by Michele Hauf
She closed her eyes. No. You can’t transform to vampire. That would be…
The worst. A terrible stigma among witches, not to mention unnatural and sickening. No witch would willingly welcome the vampire taint. It was everything the witches of the Light had protected themselves against for nearly a millennium.
Her spellcraft always succeeded. She used tried-and-true spells from the family grimoire. What could have possibly gone wrong?
No, she was overreacting. Maybe she was picking up on some kind of spice used in cooking the meat. She didn’t find the blood appealing.
She glanced above the rooftop of the shop across the street. The moon was waxing but was five or six days from fullness. What little she knew about those bitten by vampires was that, as the moon neared fullness, the craving for blood became insurmountable. And those mortals who tried to withstand the hunger and make it past the full moon were known to go crazy. Literally. Fighting the incessant hunger took everything from them, including their sanity.
She wasn’t a fighter; she was a performer. A lover. A witch who wanted to stay a witch. Nothing more. No fangs or unnatural cravings.
Smacking noises from the table next to her distracted her. A chunk of red meat speared on the fork looked like a delicious treat—
Verity swore under her breath.
She needed to perform the spell again.
* * *
Freddie Slater sat low in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes-Benz just down the street from the bistro Verity had skipped into. He’d tracked her from the theater. She sat near a window, nervously tracing the street with her eyes. She couldn’t see him through the darkened windows of the car.
He’d thought Clas had killed her. Idiot. That was the last time he put his trust in the burly bruiser. But the way Verity traced her neck with her fingertips did not go unnoticed. Had Clas’s bite begun the transformation? How rich.
The witch he most loved to hate—and hated to love—would soon need blood to survive. Sweet revenge. And he hadn’t even orchestrated it. He did like when the universe plopped surprises into his arms.
His cell phone rang, and after checking the screen, he decided to answer while keeping his focus on the bistro.
“What is it, Clas?”
“The hunter has found our lair beneath the club. He took out four of our tribe.”
“And where were you when all this was going down?”
“I, uh—didn’t want to take a stake to the heart, man.”
“So you didn’t attempt to help your fellow tribemates. What part of war don’t you understand, Clas?”
“Uh, I’ve never really been in a war, boss.”
Slater rapped his fingers on the dashboard. He’d stake the idiot himself. “Why didn’t you tell me the witch didn’t die?”
“What?”
“The witch I sent you to kill. She’s alive.”
“No, I bit her deep, man. Tore out her throat—”
Verity stepped outside the bistro, her head lifting as she took in the street up and down. Her long, pale neck was dusted by that impossible violet hair that he could still recall slipping over his skin.
“Her throat looks fine to me. We need to talk. Meet me at the mansion in an hour.”
Clas’s protests continued. Slater hung up. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the wooden heart he hadn’t been able to toss. It was always warm, and he liked to think it felt as warm as her skin. Also, it smelled like her. He’d licked it clean of blood.
“Bitch,” he muttered, pressing the heart to his nose to inhale. “Wait until you know what it’s like to crave blood. Then you’ll know how I felt when you turned me down.”
But he wouldn’t go after her right now. He’d wait a few days, maybe even until the night of the full moon, so he could watch her fall, screaming and clawing, to the irresistible lure of vampirism.
Best to keep Clas safe until then. If the vamp took the stake before the full moon, the witch would not transform.
* * *
Rook returned to Order headquarters, stripped off his coat and the Kevlar vest and dropped them across his desk. The kick to his spine still ached, and he may have sprained a wrist. His leg bled, but with a few stitches he’d be fine. He had a surefire method to heal, but that would involve Verity’s assistance. And right now, he was too wound up to consider seduction.
Catching the heels of his palms at his knees, he bent over and blew out a breath, shaking his head miserably.
“Where the hell is that bastard?”
How could one vampire be so slippery? He’d seen the bald vampire enter the lair with the other four. He’d been distracted by the others, but normally he could take on half a dozen or more if forced to it. Something was wrong with him. He wasn’t up to par.
“Damn it!”
Stalking out of the office and down the hallway, he entered the gym and rushed the punching bag, beating it with his bare fists. Over and over he pounded his frustration into the sandbag until his knuckles bled, then he kicked it repeatedly until the leg wound began to bleed anew.
Pacing a wide circle around the room, he breathed in and out, seeking a tense calm and knowing he was only at his best when he reached a Zen state.
One bloody vampire kept giving him the slip.
“Fuck!”
He took out a stake from the hip holster and, compressing the paddles to release the tip, threw it toward the bamboo target set into the wall. It landed on the red center. He was still en marque. But he hadn’t been out in the field.
Should he blame his failure on the fact that this was the first field job he’d taken in years? That would be too easy. He kept up with his training and worked out daily. He often went in the field with his trainees, so it wasn’t as though he’d forgotten how to hunt. His reflexes were fine. His spirit was solid. His soul…
That is not what is distracting you, and you know it.
He hadn’t heard from Oz for hours. Not even a snarky comment after he and Verity had made love all afternoon.
“Then what is it?” he asked, circling around and delivering a high kick to the punching bag.
You know who it is.
Indeed.
“Yet you insist I keep her close. She is the key to finding my soul.”
So accept that tonight you were not in best form and move on.
“And what if I’m not in best form when Verity is again attacked? Keeping her close endangers her.”
There is something about her that we are missing.
“I don’t understand.”
She is hiding something.
“You think? If I could read her, I would know if she was, but—hell, why can’t I read her?”
Go home. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.
Rook shook his head at the demon’s optimism.
You do not want to put her out of your life. You did tell her you loved her.
“I—right.”
Had he meant it?
No.
You did.
What the hell was going on with him? In four centuries he’d not fallen in love. Not since Marianne. He couldn’t allow himself to know the luxury of love again.
Yes, you can.
“Shut up, Oz.”
Rook marched out of the gym and toward the elevator. He’d drive home and meditate before going to bed. Anything to clear his mind of…her.
* * *
Posed before her spell table, her hair let down and her body skyclad to the moonlight, Verity traced her finger down the Latin words in the grimoire. This was the same spell she had attempted the evening she had been bitten.
Something hadn’t worked that first time. It was difficult to admit to that, but she had no choice but to believe she had worked the spell
incorrectly.
The dove in her hand squirmed, its talons scratching her wrist. She squeezed hard enough to settle it. The black candle near her left foot flashed its flame high, bending to reach for the flame of the red candle that sat near her right.
Grasping the hat pin that had once belonged to great-grandmother Bluebell, and with a fleeting glance toward the quilt on her bed—“Be with me,” she whispered—she knelt before the candles and began to recite the words. They must be repeated over and over, her voice finding a cadence, a resonance that matched the frequency of the dove’s pounding heart.
With the final word, which she carried out in a long hum that vibrated in her chest and outward through her extremities, she stabbed the dove through the heart. Blood dripped onto the flood of red and black wax. The substance coiled and swirled, spinning the colors together.
Verity dropped both things she held and leaned over the swirling wax, panting, smelling…so much. The blood called to her as if a sweet treat. A macaron swirled in red and black, pleading for a taste. She lowered her head and dashed out her tongue but retracted it when it swept the congealed red wax.
“No.” She shuffled backward until her shoulders hit the base of the bed. Tugging on the quilt, she pulled it down and the blanket wrapped around her in a hug. “It didn’t work. The blood—I want it!”
Chapter 12
The brown calico alley cat that had been scratching at Verity’s back door sidled inside when she opened it. He pussyfooted straight for the pewter bowl she kept on the floor before the stove.
“I have your food,” she said, opening a can of something moist with chunks and gravy and forking it into the bowl.
The cat devoured the meal while Verity did a little straightening in the cupboards. The maid who stopped in every Monday always rearranged the goblets beside the bowls, and she preferred them above by the other glasses. She’d been jittery all morning. No way to know if last night’s spell had been effective. And she wasn’t particularly motivated to go in search of raw meat to test the efficacy.
Peering outside, she eyed the flowers growing in the backyard. “Poppies and thyme,” she said. “I’ll have to cut those under the moonlight for my spells.”
And the thought of moonlight tugged at her gut. She clutched her stomach and winced at the sudden surprising pain. It squeezed like a hunger pang, and the feeling strafed along her esophagus and up to her teeth. It was four times stronger than the mouthwatering pang she’d gotten last night when spying the bloody steak.
“Not the blood hunger,” she whispered desperately. “Please.”
That would mean the spell had not worked.
The full moon was five days away. She could manage the hunger pangs if they never got stronger than this one. But she suspected this was only a droplet compared to the smack she was going to be hit with soon enough. And just because she could manage them did not mean they would go away.
The inevitable was upon her.
A twisted meow preceded the snapping of bones and the weird leathery sound of stretching skin. The bar stool on the other side of the counter toppled but didn’t hit the floor. Instead, the calico-haired naked man righted it as he stood.
“That moist gravy stuff rocks,” he said. “Love the chicken flavor.”
“Morning, Thomas. Robe’s on the wall.”
He claimed the blue terrycloth robe with the big gold T on the chest and threaded his arms through it, wrapping the tie tightly across his waist.
“I washed it for you.”
“I can smell that. Lavender. Did you wash it or did the maid?” He slid onto a bar stool.
Verity dipped her head and avoided his gaze.
“Thought so.”
The familiar was handsome. Average in height and with a head full of brown and golden tufts, he reminded her of a movie star with his big white teeth and sparkling green eyes. She’d almost swooned into his arms. The cat had a way about him she knew many women could not, and did not, resist. And that was good enough reason to leave him alone.
“So what’s up, witchy chick? Haven’t seen you for a few weeks, if you don’t count your rude treatment of me the other night.”
She had been rude when Thomas had stopped in the other evening, but she’d had more important things in mind at the moment—namely, the sexy hunter.
“The usual. Shopping. Performing. Doing spellcraft. Getting chased by vampires. Meeting a sexy vampire hunter.”
She ran her fingers over the love hickeys Rook had left on her breasts this morning. Mmm…marked by the hunter. But what would he think if he knew there was a possibility she could become the very creature he hunted?
“Is that the guy who was sucking on your tonsils the other day? The tall glass of salt and pepper?”
“His hair isn’t that gray. And I thought you liked women.”
“I do, but I can appreciate a handsome face. So, chased by vamps. Not good. Sexy vampire hunter. Good?”
“Very good,” she said, leaning onto the counter. The sky-blue Ladurée box sat nearby, and she teased the corner of it with a fingernail. The sneaky hunter had known exactly how to get her on his side. “Extremely good.”
Thomas toyed with the ends of her hair. It was a cat thing. “You sound like a well-fucked woman. And trust me, I know that sound.”
“The man does have his talents.”
“Meow.”
“Yes, but Thomas, the vampire who chased me bit me.”
“Merde. Did the hunter kill the bastard?”
“No, he got away.”
“Double merde.”
“But Rook is working on finding the vampire.”
“Rook is the hunter’s name? Cheesy yet masculine at the same time.”
“I’m sure it’s a code name. He’s with the Order of the Stake.”
“One of the secret knights, eh? But not so secret as they like to believe.”
Thomas tugged aside her hair to inspect her neck where the bite wounds had healed, yet two red dots remained as if to insist she not forget her fate. “Does this mean what I think it means? The next full moon is in less than a week. Damn. Verity?”
“I tried a spell to stop the taint, but it didn’t work. Twice. My magic is always effective. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Thomas, I’ve been feeling hunger pangs. I had one just now when you were eating. Do you think the vampire taint is weakening my magic? Oh goddess, I can’t let this happen. But I don’t know what to do about it.”
“I suspect you didn’t tell your hunter lover about it? You and that never-trust-a-man thing, right?”
“I think I’m getting over that. I want to, at least. I intend to tell Rook. He can kill the vampire and no more worries. But what if he doesn’t find him in time? If I transform, then he’ll have to stake me.”
“Exactly. You don’t want the hunter to pencil you onto his list of most wanted.”
“But Thomas, I think I could love him.”
“Love? Wow. You’re moving fast. Don’t forget what happened last time you let a man into your heart.”
“Slater was an asshole. Rook is true. He has his secrets, but I know he’ll tell them to me when he’s ready. And speaking of Slater…there’s a nasty little complication.”
“I thought you’d kicked that longtooth to the curb a long time ago. Hell, you moved across the city. Has he found your new home?”
“I’m not sure. I think he may have been the one to send the vamps after me in the first place. And now that he’s aware Rook is after him, there’s going to be a big mess.”
“Don’t worry about anything between the Order and Zmaj. You focus on you. And try the spell again. I don’t want you vamping out anytime soon.”
“I don’t want that either. I nearly dove for some poor bastard’s steak last night. It was
bloody, Thomas. So horrible, but at the time I thought it smelled good.”
“Merde. Maybe you do need to fess up to the hunter. Sounds like he’s the only one who can help you. Do you trust him?”
“I want to, but you know what my mother told me.”
“Yes, but I distinctly recall you telling me that your grandmother overruled your mother’s entreaty not to trust any man.”
Verity caught her cheek against a palm. “I’m so confused. I’m not sure what or who to trust. I care about him, but…he is a hunter. Do I or don’t I ask for his help?”
“You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats animals,” Thomas announced and stretched back his shoulders. “I think I’ll go have a sniff around this guy. See what he’s made of.”
The robe deflated to a pile on the chair. The cat extricated itself from the fabric and leaped to the floor, heading toward the still-open back door.
“Thomas, stay away from him!”
Verity raced to the door, but the cat was already halfway across the yard.
“I can never tell that cat what to do. I hope Rook doesn’t have allergies.”
* * *
Rook strolled out behind the cathedral the Order had retrofitted for headquarters and sat on the back step. Tucked within a populated area, the narrow alleyway hugged a row of four- and five-story walkups that also housed rental flats and tourist shops. The air always smelled like the Greek food from a restaurant on the other side of the block. He’d never admit it out loud, but he did like the shaved chicken gyros slathered with cucumber sauce and loaded with pomme frites.
He’d spent the afternoon going through computer records for local vamps, trying to place the face of the vamp who had bitten Verity. He’d gotten a good look at him last night and may have found a match. Clas Dreher. No location. But names carried weight, and he intended to go around asking after him tonight.
He needed to get to Clas before Slater brought the war to him. The only war he could imagine involved vamps coming at him in great numbers. Or vamps going after humans.
That was the war he did not want. This situation needed to be dealt with now.