Safe Hex With a Vampire (16 page)

Caitlin shook her head. “Not much. I sensed
the broken mind and the hostility. I really only felt it when you
mentioned it. I have to focus to get anything, and it wasn’t there
long enough.” She looked at Tempest. “I think it had to do with
you.”

That surprised Tempest. She didn’t exactly
get out much, so she couldn’t imagine who would have a problem with
her. Even at the women’s center, she was more in the background. An
angry spouse was more likely to target Rose who did the admitting,
or Ivy who handled most of the counseling and occasionally
testified in court. Tempest handled medical care and she hunted.
Those that she hunted never saw her real appearance. They wouldn’t
know who she was, and she was usually notified if one was paroled
or out on bail. “What makes you think that?” she asked.

Caitlin shrugged. “The hostility just felt
focused on you. You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”

Tempest shook her head. “Far from it. You
really should meet my sister. She could help you learn to use your
talent better.”

“I think I’d like that,” she said.

Tempest felt like she really should follow
whoever had been in the vicinity to make sure no one got hurt. The
biggest danger in the area had just been removed so she decided to
let it go. Many people had that stain of evil, but never did
anything as a result of it. Still, the urge to follow was strong.
She had a hard time just letting it go. “I spend too much time
working,” Tempest muttered to herself.

“What do you do?” Caitlin asked. “I mean I
know you’re a doctor, but what’s your specialty and where are you
working?”

“I run a crisis center for women.” Tempest
decided to leave out the bigger details for now. “We help abused
women with medical care and counseling. We also offer a safe place
to stay if they need it.”

Caitlin seemed impressed. “That’s really
great. I don’t know if I could handle doing something like that.
It’s really hard being around people in emotional situations.”
Caitlin was looking out at the people walking along the street as
she spoke. “I feel like their emotions overwhelm me sometimes. When
I was a kid, I would get really upset over what others felt.
Sometimes I would just start crying and I couldn’t stop until I was
so exhausted that I fell asleep. You would not believe how many
counselors my parents took me to see,” Caitlin said with a sad
smile. “I’ve worked hard over the years to control it. I think if I
did what you do, it might make me as crazy as Isaiah.”

Tempest took her hand and squeezed it. “I
don’t know how you or Ivy stay sane. Personally, I think I would
lose my mind. Actually, I’m kind of distant most of the time.”

Caitlin laughed. “I think I’m distant most
of the time because of it. As soon as I started acting cold around
people they stopped sharing all of their problems with me. Well,
most of them did anyway. I have a few friends that won’t buy into
my bitch persona completely.”

“Won’t it be tough on you being a doctor?”
Tempest asked. “I mean, I suppose that a podiatrist doesn’t deal
with too many emotional situations but I can’t think of any others
that don’t.”

“I want to become a medical examiner,”
Caitlin explained. “I know that I still have to make it through
some pretty rough years right after medical school, but after that
I should be okay. Dead people aren’t overly emotional.”

“My cousin, Willow, would disagree with you
about that,” Tempest said. “Of course, she sees the dead people
sans body. I’m not sure they ever hang out in the bodies after they
die.”

Caitlin looked surprised but didn’t ask any
other questions. One more reason Tempest liked her; Caitlin just
accepted the otherworldly stuff.

“So what do you think the guys are doing
while we’re out shopping?” Caitlin asked. “I got the impression
they were having some male bonding experience when we were
leaving.”

Tempest shrugged. “Probably watching Aiden’s
soap opera and complaining about how difficult we make their lives.
They might be reading Cosmo.”

Caitlin had just taken a sip of water and
spit it across the table, almost spraying Tempest. “Okay, now
that
I would pay to see.”

“
Good God it’s Sofia!” Viktor nearly
shouted.

I spun around, certain that he was mistaken.
Sure enough, there stood the woman we reluctantly referred to as
our mother. Sofia was a woman who people noticed. Her hair was a
vibrant shade of red and it flowed down her back, nearly to her
knees. She always left her hair loose. Her eyes were a deep blue,
almost purple. She was a tiny woman who was barely eye level with
my chest when she stood on tip toes. She looked delicate and
innocent. Looks are often deceiving.

She flashed a malicious smile. “Where is the
whore that you stole from your father?”

“
Do not talk that way about my wife,” I
growled.

She laughed. It was a childlike giggle. “Oh,
he is going to hate hearing that.”

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

Aiden was getting tired of waiting for
Tempest to return from her shopping trip with Caitlin. They had
been gone more than six hours. How long could women possibly shop?
In his opinion, the internet had been the greatest invention ever.
Thanks to online shopping, he’d avoided setting foot in a clothing
store for nearly a decade. Granted he had pretty simple needs. He
was happiest in jeans and a t shirt.

Justin had helped him clean up the mess in
the foyer, mostly just to complain about women with him. It had
actually been kind of nice. Aiden hadn’t had a close guy friend in
many years, and then they’d been human, so he always knew that they
would be short lived friendships. Honestly, he’d never spent much
time talking to Justin, because Justin had never seemed interested
in getting to know him. Oh, and Justin came off like a
straight laced jerk most of the time. Aiden was finding that
there was a lot more to his cousin than met the eye.

They were both seated on a leather sofa,
feet on the coffee table, watching Aiden’s favorite soap opera. He
was glad that no one had changed the DVR settings after he’d
left.

Justin was shaking his head. “I still don’t
get what you see in this show. Sure she’s got nice breasts, but
she’s human” The way Justin said it made it sound like the actress
had some hideous deformity.

“You’re kind of an asshole, aren’t you?”
Aiden asked casually.

“Caitlin tells me I’m a prick all the time,”
Justin replied. His lips had curled up ever so slightly.

“I noticed that,” Aiden said with a nod.
“She needs to come up with new insults for you.”

Isaiah wandered across the room. He didn’t
even acknowledge they were there. Aiden suspected that Isaiah was
the biggest reason he and Justin had never really talked before.
The brothers had always been close. They had a very strong bond,
one that Aiden had envied more than a little. He was sure that
seeing Isaiah like this was hard on Justin.

“What happened to your brother?” Aiden asked
as gently as he could.

“He’s getting better,” Justin said,
obviously not wanting to share too much.

If he was better now, Aiden wondered how bad
he’d been before.

Isaiah shuffled out of the room.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about
it,” Aiden said with an indifferent shrug.

Justin muted the television and blew out a
frustrated breath. “I think I’ve just gotten too used to keeping
secrets lately. I couldn’t tell Nathaniel what happened or he would
have freaked out, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you.
Isaiah and Drew brought a woman back here. After you left, no one
was allowed to bring humans into the house to feed on. By bringing
her back here they were breaking a rule, but Nathaniel probably
wouldn’t have been too mad about it. Well, she had a heart
condition and she died. That would have sent him over the edge so
they buried her body to cover it up and Isaiah lost it.”

Aiden nodded his understanding. “That really
sucks, but he has to know that there’s always a small risk of
something like that happening. It’s not like it was
intentional.”

Justin sighed. “He felt like he should have
been more careful, especially with Drew. You know as well as I do
that Drew’s self control sucks.”

Aiden nodded. “So Isaiah told you all of
this?”

Justin shook his head. “I had to piece it
together. I found the woman’s medical alert necklace the night
Isaiah had his breakdown. Then I found Isaiah’s clothes and shoes
full of mud. Drew started tormenting Isaiah about it. It was subtle
so I don’t think most people caught onto it because they didn’t
know what had happened. I’ve been tempted to kill Drew ever since I
found out about his involvement.”

“As much as it pains me to defend Drew,”
Aiden began, “he is still really young, and from what I hear his
mother is a psychopath.”

Justin let out a humorless laugh. “Now that
is the understatement of the century. I had to treat that woman
when she was pregnant with Drew. After her first prenatal checkup,
the one where she stabbed me with a knitting needle, I had her
strapped down before I’d even go in the room. Drew was delivered by
c section because there was no way I was getting near her when
she was in labor.”

“Doesn’t Ursula usually deliver all of the
babies?” Aiden asked. Ursula was the family midwife. She’d been the
one to deliver him and all of his cousins, or so Aiden had
thought.

“She does, but Phoebe is too dangerous.
Uncle Roman refused to let Ursula anywhere near her,” Justin
explained.

“Guess it’s a good thing she hasn’t gotten
pregnant again,” Aiden said.

Justin lowered his voice. “I took out that
crazy bitch’s fallopian tubes while I was in there.”

“She agreed to that?” Aiden asked.

“I didn’t ask,” Justin said with a smile.
“You and Isaiah are the only other people who know why she hasn’t
conceived her second devil spawn.”

Aiden laughed until tears came to his
eyes.

The doorbell rang, and Isaiah called out,
“I’ll get it!”

Neither of them thought anything of it at
first, and then Justin jumped up and ran toward the foyer. Isaiah
was just about to open the door when Justin caught his hand. “Maybe
I should get that.”

Isaiah shrugged and stepped back.

Justin opened the door to Ivy. “You must be
Tempest’s sister,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied in her soft voice. Then
she spotted Aiden and came over to hug him and slap him lightly on
the shoulder.

Aiden smiled at her and pointed to Justin
and Isaiah. “Ivy, these are your cousins, Justin and Isaiah. This
is Ivy.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said softly. Her
attention was focused on Isaiah.

Aiden waved a hand in front of her face to
get her attention. “Are you going to stay here?” he asked.

Ivy shook her head. “I just came to drop off
some clothes for Tempest. I still can’t believe you kidnapped
her.”

“It’s kind of his thing,” Justin explained.
“He needs to work on his dating skills.”

“Oh, am I getting dating advice from the
resident stalker?” Aiden asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Is Tempest around?” Ivy asked.

“She’s still out shopping,” Aiden said
irritably.

Drew sauntered down the stairs wearing faded
low rise jeans with the top button undone and no shirt. His
hair was tousled in a way that Aiden was sure was intentional. He
looked disappointed when he saw Ivy. “Oh, I was hoping that Tempest
was back.”

Aiden still wasn’t at all happy with Drew’s
crush on Tempest. “Weren’t you leaving?” he snapped.

Drew shrugged. “I decided to stick around
and help make Tempest feel more welcome.” He continued to ignore
Ivy. Drew liked to flirt. Normally, he would see this new woman in
their midst as a challenge for him to overcome. Now, he was only
interested in Tempest. “Do you know when Tempest is coming back? I
was going to offer to show her around the grounds.”

“She’s not interested,” Aiden said with
annoyance. “Besides it’s already too dark for her to see
anything.”

Isaiah moved closer to Drew and whispered
something into his ear. Drew paled visibly and hurried out of the
room.

“That was?” Ivy asked.

“The biggest pain in the ass in the family,”
Justin said. He looked at Aiden again with sincerity in his eyes.
“The offer to kill him and bury him by the creek is still
open.”

“Stop that or you’ll scare Ivy,” Aiden
said.

Ivy actually laughed. “Not likely.”

“What did you say to him?” Aiden asked
Isaiah.

Isaiah shrugged and gave them a sly smile.
“We have an understanding.”

“Isaiah has a way with locks. He can get
into any room he wants to,” Justin explained. “Drew was being a
real dick to him and Hannah for a while. Isaiah went into his room
one night and had a talk with him. He won’t tell me what he said
but now Drew’s a little afraid of my brother.” There was a look of
pride on Justin’s face.

“A little afraid?” Aiden asked. “I thought
he was going to piss himself.”

“He did that night,” Isaiah added
seriously.

That shocked Aiden. Isaiah was probably the
least violent person in the family, but he had obviously done more
than talk that night.

“Okay,” Ivy said to herself. “Well, I’m just
going to leave Tempest’s stuff here and head home. I have a lot of
work to do.”

Aiden caught her arm. “You really are
welcome to stay. They’re your cousins too.”

Ivy tiptoed so she could kiss him on the
cheek. “I think it would be better if you had some time alone with
Tempest.”

Aiden grinned. “Are you saying that you’re
on my side in this?”

Ivy shook her head. “I’m not saying that at
all. I just want to see my sister happy.”