Halfway Bitten (12 page)

I was nearly swaying with exhaustion when I left the diner. Between a lack of sleep and constant proximity to magic, I was drained. Intensely so, and there was nothing but a bath, cuddling Gus, and sleep in my future. As I stepped in my foyer I tried to make straight for the bathtub, but Gus was having none of it. His series of yowling cries started immediately as he argued with me like an old man trying to use an expired coupon. I finally gave in with a muffled curse, mixing his food while a miasma of cat food and anger closed in around my head.

“Hey.” Wulfric’s voice was warm in my ear.

I started lightly and turned to him in one smooth motion. His dark eyes regarded me with unbridled joy and I saw he’d tied his long blonde hair into a rough plait. The kiss of sun was on his golden-colored skin, and his glowing face told me of the days ranging far across his lands.

I forgot such details at our first touch.

He swept me up in his arms and kissed me, long and deep, his lips cool at first, but warming to the task. I wrapped myself around him like ivy, inhaling the woodsy scent of his clothes and that indefinable spice of his skin. He felt like home, and for the first time I started thinking that I didn’t really like him living in a cabin. In the woods. Far away. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the less I liked it.

“Missed you,” I said into his chest. I had, but it melted away like a bad dream. I rode a wave of need and leaped onto him, wrapping my legs around his narrow hips.

“You look tired, lover.” He held me upright with one powerful arm, the other hand stroking hair from my eyes. I knew I looked like roadkill, but his gaze flipped a switch in me from which there was no going back.

“Take me upstairs.” My voice was low with need.

He nodded, kissed me again, and began walking with me clinging to him so tightly I couldn’t tell where his mouth began and mine ended. I was tired, dizzy with lust, and hollow from using so much power. I didn’t need him, I craved him.

He lowered me to my bed with a delicacy I wouldn’t think such a big man could manage, his eyes simmering with a desire so visceral I felt the hair rise on my arms. A smile crossed my lips as my eyes roamed over him, then I pulled him to me so I could get lost in our frenzied reunion. We fell on each other in a tangle of caresses and sighs and I knew that his arms were my harbor. I let go and gave in to his touch with all of the love I had saved for his return.

He was wrong. I wasn’t tired. At least, not until he was.

We slept. Oh did we sleep, in that gloriously together-but-apart way that gave me hours of blissful, dreamless rest where only our feet or hands touched occasionally, but I could still savor Wulfric’s masculine warmth under the covers. It was magnificent. I woke in the pre-dawn gray because I have a thimble for a bladder, then dove back under the sheets to snuggle up to Wulfric and begin stealing his toastiness as ordained by the First Law of Girlfriends: Thou shalt not be more comfortable than me while in bed.

He opened one dark eye to regard me patiently, while I went through my admittedly tedious routine of getting comfortable again, all while bouncing around next to him without care or worry for his well-being.

After the fifth time I adjusted my legs, and my arms, and then my feet, Wulfric spoke in a tone of warning. “Carlie.” One word, but his tone was grim.

“Yes?” I asked, not opening my eyes. If I just get my knee wedged under his ribs, it would be perfect—ahh, there. I chivvied under him like a burrowing owl.

“I am only warning you once. If you do not stop wiggling that little bum against me, you’re going to be boarded and looted. Is that clear?” His big hands cupped my rear and I realized that at least part of him was fully awake.

I lay still, considering my options. After taking stock of my general condition—hair, disastrous, breath, questionable, but fully rested—I began to deliberately wiggle against him while laughing, knowing that I was entering the dragon’s den while naked.

“Challenge accepted, sport.” I rolled over on him as his teeth flashed white in the growing dawn, marveling at how good it was to be small during moments like this. Our lips met as he began to quake with laughter, sending delicious shockwaves through my skin at the mere touch of his lean body. I nuzzled into him as his arms closed over my back, thinking that there was no bed in the world big enough to keep me from this man.

I was right.

We spent the morning in each other’s arms, venturing out like pioneers to gather supplies as our hunger pangs and thirst forced us to leave the shelter of my bed. With great detail, I explained the developments in Halfway since Wulfric had gone to pay respects to his territory.

“Clowns?” he asked suspiciously, proving that even Vikings knew evil when they heard the term. “You mean like a jester?”

“Exactly, but these guys are tumblers, acrobats. They do magic tricks, sure, but they’re mostly out of the spotlight at the circus while the ringmaster does whatever it is he does.” I shrugged, dislodging a small plate with cookie crumbs that rested against my shoulder. The bed looked like a small festival had passed through, leaving the detritus of what appeared to be one hell of a good time. “I sense that the ringmaster is the key to whatever’s happening. Gran thinks so too, but we haven’t proved anything yet.”

Wulfric regarded me through eyes that were mere slits. He thought for a long stretch of quiet before saying, “Tell me more about the girl. The one who was killed.”

I exhaled, flopping back into my mattress with frustration. “Small. Young, like I said, and absolutely covered with bite marks. Many of them were so well healed that the wounds looked like shadows on her skin. She was pale, really pale.” I thought about her features, so doll-like and fine. “She was pretty. And now she’s dead.”

“What did she look like?” Wulfric asked. I could tell he was working something out.

“Dark hair, almost black. Her skin was milky white, but that could just be from her captivity. She was small, like me, but not so. She wasn’t athletic at all, you know? Just petite.” I struggled to find further details about the girl’s delicacy. “She had the most beautiful eyes. Like caramel, with flecks of gold.”

Wulfric considered all of the details, then asked, “Was she a lady?” He put an emphasis on lady.

“You mean, like a noble?” I looked at him with new respect. I hadn’t considered anything about her rank and station, but I’m an American. Wulfric was not.

“Yes, of a gentle birth. Did her hands look like she’d ever done work? Were her feet soft, or had she gone shoeless for long periods? Did her teeth look well cared for?” Wulfric listed points while caressing my neck with lazy strokes of his thumb. Concentration was difficult.

“I, ah. Well, I don’t know. She’s a girl, not a peasant from the old country. I mean, she was found here, not in the distant past or in some European holdout to a distant time,” I said, knowing that I should have looked at her more closely. The sadness of that chill room had been a bit much, and I was happy to leave it behind.

Wulfric took a deep breath, then relaxed. “I think I need to see her. Do you know what’s happened to the body?”

His question startled me. “No. Umm, you know, I have no idea. Some guy named Daniel Gillen found her, and Brendan took us to go see the body. So, no. I’m not sure.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as unusual?” Wulfric asked.

A pang of fear spiked into my stomach, and I felt my face begin to flush with worry. Why had I forgotten to ask about the girl and what would become of her? It wasn’t like me at all to discard the dead without proper regard.

“It is. I don’t know, it’s like there’s some kind of a fog around my memory of the murder. I mean, it couldn’t be anything except murder, you know? Even if she’d been abused for years and her body just gave out, it was still cold-blooded killing.” I felt the heat of renewed anger and tried to pull details from a memory that was hazed with something familiar. I gasped, startling Wulfric.

“What is it?” His eyes were wide with alarm. I felt his body tense like a cat, and I put a hand on his chest to calm him. His reactions were superhuman; I was lucky he hadn’t vaulted to the ceiling.

“There’s something in my head.” I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but my heart was banging against my ribs like a bill collector at the door. There was something
in
me. It was nebulous, shifty, and distant. I felt—no, I reached inward with my witchmark to probe delicately at the diaphanous thing that danced at the periphery of my senses. Wulfric lay still, his breathing even. I could feel his eyes on me as I dove toward my own soul, seeking something that had been hidden until Wulfric’s question parted the curtain to give me a hint at the secret beyond.

I’m pushing too hard. Need to relax.
“It’s just under the surface, I have to let it come to me. It’s slippery, like a bubble. I don’t want to crush it,” I grouched.

Wulfric nodded in understanding. “So tell me of other things.” He smiled and my cheeks flushed.

“Okay. Well, there was a murder, and I thought it was Anna, but then I thought it was her brother, and—”

His bark of laughter cut me off. “Alex? A killer?”

I delivered three full seconds of horizontal stinkeye before responding. “As I was about to mention before the peanut gallery interrupted me—”

“What is a peanut gallery? Is it some kind of sailing vessel?” Wulfric interrupted.

Again. I bit back a tart rejoinder, reminding myself that he
had
been marooned in the forest for the better part of a millennium.

“No, it’s an expression used to keep mouthy boyfriends quiet when their smarter, more-intuitive lover is trying to explain something to them,” I replied with arch dignity.

He waved, a curiously graceful gesture from his prone position. It made the muscles of his arm ripple deliciously, and I looked away, wondering if this was what men tolerated around a beautiful woman every day. I’m pretty sure my thoughts were some sort of Human Resources violation.
If
I worked in an office, which I don’t, so I placed a hand on his chest to savor the thrum of his energy. It was primal and thrilling, making me lick my lips unwillingly.

“As I was saying, dear heart, I didn’t even know Alex existed. I thought he was some sort of evil overlord or something, but once I met him, we talked. I can say with complete honesty that I like him
much
more than Anna,” I told him in the understatement of the century.

He snorted, then smiled with a wily leer. “Go on.” His hands began to wander again, and the room heated up. I knew I’d better wrap this whole chit-chat thing up quickly before things got interesting.

“As I was saying, you letch—why are you looking at me like that?” I stopped mid-sentence at his intense stare.

“Could you be under a geas? Or some sort of spell?”

I thought it over. That was actually possible, if not likely, but the chances that someone could cast magic around two witches without either of them sensing it? No way. Not Gran, and I didn’t feel anything off in my castings. I’d been taught that magical compulsion on a witch leads to their power being knocked askew. I’d used several spells since seeing the body of that lonely girl, and I didn’t feel any different.

But I wouldn’t know if something was missing, either. That worried me.

I groaned and began to rise from the bed, barely holding my desire to kick my tiny feet in anger. Wulfric grasped at me, but I slid out into the unkind air of my bedroom. “It’s your fault. You gave me an idea, big guy, and now I have to see it through.”

“I did no such thing. I would not willingly inspire you to decamp from this, this . . . nest, of our passion.” Wulfric was indignant, but grinning slightly.

I paused in pulling on clothes to wave a finger at him. “See, that kind of old-fashioned speech might work with the Bronte sisters, but you can save the poetry.” I leaned forward to kiss him. “You’ve already got me. Save your energy for other worthy pursuits, milord.” I bobbed an awkward curtsy and turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Wulfric asked in a remarkably capable whine.

“To my cellar. I need to perfect a spell, and it’s going to take a while,” I said, even as my mind began to shift into Super Witchy Mode.

“May I observe?”

I stopped. I’d never let anyone other than Gran see me in my cellar. It was sacred to me. I leaned in the doorway, thinking. The man before me was no ordinary soul, and I’d let him into my home by choice. I shared a bed, and secrets, and fears with him.

The decision was made. “You may, but quietly. I don’t know what will happen with magic of this type while you’re in the room,” I announced.

His brows quirked as he stood, pulling pants on before I could rescind my offer.

“Why? Is the spell based in sunlight?” His question made sense. There wasn’t much that could hurt a hybrid vampire, but sunshine was certainly on that list.

“Sort of. I’m going to craft a spell that will tag every undead in the area with a glyph that only I can see. The risk is minimal, but it might, ah, tingle a bit.” I hedged my bets on the description. My doctor told me a shot in the bum would
tingle
, and she turned out to be a bit optimistic in her assessment of what constituted a tingle, versus white hot pain. “We’ll need to go out and get some things, but it shouldn’t take long.”

He nodded decisively. “I accept. I’ll behave, even if your spell is a bit more aggressive than you anticipate.”

I pointed downstairs. “To the kitchen first for coffee. Then, magic.”

Even witches need caffeine. It’s science.