Safe Hex With a Vampire

by Cassandra Lawson

Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Go home, Roman,” Viktor told him just before he began walking away.

  “Viktor wait!” I called after him.

  He turned toward me, and I almost wished he’d continued walking. The look in my brother’s eyes is one I will never forget. I knew then things would never be the same between us again.

  “We can’t leave things this way,” I argued helplessly.

  “They are what they are,” Viktor said with a sad smile. He mounted his horse and rode away.

  Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

  They’d both known reality would intrude on their world, eventually. Reality came in the form of a call at three in the morning. She’d only been asleep for about an hour when her cell phone rang.

  “Hello?” she answered groggily.

  “There was another victim.” It was Willow. Normally, Willow had a bubbly voice, which was probably part of the reason Aiden called her a bimbo. Her tone during this call was somber and all business, meaning Tempest wasn’t going to like what she heard.

  “Details?” Tempest asked as she sat up slowly in bed and tried not to wake Aiden. Of course, it didn’t work.

  Willow filled her in on the gruesome details of the victim who’d been brought to the hospital the previous night. She was in a coma. It surprised Tempest that they’d heard about it this early. While they had contacts in the local police departments, the police normally only contacted them if the survivors needed a place to recover or if it related to a case they were helping with. They weren’t equipped to treat someone in a coma, and the only case they were involved in had just been solved.

  “Detective Ramirez called because the victim had no form of identification on her and she apparently resembles you enough they thought she might actually be you. With the bruising, it was hard to tell. Ivy went down to confirm it wasn’t you.”

  “Why didn’t she just call me?” Tempest asked.

  “She didn’t want you to know,” Willow explained.

  Tempest remembered the sense of unease she’d felt when she was having dinner with Caitlin and wondered if the evil she’d sensed really had been directed at her. She didn’t think this recent attack had anything to do with her personally, but she couldn’t help wondering if she fit the new victim profile, even knowing she might be jumping the gun.

  “You know as well as I do this was likely a boyfriend or husband. The police will probably make an arrest when she wakes up,” Tempest pointed out, hoping the poor woman did wake up.

  Willow sighed. “I know but since she looks like you, I still think we should play it safe. Watch your back and keep that thing close to you. It seems like it could be a really good guard dog.”

  Tempest felt her temper rising. “His name is Aiden.”

  “Must be one of the bimbo twins,” Aiden grumbled into his pillow.

  Tempest shot him a look of warning. “I think we should do a little hunting, just in case. I won’t even have to dress up.”

  “Ivy was afraid you’d say that, and that’s why she didn’t want you to know about this. There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  Tempest waited. When Willow didn’t speak right away, she knew she was in for even more bad news.

  Finally, Willow spoke. “I asked the deceased victims to identify the scum bag we caught before we handed him over to the police.”

  Willow could communicate with the deceased who’d suffered violent deaths. None of them understood why she could only communicate with the ones who’d been victims of violence. It wasn’t something she liked to do, but they wanted to make sure there were no mistakes. If one of the women had been killed by someone else, they wanted the person caught.

  “How many of them weren’t his victims?” Tempest asked.

  “None of them were his victims,” Willow answered. “I’m not saying he never killed anyone, but he didn’t kill any of the victims we know about. The damage was so similar, we just assumed he’d lost control with a few. The police thought the same thing, but we were all wrong. I don’t know why none of us ever noticed the bigger difference in these victims.”

  “Let me guess,” Tempest began with a calm she didn’t feel. “The deceased victims were all blondes, so these aren’t exactly copycat crimes.”

  “You got it,” Willow confirmed. “Rose went back and looked at the dates of the deaths on the deceased victims and checked some other databases to find similar kills in other areas. It looks like the guy we caught was the one committing the copycat crimes, only he wasn’t taking them all the way through.”

  “I’ll be back there in a couple of hours, and we can start hunting,” Tempest told her as she kicked her legs over the side of the bed. Aiden was glaring at her.

  “Hunt where?” Willow asked. “We don’t have enough information yet. Let us talk to Ramirez and see what the police have to say first. Rose is kind of freaking out over this, and she doesn’t just freak out. She says the whole thing is tweaking her nerve endings.”

  “What do you mean Rose doesn’t freak out? Everything tweaks Rose’s nerve endings,” Tempest pointed out. “Should we just wait for the next victim?”

  “Tempest,” Willow began calmly. “It’s foolish to put yourself at risk at this point. Go back to sleep, and I’ll update you when we have more details. I’m sorry for waking you, but I didn’t want Ivy to catch me calling you, so I had to wait until I got home. Don’t make me regret keeping you in the loop.”

  Willow didn’t wait for a reply before ending the call.

  Tempest was hoping Aiden had fallen back to sleep. When she looked down at him, he was staring her.

  “I know you need to be there,” Aiden told her in his sleep roughened voice. He still sounded a little tipsy.

  She nodded.

  “When should we leave?” he asked.

  “Aiden . . .” she began.

  “I know you think it can’t work. You believe you have to choose between me and what you do, but it’s not true. We can find a way to be together. Maybe I can even help you.”

  Tempest couldn’t meet his eyes. “I really want to believe this can work.”

  Aiden sat up and placed one hand on either of her cheeks. He turned her head toward his and kissed her. It wasn’t his usual demanding kiss—it was sweet and meant to show her what she meant to him. When he finally broke the kiss, he pulled her down onto the bed and held her. Her head rested on his chest. She felt his heart beating steady and strong beneath her hand.

  “I love you enough to make this work, Tempest,” he promised. “I’d even be willing to stay in the cage if you got me a better bed down there.”

  She knew he was joking about the cage but the sentiment was nearly her undoing. She lay awake for a long time, listening to his steady breaths as he slept.

  Tears burned the backs of her eyes as she slipped out of his arms. They were falling steadily as she gathered her belongings and headed out the door.