Scorned

by Tyffani Clark Kemp

  “Is Pierce dominant to you?”

  There was a look in Pierce’s eyes that said I’d probably gone too far and that was evident when Eddy sat back with cool eyes. “Yes.”

  I swallowed. I had one more question, and since I was on a roll I asked it. “Do you hate me because the power you sense in me means I’m dominant to you as well?”

  It took a moment for Eddy to answer. I saw the struggle in his eyes to answer honestly, but eventually he hissed, “Yes,” as if it hurt him to admit it.

  I nodded, hoping I looked understanding and not gleeful and pulled the keychain from my pocket. I handed it to him without a word and watched as he held it in front of his face.

  “What is this?” he spat. Anger and disgust coated his words. “A reminder of the animal I am?”

  Tears stung the back of my eyes. I thought I was past the point where Eddy’s words could hurt me, but the tears spoke differently. “I bought it,” I said, failing to keep the emotion from my voice, “because I saw it and I thought of you. Bastard.”

  Eddy wiped his face clean of anything that could give him away.

  “Apologize,” the Princess said.

  “Is that an order?” Eddy let authority drip into his voice and it made the air thick.

  “No. As your friend I’m trying to let you know that you’ve hurt LeKrista badly. She bought something for you, even though you may not deserve it. You know she’s not a vindictive person, even if she has a right to be.” Eddy glared at her. “Apologize and say thank you.”

  Eddy stared at Bomani for a long moment like he wasn’t sure he wanted to do what she “suggested”. When he finally turned to me I stood and turned my back to him.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I never expect Eddy to be kind. I don’t think it’s in his nature.”

  Eddy had me by the arm in a flash. He bent so our faces were eye-to-eye and stared me down. I saw Pierce move out of the corner of my eye and said, “It’s okay Pierce. I’m fine.” I didn’t blink or look away. “We don’t have to be friends, Eddy. I bought you a stupid keychain. It’s not like it was a shirt.”

  The Princess thought that was funny. Eddy growled low.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “I’m not asking you to be friends,” I told him. “I’m not trying to buy your kindness. I saw it and thought of you. It’s just how I am.” I tugged on my arm and he dropped it. “Calm down, kitty cat.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “After all these years, I think that’s the worst of the insults I could potentially come up with. Seriously.”

  Eddy pulled back and crossed his arms, regarding me with a look I’d never seen before and didn’t want to try to figure out at the moment. His head cocked to the side and it took a moment for me to realize he was listening to something outside. That’s when I heard the low growls.

  Dayla and Amanda were outside and I could tell they were facing off, even though I couldn’t hear the dirty words that Eddy could.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Pierce mumbled and we stepped into the front hall.

  Eddy was out the door so quick I never saw it. I blinked and he was there. He hit Dayla and knocked her off her feet. Quick as a flash she was up and had her balance in case Eddy swung again.

  Eddy was crouched low and I thought he was about to shift to his animal form, but he never did. He just stayed in that low crouch. There was something about it that made Amber back down. I knew by the tension in Dayla that she was supposed to back down too, but she didn’t. She stood there, balanced, waiting for the blow.

  “Come on.” Pierce ushered me down the hall before the shit hit the fan. I didn’t see what happened next, but I heard it. It sounded like two exploding cats. Their screams could have been heard in Canada. Once the door was closed though, the screams were practically nonexistent.

  “What just happened?” I asked, as Pierce kicked off his shoes.

  “Dayla challenged his authority.”

  “Oh.” I picked up my book from the sofa and stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace that always seemed to have a fire in it.

  “That good, huh?”

  I smiled. “It’s a good book. People really knew how to write back then. I love French novels. I think they’re going to be my new favorite past time.”

  “You’re not going to start quoting French at me now, are you?”

  “Oui, je suis, mon amour. Et pas seulement francais, mais l’italien et allemand et en russe,” I said, letting him know that I was indeed going to start speaking French and Italian and German and Russian and whatever other languages were at my disposal. He stopped and looked at me.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It is a beautiful language. Do that again.”

  I would have, but there was a knock on the door then and a wide-eyed Calliope stuck her head in. “I hope everyone’s decent,” she said. “Everything’s clear. You can come out now. Sorry about the cat fight.” She giggled. “You should see Edgar and Dayla.” She whistled. “Edgar came out better than Dayla, but I think she got the message. Plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I think I just want to hang out in the room for a while,” I said, ready to really relax and try to hide from all the vampires that were after me.

  “Alright. There’s a hot tub around back,” she said. “Feel free to make use of it. Very few can.”

  Once she was gone, Pierce plopped down on top of me and buried his face in the back of my neck. “You want to go to the hot tub?” he asked, his breath hot and tantalizing against my skin.

  “Mmhmm. Later.”

  “Later?”

  “Later.” I tugged at his shirt and he kissed me well. I grinned. “You know how to make a girl feel loved.”

  It was full dark by the time we made it to the hot tub, and Roman made sure to let me know he was wide awake. The hot tub was in the back yard, housed in a wooden box with a roof and two hinged doors that shut over it so nothing could get inside. What it really looked like, was a big wooden well.

  We had to cross the snow to get to the hot tub and Pierce insisted on carrying me. He set me on the edge of the wooden well to take my shoes off and I slipped into the boiling, frothing water. It was almost scalding. Pierce adjusted the temperature just a little and climbed in after me. After a few moments, the water cooled enough that I wouldn’t get dizzy. He pulled me close and laid my head on his shoulder.

  “LeKrista.” Pierce’s voice made me realize I’d dozed a little while later.

  “Hm?” I answered without opening my eyes.

  “We have company,” he said softly.

  Roman stood in front of us, his hands folded behind his back, his posture loose and non-threatening. “Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” Pierce answered.

  “I trust you had a good day. I’m sorry about Dayla and Edgar. It was bound to happen eventually.”

  “You heard about the daywalkers?” Pierce asked.

  “I did.”

  “Are these daywalkers hunting me now too?” I asked.

  “I do not know, but I will find out.” He turned to look off into the woods. I wouldn’t have paid him any mind, but Pierce sat up straight at the same time and looked in the same direction.

  “We need to get her back in the house,” Roman said at the same time Pierce motioned for me to stand.

  “What is it?” I asked as I climbed over the edge of the hot tub. Pierce helped me out and Roman helped me down, and between the three of us, I didn’t fall.

  “It doesn’t smell like vampires,” Roman answered, “but I’ve met some who can disguise their smell to me. Hurry, please.”

  I hurried across the cold snow on my tip toes to touch as little snow as possible. I was freezing and practically naked in the cold air. By the time I made it inside, I was shivering violently. Roman produced a towel from somewhere and wrapped it around me, but it did little to warm me.

  Shouts came from the floor above us, protests that were quickly cut off and silenced. I looked up, then at Roman an
d whispered, “They’re in the house?” His nod sent a wave of fear and dread straight to the pit of my stomach.

  Something smacked against the sliding glass doors, and I jumped and screamed. I couldn’t see its face, it was turned sideways and covered with a black hood, but the hands were bare and paper white.

  “Ohmigod,” I said and started for the door. Pierce grabbed my arm.

  “LeKrista, what are you doing?”

  I shook my head. “It’s Tate.”

  “LeKrista?” Miranda was on the stairs behind us fighting a smile. “I’m sorry,” and there was sarcasm in her tone. “Did we scare you?” I tried not to smile, but failed. “Get Tate in here before she freezes to death. That girl, I swear. She can be so stupid sometimes.”

  I opened the door and Tate enveloped me a big, warm hug. “I’m not stupid,” she said over my shoulder to the older girl. “You’re stupid if you think so. LeKrista! You’re shivering! Ohmigod! Put some clothes on!” She slapped my arm.

  “Well, if you hadn’t thought it would be good fun to scare the bejesus out of everyone I would still be out there in the hot tub with my boyfriend having a grand ol’ time.” I said it all through chattering teeth, and Tate tried so hard not to laugh. “Go ahead,” I told her. “Laugh all you want. Just don’t get mad at me when I laugh my head off at you one day.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Let’s get you some clothes. Do you mind?” she asked Pierce.

  “Be my guest,” he said. He wasn’t having any trouble with the cold at all and I was a little jealous.

  Upstairs, Gavlin had Eddy and his women corralled in the kitchen, his ancient battleaxe slung over his shoulder, ready to swing should anyone move.

  “You really think that’s necessary?” I asked as we passed.

  “No, not really,” Miranda said. “Not anymore.” But she made no move to call Gavlin off.

  I showed the girls to my room.

  "Wow," Tate said. "Are you just friends or are you 'special friends' with the vampire?"

  I gaped at her. "He had this house way before he met me I'm sure."

  "This isn't a house," Miranda joked. "It's a love shack."

  "Oh my god. Seriously? I have Pierce." It was a feeble defense.

  "And?" I punched Tate in the stomach.

  “Hot shower,” Miranda said. “Now. Get naked and get in.”

  I didn’t bother to adjust the temperature. My extremities were so frozen that the water was scalding and it was all I could do to stand there until they thawed. I was soon in some warm pajamas, sitting on front of a roaring fire on a bear skin rug, my two new friends on either side of me. Tate flipped through the book I was working on.

  “You can read this?” she asked.

  “Oui,” I answered with a grin.

  “Shut up, showoff.”

  “That’s going to come in handy,” Miranda said, “knowing so many languages. I know three; English, Spanish, and French. I speak them all fluently.”

  “I don’t even speak English fluently,” Tate said and laughed.

  The door opened and Pierce walked in. “Hello, ladies,” he said. “I’m just going to change and get warm. Dinner should be ready soon.”

  “Late dinner,” Miranda said. “I hope it’s not formal.”

  “Wasn’t last night,” I said, and recounted the tale of the night before. Tate was shocked to hear that I was treated so badly at work.

  “I find it hard to believe,” she said, “that someone wouldn’t like you. You’re so super sweet!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So’s Miranda.”

  Tate snorted. Miranda just looked sheepish.

  “Yeah, I’m embarrassed about that. I get bitchy when my energy is low.”

  “No kidding.” Miranda bumped me with her shoulder.

  “LeKrista?”

  “Yeah, come in.”

  Adeline walked in, her back stiff. “We’re ready to eat.”

  I nodded. “When Pierce gets done dressing we’ll come done.”

  She nodded uncomfortably and left. Strange.

  “I don’t think she likes us,” Tate said.

  “I don’t think she likes you,” I amended.

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You keep flirting with her man.”

  I think Tate said something, but I’ll never be sure, because I suddenly doubled over in pain. A siren sliced through my brain, carving out little chunks while it rolled and wailed one long screeching sound that cut through the silence and solitude of the night. I knew I was screaming, but everything else was lost to me until Pierce flew out of the bathroom. I don’t know why that one thing stood out to me. The moment he touched me, the siren lessened. It didn’t go away completely, but I could see again and sense the room around me again. Something in my brain ruptured and something else took its place.

  “You belong to me now,” a voice hissed through my head. Perdita’s voice. “You cannot live without me now!” She was screaming. “I can take your life or I can let you keep it. The choice is yours. Will you bind yourself to me?”

  I clutched at my head and covered my ears as Perdita screamed into my head again. I refused to be bound to her for eternity, and she knew it. I felt my body begin to convulse, but that’s where it ended. One convulsion before it stopped, the screaming stopped, the pain stopped, but blood trickled from my ears.

  “No,” Perdita said. “I will not lose my hold on you because you are sick and weak.”

  “I’m not weak,” I said aloud, but the words came out mumbled, sticky like I was eating peanut butter. “Roman.” I said the name, but I wasn’t sure anyone heard or could understand. I only hoped Roman could.

  The chaos around me calmed like I was in a bubble of silence. Tate and Miranda were yelling.

  “Put a ward over her!” Tate said. “You should have done that days ago!”

  “I did do it days ago, but it didn’t hold!” Miranda defended.

  “Well, put one over her now!”

  “I did!”

  “Well, then what’s wrong with her?!”

  “I don’t know! At least she’s stopped screaming!”

  “Fix her!”

  “You can’t fix her.” Roman’s voice filled the room, low and thick with that ancient accent. I rolled my eyes up because I didn’t have the brain capacity to move anything.

  Roman knelt next to me and his fingers brushed against my face. “LeKrista can you hear me?”

  I tried to answer, but the words came out garbled.

  Help me.

  “I will try, my sweet, but I cannot heal you.” There were shouts and those animalistic screams coming from down the hall. “She’s in the house,” Roman said before the door blasted open. I saw Perdita’s face in my head, a projection from Roman, because all I could see from my place on the floor was the hem of her outlandishly fantastic dress. Even in my catatonic state, I admired her dress. How twisted was that?

  Perdita was angry and no longer was it about the fact that I’d killed her lover. Once again her attempt on my life had been thwarted.

  “LeKrista!” Miranda shouted. “I’m not going to be able to hold this for long and fight her. You have one choice here!”

  It always came down to that one choice you didn’t want to have to make. In this case, it came down to whether or not I would accept my power, my magic, and be like Miranda, or let this vampire kill me. I had to admit, dying was tempting, because it meant I wouldn’t have to deal with this crap anymore.

  But, I couldn’t die, could I? Because that boy told me there was something I was meant for in all this. Did that mean he expected me to accept my power? So, all in all, there really was no choice, was there? Life or death yes, but if I lived I had to accept what I was.

  I felt warm blood trickle from my ear and I knew that, whether I wanted it or not this was something I had to do. I closed my eyes, and let my mind drift back to the other day under the tree in my backyard with Miranda. I tried to feel what I felt then, but I couldn’t find the wind.


  “I need to fly,” I tried to think at Roman. The only knowledge that he heard me was his arms scooping me up, and with all of the fighting around us, we flew.

  “Faster,” I said. I needed to feel the wind blow through me so I could open the door and let my magic in.

  “She will come after us, my sweet,” Roman said softly as we flew. “She will not be distracted for long.”

  I didn’t need long. I just needed to fly faster, so I told him, “Faster.”

  We flew faster. Faster and faster still until I felt that first breath of wind breathe through me, and I tried to catch it. I tried to suck it in and wrap it around me, but it broke free. It burst from me like a bullet and I felt Roman’s body jerk. And then we were falling back down to earth. Back towards the ground and the fighting, and I suddenly knew we were high in the air, but we wouldn’t be for much longer.

  “What have you done?” Roman asked, his voice was weak and his body limp as we fell, and I felt myself slip from his grasp. “You’ve taken it all.”

  I frowned. “Taken what?” I asked. The moment I spoke, I knew something was wrong, backward. Roman was in my arms now and he felt weak. The swelling in my brain was going down, and I noticed something else.

  We weren’t falling. We were dropping, losing altitude at an alarming rate of speed, but we weren’t falling. This wasn’t chaotic, it was controlled. Somehow, and I don’t know how, I was controlling our decent. I expected to lose the control the moment I realized what was happening, but I didn’t. We continued to drop until my feet unexpectedly touched the ground outside the house.

  “You took all of the energy I absorbed the other night,” Roman said weakly.

  “Are you dying?” I asked, and he chuckled, though he coughed with the effort.

  “No, but I am weak. I need to feed.”

  “I’ll get you inside."

  The front door stood wide, blown open by Perdita in her haste to get to me. I carried Roman inside to the living room and set him on the sofa. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I will be fine here,” he said. “Your friends-”