A Slash of Savagery (Wiccan-Were-Bear)

by R. E. Butler

  Arissa found herself in the company of three other coven members — Nyla, Breanne, and Clarisse — who were natural witches like herself. Nyla and Breanne were sisters and could control the power of the air, and Clarisse could control water. None of them were as powerful as Arissa, but they were a few of the natural witches within the coven.

  Lorene breezed into the room, her long skirt swishing around her ankles as she walked hurriedly. “I never realized how few natural witches we had until I had to make a list. It’s just the four of you.”

  “The four of us what?” Nyla asked.

  Lorene shared the request from Mishka for an alliance with the coven. Clarisse shuddered. “Vamps killed my mom. I don’t want anything to do with them.”

  Lorene smiled softly in understanding. “Our people have been harmed in many ways by the vampires throughout the centuries, but Mishka is a good leader and would make an excellent ally. We’re fortunate to live in an area with so many supernatural creatures that are willing to ally with us and share in our celebrations. Some of our members have found mates within those groups. The vampires are the only ones that have never been part of our alliances. The other groups — from the bear den to the wolf pack — have private alliances with the vampires. We’re the only ones who don’t. It’s time to make some changes and I’ll remind you all that we’re committed to protecting the innocents as well. Once the First Church of Humanity began to attack the human mates of the vampires, it became everyone’s problem.”

  “Human mates, not Wiccan,” Clarisse said. “Why does that make it our problem?”

  Arissa frowned. “How long until the church decides that vampires aren’t the only evil hanging around? Witches have been persecuted throughout the ages, too. It makes sense to set up an alliance now before the tides turn. We can’t have too many alliances.”

  Breanne made a face. “Then you do it. You take the job, and you risk your neck by living with them. I won’t.”

  “Me neither,” said Nyla.

  “I think you know where I stand,” Clarisse said.

  Lorene looked at Arissa. “You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to, Arissa. I can offer Mishka some general protection spells without having one of our members live there. I think he’s looking for someone to be personally invested in the vampire coven, so that they will care about the mates that are being hurt and willing to help protect them.”

  “I want to do it,” Arissa said. “I’ll miss working at the store, but it will be cool to see what the club is like. And Mishka promised that I wouldn’t become food, right?”

  Arissa had heard there were humans who were paid to be blood donors for the vampires at the club. She couldn’t imagine letting a stranger bite her and drink her blood. Now that sexy, big Brone? Yes, she could definitely see that happening. Working and living at the club was a great way to get to know him better. Because maybe there really was something there between them and he’d been too wrapped up in work to talk to her.

  Although she’d wanted to chalk up the initial attraction as nothing special, she had spent the night dreaming about him and his purple eyes, and that had to mean something.

  “If you’re sure?” Lorene asked.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Good. Mishka wants you to move into the club on Monday morning and begin work on Monday night. Your usual workweek will be Tuesday through Saturday nights, with Sundays and Mondays off, but Mishka has asked you to start right away. There are a few things you need to do before you start working there.” She came around the table to Arissa and put her hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for doing this, Arissa.”

  Lorene handed Arissa a folder and she opened it. Inside were instructions for several tasks she needed to do before she began work on Monday night.

  “Waxing?” She looked up at Lorene.

  Lorene smiled. “They worry about razor cuts. You definitely don’t want to bleed unnecessarily around a vampire. Even the most refined of them can be an animal when they’re around fresh Wiccan blood.”

  Arissa chuckled and ignored the disgusted sounds coming from the other three Wiccans, who looked at her as if she had recently sold her soul to the devil. She didn’t care what they thought about her choice because in her mind, the timing was perfect. She’d just met a strange and compelling vampire who happened to live at Fang where she was now going to live and work. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

  “You’ll be working at the store one Sunday and Monday a month. Of course you’ll have vampire coven guards with you during our ceremonies, and Mishka will oversee the choosing of those guards.” The other Wiccans left the room, and Lorene looked at the now empty doorway. “It will not go over well with our people.”

  “They’ll get used to it,” Arissa said.

  Lorene nodded but said nothing.

  “I’ll get right on these items, Lorene.” Arissa stood, kissed her on the cheek, and then left the store.

  Arissa didn’t have many close friends since she’d only been in Ohio for two months, but she did have a friendly neighbor named Alli, who was a fallen seraphim, with beautiful blonde hair, sapphire eyes, and a wicked sense of humor.

  Knocking on the door across from her own apartment, Arissa smiled at Alli when she opened the door. “I’m going to work for the vampires.”

  “Why would you want to do that, babe?” Alli stepped aside and let Arissa into her apartment.

  Shrugging out of her coat, Arissa laid it over a chair and sat down on the leather sofa. Alli and Arissa both had identical one-bedroom apartments in a one hundred-year-old refurbished complex. It was halfway between the store and downtown Cleveland. Alli walked into the kitchen and came back with an empty wine glass and filled it for Arissa from the open bottle on the coffee table before topping off her own.

  “Mishka asked for an alliance with the coven.”

  Alli raised a brow. “He must really be worried to swallow his pride like that.”

  “What is the deal with him and Wiccans?”

  “He dated Lorene’s granddaughter, Elizabeth. Well, ‘date’ isn’t the right term. She was ‘under the fang.’” At Arissa’s confused look, Alli clarified that “under the fang” meant that Elizabeth had been his exclusive food. “She also fed one of his guards. Big guy, purple eyes.”

  Arissa frowned, suddenly jealous.

  “What’s with the look?” Alli asked.

  “I didn’t know that she had been with more than one vampire. I thought they didn’t share.”

  “They don’t, but the rumor was that the big guy saved her life and they kind of fell into a loose alliance because of it, but she was in a more serious thing with Mishka. He won’t feed from Wiccans anymore, and it’s been a couple of years.”

  “I didn’t know you were so interested in vampires,” Arissa said, taking a sip of wine.

  “I’m interested in a lot of things,” Alli said with a wink.

  “Would you date a vampire?”

  “I haven’t. If he was sexy, though, who knows?” She shrugged. “But we need to talk about you working for them. Tell me everything.”

  Arissa detailed Mishka’s request and then showed Alli the folder of instructions. She hummed as she looked over them and said, “We can do most of these tonight.”

  “We?”

  “Sure! You didn’t think I’d let you do this alone, did you? Besides, you’ll have to go downtown, and you don’t know your way around well yet. You’ll spend half the night looking for the first place. Finish your wine and we’ll hit the road.”

  Arissa smiled and took another drink of her wine as Alli told her about the first time that she’d ever met a vampire, back in 1227.

  * * * * *

  Their first stop of the evening was to a gynecologist, who fitted Arissa with a specially designed IUD. The doctor told her it was different than those marketed commercially to the public and would immediately prevent her from having periods going forward. It was “bespelled among other things” the d
octor said and would help to keep her safe from being unintentionally targeted because of her monthly cycle.

  Then they visited a clothier. She was measured by a hunched-over woman with long fingers and icy blue eyes. The woman said that her work clothes would be delivered to the club by Monday and Arissa was to wear only what was sent over. Judging from the abundance of revealing clothing in the store, Arissa imagined she would be wearing similar attire.

  An hour later, Arissa was gritting her teeth through the waxing process while two women worked on her simultaneously. Alli sat on a chair in the corner of the room and giggled every time Arissa cursed.

  “It hurts,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  “You mortals and your beauty rituals,” Alli said and shook her head with a chuckle. “I’ll never understand the whole ‘pain is beauty’ belief.”

  One of the women glared at Alli. “She’s working for vampires, so she must be hair-free so she does not risk razor cuts.”

  Alli tilted her head curiously. “You shave your whole body?”

  “When I’m dating someone.”

  Alli hummed but said nothing. Arissa closed her eyes and tried to block out the pain from the waxing as the women moved on to more delicate areas. She thought about Brone. After Alli had explained that his relationship with Lorene’s granddaughter had been superficial, according to rumors, she had decided not to hunt the girl down and beat her silly. Arissa had her own string of lovers in the past and she wouldn’t hold his past against him because she wouldn’t want him to do that to her.

  When the last bit of hair had been removed from her body, Arissa peered over her skin, looking for stray hairs, and when she was satisfied, she thanked the women who left the room quickly.

  “I feel ten pounds lighter,” Arissa laughed as she scrubbed at her skin with towelettes designed to help remove the leftover wax.

  “I’ll bet. Angels don’t have body hair, so it was never a worry for me.”

  After tossing the used wipes in the trash, Arissa got dressed. Alli, short for Allisandrea, had chosen to leave her heavenly home and take on the mantel of humanity. She remained immortal, ageless, and ethereally beautiful, but she had lost her wings when she left heaven.

  “Do you miss your wings?” Arissa buttoned her jeans.

  “Sometimes. I miss my friends, though. I do see angels working on heavenly missions from time to time, but they consider me just another supernatural creature and not an actual angel any longer, so they ignore me.”

  Arissa finished dressing and went to her friend, putting her arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  “Me, too, even though we won’t see each other much when you start your new job.”

  “I’ll be sure to visit and you can come see me, too.”

  “I haven’t been inside the club. It might be worth checking out.”

  “Maybe you’ll fall in love with a vampire and live there.” Just so long as it’s not Brone, Arissa added silently.

  “Who knows what the future will bring. All I know is that I’m beat and it’s almost dawn. Time to head home and catch some sleep. You’re going to be a day sleeper now, since you’ll be working at night. Better get used to it.”

  “I always was a night owl at heart,” she promised.

  As they left downtown and drove home, Arissa’s thoughts drifted once more to what awaited her at Fang when she moved in on Monday. What would it be like to see Brone again? Would she find out that she was the only one who had been captivated by him, or had he been thinking of her, too? What would it be like to work and live with vampires?

  She’d find out soon enough.

  Chapter 5

  Monday afternoon, Arissa stood in the center of a room underneath Fang. The walls were smooth gray rock; electric sconces hung around the room. Furnishings from her apartment were being set up by trolls that worked for the coven during the daytime. Trolls were not necessarily the smartest creatures on the planet, but they were loyal and good natured.

  A young woman named Sophie stood just inside the door with a tablet and checked off items from a list with swipes of her finger. Sophie was a fae who had lost her wings and been banished to the mortal realm, choosing to work for the vampires in exchange for lending her healing talents to humans and other supernatural creatures who worked at Fang.

  As a packing box was carried in by a troll, Sophie made a swiping motion with her finger and said, “That’s everything from your place. I handled closing out your apartment lease with the management office as well as transferring the utilities back to the owners.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  Sophie smiled and a dimple formed in her cheek. “Master Mishka didn’t want you to worry about anything. Your mail is now forwarded to the club, and your first paycheck will be deposited into your account on Friday. All your clothes are paid for by the club,” she gestured to five white boxes sitting next to the closet door, “and you are to wear only those clothes during working hours. On your downtime, you can wear whatever you like. One of the family will be taking you on a tour of the club after you are introduced to everyone.”

  “Family?”

  “It’s Master Mishka’s inner circle. The family is made up of his seven closest vampires, including three that he sired himself. They have chambers underground as well, separate from the rest of the coven that chooses to live at Fang, who live in a central chamber and share bathing facilities. It’s on the first floor, at the back of the club, near the coven’s private feeding area. Which,” she eyed Arissa speculatively, “you should stay out of unless you’re with another vampire or someone who can protect you.”

  Arissa said, “I’m not food.”

  “You’re a natural Wiccan and you’ll smell good to them. Some of the younger vampires can be a little on the aggressive side.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  The trolls finished assembling her furniture, and she shut the door, alone for the first time in several hours. The chamber was big enough for her full-size bed and nightstand in one corner and her loveseat and flat screen TV in the other. There was what Sophie referred to as a “micro kitchen” along another wall, which was basically a small counter with a microwave, sink, and mini-fridge. She had satellite TV and Wi-Fi, too, which made the room seem less like a dungeon as she’d originally thought it resembled, and more like an efficiency apartment.

  She had a private bath and a walk-in closet that was currently full of boxes that needed unpacking. Her phone buzzed and she saw that she had received a text from Sophie saying that dinner would be delivered to her chamber at seven o’clock. Attached to the text were two files that she opened; one was the staff cafeteria menu for the month and the other was the sunrise/sunset calendar. Sunset was at 8:28 that night, and Arissa was to be ready for work by that time.

  With a few hours to kill, Arissa turned her attention to the walk-in closet and began to unpack, looking for the linens so she could make her bed.

  By the time someone knocked on the chamber door at 8:30, Arissa was dressed and ready for work. She opened the door and was greeted by a pretty brunette vampire with a broad smile. She introduced herself as Cella, and said, “Mishka is having a meet-and-greet for you with the family first and then the rest of the coven, so we need to hurry. You look great, by the way.”

  “It’s nice to meet you and thanks. Lead the way.”

  Arissa had chosen one of the five work outfits that had been left for her. All of them were sexy, and although she liked to dress nicely, she wasn’t used to so much of her body being exposed. The leather mini skirt hugged her body, short enough to show the tops of her thigh highs. The green satin corset accentuated her curves, from the swell of her breasts to the flare of her hips. Adding in the five-inch platform heels, when Arissa had looked at herself in the full length mirror in the bathroom, she felt like she was looking at a stranger. A sexy stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.

  Cella was dressed in much the same way, in a shor
t skirt and fitted top. As she led Arissa down the long hallway past the other chambers toward the elevator, she said, “You’ll find that Mishka has pretty antiquated ideas of how females should look. He’s a ladies’ man at heart and likes the women around him to dress sexily.”

  They entered the elevator, which carried them up to the first floor, and then they walked down another long hallway to a set of glass double doors. “These are the family offices. All the family members have private offices and each of us have duties related to the businesses that the coven owns. There are guards posted from sunset to sunrise outside the doors, and no one gets into the back offices without an appointment.”

  She entered a code into a pad beside an intricately carved door, a lock clicked, and she pulled it open. Holding the door open, Cella gestured Arissa inside and they entered another hallway. As they walked, Cella pointed out the coven members’ offices, supply closet, break room, and finally, Mishka’s office.

  After knocking twice, Cella opened the door, and Arissa found herself staring at seven vampires. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice that Mishka was sitting behind a large desk or that two of the vampires were identical twins, it was simply that they didn’t hold her interest for even a heartbeat because all she could see — all she cared about in the world — was Brone.

  Chapter 6

  Brone had woken up before sunrise, showered, and dressed carefully on Monday. He’d been aware on a cellular level when Arissa came into the club. Even asleep, his body had been supernaturally attuned to her nearness. He could have woken up and gone to her, but he didn’t want to frighten her with his aggression, and waking up early made a vampire of his age very…cranky.

  He’d spent Saturday and Sunday patrolling outside of her apartment complex, concerned for her safety. The coven had many enemies, and working for the vampires meant that she could be targeted. She was a natural witch, so she was powerful enough to protect herself in many instances, but he was certain that she wasn’t aware of how dangerous the situation had become.