Chapter 7 – Rorik
Four weeks.
I’ve had this woman held captive in my home for one month now.
The dreams have stopped.
We’ve shared three. Three wonderful sex dreams.
I can still taste her pussy on my tongue.
She refuses to speak to me, especially after finding my cameras. The silent treatment. Well, silent except for blasting music to drown out my voice when I’m at her door begging her to come out.
She won’t leave that room if I’m home. Though there’s been a few times I’ve returned to the penthouse to find her fast asleep in my bed. The ache to join her was nearly incapacitating. Instead of curling against her sleeping body, I carried her to her room.
I’ve wanted to ask her why she comes to my bed when she so clearly hates me. I want to talk to her about anything, really. I’m nearly at the point of breaking down the door and forcing her to speak to me.
Not in a harmful way. I’d never lay a hand on her. Not unless she wants me to.
Maybe she’d let me tease her. Bring her to the cusp of orgasm, then leave her wet and wanting, only allowing her to come when she speaks.
I yearn to touch her during our waking hours.
Being with her in our dreams is the only time she’s not as angry with me. She lets me caress her skin, place my hands and mouth on those beautiful curves.
She lets me taste her.
Would she allow me to pleasure her when we’re both awake and conscious?
Every day of silence on her end adds to my doubt.
Silence.
It’s wonderful.
And infuriating.
There are a lot of questions I have about this woman, questions I can’t yet seek answers to because I need to find her mother. I need to find the witch who cursed me so I can finally learn if I’m able to reverse it.
If Aurora were any other person, I’d dip inside her head and manipulate her will to give me the information I need. Even information that’s buried behind long-forgotten memories. But it’s been nice not having non-stop noise filling my head. My thoughts are my own. My sanity is not being tested.
My life has been filled with death, and it’s the one thing I can’t have. But death and leaving this earth isn’t as dire now that I’ve found Aurora.
She’s the answer to everything.
I just wish her memories were returning faster. The information inside her head is still being protected by whatever black magic spell her mother placed on her.
I’m certain the information I need can be uncovered when she’s asleep, when she comes to me in our dreams. But perhaps the magic has sensed my presence. It would explain why the dreams have stopped. Black magic can be sentient if the witch who cast it is powerful enough.
No new information was revealed in the last two dreams I shared with my little lamb. At least nothing beyond her needing a safe word and enjoying me drinking her period blood.
I adjust my aching cock as I slip into the black SUV waiting at the curb and nod to the driver.
He takes off down Fifth Avenue. I tend to avoid utilizing my vampire speed for long distances.
It takes a lot of effort, and I simply don’t feel like it.
Using the subway to Brooklyn would also be faster, but I’m a wanted vamp.
I’m trying to limit my exposure to the outside world.
I can’t risk getting caught and my little lamb being taken away from me.
So, to avoid capture, I’ve been going out at night and implementing my shadows as I revisit all the locations where the monster hunters had set up shop.
The busted safe houses have long been abandoned, guards no longer watch over the properties.
The Supernatural Crime Investigators scoured the locations, gathering any evidence left behind, but something might have been missed.
I’m desperate.
All my leads have gone dry.
The last spot to check out is the warehouse where monster hunters brought a kidnapped Vara, the sphinx who’s mated to both the vampire queen, Layla, and her gargoyle guard, Thorne. It was a temporary headquarters for the hunters, so I’m confident I’ll find something there.
Ciara was helping them for months before the ambush. She’d been manipulating them to join her army. She’d planned to turn on them, either killing or enslaving the hunters along with every human she could get her hands on.
Ciara didn’t want unity. She didn’t want our world revealed to humans. She didn’t want peace between us. She wanted supernatural beings to control the mortals. She tried to recruit supes to do her bidding, but all have failed.
First there was the feral vampire who sired the former vampire queen, but Henrick kidnapped Millie’s mate. So she killed him.
Then she brought on Magnus, the gargoyle king’s brother, who threatened to harm Xander’s mate. Magnus is now enslaved to an eternity in stone.
Ciara must have underestimated our kind. She trusted Henrick and Magnus to succeed and when they didn’t, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
Yet she also failed.
She didn’t expect thousands of us to come face to face with her.
She might be powerful, but we had strength in numbers.
It takes an hour to arrive at the warehouse due to traffic.
I’m surprised to find the place guarded.
I count three humans patrolling the perimeter, likely hired to make sure teenagers or squatters don’t try to break in.
The gargoyles and witch coven weren’t concerned about the hunters or Ciara returning to this place.
Especially after clearing everything inside. Nothing left but a shell of a building.
I’m likely wasting my time here, but I’ve lived long enough to know when to follow my instincts.
And it’s telling me something is here.
I easily compel the human guards, convincing them of a quiet night at work, then call a hacker who owes me a favor. He infiltrates the security system so my presence will go unseen as I walk around the place.
A cold breeze washes over me the moment I enter. It’s dark inside, but my nocturnal vision allows me to see perfectly. I have no doubt ghosts reside here, but entities don’t tend to appear to supernatural beings. They find us boring and of no use to them.
Ghosts like to haunt and scare and supes don’t fall for their bullshit.
I go through every room, scanning every inch of the floors, walls, and ceilings. The place reeks of magic despite the rescue operation happening months ago. All remnants of spells have been cleaned up and confiscated by the local witch coven. Still, there’s something calling to me.
I enter the final room. I’d been here the day after the bust and remember investigators saying this was the main office for the hunters. It’s where they led their operations with computers and other electronics. I don’t remember it feeling so charged that day as this room does now.
The hair on the back of my neck stands, alerting me to another presence entering the room.
The hum of his muffled thoughts fills my head.
Humans have the loudest thoughts but the minds of supernatural beings are harder to decipher.
Most keep them well protected, like the fae who have too many secrets.
I turn to the corner where a big man is hiding in the shadows, watching me.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask him.
His menacing demeanor changes. His face drops to shock, and he stands from a skulking position.
“You can see me?”
“It would appear so.”
“How?”
“I’m a vampire. A supernatural being. Supes can see ghosts.”
The man shakes his head. “That’s not true.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been here since my death. There have been gargoyles and shifters and other supernatural beings passing through. I’ve yelled and attempted to reach out to touch them to get their attention, yet they acted like I didn’t exist.”
“Hmm. Interesting.” I tap my chin with my finger.
“Sounds like you’ve been stuck in the realm between the dead and the living.
Ghosts need time to… process. For the powers that be to decide if you’ll move on or remain a ghost. Still, you need to learn how to make yourself visible and heard. Were you not provided a handbook?”
The man shakes his head. I scan him from head to toe. He’s handsome. My height with broad shoulders, a soft stomach, and tree-trunk thighs.
His hair is medium-red, and he has blue eyes.
He’s eerily familiar.
“What’s your name?”
The ghost pauses as if he can’t trust me with this information. Then he must realize I’m the first being to know of his existence since he’d died and answers.
“Ethan.”
My eyes widen. He’s a monster hunter who was killed the night Vara was kidnapped, and the son of Mally O’Hern, the patriarch of a monster hunter family that dates back centuries.
Mally was placed in a magically induced coma after he stabbed his daughter's mate with a warspear, which is toxic to gargoyles. Farrah zapped him with a bright light, and while she doesn’t have magical abilities, the witches believe she conjured the reaction because of her fated mate connection with Locheran.
Mating bonds are believed to be sentient and react when threatened.
“You’re Farrah’s brother?”
Ethan steps closer to me. “You know my sister?”
“I do.”
He takes another step and aggressively grabs hold of my shirt.
“Where is she? Is she okay?”
He glances down at his hands, then up at me, his own shock lighting up his face.
Releasing me, he puts some distance between us and runs his fingers through his hair.
“Sorry… that’s the first time I’ve been able to do that since dying.”
Physically touching during the haunting experience is frowned upon. That’s only meant for poltergeists and other negative spiritual entities. This ghost clearly missed a step in his transition to the afterlife.
The few times I’ve struck up conversations with ghosts, they explain there’s a meeting with a ghost representative who goes over the rules. Most ghosts are actively working to move on. To complete any unfinished business.
I have no doubt Ethan’s time on this earthly plane is far from over. One thing about the supernatural world is that anything is possible and rules can be changed.
And coincidences do not exist.