Sucking Bites (San Francisco Vampires Series #3) (29 page)

The men reach the front of the cars where we left the hoods up, out of the line of sight of passersby. Sebastian and Julian release Liam and Andrew and the boys are on the men in an instant. The donors don’t have a chance to be surprised, it happens so quickly. I hear the boys moaning with the pleasure of their first meal. It tickles me. When we think they have had enough, Sebastian and Julian step in and take over. If they are under control the new vamps will relinquish the men on their own. After some coaxing they do. I am impressed at their control, it’s a good sign. We promise them we will go hunt again tonight.

The men’s necks are already closing, small bruises fading. Our venom helps that. Helena guides her donor to a curb and I help mine to the opposite side of the garage to another curb. Liam and Andrew are a mess. It will be a while before they master eating without getting blood all over themselves. Helena trances the donors and they forget the whole encounter.

Watching them eat and the smell of the blood has made me hungry.

“We’ll eat tonight, ma petite,” Sebastian says. “You are not the youngest anymore—that should make you feel good.”

“Don’t talk to me,” I snap at Sebastian. His look of surprise appears genuine. Hannah rolls her eyes at him.

“I’m the big sister now,” I say to Andrew.

Aidan laughs. “I can’t believe I have resorted to helping vampires feed.”

“You’re a good guy Aidan,” I say.

“Not always. You would be wise not to forget it.” Fire swirls in his eyes.

For the next three weeks, we are so busy helping the two new vampires I don’t notice the passing of time. Andrew and Liam adapt to their new lifestyles like mosquitoes to bloodsucking. We buy unbreakable glasses because the boys have not mastered their new strength.

Aidan and I are required to present ourselves at Zoe’s court in two days. I shift on the couch, restless, and unable to avoid hearing Liam and Andrew up in Liam’s room making noise. Pay backs are a bitch. I brace myself when the front door opens—it means Sebastian is here. The cheap perfume I’ve smelled on him is much stronger this time and sure enough I hear the sharp click of stilettos. Please, God, tell me he didn’t bring her here. I look around panicking. Aidan summons some hand sanitizer for me. The shock on everyone else’s faces matches my own. Aidan grips my arm, firmly, yet gently. The temperature rises. We wait for them to enter.

“Good evening everyone. I thought it was time for you to meet my Gabrielle,” Sebastian says smiling.

She glides into the room, clinging to Sebastian’s arm. She peers coyly from behind her curtain of long dark hair. Aidan’s grip is so tight I can’t move but I find comfort in it. The room is like a Bikram yoga class. It’s Gag-me-elle. The bitch that was flirting with Sebastian at court. The one he gave the once-over. Her curves strain the seams of her designer knock-off dress.

“Gabrielle, I’d like you to meet my dearest friends, Helena and Julian.” Sebastian leads her over to them and they stiffly shake her hand. Aidan and I are treated as if we are invisible. Helena holds on to Gabrielle’s hand a moment too long.

“You’re a witch!” Helena exclaims. Understanding flares in her eyes. She unleashes a spell at the tramp. “Aidan, gag her and bind Sebastian!”

Aidan paralyzes Gab-rizilla before she responds to Helena’s accusation. Her eyes widen in shock. Her movement ceases.

“Why didn’t I see it sooner,” he says. “I was so angry and caught up in my emotions I wasn't seeing her clearly that night at the club.”

“You fucking Djinn. Let Gabrielle loose. Helena, I can’t believe you!” Sebastian roars.

“Sebastian, shut up! Let me think. Why has this been done? Who is she?” Helena wonders out loud. “Aidan, take her gag off but be ready in case she tries to cast.” Aidan complies but Gabrielle hisses, fangs out then she spits in Helena’s face. I roll back and punch her in the face. Man, did that feel good! Terrible for the manicure though, and it hurt like hell. She’s going to have a shiner for a few minutes too. Ha!

“Lily!” Sebastian yells. His eyes flash at me before he turns to Gabrielle. He lowers his voice. “Gabrielle. These are my friends. Tell them you’re not a witch and we’ll leave.” His shoulders hunch and he looks like he wants to tear Aidan’s head off.

“Oh, Sebastian, you bumbling fool. Shut up!” Gabrielle yells. “Red-headed bitch! Your life was easy enough to destroy, wasn’t it?” Her laugh is ugly.

“Gag back on,” Aidan announces. Blessed silence again.

“That’s where you’re wrong. With or without Sebastian, I have a life. I don’t need to resort to stealing other women’s men.” I am snarling, my fangs are out and I feel something more rising in me.

“Her eyes,” Helena warns Aidan. He grabs me in his arms.

“Sebastian, you’ve been placed under a love spell. You have no control over what you’ve been doing,” Helena tells him. Her hand is on his arm. She is working a spell. His face registers disbelief, shock, then horror as the spell is released.

The room is spinning. I step back until my knees touch the couch and I collapse.

Helena paces around Sebastian, chanting until a glimmer emanates from his body and a look of pure agony rises on his face. His eyes search for me.

“Lily,” he chokes. I look away from him. “Aidan would you please release me now? I won’t do anything to cause anyone anymore pain, you have my word.”

Aidan moves his hand and Sebastian takes a stumbling step. He takes another step towards me but I scoot over on the couch moving as far as possible from him and he falters.

“Lily, please…”

“I need some time to sort this out, Sebastian,” I say. “It’s not all the spell. You gave her a foothold when you gave her the once over at court. It bothered me but I blew it off. You had stopped doing that to women since we have been together. You had to have some doubts in there somewhere. Doubts about us, to have gone under so deeply, so quickly” I feel myself putting up a wall to protect my feelings. “I suggest you think about your feelings. I know I will be.”

“Lily… forgive me,” he begs, his face ashen.

The whole room is focused on me. I leave for my room. I need to be alone. I don’t trust myself to be alone with Sebastian. I get that he is sorry. I know that he was under a compelling influence and wasn’t acting of his own volition but the pain is still real and I can’t turn it off. The damage has been done. The trust is gone.

Aidan pops us into my room. He holds me and I shiver. He strokes my back and sits with me, not asking me questions, not expecting me to talk. I turn to him and kiss him. I need his love right now. He looks at me with confusion on his face.

“I thought you would want to be with Sebastian now.”

“I can’t. Please don’t turn away from me too.”

“Never, my love.”

“What are we going to do about Gabrielle?”

“That’s one of the reasons I need to let you go for now. I need to go help deal with her. I imagine we take her to the Queen when we find out where Sebastian met her and why she put the love spell on him in the first place. The Queen can deal with her after that.”

I don’t want him to leave me and I have a vested interest in what happens to the vamp-witch.

Downstairs Sebastian talks quietly to Helena and Julian.

Sebastian searches my face. He must read something in my eyes. Horror flashes across his face. I avoid looking at him. It hurts too much. I still love him and I don’t know what to do about it.

“Gabrielle, I’m going to remove your gag to ask you a few questions. If you start to cast a spell it will go right back on and I will blast you for trying to harm us, do you understand?” Aidan asks her, his accent more pronounced. The cadence of his speech clipped. She nods her head, yes.

“Good girl.” He removes the gag with a wave of his hand and she immediately starts to yell at us.

“How dare you gag me? You loathsome creature. I will have retribution. Just wait!”

Aidan waves his hand and the gag returns. “Too bad you can’t play nice. Sebastian, where did you meet her?”

Sebastian barely raises his head or his voice. “I met her at court and then she came into the club with a bottle of special vintage from the Queen as a peace offering for not letting me go to court with Lily. We shared a glass and that’s the last thing I remember doing of my volition. She mentioned that she is a friend of Celine’s, but I must have already been under her spell.”

“Now we know her motivation. Celine is proving to be a pesky little bitch,” Helena says. “Aidan, will you take this vampire-witch scum to the Queen and explain what she has done?”

The implications begin to dawn. Gabrielle’s face sets in a harsh mask.

“With pleasure. I’ll be right back.”

After Aidan and the bitch leave I finally look at Sebastian. My blood boils. I have one question.

“How long, Sebastian? How long? Since we saw her at court? How long have you been playing me?” I scream and jump at him with my fangs out and nails drawn. Julian pulls me back. Sebastian just sits there frozen. He doesn’t move or try to defend himself. When Julian pulls me away Sebastian’s eyes drop.

I throw myself onto the couch and try to calm down.

Aidan pops back twenty minutes later.

“She was a fiery one.”

“I knew you should have taken me with you,” I growl.

“No, my love, that would have been a hornet’s nest I would not have survived. She kicked and clawed, spit and tried to bite me every chance she could. I finally had to sit on her. When we got to the Queen’s she started up all over again, even in the Queen’s presence.” He grins. “So I bound her and left her.”

“Stop calling her ‘your love’,” Sebastian growls. He glares up at Aidan from under hooded eyes. His look stony and challenging. I return his glare.

“What did the Queen do?” Helena asks, ignoring Sebastian.

“She banished her from court for two years and put her in jail for a year. Gabrielle was so shocked she didn’t know what to do with herself. She started yelling at the Queen. Then the Queen banished her from court for life,” Aidan says meeting Sebastian’s eyes, egging him on.

“Merde!” Sebastian says. “What a fucking mess.”

“One you created,” Aidan says to Sebastian.

“I can’t say I’m sorry. She deserved it,” I say.

“Fuck off, Aidan,” Sebastian says.

“I had to placate the Queen. I gave her a ruby necklace to match the earrings I gave her on my first visit. That seemed to settle her down some.”

“Unfortunately, Lilith has two enemies for life, Gabrielle and Celine. I don’t know what to expect in a year when they get out of jail,” Aidan says.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“We will, together,” Aidan says.

I take his hand.

Sebastian looks at me longingly and I meet his eyes for a moment. I see pain, confusion and regret. I don’t want to see it.

I am busy packing when Aidan comes in. He throws himself across the bed next to my garment bag, sending my shoes flying. I give him a dirty look. My babies don’t suffer too much. I dust them off and put them back on the bed.

“Are you almost packed, lover?”

“Yes, almost. I’m having a difficult time deciding what to wear. I will be at court, yet I know she is going to want to see me jumping around like a performing dog. I’d like to wear some of Hannah’s leather pants and ass kicking boots, but I think that would cause a scene.”

“Whatever you wear, you'll be beautiful.”

I walk over to him and run my fingers through his soft wild sun-bleached air. He leans his face into my hand. I lick his bottom lip.

“Now get off my clothes before I have to spank you!”

“Hmmm… that’s supposed to be a threat?”

“Aidan… I mean it!”

“Okay, okay. I’m moving.” He rises and pulls my hips into his. He moves his tongue across my lips. We kiss until I am late in packing. I have to rush to be ready in time. I’m wearing a blue-grey silk, sleeveless Isabella Tonchi design. It will be comfortable in Louisiana. I love fashion, but I’m also practical. I finish with Prada pumps that look great. Aidan studies me. I know he is caught between admiring me and wishing I would put more clothes on.

“Lily, I love that dress. It looks great on you!” Helena says walking into my room.