Cuddling Sucks in Coffins

by Holly Ryan

  Sawyer came in wearing only jeans, shrinking the kitchen with his size. His warrior’s body wrapped in golden skin tattooed with swirling sun and moon tattoos accentuated his dark curls, still wet from his shower. A spicy smell emanated from him from across the kitchen, good enough to lick, and I melted into it, letting it drown out some of my doubts and worries. No morning wood today, but his orange-yellow eyes blazed as if with salacious thoughts. He swept around the table toward me without a word, cradled my face in his hands, and kissed me all the way to my soul.

  I kissed him right back and wrapped my legs around him to pull him close. A firestorm of impulses rushed through my body, making me come alive with want until I was a panting mess. Maybe I smelled of desire because that was the only ingredient that had made me. And sunshine. My vamps could flip the switch on my desire faster than anyone I’d ever met, which wasn’t really saying much. But still. Hot damn.

  “Morning, Belle,” Sawyer murmured once he pulled away.

  “Morning, Sawyer,” I purred.

  A smile played on his lips as he sat next to me, but it faded as he took in the faint cut on the back of my hand. “Rough night?”

  “Yeah.” I flexed my fingers and sighed.

  He frowned at the table and ran a finger down the large crack in the center. “Looks like you weren’t the only one. What happened here?”

  Before I could answer, Jacek came into the kitchen, wearing black athletic pants that revealed the sharp V of his hips and his usual grin that lit up his whole face. The backs of my eyes burned at the sight of him from the pressure expanding in my head at everything he needed to know, and everything I couldn’t tell him.

  “How’s my favorite slayer?” he asked on his way to the refrigerator.

  “Good. You?” The moment he passed me, my eyes welled as I looked down at my lap, and I hoped Sawyer didn’t notice.

  “Fan-fucking-tastic,” Jacek said cheerily.

  When I’d blinked back my tears, I side-eyed Sawyer, who sat frowning into space and rubbing the side of his jaw. He looked bothered by something, but I didn’t have a chance to ask what because Eddie wandered in.

  His hair was still damp from his shower and actually lay flat against his head for once. He zipped up his black dress pants with one hand and attempted to button his white shirt with the other. When he righted his glasses on his nose, he gazed at me as if seeing me for the first time. His amber eyes brightened, and a hint of a smile curled his lips.

  “There you are,” he said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t seem upset with me.

  “Here I am,” I said.

  While he and Jacek puttered around the kitchen for a mug of warm blood, my mind worked over how I might bring up last night’s events without really bringing up last night’s events.

  Gah! My life made zero sense anymore.

  Finally, I settled on: “Hey, how many slayers have you three known? Like personally, I mean.”

  Eddie, who’d been on his way to the refrigerator, stiffened, his steps hitching. Jacek eyed him as he strode past to the table and sat next to me, a coppery scent steaming from his mug. His was less bucket-like than mine.

  “Are you sure you want to hear another history lesson?” Jacek asked.

  “If it’s about your histories, then yes. It’s dead people’s histories that put me to sleep sometimes.”

  He grinned. “We are dead, Slayer.”

  “Well, yes, but...you’re the only three dead people I’ve had sex with.” I blinked, realization just now dawning about how that sounded. My coffee bucket seriously needed a refill. “Wow, that sounded way better in my head.”

  “Three, including you,” Jacek said, chuckling.

  “Two,” Sawyer answered.

  I looked to Eddie, who stood facing the microwave even though it wasn’t running. A pang shot through my chest. For some reason, this had been a bad topic to bring up around him.

  “Did you...?” I whispered so only Jacek and Sawyer could hear me. How to put this lightly?

  Amusement crinkled the corners of Jacek’s eyes. “Fuck them?”

  Was I that easy to read? Even if they had slept with other slayers, it shouldn’t have mattered. As vampires, as men, they were sexual creatures. I knew that, but that didn’t mean I liked to think about it. With me, it was different though. They never seemed bothered or jealous to share me.

  “I didn’t,” Sawyer said. “The Necron Brotherhood prided itself on celibacy.”

  Jacek shook his head, a blaze of heat sparking in his eyes. “I only fuck the ones who drive me wild.”

  I grinned, brushing his knee with mine. “Did you help the previous slayers with anything, or...? I guess I’m wondering what they were like, what you talked to them about.” I gave Jacek a pointed look. “Not necessarily the ones named Ro—.” The rest of the name wouldn’t come out, likely because Roseff’s name sounded too much like Ronick’s and the cut on my hand prevented me from saying too much.

  “Roseff?” Jacek supplied.

  I nodded. “Are there books written about each slayer, and if so, where might those be located?”

  No trouble saying that much at least. Which wasn’t a lot.

  “If there are books, I would imagine Eddie would have them,” Sawyer said, rubbing his temples.

  Jacek’s attention shifted for a fraction of a second to Eddie, and the slightest hesitation rolled into his next words. “We helped one of them for a while. She was just a kid, a slight little thing.”

  Eddie posted one hand against the microwave and bowed his head as if in prayer. I wanted to go to him, to put my arms around him, but of course I didn’t. There was a story there, one that still haunted him about this young slayer, and it hurt my heart even though I hadn’t even heard it yet.

  “It’s not always the supernatural that can kill a slayer,” Sawyer said in a low voice.

  Eddie pushed himself away from the microwave, his messy hair and glasses unable to conceal the pain written all over his face. “I need to go see about a book,” he muttered to no one in particular.

  “Wait...” I started, but he was already leaving the kitchen. My heart twisted to see him like this.

  “Let him go.” Sawyer leaned back in his chair, his gaze on the doorway where Eddie had disappeared. “He’s gone through too much to live through it again.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “The slayer in 1951 was young, around twelve, a real spitfire just like you,” Sawyer began. “She was Eddie’s youngest sister.”

  “His sister was a slayer?” Whoa, this was some news.

  He nodded. “They came from an abusive family.”

  “Not just abusive,” Jacek said. “It was hell on earth, and that was on the outside looking in.”

  For him to say that after all he’d been through, I couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for Eddie. “That’s awful.”

  Sawyer traced the crack down the middle of the table with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. “Eddie knew what she was even though she couldn’t tell him since he was human. He walked her to the cemetery every night even though he’d moved out into a dorm so he could put himself through law school and find a way to get his siblings out of that house.”

  A heaviness sank into my chest. That was beyond sweet of Eddie, easily ranking him on the top of the Best Big Brother list. I doubted very many would do that for their slayer sisters.

  “She struggled with patrolling, mostly because of the bruises and broken bones she’d endured at home,” he continued. “Eddie wasn’t much better at helping since it had nothing to do with books.”

  Jacek took a long draw from his mug. “We offered to help Crystal. That was her name. I helped her with her stake aim while Sawyer fielded all of her questions. That went on for just a couple weeks.”

  “And then?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “Eddie came by to get her for patrolling
and found his house on fire,” Sawyer said, his voice low. “Obviously we hadn’t bitten Crystal, so we didn’t sense anything had happened until no one showed for patrol. We went searching, thinking something was wrong, and then we found Eddie in the middle of the street, half out of his mind with grief. His family was dead.”

  The breath stalled in my lungs as if I’d been kicked. Tears welled and tracked down my cheeks. My heart ached for him. His entire family gone, including his slayer sister whom it seemed he would’ve gone to the ends of the earth for. He was just like me in a lot of ways, all alone, except for this oasis filled with a new family.

  “How did he become a vampire?” I choked out.

  Jacek took my hand on my lap and squeezed, funneling comfort into me. “He begged any vampire to turn him so he could punish himself for eternity for not getting his siblings out of that house long before the fire. His parents found out every time he tried, and it never ended well for him.”

  “We refused to turn him,” Sawyer said with a shake of his head. “He’d already suffered enough.”

  “So he found someone else to turn him.” Jacek sighed. “Once he learned to control his bloodlust, we knew we had to help him control his guilt too. That’s taking quite a bit longer. I know he’s not there yet.”

  I dragged in a deep breath, Eddie’s past weighing heavily on my chest. His issues with touching surely stemmed from part of his story I hadn’t heard yet, but with his abusive home life, I could only imagine. This was a lot to take in about someone who’d twined their existence with mine in such a profound way. All three of them had, and I would forever be changed.

  Sawyer leaned in and thumbed a tear from my cheek. “We shouldn’t have told you this before your patrol.”

  I swiped at my cheeks and nose, hardening myself for the night to come. “It’s fine. I’m used to shifting back and forth between a slayer at night and a broken human by day. I had plenty of practice when my mom died.”

  Sawyer took my other hand, dwarfing it with his soothing touch. “I’m sorry, Belle.”

  “I’m sorry too.” Jacek gently shoulder-bumped me. “I think you’re exactly what Eddie needs. Your uniqueness, your zero-fucks-given attitude.”

  Sawyer nodded. “But also that you’ve suffered. He sees a kinship in you.”

  He’d said something similar to me before, that he could see my loss in my eyes. But hadn’t we all suffered? Part of living was watching as pieces of our souls were ripped away. Depressing as fuck, yes, but there it was. But if you could surround yourself with people who understood, who would help fill those missing pieces with something new and wonderful, then that made it so much easier.

  Ugh, too many deep thoughts, not enough slaying. My gut was cramping and the bottoms of my feet felt like they were about to race out the front door without me, the telltale signs it was past time to go.

  I downed the rest of my coffee and stood. “I’ve got to go kick some ass.”

  Jacek stood, too, and pressed his grin to my temple. “That’s my girl.”

  He and Sawyer walked me to the front door—a new one since Sawyer’s foot had gone through the old one when he’d kicked it down—where the smell of paint fumes grew stronger. The doorknob-shaped hole in the wall from Paul’s shenanigans last night had been patched and painted.

  Sawyer swept me up into an all-consuming hug. “Let us know if you need help tonight.”

  I nodded into his solid chest. “I have my Holy Bra on underneath my Kevlar vest. I should be fine.”

  “Holy Bra?” he asked.

  “A water-filled push-up bra. I replaced the normal water with holy water, creating the first Holy Bra in existence.”

  He squeezed me again, a lot less tight this time. “Remarkable.”

  “I thought so too.” I pushed away from him gently before he accidentally cracked a rib and punctured my Holy Bra.

  Behind Sawyer, Jacek winced as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Must be the paint fumes,” he said, his voice tight.

  I glanced at Sawyer who frowned down at his clenched fists.

  My hackles raised as I looked between the two of them, but my gut cramped harder, urging me out the door. It felt like flames were licking at my feet because I wasn’t moving fast enough toward my duty. Okay, okay, I was going.

  Shouldering my duffel, I opened the door to the night and then turned to the two vamps behind me. “Kiss Eddie for me.”

  Jacek’s mouth wavered into a smile that didn’t fit him. “We’ll get right on that, Slayer.”

  Nodding, I shut the door behind me, a ball of unease unraveling inside me. A cold chill licked up my back. I loosed a slow breath as I started off the porch steps. The darkness held perfectly still as if the night were bound with a tight rubber band. Something was wrong. Lots of somethings were wrong. But some of them I couldn’t address right then because my body was telling me to go.

  I slipped through the dark toward the cemetery, each step bringing me some relief from the cramping and itchy feet. But my stomach was tying itself into knots the farther away from the vamps’ house I moved. It had been more than the paint fumes bothering Jacek and Sawyer. I just didn’t know what it really was. Maybe they didn’t know either.

  But I couldn’t dwell on that now. I forced myself to focus on nothing else but my slayer sense because duty called. As soon as my mind shifted to do just that, every hair on my body spiked. Someone was watching my every move. Paul? Ronick? A vampire I’d have to interview before I slayed?

  Shit.

  What I wouldn’t give for a simple night of patrolling on my own damn terms.

  I scanned the empty, quiet street, then plucked the stake from my bun. Just as I was about to smash it down on the cemetery gate’s new lock, my slayer sense ripped up my back. Footsteps sounded behind me.

  “Belle Harrison?”

  No. Not again. No first and last name. No more marriage proposals from the devil, thank you very much. This was exactly how that never-ending conversation had started.

  “Look, dick, you can crawl back to your...” I started, turning around.

  Detective Appelt waved his badge at me. A uniformed cop who looked like he’d never cracked a joke in his life stood next to him. He carried a plastic bag in front of him. A plastic bag that had my cell phone in it, the same one I’d dropped at the graveyard the night Tim was murdered.

  I gulped loudly.

  “Belle Harrison,” Detective Appelt said once again. “You are under arrest.”

  Chapter Five

  Well, this was not what I’d planned at all.

  I sat behind a graffitied table in a small interview room that reeked of sweat and desperation, some of which was mine. My body was rebelling against me because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. Weird spasms twitched my nerves, my feet burned as if I’d slipped hot coals into my boots, and my stomach felt like I’d plunged forty knives into it and then drank a gallon of lemonade. Speaking of, I had to pee something awful. That bucket of coffee I’d had was now making me swim up to my eyeballs in yellow.

  A one-way mirror hung on the wall to my right, and I avoided my reflection at all cost. The last time I’d looked, my complexion had gone white as death, and a sickly sheen of sweat made me look as if I’d greased myself in butter. Yellow, melted butter. I crossed my legs even tighter and willed myself not to piss the chair.

  Finally, the door opened, and Detective Appelt walked in. He’d gotten rid of his oversized suit jacket and wore a button-up shirt that might’ve once been white. It was more of a grayish yellow, and a fresh pool of sweat stained the pits, visible when he moved his arm to pull out the chair across from me. The detective badge attached to his navy pants glinted in the harsh fluorescents.

  “I have to go the bathroom,” I announced.

  He sat across from me, his face blank, completely ignoring me. Bastard. He dropped a notebook on the table with a loud whack.

  “Belle Harri
son,” he said.

  “Just Belle.” For crying out loud.

  “Belle Harrison, what were you doing at the cemetery tonight?”

  I took a long breath, staring at the black ink wedged underneath my fingernails from the fingerprints the police had taken. “My mom is buried there.”

  “Natasha Harrison.”

  I blanked myself of all emotion even though my insides were in a turmoil at the mere mention of her name. Her face before the cancer started eating her away flashed through my mind—her blue eyes even brighter than mine, her easy smile, her curly blonde hair that almost reached her waist. My whole world. In truth, I did visit her grave, just not during nightly patrols. Those parts of my life needed to be kept separate—emotions on one side and duty on the other. Though anymore, they were starting to blend quite a bit.

  “Yet again, you chose to ignore the normal operating hours there. Do you think you’re special, Belle Harrison? That normal rules and laws don’t apply to you?” His dark eyes bore into mine, already judging even though he had no fucking clue.

  I ground my teeth together. “No. I don’t think I’m special.” Burdened, more like.

  “Did you know Tim McGrew, the cemetery grounds man?”

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “He was a good man.” Who hadn’t deserved to die, especially the way he had.

  “When is the last time you saw him?”

  The night he’d died, bent over double as he scooped up his disemboweled organs.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “His wife tells us that he often forgot his thermos at the cemetery and would go back to get it at night. The same time you frequent the cemetery. I’m sure you can see how this looks, especially since we found your cell phone near the crime scene, as well as your fingerprints. Do you admit to being there that night?”