Safe Hex With a Vampire (21 page)

They walked the three blocks from the
parking garage to the club. Tempest had suggested taking the BART
train but Justin refused to set foot on one. Having ridden on one
recently, Aiden couldn’t really argue with him. Even if the trains
had been clean, the trip through the station was enough to make him
shudder in revulsion. Caitlin had called them spoiled rich
boys.

By the time they arrived, the line was down
the block. Justin walked up to the front and said something to one
of the guys taking tickets. The guy motioned them all forward and
let them in ahead of the others in line.

“What did you do?” Caitlin asked in an
accusing voice.

“I just told him that you were someone
famous but he couldn’t recall who. I told him that he wanted to let
you in early,” Justin explained. “Nothing wrong with using a
compulsion to get a table.”

“Do you see all of those angry faces in
line?” she hissed. “Do you know what will happen if I go in the
mosh pit with them?”

Justin smiled knowingly. “Then I guess you
won’t be going in the mosh pit tonight.”

“Prick,” Caitlin muttered.

“What mosh pit?” Tempest asked. “This is an
all acoustic show with some girl in your class singing.”

Justin groaned. “Please tell me it’s not
Star Thistle.”

“That’s right!” Tempest said. “Her name is
Star Thistle. Even by my family’s standards that is a really weird
name.”

“She’s a really weird girl,” Justin
explained.

“I agree that she’s weird, but she’s also
very talented,” Caitlin argued.

“I’d offer to get drinks but someone took my
wallet,” Aiden said and waited for Tempest to return his
wallet.

“I’ll go,” Caitlin offered without asking
anyone what they wanted.

When she returned she started handing out
drinks. “Diet coke for the driver,” she handed it to Tempest,
“Guinness for the Irish hottie,” and handed it to Aiden.
“Painkiller for me to deal with the headache that I’m sure Justin
will give me tonight,” she said as she set the drink by her seat,
“and Horny Bull for the, well you know,” she said with a sweet
smile as she set Justin’s drink in front of him.

Tempest had just taken a sip of her drink
and she spit it across the table. “Oh my God! I think I got soda
pop up my nose.”

Aiden dabbed her chin with a napkin. “Who
needs a show?”

The lights went down and Tempest reached out
to hold Aiden’s hand as the music started. Star Thistle was
actually a very good singer. She and the members of her band looked
like folk singers and talked like hippies. The songs were all
either about saving the Earth or lost loves. After an hour they
took a break. The ladies headed off to the restroom while Justin
went off to get the next round of drinks. The line at the bar was
long so the ladies beat Justin back to the table.

“Where’s the prick?” Caitlin asked and then
giggled which caused Tempest to giggle. Aiden really wished he knew
what they’d talked about in the restroom.

“He went to get drinks,” Aiden said.

“Damn,” Tempest said. “I’d come up with some
really good ones. It’s my turn next time.”

“I didn’t realize this had turned into a
game,” Aiden said.

“I think Caitlin threw down the gauntlet
with the Horny Bull,” Tempest explained.

“Try and beat that one,” Caitlin said
proudly.

Justin returned with a tray of drinks.

“Another diet coke for our driver,” he said
as he set a drink in front of Tempest. “Nutty Irishman,” he said as
he set the drink in front of Aiden. “Screaming Orgasm, because I
know how much you like it when I give you one of those,” he said as
he set a drink in front of Caitlin. “Then, of course, we follow
that with a Blow Job for me,” he said as he set down his own
drink.

Caitlin’s lips parted and she just stared at
Justin for a long time. After a tense moment, she nodded. “Okay, I
still think my drink for you was more clever, but your delivery was
better.”

“I resent the nutty part of my drink,” Aiden
said.

“Sane people don’t consider kidnapping to be
part of the normal courtship process,” Justin said.

“That’s right,” Caitlin said. “Justin can
tell you all about how to get women. First, you have to stalk them
for years.”

The evening progressed nicely, and they
continued the contest for best drink orders. In the end, Aiden was
pretty sure that Tempest won with her order of A Long Slow
Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall for Caitlin, Irish Buck for
him, and Corpse Reviver for Justin. Of course, by that point Aiden
had already consumed six drinks so he was pretty sure he voted for
that round because he remembered it best.

“I’ve had a bit too much to drink,” he told
Tempest as the show ended and people started to file out of the
club.

“You’re Irish,” she reminded him. “How can a
few measly drinks get you drunk?”

“I don’t actually drink.” he admitted. “I
just really hate driving so I didn’t want to be the designated
driver.”

“How did your poor Irish mother feel about
you not drinking?” Tempest asked.

“Mam called it a birth defect that she was
constantly forced to overlook. Obviously, I drank ale. The water
was foul when I was younger but my dislike of whiskey was hard to
ignore.” He smiled at the memory.

“Well, let’s get you home,” she said. “I’m
not promising that I won’t try to take advantage of you in your
drunken state.”

“I’m likely too drunk to resist your
advances,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Take me
home and have your way with me, witch.”

“
Go home, Roman,” Viktor said, and then
he walked away.

“
Viktor wait!” I called after
him.

He turned toward me, and I almost wished
that he had just continued walking. The look in my brother’s eyes
is one that I will never forget. I knew then that things would
never be the same between us again.

“
We can’t leave things this way,” I said
helplessly.

“
They are what they are,” Viktor said
with a sad smile. He mounted his horse and rode away.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

They had both known that reality would
intrude on their world eventually. Reality came in the form of a
call at three in the morning. She’d only been asleep for about an
hour when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered groggily.

“There was another victim.” It was Willow.
Normally, Willow had a bubbly voice which is probably part of the
reason Aiden called her a bimbo. Her tone during this call was
somber and all business, which meant Tempest was not going to like
what she heard.

“Details?” Tempest asked as she sat up
slowly in bed and tried not to wake Aiden. Of course, it didn’t
work.

Willow filled her in the gruesome details of
the victim that had been brought to the hospital barely breathing
the previous night. She was in a coma. It surprised Tempest that
they had heard about it this early. Sure they had contacts in the
local police departments, but the police normally only contacted
them if the survivors needed a place to recover or if it related to
a case they were helping with. They were not equipped to treat
someone in a coma, and the only case they were involved in had just
been solved.

“Detective Ramirez called because the victim
had no form of identification on her and she apparently resembles
you enough that they believed she might actually be you. With the
bruising, it was hard to tell. Ivy went down to confirm that it
wasn’t you.”

“Why didn’t she just call me?” Tempest
asked.

“She didn’t want you to know,” Willow
explained.

Tempest remembered the sense of unease that
she’d felt when she was having dinner with Caitlin and wondered if
the evil she’d sensed really had been directed at her. She didn’t
think that this recent attack had anything to do with her
personally, but she couldn’t help wondering if she fit the new
victim profile. Then she realized that she was jumping the gun.

“You know as well as I do that this was
likely a boyfriend or husband. The police will probably make an
arrest when she wakes up,” Tempest said, hoping that the poor woman
did wake up.

Willow sighed. “I know but since she looks
like you, I think we should play it safe anyway. Watch your back
and keep that thing close to you. It seems like it could be a
really good guard dog.”

Tempest felt her temper rising. “His name is
Aiden.”

“Must be one of the bimbo twins,” Aiden
grumbled into his pillow.

Tempest shot him a look of warning. “I think
we should do a little hunting just in case. I won’t even have to
dress up.”

“Ivy was afraid you would say that and
that’s why she didn’t want you to know about this. There’s
something else that I need to tell you.”

Tempest waited. When Willow didn’t speak
right away, she knew she was in for even more bad news.

Finally, Willow spoke. “I asked the deceased
victims to identify the scum bag we caught before we handed him
over to the police.”

Willow could communicate with the deceased
who had suffered violent deaths. None of them understood why she
could only communicate with the ones that had been victims of
violence. It wasn’t something she liked to do, but they wanted to
make sure there were no mistakes. If one of the women had been
killed by someone else, they wanted that person caught.

“How many of them weren’t his victims?”
Tempest asked.

“None of them were his victims,” Willow
answered. “I’m not saying he never killed anyone, but he didn’t
kill any of the victims we know about. The damage was so similar
that we just assumed that he had lost control with a few. The
police thought the same thing, but we were all wrong. I don’t know
why none of us ever noticed the bigger difference in these
victims.”

“Let me guess,” Tempest said with a calm she
didn’t feel. “The deceased victims were all blondes. So these
aren’t exactly copycat crimes.”

“You got it,” Willow said. “So Rose went
back and looked at the dates of the deaths on the deceased victims,
and then checked some other databases to find similar kills in
other areas. Looks like the guy we caught was the one committing
the copycat crimes, only he wasn’t taking them all the way
through.”

“I’ll be back there in a couple of hours and
we can start hunting,” Tempest said as she kicked her legs over the
side of the bed. Aiden was glaring at her.

“Hunt where?” Willow asked. “We don’t have
enough information yet. Let us talk to Ramirez and see what the
police have to say first. Rose is kind of freaking out over this
and you know she doesn’t just freak out. She says the whole thing
is tweaking her nerve endings.”

“What do you mean Rose doesn’t freak out?
Everything tweaks Rose’s nerve endings,” Tempest said. “Should we
just wait for the next victim?”

“Tempest,” Willow said calmly. “It’s foolish
to put yourself at risk at this point. Go back to sleep and I will
update you when we have more details. I’m sorry for waking you up,
but I didn’t want Ivy to catch me calling you so I had to wait
until I got home. Don’t make me regret keeping you in the
loop.”

Willow didn’t wait for a reply before
hanging up on Tempest.

Tempest was hoping that Aiden had fallen
back to sleep. When she looked down at him, he was staring her.

“I know you need to be there,” Aiden said in
his sleep roughened voice. He still sounded a little tipsy.

She nodded.

“When should we leave?” he asked.

“Aiden . . .” she began.

“I know you think it can’t work, that you
have to choose between me and what you do, but it’s not true. We
can find a way to be together. Maybe I can even help you.”

Tempest couldn’t meet his eyes. “I really
want to believe that.”

Aiden sat up and placed one hand on either
of her cheeks. He turned her head toward his and kissed her. It
wasn’t his usual hungry and demanding kiss. It was a sweet kiss
meant to show her what she meant to him. When he finally broke the
kiss, he pulled her down onto the bed and held her. Her head rested
against his chest. She felt his heart beating steady and strong
beneath her hand.

“I love you enough to make this work,
Tempest,” he said sleepily. “I’d even be willing to stay in the
cage if you got me a better bed down there.”

She knew he was joking about the cage but
the sentiment was nearly her undoing. She lay awake for a long time
listening to his steady breaths as he slept.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes as she
slipped out of his arms. They were falling steadily as she quickly
gathered her belongings and headed out the door.

When I arrived at my estate it was eerily
quiet. No one was outside. No one greeted me at the door. I raced
up the stairs to my bedroom, shouting Claudia’s name. I have never
been a religious man, but I found myself praying to any god that
would listen that I would find her there. What I found was my
father seated by the window.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

It had come as no surprise when Aiden had
woken up alone in his bed. All of her belongings were gone. Tempest
believed that they couldn’t be together. As he’d been drifting off
to sleep with her in his arms, he’d known she wouldn’t be there in
the morning.

Now he felt torn. Part of him wanted to
track her down and kidnap her again. Of course, he was pretty sure
that would be harder to accomplish this time. He might need to use
a tranquilizer gun. He wasn’t even sure where one went to buy a
tranquilizer gun. The other part of him felt like he should just
let her go. She didn’t want him enough to make it work, so why
should he continue to beg her to stay? She’d walked away in the
middle of the night. She hadn’t even been willing to tell him
goodbye.