Wicked Soul

Chapter 19

NINETEEN

LIV

The blonde who’d opened the door for us took a small step closer to me, her gaze locked on the blood dripping down my thighs past my makeshift bandages.

Holy s**t, holy s**t, hoooly s**t! And I’d thought the night couldn’t get any worse after Mop sliced me open and threw me into a cage with a very hungry vampire.

I fidgeted anxiously, doing my best to keep an eye on all of them while still clinging to the column for support. How the hell did you chase off a herd—pride? Flock?—of vampires? I was pretty sure lying down and playing dead—the most tempting option right then—wasn’t going to do me any favors, and I was fresh out of bear spray.

Mother above, if you get me out of this, I swear I will never read another vampire novel ever again!

“Lay off.” The big auburn-haired man—Aleric—stepped into the center of the semi-circle, shielding me from the other vampires’ greedy looks, and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. It nearly made my knees buckle. “Warin claimed her. Has he been gone so long you’d really sink your teeth into an Ancient’s meal?” Then he turned to me. “C’mon, bloodsack.”

“I c-can’t walk,” I stuttered when the pressure on my shoulder indicated he was expecting me to follow along.

He arched a contemptuous eyebrow at me, heaved a deep sigh, and then swung me over his shoulder in one, easy scoop, like I was nothing more than a sack of grain.

I groaned in discomfort, and was thoroughly ignored as the tall vampire swooshed up out of the hall and down a wide corridor, faster than a human could have moved by far, but not as swiftly as Warin had run to get us here. He stopped in front of a heavy-looking black door with a keypad attached to the frame. Faster than my eyes could follow, he punched in a code.

The door beeped and swung open, allowing the vampire to walk inside in three long strides.

Once in, he unceremoniously dropped me to my feet. “Stay here.”

And then I was alone.

I stared at the now closed door, too dazed to fully comprehend what had just happened. Not that it really mattered how I’d gotten here, as much as it did that I was locked in a vampire’s bedroom, waiting for him to come have dinner.

The thought that I should probably try to call for help briefly flickered and died. The fanatics had taken my cellphone when they kidnapped me, the bedroom door was locked, and I didn’t see any phones or computers in the surprisingly modern room. Only two nightstands and the king-sized bed Aleric had dropped me by filled the large space, and the sheets on the bed looked to be simple, light gray cotton. Not blood-red or black silk, like I’d kind of expected thanks to my paranormal romance novels.

Apart from the entrance, there were two more closed doors on either side of the room. I assumed they led to an en-suite and a walk-in closet, respectively, but even if Warin had hidden wooden stakes and PIN-free cell phones, I didn’t have the strength to look for either.

I sank down on the bed with a pained groan. There was nothing I could do but hope Warin would remember his promise not to harm me. And that hopefully, he’d bring me to a hospital before it was too late.

I stared miserably at the door while I waited for the man who’d been a stranger to me up until mere hours ago to decide my fate.

I didn’t have to wait long.

After only a few minutes, the door swung open and Warin stepped in.

There was something distinctly lighter about him than there’d been since the fanatics tied him up, and when I caught his gaze, I saw his eyes were once again startling blue, rather than pitch black. He’d also retracted his fangs, which did a lot to take the edge off his “terrifying creature of the night” vibe.

He didn’t say anything as he took in my disheveled form sprawled on his bed.

“I… think I need to go to the hospital,” I said, breaking the silence and hopefully reminding him of his promise not to harm me. My voice was about as pitiful as I felt—which was quite a bit. “I’m not doing too good.”

Warin shook his head and walked to the bed. “No. I will take care of you. It will be much faster.”

“What will be much faster?” I asked. He hadn’t brought a First Aid kit with him.

The vampire sank down on the bed next to me and rolled up his left sleeve, displaying a patch of clean, pale skin emblazoned with an intricate tattoo. “Vampire blood has strong healing properties for humans. Come.” With a smooth movement, he scooted further back on the bed, spread his legs, and grabbed me by the hips, easily lifting me up and then depositing me between his thighs, my back pressed against his chest.

I squeaked and was admonished with a, “Shh.”

Warin wound his right arm loosely around my stomach, ensuring I stayed put, and lifted his bare left arm out of my field of vision. I heard a snick right by my ear, and then his arm reappeared in front of my lips. Blood bloomed from two puncture wounds on his wrist. “Drink.”

What? Ew. Ew, ew, so much ew! Did he really expect me to…?

I stared at his wrist, suddenly overwhelmed with the intimacy of the situation as much as the thought of actually drinking someone else’s blood. His strong body was pressed against my back, his legs cushioning mine, and while he might have been fully clothed, I was only in a ruined summer dress. And my t**s were out, I suddenly remembered. If I’d had enough blood left in my body, I’d have blushed when the realization hit me that I’d effectively flashed him and every other vampire in the mansion.

I’d forgotten. In the middle of all the horrors, I’d actually forgotten I was half-n***d, save a solid smearing of dirt that clung to every inch of me.

“Er… I think I prefer some iodine. Thanks, though.”

Warin chuckled softly in my ear. “Drink, Liv. I promise, you will feel much better for it.” And then he pressed his bleeding wrist to my lips.

The tang of blood hit my nostrils before my tongue slid out without my consent to lick at the sticky fluid smeared against them.

Sensation exploded across my taste buds, making me gasp into his wrist. More blood dripped into my mouth, and I moaned without meaning to. Oh, goddess, it tasted like… like wild, dark, fantastic…!

I clutched onto the vampire’s wrist with a strength that surprised even me and deepened my mouth’s contact with his skin. Blood, thick and sinfully sweet, dripped past my lips and buzzed on my tongue.

“That’s enough,” Warin groaned. “If you drink too much, you will become intoxicated.”

When I only clung on tighter, he released my waist and gently dislodged me from his wrist. He remained close, though—near enough that I could feel his hard chest press against my back and his even breath against my ear. It didn’t feel awkward anymore, though.

“Intoxicated?” My lips prickled pleasantly, and I licked them with a happy hum. My entire body seemed to buzz with a low frequency.

“My blood is very potent,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Amazing.” I smiled, completely at peace with the universe and life in general. That was when I realized my wounds no longer ached. I traced the cut on my collarbone with a fingertip and found the flesh welded back together. “Magic?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, neither confirming nor denying. His breath blew some of my hair that’d escaped the ponytail during the night’s a***e against my cheek. It tickled.

“Warin?”

“Liv?”

“Why do you breathe? You weren’t while you were sleeping, so clearly you don’t need to.”

The vampire made an amused noise. “More questions?”

“Well, yeah, if…” Something dawned on me, and I sobered considerably. “If you don’t mind. I know you were, ah, hungry.” Would he expect me to return the favor? I rubbed subconsciously at my neck, the small hairs all along my body standing on end. Suddenly, his proximity was less than soothing.

“I ate. We breathe because that’s how we scent. Our sense of smell is as important as our eyes and ears.” I paled significantly at the casual reference to his meal.

“Oh, you… uh, you ate someone? While your brother took me up here?” Flashes of our dead kidnappers played on loop before my mind’s eye. I didn’t mourn them—the bastards had tried to get me eaten alive, after all. But their lifeless bodies had been a very clear indication that my new vampire buddy wasn’t always as pleasant as he seemed now.

“No.” Warin moved away from me, swiveling his legs around so he could leave the bed. He stood up and began to fiddle with his sleeve, covering up the tattoo and bite. A quick glance at his face confirmed his fangs were safely hidden away again.

As if he could feel my eyes on his mouth, he gave me a short look. “I have donor blood in storage.” Then, for the briefest moment, his gaze flickered to my chest. “I’ll get you a change of clothes. If you wish, you can wash up in the bathroom.”

“Oh. Oh!” I quickly slapped my hands up to cover my breasts. “Y-yeah, thank you. That’d be great.”

My legs were still wobbly as I made my way to the en-suite, but not like before. It felt more like I was walking on clouds rather than having two pieces of boiled noodles attached to my body.

Warin’s bathroom was as sparsely decorated as his bedroom, but there was no questioning the luxury of it. Black marble tiled both the walls and the floor, and the shower looked like something straight out of Millionaire Living. I gave it a long look—he’d said to wash up, and I’d planned on maybe using the sink, but the sight of the glass-paned shower made me reconsider. It might be a bit odd to shower in a stranger’s home, but on the other hand, drinking someone’s blood really ought to ease up the rules of etiquette.

Mind made up, I tossed my ruined dress and underwear on the floor and stepped in.

I’d never enjoyed a shower more than I did then. The warm spray rinsed off caked dirt and dried blood, and somehow managed to feel like a massage to boot. I was surprisingly free from any aches and pain, but standing underneath the hot water as brown and red swirls disappeared into the drain below me eased my frazzled mind too. Somehow, I’d made it out of getting kidnapped and fed to a vampire.

I giggled, the sound of it trickling through my throat, seemingly from out of nowhere. And another. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe, until the cramps in my chest turned to sobs. I cried, leaning against the cool tiles of the vampire’s bathroom, as I silently thanked my goddess for getting me out of that basement alive. I’d thought I would be r***d and murdered more times this evening than anyone should in the full span of a lifetime, and yet I’d made it through my ordeal relatively unscathed.

It took me a few minutes to pull myself together enough to stop crying again. Somewhat shaky, both from the emotional outburst and the lingering effects of Warin’s blood, I turned off the tap and promised myself a good, long cry later, in the privacy of my own bathroom. Crying in the shower of the vampire who’d saved my a*s seemed somewhat ungrateful—especially since he’d been gracious enough to let me use the facilities first, even though he was also filthy from our great escape.

I used one of the pristine, charcoal towels to dry myself off, luxuriating in the softness of it as I wrapped it around my body. When I wiped the steam off the mirror above the sink to check my reflection, I looked much more human than I’d felt before washing the day’s horrors off.

In fact… I squinted at myself. I looked pretty damn good. No bruises, no scrapes… My green eyes even seemed brighter, and my complexion was flawless.

I pressed my face all the way into the mirror and peered down at my nose. Nope—not so much as a blackhead in sight.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Was that because of Warin’s blood too? Or maybe the dirt underneath the fanatics’ house had some form of miracle mud mixed in.

A soft knock on the door made me pull back from staring at my own nose, a sliver of guilt at my vanity making me cringe as I turned. Here I was, taking my sweet time admiring myself, and Warin was probably dying for a shower too.

Or, undying, as it were.

Making absolutely sure the towel was secured over my breasts—because there’s only so many times you can flash a dude before it becomes awkward—I cracked the door open and peered out.

Warin stood outside the door, a small pile of fabric in his hands. “If you need a change of clothes,” he said, politely pretending like my dress hadn’t been dangling around my waist for a good part of the night.

“Thanks.” I smiled, thankful my first run-in with a vampire had been with him, rather than one of the ones from the government scare campaigns. Hell, I was pretty sure I’d never met a human man who’d been this polite. “You’re a lifesaver.”

And then I punched him lightly in the shoulder.

He stared at me for two full seconds, and I stared back, not quite comprehending what I’d just done.

You just bro-punched a vampire in the shoulder is what you did, Liv. A smoking-hot vampire who literally saved your life and fed you his blood as if it was NyQuil.

I grimaced and snatched the clothes out of his hand before he could change his mind about offering me any further assistance, quickly shutting the door behind me with a, “Won’t be a minute!”

Only I definitely would be, I realized as I pulled on the clothes he’d brought me.

The shirt—light gray, crisp linen with an Armani tag—wasn’t a problem. I sniffed the collar as I buttoned it up, and hummed with pleasure at the smell of the fresh night air. It was much too big on my frame, which wasn’t overly surprising as it clearly belonged to Warin. He was only a couple of inches taller than me—maybe six foot or thereabouts—but he was much wider across the shoulders. I rolled up the sleeves to not look like a little girl playing dress-up in her daddy’s closet, and turned my attention to the bottoms he’d brought me.

The were a dark charcoal gray, the same shade as the towels, and as immaculately wrinkle-free as the shirt. The only problem was that they were clearly also tailored to Warin, and I only got them to mid-thighs before they got well and truly stuck.

“Sonuvabitch,” I muttered, pulling desperately at the waistband. They refused to budge so much as an inch. Goddamn my round hips and inability to stay away from fast food! “Come on!”

“Liv? Is there a problem?” Warin’s voice sounded from outside the door.

“Yeah, just…” I sighed, giving up on my fight with the pants. “Do you have some other pants? …With an elastic waist?”

He was silent for a bit, then said, “I’m afraid not. What size are you? I will send someone to purchase something suitable.” His voice came from further away—from inside his walk-in closet, I guessed.

“No, that’s not necessary!” I protested, cringing at the thought of the perfectly beautiful—and very well-dressed—vampire who’d opened the door for us having to go to an all-night Wal-Mart just because my a*s was too big. “Don’t you have a pair of sweatpants? Or even boxers would be fine.”

Another moment’s pause, followed by a knock on the bathroom door. I cracked it open, ensuring my lower half was hidden behind it, and peered out.

Warin held out a pair of blue silk boxer shorts for me. “If they don’t fit, it is no trouble to send for a set of women’s clothes.”

“They’ll fit.” If it was the last thing I did, I’d get into them or die trying. Sending vampires to run errands might have been business as usual for him, but I was not about to attract any more attention from the three who’d surrounded me downstairs, fangs out and basically salivating at the thought of full-on eating me.

Did vampires salivate?

“Thanks!” I slammed the bathroom door shut and stepped into the boxers, praying they wouldn’t rip.

The thick silk fabric was pulled tight over my thighs and rear-end in a way it definitely wasn’t meant to, but I managed to squeeze into them without any accidents.

“Oh, thank the goddess,” I mumbled as I finally went to leave the bathroom for good. I might not have had much dignity left, but I very much appreciated not having to flash the poor vampire anymore of my lady bits.

Warin was waiting for me on the bed, absentmindedly stroking a hand over one of my now dried-up blood splotches on his sheets.

“Uh, yeah… sorry about your sheets,” I said. “I can have them cleaned for you.”

He looked up at me, mild surprise at my offer evident on his still-dirty face. “That’s not necessary.”

“You sure? I kind of wrecked them good.” I made a vague gesture at one of the bigger splotches.

“Yes.” He touched a cleaner part of the sheets. “Come, please. Sit. I wish to talk with you for a moment.”

“Sure.” With what he’d done for me this night, he could talk at me as much as he pleased.

I sat down on the bed, careful not to plant his silk boxers in any of the grime. “What’s up?”

“In the basement… you stepped in front of the man with the stake. Why?”

I frowned, trying to remember what he was referring to. The entire night was blurring into one long horror story, so it took me a little while to remember what he meant. “Oh. I dunno. Isn’t that a pretty normal reaction to seeing someone attempt to t*****e a person?”

Warin stared at me for a long moment before he softly said, “No, Liv. It’s not a normal reaction for a human to try to shield a vampire from harm with her own body.”

I shrugged, the unwavering attention from his blue gaze making me fidget on the bed. “I guess I’ve never liked seeing people pick on someone weak. I didn’t really think about it.”

Warin blinked three times in rapid succession, then narrowed his eyes at me. “You think I’m incapable of protecting myself?”

Oh, lovely. Had I managed to hurt his male pride?

“I’m sure you’re very capable, under normal circumstances. But, I mean, they had you tied up in a cage.”

His full lips twitched. “They had us both in a cage.” He placed a single, cool fingertip underneath my chin. “Never, ever put yourself in danger for a vampire again.”

I wasn’t exactly used to near-strangers touching me like that—and especially not near-strangers with features like Adonis himself, with blazing blue eyes that made made my heart speed up and the rest of the world seem to fade. I blamed my lack of experience with such situations for why it took me nearly five full seconds before I realized I, instead of answering the man, was staring dreamily at Warin with a dumb smile on my face.

“Ugh-um,” I coughed as I swiftly pulled back from his light touch, face hot and undoubtedly bright red. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not like I’ve got any set-in-stone plans about throwing myself in harm’s way, or anything, but I’m pretty sure that in the unlikely event I find myself in a similar situation, I’d do the same again. Sorry.”

I don’t know why I tacked the “sorry” on—maybe it was because Warin looked absolutely dumbfounded, sensual mouth agape and eyes wide, and I felt kinda guilty about making a man that hot lose his composure.

Apparently unaware of my inappropriate thoughts, Warin wrapped his hand around my jaw, squishing my cheeks and trapping my gaze with his once more. “Liv. I am far stronger than you—far faster, and far more durable. You are too fragile to get between a vampire and a wooden stake, and you will never again defend one of my kind with your own life. Do you understand?”

It felt as if magnets deep in his sparkling blue eyes pulled on me, making me woozy and my thoughts foggy. I blinked, trying to clear my head before I gently reached up to free my face from his grasp.

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment and all, but let’s be honest here. Yeah, I don’t have super speed, and while I’ve never tried, I’m pretty sure I can’t kick a door in. But. I can lift a silver bracelet, and I don’t have any wood allergies, so please calm your t**s with all your macho bullshit, a’ight?”

Warin stared at me for another drawn-out moment. Then his eyes crinkled at the corners and his deep laughter rumbled through the room.

It was such an unexpected sound from the otherwise stoic vampire, I narrowly caught my rampant hormones before they galloped off on a tangent about his gorgeous face again. He might have been sexy as sin, and I might have felt inexplicably calm in his company, now that I was relatively sure he wasn’t gonna eat me, but I so wasn’t going there.

Plus, at twenty-seven, I was way too old to crush on a guy who’d inevitably get carded every time he went out to a bar—undead or not.

“Can vampires drink alcohol?” I asked, frowning at the idea of Warin in a bar. My paranormal romance novels had plenty of broody nightwalkers hanging out at college bars, sipping whiskey and trawling for dinner.

Warin hummed, but didn’t answer. He peered into my eyes, his own alight with curiosity as if he was looking for something—like I was some intricate puzzle, and if he just searched long enough, he’d find the missing piece.

I bit my lip and tried to return his gaze, but my hormones were harder to control while maintaining eye contact. It didn’t take long before I began to fidget on the bed, wishing he’d get bored soon.

“My apologies—you must be tired,” Warin said, finally breaking his one-sided staring contest with a soft sigh. “I have a guest room made up, if you would like to sleep here. I’ll have someone drive you home when you wake up.”

Sleep in a house filled with vampires? Uh, thanks but no thanks.

“I think I’d better get home.” I got up from the bed and stretched.

“Of course.” He followed me up, but kept a more socially acceptable distance than when he’d stared into my eyes. “I’ll have Edward take you.”

“Uh, is he… human?” I grimaced. “No offense.”

“Yes. You will be in safe hands—I promise.”

I smiled at his earnest tone. “Thank you, Warin—for everything.” I flashed him a grin. “And for not eating me.”

“Meeting you was a pleasure, Liv.” He took my hand between both of his, squeezing it briefly before he released his grip and walked to the door, opening it. “Be safe.”