Safe Hex With a Vampire

By Cassandra Lawson

Copyright 2013 Cassandra Lawson

Smashwords Edition

Vampires and Vixens (Psy Vamp Book One)

Thank you Jennifer, Jessica, Carla, Kara,
Trista, Levenia, and Melissa for all of your insights. You ladies
are fantastic! I am also grateful for my brother, Daniel, who spent
so much time helping me with my cover design. Most of all, I want
to thank my mom and dad for always encouraging me to follow my
dreams

.

Many younger members in the Draksel family
look at the painting and see my late wife, Lenore. Those who are
older, or simply have a good eye, know that this girl is not
Lenore. She was never the wife of the man sitting here now. She was
the wife of the boy who still believed he was, at least somewhat,
human.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

Aiden Draksel was nervous. Actually,
terrified was a better word. His Uncle Roman hadn’t spoken one word
to him since the unfortunate incident. That is what Aiden chose to
call it. The rest of the Draksel family called it the attempted
kidnapping of his cousin’s fiancée. The memory made him cringe. He
still couldn’t believe his own actions and was glad that his mother
wasn’t alive to hear about it. Facing her would have scared him
much more than facing his uncle.

The woman had truly been a force to be
reckoned with. She’d been a little woman with a big temper. Both he
and his father had feared that temper. It was actually amusing to
outsiders since they’d both been nearly a foot taller than her.

It had been nearly two years since his
parents’ deaths and he still missed them. The pain had lessened but
not the loneliness. That loneliness is what had driven him to move
to the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to his cousins.
Unfortunately, having lived most of his life away from the Draksel
family hierarchy, he didn’t fit in.

He ran his fingers through his hair, again
regretting his decision to cut it short. His hair was normally at
least to his collar and often longer than that. It was one of the
few things that had made him stand out in a family full of men who
looked far too much alike. They all had dark brown hair and light
blue eyes. They were all in the neighborhood of six feet tall with
relatively similar builds. Worse than that, they all looked around
the same age. He wasn’t saying that they looked like clones, but
the similarities were disconcerting to him.

Aiden shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A
servant had led him to the family room as soon as he’d arrived at
his uncle’s Carmel home. That had been more than twenty minutes ago
and his uncle had yet to acknowledge his presence. Oh, he was in
the room, but he was ignoring Aiden. That only made Aiden more
anxious, but perhaps that was his uncle’s intention.

Roman Draksel was a frightening man. He was
cold and reserved, with a reputation for cruelty. He always dressed
in designer clothing and was always meticulously groomed. Today was
no exception. His uncle wore black trousers paired with a jade
green dress shirt. Aiden felt tempted to point out the small pink
stain on his uncle’s pants, but he decided against it. That little
flaw in his uncle’s appearance actually relieved some of Aiden’s
tension.

“She was lovely, wasn’t she?” Roman finally
spoke, but didn’t take his eyes off of the painting of his late
wife, Lenore. He’d been staring at it since Aiden’s arrival.

“Yes,” Aiden agreed. She’d had silky black
hair, skin like porcelain, and naturally red lips. He’d been a
young man the one time he’d met Lenore and he’d been more than a
little infatuated with her. It had been a long time since her death
but he still remembered the kindness that shone in her blue
eyes.

Aiden frowned as he took note of the eyes in
the painting. “Lenore had blue eyes,” he said. His infatuation was
probably the only reason he remembered that detail.

His uncle thought for a moment before he
nodded. “Yes, I believe she did.”

“Then why does she have brown eyes in the
painting.” Aiden asked.

“The woman in the painting isn’t Lenore,”
Roman replied and then he finally looked at Aiden. “She is,
however, the reason I called you here. You have a talent for
locating people,” his uncle explained.

It surprised Aiden that he knew about that
skill. It was true, but it wasn’t something Aiden had shared with
anyone other than his parents. Everyone’s life force felt
different. All around him he sensed billions of tiny threads that
represented the life force of every living person, human or
vampire. If he’d met someone, especially if he’d touched them, he
could reach out with his mind to find the thread that belonged to
that person and follow it to its source. He hadn’t met the woman in
the painting so his talent would be useless in locating her. “Who
is she?” he asked.

“Her name is Claudia. At one time, more than
four centuries ago, she was my wife. Up until recently, I thought
she was dead.” There was a hint of emotion in his uncle’s
voice.

“So she isn’t dead?”

Roman shook his head. “It would seem that she
is very much alive. When I first saw her, I thought it was my eyes
playing tricks on me. You see, I loved Claudia so much that a part
of me died when I lost her.”

Aiden couldn’t mask his surprise.

That shocked expression actually earned him a
smile from Roman. The smile made him look like a different man.
“Yes, I was once a young man full of passion.”

“Lenore looked a lot like Claudia,” Aiden
pointed out. “There could be other women with similar
features.”

“Yes, and that’s why I followed her the next
time I saw her. Everything was the same, including the
crescent shaped birthmark on her shoulder.” Roman paused as he
stared at the painting with a distant look in his eyes. “It has to
be her.”

“Why didn’t you just approach her?” It didn’t
make any sense that his uncle would ask him to track down a woman
when he’d already seen her.

Roman shrugged. “Initially, I had no
intention of contacting her. Too much time has passed to get back
what we had. Recently, things have changed.”

Aiden waited for more of an explanation, but
apparently his uncle wasn’t in the mood to share too many details.
“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find Claudia, speak to her,
and see if there is anything I can do for her.” He hesitated. “I
don’t want her to see the man I’ve become or hear about the things
that I’ve done. I also don’t want to interfere with the life that
she’s built for herself.”

Aiden didn’t really understand his uncle’s
reasoning but he nodded anyway. “So I find Claudia and just ask if
she needs anything? What’s the catch?”

Roman looked toward the staircase. There was
a strange expression of longing on his face. “It’s time to put my
past behind me, once and for all. Do you understand?”

Aiden didn’t, but he nodded anyway. His uncle
was being intentionally cryptic so he figured there was no point in
pushing the issue. At best he would get more vague answers. He was
just happy that they weren’t going to discuss the unfortunate
incident. Aiden studied the portrait more closely. “How has she
changed?”

“Her appearance hasn’t changed all that much.
Naturally, her clothing was more modern when I saw her.” There was
a moment of silence as Roman struggled to define some quality. “She
had the look of a predator.”

That bit of information didn’t surprise Aiden
at all. He felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. The only way she
could still be alive was if she’d had his uncle’s child. That meant
that she’d been transformed into something only vaguely resembling
a human being, and then cast out into the world alone. With no one
to protect her or the child, she would have been forced to become a
true predator or die. She would have needed blood to survive back
then, but females didn’t have fangs. He didn’t want to know how
she’d managed to get blood without fangs.

Roman handed him a slip of paper. “This is
the part of San Francisco where I’ve seen her. I’ve followed her
more than once in this area.” He rose from his seat and walked
toward the stairs. “You can stay the night in the guest room
downstairs. Do not go upstairs under any circumstances.”

Roman left without another word.

Aiden’s talent for finding people wouldn’t be
of any use but his uncle’s information might help. He snapped
several pictures of the portrait with his phone, not that he could
ever miss a woman who looked like Claudia. For a long time he just
stared at the painting. He knew there was much more to this story.
He’d seen enough of his father’s work to know that he’d painted the
portrait. Aiden’s father had rarely done portraits, and then only
for people he was very close to. Aiden wondered why his father had
never mentioned Claudia.

“
What is your name?” I gave her my most
charming smile.

“
Claudia.” She didn’t smile back.

“
I’m Roman. It would be nice if we could
walk together.” I put as much compulsion into my voice as I
could.

“
Rot in Hell,” was all she said as she
stormed out of the room.

It is no lie; I had never been so aroused in
my entire life.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

It was a little after nine in the morning
when Aiden headed out. Normally, he was an early riser, but he’d
barely slept the previous night. After settling his stuff into the
guest room, he’d gone down to the basement, where he knew his uncle
had a full gym. He’d pushed himself for two hours but he still
couldn’t get his mind to shut off. So he’d finally showered and
headed to bed, only to lay awake and stare at the ceiling.

The painting disturbed him. He’d seen it
before but only in passing. Those times he’d never paid it much
attention, assuming it was a painting of Lenore. He knew from his
cousins that the portrait traveled everywhere with his uncle so it
wasn’t a novelty and it usually remained in his uncle’s room. Had
he not been studying it closely, he still would have believed it
was Lenore even though there were more differences than the eye
color. Had he given it more than a passing glance in the past, he
would have noticed immediately that it was his father’s work.

That was the real problem. It wasn’t the
idea that there were big family secrets that bothered him. Hell,
the Draksel family was full of deception. What bothered him was the
realization that his father had kept secrets. Unlike the rest of
his family, his parents had been an open book, or so he’d believed.
Now he discovered some mystery woman in the family that his father
had known well enough to paint her portrait. He couldn’t help but
wonder if this woman had been the cause of the rift between his
father and uncle.

The other thing that kept him up was the
reality that he wasn’t likely to find Claudia. Despite his uncle’s
belief that it would be easy to locate her, Aiden had as much of a
chance of finding her as anyone else. At least his uncle had
narrowed the search area to a five mile radius. Still, he had to be
in that five mile radius at just the right time.

Even if he did, by some miracle, see Claudia
she might run like a bat out of hell when he approached her. She
was sure to recognize him as a member of the Draksel family and
she’d spent centuries avoiding them. He had no details about why
his uncle believed she was dead and it was certainly possible that
she’d taken off or faked her own death. Too bad his uncle didn’t
seem inclined to share more details. He’d avoided seeing Aiden
again after their conversation the previous night.

If she ran, what was he supposed to do? Tie
her up until she listened to him. That thought caused his mind to
travel in a very dangerous direction. His uncle might be planning
to let Claudia go, but Aiden was sure it was still not okay for him
to have bondage fantasies about her. His uncle would definitely
kill him if he tied her to his bed. Then he wondered if maybe he
could get her to tie him to a bed, and that made him smile. Yep, he
was probably going to get himself killed.

“Damn, I’m an idiot,” he grumbled as he sat
in bumper to bumper traffic. The drive from his uncle’s house to
San Francisco normally took about two and a half hours, but traffic
was particularly bad that day so it would be at least one by the
time he arrived. He hated driving, even when the traffic wasn’t
bad. His father had fallen in love with cars after their invention.
The man had even done some racing. Aiden hadn’t learned to drive
until about twenty years ago. He’d learned to fly a plane and a
helicopter first. Those he actually enjoyed, but there weren’t many
traffic jams when you were flying.