Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (12 page)

Gwendolyn frowned and leaned over the trap again.
Her nose wrinkled.

“Phew. Well, I can definitely smell were on
it—can’t miss a stink like that.”

“That’s probably me, though,” Victor pointed out
blandly.

“I don’t know…” Gwendolyn came around the coffee
table, put her face close to him and inhaled. “Ugh!” She choked and backed off.
“Nope, that’s a whole other odor. Definitely a different were—I can smell your
stink but it’s not just you. I might be able to figure out the identity but
it’s going to take a little while and some fancy spellwork.”

Victor didn’t seem offended by her little display
but
I
certainly was.

“What are you trying to say?” I demanded, glaring
at her. “Why are you making that face? Victor smells wonderful—like fur and
leather and sunshine and…uh…” I trailed off, realizing they were both staring
at me quizzically.

“I know you haven’t been in the supernatural
scene long,” Victor said. “But witches have a stronger sense of smell than the
rest of us.”

“Every type of supernatural creature has a
magical scent—completely different from the scent their bodies make,” Gwendolyn
explained. “So don’t worry, sweetie, I wasn’t trying to dis your man’s personal
hygiene. I was just saying his magic stinks—to me, anyway. I can tell he went
furry recently—smells kind of like wet dog.”

Victor laughed. “Thanks. Real nice.”

Gwendolyn shrugged. “I call them like I smell
them.” She looked at me more closely. “You know, witches aren’t the only ones
with a magical scent detector—it’s just more developed in us. A lot of the reason
why supernaturals don’t like each other has to do with scent—they smell
different, smell
wrong
to each other.
It’s hard to like someone who stinks, even if you don’t realize it on a
conscious level.”

“She’s right.” Victor nodded. “That’s the reason
weres don’t like vamps—part of it, anyway.”

I was horrified. “You mean we…we
stink
to you?” And here I had been laying
all over him when I was taking his blood. Had he been holding his breath the
entire time, trying not to smell me? When he told me I smelled good before, was
he lying?

Victor must have seen the look on my face because
he reached over and grabbed my hand at once.

“No, baby—it’s not like that. Not with you,” he
protested. “I mean, most vamps smell like the snake cage at the zoo. But not
you, you smell like…like…”

“Like what?” I asked, pulling my hand away and
frowning at him. “You don’t have to lie to me, Victor. If you think I stink—”

“You
don’t
stink!”
he growled, obviously frustrated. “You smell good—
too
Goddamned good.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “What is
that
supposed to mean?”

“It means you smell like a female wolf. Like a
wolf going into—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head.

“Go on.” Gwendolyn looked amused. “Finish your
sentence, big guy. This is getting interesting.”

“We’re not here to talk about who stinks and who
doesn’t.” Victor’s eyes flashed gold with irritation. “We just want to know
what you can tell us about the fucking trap.”

Gwendolyn spread her hands—she had bright silver
nail polish on with little designs drawn in gold.

“Like I told you, that’s going to take a while.
There are spells I can do—identity spells, truth revealing spells—but they’re
not instantaneous. Magic—
real
magic—takes time. I can’t just wave my fairy wand and sing bibbity-bobbity-boo
or some shit like that.”

“How long?” Victor asked tersely.

Gwendolyn shrugged. “A couple of weeks at
least—maybe more.”

“Fine. Call me when you know.” Victor rose to go
but Gwendolyn gave him a frown.

“Not so fast, wolf. Aren’t you forgetting
something? Like the little matter of disposal and payment?”

Victor sank back down. “All right, what do I owe
you? And what do you mean by disposal?”

She nodded at the trap. “What I mean is that this
thing
is going to follow you and keep
popping up on your land and in your house unless someone who knows what they’re
doing gets rid of it.”

“Ugh!” I exclaimed involuntarily. I couldn’t help
thinking of how the trap had reset itself and moved around the kitchen without
Victor or I seeing it, even though it was right in plain sight.

“Ugh is right, sweetie,” Gwendolyn said calmly. “After
I finish testing it, this is going to have to go back to the Shadow Lands where
it came from—which means I have to go right to the edge myself. And that kind
of disposal doesn’t come cheap.”

“Okay, we get it—the fucking thing is toxic. So
how much do you want to get rid of it?” Victor was clearly near the end of his
patience.

Gwendolyn looked at me speculatively. “How long
have you been a vampire? It’s been under ten years, right?”

I nodded, mystified. “Well, yeah. I was turned
about six years ago. Why?”

“Because I’m casting a spell and I need blood
from a young vamp to make it work.”

“No,” Victor answered before I could reply. “No,
absolutely not. You can’t have anything from Taylor.”

“What? Why not?” I frowned at him. “It’s
my
blood. I should have a say, don’t you
think?”

“Well, technically, it’s
my
blood that you sucked out of
me,”
he rumbled, frowning.

“Your
blood?” I glared at him. “So
that’s how you feel? Like I owe you a blood debt because you let me drink from
you?”

“No, of course not.” He ran a hand through his
hair in frustration. “Look, I’m just saying you don’t want to give a witch any
kind of personal thing—hair, blood, fingernail clippings—basically anything
with DNA they can use against you.”

“Give me a break.” Gwendolyn threw up her hands.
“You really think I’m trying to get blood from your little vamp to what—use
against her? Control her in some way?”

Victor glowered at her. “It’s possible. How do we
know
you
aren’t the one who spelled
the damn trap in the first place?”

“Because I don’t work in the dark arts—I don’t go
to the Shadow Lands,” she snapped back.

“You made the stake Corbin used to finish off
that fucker, Roderick,” Victor pointed out.
“That
was some pretty black magic from what I hear. And you just offered to go to
the Shadow Lands to dispose of the trap.”

“I go to the borders—I don’t cross the Great
Barrier,” she protested.

“Fine, I don’t really care. But we’ll be paying
in cash—not anything else.” He got out his wallet. “So how much?”

Her eyes flashed. “Five hundred dollars. And
that’s cheap for removing a cursed object from your life.”

Victor looked pissed but he nodded anyway.

“Better than blood. But I don’t carry that much
on me—is there an ATM around here?”

“Right around the corner at the convenience
store,” Gwendolyn said. “I’ll wait.”

“I will too,” I said. “I mean, if you don’t mind,
I’d like to use your restroom to um, freshen up.”

She shrugged. “Sure. Down the hall and to the
left.”

Victor looked like he was going to say something
but then he shook his head.

“I’ll be right back.” He pointed a finger at me.
“No blood, all right?”

“Fine,” I said acidly, beginning to get really
upset. “Since it’s
your
blood anyway
and I’m just borrowing it, I guess it’s not mine to give.”

“Goddamnit…” He shook his head. “Forget it. I’ll
be back in a minute.”

The minute he was out of the house and I heard
the door of his truck slam, I turned back to Gwendolyn.

“Tell me what you were talking about earlier.
What were you saying about a vampire and a were being bonded?” I demanded.

She shrugged. “I was just saying it’s
unusual—that’s all.”

“That is
not
what you said and you know it,” I snapped. “You said I may be fine being
bonded to Victor now but I would have some kind of problems later.”

“I never said anything about problems.” She
raised an eyebrow at me. “Why? Are you having a problem?”

I just glared at her. Damn it, there was no way I
was going to tell her about the weird fantasies and the way my sex drive was
suddenly in overdrive, especially when I was around Victor.

“Well?” She drummed her silver fingernails on the
arm of the worn armchair she sat in. “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

“I
can’t
,”
I said. “I’m sorry, I just
can’t.”

Gwendolyn got up in a businesslike manner.

“I don’t have time to play guessing games,
sweetie. It’s going to take a hell of a ritual to send this trap back to the
Shadow Lands. Not to mention that I have to store the damn thing in my house
without my grandmother finding out until I can get the identity of whoever sent
it.” She picked up the plastic bag carefully, keeping an eye on the trap.
“Should have charged him more,” she muttered as she left the room, holding the
bag and Tupperware container at an arm’s length.

I was starting to feel desperate. Time was
ticking away and Gwendolyn had said the ATM was just around the corner. How
long could it possibly take for Victor to go get the cash and get back?
Not long,
I thought.
Not long enough to get any answers.

Feeling like I had to do
something
, I jumped up and followed her, going down the main
hallway of the house, which appeared to lead to the bedrooms. I wasn’t sure
which one Gwendolyn had gone into but one of the doors was ajar. I was just
about to knock on it when, to my surprise, I heard a deep, male voice coming
from inside.

“Well, well,
mon
chaton,
are you finally ready to admit you need me?”

“What are
you
doing here again?” Gwendolyn snapped. “I told you,
I’m fine.
Why don’t you go back where you belong and leave me
alone?”

“Maybe because it’s so much fun to annoy you.”
The deep voice grew serious. “Truly though,
ma
chere,
I could feel the curse on that trap from the other side—it drew me.
You really mustn’t try to take care of it alone or you’ll be injured. Here—let
me.”

“No, leave it. I’ll be
fine.
I’ll be fine if you ever just leave me alone!” She sounded
really irritated but also a little breathless.

My curiosity got the better of me and I peeked
through the crack in the door to see Gwendolyn standing in what appeared to be
a kind of workroom with the cursed trap in her hands. Standing right in front
of her was a tall, muscular man with black hair and eyes that were somewhere
between maroon and ruby. His tan skin was lighter than her creamy
café au lait
complexion—the contrast was
obvious because he had his hands over hers as he attempted to take the
Tupperware container away from her.

“I said let it go,” Gwendolyn demanded,
struggling to keep the trap away from him. “Just because I made a deal with you
once—
one time—
to get that damn stake
made, doesn’t give you the right to bother me the rest of my whole entire
life.”

“But I think you
like
it when I bother you,” the man murmured. He stopped trying to
take the trap from her and stroked her cheek instead. “Much more than you would
like to admit,
ma chere.”
Then, though
I would have sworn I was being quiet, he turned to look directly at me, through
the crack in the door. “Regrettably I cannot “bother” you nearly as much as I
want to as we appear to have company.”

Crap!
I took a step back, putting my
hand to my suddenly beating heart. There was something in those strange ruby eyes.
Something not human…but not were or vampire either. What
was
he?

“Oh!” Gwendolyn turned to me, an irritated look
on her flushed face. “What are
you
doing
sneaking around out there?” she asked.

I raised my chin. “I need to ask you some
questions about what you know. I…I need answers before Victor comes back.”

The man’s strange eyes flicked over me and an
amused look crossed his devilishly handsome face.

“I do believe your little vampire friend wants to
know about all the funny
feelings
she’s
been having ever since she started drinking were blood,
mon ange,”
he murmured to Gwendolyn.

I looked at him sharply. “Who are you? And how
did you know that?”

“I know all kinds of things,
mon petite loup.
One might say it is my job to know.”

My high school French was really rusty but I did
recognize a little.

“My little wolf? Why did you call me that—I’m a
vampire
.”

“But is a rose that smells like a tiger lily
still just a rose?” he asked with a little smile. “What about an orange that
tastes like an apple? A cat that barks like a dog?”