FOUR

“He’s safe. Different. I can’t tell just what, but he would die before he hurt you.”

Lee was always impressed by her sister’s ability to read people so well and she trusted that ability without question. Em was a woman of few words, shy, but intensely loyal and intelligent and one of the most empathic witches alive. She dropped Em off at her apartment and they watched until she got safely inside and drove back to their building.

* * * * *

As they were walking around to the gates Lee felt it, the sickening shadow she’d felt earlier in the day.

She let down her shields and let her power unfurl around her. “Quickly, come with me,” she said to Aidan and he followed her without a word. They went through the gates where Lee and Tante Elise had laid a ward earlier that day. The shadow hesitated as it attempted to break through the warding. She pushed Aidan toward her door and tossed him the keys. He figured it was the one with the rubber doodad on it—with luck it was—and the door came open. He turned and saw her facing a dark shadow, her power crackling in the air around her. The hair on his arms rose. Lee backed up toward the door and shoved him inside. He nearly ran back out again as he heard her shriek out in pain but she kept him back with her power and got inside herself, closing the door behind her. The psychic hit on the door was palpable but the shadow did not pass the wards on the door.

Lee felt the shadow probe the exterior walls, she felt its frustration, its rising anger. She’d been surprised at how powerful it was when it had whipped out, wounding her. Shoving that to the back of her mind, she took a deep breath and further loosed the reins on her power, standing there in the middle of the room, arms at her side, eyes closed, she sent her magic out like a bubble around herself, then Aidan, then the room, the apartment. She pushed it outside and exploded it against the shadow and it dispersed, unable to reform. She laid a spell of protection and slumped on the couch next to Aidan.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked, his voice deep and rumbly.

“Something dark, something evil, something powerful,” she said and looked at him, his chocolate brown eyes were now more of an amber color. His voice had deepened.

“My bloodlust, it fights to the surface when I am threatened,” he explained as his eyes bled back to their chocolate depths. “What happened?” He motioned to her shoulder, where she bore an angry-looking slash in her flesh.

“It felt like it whipped me with its power, it tore into my skin.” She got up and went into the kitchen to press a clean, wet cloth on it. He took over for her and put pressure on the wound, his face close to the wound, the blood driving him crazy.

“You might want to purify this wound somehow. Do you have something here that might work?”

She smiled into his face. “My aunt makes a really excellent healing poultice. I’ll pack the wound with that to drive out anything nasty. As the wound was caused by magic, it’s helpful if I treat it with magic. In this case, my using the herbs that my aunt has put together should counteract the dark magic. She uses a healing spell when she makes the mixture. It’s a great thing to have around the house.”

“Ah, good idea. It doesn’t smell infected or contaminated. Better to be safe though.”

He watched her as she worked, efficiently applying the sweet-smelling herb pack to the wound. “Did I feel it correctly, did it know you?”

“Yes, it knows me. It knows my power, it’s attracted to me because of it. I’m all right, I’m glad to know the wards my great-aunt and I placed held it out. But it tasted me, my power and my blood.” She didn’t want to think of what that might mean.

“It stopped for a moment at the gate.”

“Yes, as an afterthought earlier today, as we were leaving, we put a ward there. Just a light one, not like the ones here in the apartment. My Tante Elise is so powerful that even an offhanded last-minute spell from her is strong enough to repel that shadow. Without the hesitation, well, I don’t know that I’m strong enough to have held it off in the open just yet.”

“Jesus.”

“Not nearly close.” She looked at him. “You ready to forget you ever met me and head back to Chicago?”

He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “No way. But, well, reinforcements might be in order. I know someone, one of my best friends, Alex. He’s the son of one of the most powerful wizards in the country, and an accomplished wizard in his own right. He might be able to help. He may not be the same kind of practitioner you are, but he practices on the path of light.”

“I’ve never met a wizard, but I hear they can be a bit snobby when it comes to dealing with witches. I’ve met male practitioners of black magic, but white magic is generally earth-based, nature-based. It’s generally female. Your friend must be interesting indeed. But my mother is a witch, as is my great-aunt. I think I have the backup I need.”

“Is your sister a witch too?”

“Technically yes, but not in the way I am. Em is a feeler, an empath if you like. She’s got this great instinct about people, what their motivations are, if they are hiding something, but also about magic, too. Aside from that, she’s an incredible researcher, her skills are amazing, I think it’s part of her intuitiveness. She just knows stuff, it’s impressive.

“The women, the Charvez women, are all born with some kind of talent. They can be healers, some like my grandmother and my aunt are able to read the future, or possible paths of the future, some are feelers. Only one Charvez woman a generation is a witch dreamer. My great-aunt, my mother and now me.”

“Wow, pretty cool. We have talents, too. Each vampire has them, they are usually handed down from our makers. In my case, my parents because I was born a vampire but those who are bitten get them from their sire.

“My gift is in my voice, I have the ability to put humans in my thrall. I suppose it was handy back in the days when we used to take blood from them without their knowing about us. I can shapeshift as well, my animal is a wolf and I can be as insubstantial as mist.”

She turned to him after checking the wound, which was already healing. “Really? I don’t know anything about vampires at all.”

“We can eat and drink and garlic isn’t deadly to us. We don’t need food like humans do to survive, that’s what we need blood for. But I like a good plate of red beans and rice as much as the next guy.”

She grinned at that. “Cool.”

He laughed. “You aren’t a bit afraid of me are you?”

“Do I think you’re going to attack me?”

He nodded.

She shrugged. “I figure if I can fight off that nasty shadow, I can fight you off. Plus, I am sure my sister and cousin read you tonight and if you posed a threat to me, my family would have taken care of you. Lastly, my Tante Lou read me, read my dreams, she told me you weren’t a threat.”

“I don’t take blood from the unwilling, although I should tell you that blood and sex are very close together for vampires and I hope I’m not too forward by telling you that I hope to have sex with you soon. I would never hurt you, if you didn’t want me to feed I wouldn’t.”

She nodded, thinking about it. “Do you have to stay out of the sun?”

“A newly changed vampire can be killed by the sun, but once you get to be about two hundred years old, you would just pass out and be powerless. The sun saps our energy. I work a lot during the early morning hours and at dusk, the light is perfect then.”

“You said you were born a vampire? I never imagined that vampires had families.”

“Yes, it’s unusual but it happens. My parents live in Ireland, my grandmother in Chicago.”

“Amazing. You learn something new every day.” She smiled at him. She drank in the way he looked there in her apartment, in her life and she realized that with him in her life now, she had to protect him. He was vulnerable during part of the day, vulnerable to this thing that was stalking her.

“I want to ward your apartment. Would that be all right?”

“The shadow recognized me too,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I think so. I just want you to be safe.”

He smiled at her and leaned forward and kissed her gently, just the barest slide of his lips against hers. He backed up. “Shall we then? Do you need anything special to do this?”

“No, although I want you to wear something.” She stood up and rustled through a wooden box on her bookcase. She pulled out an amulet on a silver chain. “It’s an amulet of protection. It’s enchanted.” She handed it to him. The amulet was a long rectangle inlaid with Celtic symbols. “It’s Celtic magic, appropriate for an Irishman.” She smiled and he put it on. It was warm against his chest.

He held out his hand and pulled her to him. “Thank you,” he whispered and leaned down to capture her lips with his own. His power met hers and they melded. Her lips were soft but firm, her bottom lip was so juicy he wanted to bite it, but he held back. He traced their outline with his tongue and she opened beneath him and his tongue flowed into her mouth like honey. Her taste hit his system like a jolt of electricity straight to his cock, setting his brain on fire. His need for her began to hum in his ears like the rushing of the wind.

She wanted to groan when she felt his body tighten against hers. She wanted to rub herself all over him, to slide herself across him like a cat. His energy, warm and sensual, ran through her and she felt her own cool energy sinuous against it, felt his breath hitch at the sensuality of it. Her hands wove through his silken hair his slowly ran up and down her back. She molded her body against his, glorying in the way they felt together. He pulled back, his eyes glittering, a smile on his face. “You taste so good, like cinnamon and vanilla,” he said, his voice making her nipples hard, sending waves of molten heat to her pussy.

“Your voice,” she said, breathless, rubbing her nipples across his chest and reveling in the sensation.

His grin promised wicked things. Naughty naked things. “It’s not intentional, you bring it out in me.”

“I like it, do it again.”

He laughed and set her away from him. His incisors were lengthening already, he had shaky control at best. He wanted her to be one hundred percent aware and willing when they made love, before and if, they shared blood. At the moment, they were both a bit off balance, the power of their union had left them both a bit shaky.

“Come on, let me show you my lair,” he said in a goofy, fake Transylvanian accent. He opened the door and she followed him up the wrought iron stairs to his door. He unlocked it and stood aside to let her in first.

She looked around. His personal style was a lot like his paintings—the colors bold, the furniture modern. He’d used it in the same way she had, his studio using the same eastern-facing space, meaning his bed was directly above hers. “My apartment is set up this way too. You’ll be sleeping above me.”