecessary, but with a girl like me you had to break it down. Otherwise I would scrutinize every detail and every word in my head obsessively.
Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 168