Tegan's Power (The Ultimate Power Series #4) (18 page)

Cheeky bastard.

“So, what’s the big urgency
to speak with me?”

“I have visited your
city’s barrier to the outside world and have managed to easily slip through.
Most magical folk would be able to pass it, just not humans or vampires. Also,
it wasn’t constructed by Theodore.”

“Wait a second, what?”

“Magical folk can move
through it,” he repeats.

“No, not that, the
other thing,” I say flustered.

“Ah, yes. It wasn’t
constructed by Theodore. In fact, it shows all the signs of being a witch’s
doing.”

“Was it Rita,
Theodore’s daughter?” I ask.

“I’m certain it wasn’t.
Actually, I know intimately the person who did it.” He makes meaningful eye
contact with me and it takes me a second to understand.

“Are you saying it was
Emilia? But when I spoke to her she acted like she knew nothing about it.”

I quickly think back to
that conversation and it all suddenly makes sense. Emilia had basically said
the barrier was a good thing, because it would keep the humans from fleeing the
city and informing the outside world of the supernaturals living here.

Roman watches my face
as though he’s reading all my thoughts. And he is. “I believe Emilia
constructed it to bide herself some more time. She wants to be able to cast a
mass memory cleanse of the human population so that they won’t remember that
vampires and magic exist. It’s one of the most difficult spells to cast,
especially for a witch who is not yet a sorceress.”

I eye him
speculatively. “Could you do it?”

He looks back at me
like I just insulted him. “Of course I could do it.”

“Okay, I’ll rephrase
that question. Will you do it? Something needs to be done about the humans and
I think that forgetting everything that’s happened these past few weeks will be
the best solution.”

“I might, if you give
me something in return.”

I bristle. “What do you
want?”

His blue eyes gleam in
the darkness. “I want you to allow me to train you to become a sorceress.”

I say nothing for at
least a whole minute, my mouth hanging open in surprise. When I finally gather
my senses, the best I can come up with is, “Uh…what?”

“I have never had a
granddaughter before, so I have never had the opportunity to pass on my
knowledge to another person. I want to pass on that knowledge to you, Tegan, if
you’ll allow it. Besides, haven’t you considered the negative aspects of your
mortality? You will age and die while your vampire lover remains exactly the
same as the first night you saw him.”

I narrow my eyes and
fold my arms. “How do you know about my
vampire lover
?”

“I’ve been doing my
research,” he answers with a wide smile.

Suddenly, I’m
remembering Allora’s vision where she said she saw me and that I was older but
I hadn’t aged. Does that mean I’ll actually become a sorceress after all?

“I need time to think
about this,” I say rubbing at the back of my head.

“That’s quite alright.
I need a few days to gather what I need for the spell. I’ll also need to find
Emilia.”

“Theodore has her,” I
volunteer.

“Ah, that makes things
a little more difficult, but not impossible. I need her to undo her barrier
spell before I can perform the mass memory wipe. But not to worry, I will find
her.”

“Could you get Rita for
me too while you’re at it?”

Before he has the
chance to respond, Ethan appears at the edge of the roof and climbs easily to
the top. His face is free of expression which usually means he’s either bored
or pissed. In this particular scenario I’m going with pissed.

“Who is this?” he asks
in a low, threatening voice.

Yep, definitely pissed.

I get up and walk to
him, placing a hand on his chest. I meet his eyes when I say, “Ethan, this is
Roman, my grandfather.”

“How did you…”

“I didn’t,” I cut him
off. “He found me.”

“Mr Cristescu,” says
Roman getting to his feet now, too. “It is an honour to meet you. Or should I
be addressing you as Governor?”

Ethan shakes his head.
“I have no interest in titles.” He reaches out and shakes Roman’s hand and then
there’s a silence as they measure each other up. I’m practically holding my
breath, waiting for them to break the handshake. But finally they do and Roman
is saying his goodbyes. He makes a couple of tiny hand gestures and then he’s
disappearing into a cloud of silver and gold smoke.

Ethan stares down at
me, a questioning look on his face.

“He’s going to help
us,” I say, not ready yet to tell him about the whole becoming a sorceress
thing. I need time to hash it all out in my own head before I tell anyone else
about it. Instead I slip my fingers through his and lead him back down off the
roof. He scoops me into his arms when we reach the edge and drops effortlessly
inside his large bedroom window.

Love is Blind

Finn

I’ll say one good thing about Cristescu,
his house is bloody fantastic. Vampires happen to be considerably fond of
themselves, which means they’ll only settle for the best in interior design.
Back in my early DOH days I had to break into a vamp home while the vamp was
out. The place had heated floors, solid gold taps and in one room there was even
a glass ceiling.

I know, a glass ceiling
for a vampire. How dumb could he be? I later discovered that they’d invented
this kind of UV filtering glass that negates the effects of sunlight.

Clever little shits.

The room I’m staying in
at the moment has an amazing shower and I’ve never felt a more comfortable
mattress in my life. I’m lying in bed, just about to turn off the lamp and
catch some z’s when there’s a tentative knock on my door.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Allora. Can I come
in?” she replies in the quietest voice.

“Sure,” I say,
wondering why she’s come looking for me.

She steps quickly
inside and closes the door. Her hand glides along the wall as she feels her way
to the bed and I have a momentary flash of her hand gliding along something
else – because I’m a massive pervert.

“What’s up, Goldy?”

“I don’t want to sleep
alone,” she says.

And aren’t those words
just like music to my ears.

“Why not? You’re safe
here. No one’s going to harm you,” I try to reassure her, you know, be a
gentleman and all that jazz, but she still seems nervous.

“But…there are two
vampires in this house,” she replies and now there’s a hint of desperation to
her voice. “There are also several standing guard outside.”

“You don’t like vamps?”

She shakes her head. “A
couple of years ago I had a vision of a woman being murdered by a vampire. He
was sick and got off on her pain. He tortured her for a long time before he
killed her. It’s one of the worst things I ever saw.”

She’s still standing by
the bed so I take her hand in mine and gently pull her down to sit. “Hey, you
know the way in the human world there are good people and bad people?” I ask.

Her gold eyes are
staring in the direction of our clasped hands, her impaired vision probably
only seeing a blur of skin. “Yes.”

“Well, it’s kind of the
same with vamps,” I continue, surprising even myself with my logic. There was
once a time when everything was black and white for me. Vampires were bad,
humans were their prey. Now I’m coming to see that there’s a lot of grey in the
mix.

“Most vampires can be
pretty decent. They feed on humans but they don’t kill them, and the humans
they feed from want it. It’s an addictive process. However, there are some
vampires who are complete psychos and I’m guessing it was one of those that you
saw in your vision.”

As I speak, I’m also
coming to the stark realisation that it was a cruel and psychotic vampire who
killed my family. And that it could have just as easily been a psychotic human
who killed them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to go declaring my undying
love for Cristescu, but I’m slowly coming to learn that he might not be as bad
as I used to think.

I know, shock horror.

I’ve probably killed
just as many vampires in self-defence as he’s killed slayers who were trying to
stake him. To be honest, I think that vampires are just as wary of humans as
humans are of them. Vampires might be strong, but humans outnumber them by a
huge margin.

“So, you trust the
vampire who owns this house?”

I sigh. “Yeah. He’s a
cocky prick and too good looking for his own good, but I think we can trust
him. Well, as much as I ever trust anybody, which is about ninety-five percent.
There’s always a slim chance people will do something crazy that you don’t
expect.”

I shut my mouth when I
see Allora tensing up again. Damn, I’d almost managed to relax her.

“Hey, come on. You can
stay with me tonight. Will that make you feel safer?”

“Yes, thank you,” she
takes a relieved breath and I begin to mentally prepare to keep my hands to
myself tonight. I mean, it’s some feat not to touch a beautiful woman when
she’s lying in bed with you all sleep mussed and soft and…

Okay, I need to get a
handle on this.

I pull open the covers
for her to climb in and then I turn off the lamp. I lie on my side and close my
eyes. A minute or two later I feel Allora move and her hand slips back into
mine. I don’t say a word but I don’t let go either.

I feel her breath hit
the back of my neck and I turn to face her, reaching out to caress her smooth
skin.

“You’re very
beautiful,” I tell her in a low voice and her breathing hitches.

“I didn’t come here
to…” she says but I interrupt her.

“I know. I just needed
to say it. You’re gorgeous.” I pause and let out a long sigh. “Okay, now I
should be able to sleep.”

“Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for needing to
say it. Sometimes a girl needs to hear it.”

I chuckle. “Well,
you’re welcome.”

When I finally do fall
asleep, I do it while holding her hand.

I must have been moving
around during the night because the next morning I wake up with my head resting
on the cushion of Allora’s stomach. I’ve got one hand on her thigh and the
other has slipped under her t-shirt to her ribs.

She feels way too good.

I’ve got what you could
describe as morning wood, but mostly it’s because of the fact that my lips are
so close to her skin and I could easily and very happily kiss her now. She
stirs and a soft whimper escapes her. She hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s going
to soon, I can tell. When my eyes are drawn to the rise and fall of her breasts
I can’t hold back any longer.

I press my lips into
her skin in a tender kiss which elicits a quiet moan. I think I could blow my
load from that noise alone. I shift my body now so that my torso is between her
legs as I continue to kiss a line across her stomach. This is so inappropriate
but I can’t seem to help myself.

I trail my mouth to the
underside of her breast and to my dismay I find that she’s wearing a bra.
Pushing up her top a little I nuzzle the silky fabric.

This is the moment when
she gasps and whispers huskily, “Finn.”

I groan and continue to
kiss her, this time over the top of her breast and she lets out a shaky sigh.

“God,” she says, her
hand moving to sink into my hair.

When I reach her face
and my erection is pressed firmly into the soft, warm spot between her legs, I
bend down and trace my lips over hers. I wish she could see me right now, see
what touching her does to me.

“We shouldn’t,” she
protests but then falls silent when I take her mouth in a hungry, wet, claiming
kiss. I thrust my tongue inside and her entire body shivers beneath mine. I
reach underneath her to undo the clasp of her bra before slipping it off. Then
her magnificent breasts are exposed to me, and Jesus, they’re fucking perfect.

I mould one breast in
my palm and take the nipple of the other into my mouth, sucking hard. She cries
out and I smile as I swirl my tongue around the delicate pink peak.

When I trail my hand to
her inner thigh and then up between her legs she shudders. I rub my thumb over
her clit on top of her underwear and she begins to whimper, holding my head to
her breasts. I need to feel her, all of her, so I slide my hand beneath the
fabric. I groan when I feel how slick and wet she is for me, and I try to just
focus on this little piece of heaven away from all the shit that’s waiting for
us outside this room.

“Christ,” I mutter as I
find her entrance and thrust a finger in. She’s so tight.

“Finn,” she breathes.