Chapter 5 #2
That had to be a magical crossbow. She hadn’t aimed. In fact, considering the odds and the way she’d blindly fired the weapon, she had a higher chance of hitting Skarde than the wizard. What insanity had possessed her to even pick it up?
The vampire stood. Whatever paralysis spell the wizard had cast must have vanished when he died.
Skarde offered his hand to help her up.
She stared at the for-real, offered hand. As she slid her small hand into his much larger one, the rough and callused skin of his palm surprised her. She’d expected a vampire to have perfect, blemish-free skin. The roughness made him more real.
He’s a vampire. He’s not human. Get that through your skull.
He yanked her upright and lifted her many feet away from the dead wizard. As he removed his huge sword from his back, she backed away. He turned and efficiently beheaded the wizard.
Breath in. Breath out. Steam swirled with her exhale into the frigid air.
She looked up…and kept looking up.
Skarde Blackmann. Everything about him was huge—height, muscles, hands. Big fangs.
I’m in the snow in scrubs. My socks are wet. Skarde is staring at my neck like I’m his next meal.
He stood frozen, sword in hand, but he didn’t move to attack.
The reality of what she’d done settled in. She’d killed someone—no, not a human, but an evil creature in a scripted TV show. Did the creature have to die? Had it been redeemable? Maybe, but it would’ve killed them both long before she could have a chitchat to reason with it. I had no choice.
I killed him. Her stomach twisted with the threat of spewing.
“Are you going to boke?” he asked in that deep accented voice.
Heat blasted her cheeks. “No. I’m good. Won’t puke.”
She gaped at Skarde’s broad shoulders and harsh features. His calm scrutiny scared the hell out of her. Did he plan to drink her blood? Attack her?
Tension swirled around them as they stared at each other in silence. He didn’t make a move toward her.
Don’t say anything weird. She tucked her hair behind an ear. “Stop staring at me.”
“You’re the one staring.”
“You’re from the show. You’re…you’re not real. I have an excuse to stare. None of this is real. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Feels pretty fucking real to me. What are you? A witch?”
“I have no magic.”
“You smell human, but you have use of magic.” He pointed at the shimmery doorway. “Explain that.”
“Do witches smell like people? I don’t have a super sniffer like you.”
“They smell different than you. You fell out of thin air. That’s powerful magic.” He put his sword back into the sheath on his back and pushed his coat aside to put a hand over the area where he’d been hit by the fire sword. She expected him to complain, like any other person would. He didn’t.
“Let me see what he did to you.” She pushed his hand out of the way without permission and moved aside his leather coat to duck her head near the wound. The need to evaluate the injury came second nature.
“I’d give anything for a flashlight,” she said. The dim light sucked for a good visual inspection, but she pulled apart the edges of his soft cotton shirt where it’d been torn from the fire sword to find seared skin and oozing blood. “Motherfucker, that must hurt.”
“It does.” A little chuckle came out of him.
Laughter wasn’t something she’d ever heard from him on the show—genuine humor. She glanced up. The mirth reached his eyes.
He loomed over her by well over a foot in all directions. “You’re tall,” she said. “And big. I didn’t think you’d be so…”
“You’re short.”
She compressed her lips and snapped upright. “It’s not nice to point out a lady’s deficiencies, especially when I’m not wearing shoes, and I just saved your ass.”
His smile showed off even, white teeth and those huge fangs.
Had she ever seen him grin like this? Maybe she had.
Her brain racked through the older episodes.
With him this close, smelling like oiled leather, blood, and—oh dear lord, whatever that heavenly scent above everything else was—shorted out her brain.
She couldn’t sort out if this was him pulling his fake seduction routine or the real Skarde.
Her hand was somehow back on his hard stomach.
She snatched it away. His ridged abdomen had been on naked display three episodes ago when a fae undressed him in an attempt to use sex to manipulate him into killing off a demented second cousin of hers.
Bad on him for letting the fae use him to begin with.
He was smarter than that, or at least she hoped he was.
The episode ended before Gemma got a chance to see what happened in the bedroom. Oh, she’d have watched in full graphic detail, if they’d shown it.
“I’m dizzy. I’ve never felt this from being close to someone.
You being you…you have some sort of allure thing that’s sucking my ability to think out of my head.
” She swallowed hard and crossed her arms. “Sex is not coming into the picture. Shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I? Didn’t mean to.” She fanned her face.
“Where are you from?” he asked in that raspy voice which was far more potent in person. “Your accent is odd.”
“You’d never believe me if I tried to explain it. Somewhere not here. I’m not even sure how I got here. One minute you were hell bent on dying. The next I’m here in the cold, miserable forest shooting your psycho wizard.”
“Go back where you came from. Petra’s army is on the way to finish me if the wizard failed.” He glanced behind him and tilted his head as if listening.
“You need to leave too.”
“I can handle it.”
She reached in to touch near his injured side again with barely a press…
He hissed and growled. His focus snapped back to her.
She jumped away from him. “It’s cold, the rain is picking up, and you’re bleeding. You’re barely recovered from a spell. You might be decent in a fight, but you can’t handle an army by yourself.”
“Humans are child’s play.”
“Do you want to die?” She cocked her head.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but she saw it.
The biggest badass on the show was going to let them capture or slaughter him? Not on her watch. “What if she’s brining more than humans? You’re not invincible, even if you do have immortality and some ninja skills on your side. They’ll slice off your head or something.”
He massaged the back of his neck. “You have no idea of what I’m capable.”
“I think you wanted that wizard to kill you. Since when did you become suicidal?”
He released a frustrated snort. “I had a plan. If you’d let him use the hex on me instead of… I don’t know how you even lifted that crossbow being so tiny.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“You almost hit me. If he’d cast the death hex it would’ve boomeranged back at him.” He pulled out the Celtic pendant around his neck as if that explained everything.
She glared skepticism. “I don’t buy it. You have all the symptoms of depression.”
He glared right back at her. “Vampires don’t get depressed.”
“Everyone does.” She rolled her eyes. “Death isn’t the answer to get free of the awfulness in your life. You need a vacation.”
“A what?”
“A break. I don’t mean you should run down to town and have a three-day orgy with a bunch of random women or do a beach trip.
I’m thinking bright light and sand wouldn’t be good for you.
You need some time off from killing…” She waved in the direction of the dead wizard.
“Things like that. Spend time with people you like. Good food. Good conversation. Good wine. Lots of wine. Try not to fight anything evil or twisted for a week or a month, maybe six months.”
She got a blank look.
“You have people, don’t you? Someone other than those three hunter kids who seem more interested in chasing danger than actually giving a rat’s ass about you or safety?”
No comment from him.
Maybe he didn’t know how not to be the warrior. Maybe he also didn’t know how to do relationships, not only with women, but with everyone.
“Have you ever said no?” she asked. “Have you ever said, forget all this, I need some time off to rest before I resume missions to do gross stuff like this?” She glanced at the dead wizard, half expecting it to come back to life.
“Everyone needs some relaxation time. You have to take care of yourself once in a while. No one else cares about you other than what you can do for them.” She squared her shoulders.
“You know what? I care about you. You can’t handle an epic battle right now. Your mind isn’t in the right place.”
Still no reply.
“Hello?” She waved a hand at him. He might be going into shock from blood loss.
Step one: stop his hemorrhaging. Not like she knew anything about vampire medicine, nor could she cleanly rip a line of cloth off her scrubs to serve as a bandage.
Her top? Not going topless. That was out of the question. Too cold out here.
She shimmied out of her bottoms.
“What are you doing?” He took a step backward.
“Obviously, we’re going to have speed sex right here next to this dead, bloody body that smells like a rotting animal.
” She wrapped the thin scrub pants around his midsection beneath his coat and tied it, albeit there wasn’t much to actually tie since he was so wide.
“I’m trying to slow the bleeding so you can get out of here.
Go home. Sleep this off. Then you can think clearly and decide later if you want to storm Petra’s castle to quench your need to fight.
” A brief peek upward found him focusing down…
way down. “Are you checking out my legs?”
“You stripped.”
“That doesn’t mean you can look.” She squinted at him.
“What are those underthings?”
“It’s called a thong. Stop looking.” She tugged at her scrub top to stretch the fabric farther down on her thighs, not that it helped.
“No.”
She glanced down to find all of him at attention. “Sure, let’s strip and get our freak on in the slushy ice-mud next to the body. We’ll give the impending army more of a show than they bargained for. Aren’t you worried your dick might freeze off?” She rubbed her arms. “It’s cold out here.”
A startled choke-laugh shot out of him.
The thunderous sound of a lot of somethings moving closer meant time wasn’t on their side.
She went on tiptoe and put a hand on either side of his face to force eye contact.
Beard stubble prickled her fingers. It surprised her.
In the multitude of vampire stories she’d read, creatures like him usually had little to no facial hair, but not Skarde.
She slid into that light-headed and dippy state from before.
She managed to choke out, “Leave this place. Please. Swear to me you won’t face off with the army tonight. I can’t handle it if you died. I’m honestly not sure why, but I don’t think I’ll get over it.”
That sounded like a lot of soldiers.
“Choose to live,” she pleaded.
He touched her cheek. “So soft.” Then he hooked a hand behind her head to grab her ponytail and gently arch her neck. A lean in, and his nose touched the skin over her throbbing jugular vein. He lifted away, mouth parted and those huge fangs glistening. He whispered, “Tempting.”
The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck lifted.
Her heart raced to the point it hurt her chest. “Don’t bite.
I’m not interested in becoming a vampire or donating blood tonight.
I think a friend of mine who’s a witch, not a highly talented one since she’s only junior level, cast a love spell on me.
Something about worthy love and rocking the bedroom.
I think that’s why I can cross over and why you’re feeling…
” She leaned in and pressed against his erection.
“I don’t think this attraction is real.”
“I’ve never smelled anyone I wanted more.” He leaned close and touched his nose to her neck again. His Scottish-type accent thickened as his voice grew hoarse. “Love spells are amateur shite. They dinnae work on creatures like me.”
She clamped a hand over her throat. For a few seconds terror washed through her at the thought of his teeth in her neck. They’d shred her skin and probably cut her head off.
He whispered, “I won’t bite you, but there are plenty of other things I’d like to do with you.”
His touch remained gentle as he combed his fingers through her hair. Tingles spread across her scalp.
Maybe a kiss?
She’d be on board with a kiss.
Her body warmed in places she preferred stay at the frigid outdoor temperature of the snowy forest. She might not want to get away from him if he decided to use his teeth.
He said hoarsely, “I want my mouth on every inch of you. What kind of magic are you doing to me?”
Air hissed out of her lungs as desire coiled deep inside her core.
The pounding of hooves closed in.
“Go,” he ordered.
She pushed off him and ran for the shimmery area she knew was her ticket home. She didn’t understand how she knew, but she ran. Before she jumped through the doorway, she paused for a glance back. Cliché, yeah, but how many opportunities would she have to see a vampire like Skarde in person?
He stood there as if once again immobilized by a spell, staring.
“Live.” She jumped through, landing pants-less and cold on her apartment’s beige carpet floor.
“Go!” she yelled at the TV.
He turned toward the thunder and for a few heart-pounding seconds stood motionless. He turned to face the camera. “Next time, I’ll take you with me, Gemma. And I won’t resist.”