Safe Hex With a Vampire (24 page)

Roman moved with a speed that was unnatural.
She’d seen Aiden move and he was faster than a normal human, but he
was nothing compared to Roman. One moment, Roman’s hands were at
his sides and the next he was firing a handheld crossbow at Brian’s
throat. Brian clutched at the arrow in his throat, made a sickening
gurgling sound and then collapsed to the ground.

Aiden rushed to her side and went to undo
the restraints. “Damn it woman!” he shouted. “If you’d stayed with
me none of this would have happened. I should have kept you drained
and tied to my bed for the rest of your life.”

Roman removed the IV from her arm, and then
grasped her hand. He looked around for something to stop the
bleeding and snatched up a few gauze pads on a nearby shelf. As he
pressed them against her arm, he stared at her in amazement. “You
look so much like Claudia,” he said. Then she felt the energy being
pushed into her body. It felt similar to when Aiden had returned
her energy only in hyper speed. In some ways, it felt like
electricity zapping through her nerves.

“I thought you had to touch a person to take
their energy,” she said as she stared at his hand. “I felt you
draining Brian’s energy. At first, I wasn’t sure what was
happening, but you were the one manipulating the energy in the air
and it was Brian’s energy.”

“It’s a rare talent,” Roman explained, still
staring at her in awe. “I don’t know of anyone, other than me, who
can do it. As you can see, it’s a very useful skill.”

She turned to Aiden who was still muttering.
She’d missed most of it, but she did catch the end of his tirade.
“And so help me God I will turn you over my knee if you ever scare
me like this again!”

“I knew you’d come,” she said and then she
burst into tears.

Aiden scooped her up in his arms and cradled
her against his chest. “Please don’t cry, luv,” he murmured against
the top of her head. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you. I’m not
really mad, I was just scared.”

She just cried harder.

“Would it help if I said something really
obnoxious?” he asked. “I can be nearly as obnoxious as Drew when I
try.”

She smiled at him, and then leaned her head
against his chest with a sigh.

“We need to call the police,” Aiden said.
“You told me you have a contact.”

“No police,” Roman said. “This is a family
matter and we will get the mess cleaned up and dispose of the
body.”

“Aiden is right. We have to call the
police,” Tempest said. “There were other victims. The police need
to know what happened and what he said.”

Roman seemed annoyed but he nodded and
handed her his phone. “I’m not really sure how this thing works,”
he said as she took the smart phone from his hand.

“What city are we in?” Tempest asked.

Roman thought for a moment. “Union
City.”

Tempest frowned. “We don’t have any contacts
in this department. I’ll let Ivy figure that out, I’m too confused
right now.”

Tempest dialed Ivy’s number.

“Hello,” Ivy said tentatively, probably
because she didn’t recognize the number.

“Ivy, I need you to get someone we know with
the police and meet me,” she said. Her voice still sounded
slurred.

“Tempest! Oh, we’ve been so worried about
you. Willow thought that maybe Aiden had taken you. I was really
hoping it was true, but Aiden wasn’t answering his phone. I was
sure that if he had you he would call me, or at the very least
answer his phone.”

“You ignored Ivy’s call?” Tempest asked
Aiden.

He flushed. “I was going to buy a new phone
today. I threw mine against a wall when I woke up and you weren’t
there.”

She just shook her head and said to Ivy, “I
promise I’ll explain everything when you get here. The police will
need a crime scene unit and make sure they know there’s a
body.”

Ivy gasped. “Where are you?”

“Union City, but I’m not sure where,”
Tempest said and looked around her as if her surroundings might
give her some idea.

“I will give her the information,” Roman
said as he reached for the phone.

Tempest nodded and handed the phone
back.

“Maybe you should put me down now,” she said
to Aiden.

He shook his head. “Not gonna happen. You
get into way too much trouble when I let go of you.”

As much as I miss her, I know that I am no
longer the man who loved her. I am no longer the man she loved.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

Ivy arrived at the warehouse about twenty
minutes after Roman hung up with her. Thankfully, she had left
Willow and Rose behind. Tempest wasn’t sure Aiden could have dealt
with them in his current mood.

Roman had remained calm as he made calls
arranging to have Justin at his home to check Tempest as soon as
they could make it back. She’d also overheard him asking Justin to
check on the other patient since there had been some changes.

Aiden had reluctantly put Tempest on the
ground and put his t shirt on her. Even in her confused state
she was able to appreciate how nice he looked shirtless with a
leather jacket on.

Ivy nearly knocked her over with a hug when
she rushed into the room. “What happened?” she asked. Then her eyes
widened as she noticed Brian’s body. “Is that Brian?”

Tempest nodded. “Apparently the victims that
looked like me weren’t a coincidence. I’m not sure how many other
victims there have been, but I got the impression this has been
going on a long time.”

Ivy swallowed several times. “How did Aiden
find you?”

“Oh,” Tempest said, “I guess I didn’t
mention that when I came back. For some reason, I can project my
thoughts directly at Aiden. I wasn’t really sure it would work with
him so far away. It happened after he found me at the
ceremony.”

“It likely has something to do with his
ability to track you,” Roman explained.

Aiden nodded. “That actually makes sense. I
track your energy. Since you are so in tune with your energy and
the energy around you, I probably just opened a path between
us.”

“I knew you were coming to the ceremony,”
Tempest said. “I could feel you every step of the way.”

“So you used that to call him for help, and
he has some crazy tracking skill?” Ivy asked.

“Exactly!” Tempest said.

Roman stood silently and watched Ivy.
Tempest wouldn’t say he looked uncomfortable, but he did look
unsure of how to act.

Ivy walked over and hugged Roman. “I’m not
sure how we’ll explain your relationship when the police get here,”
she said.

Roman gave her and awkward one arm hug.
“I believe it would be best to introduce Aiden as Tempest’s
boyfriend and me as his cousin,” he suggested. “Any other
explanation will probably confuse matters.”

At the sound of the sirens, Ivy moved away
from Roman and sighed. “I called Carlos, Detective Ramirez,” she
explained.

Tempest wasn’t sure how a San Francisco
police officer was going to walk in on a Union City crime scene but
she would let him worry about that.

Detective Ramirez entered the room and
immediately began barking orders at the crime scene unit. Another
detective who Tempest didn’t recognize was with him. “Thanks for
letting me tag along, Jer,” he said to the other detective. “This
is related to a case I’ve been working for about a year and it
really helps that you’re letting me in on this.”

The other detective nodded. “Just try not to
order my people around too much,” he said with a scowl before
walking over to give the same orders to his team that they’d
already gotten from Detective Ramirez.

That seemed to work out well for Detective
Ramirez who made his way over to them with an angry scowl on his
face.

He wasn’t at all what Aiden had pictured.
He’d expected a young detective in a crisp suit. Detective Ramirez
was probably in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, based on
the lines around his eyes and the sprinkling of grey in his hair.
He wore jeans and a t shirt that read
Dial 911 Make a Cop
Come
. Aiden was guessing that he’d been off duty when he got
the call from Ivy. He stalked across the room with his gaze
shifting between Ivy and Tempest.

Ivy merely smiled brightly at him. “I’m
sorry about calling you on your day off,” she said.

“Cut the crap, Ivy,” he said sharply,
careful to keep his voice low so the other officers wouldn’t hear
him. “I just knew one of you was going to get hurt. I blame myself
for not putting your cute butts in jail for risking your lives
years ago. Now look what’s happened.”

“Detective Ramirez “ Tempest started
but he cut her off.

“I’m calling an ambulance to take you to the
hospital,” he said in a no nonsense voice.

“We will have a physician check her injuries
after we leave here,” Roman said flatly.

“And you are?”

“Roman Draksel.”

Detective Ramirez was taking notes. He
looked at Aiden expectantly.

“Aiden Draksel.”

“How are the two of you involved in this
situation?”

“They tracked me down using the GPS on my
phone,” Tempest explained. “I’ve recently started seeing Aiden and
Roman is his cousin.”

Detective Ramirez looked skeptical but
didn’t push it. He merely began asking Tempest about the details of
what had happened. Occasionally, her answer made him curse under
his breath.

“I’m going to need to keep the crossbow,” he
told Roman.

Roman nodded. “Of course, I want to do
whatever I can to help with your investigation.”

“Who the hell carries a crossbow?” he
asked.

“It’s a collector’s piece,” Roman explained.
“I was transporting it from one home to another when Aiden called
to get my assistance in locating Tempest. Originally, we had just
planned to locate her and call the police. When we heard her scream
we couldn’t delay. I had no other weapons so we had to make due.”
He gave a shrug.

Detective Ramirez looked over at Brian’s
body again. “Not many people can fire a crossbow that well.”

Roman gave what was meant to pass as an
innocent smile. “I was aiming for his hand. Naturally, I wouldn’t
have killed him intentionally.”

Detective Ramirez laughed, and coughed to
cover it up. “Naturally,” he murmured.

“Carlos,” Ivy said with a hand on his arm,
“I know that you want to get as much information as possible but
Tempest has been through a lot today. One of Aiden’s cousins is a
doctor and he is going to check Tempest as soon as we get back
home. Can we please arrange to give our statements later?” When he
hesitated, she continued. “You know that you can trust us and
nothing we say can help at this point. You aren’t planning to
arrest this poor man for saving Tempest’s life, are you?” her eyes
widened.

He sighed and then shook his head. “Don’t
think I don’t know that you’re trying to use those pretty brown
eyes to get me to do what you want.” There was no real censure in
his voice, and Aiden wondered what his relationship was with
Ivy.

She shrugged and smiled prettily at him.

“Fine,” he said and then turned to Tempest.
“I will expect all of you to call me to arrange a time to fill out
statements within the next twenty four hours. It won’t be easy
to convince the local department to let you leave before we get all
of the details.”

“Of course,” Roman assured him. “I will do
whatever I can to assist the police in this unpleasant matter.”

Brian took my blood
, Tempest said
into Aiden’s mind.

Aiden leaned in and whispered to his uncle.
“He took some of Tempest’s blood.”

Roman’s eyes widened, but then he said
calmly, “You will turn over the blood samples to us before we
leave.”

The detective blinked and then nodded. Aiden
went over and told the technicians how much they wanted to give him
the blood samples. Thanks to the compulsions, all of the law
enforcement personnel in the room agreed that the blood samples
should be handed over. Before leaving they added a compulsion to
make them forget that there had ever been any blood samples.

Tempest still felt weak from the
tranquilizers when they arrived at Roman’s home. She’d napped most
of the hour and a half drive. That was proof that she was still
feeling the effects of the drugs. While Aiden drove like an old
woman, Roman drove like he was in a street race, and she was pretty
sure that most people found it hard to sleep while he was behind
the wheel.

Roman insisted that she be checked by
Justin, and for some reason wanted her in his home for the exam.
His house came as a surprise. While the house was on a very large
piece of land, it was not very big. She would say it was larger
than your average middle class home, but would be surprised if he
had more than five bedrooms. Then she remembered that Aiden had
told her that Roman preferred solitude. She supposed that he had
little need for dozens of bedrooms if he didn’t have many
visitors.

She leaned heavily against Aiden as they
walked to the house. He was still scowling because she wouldn’t let
him carry her. Ivy was scowling at her for the same reason. Roman
alternated between scowling at her for being injured and scowling
at Aiden for touching her.

Suddenly, the door burst open and a girl who
looked around twelve or thirteen years old raced across the lawn to
greet them. “Claudia!” she shouted. Her vibrant red hair cascaded
behind her. Her eyes were covered with dark sunglasses, just like
Aiden and Roman’s, but Tempest knew they would be a lovely shade of
blue that was almost purple. Roman’s description of her in his blog
had been perfect.

“Sofia?” she asked, and Roman seemed
surprised by her recognition of his mother.

Sofia hugged her. “I cannot believe that
you’re still alive! When I left you I thought that I would never
see you again. Was I wrong about the baby? Or was it one of the
Maitlands? Aiden, take your hands off of her!” she scolded in her
heavily accented voice. “Seeing your hair this color makes me want
to change my color, as well. How did you manage to get it so
light?”