CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
Hope walked across the parking lot like a woman with a purpose. She was heading for the alpha, who was pacing beside his pickup truck, unsure if he was coming or going and getting nowhere fast.
The instant Heath saw her, he stopped pacing and planted his feet, folding two thick muscled arms across his broad chest for added effect. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he bit out, putting a little alpha into his tone.
Hope snorted a chuckle of disbelief. “To say I am shocked would be an understatement, knucklehead.”
Heath pulled his head back on his neck in surprise. Not only did his alpha tone not work with Hope, but she’d insulted him to boot. “Knucklehead,” he bit out like a child who had been told no for once.
Hope stopped in front of him and matched his stance. “You’ve got a long eight months ahead of you.”
Heath dropped his arms and raised his hand. “Now, hold on a minute…”
“Not happening,” Hope said, shaking her head. “A witch will witch whether you want the witch to witch or not.”
“Is that like a tongue twister?”
“Nope, fact.”
“True doesn’t even like to use her magic…”
“Exactly, so that should show you how important it is for us to get the squatters out of Faith and Jennifer if there is one in the child and close the veil,” Hope replied.
“I get it,” Heath growled. “But I don’t like it.”
“Boo-hoo, I shed a tear for your over-protectiveness and raise you a safer world for your child and your mate.”
“What?” Heath bit out with a dollop of disbelief. “That’s reverse psychology, and it’s not going to work.”
“It’s a fact, like it or not, the veil is broken, and the Others aren’t going to stop just because True is pregnant and you’re worried…”
“That’s not what…”
“They might have Jennifer, they have Faith, and they did it using the ghosts we brought to this side,” Hope said. “Now, think about it – who had the power to bring the ghosts here, who had the power to get Jennifer back from the veil, and who have they targeted recently?”
Heath scowled. “Faith…”
“And who would they want next?” Hope asked.
Heath curled his top lip in disgust. “You don’t know that.”
“True was instrumental in all those events; her bloodline is Faith’s bloodline, and True has no vampire blood safety net and wouldn’t want one.” Hope shrugged. “Are you a gambling man?”
Heath took a step back, and his backside hit the panelling on the side of the pickup. He folded his arms again and looked like he’d been run over by a bus. “I don’t gamble with my pack or my family.”
“Then don’t start now,” Hope said. “Nobody knows how any of this will play out, but if we leave it to the Others to dictate what happens next, I know one thing – we’re probably screwed.”
“It’s dangerous…”
“So, walking across a road and being around Faith right now, will you stop True from doing that and wrap her in bubble wrap for the next eight months?”
“No,” Heath said, scowling. “I was thinking the next forty years or so.”
Hope chuckled. “Sure, we can all make life as boring and mundane as possible, hedging our bets, and then we either sneeze and burst a blood vessel, or we wake up in our eighties and realise that we haven’t lived.”
“I hear you.”
“Good.”
“I don’t like you right now.”
Hope grinned. “I can live with that. Go grovel to True before she digs her heels in, and it takes a lot more than grovelling to dig you out of the hole.”
“Grovel,” he said, snorting his contempt for that idea.
“You’re a mate, a husband; you think you’re not going to have to grovel your way out of situations for the rest of your life?” She raised her eyebrows and waited for that to sink in.
Heath took a deep breath that expanded his chest and held on to it for a moment as he considered her words. “I’ll go grovel,” he said, pushing away from the truck with his backside.
“Attaboy!” Hope said, swinging her fist in the air. “Do it like you mean it, and you might get to keep your nuts.” Heath turned a scowl back over his shoulder at her. “Just saying.”
~
“Oh, the debauched life of a vampire,” Faith said, mocking Lex with a grin as she tossed the empty blood bag back into the cooler in the back of his car and slammed the boot shut.
Lex flinched at the sound of his baby being mistreated. “My car…”
“My face is the face of a woman who is uncaring,” Faith said, turning and sitting on the boot.
“Seriously?” Lex asked, motioning to her backside on his sporty beast.
“I sit, or I try to detach your nuts from your body,” Faith said with a shrug and a questioning look.
Lex narrowed his eyes as he considered it. “It’s a very expensive car…”
Faith had him on his back on the ground, crouching over him like a predator of the worst kind in a heartbeat. She cocked her head to the side and questioned him with a hard glare. “Fine, nuts stay, butt on boot,” he said, unsure if he wanted to tangle with her when she was irrational, full of blood, and out to prove a point.
Faith frowned and turned her top lip up with disdain. “God, you caved easily.” She pushed up and strolled back to the car, resuming her seat on the boot.
Lex pushed up in the grass onto an elbow and eyed her for a long moment. “I know when to fight and when to walk away, something you’ll need to learn to survive.”
Faith smiled. “I don’t like to back down.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t like to lose.”
“I know,” he groaned.
“And I like to get my revenge when things don’t go my way.”
“God, do I know that one,” Lex said, falling back on the grass and shielding his eyes from the hazy sunshine with the back of his hand.
“So, stay out of my way, don’t miff me off, and stop working with the enemy…”
“Which enemy?”
“Witch indeed,” Faith said. “I know you and Moira were working to get the treasure from the start.”
“Oh please, if we wanted the treasure – if there is a treasure and it wasn’t just a rouse by the Others to get a foothold in this world, then we would have had it already.”
“So, you admit to working with Moira,” Faith replied, nodding.
“I did not admit to working with Moira,” Lex said, pushing to his backside. “Except the times you told me to work with Moira to get what you wanted,” he added circling his hand in the air.
“Then where were you for that whole night and day when you went missing?”
“Waiting to see if you noticed I was missing,” Lex said. “And I might have gone scuba diving without the scuba gear in the wreck…”
“Oh!” Faith said, drawing her head back and eyeing him with disdain. “Looking for treasure, were we?”
“Yes,” Lex said. “But only so I could find it, and you could drop the whole treasure hunt thing and concentrate on what was best…”
“Best?”
“Me,” Lex said.
“You were best?” Faith asked with a snort of amusement. “For what?”
“Not what – who – you,” he replied, shrugging. “We both knew it would come to this one day.” He motioned between them.
“This?” Faith asked, her eyebrows raised at his insanity. “Me being a vampire?”
“Well, sure, that too, but us – together,” he said, emphasising the last word.
Faith snorted a chuckle. “I think I could contain my lust for you for say – the next forty years, give or take a decade.”
“I am irresistible.”
“Only with vampire tricks.”
“I would never…”
“Mind control me?”
“Exactly,” Lex said, pushing to his feet with a vampire”s grace and minimal effort.
Faith considered it. “No, I don’t think you would.”
“Thank you.”
“You have way too big and ego to think you needed mind control to get me into bed,” Faith said, smirking.
“My ego is proportionate to how wonderful I am.” Lex mocked her with a grin. “Deny it.”
“Sure – denied,” Faith said, dropping to the ground and scanning the area at the top of the hill that overlooked the guesthouse, bar and beach. “I’m bored.”
“And pop goes my ego,” Lex said, chuckling.
“I hate to wait.”
“I’ve noticed,” Lex said. “Unfortunately, you rely on the witches to tell you if Jennifer has a squatter inside her and then again for them to gather all of their stuff to make witchy-woos tonight after the witching hour.”
“Ugh!” Faith said. “And what are we supposed to do until then?”
When Lex offered her the sexiest damn look she had ever received, she felt a stirring within her that she couldn’t deny. That feeling had been building since she met him, and now she was a vampire; it had been intensified. She knew she would give in to that desire at some stage, but today was not that day. “I’d rather pull out my fangs one by one and wait for them to regrow,” she lied.
Lex allowed his head to fall forward and slowly shook it. “How you doth protest,” he said, sneaking a look at her.
“With good reason, it’s you,” she said, motioning to him.
Lex was behind her in a heartbeat; one arm encircled her waist, and his breath was against her neck as he leaned in. “And yet every fibre of your being is crying out for my touch, my taste, my…”
“Ego tripping!” Faith said, denying it to her core as she clamped her hand on his upper arm, bent forward and used her strength to toss him over her shoulder onto the ground in front of her. He hit hard with a thud. “Satisfying,” she said, grinning in victory.
“You know, two can play that game,” Lex said, swiping his leg through the air, catching the backs of her legs and dropping her onto her backside beside him. “And the good thing is, I know you’ll heal.”
Faith sat back, pressing her hands against the grass behind her to keep her in place, and considered his stance. “Challenge accepted.”
“And if I win?”
“You get to keep your balls,” Faith said.
Lex slowly shook his head. “Not good enough.”
“Too bad I don’t negotiate with vampires,” Faith said.
“Newsflash, you are one…”
“And I make it a rule never to argue with myself or bargain with the devil,” Faith replied.
“Harsh,” Lex said with a half-shrug. “You’re not the devil; you just have a few feminine issues to work out.”
“Oh,” Faith said, bounding to her feet. “Watch out – here I come, ready or not.” She lunged for him, but Lex was already gone. “Buggar!” she said, scanning the terrain around her.