The Witch's Brew (The Witch's Brew 1)

by Brenda Cothern

  “I’m going to get dressed,” Adam informed Mikael without looking at the vampire before he walked to his bedroom.

  What the hell am I doing letting him in my apartment? Adam thought when he pulled on jeans. Getting some answers, a small voice in his mind countered. He grunted at his thoughts and pulled a T-shirt over his head.

  Mikael looked deep in thought when Adam exited his bedroom and returned to his kitchen. The vampire didn’t even look at him, but instead seemed to be staring off into space. Adam wasn’t sure what to make of Mikael’s behavior.

  “How do you take your coffee?” Adam found himself asking even though he was surprised a vampire could consume anything other than blood. His question seemed to snap his boss out of whatever daze he had been in and the vampire focused his deep blue eyes on him.

  Mikael looked at Adam and the norm appeared to freeze midway in retrieving coffee cups from his cabinet. He wasn’t sure why looking at Adam caused the man to react like a deer caught in headlights. This was the first sign of nervousness that Adam had displayed due to his presence. The last thing Mikael wanted to do was make Adam nervous, or worse, fear him.

  “Cream and sugar, please.” Mikael resisted the urge to smile. He wanted to reassure Adam, but thought a smile that would remind the man of his fangs would do just the opposite.

  Adam filled two cups with coffee. He added cream to them both, but only sugar to one. He was still trying to process vampires drinking anything other than blood when he handed Mikael his cup.

  “Thank you.” Mikael took a sip of the perfectly prepared coffee and moaned his pleasure at the taste. “I eat and drink just as you do,” Mikael commented when he caught Adam’s scrutinizing gaze.

  “But you drink blood, too,” Adam replied in a tone that dared Mikael to deny what he already knew was true.

  Mikael took another sip of his coffee before he lowered the mug and met Adam’s steady green eyed gaze. “I do. It provides nutrition I need to survive that human food and drink do not.”

  “So, you what? Just go around biting people? Making them like you?” Adam’s tone was accusing.

  “No. I do not take from those unwilling to give.” Mikael winced. “Normally. Last night was one of the very few exceptions to that. I keep a supply of blood in my refrigerator. Had George attended me as I intended, he would have retrieved what I needed in order to heal.”

  “Is that what you do so you won’t turn someone?” Adam had a begrudging respect for Mikael when the vampire informed him he used bagged blood instead of humans to get what he needed.

  “Yes and no,” Mikael admitted.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “There is so much you don’t know,” Mikael breathed out.

  “Then you better tell me,” Adam demanded.

  “The more I share, the deeper you will become entrenched in our world.”

  “Seems like I am already fucking entrenched,” Adam growled and set his coffee down on the table without even taking a sip. “So, explain.”

  Once more, Mikael watched Adam rub his hands over his now jean clad thighs. It was clear the man wasn’t even aware of the movement.

  “I drink bagged blood by choice, but partake in fresh blood when the situation is appropriate.” Mikael didn’t give Adam a chance to interrupt and ask when such situations were appropriate. “Drinking from a human won’t turn them unless they are drained. I am sure this is the knowledge you know from reading books and watching movies. However, it is extremely rare that my kind are created that way.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam could think of no other way a vampire could be created.

  “Life drinkers are born. To be created as one is a disgrace and a stigma to the line,” Mikael informed and watched the information sink in. He wasn’t surprised when the expression of doubt settled on Adam’s face.

  “You’re trying to tell me you were born a vampire,” Adam stated instead of asked.

  “Life drinker,” Mikael corrected before he continued, “Not I, but most. Those of us who are turned are less than one percent of my kind.” Mikael forced himself to take another sip of his coffee while he waited for Adam to reply.

  Adam took a moment to absorb what Mikael just shared. The fact that vampires, life drinkers, as his boss claimed they were called, were born, and were only rarely the result of being turned, was practically unbelievable. However, the note of almost self-disgust when Mikael mentioned creation by turning was unmistakable. It was a level of shame Adam had never heard before, but he refused to be distracted.

  “This is why you didn’t make me into one of you?” Adam raised a doubtful brow at his boss.

  “I would never turn someone against their will.”

  There was a feeling of pain that laced Mikael’s answer that Adam wasn’t sure what to make of. Still, that didn’t stop him from asking his next question.

  “But, you have in the past?”

  “No. I’ve never made one of my kind.”

  Something in Mikael’s tone caused Adam to believe the vampire. It was still hard to believe the man seated on the other end of his couch was anything other than human. However, Adam knew he wasn’t human.

  “You have questions,” Mikael stated. “I’ve come to answer them even though I am endangering my family by doing so.”

  Mikael mentioning family made Adam think of his coworkers. Where they all vampires or were most of them thralls?

  “At work, who is a vampire like you and who was a thrall?”

  Mikael sighed and set his coffee cup down on the end table next to him. The Hollywood concept of thralls, humans spelled to be vampire servants, was one that severely pissed him off. However, he didn’t display any of his anger.

  “We are life drinkers, not vampires,” Mikael corrected again. “And there are no such things as thralls.”

  “What is George then? He said he wasn’t like you when I asked.”

  Mikael mentally cursed Adam’s memory and Lawrence’s inability to alter it. His intention had been to answer Adam’s questions about what he was, not explain the different types of supernaturals that were a part of his family.

  “Randy and Travis are life drinkers like I am,” Mikael offered in an effort to dodge Adam’s question. However, it didn’t work.

  “And the others?”

  “Chris and Rita are human. They have known about us for the last two years, now.”

  That was only a partial answer and Adam had a feeling Mikael didn’t want to share more. Well, that was too damn bad.

  “And the others?” Adam repeated demandingly.

  “There are other beings in my world, but nothing you need to fear,” Mikael tried to answer neutrally.

  “If they are nothing for me to fear, why are you not willing to tell me about them?”

  Adam’s question was a valid one, but not one of the questions Mikael had intended to answer when he decided to visit Adam. And they were questions he wouldn’t answer at this time, either.

  “Do you wish to know more about them or know more about my kind?”

  Adam opened his mouth to answer, but quickly closed it before he spoke. He did want to know about what other kind of beings he worked with, who he previously believed were human, but learning about Mikael seemed more important at the moment.

  “So, you don’t drain humans and turn them into your kind?”

  “I told you I didn’t,” Mikael replied and was relieved that Adam’s line of questioning had returned to his kind.

  “You walked in here without an invitation,” Adam stated.

  “Permission to enter is a Hollywood myth.”

  “What else has Hollywood made up?”

  “Consuming only blood,” Mikael nodded toward his coffee cup as proof. “Sunlight harming us, turning into bats or mist, controlling humans with the thought.” Mikael considered that for a moment. “Those are the most common ones. I’m sure there are more, but I cannot think of any of them at the moment.”

  “A stake
to the heart.” Adam watched Mikael tense and that reaction was all the answer he needed. “Beheading?” Mikael remained tense and his lips were pressed together so hard that they barely formed a thin pale line on Mikael’s face. “Burning at the stake?” Mikael’s body and features began to relax and again the vampire’s body language told Adam his answer.

  “You now know what can kill my kind,” Mikael said almost on a whisper and broke the silence that had crept up between them. “What will you do with such information now?”

  Adam sat in thought and stared at Mikael. As unbelievable as all of this was, it didn’t escape his notice that the vampire took a great risk at confirming how he could be killed. Adam respected that and could admit he trusted Mikael for sharing such a weakness and trusting him with the information that could end the vampire’s existence. He still had questions, though.

  “Even when you were injured, you could’ve thrown me off when I tried to restrain you, couldn’t you have?”

  Mikael had been intently watching Adam. The wheels of thought were spinning behind the norm’s eyes were obvious.

  “Yes, I could have,” Mikael answered honestly because he had no intention to start lying to the man now. He may have been weak, but if he felt Adam was a true threat he could have easily tossed the man aside like a ragdoll.

  “But you didn’t. Why?”

  “I was curious as to what you intended to do.” Mikael couldn’t have stopped his grin-like smirk from spreading his lips even if he had tried.

  “You kissed me.” Adam stated and Mikael waited for the question he knew would follow. He didn’t have to wait long. “You wanted me. Did you make me want you in return?”

  “I can’t compel you to do anything you don’t already want to do,” Mikael answered seriously, but still couldn’t stop his self-satisfied smirk from spreading his lips.

  “So, you can compel,” Adam said as if he’d caught Mikael in a lie.

  “No,” Mikael corrected. “I can enhance a feeling if someone is already feeling it.” Mikael paused only for a moment and raised a finger to halt Adam from speaking. “But, I did no such thing when I kissed you and you returned my kiss just as hungrily.”

  Adam studied Mikael. He wasn’t sure which way he’d wanted the vampire to answer. He had been attracted to his boss from day one, but had subconsciously hoped the hunger he felt for the man when they kissed had been some sort of vampire persuasion. He would’ve thought Mikael was lying to him if the vampire hadn’t already been so unquestionably truthful with him.

  “Will you return to work tonight?”

  Mikael’s question startled Adam out of his thoughts about his boss. He hadn’t really given much thought to whether he was going to return to The Witch’s Brew that night or not. He still wasn’t sure, although he was less wary of his boss now than he had been when he had arrived home.

  “I don’t know,” Adam answered honestly and stood.

  Mikael followed Adam’s lead when the man stood. He appreciated Adam’s honesty and hoped the man would return to work at the club. Mikael did consider Adam family even though he’d only been employed for a couple of months. He followed Adam to his apartment door and Mikael once more witnessed Adam rub his raw hands on the thighs of his jeans. The movement made Mikael wince in sympathy of how painful the motion must feel.

  Adam opened his apartment door and ignored the pain from his palm grasping the doorknob. He had too much new information flying through his mind to give much thought to the pain he felt. However, it was that lack of thought that must have allowed a trace of the pain he felt to be displayed on his face.

  “Why are your palms rubbed raw to the point of causing you pain?”

  Mikael’s hand on his arm would’ve stopped Adam dead in his tracks even if the vampire’s concerned tone hadn’t. Adam looked down at where Mikael rested his hand on Adam’s forearm before he shifted his gaze to the vampire’s face. He saw nothing in Mikael’s expression that didn’t match the concern he just heard in the vampire’s question.

  “It’s nothing.” Adam dropped his hand from his apartment door.

  “After all I’ve shared, please do not lie to me, Adam.”

  Mikael moved his hand down along Adam’s arm until he reached the man’s wrist. With barely any pressure, he turned Adam’s arm so that his hand was palm up. The swollen red rawness of Adam’s palm was clear for them both to see.

  “It’s nothing,” Adam repeated and when he attempted to pull away, his vampire boss tightened the grasp he had around his wrist.

  “This,” Mikael glanced at Adam’s palm. “Is not ‘nothing.’ Don’t tell me what the cause is, but let me heal you just the same.”

  Adam wasn’t sure what Mikael was offering. As far as he knew, even after everything he’d learned from Mikael today, vampires didn’t possess the ability to heal. But, his curiosity got the better of him and he nodded.

  Mikael wasn’t sure how Adam was going to react to what he was about to do, so he moved slowly. Without breaking Adam’s gaze, he moved the hand. Adam kept his palm open and Mikael placed his hand beneath it before he brought it toward his mouth. Adam didn’t resist his movement and that encouraged Mikael that the norm would allow him to help ease his pain.

  Adam watched and as if in slow motion Mikael raised his palm toward his mouth. He didn’t feel the slightest twinge of fear as his hand went closer and closer to the mouth that Adam knew could contain fangs. Instead, what Adam felt was an unrealistic jolt of arousal at the thought of Mikael’s lips on his skin again. It was crazy to feel this way, Adam knew, but knowing didn’t stop his cock from starting to harden.

  Mikael could hear the beat of Adam’s heart rate increase. He was sure it was a fear response, especially after what Adam had already experienced where he was concerned. However, Adam’s pupils were blown wide before his tongue even touched the man’s damage flesh. Seeing the barely there line of green in Adam’s eyes made Mikael remember how the man looked when he took Adam’s mouth in the spontaneous kiss he had inflicted earlier. Desire was what he was seeing in Adam’s gaze, now.

  A quick inhale of breath was Adam’s reaction when he felt Mikael’s warm wet tongue lick his palm. He was sure he didn’t expect the vampire to bite him, but he never expected the feeling that was left in the wake of Mikael’s tongue. Warm heat, almost numbing heat, sank into the palm of his hand and Adam moaned in pain-free relief.

  Mikael observed Adam’s eyes slowly close when he dragged his tongue over the man’s raw skin. It was clear that his healing saliva was giving Adam relief. Slowly, he licked the entirety of Adam’s palm before moving his tongue along each digit to offer the same relief.

  Adam was only barely aware that Mikael released his hand and grasped his other wrist. He didn’t resist Mikael’s shift with his hold, but instead rested his now pain free hand on his boss’ hip. Adam forced his eyes to open in order to watch Mikael tend to his other raw palm.

  Mikael was continuing to watch Adam’s face when he released the man’s hand and grasped the other. So, he didn’t miss the moment his employee’s gaze locked onto his. He didn’t miss feeling Adam’s hand settle on his hip, either.

  Just feeling Adam’s hand on his waist caused Mikael’s arousal to spike again. Memories of pressing up into Adam in an effort to feel relief and feeling the man’s hardness pushing down into him flooded Mikael’s mind. His sudden arousal was almost enough to distract him from his intention to heal Adam’s other palm.

  Adam resisted the impulsive urge to pull Mikael closer. He resisted his desire to move his hand off the vampire’s waist and release Mikael’s almost white blonde hair from the clasp that secured the beautiful locks against the nape of the man’s neck. Instead, Adam forced his gaze to observe Mikael moving his palm closer to the man’s mouth.

  Not a man. A vampire. Adam thought, but at the moment didn’t give a shit about the distinction.

  Mikael’s lips parted and his pale pink tongue made an appearance again before Adam felt it caress
his raw palm. He felt mesmerized by watching Mikael somehow love his pain away. The tightening of his hand on Mikael’s waist was unintentional as was Adam pulling his boss closer to minimize the distance between them.

  Mikael didn’t resist when he felt Adam pull him closer. No, he went willingly even though he knew it was a bad idea to give in to his lust for the norm. Still, that didn’t stop the sigh he breathed against Adam’s fingers when he finally pulled away from licking the last reddened digit. His offer to heal Adam’s palms hadn’t been sexual, but he couldn’t deny how aroused he became offering the man relief. He wasn’t the only one turned on, unintentionally or not, by his actions as Adam’s hardness against his hip proved.

  Adam observed Mikael lick the last of his fingers that had been rubbed raw only a moment before. The vampire still cupped his hand and had Adam not felt hardness pressing against his thigh, he may have thought Mikael was unaffected by their interaction.

  Mikael watched him. No, studied him, as he lowered Adam’s hand. Adam couldn’t read what he was seeing in the vampire’s eyes, but he sure as hell knew what he felt pressed into his thigh meant. Mikael was just as aroused as he, but Adam questioned if this wasn’t just a reaction to having the vampire’s mouth on him.

  Mikael continued to hold Adam’s wrist even though he lowered it to their sides. The wheels of thought he was becoming used to seeing in Adam’s eyes were spinning. They stood pressed together and there was no doubt Adam felt his arousal just as he felt Adam’s. If there was any doubt, it was from Adam and Mikael knew that regardless of what he told the norm about compulsion being bullshit, Adam would be questioning his sudden desire for him.

  Silence stretched between them as Adam studied Mikael’s sapphire blue eyes. He didn’t feel compelled to feel anything for the vampire, but he couldn’t deny his body’s reaction to the being he now held in his arms. Once more, his boss was passive as if waiting for him to react. Mikael’s hardness was pressing against his thigh, but unlike the last time he’d felt the vampire’s arousal, Mikael remained still. So still, that Adam was convinced the vampire wasn’t inciting his lust, but instead resisting his own.