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

by Brenda Cothern

  “Randy, no!” Mikael yelled when his adopted son leapt to attack Adam. He started to intervene, but was intercepted by Travis.

  “Let him,” Travis advised and ignored Mikael’s frown. “Randy’s never had to experience a fight for hierarchy before since neither of us has ever challenged his place.”

  Travis was right. Both he and his longtime friend were old enough to have experienced fighting for their place in the hierarchy of a coven. Randy was so young and had never belonged to a coven since Mikael didn’t consider he, Travis, and Randy to be one. Mikael let their positions at the club dictate any delusion of hierarchy they may have. Mikael, Randy, and Travis. Owner, bar manager, and bartender.

  Turning Adam didn’t threaten Randy’s status at The Witch’s Brew since Adam worked security. However, if they were a coven, Mikael turning Adam would threaten Randy’s position since as Mikael’s spawn Adam would always come before any others. Mikael thought through all of this before agreeing with Travis and not stepping in.

  Adam hadn’t expected Randy to verbally attack him when he walked into the room. He wanted to feel bad about his impulsive attack on the younger man, but just couldn’t. Mikael said Randy and Travis were born vampires’, so what the hell did Randy know about what it was like to be turned. He didn’t know shit and that fueled Adam’s anger.

  He also didn’t expect Randy to stay down when he threw him into the wall. So, he was ready when Randy retaliated. Randy charged across the short space between them in the dining room. Adam sidestepped his bar manager and Randy barely got his hands up before he ran into the wall behind Adam. He used his hands to push off the wall and did a backwards handstand in an effort to kick Adam in the head. Adam batted Randy’s feet away and the man cart wheeled to land upright.

  Adam was pissed, but his anger had lessened now that he was engaged in combat. Too many years in the military had ensured his emotions were buried the moment fighting broke out. Emotions would get a soldier killed, though the irony of letting his emotions rule his actions earlier against Mikael wasn’t lost on him. Still, now his anger at Randy’s words was smothered, he didn’t wish to hurt the kid.

  Kid, Adam mentally snorted at his thought since Randy was likely hundreds of years older than he.

  Randy lunged at him again. Adam braced his larger weight and allowed Randy’s thinner arms to wrap around his waist. Adam laced his fingers and brought his fists down on the center of Randy’s back. A loud resounding crunch sounded before Randy screamed and collapsed to the floor. Adam jumped back and stared down at Randy in horror. He’d use that move on men smaller than Randy and had never broken their back. He had no doubt that was what had he just done, too.

  “Ouch,” Travis said nonchalantly and walked over to Randy who was lying face down and moaning in pain.

  Mikael had cringed and winced when he heard Randy’s vertebrae snap. He’d had his neck broken once and knew it hurt like hell. It hurt, but would heal. Travis was kneeling down next to Randy and Mikael stopped in front of Adam. It was clear the man was in shock and horrified by what he’d done.

  “Adam,” Mikael tried to get his attention. It wasn’t until he fully blocked Adam’s view of where Randy lay on the floor that the man focused on him.

  “Fuck, I didn’t mean… I was just…”

  Mikael smiled at Adam and spoke softly, “He will heal, and it was a long overdue lesson that he needed to learn.”

  “What?” Adam asked incredulously. How having your back broken was a lesson of any sort was beyond him.

  “He will heal,” Mikael repeated because he was pretty sure Adam hadn’t heard that part of what he’d said the first time. He waited until he was sure his words registered in Adam’s mind before he continued. “Randy needed to learn that hierarchy isn’t a given.” Mikael paused and looked to where Travis had settled Randy on the couch. “I have sheltered him and failed to fully educate him.”

  Adam could sense Mikael’s guilt. He hadn’t felt Randy’s anger, so he felt it was safe enough to assume he could feel Mikael because the vampire had been the one to turn him. There was so much he didn’t know about Mikael’s kind. Hell, his kind, now. Adam made a promise to himself right then and there. Regardless of how pissed off he was at being turned into a vampire, or how angry he was at Mikael for doing it, he would learn everything he could about the world he now found himself part of.

  Mikael was studying Adam’s face before he spoke. The expression of horrified shock morphed into one of determination. However, even had Mikael not seen the change, he felt Adam’s emotions shift.

  “Perhaps, you learned something as well, Adam.”

  “I am stronger than I realized,” Adam replied and met Mikael’s steady gaze.

  “Yes, but you knew that before we left the bedroom.”

  Adam did, so he gave Mikael’s statement more thought. “I will hurt people accidentally if I’m not careful.”

  “Yes, you will.” Mikael smiled. “Handle everything like a feather you don’t want to crush until you adjust to your newfound strength.” Adam grunted. “Oh, and don’t make any sudden movements.”

  “No shit,” Adam grumbled and Mikael laughed. He chuckled again when Adam’s stomach growled almost as loudly as the man’s curse.

  “Let’s get you fed,” Mikael suggested and indicated they should go into the kitchen.

  “What about Randy?” Adam stared back into the living room where Travis knelt beside the couch Randy lay upon.

  “Travis will take care of him.”

  Adam watched the two vampires in the living room for only a moment longer before he followed Mikael into the kitchen. The scent of food made his mouth water and his stomach rumble again. It felt like he hadn’t eaten in weeks even though he’d had dinner less than eighteen hours ago. Or had he?

  “I’ll make you a plate,” Mikael turned around and held out a cup of coffee. The look on Adam’s face made him pause. “What’s wrong? Aside from becoming one of us?” Mikael added in a light tone.

  “How long have I been here?” Adam asked, as Mikael’s concerned gaze quickly looked over him from head to toe. Looking back up, Mikael saw that Adam seemed to notice for the first time that he was barefoot and naked from the waist up.

  Mikael did not even try to pretend he didn’t know what Adam was asking. His new employee probably thought he’d been there for days since Hollywood portrayed it taking several days to be reborn as a vampire. In reality, a turning only took two to four hours depending on the person being turned. Adam’s only took two and a half hours, but he had remained unconscious longer because his body needed to heal.

  “We were shot last night around one,” Mikael answered and waved the mug of coffee at Adam to encourage the man to take it.

  Adam absently accepted his coffee before he looked at the clock on the microwave. There were no windows in Mikael’s apartment even though the vampire claimed sun didn’t harm him. Them, Adam mentally corrected. So, he had no way to determine the time aside from the neon green digits that claimed it was 8:12.

  “A.M. or P.M..?”

  Mikael looked over his shoulder and followed Adam’s gaze. “A.M.”

  Adam wasn’t sure how it was possible that he’d been a dying man only seven hours ago and was now a healthy vampire. Just another Hollywood myth busted, Adam thought and a small grin spread his lips. He had so much to learn about his new existence. That thought fled his mind when Mikael turned around and held out a plate piled high with food.

  At least half a dozen scrambled eggs if the heaping pile of yellow goodness was any gauge, two thick T-bone steaks which were obviously cooked rare since Adam could see the red juices coloring some of his eggs, and enough bacon to clog every artery in his body filled the plate.

  “God, that smells delicious, but that’s a hell of a lot of food,” Adam commented as he accepted his plate.

  “There’s more where this came from.” Mikael gave Adam a wink.

  “You can’t be serious.” Adam looked at Mikael i
ncredulously and accepted his silverware with the two fingers that weren’t holding the handle of his coffee mug.

  “Bon Appétit.” Mikael nodded toward the dining room.

  Adam’s ass was barely planted in the chair before he was digging into his food. He was so focused on eating that he never noticed Mikael rise and then to the table with the coffee carafe and another plate piled high with protein laced food. Adam would need the protein for a variety of reasons. Being drained of his blood wasn’t one of them, though.

  Adam had almost half of Mikael’s blood in him when he was turned before his body began to make its own. However, Mikael had fed while they waited for Adam to wake, so neither of them was anything but completely healthy now.

  While Adam took a sip of coffee, the empty plate before him was slid away and a full one took its place. He glanced at Mikael who shot him another wink and nodded toward his full plate. Adam didn’t say a word before he refocused on his second helping and began to eat.

  ***

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mikael began to speak once Adam was halfway through his third plate of food. Adam’s consumption of the protein laced breakfast had finally begun to slow. Mikael started his conversation with Adam by apologizing again for turning him. He didn’t allow his employee to interrupt him to ask for an explanation for his selfishness. Mikael didn’t have an answer. Well, that was a lie, but it wasn’t an answer he wasn’t willing to address let alone admit to. So, he plowed right over Adam’s attempt to interrupt and delved right into the history of his own turning.

  Adam finished his breakfast, if he could call five T-bones, two pounds of bacon, and almost three dozen eggs, breakfast while he listened to Mikael’s tale of how he was turned. If Mikael’s words and tone weren’t enough to convince Adam of Mikael’s regret over turning him, and they were, the flood of emotions Adam was currently being bombarded with would have been enough proof of his sincerity.

  Adam pushed his last empty plate of breakfast away and took another sip of coffee. The man had held Mikael’s gaze throughout his tale, but Mikael couldn’t get a bead on what his new employee was feeling. The thought that Adam was shielding his emotions from him briefly crossed Mikael’s mind, although he’d yet to teach the man that skill so he doubted that was the case; unless of course, Adam had a natural affinity for such a skill.

  “I am sorry,” Mikael repeated.

  Turning someone against their will was akin to rape as far as Mikael was concerned. Sorry wasn’t a strong enough word, and fell so far short when said after essentially raping the man that it wasn’t even funny. There wasn’t a damn thing funny about what he’d done for his own selfishness.

  “So you’ve said, repeatedly,” Adam replied evenly. He could feel how regretful Mikael was over turning him. However, what he still didn’t have an answer to was why his boss felt the urge to turn him in the first place. Especially after sharing his history of how dramatically he was turned.

  “Why did you turn me, Mikael?” Adam asked quietly. “You said you were selfish for doing so. What do you mean ‘selfish’?”

  “I should check on Randy.” Mikael tried to take the coward’s way out by playing the injured friend card.

  “They are gone.”

  Adam had noticed Travis give Randy two bags of blood before he lifted Randy and they left. Had Adam not witnessed the entire scene, he never would’ve known they didn’t just disappear into thin air. Travis and Randy made no sound whatsoever when they left Mikael’s apartment. It was more than unnerving that the two men could leave without making a sound that would have alerted either him or Mikael.

  Not that Travis left without acknowledging he and Mikael sitting at the dining room table. Travis had given Adam a smile and a slight nod before he disappeared with Randy in his arms through Mikael’s door and closed it soundlessly behind them.

  “What?”

  Mikael jumped up out of his chair so quickly that it fell over. He spun around and looked at his now empty couch. He couldn’t believe Travis had left and took Randy with him. Actually, that was a lie. He could totally believe Travis had removed them both from the apartment. Travis was ever the romantic and knew he had feelings for Adam. Mikael was able to deny any feelings for his new employee before, but turning Adam had confirmed Travis’ suspicion as if a neon sign flashed in the center of the club.

  “Shit,” Mikael cursed and then tensed when he felt Adam’s fear laced concern flood their link. Quickly he said, “Travis will care for Randy and he will heal.”

  Okay, so his curse wasn’t because of worry over Randy, Adam thought. It must be because we are now alone and he can’t avoid my question. Adam grinned.

  “Sit down, Mikael,” Adam ordered. One way or the other he would get to the bottom of why Mikael felt selfish for turning him.

  Mikael knew he wasn’t going to escape admitting how he was starting to feel for Adam. Shit, already felt if he wanted to be brutally honest with himself, which he didn’t.

  “Look,” Mikael began and righted his chair before he took his seat at the table again. “We have this thing between us. This attraction. You’re like a magnet that I have found pulling at me. I’ve never felt such a pull before and I wanted to see where that pull would take me.” Mikael paused and finally met Adam’s gaze. “That is why turning you was selfish.”

  Adam could feel Mikael’s trepidation at finally admitting why he turned Adam. He couldn’t deny that even before he was made a vampire he’d been attracted to the man. He felt the pull Mikael mentioned and had fought it tooth and nail because of his personal rule about having sex with those he worked with or for. Now knowing Mikael felt the same way… well, Adam wasn’t sure what that meant for his personal rule or for Mikael’s family rule. What Adam did know was that he wanted to find out.

  “I really am sorry I was so selfish and have now done to you what had been done to me.”

  A grunt escaped Mikael’s lips as the chair beneath him broke to the point that he was now lying flat on the floor. Not only flat on the floor on top of splintered oak, but under the huge ass form that was Adam. Mikael wasn’t sure if this was another attack, but it was well deserved if that was the case. Mikael did nothing to throw Adam’s large body off him.

  Once more, Adam had moved and he was so fast that the result wasn’t his intention. Now, he was lying on top of Mikael. It was a horizontal position that mimicked the vertical one they had shared when they had kissed the last time. The flair of lust that incited his body’s arousal drowned out whatever feeling he’d been trying to read from Mikael. Adam hadn’t even realized his fangs had dropped before his lips crashed down onto Mikael’s.

  The flare of Adam’s arousal registering on Mikael’s radar only lasted a second before the man’s mouth covered his and Adam’s tongue sought entrance. Mikael obliged and raised his hands to Adam’s hips. He never would have expected Adam to react to his confession in this manner. Never in all of his centuries of life, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop the object of his desire from devouring his mouth. And that was exactly what Adam was doing, too. Adam’s fangs sliced into his lower lip, but Mikael gave no thought to the small bite of pain or the metallic taste that joined that of Adam. Apparently, that wasn’t the case for Adam.

  Adam tasted blood in their kiss. He wasn’t sure if it was his or Mikael’s, but the taste made him pull back enough to tongue his teeth. A sharp pain and more blood-filled Adam’s mouth from slicing his tongue on one of his teeth. Not teeth, he realized. Fangs.

  Adam scrambled off Mikael and raised a hand to his mouth once his ass planted on the floor a few feet away. Somewhere in his subconscious, Adam understood he would have fangs, but feeling them and tasting the blood caused by their sharpness slicing through flesh was something altogether different. So different, that in his panic Adam didn’t even realize his tongue was already healed when he experimentally prodded one of his incisors.

  Mikael didn’t move after Adam scrambled off him. He could feel Adam’s pa
nic and anxiety through their link, but could do nothing but focus on preventing Adam from feeling how strongly he was aroused. Tasting Adam’s blood again was almost too much for Mikael to resist. He wasn’t injured now and even though Adam’s blood no longer held the nutrition he needed, the taste was like an aphrodisiac that made his cock throb painfully.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam’s voice was muffled behind his hand that was still ridiculously hiding his newfound fangs.

  “For what?” Mikael panted out and looked away while he tried to hold onto his tenuous control that was preventing his mind from bombarding Adam’s with his lust.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Adam admitted softly.

  “You didn’t,” Mikael reassured Adam.

  He turned his head to look back at Adam and that was his mistake. Adam’s chest was heaving. Whether from panic or fear Mikael didn’t know because he was too aroused to focus on the link they shared, but it really didn’t matter. The muscles of Adam’s chest flexed with every breath and were Mikael’s undoing.

  One second Adam was looking across the few feet he’d managed to put between him and Mikael, the next he was lying on his back and looking up into Mikael’s crystal blue eyes with his boss straddling his hips. Mikael’s long blonde hair was no longer secured by a clasp at the nape of his neck. Where the clasp had gone, Adam didn’t care as the cascade of blonde fell like a waterfall around his head.

  “I’ve already healed,” Mikael whispered as he leaned closer. “And most of what we tasted was yours.” Mikael smiled, moved Adam’s hand away from his mouth, and only waited a second before closing the distance between their mouths to initiate another searing kiss.

  Feeling Mikael pressing down into him and tasting the man again had Adam so aroused that all thoughts of his fangs and tasting blood fled his mind. Instinctively, he brought a hand to Mikael’s neck and gently fisted into the man’s long blonde locks. Adam’s lust flared at the same time Mikael moaned into his mouth.