Chapter 4
Inever thought I’d add regular stalking of someone who refused to acknowledge my existence to my list of extracurriculars, but here we were.
I’d also never thought I’d have anyone need to use a safe word with me. I was typically excellent at reading my sub, even though I’d never deign to describe Vinni as such.
I replayed the moments leading up to her invoking red day and night.
Every day and fucking night.
For two long, agonizing, painful months.
It wasn’t until Patrick took me out for a beer a few nights ago that I realized how pathetic I’d become. Or how fixated I’d become.
I should have known my venom would be different. Barely a taste of that perfect pussy, and I was a goner.
Obsessed wasn’t a word I’d use to describe myself too often. I had known I’d been interested in Vinni since the moment we bumped into each other in front of the town hall, but this was a next-level infatuation. I watched her every day like some kind of creep. I hadn’t wanted to get in her way so she could open her club exactly how she envisioned. I even took to overseeing the night laborers, making sure they read the plans exactly as Grom and Vinni had left them.
But just because I steered clear of her didn’t mean I wasn’t painfully aware of every move she made throughout town.
Coffee? She got hers every morning before seven at The Witch’s Brew.
How did she take it? Black, two sugars.
What did she wear? If it was a Tuesday, she wore her knee-high boots, the same fucking boots I’d reluctantly returned to her after the best and worst day of my life. If it was any other day of the week, she was wearing ankle boots.
Why? I didn’t fucking know, but I’d sure like to.
“I was interested to get your request for a session this morning, Arch.” Guillermo, or Dr. Luna, as I had to call him when we were in session or in front of others, looked at me from his big leather chair in the corner of his office, waiting for me to speak and let him know what was happening.
“I know it isn’t my style to beg for your time.” In fact, it was the complete opposite. I hated having to talk to Dr. Luna. Guillermo, on the other hand, I was friends with, but the doctor side of him was not for me.
He simply nodded, waiting for me to continue.
Fucking therapists.
“I fucked Vinni.” The only giveaway that he heard me was the way his pupils dilated and how his eyebrows arched slightly. “Well, not fuck fuck, but we hooked up… kind of.”
Ugh. I couldn’t even speak about it without sounding like an absolute tool.
“When was this?” He ignored the stuttered speech as I tried to explain.
“Two months ago. To the day. Exactly two months ago.” Now I was nervous. I never stopped fucking talking when I was nervous. “I know. I’m shocked, too. It was the day after the groundbreaking when I ran after her. We both wanted to get each other out of our system so we could get this club open without all the tension.”
“I can see the logic in that, but I hate to be the one to tell you.” Dr. Luna paused, giving me a pointed look from behind his bright-green-framed spectacles—today they were TMNT-themed as if he couldn’t be any more of a nerd. “If you fucked, but not fuck-fucked, Lavinia two months ago to relieve the tension between you two, you did a shit job of it.”
“Don’t I fucking know it,” I admitted, swiping a hand through my hair. It had grown a couple inches in the eight weeks since Vinni and I hooked up. She pulled on it that day, the day, and I want her to pull on it again.
I wanted to give her more to yank on.
I needed it.
“So, we hooked up. And normally, I’m not a kiss-and-tell type of dude, but I feel like I’m losing it over here, doc. Tasting her—” I glared at the doc, who didn’t look like he had any interest in hearing about her cunt. Good. She was mine. “It doesn’t matter. But it’s had me so fucked up, I feel like I’ve been walking around in a daze since.”
“What happened?”
I took a deep breath and recounted the whole sordid affair, the necessary bits anyway. I left out how her tart raspberry scent increased when I slapped that perfect fucking pussy, or how she begged so prettily, or how she wanted to be degraded like the dirty fucking slut she was.
“It sounds like this was a different experience for you than what you are used to when it comes to sex.”
I glared at the witch.
“No fucking shit.”
He laughed at what was my signature go-fuck-yourself expression.
“Yes, obviously the great Archer Beckett?—”
“I don’t use that fucking surname, and you know it, Dr. Luna.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. No offense meant.” Bullshit, but I let him continue. “You don’t get denied sex, let alone left during or after, I’d wager. You are used to doing the leaving, right?” Removing his glasses, he took out a cloth from his pocket and slowly wiped away dirt I hadn’t noticed. “Why seek this session with me, then? Especially two months later?”
The question seemed simple, but it wasn’t.
“I’ve never felt this way before, Guillermo.” My voice dropped the swagger I normally kept on at all times. You didn’t grow up with the father I had without having your shield up twenty-four-seven. I was always the one with a level head, a bit cocky, but what vampire wasn’t? This whole lack of confidence wasn’t like me. I hadn’t been taking care of myself properly, and it showed in the way my hands shook and the general disheveled nature of my clothing. “I thought I would finally fuck her and get her out of my system, you know? But I can’t. I won’t.
“I need to be with Vinni again. I need to finish what we started and do it again and again and again until my scent is so mixed with hers you can’t tell where I start and she begins.” I took a deep breath. “I want to spend time with her. I want to spoil her. I want to find out what makes her tick, well, besides me anyway. I want to know everything there is to know about my temptress. I want to make Luxor like me. That’s one of her snakes. Did you know those cute little assholes have names?” I chuckled dryly. “I want to find out why she is so angry all the time and make sure I’m the only one who can get her that upset going forward. I want her to submit for me again and again and again. I want to earn her trust enough so she can give that part of herself to me.”
The only sound besides my heavy breathing at my admission was the Addams family cuckoo clock that ticked on and on in an almost hypnotic rhythm. Guillermo hadn’t moved and let me get it all out. I hadn’t been one for word vomit, but nothing could stop me when it came to Vinni.
“Clearly, something is wrong with me. Right?” I continued. “No normal male behaves this way after one time that wasn’t even finished, right?” I ignored Patrick’s bearded face popping up in my head. “Okay, that was a dumb thing to say since we both saw our zombie friend with Cliona at Samhain, but you know what I mean. What is wrong with me, Guille?” I used his shortened name, knowing he hated it from anyone but Cliona and Lennox, but I didn’t care. I needed a mix of Dr. Luna and my friend at the moment. He narrowed his warm brown eyes ringed in blue, signaling his water magick at me, but didn’t correct me.
Little did he know I would never call him Dr. Luna again. He gave consent this one time, so it was done. He was Guillermo now for me. Or Guille.
Sucker.
“Why do you think something is wrong with you?”
“Because I don’t feel this way. Vampires don’t feel this way.”
“Do I really have to remind you?” he interrupted me.
“I don’t have any of my mother’s magick or witch powers; I’m a vampire through and through.” Guille sighed like he wished to argue, but I continued. “We like fucking, sure. Who doesn’t, am I right?”
He shook his head, probably disagreeing with me completely.
“I don’t do feelings. I don’t have feelings. Vampires… we don’t do this.”
“And what is this, exactly? You keep repeating it like you’re saying something monumental but can’t even put words to it.”
“It’s obsession. I am entranced by Vinni. I would do dirty and terrible things to her if she let me. I’d impale myself on Buffy’s wooden stake if it gave her even an inkling of happiness. I’d only drink animal blood like those sparkly fucks for the rest of my days if she asked me. I’d do literally anything for her, and the worst part of it all, Guille? I don’t think she even realizes what she’s done to me. She has no clue the power she has over me. I’m her humble fucking servant, and she tries to act as if I don’t exist.”
Guillermo considered my words for a moment.
“Are you worried your feelings are only one-sided?”
I paused. Could she really not be feeling this insane connection between us? I couldn’t believe it. She had been ignoring me too hard and for too long at this point. If she truly hadn’t felt anything, she would have let me back in a little bit by now. I’m nothing if not persistent, and despite the distance I’ve kept, I’ve made sure she knew I was around.
Waiting for her like a pathetic fucking animal.
Or as Rory and Patrick had been calling me, “A right fuckin’ gobshite.”
“No. I don’t think it’s possible. I know she feels this constant hunger too. But I have no clue how to get beyond the steel walls she built around herself. She only let them down when we were alone together, and they shot up before we even finished. She was so free that night, showing me her true, beautiful self. I don’t even know what I did to cause her to shut down.”
“Have you asked her if she would want to try again?” he asked.
“I don’t need to.”
Guillermo laughed. “Well, if you want to start a relationship with her?—”
“Relationship?”
“That is what you just described, isn’t it?”
Was it? Was I wanting a relationship with my temptress?
“I think relationship is too light a word. I want to… I want to consume her. I want to own her. I want her to be mine.”
“As I suspected.” He nodded.
“What does that mean?” I didn’t like his dismissive tone. I was on edge more than I was used to. Vinni unlocked something in me I’d been battling with since she first came to town. This aggression and need to fuck and fight and hit something—anything—constantly. It never went away.
“Look, normally my job is to ask questions and get you to figure it out yourself. But I don’t think that is the best case here. So what I’m about to tell you, I need you to listen to me and not freak out or run out of here and hunt her down.”
I stilled my entire body, despite the anxiety vibrating through me.
“I know you know a little bit about my empath abilities, right?”
I nodded to confirm I knew Guillermo was an empath, and a powerful one at that since his family were the Luna’s from Uruguay. They didn’t fuck around with their magick, and he was a tie to some of the most powerful water magick in the entire world. “Well, part of that is seeing threads between souls. I’ve always sensed certain compatible characteristics between folks, but it really locked in when Patrick came to town last year, and I saw the clear way his soul matched Cliona’s in every way. They were fated in more ways than the fae or witches. It was like the magick sung between them, but only I could hear the song and see the beauty in the notes. I can’t describe it without sounding like I’m making it up, but I made sure they were introduced and took each other seriously because I saw it so clearly in my mind.”
I didn’t like where this was going.
“And?”
He had the audacity to look slightly guilty, but he still had an effortless confidence about him as he spoke the next words that would change my entire future.
“I sensed the same pull between you and Lavinia when she arrived last year. I saw it in that first alpha group. It was faint at first, like you were simply compatible with one another. But every session we had, every group, every time you would go out for bowling and brews… it thickened, like a physical vine between you two.”
I gulped, knowing what he was saying but not processing it fully. “What are you trying to tell me, Guille? Speak clearly.” I needed him to spell it out.
“I believe Lavinia is your mate, buddy.”
“And that’swhen you passed out?”
That seemed to be Grom’s favorite part of the story.
“Obviously,” I muttered, picking up my pint of cider and chugging it down. I hadn’t handled the news well that Lavinia was supposedly my one true mate, like Cliona and Patrick. They were compatible, sure, but that didn’t mean what they had was what Vinni and I were destined to have. While I couldn’t stop obsessing over Vinni, I knew it was more that she was a pain in my ass. We enjoyed giving each other a bad time, or we did anyway, when she was still speaking to me. That hadn’t meant that she was meant to be mine forever.
My traitorous cock hardened at the thought of her actually being mine. Images of her being tied up on my bed every night, me fucking her throat as tears streamed down her perfect full cheeks, or the way she’d call me Daddy when we were alone.
“Fuck me,” I moaned, signaling to the kid running the bar to bring another pitcher over.
“I’m happy for you, brother,” Patrick said, slapping my back in a friendly, if not overly aggressive, way. I hadn’t known him when he was only a fae, but the bastard still hadn’t adjusted to his new strength levels.
“Why are you happy for me? Vinni hates my ass. And she annoys the hell out of me most days too. I don’t even know if I like her.” I lied a bold-faced, blatant, and horrible lie, but I wasn’t ready to accept this truth yet. I went to Guillermo so he could help me overcome this need for her. Not so he could tell me she’s my fucking fated mate like I really was a teenage vampire in one of those books. Vampires didn’t even believe in that shit. We used it to get laid, sure, but I subscribed to the lore that we didn’t have souls. It was the only teaching of my father I genuinely believed. “I only know that I am so bloody obsessed with everything about her that I don’t even care if I like her. How does that even happen? Guillermo can’t be right about this.”
“I’d pay good money to see ye say that to the doc’s feckin’ face, mate.” Rory shook his head, knowing full well Guillermo was anything but full of shit.
“He isn’t wrong about much,” Drew agreed. The five of us were at the bowling alley we frequented after alpha group sessions.
“He has to be wrong about this. Because I don’t think there’s a reality where Vinni sees me as anything other than an annoyance.”
No one said anything. I chugged my beer and looked up. The rest of my friends stared at me. Grom and his stupid orc face, Patrick and Rory with their stupid fae features sharp and pointed like models and even Drew with his scruffy beard and boy-next-door look.
They all shared one thing in common.
Excitement. They each looked almost giddy about something.
“What?” I barked at them.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Grom asked with a fucking grin on his big, stupid orc face. It was hard to ignore his broken tusk when he smiled this wide, showing all of his blunted teeth.
“Oh yes,” Drew confirmed, a wolfish grin on his own olive-toned face.
“Thank feck. I couldn’t help ye bastards last year since I was still bein’ an arsehole.” Rory slammed the rest of his beer before setting the glass on the counter and standing to come closer to me.
“Couldn’t help?” I asked, still not catching where my friends were going with this.
“It’s your turn, brother,” Patrick said. A firm hand gripped my other shoulder, solidifying the forces around me.
“My turn?” I gulped, not liking the sound of where they were going.
I looked around the table at four of my closest friends, dreading the next words that would surely send me into a panic.
“Didn’t think to invite me to this little gathering?” A deep voice sounded before a blue-eyed dragon joined the table. No matter where he went, Dom was always imposing because of his size and the way he carried himself. Dragons weren’t folk who tended to be in community with other races, and although Dom was an exception, it was easy to see why with how intense he seemed to be.
Until you got him talking about a movie or some other geeky shit, then you saw how much of a nerd he was behind that gorgeous deep-brown skin and stacked muscles for days. He had been the only missing piece in our unit that night, and I was glad he was able to join us.
Or he was the missing piece that wasn’t a sexy-as-sin gorgon hell-bent on ignoring me, anyway.
“Couldn’t get a hold of you,” Grom said to Dominic as he approached.
The dragon took in the lot of us and shook his head. “Not another wooing?” Dominic asked, knowing as he always did, what was happening.
I turned to each of my friends and saw that behind the shit-eating grins there was a true desire to help me.
If it’s one thing Haven Pass provided other than a sanctuary away from my fucked-up family, it was this still unnerving but lovely family I found along the way. The one that looked as if they would do anything to help me in that moment without me having to manipulate my way or knowing they’d be expecting something in return.
“We’re going to turn this bloodsucker into a snake charmer.” Rory’s eyes gleamed with excitement.
“It won’t be easy,” Dom added.
“But if ye lot made a plan for ’ol Paddy boy, I’m sure we can get this handsome fanged bastard into the viper’s cunt,” Rory said, his Scottish accent thick and heavy after the alcohol he’d already drank. “Especially now that I’m here.”
I snarled at him and how he talked about Vinni’s perfect cunt, as if he had the right.
“Read the fucking room, dude,” Drew muttered.
“You have a sister, Rory. Maybe don’t speak about females with that tone.” Grom’s eyes darkened looking at Rory as if he was genuinely offended like I was at his tone. I nodded my head at the orc, appreciating his defense of my female.
My female.
Fuck me.
She was anything but that.
I put my face in my palms.
“We’ll help you. That’s what brothers do.” Patrick lifted his beer to me in cheers before they started talking over one another with ideas for me to woo my gorgon mate.