Safe Hex With a Vampire (18 page)

She nodded. “It’s very sad. I’ve always been
told that he abandoned Claudia because he didn’t want the child of
a servant.”

“That seems very unlikely,” Aiden said as he
stroked her hair. “His second wife, Lenore, was so poor that her
parents practically sold her to Roman. Our family is limited on who
we can procreate with so class isn’t really an issue.”

She turned back to Aiden. “In the human
world, class mattered quite a bit back then; it still does today,
so it was a logical assumption. She was left with enough money to
support herself and the baby, but she never saw him again. I always
assumed that they hadn’t married in a church and he’d never
intended to really marry her, just get her into bed.”

“I see your point,” he admitted and then he
thought for a moment. “I wonder who left the money for her. Roman
had no idea where she was.”

“I hadn’t even thought about that,” she
said. “Honestly, a lot of what we know is guesswork. I don’t think
Claudia revealed too much to her daughter. This blog gives so many
more details than we had but it still leaves a lot of unanswered
questions.”

Aiden shrugged. “I guess we’ll probably
never know the whole story. I still can’t believe Roman has a blog
and it talks about his past so openly.”

“He almost taunts the reader at the
beginning,” Tempest says with a little laugh. “He tells them that
he can call himself a vampire because people will just think it’s a
work of fiction. This blog is heart breaking. He really loved her,
and they had such a short time together before his father found
them.” She looked at Aiden. “The man who helped find them was able
to track people like you.”

“I’m the only one in the Draksel family, but
there are other families that have men with this talent,” he
explained.

“His father had rescued Claudia from being
executed as a witch, but it was only so he could use her. I guess
he was angry when Roman ran off with her. When Roman left her for a
few days his father found her. He told Roman that he had her hung
as a witch. I think it destroyed Roman in some way to lose her. He
seems so alive when he’s talking about his time with her, but so
cold when he talks about any time after that.”

Aiden couldn’t mask his own horror. His
grandfather’s involvement shouldn’t have surprised him. His father
had told him that the man was a monster and no one had been sad
about his death, but Aiden had grown up with a loving father. It
was hard to imagine something like this. “Do you want to meet Roman
now?”

She thought about it for a long time. “I’m
not sure. Part of me does, but he seems a little frightening.”

“I can’t imagine you being afraid of
anything,” he said with an amused grin.

“I should talk to Ivy and my cousins Rose
and Willow.”

“Who are Rose and Willow?” he asked. Then
realization dawned on him. “Oh, the bimbo twins that let me out
must be Rose and Willow.”

“Bimbo twins?” She sounded a little
offended. “Wait, they let you out? I just assumed that you used the
key to get out.”

He sat down on the bed and started to remove
his shoes. “They didn’t want me polluting the gene pool.”

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Sorry, that was a little rude of them to say to your face.”

“So, they had already said it behind my
back?” He laid down on the bed and folded his hands behind his
head.

“Well, yes,” she admitted, giving in to the
temptation to cuddle up beside him on the bed. “What’s Roman
like?”

“He’s pretty damn scary,” Aiden said and
wrapped one arm around her, “It’s not that he’s violent, although I
get the impression that he can be. He’s just cold. I was at his
house shortly after the death of his only son and he didn’t even
mention it to me. Although I will admit that he seemed distracted.
He kept looking at the staircase like he wanted to go up there.
Maybe he wanted to be alone.”

“People grieve in different ways,” Tempest
said.

Aiden nodded. “I guess he may have assumed
that I already knew. Like I said, I wasn’t close to most of the
family. Sofia likely wouldn’t have mentioned it even if she had
seen me. Ursula would have told me, but I’ve been avoiding Ursula
since the kidnapping thing.” He thought some more. “Roman was very
kind to me, in a distant sort of way, when my parents died. After
his second wife died, he took in her illegitimate son and he was
never cruel to him. In fact, I always got the impression that he
really likes him. Those are good things.”

She nodded. Aiden wasn’t sure if she was
agreeing with him or acknowledging that she’d heard him.

“I wish I could tell you more,” Aiden
said.

“What happened to your uncle, Viktor?” she
asked out of the blue.

Aiden looked surprised by her question. “My
uncle
, Viktor?”

“The blog mentions his love for a human
named Ana.”

Aiden gave her a sad smile. “Viktor was my
father.”

She placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. So
he did get over Ana.”

“Eventually,” he said. “After Ana died my
father went to Ireland. Ana’s daughter had married a man from
Ireland but Ana refused to move with them. I believe she loved my
father as much as he loved her, but they couldn’t have been
together.”

“From your accent I take it he settled in
Ireland.”

“That he did,” Aiden said. “Being close to
Ana’s descendants made him feel like he still had a piece of her
with him. He would stay for several years and then try to move
around, but he always came back to Ireland. My mother was one of
Ana’s descendants. She was the first woman born with any psychic
abilities. She was also the first of Ana’s descendants that my
father hadn’t met as a child. He once told me that it was a lucky
thing. He didn’t think he could have fallen in love with a woman
he’d held as a baby. He saved her life. She was tortured until she
confessed to being a witch. That’s how she lost the fingers. My
father returned just in time to save her. He truly loved my mother.
There were times that I envied them, but it wasn’t until after
their deaths that loneliness really set in.”

“Thus the clumsy kidnapping attempt,” she
said as she smiled up at him.

He laughed. It was the first time he’d
actually laughed at that memory. He stroked her arm absently. “It
was not my finest hour.”

Tempest snuggled in closer to his body and
sighed. Aiden felt surprisingly comforted by her mere presence. He
suddenly had a much greater understanding of what his parents had.
He realized that he would do anything to keep Tempest.

Reaching my estate near London should have
been a relief, but it was not. I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling
that I’d had since my run in with Sofia.

Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog

Aiden’s phone woke him up early the next
morning. “Hello,” he said groggily.

“Do you have anything to report?” his uncle
asked with no emotion.

Aiden sat up and put his finger to his lips
so Tempest wouldn’t talk. “I haven’t found her yet,” he said. That
wasn’t exactly a lie. He knew his uncle wouldn’t be happy about him
taking the time to sleep with a woman when he should be looking for
Claudia. Of course, it could be much worse. His uncle could figure
out who the woman in his bed was. Aiden was sure that his uncle
would not be pleased with that at all.

“Where are you?” his uncle asked, and Aiden
suddenly wondered if he knew that he was at Nathaniel’s home. He
didn’t think that Justin would have said anything. Isaiah didn’t
seem like the type to mention it, and he was pretty sure that his
uncle avoided talking to Drew. That didn’t mean that Drew wouldn’t
go out of his way to mention it just to cause trouble. Nah, he
decided that Drew wasn’t likely to do anything that might cause
Tempest to leave.

“I’m in bed still. I just woke up,” Aiden
said without really answering the question. “I’m hoping to have
some answers for you in the next couple of days, but I’ll stop by
to talk to you.”

His uncle was silent for a long time making
Aiden uneasy. “Fine, I will expect you within the week.” He hung up
without another word.

Aiden looked over at Tempest. “In case you
haven’t already guessed, that was Roman looking for an update. Have
you decided what you want to do?”

Tempest sighed. “I’m not sure what I want to
do about anything at this point.” She moved away from him, drew her
knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

Sensing her withdrawal from him, Aiden
climbed out of bed quickly and started to dress.

“Are you throwing a tantrum?” Tempest asked,
as she stared at him.

Aiden took a deep breath to calm himself
before responding. “I’m going hiking. I’m tired of chasing you and
begging you to stay like some love sick twit.”

Tempest looked stunned. “What are you
talking about? I said I wasn’t sure about meeting my
grandfather.”

Aiden snorted. “Do me a favor, and don’t lie
to me.” He walked out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind
him.

Tempest was not about to let him walk away
from her like that. She put one of his shirts on and followed him
into the hallway. “What the hell is wrong with you? Wake up on the
wrong side of the coffin today?”

Aiden spun around and shot back “Waking up
next to a witch who has her broom shoved up her ass usually puts me
in a foul mood.”

“Bite me!” she almost shouted.

“Is that an invitation,” he asked with a
slow smile.

She watched as his fangs slid out of his
gums and wondered how she had failed to notice those before. “Where
did those come from?” She couldn’t keep the slight tremor out of
her voice. It was a little scary, but she still stared at them in
open amazement. It was also fascinating.

He stalked toward her. “So that wasn’t an
invitation to slide these into your sweet flesh? You aren’t
offering me a taste of the nectar that’s flowing through your
veins?”

Ignoring the threat in his voice, she asked,
“How do you keep them from cutting into your lip when you
talk?”

Her blatant curiosity seemed to deflate his
anger some. “Practice,” he said with a shrug. “When I was younger,
I used to end up with holes in my lip or tongue. It was also really
hard to talk when they were out at first. I sounded like I had a
lisp.”

“Does it hurt when they come out?” she
asked.

“A little bit,” he said.

“If you bit me, would it hurt?” she
continued.

“I’m sure it would. When we needed them, I
used mind control to make people think it didn’t hurt,” he
explained.

“You don’t need them anymore?” she
asked.

He shook his head. “No, we don’t need blood
now that we have the supplements. Are you done interrogating me
about my fangs?”

“Can I touch them?” she asked
hesitantly.

Aiden just stared at her like she was some
strange creature that he couldn’t quite figure out. She suddenly
felt very guilty for throwing him off balance again. It wasn’t fair
to Aiden but she just wasn’t sure how he would fit into her life.
What she did was important and she couldn’t just give it up. The
last few days with Aiden had been great and she really did want
more. Was that really enough?

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

That knocked him off balance again, and his
fangs slid back into his gums. “Why are you sorry?” he asked
hesitantly.

“None of this is fair to you,’ she admitted.
“It would be easier if I didn’t want to stay with you so much. Then
I could just go back to my life and you could work on finding
someone else.”

That earned her a cocky grin. “So you want
to stay?”

She nodded. “More than I should, and the
idea of you with someone else makes me angry.”

He looked very pleased with himself. He
placed a hand on her hip and pulled her close. “I know the feeling.
I can’t stand the idea of you leaving me and finding another man.
So why not just admit that we belong together?”

Tempest met his eyes. “What I do is
important, Aiden.”

His cocky grin faded and he blew out a
frustrated breath. “I know it is. It’s not like I’m asking you to
give it up. When I saw what you did at that ceremony it scared the
hell out of me. It also impressed the hell out of me. I would never
want to ask you to stop doing those things.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “And just how
are you going to react when I need to hunt?”

He paled, which proved that he didn’t like
the idea at all. “It would bother me,” he admitted, “but I wouldn’t
try to stop you. I don’t want to change who you are.”

“I live in a center for abused women,” she
continued. “How do you think those women will react to having a
very large predatory male wandering around?”

Aiden felt weary and defeated. His hand left
her hip and dropped to his side. “So we have no future, is that
what you’re saying? You aren’t even willing to try?”

Tempest wrapped her arms around his waist
and leaned into his chest. “I’m not sure how to make this
work.”

He didn’t wrap his arms around her, despite
the temptation. “Then why stay? Why torture me with something that
I can’t have?” He wasn’t sure if he really could let her go. Would
he let her walk out of his life? No doubt it was the right thing to
do. If she didn’t want to stay, he had no right to force her.

He felt the tears against his chest and they
were his undoing. His arms wrapped tightly around her. He stroked
her hair and kissed the top of her head.

“I just can’t seem to bring myself to leave
you,” Tempest admitted. “I know that I should. I know that what I’m
doing isn’t fair to you. I know that we haven’t known each other
very long and we’ve spent most of that time fighting, but
I . . . “ she hesitated, “care for you more than I
should.”