by Holly Ryan
I narrowed my eyes but didn’t stop and challenge him to walk where I told him to. He seemed broody and mysterious, but I didn’t get a vibe rolling off of him that he wanted to hurt me. Quite the opposite really. From all three of them.
As we neared the gate and I kept an eye on Jacek’s ass, Sawyer melted off my clothes from behind me. His footsteps were silent, but I could feel the heated power of his gaze, coiling all the way through to my belly button and then sinking lower. Just to mess with him, I put an extra wiggle in my hips while I walked.
Once outside the gate, I locked it for real this time, and then Jacek started toward a large house on the other side of an empty lot. Almost next door, indeed.
Two stories tall, the house had a wraparound porch with a swing near the front door. Dark bricks surrounded warmly lit windows, none of which were covered with heavy drapes to keep out the sun. This house didn’t scream vampire nest at all. It looked cozy and kind of perfect.
Jacek held the door open for me, and I slid past, my heartbeat singing at our close proximity for those few seconds. It slowed to a dull roar as I took in the living room. It was tidy with minimal, modern furnishings, just a comfy-looking couch, coffee table, and TV with dark hardwood floors and a slow-turning ceiling fan above. The faint scent of lavender touched the air and mixed with something pleasant that I couldn’t name.
I allowed myself to sag into the house’s warmth and inviting feel. It was how my old house used to feel when Mom was still alive, but this one seemed to heighten my senses into overdrive somehow.
Eddie, already waiting by a staircase, took steps toward me like a predatory cat, the overhead light searching his messy blond hair. “A drink before you get started?”
“No drinks. But I would like to use your bathroom to clean this blood off me, if that’s okay.” I was sure I looked like a hot mess with vampire blood splashed all over my face.
“Down the hall and to the right.” Jacek smiled. “Help yourself.”
One thing about these vampires—they knew what no meant and didn’t try to push me. Still, my natural wariness kept me on alert. This was a vampire nest, after all.
They stood there waiting for my next move, and it was then that I realized Sawyer hadn’t come into the house with us. Or if he did, he’d already disappeared into another room. I hadn’t even seen what he looked like. Not that it mattered. But it kind of did. I was hyper curious about all three of them.
I strode toward the bathroom, which turned out to be twice the size of the one in my apartment. A bathtub with clawed feet and jets inside sat along the far wall, and the sink was one of those with a fancy silver faucet that gushed a waterfall instead of the boring straight-down flow variety. The plush towels smelled like they’d been freshly washed and felt like heaven on my skin. I could live here, even just inside this bathroom, and be completely happy.
Once I came out much cleaner, Eddie stood in the living room alone, waiting. His amber eyes widened behind his adorable glasses, and they dipped lower to the water splotches that clung my white T-shirt to my chest. His tongue poked from between his full lips, the sight coiling an ache deep between my legs. I sucked in a breath, feeling like he was already there, touching and tasting me.
“This way,” he said and started upstairs.
Once I blinked out of my horny haze, I followed. We entered a large circular room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. And by floor-to-ceiling, I mean to the first floor, too. Wooden ladders on wheels leaned against several shelves, and I was suddenly reminded of Belle, my namesake, from Beauty and the Beast. Never mind the bathroom; I would just live with the books.
A hole had been cut into the middle of the circular room, and a golden pole stretched from the ceiling to the ground floor. I supposed it was either for sliding down or pole dancing, depending on the vamps’ mood.
Eddie led me around the pole to a section near the far wall and slapped his hand against the shelf. “Demons and devils. There are about five hundred twenty books about them here, but I can pull some out to get us started.” He touched his finger to his lips while he perused the titles.
I tried not to stare at him, the soft way his lips caved under the pressure of his finger, the way his messy hair fell around his glasses, how his white button-up shirt had come untucked from his pants on one end. He had the whole wild bookish thing going better than anyone in the history of everyone.
Instead of eye-fucking him anymore, I studied the books. Some were old and brittle, their cracked spines flaking onto the shelves themselves, while other books seemed to be so new they’d never been opened. All of them laced the air with a paper and ink smell I couldn’t get enough of. I breathed deep a few times, letting the scent soak into my lungs, before I remembered I should be researching, not hyperventilating.
But there was another smell, too, like coffee and cinnamon. On a nearby wooden table sat a slice of apple pie bursting at the sides and a mug of coffee still spiraling steam.
Eddie caught me salivating. “Help yourself.”
“Is it...” I glanced back at him. “Did you roofie it?”
“No. It’s just for your sustenance. You’re going to need it.” The way he said it, with a teasing lilt to his voice, his gaze locked on mine, and a devious twist on his mouth, unfurled a slight shudder from my heart to my stomach. He crossed to the table with an armload of books and then plopped himself down in a large red leather chair.
I took the one next to him in front of the pie and coffee, dangling my black leather jacket over the back.
He leaned away slightly and pulled a book across the table toward him. “We’ll probably want to start with this one.”
“Does my smell bother you?” I asked.
“Not in the way you think it does.” His orange-yellow gaze dipped to my lips as he slowly turned pages with his long, agile fingers. “Besides, you’ve already saturated the entire house.”
I half smiled since I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “You make it sound like I marked my territory here.”
His eyebrow twitched as he frowned down at the pages.
“What is it that I smell like?” I asked, eyeing the pie and coffee. Was it worth the risk? My mouth watered. My stomach rumbled. Damn it, pie was like kryptonite. I took the fork and dug in.
“Entrails,” Eddie muttered.
I stopped the fork midair before I’d taken my first bite and stared at him. “I smell like entrails?” I tried to secretly sniff my armpit and pass it off as a shrug. “Still?”
Eddie turned his book toward me so I could see a drawn image of a woman lying on a stone slab with her entrails sliding out. Shaking his head, he turned the page. “No, these are virgin entrails, not slayer entrails. I’m trying to see why the devil wants you for his bride.”
“The demon said I owed the devil since he’s been sending me checks since I was nine years old. The demon also said that something dark is coming to kill me, and that the devil was offering me a way out of being the slayer so I wouldn’t have to. Any idea what that something dark might be?”
Eddie gazed at me for a long moment with his eyebrows drawn together. “I’ve heard rumblings, but I don’t have any specifics.”
“Hmm.” I sighed. Lots of things could be deemed “dark,” especially in my line of work. This was going to be a long night. “You can tell the difference between virgin and slayer entrails just by looking?”
He shot me a smile. “I read the caption.”
“Genius.” I leaned closer to peer at the book again. “What language is that?”
“Italian.” He turned his head, his lips now inches from mine. His amber eyes darkened into pools of honeyed hunger. “The language of love.”
My breaths hitching at his nearness, I sat back under his watchful gaze, memorizing the way he looked at me. The way it rushed my blood faster and thrummed a steady flutter in my lower belly. I pressed my thighs together and squirmed in the chair, the soft leather sliding over my body like a caress. Even those sli
ght movements heightened the sensations coursing through me.
His jaw muscles grinded as he seemed to force himself to look away, breaking only a fraction of the spell I was obviously under. And I hadn’t even tried the pie or coffee yet, so I couldn’t blame this feeling on that. What the hell was wrong with me? He was a vampire. I was a slayer. I should fire myself for letting him get to me this way, then rehire myself just to make sure I didn’t really like what he was doing to me, and then fire myself again.
To distract myself, I dug into the pie. The cinnamon-apple and flaky, buttery crust exploded with flavor onto my tongue, and I moaned into bite after bite.
Eddie turned a page. “You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
“Did you make this?” I asked, pushing the empty plate away.
“No. I’m the knowledge guy, not the apple pie guy.”
“The knowledge guy...” I sipped the coffee, watching him over the rim of the mug. “But you seem so...dangerous.”
His lips twitched. “Knowledge is dangerous when you know how to use it.”
I grinned and leaned a little closer, a dare on the tip of my tongue. “And do you know how to use it?”
He wrapped one foot around the leg of my chair and swiveled both our chairs around so we faced each other. It all happened so fast, I only had time to gasp and cling to the arms of the chair.
“Take a guess,” he growled.
“Yes?”
He leaned in, his gaze pinned to my lips. “You wanted to know what you smell like?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Like desire.” He moved one hand to the spot where my neck met my shoulder. His fingertips glided like ice across my hot skin, and I released a shuddery breath at the sensation. “Like hot, dripping desire mixed with sunshine.”
“Wow.” I swallowed hard, barely keeping from flinging myself at him and ripping off all of his clothes. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He sat back, his mouth twitching, and moved my chair back to the table with his foot.
I blinked at the piles of books, my breaths heaving, all thoughts spiraling around the vampire beside me. He’d wound me up with just a touch. Imagine what he could do with his whole body. A low pulse started between my legs, humming need through my blood so loud, I was sure he could hear it.
“Um, so.” I forced myself to focus on something, anything other than him, because I shouldn’t want to fuck a vampire’s brains out. Staking him like a pin cushion, yes. Riding him like a motorcycle, no.
“So,” Eddie said, a smile in his voice, and fixed his chair as well.
My gaze landed on one of the open books on the table that had a drawing of a lethal-looking knife on the page.
“Seraph knife,” I read. “Used to kill demons.”
Eddie nodded and raked both hands through his hair, spiking it up even more. God, he was hotter than sin. “I thought about that, but even if you killed the one coming for you, the devil would just send another. And another.”
“Good point.” I glanced at my watch and gasped. Shit. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and that economics paper wasn’t going to write itself. “I have to go, but do you mind if I borrow a few of these?”
He turned in his seat to face me, his dangerous, wild, brilliant vibe thrilling me from head to toe. “Only if you promise to return them tomorrow night.”
So I did promise, because I didn’t want to lose my Eddie privileges.
Chapter Three
My dreams were wild that night, blazing hot with naked flesh, sweat, and moans. It wasn’t just Eddie starring in them, either, but all three vampires, one right after the other. I woke panting with a throb between my legs ten minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off. Too late to do anything about it myself.
But, like the badass I so badly needed to be, I’d already emailed my finished economics paper and whisked through the door of The Bean Dream right on time. Sylvia, my boss, glanced up from the customer on the other side of the counter and smiled. I waved as I skirted around to the back office to clock in.
Humans didn’t know about the existence of vampires. That is, until they were bitten and then became one. If a human happened to see a vampire, they would forget about the vamp as soon as they looked away. That lack of knowledge also applied to me, the slayer, except humans didn’t forget about me when they looked away. Word was still out on whether that was a good or bad thing. I sometimes wanted to be forgotten about, by vampires, demons, devils, and humans, so I could just fade into the background and exist on my own terms.
No can do if you happened to be me.
My split-shift day went quickly, the customers’ orders keeping me busy between thoughts of the devil’s proposal, this darkness coming for me, and the three mystery vamps. With my stinky red apron folded over my arm so I could take it home and wash it, I walked outside, the crisp evening air filling my lungs. It tasted like fall and apple cider and reminded me of pumpkin carving with Mom.
My heart pinched at the memory. Someday, I would be able to think about her without it hurting so much, but today was not that day.
A sound like TV static hesitated my steps on the sidewalk. The street was practically empty since Podunk City liked to nestle down right at dusk. The first glimmers of starlight shone along a ribbon of cobalt blue, but it wasn’t quite dark enough for the vamps to come out and play.
I jaywalked across the street to the empty lot where my car was parked, a 1999 burgundy Pontiac Phoenix, also known as my hoopty. Before I made it to the curb, the static sounded again, louder, and sharp enough to prickle through my skin to my bones. I stopped and looked around, my senses tingling.
Was the demon fucking with me? Because it couldn’t be a vamp. Not yet. Which meant the stakes in the trunk of my hoopty would be worthless against the demon once again. Yet standing around like a dumbass wasn’t going to solve anything either. I leaped up on the curb, and my brisk steps carried me across the parking lot.
“Lovely...”
I stopped at the sound of the voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. It sounded as if someone had swallowed broken glass, and ancient. Not like the demon’s smooth-as-silk voice. Not at all.
“Why, thank you,” I said, loud enough for the words to roll on the breeze. “Care to show yourself?”
Across the street, the lights inside The Bean Dream went dark, and Sylvia stepped out, trying to juggle her keys, jacket, and purse. Aside from her, nothing else moved along the street.
“Okay, then,” I muttered, and crossed toward my hoopty.
No time to waste listening to weird, disembodied voices. I had a marriage proposal to thwart and a vamp nest to visit.
DESPITE MY HOOPTY, I always chose to walk to the graveyard at night. Brand new vampires tended to flock there, to what should’ve been their final resting place. Since they were young and inexperienced, they were usually easy pickings. The older ones knew not to cross paths with the slayer except, of course, the three who lived next door. While I patrolled, I sniffed myself, trying to smell what had lured them to me. Did all vampires think I smelled like desire and sunshine, or just the ones I wanted to lick?
After a few uneventful hours of patrolling, it was Jacek who answered the door of their house wearing his heart-stopping grin. He seemed to have forgotten his shirt, which did everyone with eyeballs a favor, really. The guy was ripped. His stacks of lean muscle moved like water as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.
“You came back.” The moonlight sparked in his amber eyes and glinted off his short dark hair.
A blush heated my cheeks, which made me glad it was night, but he could probably hear the blood crashing underneath my skin. “I did.”
“Did you find anything?”
It took me a second to figure out he was referring to the stack of books, not his chest. It was an honest mistake given that I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the smooth expanse of skin.
“There’s a lot about how to
kill demons, but like Eddie said last night, the devil will just send more,” I said. “I didn’t find anything concrete about how to make the devil propose to someone else.”
“That’s a shame.” Jacek shoved away from the doorframe and stood up tall. “Well, want to come in and see what else, uh, strikes your fancy? Is that a term people still use?”
I chuckled. “Not for people with heartbeats.”
He held the door open with a wide smile. “Well, I’m out of luck.”
“I guess so,” I said, sliding past him. For a dead guy, he could sure tremble the air around him enough to make it hard to breathe.
The living room had changed somewhat. The coffee table had been pushed against the TV, and the hardwood floor was covered with blue mats.
Eddie rounded into the living room from what I guessed was the kitchen, and my heart took flight at the sight of him. He wore dark pants and a suit jacket, unbuttoned, over a white dress shirt, the top few buttons of which were undone. His messy blond hair had fallen over his glasses, and he shoved it back to peer at me with those disarming orange-yellow eyes of his.
His sinful lips twitched as he pushed up his glasses. “Hello, Sunshine.”
“Hi, Eddie. Uh...” Why was here I again? Not to undress them with my mind. “I brought the books back.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that.”
Jacek crossed to stand next to him, and my whole being tightened at the sight of his back. Long white stripes marred his skin, across his shoulders, and down his spine. Scars. Horrible ones. He looked like he’d been flayed open again and again. I sucked in a shaky breath, clenching and unclenching my fists, my nerves vibrating as I wondered who could do something so brutal to him.
“I see you’re not covered in blood tonight,” he said, turning to face me again as he stood next to Eddie. “Easy night slaying?”
Eddie stared at me through his glasses, likely reading every thought on my face before I blanked it.
“Yeah, not too bad. And I knocked off a little early to do more research.” Of the Eddie and Jacek variety, but also the demon variety. I only had a few nights left before my birthday, after all, so I needed to get cracking on how not to become the devil’s bride.