by Sarah Black
I just have to make sure I don’t fall for him.
24
Sometime after dinner, Valentino took off, muttering about vampires in his house. Honestly, I think it had more to do with me and admitting how he felt. An admittance that didn’t make much sense. He wanted me, that was a given, however his reasoning became muddled in arousal and the adrenaline of danger. Men like Valentino thrived off that edge, riding the blade knowing that at any moment it could cut him.
I wanted to be that person, the one who rode that line, but when it came to my heart I just wasn’t. I’d been burned in the past and by events entirely out of my control. So instead of chasing after him like a love-struck fool, I let him go, opting to do the dishes.
I had another goal in mind as well. One that had me guiltily feeling glad he left. Because I didn’t know the consequences of my magic and I’d rather not kill a two-hundred-and fifty-four-year-old vampire.
Standing in the kitchen, my eyes stray to the wall clock as I wait for Valentino to storm back through the door, and when he didn’t after half an hour, my breath whooshed out in relief. A chill races up and down my body at what I’m about to attempt. Being so far away from people is an advantage that eases me.
In case I get out of control.
Earlier, when Valentino mentioned he was going to run out, I watched a rat scuttle across the room. He just shrugged, and after my initial-freak out, an idea bloomed inside me.
I was going to kill that rat and see just what it was I could do with blood. Hiding my anticipation from Valentino wasn’t easy, and he kept glancing my way when my leg began to twitch. Yet he still left me alone.
With the rat I was going to destroy.
I couldn’t allow myself to think too hard on what I was about to do, telling myself that all witches learn in one way or another. Growing up believing we were normal in both worlds, but only living in one had left me at a disadvantage I couldn’t define.
Hilda and her fake smile flash through my mind. The card she gave me is eating a hole through my back pocket. Not literally, but the burn feels literal even if I know it isn’t. A coven could help. But I’m not about to run off and tell them what I am, especially after knowing blood and spirit witches are hunted and killed. Thought of as an abomination.
That’s not for me. It didn’t matter that I now lived in a modern era. Humans did foolish things out of fear, and I couldn’t imagine what a supernatural could accomplish in that same state.
Not only that, but the idea remains with me that our birth mother and father gave us up for a reason. It’s possible they just didn’t want us, but my bet is on our magic. That they knew what we were and the only safe place for us was to live on the outskirts of supernatural society. We were just two small toddlers peering through the glass front door at the world beyond. A world that appears far darker than anything we could have imagined.
For that I didn’t blame them, but I still had no desire to hunt down those who gave us up. I didn’t have that inkling like Poppy. I had parents who loved me until they no longer could. I had Aja and her mother, Christian as well. Then along came Joseph. The first on the scene that night. The first to teach me it was okay to feel a little broken, and that it didn’t make me weird or an outcast.
It just made me.
My sock-clad feet glide over the cool concrete floor, a butcher knife gripped in my hand. The skin on my soles is still healing, I didn’t realize just how achy it was until I sat down. Until I stopped moving and thinking. Now, my hip burns with a remembered wound and my feet ache. Skirting around the glass coffee table, I plop onto the couch. I half expected a cloud of dust to puff up, but there really isn’t any dust in sight.
Putting it off, I pull my legs into me, sitting crisscross applesauce and allow my eyes to flutter shut.
Back when we were kids, our magic came naturally to us. The mind didn’t war with emotion, least of all morals nor ethics. A child’s mind didn’t think in those terms, it thought of a cool new trick. Of something that made us special. Though we didn’t realize just how special until that fateful night.
I recall a day with Poppy, hanging out at home in our little backyard, while our parents were inside making dinner, their laughter floating out the screen door to wrap around us. Poppy had looked at that door, her head cocked to the side, probably talking to whatever spirit resided there. I’d long ago become accustomed to her quirks. But she had looked at me, nodded her head, and led me to the front porch.
I didn’t have to ask her what she wanted from me, I already knew. I closed my eyes and focused on the city street, the bar next door full of normal patrons, the sidewalk, and beyond to where my range cut off. Then a creature walked by, his gaze sliding to us with a smile on his lips, and I knew although he was other, I could kill him easily.
It was that day I started to pull back. Poppy nodded again and went back to playing in the yard as though nothing had occurred, but I knew whoever had told her to do that was giving us a warning.
But right now, I need that ease of a child’s mind to access what made me a witch. Swallowing back my thick saliva brought on by anxious memories, I cast that net. Magic is nothing more than an extension of the self. An ethereal aura that one can manipulate based on their specific signature.
As a blood witch, I can cast that net, my magical aura, and feel any living entity with a pulse. When I was young, I practiced often, learning who was around. If only I had done it that night, I would have—
What? I shake my head, dismissing the thought. A twelve-year-old against a vampire? It seems foolish, but I could have saved them that night. I could have killed him at his first strike, yet I didn’t. Fear froze me in place.
I can’t change the past, but I can change the future. I can pave the way and make a life for myself. It might not be the one I wanted, but I’ll be damned if I just allow this magic, this gift, inside me to die off again and take me with it.
No matter how dark it gets.
All around me, little creatures ping back their blood signature. A mouse living in the walls with its little mouse family. A cricket hopping on the ground before he chirps out his song into the night. But neither of those is what I’m looking for.
I stretch that net just a little wider, just a hair outside the building. Sweat beads on my brow. How I just did this the apartment is beyond me. It’s easier when I don’t think about it. But now I’m thinking.
Clearing my mind, I send out a vibration. Like the spider to the fly trapped in a web, the rat sniffs at the edges before stepping fully into my net. Unlike the spider, I thread that vibration to the rat, enticing it toward me.
Beside me, I grip the knife I had grabbed, my knuckles and fingers cramping. I don’t move, I don’t breathe. Instead, I peek at the rat from across the room. My eyelids slitted as I watch while he slowly makes his way over to me.
I grip the knife tighter.
Can I do this?
I have to.
His little feet tap along the floor, but it may as well have been booted feet for the way my senses are reacting. I swallow as he skims my inner aura, sniffing cautiously. I wait.
And wait.
Finally, he steps over the threshold of my inner aura, now within reach. Or rather in reach of my arm. Still, I hold my breath.
Is this something I really want to do? Do I want to slice into this rat’s flesh just to see if I can somehow use his blood?
The little fangs in my mouth throb at the thought of spilled blood.
I falter.
Trying not to think too hard on it, I raise my arm. My hand shakes and I tighten my grip on the knife. The rat’s little nose twitches, his gray body jerky with his movements.
I close my eyes, bunch my muscles, and go to strike.
A hand clamps down on my wrist and my eyes fly open. Adrenaline spears my system, sinking deep into my muscles before filtering out just as quickly as it comes. Leaving me exhausted and trembling. The scent of spice envelops me yet the hand on my wrist
tightens.
I feel him behind me. His presence wraps around me, and without meaning to, I lean back into his legs. Yet I can’t deny the relief I feel at him stopping me. I watch as the rat squeaks away, no longer in my web.
My body reacts with a delicious wave of sensual awareness as Valentino crouches behind me, his breath fanning over my ear. “Now, kitten, that will just get blood all over my clean warehouse.” His voice is calm and steady and without a single hint of judgment.
His grip loosens, but he doesn’t let go, twisting my arm behind my back until his other hand can take the knife. I hear it clatter away, the sound echoing off the wall in the open space.
“Now tell me why you thought doing this alone was a good idea.” He doesn’t move from behind me, but instead shifts closer. His knees on the floor beside me as I now sit between them. His one hand still grips mine in a twist that begins to ache, while his other rests at my hip, his fingertips making lazy circles on top of my shirt.
I can’t tell if I should be turned on or annoyed. This interrogation isn’t something I expected to happen right now. Sure, later after he saw me cleaning up the blood. I should have had time to prepare for it.
“I didn’t hear you come in.” I speak on an exhale, my smoky voice deeper, sexier. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and his hand spans my hips, his fingers sinking into my flesh.
“Answer my question.” His grip on my hand shifts my arm down slightly, easing the ach, but it’s only to allow him to get closer to me. His chin rests on my shoulder, the bone digging down.
“I wanted to understand.” I pause, trying to form the words as a storm kicks up outside, the wind slamming against the brick over and over. Overhead, thunder rumbles.
“Go on.”
“I wanted to find my limits,” I rush out.
“You thought you could learn your limits on a rat.” It’s a statement, not a question. I feel judged now, though his tone is factual, sterile.
“When you put it like that it sounds ridiculous.”
He spins me around so fast all I can do is allow the world to blur before me. When it settles, we’re both on our knees staring at each other. My breathing kicks up as his hand grasps both of mine in one behind my back, pulling them down so my chest arches outward. My breasts brush against him, but he doesn’t look down at them, choosing instead to stare straight through me.
Arousal floods my system, though the only indication he gives me that he can tell is the flare of his nostrils.
“A rat is an insignificant creature when it comes to your significance.” Again, a statement, one that flutters my heart. “Your limits may only find definition upon a creature as significant as you.”
“I—” Swallowing to wet my dry throat, I try again. “I need to start somewhere.”
“Somewhere isn’t with a rat.” Finally, a sneer lifts his lips, emotion peeking through. I prefer this to his eerie calm. I don’t know what emotion he hides under that calm.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.” My eyes dart between his, hoping he understands without words.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me.” His grip tightens.
Why the words spill from my soul, I’ll never know, but they do. Maybe I’ll regret them later, I don’t know. “Because the night my parents died, I wanted to end their suffering, I wanted to shut down the flow of blood to their heart.” My voice turns to nothing but a whisper a mouse would have to strain to hear. “And I could have.”
“That isn’t murder, Penny.” He loosens his grip but doesn’t let go.
I’m already shaking my head. “No, I knew I could use it, Valentino, I could have used their blood for whatever nefarious purposes I wanted, and I wanted to.” I chuckle, the sound full of disdain and disgust. I lean in close to Valentino, whispering against his lips, “I wanted to murder them.”
He pauses for an eternity, his eyes boring into my own. His face is a mask, not even his eyes reveal his true feelings. People reflect so many emotions in their eyes, even when they believe they are capable of hiding the truth. But not the eyes. I’ve heard them referred to as the windows to the soul, yet Valentino’s reveal nothing right now.
“Come.” He releases me all at once, my body lurching backward until I scramble to stand and catch up with him.
“Where are we going?” We step into the rain where it beats down in heavy rivulets. The dark night looms overhead, the moon hidden behind thick storm clouds.
He doesn’t answer, just leads me through the rain to the back of the building where another butts up against it. He flips up a panel, punching in numbers before opening a heavy steel door, his hand ushering me inside.
I pause for a mere moment. I could be entering any kind of prison or trap, stuck here, but something inside me commands me to trust him. I might regret it later, but I step into the building.
Just inside, Silas stands by the door looking completely bored. His one foot crossed over the other, his eyes half-lidded. He’s lit by a lone lightbulb sticking out of the wall. Smiling, he flicks a switch, illuminating the warehouse.
My heart trips and dives off a cliff. “What the hell is this?”
“You said you wanted to test your limits. Test them, kitten.”
25
“Valentino, what the hell is this?” I repeat, my heart thumping in my chest, but the damage has already been done, and judging by the smug smile on his face, he’s all too aware of that fact.
In the center of the dimly lit warehouse sits a man, his head hanging low while his arms stretch behind him, cuffed. Blood drips down his face as some oozes under him. The scent of piss saturates the air.
He’s been beaten and tortured, yet he still sits upright.
I know what I’m looking at, but my mind keeps freezing when I try to process it. But not because the sight disturbs me. It doesn’t, not the bruises or the fact that he has been beaten. The problem is his blood. I can smell it from here, I can feel the power in his veins whispering to me that with one sip, one pull, all my aches and pains would disappear.
I tremble with the need to do just that. But I’m not like Valentino and I’ll never be like him. His calm presence creeps up behind me, his breath fluttering over my neck as he moves my hair away. That very palm rests on my shoulder, only to make a slow glide down my arm to rest on my waist. His movements are made with caution, as though asking for permission. When I stay quiet, he pulls me back to him, his other arm branding my hip as his fingers splay across my skin.
“Do you want to know who he is?”
“No.” But I suspect, oh, but hell, I suspect.
“I’m going to tell you anyway.” If possible, he leans in even closer. “That vampire stalked Poppy, thrust his blade into your sister’s abdomen, sank his fangs into your sister’s throat, and tore.” He pauses, each breath a macabre, erotic thrill. “He drank her power, her blood.”
“Stop.” My body vibrates with fury that I can’t contain. It itches to crawl out of me, to take over my actions.
“His friend stalked you through a fucking parking garage, intending to do the same.” I don’t ask where that one is, I don’t want to know. Though if I had to suspect, he’s probably dead and rotting somewhere or in an incinerator.
I can’t help the flash that runs through my mind of missing out on blood powerful enough to end this. To tell me all of his secrets. I could demand it of him.
“You wanted to practice on an insignificant rat.” His hands tighten on my hips. “Find what you are capable of by using him.”
I could, it would be so easy. To use one of his wounds and slip inside with my magic. My eyes shutter closed, my mind reeling. This isn’t the person I want to be.
It’s the person you are.
There is no denying that the magic that lives inside me is dark, powerful, and it rides the edge of morality. That fine line of right and wrong. Duty and service.
That magic screams at me now, an eye for an eye. They tried to take Pop
py from me. In a sense they won, because she ran. She spent the past four years honing herself into a weapon without her magic to guide her. Because of me. Yet she still went on nightly rounds, patrolling the streets to keep men like this away. Creatures like this.
Did she ever kill them?
In my gut, I know that answer is a swift yes.
Can I?
We are two sides of a coin, Poppy and me. She is the light to my dark. Dark that struggles to ignore and pretend evil doesn’t exist, though I damn well know better.
Either way, she still failed. At the hands and teeth of this predator.
My ire grows.
“Why?” Why now? What is Valentino hiding about this situation? At any point he could have done this, so what made this hour, this day, so damn special? The it hits me. “He won’t tell you anything.”
I try to spin around in his arms, but they hold me still in his unforgiving embrace. Footsteps echo in the cavernous warehouse, clacking until they pause beside us. I should feel something. Shame that I allow Valentino to hold me still. Embarrassment. But I can’t bring myself to move away from him, because if I’m being honest, right now he is the only thing anchoring me. Preventing me from darting off and commanding his blood.
“He won’t tell us anything,” Silas admits when Valentino won’t.
“And the other... one?” I swallow thickly as blood tinges the air once more, a breeze from a broken window wafting the iron rich fluid right to me. I shudder as the power in that one teasing scent strokes the magic inside with taunting fingers.
Take it.
The whispers begin. My hands slide to Valentino’s arms, my nails digging into his flesh and piercing his skin. His blood wells under my nails, but instead of calling to me, it calms me. Grounding me. I exhale a sigh of relief.
“Capsule.”
“Like cyanide?” My head turns to Silas, Valentino’s breath hot on my neck.
Silas’s face, so like Valentino’s, sneers at the mention of the poison. “Not really, but kind of. There are things that can kill a vampire like a stab to the heart, lobbing off a head, and little capsules that witches make. A curse to kill a curse. We call them a last resort, some use them to evade interrogation,” he states without emotion, like this is just another day for him. Boredom leaks out of his pores.