Shifters rarely humbled themselves to a vampire as he just had to me.
I was probably going to regret it, but... “Fine, whatever. Come inside.”
He stepped through, and the air quickened. Not with magick or anything, but there was a tenseness, an anticipation of something. I frowned, never taking my eyes off his face.
Closing the door behind him, he nodded his thanks.
I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. I was over today. Over politics and death and heart thieves. Just over it.
I hadn’t felt this low in forever, and the very last thing I wanted was for a shifter I didn’t trust to witness my inner turmoil. I should have tossed him out. But I couldn’t seem to do it.
“How are you?” He finally broke the silence.
I shrugged. “I’m whole again.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about, Scarlett. How are you?”
I knew what he wanted to know, and like hell was I going to unburden myself to him. Once, I might have called Mercer to help me deal with the weird moodiness that’d come over me, but I wasn’t sure where I stood with him, either.
Walking toward me, James moved slowly, as though careful not to spook me. Which was weird but also weirdly thoughtful, because I was spooked. Spooked by everything right now. It was why I was so snappish and why I wanted to rip his head off his neck for daring to intrude on the sanctity of my home.
Normally I was an even-keeled sort of girl who could kick ass and take names and deal with life maturely. But something had happened to me tonight, more than physically, and he was right, I was having a hard time dealing.
Taking my hand in his, he led me to my moss-green Salvation Army sectional couch—the kind of couch to hop into and get lost in the thick cushiony seats—and sat me down.
I found it odd that I wasn’t fighting him, but I hated to admit that his touch—rather than make things worse—was oddly comforting. The rough texture of his calloused palms felt...nice.
He sat me down at one end and then took his own seat on the opposite side. Notching a knee, he turned toward me, giving me open body language, putting me even further at ease.
“You’re a freed vampire, Scarlett. With no house to turn to, no one to help guide you through the excruciating learning curve of yer first years.”
Far from being angry then, I gave him an amused sniff. “You could say that. Mercer taught me a lot.”
“Aye. But even his knowledge of yer kind is incomplete at best.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and you know more, I’m sure.”
He didn’t join in with me. “I do, in fact. I know that you suffered a grave humiliation at the hands of the one you swore fealty to tonight. I know that in your world, a vampire’s emotions are far more volatile and unstable than a shifter’s, especially for one so young. In a blood house, you would have your allies to come to your aid. Here you’re an island unto yourself. You feel alone and vulnerable. Stop me when ye think I’ve gone off the rails.”
I sat completely still, my brows lowering, as the sluggish blood moving through my veins seemed to turn to ice.
“And just how would you know that?”
His fingers tapped an uneasy rhythm on the back of my couch. He didn’t speak for so long that I didn’t think he’d answer.
“Because once I was mated to one of your kind.”
He could have knocked me over with a feather. Vampire and shifter romances were highly frowned upon but did occasionally happen. Today. In the more modern era of acceptance and tolerance. But that was definitely something new, probably going back to only the past fifty years or so. Before then, it would have been absolutely forbidden upon pain of death.
“When?” I snapped.
His eyes were sad. “Early eighteen hundreds.”
I shook my head. “That’s not possible. Not only because that’s totally not possible, but no blood house ever would have granted her permission to—”
“Ye ken as well as I do that death for a vampire comes in the manner assigned to her house.”
I lifted my brows. Because I hadn’t known that. I hadn’t known that at all.
“Ah, you didn’t know that, then.” He stopped moving, but I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head. “Isobel was, like you, a freed vampire.”
My nostrils flared. “You married a vampire? You? You broke faith with pack law, you—”
He worked his jaw from side to side, pounding the tip of his finger into the couch and not looking at me. The action was rhythmic, more like an unconscious tic than anything else. I shut my mouth, not sure what to say to him after that.
Other than the obvious. “What happened to her?”
If he was married, I was so dumping him on his ass.
His words were low and nearly indecipherable, but I heard them all the same, and black ice skated down my spine.
“I killed her.”
I gasped. “Why? Why did you kill her?”
For a shifter to willingly choose to bind his life and soul to a soulless one was unheard of. I’d always just assumed that if anyone did it, they’d be shunned or worse.
The hatred between our factions was thick. Silver Creek was extremely unusual for willingly allowing me into their fold. I’d always wondered why they had. Suddenly the wheels in my head began to turn, and I wondered if maybe they’d taken me in because there’d been another before me.
His eyes shut briefly. When he reopened them, he had a haunted, empty look. “My reasons are mine.”
“You won’t tell me?”
I could hear the pain in his words, hear the heartache that’d never quite healed even through time and distance. So much so that I began to revisit my first impression of him as a heartless killer and I got scared. Because if he could kill something he loved, what could he do to me?
My fear turned sharply into anger.
“So what?” I snapped. “Killing us get you off or something? That why you sought me out? Do I remind you of her?” I laughed, feeling sick to my stomach.
When he continued to say nothing, I slapped his chest. “Get. Get out!”
I pointed at the door. “Go!”
But when I made to get up, he wrapped his beefy arm around my middle and shoved me back down.
“I willnae go.”
“Get the hell out of here, you filthy do—”
His eyes glowed the silver of heated metal. “Don’t you call me that. Don’t you ever fucking call me that in anger. Not you.”
My chest heaving like a bellows, I shook my head. “I’ll kill you, James. I swear to God, I’ll do it.”
“I loved her! With all my heart. All my soul. All my fecking life and every breath I took, I never forgot Isobel. Ever. She was mine. And I lost her.”
Madness raged in his eyes but not the kind that I’d seen in Clarence. His was controlled fury. It was truth. And it immediately took the wind out of my sails.
I wrapped my arms around my chest, hugging myself tight, feeling the strangest urge to cry at his obvious pain. He’d killed her. But his love for her still echoed in his words.
And I couldn’t help wondering if I had been nothing more than a cheap knockoff of the real thing. It made sense. Why he’d left. Why he’d sought me out in the first place.
It all made painful, awful sense. I was the only vampire around. Slim pickings, as they said.
A small but sad chuckle slipped off my tongue. “So you came to me because—”
Moving as gracefully as only a shifter could, he framed my jaw in his large hand and, staring deep in my eyes, said, “Ye are not Isobel. Ye never were to me, Scarlett.”
My lips parted, and my ears rang. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you scare me, woman. Ye always have.”
I gripped his wrists but not to push him away. “Then tell me the truth. Right now. Why now?”
His shoulders slumped. “Because I’m tired of pretending. Scar, I didn’t leave just because Mercer told me to. I le
ft because I didn’t trust myself with you.”
Then he blinked, looking as if he’d said too much. I wasn’t sure he’d said enough.
“Answer me one question, and then I promise I won’t push this again tonight—”
“Tonight only?” His lips twitched.
I wasn’t making a promise I had no intention of keeping. I was going to find out why he’d killed Isobel, but I could see the strain of our conversation was getting to him, so for tonight, at least, I’d leave him be.
“Tonight only, Shifter. But you have to be honest with me right now. You killed her. Do you want to do the same to me?”
Silence settled like a ten-ton weight between us, thick and heavy and cloying. His eyes were steady as he softly said, “Her death should never have been. And I vow to you, Vampire, I will never lift a hand against you. What happened to Isobel will never happen to you. I vow to the Ever Tree and by all that’s holy in the above and below that you are safe with me.”
The night rang out with the strength of his vow. There were sacred objects in our world, and the Ever Tree was one of them. It was the tree of life from which all fae and faeborn spring. To make a vow to that tree and not keep it would be to seal one’s doom. Only a fool would make that sort of vow and not keep it.
I shivered, believing him.
He cleared his throat, sitting straighter in his seat before shaking his head. “I’m tired, female.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to go home. To tell him that I was the last Veiler in the world he should put his trust in, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
A bond had formed between us tonight.
James had witnessed my shame, and he’d told me his. We were both, in our own way, outcasts among the pack. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I knew it.
He’d been brought back into the fold, but no one seemed happy to have him here. All of that reinforced the fact that I still shouldn’t trust him. But he was right too; I was raw tonight, wounded spiritually.
For vampires, sleep wasn’t the kind shifters or most other Veilers enjoyed. Sleep for us was very nearly death. When we shut our eyes, we took a last breath, knowing that should anyone find us in such a state, we’d be helpless to defend ourselves. It was why so many of my kind slept deep in the earth.
For at least four hours, I’d be helpless.
My thoughts must have been clearly written on my face because he shook his head.
“I won’t harm ye. I won’t allow any to harm ye tonight. No while I’m here.”
His brogue had thickened, a testament to his own exhaustion. Wolves liked touch, I knew that. He wanted to sleep, and he wanted to sleep with me.
“Isobel. I do remind you of her, don’t I?”
Swallowing audibly, he said nothing and nodded once. His jaw muscle twitched and flexed. My heart sank. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of being a stand-in for anyone’s deceased, and yet I couldn’t honestly claim I didn’t understand the sentiment.
“Do you still love her?”
I had to know. I was already pretty sure of his answer. A wolf wouldn’t go against all he’d been taught to be for anything but the truest of love, the kind that buried itself so soul deep that even death couldn’t take it away. But I had to hear him say it.
He reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a silver chain. His hand was fisted around something. Turning his palm over, he took a deep breath before revealing what he held.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the beautiful pendant. It was a hammered, rustic pewter cross, and at its center, a milky opal burst with green and red sparks.
His breathing had deepened, and I could read the tension in the lines of his shoulder.
“This was hers?” I already knew it was.
He nodded.
I pointed. “May I?”
He still wouldn’t look at me, but he clipped a nod.
Gently, almost reverently, I touched the very tip of my pointer finger to the pendant and instantly got a hit.
James was smiling, leaning over Isobel’s shoulder as he tenderly clasped the necklace onto her slender ivory neck.
She touched her fingers to it, brushing her hand over his.
“I love you, woman,” he rumbled deeply.
Turning in his arms, she stared up into his eyes. She wore a gorgeous gown that spilled around her hips with ivory ribbons and tartan clan colors of deepest blue and black.
In her eyes shone love. “And I, you...” She smiled, and her eyes flashed the red of blood.
The ghostly echo of Isobel’s final words rang in my ears. I looked at him, and his eyes were shattered.
That was when I knew he had told me the truth about Isobel at least. She had been a vampire and she had been his bride, and their love had been undeniable.
The rest was a giant mystery. I wasn’t sure that James was here solely for me. I didn’t really buy into the whole concept of true love and all that hogwash. He was an ancient shifter, an assassin for the clan McCarrick, a warrior. James was here for more than me.
Maybe he did want to bang me again. I wasn’t sure I entirely minded. He’d been some of the best sex I’d ever had. But I’d be keeping an eye on him.
Standing, I silently held out my hand.
When he joined hands with me, he stayed seated, and I could feel the strength of his touch, the power that sang through his blood. James was a powerful ancient; I’d barely tapped into the strength of him the other night. But I was safe with him, and for the moment, that was good enough.
As if sensing the shift in me, he finally stood. I led him toward my room and closed the door behind me.
The door had been spelled by a level-ten witch so that no one could enter without my express permission. I never wanted to sleep below ground. I hated the very thought of it. As a human, I’d been terrified of the darkness. As a vampire, I was still haunted by the old fears sometimes.
My windows, even my walls, were spelled in here. Mercer was rarely even allowed inside. It was the one place that was mine alone.
I didn’t look at James as I disrobed, leaving me only in a thigh-high nightdress. There was nothing super sexy about it. My mother had bought it for me back in the day when I’d still been human and lived at home. It was ruffled at the sleeves and had a scalloped neckline that tied with a silky white bow. It was old and soft and worn.
My body trembled as I slowly and carefully rolled down the ivory sheets. My bedroom was a time capsule of what it had been when I’d lived at home. I’d matched it as close as possible, from the vivid canvas painting of sunflowers and poppy fields I’d created in art class to the lapis-blue blown-glass sculptures of wolves on my vanity. The only thing I hadn’t been able to recreate on my own was my nightgown, I’d snuck back into my parents’ house to retrieve it one night when I was certain they were gone. That and my mama’s crocheted blanket and the jewelry box Daddy had made me.
Only once I’d put the nightgown on had I been able to sleep peacefully.
I’ve never visited my family since the night of my death. Though the world knew Veilers existed, I’d not wanted to hurt them further by showing up in my present form. I’d made the decision to let them grieve the death of the daughter they’d once known, because that Scarlett and the current one would never be the same again.
That former Scarlett had bled out beneath a honeysuckle bush and was gone to them forever. They were happy again, smiling again. And it hurt so damn bad sometimes...but that was the way of it for humans. Time marched on and waited for no man.
I slid beneath the cool sheets and tucked them up to my neck as I watched his shadow walk around my queen-size mattress.
James took off his jacket first, revealing a tight fitting T-shirt. He watched me as I watched him. His hands reached down to the hem of it, and he paused, as if waiting on me to give him the yea or nay.
I wet my lips, and he tore the shirt off.
Moonlight danced across his tanned skin. He was slightly furry at the chest,
as were all wolves. His chest and abs were well defined, the kind that most fitness models had to live in the gym to achieve.
Next, he kicked off his boots, and his hands went to his belt.
I held up my hand. “Keep your underwear on.”
His grin was instant and made my stomach clench.
“As you wish,” he murmured and then quickly undid his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and slid them down.
He wore a pair of tight black boxer briefs, and my mouth watered at the sight of the impressive bulge he sported.
I looked at his eyes that glowed softly.
“I canna help it that you’re beautiful. But I promise you, lass, I only wish sleep.”
James walked toward me, and my heart lurched. He was a beautiful, beautiful specimen of a man.
Tall, powerful, and exuding the type of raw masculinity that was innate to him. He was a throwback to a different age, a different time, and I liked it.
A lot.
He reached down, pulled the sheets down on his side, and caused me to choose either to let go of my sheet so he could get in or stay cocooned as I was and force him to lie atop the blankets.
With nerveless fingers, I finally let go.
The mattress shifted as he took his spot beside me, and I had to admit to a sudden attack of nerves.
I’d not been with a man in forever. Shifters might cuddle up for warmth and comfort or whatever else they were prone to doing, but I never had. Even after our marathon sex sessions, James and I hadn’t lingered and spoken words of goo-goo nonsense to each other.
I was stiff as a board when he rolled toward me and draped not only his arm over my waist but also one of his legs over mine, effectively trapping me tight to his side.
He was big and heavy and his thigh was massive, and gawd, he was so warm and smelled so amazing.
He chuckled. “Cuddling you is like cuddling a rock. Relax, Vampire.”
“You’re asking me to relax.” A high-pitched and slightly crazed giggle spilled off my tongue. “Right.”
“Aye,” he murmured, “relax.” And again that delicious brogue worked its magic on me.
My body went soft against my will as his hand slid slowly up and down my bicep, feathering against my flesh so gently that the tension simply melted out of me after a minute.
Whiskey, Vamps, and Thieves (Southern Vampire Detective #1) Page 15