Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (9 page)

“No, I’m not a ghost and I’m not technically alive,” Nathan agreed with that sexy little smirk of his.  “What do
you
think I am?”

A blinding flash of insight hit me and everything began to fall into place.  There was no way he should have been able to walk away from that wreck without a scratch, but he was sitting there looking more than perfect without even a bruise.  No human being could have done that.  Pale skin that was cool to the touch.  The fact that he wouldn’t—or was it that he
couldn’t
?—come in the house until I invited him. The fact that he was dead and yet he wasn’t…

The unopened soda can on the counter behind him took on new significance as I worked out everything in my head.  Suddenly, I knew what he was.  I knew it like I knew the sky was blue and grass was green.

Oh.  Shit.
I thought, staring at Nathan with chills shooting up and down my spine. 
I just invited a
vampire
into my house! 

“Shouldn’t you be, like, ashes right now?” I asked nervously even as I started calculating my chances of making it to the door before he caught me.  Somehow, I didn’t think they were good.  “I thought you guys had some kind of allergy to the sun or something.  It would be a real shame to have to vacuum your cute little behind off that stool.”

“Myth.”    He leaned back on his stool, a really cute lopsided smile on his lips, and linked his hands behind his head.  Muscles bulged.  My imagination went haywire.  Nathan laughed.  “Concentrate, Ember.  I don’t think you were quite finished trying to discredit me.”

“You don’t look anorexic enough to me to be a vampire,” I told him, trying to play off the fact that I had just had my mind turned to mush by the muscles he was showing off so well.  “I thought all vampires were Romeo clones.  You know, all skinny and shit.  You look like you could play for the NFL.”

“Stereotyping,” he said with a lopsided grin.  “Immortals come in all shapes and sizes.”

“Do you drink blood?”  I rolled my eyes. 

“Why?  You offering?”  He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“You only wish,” I muttered.  “What about the whole garlic thing?”

“Great on pizza and better in spaghetti, which, before you ask, I actually
can
eat.”    He was laughing at me again.  “What else do you have?”

 “Holy water?” I asked, frowning as I tried to come up with something new.

“Will get me wet,” he said, shrugging.  “It’s water, Ember, not battery acid.  Don’t believe everything you see at the movies. ”

“I think I have a cross around here somewhere,” I told him, taking a mental inventory of my jewelry box.  No, on second thought, I probably didn’t.  He didn’t know that, though.  “What are you going to do if I go get it?”

In answer, he reached beneath his sweater and brought out a beautiful gold Celtic cross on a leather cord.  The design of it was unique.  In the center was some kind of intricate knot that looked like a heart and a trinity symbol combined.  I stared at that symbol for a full minute, startled to feel like my chest was collapsing as a terrible feeling of sadness and longing hit me.  My eyes started stinging and my heart started to pound and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. 

I wanted that necklace.  No, that doesn’t even describe the terrible need I felt.  I
had
to have it.  It sounds crazy, I know, but I was pissed that he was even wearing it.  That necklace belonged to
me
.  It took everything I had in that moment not to reach over and rip the damn thing from around his neck.

Nathan gave me a sweet smile when I tore my eyes from the strange, three-part knot and glared at him.  Then, in a move that shocked me so much I just gaped at him like a fish out of water, he pulled the cross over his head and leaned across the counter and dropped it over mine, reaching back behind me to lift my hair so it could lie against my skin.  There was something so sweet and tender about the action that my mind went completely blank for a second.

Until the necklace I had been so possessive about touched my bare skin, that is.

The second that gold cross came to rest against my skin, I felt an odd tingling that swept through me from my head to my toes.  Though Nathan’s skin was cool to the touch, that little bit of gold was suddenly very warm, almost hot.  I smiled, feeling content and much more at ease now that I had it.  It was like…like the thing had finally made its way home. 

“Why did you do that?” I whispered, hoping he wouldn’t try to take the necklace back.  Because, seriously, he would have to remove it from my cold, dead body to get it.

“Because it looks much better on you,” he answered, looking very happy about something.  He reached out and arranged the cross just so, his fingers brushing the skin above the v-neck of my sweater and lighting my nerve endings on fire.

I frowned again, trying to remember what I had been doing before I went crazy over a necklace.  I reached up to move his hand away from me before I started to hyperventilate and he sat back, his lips twitching up in a slight smile, and gave me another one of those warm looks.

“Anything else?” he asked again, softly, “Or are you ready to give up so we can move on to something I think is much more important?”

“Yeah, because that’s going to happen,” I told him, rolling my eyes.  “You might as well know, buddy, I don’t know how to give up.”

“I’m counting on that,” he breathed, his voice so low I almost missed it.

I didn’t even want to know what that might mean, so I didn’t bother to ask.  My fingers reached up automatically and wrapped around the cross as I frantically searched for my next argument against his insanity, and I felt an instant sense of calm flow through me.  Letting that peace center me, I went back to my mission of trying to deny Nathan was a vampire.

“Wooden stakes?” I asked.  I already knew he was going to shoot that one down, but I felt a need to distract him from the cross resting above my more-than-ample cleavage before I turned into a puddle of goo and started sliding off my stool to pool on the floor at his feet.

“If you stuck me with a wooden stake, all you would do is give me splinters and piss me off,” he said as one corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.  “I’m sure I’ll probably regret telling you this, but if you want to kill me, Ember, cut off my head, set me on fire, or drive something made of silver through my heart so it won’t heal and you’re good to go.  Other than that, good luck.”

“What about the whole invitation only thing?” I asked, not even pausing.

“Well, for the most part, that one’s actually true,” he said, leaning back again and giving me a look that had me wanting to melt like butter.  But I stayed strong.  Yeah, I know.  I’m proud of me, too. 

“What do you mean, for the most part?” I asked, trying to sound stern and becoming disgusted when my voice came out all breathy instead.

“Let’s just say there are loopholes to every rule,” he answered quietly, his eyes flickering to the cross he had given me before returning to my face.

Scowling at that vague answer, I went back to racking my brain for vampire arguments.  Proving that he was a complete nut job was harder than I’d thought it would be.  I had gone over every last thing I could remember from every vampire story I had ever read and he had shot down all of them one by one.  But there was one thing he couldn’t get around.  If he was really a vampire, shouldn’t he have…?

“Fangs!” I cried out triumphantly, sure I had finally found a point he couldn’t get around.  “You don’t have fangs so you can’t be a vampire.”

“Wanna bet?”

He smiled at me then—
really
smiled, not one of those half-assed jobs.  His teeth were sparkling white…right down to the two very sharp, curved canine teeth.  I stared at him with my jaw falling nearly to the ground.  He arched an eyebrow at my reaction and let his lips cover the evidence that I was either delusional or talking to a walking myth. 

Personally, I voted for delusional. 

“You could have had those done by some demented dentist,” I said, wincing when I heard how high my voice had gotten.

“That definitely would have been an easier way to get them,” he said, nodding and smiling.  “Afraid I got mine the old-fashioned way, though.”

“Yeah?  Prove it?” I told him, hating how scared I suddenly felt.  “
Can
you prove it?  And biting me doesn’t count, in case you had that idea.  Even a geriatric could bite me with teeth a T-Rex would be proud of.”

“Are you really going to make me do this?” he asked on a groan.  “Can’t you just take my word for it?”

“That you’re the walking, talking undead?” I asked with a shaky laugh.  “Uh, let’s see…
no
!”

With a deep sigh, he got to his feet and walked over to the counter next to the stove.  My whole body went rigid when he pulled the big Psycho-style butcher knife out of the wooden block.  His fist tightened around the handle and I saw my life flash before my eyes—and to be honest, it wasn’t all that interesting—as I tried to figure out what he was going to do.  I consoled myself with the thought that my mother was going to be really pissed when she had to clean up the blood left over after he cut out my heart and ate it in front of me.

Ignoring the panic-stricken look on my face, Nathan took his seat again.

“Do you have a towel?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at me.  “This is going to be a little messy.”

“What are you planning on doing with that?” I demanded, my eyes still fastened on the gleaming blade of the knife.

“What you asked me to do. I’m going to prove that I’m telling you the truth.”

When I still didn’t move to get him the towel he’d asked for, he shrugged and raised the knife up high.  I screamed for him to stop, but it was too late.  He brought the knife down into the meaty part of his forearm and hissed with pain as it went all the way through—and buried itself in the granite countertop.  Then, just as quickly as he’d stabbed himself, he pulled the knife back out and flung it into the sink behind him.

I watched in a mixture of fascination and terror as thick red blood that seemed way too dark welled up out of the deep cut in his skin.  Then, I stared in awe as the wound started to close up all on its own.  Within seconds, it was gone, leaving behind no sign that there had ever been any damage at all.  Except the blood, that is, that was even at that moment starting to drip onto the floor from the edge of the countertop.  I was
really
not looking forward to cleaning that up.

“Do you believe me now?” Nathan asked, causing my eyes to snap up to his. 

I wanted to say yes, but that stubborn, skeptical side of me just refused to accept the truth.  He could have attacked me and sucked my blood down like strawberry soda and that little part of me still would have denied it.  Why?  Because that little part of me is stupid to the point of dangerous, that’s why! 

Oh. My. God! 
I thought hysterically, trying to force my frozen body into motion. 
Move!  Get your ass up and run!  What are you waiting for?  For him to get tired of playing around and
eat
you?

“Run? What are you running from?” Nathan asked, leaning on the counter and propping his chin on his hand as he smirked at me.  “There’s no need for the hysterics, Ember.  I’m not thirsty, so you’re safe…for now, anyway.”

How did he…?
I started to wonder, but then I figured it out all on my own.  I hadn’t said anything.  I was sure of it that time.  Nathan at least had the good grace to look embarrassed when I stared at him, my stomach tying in knots of shame. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, suddenly not seeming so amused.  “I tried to block you out, but nothing seems to work.  That’s never happened to me before.”

“You’re reading my
mind
?” I practically shrieked, so horrified was I by the idea.  He just looked back at me, waiting.  For what?   For me to lose my damn mind? 

Too late.  Already there.

“You’re not asking the important question,” he said quietly after I had stared at him, horror turning to anger and then back again, for several long, tense moments.

 “And what question would that be, Nathan?” I asked.  My voice was so cold that I’m pretty sure the fires of Hell flickered.  He winced, but didn’t immediately answer me.  “Come on,” I prodded.  “
Enlighten
me, Dead Boy.”

“I know what you are,” he said softly, standing and gliding around the counter toward me.  “I know what they’ve kept from you your entire life.  Don’t you want to know why you see the dead, why strange things always seem to happen to you?”

“Nope, I’m pretty good with staying in the dark, thanks,” I squeaked, meaning every word.

“Which is why I’m going to tell you, anyway,” he said, almost sounding sad.

In an act of self-preservation—for some reason, I
really
didn’t want to know what he knew—I slid off my stool and backed away from him.  For every step back I took, he took one forward.  When my back hit the far wall, however, I knew I had made a
huge
mistake. 

He took the last step to close the small distance between us, and I completely freaked.  I made to duck to the right, but his arm shot out to block my path.  Same thing when I turned to the left.  I was effectively trapped between his body and the wall with no way to escape.

“You’re a bandraoi, Ember Leigh Blaylock,” he said, leaning down to breathe the words against my ear.  “A one hundred percent, bona fide, blood witch.”

What he might have said next, I don’t know.  I fainted before I got a chance to hear it.