Secret of the Vampire

by L. E. Wilson

  “And yet, I’m going to do it anyway.” His voice was little more than a growl. A challenge. Then he sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t know what that is out there, but I can feel it, Kenya.”

  “Of course, you can. It’s magic. Even I can feel it and I’m not a witch.”

  He walked over to a stool at one of the high tables and climbed on, resting his elbows on the table. He stared at the tabletop for a long moment before he looked back up at me. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him.

  “I mean, I can feel it. Inside of me. Magic to magic. Whatever is out there,” he pointed toward the locked door, “some of it is also in me.”

  Restlessly, he got up from the table and walked over to the door near where I stood. There were no windows. No way to see outside. However, I didn’t need to see out to know something was still out there.

  And neither did he.

  Chapter 2

  Alex

  I was obsessed.

  Ever since the night I’d saved the vampire—Kenya—I haven’t been able to think of anything else but her. Whether she was okay. Whether she was safe.

  Whether she was thinking of me, too.

  I’d seen her around before then, of course. In order to share this fine city, my coven and hers occasionally had to work out some rules. So, the High Priestess and their master vampire would meet up to pound out details of our pact or to be made aware of something that was going on that would affect all of us. But that was normally the extent of our involvement with each other. Otherwise, we pretty much stuck to our part of the city and the vampires, at least for now, were content to live and feed within the seventy-eight-square block radius of the most sinful part of New Orleans.

  As long as they didn’t terrorize the tourists and kept their victims alive and without any memories of their encounters with the blood suckers, we dealt with coexisting, with the agreement we would help one another if either of our covens was threatened.

  So, of course, I’d seen the female vampire before, but only from a distance. I knew she was attractive in a sexy librarian kind of way, with her confident airs and her dark-rimmed glasses. I’d also overheard she was the one who ran the club the vampires owned, so I knew she was intelligent. And yeah, okay. I’d always had a thing for her. She was exactly my type of female.

  However, until the night I’d saved her life, I’d never been close enough to see how smooth and perfect her skin was, even flushed with fever. Never knew how her brown eyes bared her soul to me. How sweet she smelled. How soft the texture of her hair was, or how her smile would stop my heart.

  Even so, I knew I should put her out of my mind. She wasn’t mine. Wasn’t for me. The fact that I’d saved her life meant nothing.

  But as the days passed, I’d found it harder and harder to stay away. I knew she must’ve lived, thanks to my coven’s interference, or we would’ve heard something about it. We would’ve felt the other vampire’s grief echoing through the city like shock waves from an atomic bomb. But we heard nothing. So, I knew she was alive.

  Still, I couldn’t get her out of my fucking head. And so, one night long after closing time, I took the risk and entered the vampire’s territory alone so I could see for myself. She was still at the club, I felt it in my gut, and I was hoping I’d catch her alone.

  Unsure of how she would react if I took it upon myself to just walk in, I waited across the street for her to come out. I didn’t have to wait long, just a few minutes before she stepped outside and locked the door. She spotted me as she turned to leave, surprise flitting across her face for a brief moment before she quickly waved me over to her.

  I’d only wanted to make sure I’d gotten all of the curse out of her and that she wasn’t having any kind of after effects, or at least that’s what I’d told myself. When I placed my hand on the center of her chest to run a magical scan, the instant spark between us seemed to shock her. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d even tried to prepare myself for it. “Tried” being the key word there. There was a connection between us I’d never felt with any other woman. I’d always known it. And now it was even stronger.

  Yet, even knowing she had fully recovered, even after placing a protection spell around the building where she spent her time at night and warning her not to be alone, I couldn’t stop.

  I took to prowling the perimeter of The Quarter like some sort of magical watchdog, watching over her from afar. “Listening” for anything out of the ordinary. Any kind of magic that wasn’t familiar or didn’t belong.

  All I knew was that night we went to the swamp house and I’d reached inside of Kenya to pull out the ugliness that was killing her, something had shifted inside of me. I’m not sure what it was exactly, or why it had happened. Maybe because my magic had been inside of her…

  No, it was more than that. I had been inside of her. All of me. That’s what it had taken to save her. And like some kind of goddamned avenging angel, I’d felt her surround me with her light, protecting me from the darkness even as I ripped it from her weakened body. The darkness I should not have been able to save her from. The darkness that was much more familiar to me than not. The darkness I also sensed in my twin sister, Alice, although it wasn’t as strong and she would never admit it. Not even to me.

  As for me and Kenya…it was like our souls had fucking touched.

  And somehow, I’d known that even though the curse was gone, it wasn’t over. I’d felt something coming for weeks now. And the thought of whatever the hell that was returning for her terrified the fuck out of me. I couldn’t lose her. Not when I’d only just found her.

  So, I’d kept watch.

  And tonight, my stubbornness had paid off. I was walking along the edge of The Quarter when I’d felt its presence, oozing with malevolence, but no viler than what was inside of me.

  Pushing aside my terror, I’d closed my eyes, reached out, and found Kenya, alone on Bourbon Street. I didn’t know who or what this was or why it was coming back for her, but the fucker would have to go through me first.

  And here I was, coming to the vampire’s club once more with no thought to my coven’s anger or my own safety. I had to. I had no choice. This female vampire pulled me to her, even though I tried to resist, an erotic tug of war I had no defense against. I had to protect her.

  “Alex? Do you know what it is? Who it is?”

  Kenya’s voice yanked me from my thoughts. I shook my head without looking at her. If I looked at her, I’d want to kiss her. And more. A sudden surge of desire had me gritting my teeth. Willing my pulse to slow, knowing she would hear it, I tried to get my mind back onto the threat at hand. “I have no idea,” I admitted to her. “But I won’t let it hurt you.”

  I felt her stare.

  “Thank you,” she told me softly.

  Her voice was low. Sexy. Closing my eyes, I let it drift over me. My body far more aware of her than the danger outside.

  “So, we just wait it out?”

  “It can’t get through my ward, or it would’ve done so by now,” I assured her.

  I felt her eyes on me again and knew what she would ask next. “What if it doesn’t leave?”

  That was a good question. Turning to her, I took her face in my hands, careful of her glasses. I’d never before heard of a vampire who had kept any kind of human deficiencies after turning until I’d met Kenya. But it was something I would ask about another time. “Nothing will happen to you. I swear it.”

  My thumb grazed her smooth cheek.

  “Why are you here?” she asked abruptly.

  Distracted by the softness of her skin, I didn’t hear her question at first.

  “Why, Alex? Why are you willing to risk yourself for me?” Her eyes sought and held mine.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted quietly.

  That seemed to surprise her, but then she composed herself. “I appreciate what you did tonight. I do. But there’s no reason for you to be here.”


  Her meaning was clear. She was telling me she wasn’t my problem. That whatever it was I felt toward her wasn’t mutual.

  But she was lying.

  She must’ve seen the determination on my expression, for a second later, her chin rose in defiance.

  We stood like that for a long time, searching for something within the other. Something we both desperately wanted but shouldn’t take.

  It was Kenya who broke the spell, stepping back out of my hold. “I should call Killian. Let him know what’s going on. He’s expecting me back at the house.”

  “If you call him, won’t he come here?”

  “If I don’t call him, he’ll definitely show up. He’s very…protective of those he considers his.”

  White hot rage blurred my vision, unbidden and uncalled for. But I couldn’t control it. Killian may be the one who created her, but Kenya wasn’t his. Not any longer.

  She was mine.

  The thought startled me, and it was a moment before I realized Kenya was staring at me, a strange expression on her pretty face. Sometimes a vampire’s heightened senses were a pain in the ass. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, pretty damned surprised myself by the realization that had just slammed through me. Not so much a coherent thought as a feeling. An instinct. I shook it off. She wasn’t mine. I just felt protective of her because I’d saved her life. “What are you going to tell him?”

  Thankfully, she didn’t question me about my reaction to what she’d said about Killian. Instead, she walked over to the bar, sexier and more natural in bare feet than she would be in the heels I just noticed kicked under a bar stool, her rounded ass holding my attention until she got behind the bar. Getting her phone from behind it, she propped her elbows on the wooden surface and stared down at the screen. “I don’t know. But I have to tell him something. He’s expecting me home,” she repeated.

  I wracked my brain. “Do you have a friend? Someone you’d hang out with?”

  A smile teased the corners of her full lips. “No. I have my family. The guys,” she clarified.

  “And you all live together in that big house.” Jealousy made my words come out harsher than I’d intended.

  She looked at me over the rim of her glasses, the gape of her blouse giving me a peek of full breasts, and my cock swelled, the zipper of my jeans digging into me uncomfortably.

  “It’s safer for us that way.”

  A scene from the movie The Lost Boys popped into my head. The one where the kids went into the vampire cave to stake them and found them all hanging from the ceiling like bats.

  “It’s not like that,” she told me with a roll of her eyes.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Stay out of my head.” I didn’t mean to be so harsh, but there were things about me I wasn’t ready for her to know. Not to mention what my cock was doing.

  The smile fell from her face and she swallowed, her head falling forward as she looked down at her phone again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just…” Taking a deep breath, she lifted her chin and met my eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t make it a habit to invade the personal thoughts of others. I…slipped.”

  I exhaled and gave her a nod. But just in case she “slipped” again, I raised my shields. It was stupid of me to forget they could do that. “Don’t call Killian. I’ll get you home safe before the sun comes up.”

  She paused, thumbs poised over the screen. She didn’t seem to believe me. “Are you sure? What if whoever—or whatever—that is, comes after us?”

  I looked down at the floor, opening myself up to the power on the other side of these walls. It was still there, hovering like a caged animal, but otherwise making no moves to test the ward I’d placed. “I don’t think it will.”

  “It’s not gone,” she said.

  “No,” I confirmed. I was quickly learning a vampire’s instincts were nothing to mess around with. She could feel threats as well as I could. Not the small nuances, I would imagine, but just that it was there. “No, it’s not gone. But it’s also not trying to get in. It’s watching.”

  “Because of the ward around the club,” she said, but her tone was unsure.

  I shook my head. “No. It barely even tested it. Honestly, I think it was just surprised that it was there.” I started to prowl back and forth on the other side of the bar, hands linked behind my back and my head down as I contemplated our situation and how I would go about keeping my word to Kenya if that…thing, or whatever it was…decided to camp out on the street until we were forced to leave.

  And what if I was wrong? What if I took her from the safety of the club and it was waiting for us? Would I be able to fend it off?

  Maybe I should call the rest of the coven. Or at least Angel. She knows how to keep her mouth shut, if I can manage to hunt her down in time. I would call Alice too, but unfortunately, I can’t say the same for my sister. Her loyalty to the High Priestess comes before all else with her.

  Even her own brother.

  No. I was on my own in this. It was better this way. I’m the one who broke the rules and got involved with a vampire. I should be the only one to deal with the consequences of my actions.

  Decision made, I joined Kenya at the bar. Putting my elbows on the smooth service, I leaned in toward her and kept my voice low in case it was listening. “We’ll wait until right before sunrise. The city will be coming awake and more people will be out on the streets. I don’t think it wants to be seen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. Not really. It’s just a feeling.”

  “You’re betting our lives on a feeling?”

  I smiled, trying to reassure her. “This thing doesn’t know what it’s fucking with.”

  “Or maybe you don’t know what you’re fucking with.”

  “Ye of such little faith,” I teased.

  My words didn’t bring the smile back to her face as I’d hoped they would. Reaching across the bar, I covered one of her small hands with mine. “Besides, as you yourself said, Killian would kill me—piece by piece—if I allowed anything to happen to you. And then he would turn me just so he could kill me again.”

  “You would never allow him that close to you.”

  She had a point. “It would be harder to hold back five vampires. Especially if Judith gives me over to them.”

  Kenya looked down at her hand, still covered with mine, but made no move to remove it. “I find that hard to believe. She’s your auntie.”

  “And she would happily sacrifice me to keep the peace between our two covens.” I honestly didn’t know if this was true or not, but if it would help me convince Kenya…

  Her eyes clashed with mine and I caught a flash of her fangs before she remembered herself. My cock, which had just started to behave itself, perked up with renewed interest. Apparently, it wasn’t afraid of a little danger. And I had no doubt I’d just caught a glimpse of a side to this vampire I would not want to meet alone on a darkened street.

  Willing my sex to calm the fuck down, I watched her response. It was an interesting reaction, to say the least, from a vampire who had, just a few minutes before, implied she cared nothing about me as a man.

  Stashing this little memory away for later, I focused on the problem at hand. “We’ll leave just before dawn, but in plenty of time to get you to shelter before the sun rises.” I tightened my fingers on hers. “You can trust me, Kenya.”

  For a moment, she just stared at me. “Looks like I’m gonna have to,” she finally said. Then she pulled her hand from mine, stashed her cell back under the bar, and grabbed a bottle of expensive vodka from the shelf behind her. She poured two shots, sliding one over to me. “But if we’re gonna die, we might as well go out in style.”

  I clinked my glass to hers and downed the shot. The alcohol burned, distracting me from the pretty bartender. But not nearly enough. “We’re not going to die.”

  “But if I do, I’m haunting you and your family.”

  I smiled as she poured us another shot.

&nbs
p; Chapter 3

  Kenya

  Alex and I stood in front of the locked door of the club. I had my shoes on, my coat on, and my keys out, ready to lock it up behind us and run for our lives. The strap of my bag crossed my body so I wouldn’t lose it if it came down to that. We had about 30 minutes to get me home and inside before the sun rose over the horizon, and I offered up a quick prayer that he was right and his plan would work.

  Beside me, the warlock was strangely calm.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I answered. It was a complete and utter lie. I wasn’t ready at all.

  He shrugged his coat on, the muscles in his chest and arms flexing beneath his thin shirt. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Taking an unsteady breath, I unlocked the door and rushed outside in vamp speed, shocked when Alex appeared beside me the moment I stopped.

  How did he do that? Was it a witch thing? A magic thing? I’d never seen a witch move that fast.

  But there was no time for questions now. Locking the club while Alex scanned the surrounding area, I waited for him to give the okay before we moved away from the warded building, just in case we had to hightail it back inside.

  Whatever it was that had come after me earlier, its presence wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been the first time I’d stepped outside. Either it had just left, or it was still here, but far enough away so as not to be an immediate threat.

  Alex grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

  Without thinking too much about it, I gripped his large palm and followed. I still didn’t fully trust this male, even though there was no reason that I shouldn’t. Not really. I mean, he’d saved my life, but that had been a deal struck between Killian and Judy, the High Priestess. The witch coven had agreed to help us that one time, and as agreed, they’d done everything they could to save me. Which meant allowing Alex to use his magic on me.