The Bewitched Box Set

by W. J. May

  Evan’s breath came out quick and I heard his heart rate quicken. He couldn’t hide that or the slight dilation in his pupils. I leaned forward, my lips nearly brushing his as they moved against his jawline and hesitated by the artery in his neck. He smelled musky... woodsy, like cedar or sandalwood and spice. I felt, before I saw, his hand move up to touch my hip. I reached under my tank to the thin belt under my bra and pulled out a double-bladed dagger. “You didn’t catch all the weapons.” I flipped it so I held the blade and offered him the handle.

  “Wh-What?” He stepped back, only to press the back of his knees against the rock. My leg supported him from falling back. Slowly his eyes travelled down from my mine, lingering on my lips, down my neck and along the length of the skin of my arm.

  “You want it, or am I allowed to use it for hunting?”

  Evan cleared his throat. His eyebrows pressed together as he frowned at me. He obviously hadn’t enjoyed the exchange as much as I had. “You’re not going outside.”

  This argument again? I opened my mouth, ready to give him a piece of advice he’d only hear once, when his finger pressed against my lips.

  It had been a while since I had been with a man, and suddenly his closeness, my weakness, and the fact I stood already nearly naked, became a driving force inside my body.

  Vampires were driven with hunger – for food, sex, whatever primal needs the body sought, they were our key motivations. Evan had the body and I’m sure the strength to make for a good partner. He had dark blue eyes that looked like they came from the darkest of blue seas. His hair was rugged and a little long, hanging down to just the top of his neck. The front of it curled in multiple different places and out onto the top of his forehead. The stubble on his face had the perfect roughness to excite my skin. He was breathtaking and looked like he had just walked out of a camping magazine. He had on a pair of light colored jeans that hung on his waist loosely and a fitted plaid shirt. The sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows and the first few buttons of the shirt were undone to reveal the expanse of his chest. He looked good. Real good.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  His eyes traveled down my scantily clad body and slowly came back up. He had that come-hither-and-let’s-see look on his face.

  Alarms went off in my head. Not about him. I knew I could take him. I was trained after all, and by the best. My fear was of my own actions. I knew I wanted him, but I also knew it wasn’t right. I needed to stay away from him.

  Far away.

  Sleeping with a werewolf was unacceptable and punishable by death. No fraternization with the enemy.

  “Would you like more?” His voice had a husky tone that heated my cold skin.

  I shrugged, unable to say a word as his eyes glanced downward.

  He dropped his finger pressed against my mouth and stepped back. He began unbuttoning his shirt.

  My upper teeth scraped against my lower lip, my right incisor drawing blood. My brain processed his question as my body reacted to his movements. More? “Have we already... you know?”

  He stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the rock behind him. “Already?” He hesitated a moment before his eyes grew big. “No! Hell no!”

  His reaction was like a bucket of cold water on my face. I let my features harden. “Then who put me in this?” I gestured to my near naked body. “Someone had to undress me.” Had he touched me? I didn’t really know what he had done to me while I was out. What had I tried to do to him? My body obviously yearned for his touch.

  “I did.” Evan winked. “You’ve quite a sexy little birthmark.”

  I hissed. That was none of his business.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t ravish you while you were out.”

  I glared at him, setting my hands on my hips, knowing full well my breasts were pressing against the thin white cotton of the tank top. He didn’t miss it as well. “How am I supposed to believe that?”

  He grinned, obviously enjoying my discomfort. “I had to cut your blood-soaked top off to get at the wound. You were running a fever hotter than any wolf I’ve ever encountered. You kept pushing the covers off and then grabbing for them. I needed to unwind your legs from the sheets a couple times.” He pointed at my thigh. “That’s how I noticed the little horseshoe-shaped birthmark on the inside of your left thigh.”

  I had a hard time believing him. Probably because I wanted to know what it felt like to have his tongue trace the birthmark.

  “Your wolf was here the whole time. He wouldn’t allow me to do anything that would cause you harm. He cares for you deeply. He’s loyal.” Evan scratched his head. “I don’t know why he’s so committed to you.”

  “We’ve been together since he was a pup.” I had no idea why I was telling him that. It was none of his business. I ran my tongue over my incisors. “Thanks. I apologize for not saying it sooner. Thanks for helping Eddie... and me.”

  Evan smiled. Really smiled. It was the first one I had seen from him. The first real one. He had tried to be friendly back at the bar, and then he’d been grinning because he saw sexual tension between us as clearly as I did. Or he didn’t have an attraction to me and was laughing at what smells I was probably emitting. “You’re welcome, but Eddie I would have helped no matter what. He’s one of us, no matter how much you pretend otherwise.”

  I opened my mouth, only to be cut off again.

  “Once he’s been around us, he’s going to realize what you are, what he is. There’s a very high likelihood he’s going to turn on you.”

  The guy was hot, but an idiot. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know me, or my pup.”

  He smiled, almost sympathetically. “On the contrary. I know exactly who you are, Victoria. I knew since I first saw you in the bar. You see, I’ve known since your father and his followers slaughtered my parents who you were and what you would be deemed to do to me and my brother. I know the whole vamp hierarchy. I know of your position in the society of vampires.”

  I stared at him. How in the world did he know? A million other questions ran through my mind.

  “I know you’re not held in such high regard because your mother chose her own way of redemption from your father.”

  “What do you know about my mother?” I barely knew.

  “We both know your father’s an asshole. What you may not know is that he used your mother, and had you and your brother—”

  “I don’t have a brother.”

  “When your mother wouldn’t turn, he threatened her with her own children, and then decided he would take the girl his wife favored the most. He took you and turned you into his vampire child. Your mother, on the other hand, took your brother—your twin—to the grave with her. She would rather have died than live eternally with that beast.”

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  “Liar.” I never had a brother. My mother took off the first moment she could to escape. At seventeen years old, she left me to rot with a coven of vampires led by my father. I don’t remember much of my human life before I changed, it was so long ago, but I would have remembered having a brother. The pain of my mother leaving was a memory I’d never forget. The pity on Evan’s face annoyed me. I didn’t need it.

  “You know Vlad is your real father, right? Not just the one who turned you?”

  I stared at the shifter in front of me. How was it that I knew nothing about this guy and yet he knew everything about me, and then, things I didn’t even know? He was lying. Trying to set me up for something. Where was the book that told of my past? Had he gotten his hands on something sacred that I knew nothing about?

  “You’re a pup, Evan.” I let my words sting him, the sound in my voice patronizing. “Whatever you think you know is false. Stop slinging around information that you’ve yet to validate as truth.”

  “Ask me how I know.” His chest lifted as he breathed in deep, his eyes pinning me in place. How was he able to affect me so much when I knew that he was a youngling? I had b
een around for the better part of a century years and yet the old soul that spoke with authority from the handsome man before me, left me questioning all that I did know to be true about my past.

  Was I a twin? Why had no one mentioned this before? Did Evan know about Blair?

  “I’m not going to have this conversation with you.” I shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, as if he was nothing more than a slight annoyance and his youth was something to be ashamed of.

  “Why not? Does it scare you?” He wasn’t fazed at all by me.

  “No!” I shouted louder than I meant to, I forced myself to lower my voice. “Nothing scares me.” I glared at him. “I’m starving and you want to have a heart-to-heart talk about my past? I don’t know you and I don’t need your pity, or your bullshit lies.” I glanced toward the entrance of the cave. It was time to leave him, and this hole. I was seriously contemplating ripping his throat out just to taste the richness I was sure to find under his thick neck muscles.

  “There’s a lot about your past you don’t know, do you?”

  How could he be so bloody calm? I huffed. “You may know my family, but you don’t know me, and if you keep it up you won’t get the chance to know anyone.” I bared my teeth in warning and damn him if he didn’t ignore it.

  “Don’t I? Victoria, you’re an open book.” He began counting with his fingers as he spoke, “You strive to be the best. Not just for your dumb-ass father, but yourself. You’re out to prove to everyone that your father chose right when he saved you from your mother’s sword, but you didn’t even know you were always his child. Now you’re going to start thinking he should have saved your brother instead. He was the male child. The one who should have carried on the name. The stronger of you two, right?” He pressed his third finger. “You fight to keep your place in the world as his daughter. The only daughter that is acknowledged. He looks at you as though you are just another hunter, doesn’t he? He thinks you will never be good enough and you believe it. He pushes you, unlike anyone else, and yet you don’t even know him!” Evan shook his head. “You, on the other hand, are scared to death of becoming like him and having no regard for life in general. Worse yet, you’re terrified you’ll turn into your mother and live in fear.”

  “That’s enough.” I moved so I stood right up against Evan. I’d never been spoken to this way. He was unwinding me, opening me up, and the fact that he was so close to hitting my center left me shaken. I steeled myself against him and leaned in even closer, my eyes burning so bright that the illumination cast an eerie blue light on the smooth planes of his face.

  My closeness didn’t scare Evan.

  “That fear...” He tapped my chest, pressing his warm finger against my breast. “That is a weakness you cannot afford to have. You’re Vlad Montour’s daughter! You will prove yourself worthy, even if you die trying. The problem with that is it makes for a lonely life. You keep everyone at arm’s length and never show any emotion. The only person to get an inch of emotion from you, other than hate and impatience, is Eddie. Your faithful sidekick who is in love with you.”

  I’d heard enough. Evan had no idea what he was saying or that his words would be his last. My hands gripped the top of his shoulders. With angry brute strength I jerked him toward me, his head jolting back in surprise.

  My mouth pressed into his neck before he could stop me. My incisors bit into the soft flesh near his carotid artery, near the lower part of his neck. If I aimed too high, I’d lessen the blood flow and hit one of the parts of the carotid that split off.

  I wanted the fastest blood flow and the richest blood. Oddly, highly oxygenated blood tasted better. He gasped sensually, the sound piercing me deep inside my stomach. It only fueled my rage as I let myself go in the moment. I sucked and swallowed as he struggled against me, trying to push me off. Then he stopped fighting and stood perfectly still as I fed. He tasted excruciatingly wonderful, his blood warmer than most I usually drank.

  The blood calmed the rage inside of me and sedated the agonizing hunger. I finally slowed my sucking and swallowed one last time before licking his neck and deciding he was too delicious to kill. Pricking my finger with my incisor, I applied the blood to his wounds to heal them faster.

  Evan, realizing I had finished, stepped back with his hand pressed to his throat. He checked it, his eyebrows shooting up when no blood covered his hand. “You finished?” He glared at me.

  Good. Now it was his turn to be ticked off. Using my thumb, I wiped the corner of my mouth and sucked the liquid off. The blood coursed through my body, fixing the injury near my heart, strengthening me. It also made me lust for more of Evan, his blood and his body. I let my eyes roam over his strong physique and licked my lips again, ready to taste more of him. I was drunk on blood. I giggled. Slightly high from the euphoria of too much blood and waiting too long to feed.

  “You’re crazy! You could have killed me!” Evan shook his head as he reached for the puncture wounds on his neck. His fingers brushed by them as he shivered, a soft groan leaving him. I almost enjoyed the look of ecstasy that flittered across his features as I watched what felt like an intimate moment.

  “I was planning on it.” I reached to stroke his face, surprised he let me. “But if I had really wanted to, I would have gone for the fastest blood flow. Your femoral artery is the second best choice. I could try that now if you’d like?” The idea of my teeth biting into his inner thigh aroused me even more. His tongue darted out, licking at the side of his perfect mouth. It would seem that I wasn’t the only one contemplating things best left unexplored.

  “Where’s the best choice?” His voice was steady, strong and seemingly unfazed, but the look in his eye told the truth of his condition.

  He wanted me. I was scared like hell, simply because I knew I wanted him. I needed to go, to run, hard and fast before I took advantage of the feelings pulsing through me. It had been too long since I had felt anything but hunger for blood. This thing rushing through me felt vaguely familiar, but not enough so that I wasn’t left fighting something almost foreign. “Pardon?” I blinked, trying to get my brain to focus.

  “You said the femoral artery was second best.”

  “Oh yeah...” I said, hanging on to the last word a little too long as I reached down to run my fingers lightly over his ribcage. “The best place to sink your fangs into is your victim’s chest. Aiming for the aorta.” I pressed my fingers between the ribs protecting his heart. “It carries all the blood out of your heart and is the largest blood vessel of all.” I sucked my breath in, picturing his beating heart. “It’s usually around one inch in diameter. Yours, I bet, is bigger.” I ran my knuckles over his pec muscles that covered his heart. “The aorta’s located behind the breastplate, so you need long, sharp fangs to accomplish this feat, and a victim who isn’t going to knock you out before you get to it.” I winked at him and then shook my head. “Why’d you take your shirt off before?”

  “You’re nuts. I took it off because I was going to let you feed off me instead of going outside.”

  “Ohhhh... Thanks.” Drunk me needed to take a hike. I wanted my sobriety back.

  Evan pressed his lips together and I watched him like a hawk. He tasted too good not to let my mind ponder near the thoughts of having more of him... having him become my pet so I could explore the fullness of this attraction.

  I leaned close to his mouth, trying to figure out if he was mad. “Are you trying not to smile?”

  He shook his head.

  I gently touched the corner of his mouth. “There’s a smile, or a grin, trying to break free.”

  He reached for my hand and set my arm down at my side. “I think you’re high.”

  I shook my head before it turned into a nod. “Maybe a little. You have some wicked good blood.”

  “How about we get you to lie down for a bit?” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me toward the air mattress.

  “I can walk.” I tried to move his arm and stomped with my high boots on.

/>   He bent down and brought his free arm under my knees, scooping me into his arms. My heart raced in my chest and I knew it was a command given by my desire to feel human again. I didn’t need any of the human facilities that I once did, but damn if they didn’t still leave me feeling weak and emotionally open to something new and thrilling.

  “Put me down.” Even I knew I didn’t sound very convincing. “I’m supposed to be mad at you.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, careful not to touch his healing bite wound.

  “Hush.” He carried me across the short distance of the cave and set me on the ground in front of him. His hands stayed on my hips as he looked at me and then his head dipped down. The first touch of his lips made my mind dizzy. They were soft and sweet and caressed mine just briefly.

  I wouldn’t have believed he kissed me at first, but I felt his warm hands slide their way up my back to bring me closer to him until our bodies were meshed together. The contours of his muscles under my hands as I gripped his biceps, and the rippling muscles of his stomach against my own reminded me it had been a long time.

  I gasped with pleasure when his tongue slipped inside my mouth to explore mine. He moved with a languidness that was smooth like a panther. I heard a sound and realized I had moaned.

  By the quickening of his heart I knew he had grown excited as well. As his mouth and tongue tasted me, his hands curled against my derriere to bring me up and against him even tighter. A deep growl vibrated against my lips.

  It forced me back to reality. This is wrong. I quickly stepped away and pushed him. He stepped back a couple steps and looked at me. I covered my mouth, his touch still tingling against my skin as my brow pinched and my eyes narrowed. I forced out the most hateful sound I could and it came out as a soft pant instead. Damn him for undoing me so fast.

  “Get out,” I whispered.

  “You don’t want me to leave.” He was challenging me, and I liked it a little too much.