by Anna Abner
Her blood was tainted. That’s what her grandmother thought. Of course, he’d want to get away as fast as possible. He was probably in the yard throwing it all up.
But she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of either one of them. She sniffed, wiping a tear onto the back of her wrist.
Peeking out the bathroom door, she discovered the house still and quiet, but Ali had no interest in staying inside alone. Instead, she plunked down on the back porch step, facing ruffled foothills turning purple in the evening light. The size of the desert was alien to her modern sensibilities. A person could get lost in a desert like that. She could walk into the creosote fields and never be seen again.
The door swung open behind her. “Hey,” Roz grunted.
“Hi.” She was so not in the mood to deal with this chick right now. Even more than her arm hurt, her feelings were bruised and battered.
Leaving a wide space between them, Roz sat beside her. “I’m supposed to be nice to you now.”
Ali snorted. “Really. How terrible for you.”
Roz played along. “Yeah. Well, I’ll persevere.”
Ali smiled, the first genuine smile she’d ever given Roz, and the witch returned it. “Is this because you punched the crap outta me?”
“You asked me to.”
“Not really,” Ali said. “Anyway, aren’t you a witch? I thought they spoke spells, not hit people.”
“I’m not a very good witch,” she said, kicking dirt around with the toe of her sneaker. “As far as I can determine, I’m only about twenty-five percent of full magical capacity. But, to be honest, I’m still stuck on what you did at your grandmother’s.”
Super. She’d sort of been hoping, after all the excitement of the blood drinking and bullet wounds, that they’d have put her freakishness on the back burner. Ali should have known better. Everything about these two may be chaotic, but they were also methodical.
“Oh. That,” Ali said.
“How long have you been, uh…?”
“A human glow worm?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Since birth, I guess.” Or so Irina said. Vampire blood boiled inside her, polluting her, straining for release. She drew her knees up closer to her chest. “But, like I said, most of the time I have it under control. It’s just been a rough couple days.” She laughed a rusty, uneasy sound.
“I was fifteen when I spoke my first spell.”
She glanced up in surprise. “What happened?”
Roz unwound the bun at the back of her head and twisted her heavy, glossy hair between her deft fingers. “I used to get teased in high school. A lot. There was this one girl who made me cry in front of people pretty much every day.” Her hands lazily braided one half of her hair. “At night I sat in my room and wished so hard that she’d stop. That she’d just stop.” Roz plaited the other side. “Then one day the girl wasn’t at school. I found out she had a stroke. A sixteen-year-old cheerleader.”
“You gave her a stroke?” Ali asked in a whisper. She may be a light show, but she’d never hurt anyone.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“Was she okay?”
Roz shook her head, a slow back and forth. “Nope. Not really.”
“That’s when you knew you were a witch?”
“I’m not a witch. Not a real one.”
She must be joking. “What are you talking about? I’ve seen you.”
“The Coven rejected my application.”
That made absolutely no sense. If a person was a witch, they were a member of the Coven. Period. The Coven taught young, impressionable spellspeakers to improve and control their power. They protected the Oracle and regulated magic, claiming to benefit humankind. And they accepted all witches. It sort of went with the magic. Wake up with power—join the Coven.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Why?” Ali asked.
“They didn’t say.”
If the Coven had rejected her, it meant Roz was what some talking heads called a rogue spellspeaker, a person with a little magic but no allegiance to the Coven. A wannabe. “But you have power.”
She shrugged, as if it was no big deal, but Ali caught the tightening around her eyes. “Some.”
“What does your family think?”
“I abandoned them.” Roz’s voice lowered to near subhuman levels. “I was supposed to graduate college and support them all with my freakish math skills, but then…”
“Tyler died,” Ali guessed.
Her head snapped up. “Connor told you.”
“Yeah. Some.”
“Well, then you know Connor saved me from a miserable existence and gave me a purpose. He promised to protect me. And I promised I wouldn’t leave until we’d succeeded. Or died trying.” Roz put her hands in her lap and faced her. “How old were you when you discovered your powers?”
She bowed her head. “All my earliest memories are of my dad smacking me in the face. He thought he could beat the emotion out of me. It worked, I guess. By the time I went to school for the first time, I didn’t glow. I didn’t get frustrated, angry, or sad, either. I definitely never cried.”
“It hasn’t happened since then?”
“It has, but I only let myself get upset when I’m alone. It would slip a little bit, and I’d pull it back in.” She thought of Cutter and the girl who’d tried to protect her. “No one knew. I was a good daughter.” Never stepped out of line. When other girls had play dates, and then sleepovers, and finally wild parties, Ali stayed at home with her dad. When the only way she could live on her own was with a spinster roommate and a cell phone leash, she’d happily agreed.
“That’s why you don’t cry.”
“Yep. That’s why I’m a cold-hearted bitch.” Thanks, Dad.
“No,” Roz said, mumbling, “you’re not.”
Ali studied Roz’s profile, seeing all her obvious beauty, but also a little of why Connor loved her so much. Her snarkiness masked a fierce protectiveness. She watched over Connor just as much as he did for her.
“I wish my father could hear you say that.” Ali took a shaky breath and held it, digging her fingernails into her palms.
The back door opened and then slammed shut. They both went silent.
Connor.
They couldn’t see him until he passed the garage and crossed the yard toward the water tower. He began to fill a bucket, bare-chested. Ali’s mouth watered just a little. He really was a beautiful man.
“Gross,” Roz said, catching Ali staring. “I’m outta here.” She got up, dusted off the seat of her pants, and banged the screen door on her way inside the house.
Ali glanced at Connor. Yep. He’d heard them.
She made a beeline away from him and toward the detached garage. But he stalked her through the prickly weeds.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Ali was so not into confrontations. Not when her control was this shaky. “I was trying to help.” Deep breath. In, out.
“Don’t do that again.”
It was one thing to offer your body to a willing partner. But to be told, no thank you was humiliating. She felt stripped.
“You’re welcome,” she said, layering on the sarcasm. “You jerk.” Anger washed right over the shame, temporarily obliterating it. And thank God for it. “Why are you mad?”
“You cut yourself. I had blood all over me,” Connor shouted. “What if I had it in my mouth?”
“So what?”
“You could be infected! Ali, you can’t put yourself in danger like that.”
It hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but would it be so bad being a vampire? Could she handle killing living creatures to satisfy her new thirst? Probably not.
“There wasn’t blood in your mouth,” she assured. “I cleaned my hands. I’m fine. You can stop being so loud and over-protective.”
“That was really stupid,” he said, losing steam. “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. Taking your blood is hurting you.”
“Not if you only drink a little.”
“Stop it. No. That can’t happen.” He paced like a caged lion, all angry energy and bunched muscles.
Ali folded her arms protectively. “I’m not going to force you. I’m not a dealer, for crying out loud.”
“I didn’t say you were.” As if he couldn’t help himself, his fingers reached for her arm.
No more pity hugs. “Please, go away,” she hissed.
It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t be an orphan. She shouldn’t be here in this place where her mom’s story didn’t make sense anymore and her grandma took pleasure in cutting her down. Connor shouldn’t be infected. Or mad at her for trying to help.
Connor scrubbed his hands over his face. “This is coming out all wrong.”
“Then say it right.”
The overloaded emotional baggage she’d been carrying around her neck the past few days seeped into her bloodstream, and she purposefully glowed in front of another person for the first time in her life.
She expected revulsion, but he didn’t retreat. Faster than she could track, he moved into her personal space and grabbed her by the upper arms.
“I need blood,” Connor growled, “but I won’t cut you open to get it.” His fingers trailed down her left arm, finding her bandage and lifting it for inspection. “Does it hurt?”
Ali struggled. “Please.” But he wouldn’t let go. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“What?” He chuckled. “Glowing? Sorry, babe, but that cat is officially out of the bag.”
“It’s revolting.”
“It’s different,” he agreed, ducking his head against her. “But it’s not that big a deal.”
Easy for him to say. His skin didn’t glow.
He continued, “It sort of feels the way Roz’s spells do. Like a funky charge in the air.” He shifted, fitting her more completely against him “Why. What did your dad say about it?”
Ali sniffed. “I have evil inside me,” she said, oh so quietly. And if anyone found out, she’d be sent to a lab somewhere and taken apart in the name of science. She’d be an aberration, a curiosity, a threat to normal folks.
Connor took a deep breath. “No offense, but I’m really glad that guy is gone.”
“He was protecting me.” She refused to admit relief too. That life might be better without Dad in it. Because that was a horrible, terrible, rotten thing to believe about a person’s own father.
“No.” Connor’s arms tightened, and she melted into him, letting him hold most of her weight. He was built like a brick wall. A very warm, very sexy brick wall. “He treated you like a freak.”
“I am.”
“Not even close.”
“You didn’t want my tainted blood,” she reminded him.
He released her just enough to see into her eyes. “Are you crazy?” He laughed. “Not want it? I didn’t think I could stop.”
She frowned. “But—”
“You’re a drug to me, Alina, and I don’t know how to only drink a little.”
She blinked up at him. He wasn’t disgusted by her polluted blood? Tears threatened.
“When’s the last time you cried?” he asked, as if reading her mind. “You can, you know.”
As the first tear fell, she considered scurrying away, but she’d never outrun him. Instead, she hid her face in his shirt and tried to pull the emotion back in, but it was too late. The tingling spread through her fingers and toes. Warmth rolled through her.
“It’s okay,” Connor soothed, patting her arm. “You know what? You’re pink, and it’s no big deal.”
He knew her secret, but he didn’t look at her like she was a freak. For the first time—ever—she didn’t feel damaged. Because he was a freak, too. Ali stood on tiptoe and kissed him. It was the craziest thing she’d ever done, by far. Kissing strange men wasn’t something she usually did, and yet it seemed inevitable. He wasn’t a stranger. Or a monster. He cared about her. And, despite her concerns, she cared about him too.
He kissed her back, a quick, wet pull at her lower lip. She made a very unladylike mewling sound, an I want more sound. He dropped his forehead on her shoulder, his breath puffing hot on her skin. His mouth was inches from her throat, and her mind raced with the possibilities.
Connor released her, and the absence of his touch was a physical ache. “Come inside. You should eat something.”
“What about you?”
“I can’t avoid it any longer.” The air picked up, tossing his dark hair down over one eye. “I have to hunt. It’s that or go nuts.”
Her blood hadn’t been enough to replenish all he’d lost. It had done the trick, though, when it came to healing his wounds. Under his clean shirt, she bet his skin was pink and nearly new. She’d like to see it.
“I won’t be gone long,” he said. He ran off and took his lovely, flawless skin with him.
#
Connor couldn’t think straight, could hardly walk a straight line. Ali had fed him from her own veins.
God in heaven.
All he’d done to protect her, and she’d offered herself up at the first opportunity. He wanted to punch something. But what pissed him off more than all the rest was—he’d enjoyed it.
Her blood tasted like a juicy plum, like a glass of earthy wine, like sex. She’d tasted like a salty, sweet orgasm. If Roz hadn’t come in and rattled his brain, he didn’t know if he would have stopped.
Ali meant a lot to him, too much to risk.
And she thought he cared what Irina had said in Boulder City. Ridiculous. So what if her mom had been infected? Or that Katya had taken her newborn away to live with the man she loved? It wasn’t Ali’s fault. She’d been an innocent bystander.
Connor was going to do whatever it took to keep her that way. He’d start by killing Olek and then work his way down the vampire chain of command. Volk. The rest of the Four Sons. The nameless, faceless horde. He’d destroy every last monster, if it meant saving her.
Prophecy or not, she couldn’t stand anywhere near Oleksander if the bastard was dead.
He heard it then, the rustle of hooves on gravel. A soft, almost imperceptible heartbeat.
Connor had never hunted before. He’d grown up in Cleveland with his mom, and then pretended to study engineering at the University of Illinois. Killing wild animals had never been on his radar. Hell, he’d never even gone camping before arriving in the Southwest. He carried a .44, but he didn’t want to fire it and catch the attention of anyone within hearing distance.
He quieted his steps, creeping through underbrush before he caught sight of a pair of antelope a quarter mile away. He chose one, the oversized male on the left, and stalked him, knife in hand. Twenty yards away, the animal caught his scent and sprinted. Connor took off, but the bastard was faster than he expected. The sand wasn’t easy to run across, but he didn’t give up, and eventually his prey tired and slowed.
Connor gave a last burst of speed and tackled the animal, tearing into his throat with a quick jerk of his chin. Blood sprayed the inside of his mouth and the deer struggled, grunting and kicking at air. But Connor was thirsty, and in less than a minute, the antelope was dead.
The animal’s blood lay thick on his tongue. It wasn’t like Alina’s. No, hers had stood up and sang. This second rate shit was like tasting your first diet soda—bitter and unsatisfying.
He carried the buck down the mountain toward the cabin, stopping to wash up at the water tower. He set his kill on the back porch.
Roz sat on the living room floor staring blankly at the far window, not even looking up.
“I brought meat,” he said, stepping inside.
She didn’t seem to hear him.
“Roz?” he called, trying not to scare her.
She straightened. “Hey.”
“Everything okay?”
She nodded, pushing to her feet.
“I brought meat.” He glanced awkwardly at the hooves visible through the screen door. “Are there pots
and pans? I want to cook dinner. I don’t want to waste it.”
“Yeah,” she said, finally coming back to herself. “The kitchen’s stocked.”
Connor had never butchered an animal, but their New Zealand friends had stored enough cooking and eating utensils in the cabin’s kitchen to make a professional chef smile. A couple cuts here, a few chops there, and Connor had a roast simmering on the stovetop and several pounds of antelope steak wrapped and cooling in the box freezer in the garage.
“Hey Roz?” he called.
She peeked her head around the corner. “It smells good in here.”
He lifted the phone out of her hands, raised his eyebrows at the list of known shapeshifter packs she’d been searching, and ran a search for best vegetarian recipes. “Some of this sounds damned good.”
Roz tapped him on the arm. “You feel better after your hunt?”
Their eyes met and held, and something indefinable passed between them. She understood him perfectly, always had.
“All better, thanks.”
She looked away first. “Good. Because I’m hungry, and I don’t want you to screw up dinner.”
Rolling his eyes, he returned his attention to the recipe site.
“What was that?” Alina passed through the kitchen, hesitating in the arched entryway.
His instincts zeroed in on her, as everything and everyone else in the place faded to shadows. He could smell her unique bouquet. And now he knew what she tasted like.
Roz stepped between them. “I’m gonna grab my sleeping bag. Tonight, you two take the bedroom.”
“We’ll all share,” Ali said, tucking her hair behind her ears. Connor stared, picking out strands of umber and sienna woven through her glorious fall of blonde hair. He wanted to touch it, smell it. Hell, he’d kiss it if he could. That and every other inch of her.
But kissing required privacy. And, like always, Roz seemed to read his mind. There was one bed in the cabin, but the sofa was big enough to sleep on, and there was always the floor. If he and Ali shared the bed, Roz would have to rough it.
Roz laughed, looking absurdly bashful. “I think the time for sharing beds has passed. I’ll be comfy as can be on the couch, trust me.”