Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

"I feel like I'm on fire," Ismé said. "I want you so bad, Aisha."

  That was all it took to break the tension. I knew Ismé was feeling the effects of my lust for survival as Magnus had termed it. She might even have been feeling her own residual attraction to him. I knew she wasn't exaggerating her lust. I winced inside because I knew the ultimate outcome of this meeting and I was no more ready for a lesbian tryst than she had been for a straight encounter. I wondered as she threw herself at the Haitian if I could manage to knee Aisha in the crotch and then if it would be as effective as Ismé's kick had been for Magnus.

  I tried to turn a blind eye, to recede from the feel of Aisha's tongue in my mouth, probing uncertainly at first and then with increasing ardor. When the Haitian's hands went to my breasts, I forced myself to imagine it was Magnus's fingers on my skin, pressing beneath my arms, pulling me to the sofa. I barely felt the clothes leave my body, but I very definitely felt the way my hands pushed Aisha's legs apart, sending my fingers deep into her core. The dusky smell of her tinged my senses and if I would have been able to control my eyelids, I'd have squeezed them tight, bracing myself.

  A good friend in high school had once asked me if I'd like to experiment with bisexuality, plan a ménage a trois with her boyfriend and her. I'd had sex a number of times by senior year, but it was all strictly vanilla, him-on-top kind of play because with the seemingly endless access to porn streaming onto smartphones, I simply couldn't trust the bastards not to take things too far too quick.

  But I'd given it a go. She was a trusted friend, and the seemingly endless access to porn had made me a little curious after all.

  I didn't fancy it.

  This time, with my residual survival lust on full switch, and with Ismé in full control of it, I prayed I could either recede gracefully and thus offer them some privacy or just get the hell into it.

  I couldn't make either happen.

  Each time Ismé elicited a moan from Aisha with a tongue that had suddenly grown more skilled than I ever remember possessing, I shuddered behind the veil. I tried shouting at her to at least let Aisha do the work so I could lie back and think of England easier. She told me to shut the hell up, which made Aisha complain.

  "Not you," Ismé said to her. "It's the bitch."

  Aisha pulled Ismé closer, wrapping her palms around the backs of my ears and kissing Ismé full on the mouth. She peered into Ismé's eyes, finding me within.

  "It will be okay, ma chere. It will be soft and luxurious and more selfless than you've ever enjoyed."

  Ismé stared back, but her words, short and clipped, were for me.

  "So enjoy it, or don't. Just shut up." She dipped her tongue into Aisha's mouth at that, and they twined together likes snakes on the sofa until I found myself giving in to the sensory overload of being consumed by another human being.

  While it was soft and luxurious as promised, it was also urgent. They were both sated before I could decide whether or not my youthful experience was simply a botched experiment or not. It had been hot and steamy and quick and neither of them seemed to think they wouldn't have a lifetime to recreate the act.

  Aisha pulled an afghan from the arm of the sofa and wrapped it over her legs, leaving her breasts bare.

  "Now," she said. "Tell me what you saw."

  "Vampire," Ismé said. "This woman was about to make love to him."

  "Was she now?" Aisha's charcoal brow lifted interestedly. "But you stopped it, of course."

  "You know I did." Ismé sounded indignant and yet there was something more in her tone: a sort of undercurrent of command.

  "And this vampire," Aisha said, ignoring the haughty tone, and the hum of authority in it. "He wants something of me?"

  "Wanted," Ismé said. "He told her when I left that he had no more use for you. He fired her." Ismé reached across the sofa to take Aisha's hand. "Is this woman some sort of harlot?"

  Aisha chuckled while I seethed at the hope in Ismé's voice--my voice, I reminded myself. Damn her for making me feel so disconnected from my own tissues.

  "Perhaps. But what she is selling her body for, I've yet to discover." She trailed a mocha finger down Ismé's arm. "What do you mean fired?"

  Ismé shrugged and rolled to her feet, stretching contentedly. She kicked off the afghan that caught in her foot.

  "It's what he said. You're fired."

  "Strange," Aisha said.

  "You don't know him?"

  "I just thought it happy happenstance that I could smell the undead on her; it was a good opportunity for me. But then she came back. And she said I should follow her to him." Aisha sat up, pulling the hand-knit afghan over her bare breasts.

  I thought control of the conversation was moving much the same as the control of my body. Aisha had started out in the power position, manipulating the muscles, but just with that one motion of vulnerability, I saw the dynamic for what it could be and I braced myself for things going wildly out of control.

  "Why are you looking so nervous?" Ismé lifted first one of my legs and then the other high in the air, examining every inch of skin and muscle. She even lifted and twisted the feet so she could look at the soles. "She's scrawny, this one. I think you should have waited longer."

  "I'm nervous because one can never be too careful with a vampire." Aisha's tone was firm, but I thought I detected a subtle note of pleading.

  "Well, there's no need. She's fired." Ismé leapt like a ballerina and scowled at my legs upon landing. "Clumsy too."

  "You need to go back."

  I rejoiced at the firmness in the command. Just get there, I thought. Just get there and watch me roust this bitch.

  Ismé turned, placing her hands on what she obviously thought were less than supple hips. "No."

  "Not for long," Aisha pleaded. "She left work undone. And you said yourself, he wanted something of me."

  "Whatever it was, he said he doesn't need you now, so it doesn't matter." Ismé planted both hands on her ass and lifted the cheeks. "Doesn't even jiggle," she complained.

  "Please, Ismé."

  There. Right there. Aisha lost it. I panicked. If this strong priestess couldn't manage this ghost, what chance did I have of getting my body back?

  Ismé crossed her arms. "What's in it for me?"

  "Isn't being here enough?" I could see a glint of real fury streak across Aisha's eyes. I got the feeling that although she was powerful indeed, she was impotent in the face of this lover--and it infuriated her. Dissension? I could use that. I had to be careful not to feel my glee too profoundly. Fortunately, the exchange seemed so normal to Ismé, that she didn't bother sensing how I might interpret it.

  She stuck her feet into the legs of my jeans and pulled them up, buttoning them without so much as looking at Aisha. "Here is good," she said. "The body..." She spread her arms to her sides as though to indicate that no one could possibly be happy with the body she was in. "Well, let's just say it's not your best effort." She waited just enough time that Aisha could fully feel the insult and then she rushed forward, bending down to kneel in front of the Haitian.

  "Now don't feel guilty," she said. "I know you did your best. It's just that sometimes your best –"

  "Isn't good enough. I know." The Haitian shrank against the cushions. "I just couldn't wait anymore. I seized the moment."

  "I know." Ismé patted Aisha's hand. "I might have done the same. Tell you what," Ismé said, brightening. "I'll try. Because I love you, I'll try."

  "Thank you," Aisha said.

  The demureness in her voice caught me off guard, but it seemed to please Ismé. She wrapped herself in the afghan and wandered about the apartment, cooing sweet words to the Haitian about love and fate. She spun on her heel at one point, catching Aisha as she poured water into a basin.

  "He's soft for her."

  Aisha dipped her hand in, testing the temperature and wincing. "I know. That's why I sent her to him. She needs to undo his thrall so you don't have to suffer his embrace." She met Ismé's gaze with a bold
determination, almost obsessive. "I won't share you. Not again."

  Ismé hummed in thought. "I've seen thrall before. Didn't seem like that." A thought occurred to her as she realized what Aisha had said. "And you needn't worry about sharing me."

  Aisha mumbled to the water.

  "Aisha?" Ismé moved behind the Haitian and dipped her hand into the basin to slip her fingers through Aisha's. "We have a new life now. We need to put the old one behind."

  Aisha turned mossy eyes to Ismé. "That's why you need to go back. You have to undo his thrall." There was something almost manic in her gaze.

  Ismé glanced down at their fingers entwined in the water, noticing for the first time that the basin was filled with herbs. I felt her shudder.

  "I'll go," she said, stepping away from the washbowl. "Just let me dress."

  That's when I fully realized that both of them believed that the vampire who had enthralled me was Magnus. Neither of them knew about Gio. I felt like doing a little two-step of excitement. What they didn't know could work in my favor. Number one: if there were things Ismé didn't know, then it meant she'd truly been dormant before she surfaced. The fact that I could sense her so strongly had to mean that I still had some control. Number two: if I was strong enough to be able to communicate with her off and on, and sense her moods and feel her movements, then perhaps I wasn't bobbing too deeply below the surface.

  I could barely contain my anticipation. I thought that if I could just get her back to Magnus's mansion then I'd be able to find a way to get through to him. If he'd had enough connection with me before that he could read my thoughts, then surely he'd be able to find me somewhere within this body that was no longer controlled by its original owner. The question remained that I wasn't entirely sure he'd been reading my mind, and although it creeped me out before, it was the one thing that gave me hope now. Because if I could reach him, maybe he'd get the message that to follow Ismé, was to find the priestess. Finding the Haitian voodoo bitch meant maybe he could force her to bring me back.

  The odds were not in my favor--if there were odds at all – but I had to hope for something.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WHEN SHE WAS GOOD

  Ismé wasted no time calling for a cab; even so, she arrived just before dawn. I could tell as she peered out the window in the back seat that the sun had already begun to pinken the tops of the buildings.

  "He must have liked you," the cabbie said, staring at her through the mirror.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  He shrugged. "Rich guys like this don't usually hire regular girls."

  "Regular girls?"

  He twisted around, leaning his elbow on the back of the seat. "Yeah," he drawled. "Cheap pussy. They usually go for the high end escort service."

  Ismé leaned forward, her fists clenched in her lap. "Exactly what are you saying?"

  "Look you stupid broad," he said. "I brought you here last night. I'm not an idiot."

  She shoved a handful of bills at the cabbie, and he took them without even peeling the wad of them open. She snorted.

  With a glance at the mansion and the ever-lightening sky, she chewed the inside of her cheek.

  "Wait for me," she said.

  "It'll cost."

  "Of course it'll cost; I might be cheap pussy, but I'm not dumb." She pushed out of the back seat and slammed the door behind her. She was running to the door, realizing that she was quickly losing her opportunity with each ray of sun that peeked above the horizon. I knew why I wanted her to hurry; I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she might want to.

  She pounded on the bell first. When no one came, she kicked at the door.

  "I'm sorry," she hollered. "I'm sorry. Let me in."

  Let me in. That would do it. She sure knew how to woo a man. A gal could take lessons.

  "Shut up," she muttered as she stared at the door.

  I chuckled from behind the veil.

  "If you weren't such a harlot I wouldn't be in this mess."

  I scampered back to my hidey hole. I couldn't afford for her to sense me too closely. I needed to overwhelm her all at once.

  "Better," she said and went back to pounding on the door.

  When it opened, I wasn't surprised to see the nurse standing in the frame. She looked at Ismé without emotion.

  "Let me in," Ismé said again.

  The nurse crossed her arms. "If you've come to see him, you're too late."

  Ismé glanced sideways at the gathering dawn. "If you had answered the door faster –"

  "You would have still been too late."

  "Then can I wait?" Ismé tried to squirrel her way over the nurse's shoulder, but the woman was resolute and immovable.

  "Tell him I'm sorry." She waited for some reaction. "I want him," she said, stammering over the words. "Tell him that. Tell him I was afraid."

  The nurse said nothing.

  Ismé turned tail and stomped down the cobblestone path to the waiting cab.

  "Do you remember where you picked me up yesterday?" she demanded of the cabbie as she climbed into the back.

  "I have a book."

  "Then look it the fuck up." She pushed against the seat, arms crossed. I felt her frustration seething like water on a hard boil. She watched the buildings pass with all the interest of an autistic cat. I, on the other hand, grew restless when I recognized my neighborhood. My own bed. If nothing else after all this, my own bed.

  I almost panicked when I thought that she'd surely never be able to find my apartment in the rows of run-down buildings, never be able to find the specific key I put over the door frame of just the right door, snicked in between the moulding of the door jam and the wall. She must have felt some residual familiarity, though, and without so much as a pause, she found the key and the door yawned open.

  She threw the key on the countertop and made her way unerringly to the bathroom where she showered off the dried blood and walked naked to the bedroom. I felt her fatigue right then as heavily as if it were my own. I realized she must have been struggling to keep me at bay as hard as I'd been struggling to find my way forward. But deep in the corner myself, I didn't have to fight the nuances of a body not yet recovered from trauma while she did. Unlike her, I simply had to be, watching, processing, floating to the surface when the synapses fired the right way.

  She was well and truly spent, and so I imagined her exhaustion to be so complete it would smother consciousness, sub consciousness, and the Id that was very much me deep within her. I only had time to wonder why she'd returned to my apartment instead of finding Aisha, and then we were both so comatose that I was aware of nothing more.

  She awoke with a start. There was a noise. She could've sworn she heard something and now she couldn't see for shit. She must've forgotten to leave the light burning when she'd hit the bed because it was dark as death in the room. Nighttime, then, she realized blearily. She'd slept all through the day.

  All through the day.

  The word vampire struck her mind right about the same time a hand slipped over her mouth. Adrenaline charged her veins, shrieking to each muscle that it was live or die and she bucked back against the bed, building momentum and thrust.

  The hold that had begun as a merely beseeching request for silence transformed to a vise. She couldn't move as it restrained her. I imagined her eyes were bugging out into the darkness, straining to make out a single form.

  I knew exactly who it was.

  "Shh," he said, pulling his hand away. "No need to panic, mi amore; it's just me."

  "Who in the fuck are you?"

  The lamp beside my bed clicked on, sending a shaft of light across the blankets and onto the wall. Gio sat next to Ismé on the edge of the bed. Like the last time I had seen him, he was perfectly coiffed, heart stopping, the electricity that surrounded him seeming to emanate from him and sparking as it got close to me. Ismé's hands planted beneath her as she struggled to sit and then to scramble away from him.

&
nbsp; "I told you there wasn't any need to panic. You see it's me or have you forgotten me already?" He shifted closer, wrapping his fingers around her elbow.

  "I can't forget you," he said. "I'm famished. I haven't been able to eat since I last saw you. No one tastes the same."

  I could sense the wheels turning. One vampire was as good as the other as far as Ismé was concerned. In fact, I think it was the first moment she realized she and Aisha had gotten it all wrong before; they'd foolishly believed Magnus was the vampire who had me enthralled, and for a moment, she was afraid.

  "Your blood calls to me, mi amore. It writes poems on the breeze, and the wind carries them to me until I'm sick with hunger. Do you feel it straining for me? Have you waited for me? Tell me you have been burning for my release."

  "If you say so, slick."

  He cocked his black head at her. "Slick? Are you teasing me?" He let one finger trail across her forearm toward the edge of the sheet, then it gripped the seam, tugging it down. A draft ran down to her toes that I felt as I crouched behind the veil, praying to any god that would listen.

  His voice shifted, dropping a note. "I like it when you tease."

  "How much teasing can you take?" She went all cunning and coy as she answered him. I wanted to gag. If I had control of my tissues at all, think I would've forced out a dry heave.

  She leaned purposefully toward him, letting the hand that had tugged at the sheet slip down beneath the material to cup her breast.

  He chuckled. "It's not how much teasing I can take, mi amore."

  "So you like it rough, then," she whispered.

  "The promise of wild abandon makes my teeth ache. That much I admit." He made a sound that would have been a growl coming from any other animal except human.

  She planted her hand on top of his and squeezed so hard I thought it would make her wince. I tried to shout at her to be careful, that she had no idea how badly my body affected this vampire. That if she wasn't careful, the long-awaited resurrection of her soul into this new body wouldn't last more than five more minutes.

  It was that moment I realized exactly what it was that Ismé wanted from a vampire. And she confirmed it.