Forbidden (7 page)

Chapter Eight

She’d not waited more than a half an hour before her phone jangled with the sound of an incoming text.

I’m home. Text when you get here so I can help you up with your bags
, it read.

On way. Just leave door unlocked, if that’s done in this city, and I can manage
, she’d responded.

She’d had this silly daydream of walking in on him, in mid whatever he was doing. She wanted some glimpse at his life without her, in some natural state. Not analyzing this whim, she felt determined to make that a reality. Besides, after earlier, she was now back to feeling invincible again. She could carry her bags and come to the big, bad city to live with her new boyfriend. A guy she’d only been with a few times, but still, he was her once in a lifetime chance at love. She knew this in her bones. In the way her blood flowed just thinking about him.

Fine. I’ll leave instructions with the doorman to let you up. Can’t wait to see you!
He texted back.

Can’t wait to be in your big strong arms
, she texted in return, and then got on her way, suddenly breathless, exhilarated, to see him.

Winded, now, at his door, she nudged it open quietly to see him across a large room, sitting with his back against a wall beside an open sliding glass door that overlooked central park. What an image he made. He sat, one leg bent, one leg stretched out, with an obedient dog, a large shepherd, waging his tail beside him. In dress clothes, tie hanging loose, upper buttons undone, and shoeless with his big feet, muscular and manly, exposed. Her stomach clenched with need. To perfect this image of her dark and sexy man, a cigarette burned in the hand he’d propped his head on while he scratched the dog’s head with the other.

“I’ve already confessed I smoke when stressed from time to time,” he spoke, his eyes meeting hers before scanning her body from head to toe, like she didn’t really exist. “You made record time. I thought I could get it down and spray something to get rid of the smell before you arrived.”

“Your Boss is a beautiful dog,” she said, remembering the dog's name had something to do with something, or someone, to beat in a video game.

Still standing in the door, unable to move, she made this moment a memory she’d never forget. She wished she had a camera to capture it, but she couldn’t imagine she’d ever forget how he looked just then. The relief, the love, so evident in his eyes grew undeniable to her heart.

****

Slowly, starring, he stood. This moment he’d dreamed of for so long, finally here. It seemed surreal. In her silver dress and heels she seemed a figment of his imagination, of unearthly beauty. He snuffed out the cigarette in the ashtray, vowing to himself to finally give them up for good, for her, for the sake of living every moment to the fullest, the longest, with this gift before him. He had her now, and he’d move heaven and earth to assimilate their lives together, to make her part of his family, to make her comfortable, loved, want for nothing. He wanted her every dream for her, and only because of that would he look at his money as a blessing now, a way of providing her every comfort and every adventure she could dream of.

Just being there, in his place, it was all he’d ever need. And as soon as he got her naked, made love to her over and over again tonight, he’d tell her all these things, and more, that lay like the greatest burden ever on his heart.

“I love you,” he said as he crossed the room between them.

She’d stepped inside.

Mine now
, he thought to himself as she uttered those magical words back.

“The dance between darkness and light will always remain – the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness wi
ll just not be worth having without the moon and the stars.” ¯ C. JoyBell C.

THE END

About The Author

Ever since she was young, Kiki Howell has loved to listen to a well-woven tale with real characters, inspired plots, and delightful resolutions. Kiki could spend hours lost in a book, and soon she knew that creating lives, loves, and losses with just words had to be the greatest thing that she could do.

To that end, she pursued her study of literature and writing, earning a bachelor’s degree in English. She then followed in a Master’s program in Creative Writing. She has now had over forty stories published between eleven different publishers. She could not be more thrilled or grateful to see her creations polished and out in the real world.

In May 2011, Kiki was chosen as an Ohioana Book Festival author for her novel, Torn Asunder. She's also had three flash-fiction stories win writing contests. In the fall of 2013, her novel, Hidden Salem, made the Amazon Top 100 Bestsellers Lists in Paranormal, Suspense and Ghosts; and in the fall of 2014, her novel. What Lies Within Us, made the Amazon Top 100 Bestsellers Lists in Gothic Fiction and Occult Horror.

Released on March 9, 2015, Kiki coordinated and edited her first Veterans charity anthology, We Go On, with all proceeds going to veteran's charities.

More about this multi-author anthology can be found at:
http://www.kikihowell.com/2015/01/we-go-on-charity-anthology.html

Please visit
http://www.kikihowell.com
to see all available titles!

Follow
her on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/KikiHowell

Or stop by her blog for interviews, giveaways, and updates on all her new and upcoming releases:
http://authorsbyauthors.blogspot.com

Also Available
by Kiki Howell

What Lies Within Us

Hidden Salem

At War In The Willows Trilogy

The Vampire’s Witch

The Vampire’s Wolf

The Vampire’s Human

Naughty Hot Shots - Sacred Sex

Working Out The Kinks

Mystical Mayhem

Love, Creativity and Magick - A Steampunk Valentine’s Day Tale

Snowed In

Torn Asunder

The Sum of All, (co-authored with Emma Hillman)

A Questionable Hero

A Strange Freedom: Blood & Fireworks

The Witches Beast

The Healing Spell

Kiki Howell's Short Stories in Multi-Author Anthologies

“Reinventing the Quickie, The Diary of Sam” in the Spontaneous Liaisons Anthology by Naughty Nights Press

“Midnight Showing” in the Wicked and Wanton All Hallow's Eve Anthology by Naughty Nights Press

“Love & Marriage Cures” in the Happy Ending Anthology by Excessica Publishing

“Samhain’s Visitors” in Just Another Paranormal Halloween Anthology by Mojocastle Press

“Hero of the Waves” in the Hope Ocean Anthology by Hedge Witchery Book

“The Werewolf Spell” in the Silver Moon, Bloody Bullets: An Anthology of Werewolf Tails by Pill Hill Press

“Beltane’s Guide” in the Four Seasons: Spring 2009 Anthology by Excessica Publishing

“Spirit, Yet To Come” in the Four Seasons: Winter 2009 Anthology by Excessica Publishing

Read on for more from Kiki Howell....

A preview of the At War In The Willows Trilogy...

The Vampire’s Witch

Book One

Chapter One

Rage carried Isaac from California back to Tennessee at a fevered speed even for a vampire. The night curled in around him, but not as the embrace it usually was. Instead, tonight, it was like a dense fog, which seemed to strangle him. He couldn’t say he was going home, even though that was where his families were. Both of them, or at least, what was left of them. Home meant a place that welcomed, sheltered, and yet he’d had no choice but to run from The Willows. Even now, several years later, he would have to be careful while staying with his vampire family that his real family never saw him. For all his birth family knew, he’d gone missing a decade ago. Hopefully they thought him dead—an accurate conception for all intents and purposes.

The voice of his maker’s maker, Achim, a man he viewed as a grandfather now, echoed in his head. Drake, Isaac’s maker, was dead, staked outside the business he’d run.
The Willows
was to the mortals a peaceful, beautiful resort area in the mountains of Tennessee, full of sun and water and trails in the summer, which switched to snowboarding and skiing in the winter, everything a tourist could want. His clan had moved there a few years before he was made. While vampires were transient, forced to always keep moving every few decades or so by the fact mortals started to question why they never aged, resort towns were perfect to keep the questions low with so many people always coming and going. Plus, these types of places provided them jobs running the always-active nightlife.

Clans of werewolves and witches had already been in
The Willows
when his clan had arrived. Until tonight, the clans had basically kept apart, recognized and peacefully accepted their hatred for each other. They worked together, amicable enough in public, but that was where it ended. Tonight, his vampire sister, Amberlyn, had thought it wise to reveal her love for the werewolf, Kane, of all given creatures. A verbal battle between vampires and werewolves at the cove had turned violent and deadly. A young witch who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, had been killed by a shot that had been fired after a werewolf had staked to death Amberlyn’s and Isaac’s maker, Drake. While the wolf and vamp clans had all but declared war, the witches were already threatening their own special sort of revenge. All of this had happened in the matter of three cursed hours. Now, he was nearly there just a few hours away from sunrise.

Isaac, even in life, had been one to kick ass and ask questions later. As he entered
The Willows
–the place eerily quiet– a chill, more pervasive than it should be for a spring night in these parts, snaked down his back as he approached the group of houses where most of the witches lived.

“Blessed wenches,” he grumbled into the air. And, he meant that in an angry, jealous and missed the sun type of way. Witches got to have special abilities and easily blend into society as mere mortals. His boot crushed the yellows, pinks and whites of the spring flowers, which decorated the first lawn he’d come to. They represented spring fever and love, and he relished their demise under his boots.

“Fuckin’ Amberlyn!” Isaac had never gotten to know his sister much, except through a few visits when her, Drake, and Drake’s maker, Achim with his wife, Willa, had come to visit him in Los Angeles.

Someone was going to pay for Drake’s death. Isaac wasn’t going to be picky either. Whatever witch he came across first would do for information, then possibly revenge depending on how things went down. Revenge was his job in California and he was very good at it. Tonight, though, he hadn’t thought his plan of attack all the way through, yet.

His thoughts were still more on what he’d lost tonight. After Isaac had been made, Drake had left
The Willows
with Isaac, stayed with him, mentored him, became a real father to replace the human one he could no longer see. Isaac pushed the memories aside, squashed them with anger-laced pain. First things first, before that damn strong sun around here rose, some random witch was going to give him answers about what they had planned. He would go for the werewolves tomorrow night after he had a planning session with Amberlyn and Achim. Isaac had promised them that over the phone. No one had said a damn word about the witches. Being one of the new temporary leaders of the clan now –as one of those closest in bloodline to Drake– he had a job to protect the other vampires.

With strength and speed, he broke into the house. There was no lock or doorknob around that could keep him out if he wanted in. The broken door, the briefest scream of a woman startled out of sleep, were all but seconds, and he was gone. With a hand over the scared-frozen woman’s mouth just in case, he erred on the side of caution somewhat, even though she wouldn’t realize what had happened to her. He ran through the woods with her in his arms at speeds that made her world blur.

He came to a stop when he reached the abandoned cave, now secretly furnished with a man-made room deep inside it where no mortal would dare roam. Drake had lived there, a home away from the one he claimed to live in, in town. Achim had told Isaac he could stay there, safely out of sight, for as long as he needed to be in
The Willows
. He used the code to get inside.

Once the door had shut and bolted behind him, he threw the witch on the leather couch, wondered what magic she could possess to have shocked his whole body just from holding her. Something about the electric sensation that burned through his veins felt familiar, calmed and energized at the same time. It was the first time since he’d been turned that he’d felt, well, secure of all damn things. It was almost too foreign of an emotion to recognize. If he didn’t know better, he would say it felt like something he remembered from home, from the last time he was here, the night he died. Stupid, but seriously undeniable still, like something long ago but never forgotten, always longed for even if pushed from one’s mind. And, on tonight of all nights, the whole idea of home was insane. He’d just lost the one person who’d ever given him any sense of the word since becoming a vampire. Security had now become an even more vague concept than it had ever been before, a concept he would think upon only when in a piss-poor mood about the loss of his cushy childhood and all-too-soon-gone days of being a carefree young man.

The feeling had to have something to do with being in Drake’s home. That had to be it. Although he’d only been here once before, that dreadful night he’d been turned and a few nights following, until Drake had thought he was strong enough to travel to California and start a new life there. Secure wasn’t a word he’d use to describe those first nights he’d spent as a vamp, but the place was Drake’s still. He could sense him here in a way.

The witch must have been beyond terrified from her journey, because she stared at him with her big, green eyes that sparkled with gold, even in the dim lights. Of course, she would be afraid. Beyond the whole kidnapping thing, he didn’t let many people see him. He worked shady jobs at night, in the wrong parts of town, where a half-disfigured face like his got him street cred, warranted fear, and got the job done with little problem. He was one scary son of a bitch, or son of a vamp. He had used it to his advantage, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do him with this chick.

“Wasting my breath, probably, by saying this, but don’t be scared.” He pulled the hood he always wore over the side of his scared face, turned away from her at the same time. “I just want answers. Give them to me and I’ll return you to your bed. Do it quickly, and I can get you there before the sun rises.” He pointed to his watch. “But, time is ticking. What are the witches planning for retaliation again the werewolf and vampire clans for what happened tonight?”

She just sat there, her red curls wind-blown from her unexpected trip, like a fire raging around her beautiful features, the ones he was losing the battle at ignoring. Against her flaming locks her pale skin glowed, everything about her sparkled. Something in his cold body warmed, unexpected, and as welcomed as it was forcefully, obediently, rejected. Slowly, she curled her legs up under her, hidden a bit more by her nightdress. The damn thing was sheer, of course, thin strapped, a sunny, golden color, appropriate to sheath such a bright –okay, hot– woman as she was.

Fuckin’ stop it! What the hell with the thoughts? Is this some sort of magic she’s using on me already? Damn it all! What the hell is she staring at?

She was under his skin, possessed him, some goddamned fucking way, and it needed to stop.
Yes. That had to be it. Possession.
He had to wonder, though, if it was really possible as she sat there, her arms around her body. She curled into the corner of the couch, stared at him like he was some sort of angelic being, like she was mesmerized by him rather than feared him like most did in his presence as if he were mere devil’s spawn.

Of course, it has to be part of some spell. What else? She doesn’t need a wand or words. These witches are wicked with mind control.
He’d fight fire with fire if he only had the mind to at the moment.
What the fuck?

“If you’re using magic, you need to stop it, now!” he yelled, finally made his thoughts vocal, but they’d come out more like a muffled roar. The witch emasculated him. She literally had him by the balls with her magic and he wouldn’t have it. His fangs came out, his face tense.

She jumped, and he bit back the apology that came unasked for by her and un-welcomed by him.

“You’re alive,” she finally spoke, words so faint he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

“What?” he barked back, the tone of it far less than he’d planned it to be. He huffed.

“The last time I saw you. You were in that accident…that horrible, horrendous car accident.” She shook her head, her eyes closed tight. He wondered if she tried to recall a moment or shut out a memory. “They used magic… They tried to… I tried to… I didn’t know what happened to you, if they were successful…or I was. Then that vampire, he just took you. Oh, my Goddess!”

Her hand went over her mouth a second, then dropped again. “That vampire was Drake! Your maker… That’s why you’re here. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

He shook his head then, his fangs shortened.
Sorry for my loss? Was she for real?

“What are you talking about? My accident? You remember it?” He actually shook his head again, tried to focus in on a lot of words that, as he understood them, made no sense. Not a damnable drop of sense. “Yes, Drake’s dead. That’s why I got you. I just need information about what the witches are planning in retaliation. In exchange, I’ll return you safely.”

“I wish I had it to give, the information you seek, that is.” She unfurled her legs then, long and shapely.

He wondered how anyone’s skin could look so pale and so warm at the same time. In this light, her coloring made her sparkle like a fairy.

She tugged what she could of the golden, silk nightgown over her thighs.

His body came alive even more so than it had when he’d had her in his arms. This time what burned through his veins was pure lust. It had to be. Definitely a feeling he could identify with. But, question was, had she caused it? This ache within him to hold her, to claim her, to drink her blood, which was probably honey-sweet. He could smell it as it flowed under her skin. At first, in a furious rush of adrenaline, at moments it slowed down a bit, and then it moved along fast again seconds later.

And yet, he felt like he was the one with blood that rushed through his veins, more like when he had been a human. His whole body was turned on so much that he felt like a damn bee who buzzed around a queen bee in her hive. He contemplated the sting just to be able to touch her.

“You grabbed the wrong witch, I’m afraid,” she stated, calmly, softly, after the silence he’d let ensue.

She blew his mind. He really didn’t know what to make of her. His face, his fangs, none of it scared her. Instead she came at him with concern.
What is wrong with her?

“I’m really somewhat of an outcast,” she continued as if she’d read his mind.

You never could trust a witch. A master at mind games, the whole compulsion thing going for him, today he seemed to sit on the bench, hand her over the win.

“I don’t like to play with magic like most of them do.” She shook her head slightly as she spoke, gave him a half-smile, one shy and demure. “I don’t shrug off the moral laws just because I have the power to easily do so. So, I’m told little by my clan. If they didn’t need my powers, I swear they wouldn’t even invite me to their circles half the time. I know, though, that your kind, the wolves too, they need to be on alert. They had a meeting before bed, one of their planning sessions that never amount to anything good. And, this time, they were hurt and angry beyond what I’ve seen them be in a long time. I wasn’t invited, but I can only imagine what was said there.”

Isaac took a few steps toward her. She didn’t even flinch.
Is she that confident in her abilities against me? Is she not scared by or even grossed out by my disfigured face?
He fell to his knees on the floor at her feet. He’d heard of necromancy, its use –how it let witches control vampires, made them do their will. What buzzed through him, made him want her, made him feel like he knew her? He had to find its source and stop it. It didn’t make sense anyway. Why would a goddess like her want a monster like him to want her so badly? She knew he was a vamp.
Surely she isn’t trying to get attacked and drained?
Or, does she have a fuckin’ death wish?
She’s said she didn’t fit in, but she didn’t seem to care about the fact at the same time.