Chapter 8
It happened a quarter century ago, and I hadn’t thought about that day much until Aurora came back into my life.
Now vivid details sprang from my memory at random.
I had gotten up from my date with Mila to take a piss.
In the open hallway, a female vampire fed on someone.
The gurgles as she pulled blood from them echoed in my ears.
The loud music in the bar drowned out any sound she or the human had made.
Normally, I’d have gotten ticked walking into such a bold display, but Aurora lifted her eyes to mine.
Intrigue, curiosity, a bit of lust. That coursed through my mind.
Not irritation or annoyance. I couldn’t explain it presently any more than I could rationalize it a quarter century ago.
I remember casually strolling past her, leaving her to her own business.
That wouldn’t be our last encounter that night, but I saw that bright red shirt as a bullseye, and it irresistibly drew me in. Apparently, little had changed.
I wouldn’t admit it to the vamp, but I had fun hanging out in her bar all night.
I’d be lying through my canines if I said the break from the responsibility of being a pack leader also wasn’t nice.
It felt like old times, simply hanging out in a bar.
Normal. Could I even remember that feeling?
Living in a town full of monsters certainly made things livelier.
Most folks took people-watching for granted, though for me, it was a rare opportunity.
The Crimson Crypt offered it in spades. Watching Aurora in her element had also been interesting—a leader in her own right.
She didn’t just own the bar. She had everything and everyone under complete control.
Nothing strange happened the entire night, which still baffled me.
Why was she in danger? The alpha instincts thrummed inside my chest, each pound signaling to me to keep her by my side.
After her bratty, albeit funny nudge calling me the Big Bad Wolf with that song, I waited by the door for her to close up and to situate her absence with Ash.
It gave me time to pick up individual scents of people instead of them all overlapping in a perfume cloud like a godsdamned Bath & Body Works.
The shifter was the last to leave. He paused at the doorway, turning his gaze on me, which morphed into more of a glare. Breathing deeply, the musky panther scent leaked from his pores.
“Got something to say?” I asked him, his stare continuing for far too long.
The shifter elongated a claw and used it to pick something out of his teeth. “She smells good.”
My heart pounded in my chest. I held myself taller, menacing, a snarl punching from my throat. “Who?”
“Like you don’t know.” The shifter’s neon green eyes glinted at me before he rushed out the door.
I readied to chase him, but paused. Aurora chatted with Ash behind the bar. She waved at me, signaling that she was almost done. I settled my agitation and heard the shifter leave through the wall. A car started up moments later, and the sound of rocks kicking up from the tires followed.
Strange. Very strange. The panther may not have done something, but it still didn’t bode well.
“You ready?” Aurora asked.
I rubbed my chin, still a bit put off. “Yeah. Lemme go out first, alright?”
“Come on, Harkin. What did I tell you?” Aurora ignored me, pushing past.
I caught her elbow.
Her fangs extended, and her arm curled around to catch mine instead.
I let her.
“Aurora.” My chest heaved up and down. “Please.”
The vampire looked eager to make a joke about my paranoia or something similar. She studied my face, her mouth softening, and the fangs disappeared. “Fine.”
I waved at Ash. “Will do my best to get her back as quick as I can.”
“Take your time. I like being my own boss.” Ash’s wings fanned excitedly.
“Don’t get used to it,” Aurora said before following me outside.
My eyes, ears, and nose went into overdrive. With a stiff arm, I moved Aurora behind me.
Nothing.
“All I smell is two-day-old garbage and car exhaust, Harkin.” Aurora lifted her nose as if she had instincts like a shifter.
“Yeah, just bein’ cautious.” I ground my teeth together and moved for the bike.
Aurora threw her leg over it, patting the seat and waiting for me.
“That shifter at the bar. He do or say anything off?”
The vampire sat back, brow pinching in thought. “I remember him smelling the air a lot. One time I thought he was specifically smelling me, but that doesn’t make any sense, right? Vampires don’t smell like anything in particular to shifters, do they?”
My neck tensed. Other vamps had always smelled like copper and a similar aroma to a squashed stink bug to me. Aurora, even since day one, though she smelled like blood, had a pleasant rosy scent to her.
“It was probably nothin’. Fella was being a creep. What I do need to know, Aurora, is why Ash lied to me about those vamp names you gave.”
Aurora’s spine straightened. She fiddled with her antler charm. “He was being a good friend.”
I shoved one hand into my pocket. “That’s honorable and all, but I reckon there’s more to it.”
Aurora’s leg bounced before she rolled her neck back, sighing to the night sky. “Ash wouldn’t know anything about Lucius. He’s a vamp I stole something from a decade ago. It was pointless to bring him up because I never saw him after that.”
“What’d you steal?”
The vamp flashed a tiny smile. “His car.”
I leaned forward. “His car? Please tell me it was a shitty sedan or something.”
“Ferrari.” Aurora interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms.
After making a few slow-blinks at her, I dragged a hand down my face. “And he never came after you?”
“No. That’s why I said he could be a lead.”
Of all the bars in all the universe I could have taken a job at, it had to wind up being hers. I swear.
“And the other vamp? Ash knows about him?” I asked.
The confident swagger fizzled a smidge as Aurora slouched. “Ash is aware of him, yes. Morcant.”
Getting anything out of this woman was like getting blood from a turnip.
“And Morcant is?” I made a “spill it” gesture.
Aurora chewed the inside of her mouth. Her chocolate eyes leveled with mine. “My maker.”
Oh, shit.
A peculiar knot twisted in my gut.
“Your maker? Why would he be a threat?”
The vamp guffawed and smacked the seat between her legs. “The easier question would be why wouldn’t he be. It’s unlikely he’d send for me after all this time, but I guess anything is possible. I don’t have any tracking magic on me, though. Brigid checked.”
“Was that all that green glittery shit floatin’ around you?”
Aurora nodded.
There were so many more questions I wanted to ask about this Morcant. Judging from the weariness in the vamp’s eyes, prying any more out of her right now didn’t seem right.
“Let’s get on home,” I said, hopping onto the bike and taking us back to Aurora’s place.
We settled into Aurora’s cellar for the day, and I got a full rest, given I was back to alpha duty tomorrow.
Fuck. Ensuring neighboring packs, plus my own, understood she was off-limits would require considerable effort.
The vampire amidst shifter territory was to be left alone. What the hells had I landed myself in?
When we climbed to the main floor, Aurora was a flurry of activity, packing a suitcase with enough clothes to last her a year.
She had opened it on the couch and flipped the lid shut only to have some pieces explode from the sides.
She attempted to pull the zipper, but it got stuck halfway.
Groaning, she jumped on top of it, trying to use her weight to zip it further, but only got an extra inch.
“For the moon’s sake, move,” I barked sharply, shooing her away.
Aurora glared at me, but eventually hopped off. I took out several items, punched what I could into the suitcase, pressed it down, and zipped it shut. “There.”
“What about those three things?” She pointed at the clothes I’d sacrificed.
I picked one up. It was a black cropped shirt with a pair of red lips and fangs. The words “Vampire Fang Club” surrounded it in a circle. “You really need this one?”
“We’re going to be in wolf territory. I thought it’d be funny.” Aurora shrugged and snatched the shirt from me.
“It’s gonna be hard enough keepin’ them away from you, Aurora, without you stirrin’ ‘em up any more. Leave the shirt.”
She furrowed her brow, clearly not liking my “command.” I hadn’t even used my alpha voice.
“Please?” I forced out.
“Fine.” She tossed the shirt behind her. “But this one is coming even if I have to stuff it in my pants.” Aurora held up a gray shirt with a big grey owl head on it, wide yellow eyes, and the words “Owl Night Long.”
I held my hands up in defeat. “Alright, that one’s kind of funny.”
“And apparently this simply cannot fit so—” Aurora held up a small piece of red lace hanging from a single finger.
My mind vividly imagined what her ass would look like in it. I tightened my jaw. “Sure it could go in a front pocket.”
“Oh, okay, as long as you’re sure it’ll fit?” The vixen held it by two fingers now, revealing not only that they were lace panties but a thong.
Focusing on Aurora’s eyes, I shook my head. “You. Are. A brat.”
“I’m aware.” She smiled, swiveled her hips, and did, in fact, shove them in a front pocket.
For fuck’s sake. It’d be all I could do not to think about them being in there.
“You know Waffles has to come, right?” Aurora asked, shocking me out of my daydream.
I walked to the kitchen for a glass of damn water. “The zombie dog? You want to bring it to the Falls?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I can’t trust anyone else to watch him.” Aurora joined me in the kitchen, moving in front of me and pushing her flat hand into my shoulder. “Don’t you dare say I can’t bring him.”
“Ouch,” I feigned, brushing her hand away despite how her touch sent a delicious charge through my chest even with my shirt in the way. “Fine. But he’s your responsibility and he better not shit on my floor.”
Waffles hopped excitedly, his squishy tail wagging.
“Your floor?” Aurora’s eyes seemed to light up.
I filled a glass with water and turned to face her. “I sure ain’t about to have you staying at my second-hand’s place.”
Aurora scratched her nails down her throat, her arousing scents floating from places I had no business thinking about. I guzzled the water and grabbed the faucet for more. “Do you have a place I can rest, though?”
Nodding and still drinking, I rested the glass on the counter, slightly out of breath. “Gotta wine cellar with no windows. Think that’ll do?”
“For a while.” Aurora nodded, her eyes going distant. She rubbed her earlobe as if conflicted over something.
“You’ll tell me if you get uncomfortable, right?”
“Mmhmm.”
That answer couldn’t have convinced a two-year-old pup. “Aurora?”
“Yes, yes, alright.” She flicked her hands at me. “It’ll do neither of us any good if I’m slowly dying.”
My throat numbed, the sensation traveling to my stomach. The idea of her dying, of not existing? My claws extracted.
“Something wrong?” Aurora’s brow crept up at my wolfish hand.
“No.” I made a fist and grabbed her suitcase. “Let’s get a move on. We can make it in time for the pack meetin’ if we leave now. Everyone’ll be in one place.”
“Let me grab Waffles’ harness and carrier.”
I paused at the doorway. “Carrier? We bringin’ a child or a dog?”
“Strange how those are often the same thing,” Aurora said as she passed me with a wide smile. She patted my cheek, the last pat having a bit more gusto behind it.
The vamp attached Waffles to her chest with some strappy contraption that wound to her back. She jiggled another small bag of supplies.
“Will my suitcase fit on your bike?” She asked, staring at it parked in her front yard.
“That’s what bungee cords are for. It’ll fit, biscuit.” I winked at her, enticing a delicious little laugh that had me dancing on the fucking moon.
Aurora moved in front of me, her flowery scent hitting my nostrils like sultry smoke from a fire.
It had steadily become stronger, more potent.
Her nape, that supple bit of skin where her neck met her shoulder, had also become more difficult to ignore.
I shook it away like wet-soaked hair, and secured her suitcase to the cargo rail on the back of my bike.
Aurora waited on the seat, playing with Waffles’ two front paws he kept patting her hand with, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
Once on the motorcycle, I grunted when Waffles’ paws pounded against my back. “Tell me he won’t do that the entire ride?”
“He’s never been on a bike before, so I couldn’t tell you.”
With a groan, I started the bike up. “So long as he doesn’t vomit.”
“I can’t promise that either.”
My wolfish eyes narrowed into sharp slits.
“Well, I can’t.” Aurora blinked at me when I didn’t immediately turn around. “I’ll aim him around you so it goes behind us.”
“That’s a better answer.” I faced forward, a tiny smile creeping onto my mouth that I hid from the vampire.
Glancing at the night sky, noting that the full moon would hang heavy tomorrow night, I let its soothing glow calm me.
I’d take any blessing given to me in order to prepare for what was to come next.
With a vampire on the rear of my bike and a zombie dog kicking my back between us, I readied for my return to Plena Falls—shifter territory.