Safe Hex With a Vampire (7 page)

After hearing about the latest victim,
Tempest’s first inclination had been to go out hunting right away,
but she knew that she had to face Aiden first. She also knew that
based on the guy’s pattern, it wasn’t likely that he would be out
the day after an attack. Of course, his escalating violence made it
much harder to predict his next move.

She’d left Aiden in the dark too long.
Honestly, she had meant to talk to him as soon as she got back from
hunting the day before, but she’d been exhausted. Oh, and she’d
been really embarrassed about almost drowning him. He might be a
jerk but he didn’t deserve this. She had also come to the
conclusion that she would probably be acting the same way if she
was the one in a cage. That thought had soured her mood even
further because she was going to have to admit that she was the
only one in the wrong.

What made it worse is that she had wanted to
run down to check on him all day long. There was no denying his
attractiveness. His brown hair was a little on the long side, but
she would guess he was used to having it longer. His eyes were an
icy shade of blue that contrasted with his bronzed skin nicely.
Having already seen him naked, she knew that his body was very
impressive. He was muscular, and she could not find an ounce of fat
on him.

Her mouth dropped open when she saw Aiden
lounging shirtless on his cot. He was watching a soap opera on the
Spanish channel and reading Cosmopolitan magazine. When he noticed
her watching him he winked and then returned his attention to the
magazine. “I think I’m going to subscribe to this magazine,” he
said as he pointed to an article about things your man secretly
wishes you would do. “Some of this is funny as hell, but some of
it’s really true and it gets me kind of hot just thinking about
it.”

She laughed and felt the tension ease out of
her body. This was not what she’d expected to find at all. “I
assume that you’re watching this show because you like seeing the
women bounce around?”

He smiled sheepishly and his cheeks became a
little flushed.

“Are you blushing?” she asked. The sight of
him blushing actually made him even more attractive.

“I watch this every day,” he admitted. “I
was a little irritable yesterday because I realized that it was
Monday and I had missed the show. Actually, I’ve missed about two
weeks of it and I’m still trying to catch up. Apparently, Elena
caught Rodrigo with her twin sister, Norah. Now she’s not telling
him that she needs brain surgery. Rodrigo is mad because Norah
tricked him into believing she was Elena. Don’t even get me started
on what’s happening with Enrique and Sylvia.”

Tempest had to sit on the floor because she
was laughing so hard. “This truly is the only good thing that’s
happened all day.”

Aiden was prepared to bait her with a lewd
offer but when he looked at her, he decided against it. She looked
sad and somehow beaten down. It was a surprise to realize that he
didn’t like seeing her that way. Actually, that was an
understatement. He wanted to chase the shadows from her eyes. “I
should not have read that romance novel,” he grumbled as he
realized the poetic direction his thoughts were taking.

“Romance novel?” she asked with a bewildered
look on her face.

“Ivy brought me some books and magazines,”
he explained. “I guess the selection is limited. Before you think
too little of me, I only read the first three chapters of the
book.”

“Oh,” she nodded her understanding as she
stood up and walked toward him. She unlocked his cell and walked
in. “I have to go out again today, but I wanted to talk to you
about why I brought you here first. I really should have done it
earlier. I’m sorry that I didn’t.” She sounded nervous. “I’m also
sorry that I hurt you.”

He turned off the television and sat up.

“Did you want to put some clothes on?” she
asked and it seemed that she was trying hard to look anywhere but
his bare chest.

“No,” he answered. “Does it bother you to
see me without a shirt?”

“It’s a little distracting,” she
admitted.

He didn’t tease her, just slipped on the
grey t shirt. “So, why am I here?”

“I already told you that I was hunting for
someone else and mistook you for him.”

He nodded.

“Ivy told me I had the wrong guy after I was
already stitching your head wound. She was supposed to be with me
but we got separated. By the time she met up with us your head
wound was already healing around the stitches. Some of your bruises
had even faded. It didn’t take a genius to realize that you aren’t
human. I didn’t want to drop you at the hospital because I knew it
wasn’t safe. I didn’t know if you would wake up and kill a bunch of
people. I also figured you wouldn’t like playing lab rat to a bunch
of curious humans.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Ending up in a
human hospital would have been very bad for me. So, if you didn’t
plan to use me as a lab rat then why did you take my blood? You
obviously did some of your own experimenting on me.”

Her cheeks flushed a little. “I had to check
for disease in case you needed to be quarantined.”

“So is that why I’m in a cage in the
basement? Am I being quarantined?” he asked. He already knew that
wasn’t the reason but he wanted her to tell him the whole
truth.

“You’re in the basement because you’re a
man. Most of the women staying here are victims of violent crimes
or domestic abuse. Having a predatory man of your size wandering
around wouldn’t go over well.”

He nodded his understanding. “The cage?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said a little
impatiently. “When I tested your blood I found some genetic
similarities to ours. Yes, I tested for more than disease but can
you blame me? Until we stumbled upon you, we had never met anyone
even similar to us. I mean, we’ve met mildly psychic humans, but
that’s not the same thing. So, I ran a few tests and found that we
may be related in some way. I still had no idea what you were. I
wasn’t at all sure that the cage would do any good, but I didn’t
relish the idea of having a potentially dangerous predator wake up
in our sanctuary.”

“I’m awake now, so why not just send me on
my way? You know my secrets and I know yours. Seems like we both
have too much to lose to tell anyone what we know.”

“How old are you, Aiden?” she asked in a
more clinical voice.

Her question caught him off guard. “How old
do you think I am, babe?” he asked.

“Have you noticed that you use crude terms
of endearment whenever you’re nervous or want to avoid a
topic?”

He shrugged. That wasn’t something he’d
noticed, but he supposed she was right.

“Did you know Claudia?” she asked. “My
ancestor Claudia?”

“No,” he said honestly.

“Then why were you looking for her?”

“A lot of women are named Claudia.” He
wasn’t sure how much he wanted to reveal at this point, and he was
suddenly glad Ivy wasn’t the one asking the questions. Then he
wondered why Ivy hadn’t shared all of the details of their earlier
conversation. She certainly had more information than Tempest
did.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late to play
human with me, Aiden?” she asked with an exasperated sigh.

“I’ve been playing human for a long time.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to think of how he
could answer her question without freaking her out. She wasn’t
human and she knew they were related but she still might react
poorly when she learned the details of her Draksel relations. “My
uncle sent me to find Claudia. He believed she was dead until
recently. You look a lot like her.”

“How can you know that?’ Tempest asked. “I
don’t even know what she looked like.”

A sudden idea came to him. “Do you have my
phone?”

She went to the cabinet at the far end of
the room and retrieved his phone. “You won’t get a signal down
here,” she warned as she handed him the phone.

He laughed. “I don’t really have anyone to
call.” When he finally found the picture he was looking for he
turned the phone toward her.

Tempest was shocked by the likeness.

“With that black wig on you looked just like
her,” he said.

“Where is this painting,” she asked without
taking her eyes off of the phone.

“My uncle has it. Claudia was his wife.”

“So your uncle is my grandfather,” Tempest
said as realization dawned. She finally looked away from Aiden’s
phone and met his eyes.

“Add a few greats to that, and you’ve got
it,” he said and gave her a lopsided grin. “Welcome to my fucked up
family, Cousin.”

Tempest’s gaze returned to the picture as
she tried to process what she’d just learned. “More than a few
greats actually,” she muttered to herself. “We’re very distant
cousins, which is good. That does explain a lot. He’s still alive?”
She was surprised and confused. “Why was he looking for Claudia? He
sent her away.”

“He was told she was dead, and yes he’s
still alive. Believe me, Roman Draksel never would have allowed her
to be taken from him if he had known she was still alive.”

Tempest studied Aiden’s face for a long
moment. “Will you please tell me how old you are?”

Aiden took so long answering that Tempest
started to think he was trying to come up with a convincing lie to
tell her. Finally, he spoke. “I’m not exactly sure. We don’t really
celebrate birthdays, and the years kind of blend together after
awhile. I guess somewhere between two and three.”

“Two and three?” she prodded.

“Centuries,” he added. “I’m probably closer
to three centuries old. I remember that I was an adult living away
from home for many years during the Great Potato Famine. Actually,
I was traveling during that time so I wasn’t even in Ireland. I was
still a child during the famine that happened a century before
that. I was young enough that the memories are kind of fuzzy. Most
of the memories are of Mam taking me around with her when she was
helping the sick. People thought she was crazy for exposing me to
disease,” he had a distant look on his face. “Mam couldn’t exactly
explain that we can’t catch human diseases. Big events in history
are what we usually use to guess our ages.”

“And the healing?” she asked. “Do you all
heal quickly?”

“No,” he said. “I’m the only one that I know
of, and I don’t share that information with others so I would
appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

“Why keep it a secret?” she asked in
confusion. “I got the impression that none of your family is human
so why shouldn’t they know about the healing?”

“I don’t want to be anyone’s lab rat,” he
explained. “If my family figures it out, I’ll have my cousin,
Justin, running experiments on me to see if he can reproduce it for
the rest of the family. Not gonna happen.”

She nodded her understanding. “I won’t tell
anyone about it. Ivy knows because she was there but you can trust
her. Two of my cousins were there too, but they were in the front
seat of the van and I don’t think they really understood everything
that was going on in the back. Even if they did, you can trust them
to keep your secret.”

“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?” he
pushed.

Tempest took a deep breath and then told him
her reasons as quickly as she could manage. “I want you to give me
a daughter. I want a daughter that can live for centuries and heal
quickly.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going
to like this?’ he asked hesitantly.

“Don’t worry,” she said hastily. “I wouldn’t
expect you to be involved. I just need you to donate the sperm.
Enough to try a few times, and then you can be on your way.”

Tempest looked up at Aiden, expecting to see
relief that she wasn’t asking him for a relationship. What she saw
made her take a step back.

“Get the fuck out of here now!” he said in a
quiet voice.

“Why are you so angry?” Tempest asked.

“This is your last warning, Tempest. Get the
hell out of here and lock the damn cage before I lose my temper.”
His voice had risen but just barely, and he was leaning forward
like he might pounce.

“Aiden,” she started and suddenly found
herself pressed up against his body. He kissed her. It was not the
angry kiss she had expected. His hands moved down to her bottom and
he lifted her up until she felt his erection pressed between her
legs.

The logical part of her brain told her to
show him that he couldn’t just manhandle her like that. That part
of her brain was ignored and she kissed him back. Her hands moved
to the sides of his face. When she wrapped her legs around his hips
and started to rock her hips back and forth against him, he pulled
away and drew in several ragged breaths before letting her slowly
slide down his body.

“If I get you pregnant it will be the old
fashioned way; I will fuck you. If I get the chance to do that,
regardless of whether a child is conceived that time, I will
never
let you go. Do you understand?” His voice was steady,
as if he hadn’t just kissed her senseless. If it weren’t for the
obvious physical signs, she might think he was unaffected by the
kiss.

Tempest stepped back to put more distance
between them. She tried hard to hide the fact that she was still a
little breathless. “You have to see reason, Aiden. You don’t even
like me and no matter how much I want a child, I can’t have a man
in my life. What I do is too important.”

“Reason? You call letting you take
my
child away reason?” He looked beyond angry. “There are very few
women in this world that I can create a child with. I wasn’t even
all that attracted to the last one I met and I tried to kidnap
her.”

Tempest’s eyes widened and her mouth opened
but no words came out.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aiden said,
putting both hands up in surrender. “Yes, it was a terrible thing
and I’m not proud of my actions, but I want you to understand the
desperation that a man my age can feel to find a mate. You piss me
off more than any woman I’ve ever met and I still get hard just
thinking about you. I have never wanted a woman as much as I want
you. What makes you think I’m going to jerk off into a cup and then
be on my merry way?”