by Leia Shaw
Curse me and my stupid disorder! Why couldn’t she have come out of the foster care system unscathed like Sage? Well, maybe not unscathed. Her sister had a nasty temper, and was more cynical than anyone Erin had ever met. But she had a set of steel balls. Well, if I’m going to survive this world of dangerous supernaturals, I’m just going to have to channel my inner-Sage and grow a pair.
Just then a door slammed outside the room and she jumped out of her skin. She sighed. Growing a pair? Easier said than done.
Erin’s memory took her back to when Sage had first told her about the world that existed under their very nose though hidden in the dark shadows of society.
“Fuck, Dot. I don’t know what I’m doing,” she had said on the phone just seven months ago. “I’m in too deep. Almost every creature from myth is real. Fucking real!”
For the last seven months she’d been getting texts with random information about how Erin could protect herself. For instance, a stake to the heart was one big hoax thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires could only be killed by beheading. Same with werewolves. Sorcerers were more vulnerable – that is, if you can get close enough to one. Sage was a sorceress and Erin had seen well enough what she could do with her powers.
Screams erupted in Erin’s mind. Memories too confusing to remember. Police sirens. A fire roared. Flames licked up everything in its path. Windows shattered into lethal shards of glass. Sage escorted into a police car. Then she was gone.
But they’d stayed close, even after all these years. She hadn’t realized how much she missed Sage. It had been over a year since they’d seen each other in person.
The sound of the bathroom door opening pulled Erin from her memories. “That better not be you, Marcelo,” she said warily from behind the shower curtain.
His deep accented voice was mocking. “Would you prefer a stranger, querida?”
Biting back the urge to throw a sample shampoo bottle at his head – again – she growled, “I’d prefer my privacy!”
“Relax, pequeña fogata –”
“What did you just call me?” she snapped, certain he’d insulted her.
A chuckle of male amusement sounded from the other side of the curtain. Suddenly Erin wondered if vampires had x-ray vision. She fought the urge to cover her breasts with her arms.
“Little fire,” he answered tenderly. “Now calm down. I’ve only come to bring you clean clothes. I’ll give you your precious privacy.”
She heard the bathroom door shut but peeked from behind the curtain just to be sure.
She stayed until the water ran cold. When she stepped out of the shower, the first thing she noticed was a familiar hot pink thong sitting on top of the pile of clothes, broadcasting loudly, “I rooted through your underwear drawer!” She blushed and fought back the urge to slink away through the window. But it wouldn’t open, she’d already checked. Dressed in the new denim shorts and blue flowered peasant top she stepped out of the bathroom.
Marcelo was stretched out on the bed, boots off and TV remote in hand.
“I’m surprised you know how to work that thing,” she said eyeing the remote.
He turned to regard her with hooded eyes. His gaze flickered across her face, where her cheeks were probably still red, then down the rest of her, lingering on her hips. Shit. He was thinking about that pink thong. His lips twitched. “Not very grateful, are you? I saved your life and brought you clean clothes.”
She bit her lip, suddenly ashamed. He was right. He was taking care of her as a favor to her sister and she was acting like a bitch. Yes, he’d killed at least three men in her apartment and most of the time he scared the shit out of her, but he was protecting her. He’d been demanding, bossy, and purposefully intimidating, but he hadn’t hurt her.
“Sorry,” she said taking a step closer. “You’re getting paid for this gig, right?”
“Gig?”
She waved a dramatic hand. “Mission, assignment, Operation Save the Human…”
“Cargo delivery,” he said with a grin, knowing it would provoke her.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I try to be nice to you.”
“We went over this already.” He spoke as if she had lost a large quantity of brain cells over the last few hours. She wasn’t altogether certain she hadn’t. “Because I saved your life and brought you clean clothes.”
“Right.” Sighing in resignation she took a seat on the bed opposite the large body taking up most of it. “So you went back to my apartment?”
“Yes,” he answered but focused his attention back to the TV. The Barefoot Contessa was baking something with five pounds of butter. Vampires watch the Food Network? She shook her head. As if that were the strangest thing she’d seen all day.
“Why did you go back?”
“Isn’t getting you clean clothes reason enough?”
“Did you –”
He interrupted her question with a black look. “Don’t ask questions you –”
“Don’t want to know the answers to. Yeah, yeah.” She sighed and began chewing on a nail.
***
“Have you talked to Sage?” Erin asked, shifting her body just enough that the air condition vent blew her scent straight into Marcelo’s path.
He groaned on the inside and shifted to hide the evidence of his arousal. It was uncomfortable pressed up against his leather pants. If it were anyone other than Sage’s sister in the room, he would have seduced the woman. After the fight with the sorcerers, he desperately needed release. Something about bloodshed and sex…they just went together. Like bees and honey. Swords and spears. Heads and pikes. Knives and…more knives.
And Erin smelled as delicious as whatever nonsense the chef on TV was making. Already his mouth salivated for her. He forced his mind away from the seductive fragrance of her flowery shampoo.
“I spoke with her mate, James,” he answered, bending the truth a little.
“Mate?” She crinkled her nose. “Don’t you mean boyfriend?”
A mate bond was much stronger than a mere dating relationship. Stronger even than marriage, which was a human tradition, unnecessary for immortals. But explaining that to a human was nearly impossible. Mates were together forever - as in eternity. And for an immortal, that was a really long time.
“You say boyfriend, I say mate.”
“Sounds so animalistic,” she said with her nose still scrunched.
He smiled devilishly. “And what’s wrong with animalistic?” The image of taking Erin on all fours from behind popped into his mind. Someone really should smack him.
Her brows descended as if she’d never thought of it before. He wondered if she was a virgin. Surely not, as beautiful as she is.
“So…” she said sidling closer with a sly smile. “Do you have a mate?”
He raised his brows, a smirk forming on his lips. Curious, is she?
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t assume anything. I’m just making conversation.” She acted casual enough but a slight blush spread across her cheeks.
How to answer her question? Technically, mate pairings were a chemical attraction driven by instinct only occurring in the supernatural world. Natalia had been his wife in the human world, so she wasn’t his mate…exactly. But she was still his wife. At least in his mind. As for Natalia, since he hadn’t seen her in more than eight hundred years, he couldn’t know. He’d wondered, throughout time, if she’d met the true death. But he’d been too close on her trail to believe it.
In the last few centuries he’d learned a great deal about his wife. The Huntress, they called her. She hunted werewolves, brutally murdered them without mercy. No one knew why or who she worked for. Rumors flowed through the werewolf packs and Marcelo had been surprised to find them afraid of her. Her fighting skills were legendary. Some said she had unnatural abilities that made caging her impossible. Some even claimed no amount of silver could hold her. He’d spoken with a Scotland pack that’d had her in custody just before Marcelo had arrive
d.
“The bounty is high on the lass,” the Alpha had told him. “But holding her is like trying to seize the wind.”
She was wanted alive by every werewolf pack across the world. She was to be tried then burned to death for the crimes against werewolves. Natalia had always been fierce and strong, but a murderer she was not. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to hold out hope.
“Do you?” Erin asked again, pulling Marcelo from his memories.
Marcelo decided to tell the truth. “I do not have a mate. But I do have a wife.”
Her little forehead creased and he found himself wanting to kiss the spot between her eyebrows. “But I thought –”
“Natalia was my wife when I was human.”
Her eyes widened. “God, wasn’t that, like, a thousand years ago? You have to be over it by now!”
He smiled without humor. “Eight hundred and forty three years ago. And if she was human, and dead, then I would be ‘over it’. But she’s not. She was turned before I was. Then she disappeared and I haven’t seen her since.”
Erin’s expression changed from shock to understanding to pity. Aw, hell. He hated being pitied. Now he wasn’t sure why he’d told her about Natalia in the first place. In eight centuries he’d never spoken about her with anyone else. Did this insignificant little wisp of a girl have some sort of mind control trick?
He rose from the bed and peered out the hotel window before closing the drapes. It was almost dawn. “Sharing time is over,” he told her. “Do not bring up this subject again.”
***
Erin watched Marcelo strip off his shirt, revealing smooth, golden skin. Muscles flexed and relaxed with each graceful movement. She had trouble tearing her eyes away.
Just stop it! Stop staring! But his pants are so low his hip bones are showing!
She squeezed her eyes shut. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. When she opened them again, two deep brown eyes stared back with a haughty smile.
“What are you looking at?” she snapped, annoyed more with her reaction to him than his smug smirk.
He shrugged. “Nothing.” Then he pulled down the bedding and climbed in.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Going to sleep.”
“But…I thought…supplies?” This whole forgetting simple sentence structure thing was truly getting embarrassing.
“It’s almost dawn.” He pointed to the window. She glanced at the closed drapes. When she met his gaze again he pointed to himself. “Vampire.” Then he gave her a look like she’d lost more brain cells.
She shook her head, jarring her scattered thoughts, hoping to form a coherent sentence amidst her rising frustration. “And just what am I supposed to do?”
“Sleep. We’ll have to make our preparations at night until I can get an elixir to walk in the daylight.”
“You told me to get cleaned up because you wouldn’t travel with a ‘sorry looking female,’” she said imitating his deep accented voice.
“The same applies for my bed.”
Her eyes widened with disbelief. Arrogant, assuming male! “Your bed?” She was horror-struck. “You expect me to sleep with you?”
He shrugged. “Unless you prefer the floor.”
“I do!” She stomped to the bed and pulled off all the blankets, tossing the bloody bedspread in the corner with a disgusted expression. Leaving one measly sheet for him she dragged the rest of them to the floor. “A sorcerer would have given me the bed.”
“Yes, well, we’ve already established I’m not a sorcerer, haven’t we?”
Jerk! Sage had better have a good reason for sending this particular vampire to get her. Otherwise she was going to question their friendship. Erin fluffed her pillows and tucked the blankets around her on the carpeted floor. After a long time brooding, she finally fell asleep.
Her stomach growling was the first thing to wake her. Second was the realization that she lay on something soft and cozy, not the hard floor. She opened her eyes with a soft groan, rolled over and smacked right into a large male body. What the –
She bolted upright. How did she get in the bed? The clock on the side table read four in the afternoon. No wonder she was hungry. Marcelo was silent and still beside her, sleeping like the dead. At least he wasn’t in a coffin. She peeked under the sheet. And at least he’d kept his pants on. She took a moment to study the rest of him. He was just as she remembered the night before, looking like the bronzed god of the Nile. The urge to stroke his smooth flawless skin overwhelmed her. Tempted to reach out and touch him in a way that was so not appropriate for someone with a boyfriend, she clasped her hands together tightly. The warmth radiating from the vampire was almost enough to make her pull the blankets up, and go back to a dreamless sleep. But her stomach wouldn’t let her.
She slipped out of bed, threw on her boots, and tiptoed to the door. Before she reached it, a hulking figure appeared a few feet in front of her. Her breath hitched in her throat as she prepared to scream.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” a familiar voice rumbled.
With an irritated sigh she folded her arms over her chest. “I’m hungry. Humans eat during the day.”
Marcelo looked at the clock, then back at Erin. “I thought you had panic attacks in public?” His voice was rough with sleep and she was surprised to find it so sexy.
“I was just going to the vending machine.”
He moved away from the door, grabbed the hotel book off the desk and skimmed through the pages. “You can order room service.”
“How did I end up in the bed?”
“I put you there.”
“But I –”
“You were whimpering in your sleep. It was keeping me awake.”
Her eyes met the carpet. “Oh.” Yeah, that happened from time to time. So he’d seen her having a nightmare. How embarrassing.
“Here.” He handed her the room service menu. “Order what you like.” He rubbed his hands over his bleary face. “I’m going to take a shower.” As if he just realized she was there, his eyes sought hers then swooped down her body with a quick graze before settling back on her face. She suddenly felt naked beneath his smoldering gaze. “By the way,” he said with a twinkle of seduction in his eyes, “you slept soundly once you were in bed with me.” He was holding back a smirk; she could see it playing on his lips.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. As if he needed an excuse to get her in bed. As if she needed an excuse to oblige him! He walked towards the bathroom while Erin looked over the menu.
He stopped abruptly and turned around. He studied her face with narrowed eyes, putting her on edge. “Do I need to worry about you leaving?”
She shook her head slowly doing her best to look innocent, although she might visit the vending machine if the room service took too long.
“Do not leave this room,” he told her, his eyes dark with warning.
“Not even to go to the vending machine?”
“Not even if the building is burning down around you. You come get me, understand?”
She rolled her eyes. “That seems a little dramatic.”
“I will tie you to the bed if –”
“All right. I get it. I won’t leave the room.” Her hands were up in a sign of surrender.
He gave a curt nod of approval. “And stop your eye rolling. You’re going to make yourself dizzy.” A smirk touched his lips before he closed the bathroom door.
“Dizzy my ass,” she mumbled, then picked up the phone to order the most expensive meal the hotel served.
Chapter 4
After Erin had eaten breakfast, Marcelo drove her beast of a car twenty minutes to the other side of town where he’d seen a mystic shop. The owner was a witch, he could sense it, and he was counting on her to have an elixir in stock so he could walk in daylight. Even now, at dusk with cloudy skies, his eyes burned and his stomach was tight with knots. Contrary to human belief, his skin would not burst into flames upon meeting t
he sun. Instead it would burn him from the inside out, boiling his blood, melting his organs. It wouldn’t kill him but it would be excruciating. And it would make him so weak he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. And that was a death sentence.
Before they’d left the hotel room, Erin had grilled him about witches.
“Are witches immortal?”
“No.”
“Are they powerful?”
“Very.”
“Are they born that way?”
“Mostly.”
“Are they as moody as Spanish vampires?”
“Very funny.”
Out of all of the supernatural races, Marcelo liked witches the least. They were shady and underhanded. You couldn’t trust them anymore than you could the devil himself. But there were times when working with them was a necessary evil. This was one of those times. The daylight potion required almost constant consumption. And since he’d brought enough cash to buy the store’s full supply, it shouldn’t be a problem.
No, the problem was the girl sitting next to him in the car. After a poor day’s sleep – because of her! – Marcelo was in a sour mood. He hadn’t slept with a woman in a very long time. He hadn’t abstained from sex – he wasn’t a saint – but he’d never been with a woman long enough to share a bed in such an intimate way. That was reserved for his wife. Until now.
He’d never heard a woman in so much distress before he’d put Erin in bed with him. She had writhed around in the blankets so much she’d entangled herself in them. Little whimpering sounds had torn at his heart – the heart that had been hardened for more than a few centuries. What the hell is wrong with me? Once he’d scooped Erin up and tucked her in bed with him, she’d nuzzled into his body, and, just like that, he’d ended an eight hundred year streak. And it had been the first night he hadn’t dreamed of Natalia.
He found himself becoming more and more attracted to Erin. Who wouldn’t be attracted to those sweet breasts that looked like they’d fit perfectly in his hand? As if that weren’t enough, there was something about her spirit, her very soul, that called to him. Damn it, Marcelo, you’ve abstained for too long. Yes, this was an itch; that was all. An itch that needed to be scratched.