Chapter 6 Sam #2
When I didn’t immediately respond to her one-word command, she clopped closer to me in her mile-high heels, wobbling from where she still hadn’t recovered from the damage Kyle had done.
“Get off the floor right now.”
I nodded and climbed to my feet. I needed to get away, have some time to myself. It was too much to be at Esmé’s side all the time, on call, being used like an animal.
Perhaps if she got what she wanted, I could chance a request to get away for a while. Sometimes she was more liberal with granting me freedom once she was sated. For that, I needed to be compliant now though.
She reached for me, and I drew away a little.
“Wouldn’t you prefer somewhere more comfortable?” It would be a seduction to earn me the time away that I wanted, even though the thought of behaving this way turned my stomach.
She tilted her head and made a short humming noise of consideration.
“You don’t want to be disturbed by someone like Eddie.”
My mouth dried even speaking his name, but Esmé wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the way he looked at me, and her face hardened. “Come this way.”
She yanked my arm and took me to an out-of-the-way sitting room that no one had bothered to clear of the previous owner’s furnishings. I’d never seen it before, but it was immediately clear that most of the softness in this room these days was supplied by the copious piles of dust.
She pushed me onto the sofa and fell on me, her fangs ripping into my throat before I could make another noise. I surrendered to the attack, thoughts of getting in the car and driving away sustaining me.
After I’d recovered from being fed on, the hit lasting a shorter and shorter duration these days, I went to find Esmé. She was sitting in the den watching something mindless on the TV.
“Can I take the car?” Because it was a question I rarely asked, she looked at me, her eyes a little wider than usual, her lips parted.
She didn’t answer right away, and I twisted my hands together.
I needed to get out of there. I was so sick of simply surviving in a literal nest of vampires, but I couldn’t let her know that. “The car,” I repeated, like maybe she hadn’t heard.
She nodded before turning back to the TV and waving her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Take it. Brock wants me to hang around here and discuss something with him, but I’ll have one of the others bring me home if you’re still out.”
I nodded to her back before leaving the room. Apparently, I’d been right about her being in a better mood after her feed. I didn’t want to give her chance to change her mind or ask too many questions.
I hurried down the couple of hallways leading to the front door, trying not to be noticed as I left.
No one else would care that I was leaving, but someone might care that I was here and roaming around unprotected.
They’d smell Esmé on me, know that I’d been fed from recently, and want a snack of their own.
I held the car keys like I might fend off an attacker as I passed through the front door and by Brock’s weird excuse for security. Danny dipped his head and sniffed me as I passed, but I ignored it. I couldn’t get distracted now. I was leaving.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I slipped behind the steering wheel, but I didn’t experience true freedom until I was through the gate and onto the open road.
Esmé was behind me, Brock was behind me.
The whole fucked-up morning was behind me.
This was freedom, or at least a taste. I was sure of it.
I headed toward the Quarter. A shopping expedition sounded good.
It was part of a plan that I’d been formulating for a while.
A long time before Kyle arrived, I’d thought maybe I could help myself, but I’d lost hope.
Only now, he’d brought hope back… and if he couldn’t help me himself, maybe I could still do something?
It suddenly felt worth a try, anyway.
I laughed. Esmé gave me an allowance to spend, although it was more a sick joke because where would I ever spend anything, and what would I buy? For her, it was like putting her money in a savings account — she’d get it all back after I died, right?
Not now, though. Not all of it, anyway, and it was unlikely she’d agree with where I planned to go to spend my money.
There was a shop I wanted to visit now that Kyle had reawakened me. Just a little tiny hole-in-the-wall place, but I’d heard whispers of witchcraft and maybe, just maybe, there’d be someone there who could help me.
Maybe even something to help me kill the cravings for venom so I could live a relatively normal life for however long I had left. One day, Esmé would probably bleed me dry anyway, if being a thrall didn’t get me. But I couldn’t believe there was simply nothing.
And I couldn’t leave my fate to everyone else. Not my death, not my rescue. I needed to try to do something for myself, too.
The Quarter was busy with tourists and their chatter.
It was also pretty. I always forgot how pretty it was here.
I’d even almost forgotten what it was like to walk around with no responsibilities, no one to answer to.
No person theoretically holding my leash.
Well, Esmé was in the back of my mind like always, but the leash was a lot longer than usual right now.
The buildings here looked so charming and welcoming, and I shuddered at the memory of my home and of the rancid smell that permeated the entire upper floor of the house where I lived. Calling it a home was definitely a stretch too far.
Part of me kept waiting for that to not bother me anymore, the life I now led, the conditions I accepted as my normal. But the other part of me knew as soon as the smell of that house stopped being an issue, I was too far gone to save.
So, I needed to take this chance to save myself, no matter how small.
I slowed my walk as I reached the address I’d memorized. It really was only a tiny place. Looked old, too. A little bit crooked and definitely giving off witch vibes.
I cupped my hands around my face and peered through the window, past the jewelry and trinkets and beautiful tumbled crystals and gemstones laid out to entice passers-by.
There was a woman in the shop, fixing something in the shelving display or adding more stock.
I couldn’t quite tell what her task was, but she looked busy. Satisfied. Happy.
She had the life I wanted. A simple life. A normal human one. I’d never aspired to much, and that hadn’t changed. All I wanted was my life back so I could live it properly. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask?
If only I could have walked away from Esmé when she’d been injured and needed all that blood.
If only I’d been brave enough to let my best friend die.
I’d met her first when I’d needed a job, but we’d become so much more than that.
After I’d introduced her to Sean… Hell, that had been the biggest mistake of my life right there.
Well, I couldn’t exactly decide the biggest mistake.
If someone gave me a time machine, I would have chosen never to meet Esmé in the first place.
All of my bad luck stemmed from her. Sean had died because I’d introduced them, and now I was her thrall because I’d saved her life by donating blood after the attack.
Too much blood. Too much misery. Too much death.
And my own death would only compound it all.
I had to do something. Do more.
I laughed, the sound harsh. Yeah. So much more. I wasn’t convinced I could change my future, but I had to try.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door to the tiny shop open, a little bell ringing above me to signal my entrance.
The woman at the display cabinet turned around, a welcoming smile on her face that froze only momentarily when she saw me. “Namaste. Can I help you find anything?”
I inhaled again then held the breath inside my chest while I made my decision about what to say and how much to reveal.
But there was no point in beating around the bush about what I’d come for.
Supernaturals came here, after all, so anything vampire related probably wouldn’t shock this woman, even though she looked as innocent as any human without a clue usually looked.
“I need a spell or a charm to ward off vampire venom cravings.” My voice was clear and neutral as I made my abrupt request, but the woman pressed her lips together and her gaze shot to my neck, lingering there as she seemed to examine me.
I raised my hand to the skin there, suddenly self-conscious. Esmé was pretty good at cleaning up after herself but occasionally she got sloppy and forgot to conceal her marks.
The woman scrutinized me for a moment longer then, apparently satisfied with whatever she’d seen, she nodded.
“I’m Naomi.” She crossed to the shop door, flicked the lock, and flipped the little sign from open to be right back.
“Come with me through here.” She gestured to a deep blue curtain sprinkled with silver stars.
“I’m Sam,” I said, the revelation of my first name hesitant as I fell into step behind her.
We passed through the curtain and the scent in the air immediately changed, becoming much more herbal and intoxicating.
losing some of the heavy patchouli from the front of store.
The atmosphere was thick with verdant life and felt almost alive with electricity or something else that buzzed and hummed.
It was like we’d walked backward through time as well. The shop was quaint and pokey, but the back was like a kitchen from an English period drama — but some period way the hell back. The whole shop must have been a building original to New Orleans itself.
Herbs in various stages of drying out hung from hooks in the ceiling.
So many herbs and shades of green I didn’t even think I’d seen some of them before.
There was a big sink and an old black range with a fire going.
A pot sat on top of the range and liquid bubbled and boiled inside, changing color as new bubbles rolled to the top and burst.