Of A Darker Nature (16 page)

“No, Isabella will just send him back.” Even worse, she might send Corey. “Just be my friend. Those seem to be in short supply lately.”

“Who did she send, Emily? What’s his name?”

“Marcus.”

“The John Doe,” Wren supplied.

“I should have known this was the reason he was snooping around and trying to seduce you. Damn it!” Scott’s hands clenched into fists. “I’m coming back tonight. No way are you staying here by yourself with him.”

“Scott, it’s okay. Really.”

He folded Emily into a hug and touched his lips to her forehead. “Damn it, I’ve got to go. I just remembered I have a meeting tonight. I’ll come back afterward. Promise you’ll call if you need me? For anything.”

Wren stood and cast a forlorn glance in her direction. “Reconsider the ritual, okay?”

Emily peered out the window at the gathering clouds. Her voice sounded foreign even to her ears. “Everything’s under control at the moment.”

Wren took her time gathering her belongings, even though Scott was already waiting next to the truck. She pursed her lips and looked out at the yard and the trees beyond. “You can trust me, Emily. I'm not like Starr.”

“But you're part of her coven.” Emily eased herself onto the closest step and watched a squirrel climb the trunk of the redbud flanking the west side of the house. It darted onto several of the pink flowered branches and jumped to a larger oak. The rodent popped its tail, barked then dashed out of sight.

Wren looked like she didn’t want to answer. “You met her. You know how scary she is. She spends all our meetings going on about how we’ve got to stop the vampire reign of power and terror and whatnot. It gets old after a while. I don’t have the hatred for vampires and shifters like she does.”

The purple haired woman tossed her tote bag onto the porch. She sat next to Emily. “Up until a year ago, I practiced as a solitary witch. I’d never been in a coven, and it was a lot different than I’d expected.”

“So why don't you quit?” Emily stood and leaned against the porch railing. She glanced at Scott's truck, but he wasn't paying them any attention. He pressed his cell phone against his ear and turned his back to them.

Wren smiled an odd sort of smile. “It's a lot easier said than done. I used to work at Red Door with Brenda. Starr waited after work one night and invited me to attend a coven meeting. She promised a lot of great things, but never fulfilled any of those promises.”

“Brenda never mentioned that you used to work with her.”

She ignored Emily's interruption. “All my life, I’ve never been popular, never had many friends. I felt this might be a way to connect with people who were like me. You know, fit in. Meetings aren’t all that distinctive from church gatherings, but Starr is different. Oh, she put on a good act for a while, but eventually she showed her true face.”

Wren gathered the tote and hammer from where she’d dropped them. She turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. “Sometimes you have to set aside your misgivings, Emily. Not all witches are bad. Trust is a give and take affair. Let me know if you change your mind about the spell.”

She tossed the bag into the truck. Before climbing inside, she called, “I'm not sure where exactly, but the ley line is somewhere on your property. I can feel the energy, like a tingly static. Don’t let her near it.”

Emily’s back stiffened. “Why does she need my permission?” 

“I’m not sure. My guess is someone did a ritual to keep her off. Ley line magic can be dangerous stuff. It’s way out of my expertise. Just be careful, okay?”

Moments later Scott's truck pulled off down the road.  Once again, she was alone.

Brenda called about thirty minutes later. “I just can’t handle the emotional weight I’ve been lugging around. I’ve been a real bitch these last few days. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been through a lot.” Emily shifted the phone to the other shoulder and stared out the kitchen window again. The storm clouds looked ominous, and thunder rumbled overhead. “Why don’t I drive into town and we can have dinner? I hate the idea of you staying at a motel tonight.”

The idea of sitting alone in the ransacked house and waiting to see if Marcus showed up didn’t appeal to her either.

“That’s real sweet of you, Emily, but I can’t. They’re throwing a farewell party at work. I just wanted to call and tell you goodbye. I’m going to miss you.”

Emily hung up a few minutes later. The sting of not being invited to Brenda’s party did not bode well at all. Now she had nowhere to go and nothing to do. She already cleaned most of the remaining rubbish out of the house. She had yet to buy paint and had grown tired of looking at swatches.

“To hell with her.” Emily wandered into the living room. She looked out the window and searched for the dark blue sedan Scott noticed earlier. She didn’t see it anywhere.

“To hell with them all.” She grabbed the broom and swept the floor for the third time.

Nightfall was merely a matter of hours away. She opened the first closet door in search of the sleeping vampire. 

Marcus pulled himself free of the mud that encased his body and staggered to his feet. The patter of rain felt remarkably pleasant against his naked skin. The rain washed streaks of reddish-brown dirt down his body. This made the second night it had rained this week, and he had grown quite tired of it.

He bent to retrieve his clothes from the hollow tree he’d stuck them in and grudgingly pulled them over his rain soaked body.

“This isn’t going to work anymore,” he told the black bird who sat huddled in the hollow. The raven’s eyes looked like shiny beads as they watched him zip the soggy jeans.

“Wallowing in this cold, suffocating crud isn’t how I like to wake up. I can think of a much cleaner, cozier place.” His grin was lecherous.

The bird ruffled its feathers and sent water flying. Shaking her tail, she hopped onto the outer edge of the tree and stretched her glossy wings.

Apparently Ravenna didn’t care for the weather either. A rather large droplet hit her between the eyes, and she squawked her displeasure.

“I suppose I could turn on the old charm. How much finesse could it possibly take to sleep in the house without her trying something stupid, huh?”

The bird made a noise that sounded a lot like laughter.

He trudged down the hill toward the house. The bird took flight.

“Women like to pillow talk after they’ve been screwed silly, right? I bet I could get her to admit to anything and everything.”

Ravenna flew extremely close. The hair at the back of his head shifted in the jet stream of her impressive wingspan. “Watch it, you big turkey.”

She flew in a slow circle around him then rose higher than the surrounding trees. Finally, she disappeared. 

The faint smell of rot carried on the breeze. The rain must have washed some dead animal down the hill and closer to where he’d been sleeping. Whatever it was, the dead bastard had been rotting for some time. Maybe a hungry animal had dragged the carcass closer. He’d have to check it out.

He left his muddy clothes lying in a pile on the back porch. Though courteous wasn’t usually synonymous with his name, he brushed away all the dirt and muck he could. He grabbed the bag he had stashed between the patio chair and wall then went inside.

Marcus didn’t see Emily anywhere in the house. Unless she’d called someone—and he didn’t think she had—she hadn’t left. He had blocked her car with his and both were still outside.

He drew on his senses, locating her in the kitchen. She was cooking something atrocious, canned pasta by the smell of it. The pop and crack of food splattering the insides of the microwave seemed to be the norm.

He moved down the hallway and found the bathroom door ajar. Emily must have taken a shower recently because the mirror was fogged and the room was still humid.

He chuckled. Corey would be jealous to know that he’d caught her fresh from the shower the night before. She had shrieked and hauled ass down the hall. The short satin robe had clung to her damp body and barely covered her butt.

Marcus didn’t know what to expect tonight. Something different happened both nights he’d been here. The first night, for instance, her boss had come over for dinner. Marcus had come inside for a shower after they’d finished eating. Scott asked (more like demanded) that he not show up at the funeral home while Emily was working. Of course, there had been an argument and dog boy had slunk back to his truck shortly after that. Marcus grinned, remembering the forlorn look on Scott’s face. He probably carried a flame for Emily, and it tore him up that Marcus—or any male—was sharing time with her. It didn’t matter to him that Marcus didn’t want to be there. It was only an issue of time. He and Scott Hall would have more than words. Dog boy was living numbered days.

After he had scrubbed the earth from his skin, he pulled a pair of fresh jeans from the duffel bag and shook out a t-shirt. Aside from these articles of clothing, he’d worn everything he’d brought. He would certainly need Evan to courier some more over. He hung the wrinkled t-shirt over the towel bar to let the steam from the shower work them out. He slipped the jeans on then went in search of Emily.

Her feet moved across the wooden floors. The sound of her turning on the washing machine almost brought a smile to his face, but he figured that’d be too easy. He knew she wasn’t doing his laundry.

She had gone out of her way to annoy him in the little time he'd been here. She’d done everything from leaving a bowl of garlic on the kitchen island to eating enough garlic covered slop that it leaked out her pores. Thinking about it now brought a whisper of a smile. The only real bother was to his heightened sense of smell.

He opened the refrigerator and peered around a loaf of bread. He looked at the container of blood with distaste. Sighing, he poured some into a coffee mug and sat it in the microwave for a few seconds. He liked them warm so he could imagine the real thing, not the crap he’d been drinking since Isabella had forbidden him to snack on Emily.

“Only one tonight?” Emily watched him from the doorway.

He licked a drop from the corner of his mouth. “It’s all I can stomach. It just doesn't taste the same.”

She entered the kitchen with caution. “I’m going to have some ice cream. Will that bother you?”

“It’s your kitchen.” He pushed the chair across from him with the toe of his boot. “I don’t normally like to watch people eat, but you always seem to be on the verge of orgasm when you eat ice cream. It does make an entertaining show.”

The freezer door slammed shut. Emily planted herself in the chair across from him, and he was pleased to see her face was as red as her hair.

He allowed her a bit of a grin. Maybe he needed more blood after all.

“You can't eat food? Nothing at all?”

He shook his head and watched her spoon another bite of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food into her mouth. Her lips closed over the spoon, and she slowly pulled it back out. Her eyes fluttered shut and ugh…she must not know how it affected him.

“What about liquids?” she asked. “Not even a sip of wine or anything like that?”

“No, nothing. My stomach doesn't work like it used to.”

She seemed interested. “Does it make you sick?”

“Yes. Sometimes we must eat to pretend we're one of you. The consequences are not fun.”

“Do you ever wonder what something tastes like?” She helped herself to another spoonful. “I mean, there have to be new foods and stuff since you became a vampire, right?”

He was beside her in an instant, pulling her up out of the chair. “There are ways to get a taste.”

His mouth closed over hers in a slow, deliberate kiss. One hand cupped the back of her head, and he threaded his fingers through her hair. Her head fell back, and her mouth opened to his. He tasted her deeply savoring not only the ice cream, but the unique flavor that was Emily Cross. He crushed her against his body to make sure she felt his arousal. To deny that she was attractive, that he wanted to fuck her, would be a lie.

One of Emily’s hands curled against his shoulder while the other sought out his hair. She ran fingers through his locks as she stood on tiptoes to reach his mouth again. The press of her breasts against his bare chest tortured him. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath the loose tank top, and the scrape of her stiff nipples drove him wild. The flush of her skin and the quick rhythm of her pulse teased his senses.

“The only problem—” He claimed her lips again. This kiss was a bit more demanding. He wanted her to know he was very much male and that he craved her. “Is that it makes me hungry for other things as well.”

He wanted to do more than just kiss her. His teeth grazed her throat, bringing a soft moan from her. He wanted to bite, lick, feed and fuck.

She backed away, eyes full of lust and fear. What a tantalizing combination.

He allowed her to leave his embrace. Picking up the forgotten mug of blood, he brought it to his lips. He needed to get these silly thoughts out of his head. This girl, this blood bag, should not be eliciting notions such as these. Emily was simply a pawn, perhaps a meal. She’d never be anything more.

Emily sank into the chair and studied the melting treat. Finally, she looked at him.

“What’s wrong?” He winced after he’d said it. What did he care?

“I can’t figure you out.” She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know if you want to eat me or sleep with me.”

“If I said both?”

“That’s such a nosferatu thing to say.”

Marcus didn’t quite get this nosferatu business, but he let the snide remark pass. “If it makes you feel better, I can’t figure you out either. You’re different than most people. I sensed it the first time I saw you.”

Emily lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve been told that my entire life.”

“Why do you look so miserable about it? Different can be good.”

“I’m not miserable. Mostly I’m just frustrated and not just with the current situation.”

“Let me guess, you feel guilty about your parents' death?  Your sister despises and blames you for it? Or that your friend would rather be anywhere but here with you?” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I could partly be to blame for that last one I suppose.”

“You really cut to the quick, don’t you?” Her green eyes squinted in hurt anger. “That’s like me asking if you ever get tired of your graveyard tan. Do you even remember what the sun looks like?”

Emily scooted away from the table to shove the pint of ice cream back into the freezer. She held the spoon in front of her body, waiting for him to move.

“It’s just an observation, Freckles. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He washed out his cup, leaving it to rest in the drainer. “I’ve never been the warm and fuzzy type and I don’t see much point in changing now. I’ll be outside if you want me.”

He found a comfortable spot on the front porch. The rain had stopped, leaving the night fresh with renewal. The scent of fragrant honeysuckle carried to him on the light breeze, and distant rumbles of thunder hinted there might be more to come.

A doe stood with her fawn beneath a nearby tree. Her eyes were wide and wary having sensed his presence. The fawn nosed the ground with curiosity, oblivious to the predator only feet away.

He dug the cell phone from his pocket. Within moments, Evan filled him in on how things were going at home and how Isabella was dangerously close to driving everyone mad. “If I believed for one second that she could run this place without me, I’d bitch and moan until she sent me to have a slumber party with you and Emily.” He giggled, enjoying the idea.

“I need you to bring some of my things.”

“I’ll be over tomorrow afternoon.” Evan sounded excited at the prospect of seeing him. “Mistress has a meeting tomorrow, but I’ll try to come late enough to see you. Besides, I’d like to visit with your charge. She has a naïve sweetness about her, doesn’t she?”

“No one told me about any meeting,” Marcus said warily.

“Don’t worry. Her friend from Tulsa is coming to see her. He's loaned her a few of his people, remember?” 

“Ah, I see. Tell Patrick hello for me.” He leaned back against the steps. “Has Isabella been behaving herself?”

Evan was quiet for a moment, seeming to listen to Corey making noise in the background. Finally he answered, “As much as she ever does. Do you want Corey and Jai Li to come with me?”

Corey shouted an energetic hello over the background din.

Marcus watched the doe bound across the dirt driveway. The fawn followed close behind. Moments later, they disappeared into the thick trees beyond. “No, I’ll meet with them another time.”

He hung up with Evan and tried to relax, listening to the night sounds. His quiet reverie shattered by the back door banging shut. He sprinted around the house.

Emily swung the flashlight ahead of her and proceeded up the hill. Her tennis shoes slogged through the mud and slowed her down. Where could she be going in the middle of the night wearing only plaid pajama shorts and a tank top?

“It’s kind of late for a walk, isn’t it?”

“Bill’s security light just came on.” She pointed the flashlight toward the back of the property.

Marcus sensed nothing out of the ordinary. “There’s no one here. It’s just animals out after the rain.”

“I need to talk to him.”