Safe Hex With a Vampire

by Cassandra Lawson

Chapter Twenty-One

  Claudia looked at us both like we were idiots. “Your father often brings women home. You said Sofia sends them away, but that was probably not always the case. Have you ever wondered how many of your brothers might not even be her children? You’ve said your father is a cruel man. Do you really think he is any kinder to her? Her life cannot be easy.”

  I looked at Viktor, realizing we were idiots. She was right about many things, but we didn’t have time to explore those realizations.

  “I wouldn’t give her too much sympathy,” Viktor added. “Sofia was very angry about Alessandro’s reaction to you, Claudia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that angry.” Then his attention turned to me. “I believe she is going to tell Father where she saw us. Sofia wants Claudia dead.”

  Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

  Aiden was doing his best to give Tempest some time alone. It would have been easier if she hadn’t told him she needed time to think. He didn’t really want to give her too much time to think because he was sure she’d come up with reasons why they shouldn’t be together.

  The night before, they’d acted like a normal couple—as normal as they could, under the circumstances. Tempest had fallen asleep watching a movie with him, and he’d even pretended Drew wasn’t with them for a short time. After the movie, he’d once again told Drew he couldn’t come upstairs and watch him with Tempest. He’d carried her up to his room, and she’d woken up on the stairs. Since she was awake, they’d had crazy sex in the hallway, against the door of his bedroom before falling asleep together. It was perfect, or almost perfect. Drew had apparently managed to watch them, but Tempest didn’t know, so it wasn’t too bad. Aiden realized they needed to make a bigger effort to make it into his room.

  That morning, he’d done everything he could think of to stay away from Tempest. He’d headed to the gym at the far end of the house. After working out, he’d showered and come back downstairs only to find Tempest in deep conversation with Justin about genetics. Had he not seen Justin with Caitlin, he might have been jealous. He was willing to admit he might be a little jealous. It wasn’t that he thought Justin would try anything with her—he hated sharing her. After four hours, he was going crazy. He decided to go back up to his room to check on the details of the job he was starting soon.

  When he entered the room, he found Tempest sitting in front of a laptop with tears running down her face.

  He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Why are you crying?” he asked. He didn’t want to see her looking sad and vulnerable.

  “I was reading his blog.” she replied, pointing to the screen.

  “My uncle’s blog?” Aiden asked after a confused moment.

  She nodded. “It’s very sad. I’ve always been told he abandoned Claudia because he didn’t want the child of a servant.”

  “That seems very unlikely,” Aiden said as he stroked her hair. “His second wife, Lenore, was so poor, her parents practically sold her to Roman. Our family is limited on who we can procreate with, so class isn’t really an issue.”

  She turned back to Aiden. “In the human world, class mattered quite a bit in those days. It still does, so it was a logical assumption. She was left with enough money to support herself and the baby, but she never saw him again. I always assumed they hadn’t married in a church, and he’d never intended to marry her, just get her into bed.”

  “I see your point,” he admitted. “I wonder who left the money for her. Roman had no idea where she was.”

  “I hadn’t even thought about that,” she admitted. “Honestly, a lot of what we know is guesswork. I don’t think Claudia revealed too much to her daughter. This blog gives many details, but it still left a lot of unanswered questions.”

  Aiden shrugged. “I guess we’ll probably never know the whole story. I still can’t believe Roman has a blog, and it talks about his past so openly.”

  “He almost taunts the reader at the beginning,” Tempest said with a little laugh. “He tells them he can call himself a vampire because people will think it’s a work of fiction. This blog is heart breaking. He really loved her, and they had such a short time together before his father found them.” She looked at Aiden. “The man who helped find them was able to track people like you.”

  “I’m the only one in the Draksel family, but there are other families with men who have this talent,” he explained.

  “His father had rescued Claudia from being executed as a witch, but it was only so he could use her. I guess he was angry about Roman running off with her. When Roman left her for a few days, his father found her. He told Roman he had her hung as a witch. I think it destroyed Roman in some way to lose her. He seems so alive when he’s talking about his time with her, yet so cold when he talks about any time after that.”

  Aiden couldn’t mask his own horror. His grandfather’s involvement shouldn’t have surprised him. His father had told him the man was a monster, and no one had been sad about his death, but Aiden had grown up with a loving father. It was hard to imagine something like this. “Do you want to meet Roman now?”

  She thought about it for a long time. “I’m not sure. Part of me does, but he seems a little frightening.”

  “I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything,” he told her with an amused grin.

  “I should talk to Ivy and my cousins, Rose and Willow.”

  “Who are Rose and Willow?” he asked before realization dawned on him. “You must mean the bimbo twins who let me out must be Rose and Willow.”

  “Bimbo twins?” She sounded a little offended. “Wait, they let you out? I assumed you used the key to get out.”

  He sat on the bed and started to remove his shoes. “They didn’t want me polluting the gene pool.”

  Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry, that was a little rude of them to say to your face.”

  “So, they’d already said it behind my back?” He laid down on the bed and folded his hands behind his head.

  “Yes,” she admitted, giving in to the temptation to cuddle up beside him. “What’s Roman like?”

  “He’s pretty damn intimidating,” Aiden admitted as he wrapped one arm around her, “It’s not that he’s violent, but I get the impression he can be. He’s just cold. I was at his house shortly after the death of his only son, and he didn’t even mention it to me. Although, I will admit he seemed distracted. He kept looking at the staircase like he wanted to go up there. Maybe he wanted to be alone.”

  “People grieve in different ways,” Tempest added.

  Aiden nodded. “I guess he may have assumed I already knew. Like I said, I wasn’t close to most of the family. Sofia likely wouldn’t have mentioned it even if she’d seen me. Ursula would have told me, but I’ve been avoiding Ursula since the kidnapping thing.” He thought some more. “Roman was very kind to me, in a distant sort of way, when my parents died. After his second wife died, he took in her illegitimate son, and he was never cruel to him. In fact, I always got the impression he really likes him. Those are good things.”

  She nodded. Aiden wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with him or acknowledging she’d heard him.

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Aiden said.

  “What happened to your uncle, Viktor?” she asked out of the blue.

  Aiden looked surprised by her question. “My uncle, Viktor?”

  “The blog mentions his love for a human named Ana.”

  Aiden gave her a sad smile. “Viktor was my father.”

  She placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. So, he got over Ana.”

  “Eventually,” he replied. “After Ana died, my father traveled to Ireland. Ana’s daughter had married a man from Ireland, but Ana had refused to move with them. I believe she loved my father as much as he loved her, but they couldn’t have been together.”

  “From your accent I take it he settled in Ireland.”

  “That he did,” Aiden agreed. “Being close to Ana’s descendants made him fee
l like he still had a piece of her with him. He would stay for several years before moving around, but he always came back to Ireland. My mother was one of Ana’s descendants. She was the first woman born with any psychic abilities. She was also the first of Ana’s descendants my father hadn’t met as a child. He once told me it was a good thing since he didn’t think he could have fallen in love with a woman he’d held as a baby. He saved her life. She was tortured until she confessed to being a witch. That’s how she lost the fingers. My father returned just in time to save her. He truly loved my mother. There were times I envied them, but it wasn’t until after their deaths that loneliness really set in.”

  “Thus the clumsy kidnapping attempt,” she deduced.

  He laughed. It was the first time he’d actually laughed at the memory. He stroked her arm absently. “It was not my finest moment.”

  Tempest snuggled in closer to his body and sighed. Aiden was surprisingly comforted by her mere presence. He suddenly had a much greater understanding of what his parents had. He realized he’d do anything to keep Tempest.