Chapter 24
I woke up the next morning to the sound of birds chirping outside the window. Loudly. I grumbled and snuggled in closer to the warm, hard body next to me. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had to be too early to function. We barely got cleaned up from the first round before James and I went in for another. Then a third, and somehow a fourth, before we were absolutely spent.
I tried going back to sleep, but once my body took in the bright sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains, I was awake. That did not mean I was ready to move. I twisted James’s silver chain in my hand, soothed by the feeling of his bare skin against mine. He’d replaced the jewelry after round two when the urge to bite me became too much for him. I might have trusted him, but between our love and the bond, he no longer trusted himself.
One of his arms draped around my shoulders, the other rested over his side. I laid there with my eyes closed, counting the links on the chain as it slid through my fingertips. Using that to ignore the world worked until a particularly urgent twinge from m y bladder had me fighting back a groan. The last thing I wanted to do was move, but I sat up anyway, surprised to find James dozing beside me. I moved carefully, but when I came out of the bathroom, his eyes were already open.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep.”
“Guess you wore me out last night,” he said with a shrug.
“No coffin?” I teased.
“My travel one is being repaired.” He glanced at the light streaming in through the curtains and groaned. “Sleep isn’t necessary, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to leave the bed yet.”
“Lie back down then,” I told him, sliding beneath the blankets again. “I’m not ready to get up either. Is Liz’s covered?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” I nudged him to lie down and reclaimed my spot on his chest. I relaxed in his hold, tracing lazy shapes over his belly with my finger and smiling when he squirmed. “You’re ticklish?”
“Yes,” he laughed, stilling my hand. “And it’s ten times as intense as when I was human—don’t even think about it.”
“I’m not thinking about anything! Just filing that away for later.”
James brought our tangled fingers to his mouth, brushing kisses across my fingertips. “You are nothing but trouble, Ryder Clark.”
I fought the flutters in my stomach. “Good thing you love me then.”
Damn, that smile…
I nuzzled into his neck, pressing kisses to the skin there. He hummed in pleasure.
“Do we have to go back to Salem?” I whispered against his skin. “Can’t we stay here in our happy little bubble forever?”
“I wish we could, love.” James kissed my hair. “But there’s something we need to take care of.”
That had me sitting up. “What’s wrong? ”
James pushed himself up as well, reaching for the nightstand. “I was in my office last night, and noticed that something looked strange. That copy of Dracula you’ve been reading was sticking out farther than the others.” He fished through his wallet, then offered something to me. “This was stuck between the pages.”
He dropped the object into my hand—it was a diamond. The smallest I’d ever seen, no bigger than a pinhead. The sun streaming through the windows caught on the clear gem, making it sparkle in my hand. It was stunning, but I felt a sense of unease wash over me as I looked at it. “What is it?”
“I’m assuming you weren’t using that as a bookmark then.”
‘That’d be one expensive bookmark.”
James was silent for a moment. “Have you felt odd the last week or so?”
I scoffed; that was the understatement of the century. “Yeah, I’ll say.”
“Like you’ve been on edge for no reason? Or maybe like you’ve been having the worst luck ever?” I nodded along with him, but all thoughts of sliced fingers or chewed-through phone chargers vanished with what came out of his mouth next. “I think we’ve been cursed.”
“ Cursed ?” I demanded. James only nodded in response. His eyes were far away, deep in thought. “Is that better or worse than hunters who want you dead?”
“That depends on who placed it.”
What does this tiny thing have to do with a curse?”
“It’s a conduit.” James pushed himself from the bed and started toward the dryer calling out behind him. “In order for a curse to be most effective, it needs to be present at all times. Meaning that whoever put this on us left something behind to keep it going—a conduit. Without one, the person would have to trail you around at all times, which is sure to get suspicious. ”
I captured the diamond between my thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the light. “ This is carrying a curse?”
“Part of it.” James re-entered the room, tossing my dry clothes on the bed and stepping into his clean jeans.
“What do you mean ‘part of it?’”
“I’ve been feeling everything you have. It’s why I’ve felt the need to be with you every second of every day lately. Being apart from you has been killing me, and it’s got nothing to do with the bond. Curses like this one plague the owner of the conduit. When that diamond was placed at the bar, I became its owner. If you’ve been feeling it too, that likely means there’s one at your house as well.”
“My house ?” I fought to disentangle myself from the sheets. “You mean where my daughter is currently staying?”
James halted me by placing his hands on my shoulders. “Relax, love. Curses are targeted. There’s no reason to suspect that Hannah is in any danger.”
He freed me from the sheet and helped me find my feet.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We get home and find that object. Then I take it and destroy it.”
I moved pliantly, letting him dress me. It didn’t take us long to pack up the groceries and shut the house down before making the drive back to Salem. My nerves heightened with each mile, and judging by the fact that James didn’t still my bouncing leg or pull my hand from my mouth, his were doing the same thing.
Several hours later, we arrived at my house. He went straight to my bedroom when we got there, leaving me to say goodbye to Hannah.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “I’ve never seen the two of you so freaked.”
I glanced back to where James was tearing my room apart. “I can’t tell you right now.” I cupped her cheeks in my hands and presse d a kiss to her hair. “But I promise to tell you soon. I need you to go back to Cambridge for the night. It doesn’t matter if you go to Kian’s, or back to campus but I need you to get somewhere and stay there. Can you do that?”
“Is this a vampire thing?”
“Yes. That’s why I need you to go. We can handle this. Do you trust me?”
Hannah nodded, eyes searching mine. “Will you be okay?”
I put on my best smile. “We’ll be fine. Text me when you get there?”
With another nod she was off, and I joined James. The sheets on the bed were in a heap—which was saying something because I never made the bed anyway. He was currently in the process of tearing my clothes out of my dresser.
“Where should I start?” I asked.
Coming up empty, James turned around to lean against the dresser and scrubbed a hand over his face. “The living room would be my next guess, then the kitchen—except you never cook, so that’s probably our last resort.”
“Ha-ha,” I delivered in a deadpan. I closed the distance between us to wrap my arms around his waist. “Still making jokes at a time like this?”
His smile was sad. “I don’t want you to see me lose my cool.”
“You’ve seen me lose my cool, quite a few times in the last week, actually.”
“That’s different. You’re human.”
“Oh, is a vampire losing their temper somehow worse?”
James simply grinned and kissed my cheek, ignoring my question. “Let me hear you say it.”
I knew what he wanted, but I groaned. “I’ve said it a hundred times.”
“Please? ”
Uh oh—he was giving me those puppy-dog eyes again. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Why not? Is it working?” He hammed it up by chewing on his bottom lip. He knew damn well it was working, the bastard.
“You infuriating creature.” I grabbed his face and kissed him senseless. “I’m going to search the living room.”
“I’m so lucky you love me!” he called after me.
I skidded to a stop in the hallway, poking my head back through the bedroom door. “I do love you.”
Flustered, James turned his gaze to the ground. If there was ever a time where I wished he wasn’t supernatural, it would be in moments like this one. I could only imagine how precious he’d look with a dark flush washing over those cheeks. I guess I’d have to settle for my imagination on that one.
While he searched the rest of my bedroom, I started with the couch. I turned out every single one of Carlos’s blankets while he glared at me. I unzipped each cushion and stuck my hand inside the lining, but all I came up with was crumbs and dog food. I did find one of Carlos’s toys that had been missing for months; that took care of the glaring at least.
Eventually, James judged the bedroom clear and started in the kitchen. The house filled with the clattering of crockery. James worked at my pace, sparing me the vampire speed—it was really disorienting when he did that. Eventually, he joined me in the living room. “Find anything?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not unless you count the bat.”
James crooked a brow at the scraps of fabric Carlos was furiously shredding to pieces. “That’s a bat?”
“Used to be,” I shrugged. “Nothing in the kitchen?”
“No,” James sighed as I remade the couch. “How often do you clean Hannah’s bedroom?”
“I changed the bedding after Shi stayed over, but you know Hannah —she cleans after herself better than I would. You think it’s worth looking there?”
“It can’t hurt.”
Carlos dropped the remains of his bat toy and ran to the back door, commencing with his signature whine that meant something like, “Open this door, peasant.”
“You start,” I told James. “I’ve got him.”
My boyfriend caught me with an arm around my waist as I attempted to pass him. “You sure?” Then he winced. “Sorry, I’m suddenly feeling clingy again.”
And I wanted to pull away. Luckily, I was nothing if not stubborn. “I’m sure,” I said, intentionally returning his embrace. “I trust you.”
He blinked, taken aback. “Can I get that in writing?”
My first inclination was to bristle, so I laughed instead, giving him a playful shove before going to the back door.
Since Carlos had recently dug underneath the fence and camped out in the neighbor’s backyard, I leaned against the doorframe to keep a close eye on him. Even with my jacket and thick sweater, I shivered. Carlos bounded across the grass, making a beeline for the back corner of the property. Only instead of doing what he should have been doing, he started to dig.
“Carlos, knock it off!”
He was unfazed, paws scrabbling at the dirt even faster. I rolled my eyes and reluctantly went after him, pulling my jacket around me to ward off the chill. As I got closer, Carlos caught something with his leg and kicked it out of the dirt mound. He picked up his treasure and tried to take off with it, but unfortunately for my not-so-bright four-legged son, he darted right into my path. I intercepted him with my arms around his middle.
A silver chain dangled between his teeth. When I finally wrestled it from his mouth, the clearest diamond I’d ever s een fell to the ground in front of me. This one was bigger than the first, but still smaller than a dew drop. It caught the sun, glimmering in the light. It was beautiful , but it also sent an ominous feeling through my entire body.
“James,” I called, my voice no more than a whisper. Before I could blink, he materialized next to me.
He paled—something I didn’t even know was possible. He took three big steps back, face twisting in pain. “Even being near that thing makes me feel sick.”
“Because of the curse?”
“No. That chain is so pure that it’s a miracle I’ve been able to be in your house at all.”
“Looks like you owe Carlos a hug.”
The skepticism on his face was priceless. “What?”
“You owe him. He decided to take it out of the house for you.” I looked back to the gem in my hand, wondering how such a small piece of pressurized carbon on a delicate silver chain could have caused so much chaos. I could have easily snapped the chain—I was surprised it hadn’t done so when Carlos yanked it out of the ground. “How has this little thing caused us so much grief?” I asked aloud. “Someone put a curse on this ? Just to fuck with us?”
James shook his head. “No, love. That diamond was already cursed. It has been since its creation. Someone targeted us, put it on a chain, and planted it to weaken my powers.”
“How do we get rid of it?”
When he didn’t respond, I looked up. His eyes were fixed on the jewelry in my hand, almost fearful.
Then he uttered three words I thought I’d never hear from him. “I don’t know.”