Blood of the White Witch (3 page)

We soon pulled up to the towering hotel, and
the driver exited the vehicle, coming to open our door for us.

“Thank you!” Vance said with a grin, and he
tipped the man generously after he helped me to exit the
vehicle.

“Many happy wishes to you both, too, sir.”
The man nodded.

Vance pulled me quickly and anxiously
through the lobby, much to the delighted stares of several well
wishers and passersby. We found our way into the elevator, which
was thankfully empty, where he kissed me passionately again during
the ride up, without stopping until the doors opened on our
floor.

He pulled me out after him, and we ran
together down the hall like a pair of giddy schoolchildren to the
penthouse suite he had booked for us.

He slipped a key card from his pocket,
opening the door before he turned back to me with a grin. He picked
me up, swinging me into his arms. I gave a squeal of delight, and
he proceeded to carry me over the threshold, kicking the door
closed behind us with his foot. He quickly carried me through the
living space and into another dark room.

The room was suddenly bathed in warm glow
when what looked to be a million white pillar candles of various
sizes suddenly flamed magically to life, and I could see we were
standing in a beautifully decorated, gigantic master suite.

Soft music filled the air around us, and it
was clear to me that Vance had been planning ahead for this
evening.

“Your room, Mrs. Mangum,” he said with a
sexy grin and a glint in his eye. He let go of my legs, letting me
slide slowly down the length of his body and placed me gently back
on my feet.

“I love the sound of that,” I replied with a
smile, letting a soft sigh escape from my lips.

“So do I,” he said and leaned in to kiss me
again, this time his fingers picking through my hair to pull it
free of the pins and restraints, running his hands through it,
until it fell around my shoulders. “There. That’s better,” he said
and leaned back to survey it.

“I can’t believe we’re really married,” I
said, reaching up to run my fingers over the side of his face.

“Believe it,” he replied capturing my hand
against his cheek, turning to kiss each of my fingers suspended
there. He reached down suddenly swinging me back off my feet and
into his arms.

“You look tired,” he said with a sly grin
and a wink. “I think I’d better put you to bed.”

I laughed, and he carried me over to the
plush bed, where he placed me gently on the soft mattress before
climbing on next to me.

He leaned over me, looking at me with all
the love in the world radiating from his beautiful blue eyes.

“Do you love me, Vance?” I asked, with a
serious look, and I reached out to fiddle with his neck tie,
loosening it, then pulling it free from his collar.

“More than words can tell,” he replied, with
a smile, bending to place a gentle kiss against my lips.

“Then show me,” I said, biting a little at
my lower lip at the bold words that had just slipped from my
mouth.

“With pleasure, baby,” he whispered
seriously as he bent to place a light kiss there. “With
pleasure.”

I was lovingly awakened first thing in the
morning by sweet kisses that were being trailed over my face, neck,
and shoulder, sending little shivers of delight racing all over me.
Slowly I opened my eyes, a smile creeping quietly across my
face.

“Mmm …,” I let the soft moan roll from my
lips, and I tried to wrap my brain around what was going on around
me, suddenly remembering where I was, who I was with, and why I was
with him.

My eyes settled on the handsome face of my
husband, who was leaning over me with bright flashing blue eyes
which were full of mischief.

“There’s my beautiful wife,” Vance said with
a grin, continuing to feather his kisses over me, speaking in
between each one. “I didn’t think you were ever going to wake
up.”

“What time is it?” I asked, slightly groggy,
and I looked around for a bedside alarm clock.

“Seven,” he replied with a chuckle, without
breaking his stride as his face slid down into the crook of my
neck.

“Seven! And you are waking me up already?” I
complained to him. “We just got to sleep four hours ago!” I said
playfully slapping at his arm.

“I guess you didn’t wear me out enough!” he
replied with a cocky grin and a slight shrug of one shoulder.
“You’re going to have to work harder at that,” he added and lifted
an interested eyebrow at me.

“I think you’re going to kill me before the
honeymoon is even over,” I laughed, feeling my blush at his
attentions creeping over my face.

“That will never happen,” he muttered, and
he leaned in to suck at the spot he liked on my neck.

“How do you figure?” I asked turning my head
to the side so I could completely enjoy his lavish treatment of
me.

“Well, first off,” he began, speaking
against my skin, and I could feel goose bumps begin to pop up all
over my body, “I’d never do anything that would kill you. And
second, I don’t ever plan our honeymoon being over.”

“So we’re just going to live in bliss like
this for the rest of lives?” I asked, my breath catching in my
throat as he hit an extremely sensitive spot.

“Works for me,” he replied, and he began to
trail his kisses farther down my neck. I reached up to thread my
fingers through his hair, pulling him closer.

We finally got up around noon and went into
the kitchen for “breakfast,” which apparently Vance had ordered for
us from room service, but we hadn’t stopped to eat.

I blushed at the idea that someone had been
in the penthouse delivering our food while we had been locked in
the bedroom together.

“I like it when you blush like that,” Vance
said. He picked a strawberry up off a plate, placing it against my
lips so I could bite it.

I opened my mouth willingly, not breaking
eye contact with him and took a big bite. It turned out to be a
very ripe strawberry, and some of the juices squirted out and ran
down the side of my mouth.

Vance was there before I could even move,
and he licked the spot away with his tongue.

“Mmm … tasty,” he said with a smile, and I
knew he wasn’t talking about the strawberry.

I blushed even harder.

“So what are our plans today?” I asked him,
trying to direct his attention away from my complete inability to
control my own physical reaction around him.

“I’m thinking more of the same, until it’s
time to catch our flight,” he replied, biting into a strawberry of
his own.

The mention of our flight brought everything
crashing back in upon me, and the reality of our current situation
made its way back into my thoughts.

We had recently found out that Vance’s mom,
Krista, may still be alive somewhere, being held prisoner by a
demon coven.

The information we had been given was that
she was overseas, somewhere in Scotland, though it hadn’t come from
the most reliable of sources.

Vance had been about to kill a demon witch
from his father’s coven by the name of Darcy. Darcy had begged for
her life and in return had imparted this information to us about
Krista.

Vance had wanted to leave to go search for
her immediately. Of course he insisted on my going with him. We had
made a pact, after the previous incidents we had been through, not
to leave each other behind ever again. It was a vow neither of us
was willing to break for any reason.

My mom and dad were not too keen on the idea
of sending their daughter off on a trip halfway around the world
with her boyfriend, of course. Even though he was a legal adult and
my fiancé, and he had sworn to protect me, they felt that would
just be too tempting for us, since we would be alone so much.

The entire coven had just spent a lot of
time helping us out in Mexico, so it made things difficult for any
of them to follow after us, especially since we were unsure if we
were being led on a wild goose chase.

My memories flitted back over the discussion
that had taken place just a few days ago.

“Vance,” my dad had said. “Calm down, son.
Why don’t you stay here and finish the rest of your senior year?
I’ll try to gather some more information for you through my
connections and see if we can find some more things out. Who even
knows if this Darcy girl was being honest? She’s a demon after all.
There’s no sense in running off halfway around the world without
getting all the facts.”

“You have to be kidding me!” Vance had
replied a bit angrily. “There’s no way I’m going to sit here and do
nothing while there’s the chance that she’s over there suffering!
I’m going over there as soon as I can make the arrangements.”

“And what about Portia?” my dad demanded.
“Are you really going to leave her behind again? Even after the way
the two of you suffered before?”

“No,” Vance said firmly. “She’s coming with
me. I will not leave her.”

My dad had sat up straighter in his chair,
leaning forward aggressively while my mom shifted uncomfortably
beside him.

“Oh, no she’s not!” my dad replied in a low
menacing tone. “She’s my daughter, and I’ll say what she does
Vance, not you! I’m not going to have the two of you running off
together doing who only knows what. Portia stays here.”

I could see this situation was quickly
getting out of control and decided to step in at this moment.

“Dad,” I said softly. “You’re
misunderstanding what we’re asking.”

“Which is what?” he asked, his gaze
flickering over to me.

“We know how you feel about us being alone
with one another, but Vance is very worried about his mom. And
you’re right. It’s extremely hard for us to be apart. We don’t want
to be separated. So we thought in order to appease you, and help
ourselves out as well, we’d ask your permission to let us get
married now.”

I waited with baited breath for his
reaction.

My mom gasped, a hand going to cover her
mouth.

My dad jumped to his feet, towering over the
top of us.

“What?” he demanded.

“Think about it, Sean,” Vance replied,
slowly rising to his feet as well so he could face him. “It makes
sense. I know Portia is young, but you have to admit she’s also
very mature for her age. You know we’re going to get married
anyway, eventually. It’s inevitable with the magical connection
between us. I’m trying to respect your wishes here as well in
regard to your daughter and her reputation. This seemed to us like
the wisest course of action. Why put off something that’s going to
happen anyway?”

My dad stared hotly at him for a second
before turning to walk away from him a few steps in
frustration.

“Absolutely not!” he said, but in a softer
voice this time. He turned his head to look at Vance. “Look, son. I
know you’re worried about your mom, but Portia still has a year and
a half of school left. I’m not going to let her throw away her
education to go away with you. It’s too risky. I think you need to
stay here and finish the half year you have left as well.”

“We’ve already discussed this together,”
Vance replied glancing down at me. “I’ve contacted a tutoring
agency and researched all the particulars. The tutor will help me
with testing out so I can get my diploma and will get Portia caught
up on everything so she can pick up right where she left off. Both
of us have excellent grades, so catching up shouldn’t even be an
issue. I’ve done my research, Sean. We aren’t running into this
like a couple of stupid lovesick kids.” He reached down to grab my
hand, pulling me to stand up beside him. “We want to respect your
opinions, and we’ll abide by whatever you decide. We just want you
to hear us out and have an honest, open-minded discussion with
us.”

My dad had been quiet for several moments
before he finally moved to sit back on the couch next to my
mom.

“All right then, let’s hear it.” he
said.

The four of us had a very frank and open
talk together after that which lasted over the next several hours.
My parents finally decided to begrudgingly give in and see things
from our point of view. They gave us their permission to get
married.

Vance had to promise my parents repeatedly
that we would finish school as soon as we returned and that we
would come back at the earliest possible time.

Technically, Vance should have already been
graduated at this point in his life. However, when he had been
fleeing from his father, he had gotten behind in school so he had
to play catch up after that. So, while he was a little more than a
good two years older than I was, we were only a year apart in
school.

I had the distinct impression that Vance was
not at all brokenhearted about finishing school with a tutor and
getting married before he was graduated. In fact, I would have
ventured to say everything was moving exactly on his preferred
timetable. In the past, he had made no bones about his desire to
marry me as soon possible. He had gotten his wish, and now we were
headed to Scotland as husband and wife, something I would have
never dreamed possible at this point and time in my existence.

Thankfully, we were still in Las Vegas when
all this had been decided, which made planning a wedding super easy
once we found a chapel we liked.

After the decision was made, we were married
in just two days’ time and were now getting ready to head out on
the Scotland part of our honeymoon.

Vance had booked our stay at the beautiful
Inverlochy Castle in Inverness-shire. Our flight was scheduled to
leave this evening from Las Vegas, nonstop to New York, where we
would switch planes at JFK and fly to London overnight.

“Hey!” Vance said, calling me back to
reality. “No sad faces today,” he added, and he leaned over to
place a kiss under my chin.