Author: Emily Goodwin
Category: Vampires
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I grab sleeper shorts and a tank top from the top drawer of my dresser. Usually, I sleep naked next to Lucas, but I’m hoping to visit my uncle again tonight and ask my fair share of questions.
“Let me see,” I tell him and brace myself for the wound to be open and bloody. “We probably shouldn’t have had sex.”
“The day I can’t have sex with you, Callie, is a day I don’t want to be alive.”
I purse my lips and shake my head, sitting on the edge of the bed. Swallowing hard, I peel back the bandage.
“Oh, thank god.” I let out a breath of relief. The stitches haven’t popped open. Abby really did a good job. The wound, however, looks nasty and painful. Lucas’s skin is red and raw, and I can tell the places that have been glued shut are tight and pulling.
Fuck, I hate this.
“This will help it heal and should prevent infections,” I tell him and gently cover the wound with healing balm. “And it smells good.”
“It has a comforting smell.”
“That would be the lavender and the frankincense.” I take the old bandage off and get up again to get a fresh one. I carefully tape it over the wound and sink back into bed, grabbing my water bottle. I’m tired, still kinda dizzy, and feel a little sick.
I need to hydrate and sleep like yesterday.
“Do you want more blood?” I ask Lucas after I take a long drink. “I can slip a bag of it in bed with me so it’ll be warm for you later.” I try not to make a face at how utterly weird that is to say.
“No, but thanks. I’m not hungry.” He makes a face, slowly shaking his head. “I think I’m…I’m thirsty.”
“For blood?”
His eyes to go the water bottle in my hand. “For that.”
“Oh.” I sharply inhale, take one more small drink, and hand him the bottle. “Have a drink, then?”
Lucas nods, looking totally perplexed, and slowly brings it to his lips. He hesitates before taking the smallest drink and shudders as he swallows the water.
“And?” I ask, brows furrowing.
“That tastes fucking disgusting. But it felt good.”
My stomach flip flops. “If you think you need more, you should drink it. Until I can remove the curse, we have to do what we can to maintain your, um, insides.”
“I will.” He gives me the water back, and I take another big drink. “Go back to sleep, my love. You need your rest just as much as I do.”
“Right. Sleep.” I recap the water, put it on my nightstand, and lie back down. I do need sleep, but I don’t know how I’m going to turn off my brain.
Because if Lucas is thirsty for water, then I don’t think my binding spell is holding as well as I’d hoped.
Chapter 9
The next time I wake up, Lucas has been replaced by Scarlet. I roll over, and the puppy licks my face.
“Hey, girl,” I say and run my hand over her soft fur. “I need to figure out how to make you grow. I’ll just add it to my list.” I yawn and stretch, not wanting to get out of bed just yet, but I want to go find Lucas.
He’s downstairs somewhere and is fine. Well, more or less. If he wasn’t, I’d know. My familiars would come get me, and Eliza wouldn’t be calm and quiet.
Still…I need to see for myself.
I get out of bed, grab underwear and a t-shirt, and use the bathroom before going downstairs. The TV is on in the living room, and the smell of coffee wafts up the stairs.
“Morning,” I say to Eliza when I walk past the living room. She’s on the couch, wearing a strapless sundress.
“It’s nearly the afternoon now,” she replies, lifting her head and leaning back in the bright light that streams through the large living room windows.
“I can enchant all the windows at your house, too,” I tell her. “When I have some free time.”
“I’d like that.” She smiles. “Though the next time you have free time probably won’t be until next year.”
“Hah. I seriously hope not. Though I did just have two glorious weeks in Napa with Lucas.” I sigh dreamily, thinking back to the nearly stress-free time we spent together for our honeymoon. We’re supposed to be leaving the second week of October and spending the rest of the month traveling around, ending with a trip to Disney World. I won’t be a member of the coven by the time Halloween rolls around, and not being able to take part in the Samhain festivities is going to hurt. It was Lucas’s idea to get out of town and make our own fun.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Eliza says, knowing I’ll ask. “Attempting to make you breakfast.” She rolls her eyes and looks back at the TV. I get a gooney smile on my face again and, for a brief moment, feel like everything is okay.
Then I blink and that moment goes away.
“Hello, beautiful,” Lucas tells me, stepping away from the stove. He’s dressed in a white t-shirt and—lord have mercy—my favorite gray sweatpants. I want to take him upstairs and make love to him all over again. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” I’m still smiling as I go to him. “You wore me out last night.”
He turns the burner down and closes the distance between us. “Ready to do it again?” His arms fold around my waist. “I am.”
“Let me check this first,” I say, fully aware I’m ruining the moment. I slide my hands down his firm chest and pull up the hem of his t-shirt. He’s taken the bandage off, and the cut looks a little better than it did last night. A little. But it still has a long way to go. We definitely won’t be having sex again. I can’t risk him popping a stitch.
“I’m feeling fine,” Lucas says flatly, knowing I’ll ask. “Not better. Not worse.”
“The binding spell buys us some time. But I don’t know how long it will continue to hold until the curse breaks through. I need to get ahold of Evander and have him send me everything he knows about necromancy and curses.”
“Eat first. I Googled typical American breakfasts and something called biscuits and gravy was popular. Do you like it?”
“I love it.”
“I just put the biscuits in the oven.”
“You are so good to me,” I say, letting his shirt fall back into place. I hook my arms around his shoulders and stand on my toes to kiss him.
“Ugh,” Eliza snits. “I don’t want to listen to you two fucking again already.”
I make a face. “Oops. Sorry. I’m used to us being alone.”
“Yeah, I could tell.” Eliza opens the pantry and gets out a box of dog treats. Scarlet is by her feet, tail wagging like mad. “Come on,” she tells the hellhound, patting her leg. “You need to learn some manners.”
I take my eyes off of Lucas and look at Scarlet. “Sit,” I say, and Scarlet listens right away. “Lay down.” The dog quickly lays on the floor. “Roll over. Good girl. Now, go kill demons!”
“You’re speaking Enochian again,” Lucas tells me.
“Really?” I turn back to him.
“Yep.”
“That’s so fucking weird.” I slowly shake my head. “I’m saying the words in English in my head.”
“You did it last night, too. When you were saying the spell to bind the curse. Whatever you said sounded similar to what you said the night you commanded the hellfire.”
“It would be really nice to have some answers.” I look up at the ceiling, mentally calling for my father again. My phone rings, and I break away from Lucas to go get it from my purse that I left in the foyer. It’s Abby, and I feel bad I’ve left her hanging this long.
“Hey,” I say into the phone.
“Hey, Cal. How is Lucas?”
“Pretty much the same.”
“That’s good, in a sense,” she says.
“Yeah, and Kristy’s healing balm helped the wound to start to scab. It’s so weird, Abby.”
“That is. How are you holding up?”
“I’m…I’m okay. I just got up.”
“Are you at your house in Thorne Hill?”
“We are.”
“Good. You have, uh, ma
gical supplies there that can help Lucas?”
“I’m not sure yet. I need to talk to Evander. He’ll be able to at least point me in the right direction. I went through all my books last night and pulled together everything I could about breaking curses. I don’t want to try something generic, though. I’ll have to undo my binding spell in order to break the curse, and if it doesn’t work, more damage could be done before I rebind the curse.”
Abby doesn’t say anything back, and I think maybe the call got dropped. I pull my phone away and check. Nope. We’re still connected.
“Abby?”
“I’m here. Sorry. I was just trying to process everything you said.”
“It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
“Yeah, and you do this all the time. Well, not try to break curses on your new husband, but you know what I mean.”
“Hah. I do.”
“Can Lucas take antibiotics?”
“No, why? Do you think he needs some?” My stomach tightens.
“Maybe. I was thinking about how he could get sick or how the wound could get infected. If he were a human patient, I’d put him on something to prevent an infection.”
“I honestly don’t know what would happen if a vampire tired to eat something like that,” I tell my sister. “What if I took them?”
“And then he drank your blood? Now I honestly have no idea if that would work.”
“If I’m drunk and Lucas drinks my blood, he gets drunk, too.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. It lasts like ten minutes for him, though, and I have to drink a lot. Maybe I can take like a triple dose of antibiotics and then have him—”
“You would kill your stomach, Cal. And I don’t think it works that way, though we’re talking about a vampire who’s been cursed by necromancers. I know nothing.”
“Okay, Jon Snow.”
Abby laughs. “Let me know if you need anything or if his stitches come undone. His muscle tore, too. If he moves the wrong way or exerts himself too much, it will easily tear open.”
“That’s what I told him last night,” I mumble.
“Wait, you two hooked up last night? After everything that went on?”
“It was this morning, and yes. Though he’s more or less okay. He’s making me breakfast now.”
“Are you sure he’s real?”
Now I laugh, but my laughter quickly fades. Lucas is everything I could ever want. And the reality of losing him is all too real.
“Thank you, Abby,” I say sincerely. “For helping last night. I’ll order you a new blanket and towels today.”
“Don’t worry about it, Cal. It’ll give me an excuse to go shopping.”
“I still feel bad for making you have to go out and buy stuff. I can pay you back for what you buy.”
“Normally I feel like an ass if I say this, but remember that Phil and I are both doctors. I can handle a little shopping.”
“Oh, right. I did forget you’re loaded.”
“Loaded might be pushing it. We just paid off Phil’s student loans last year.”
“I forgot about that, too.”
“That just made me wonder something,” she starts. “You went to a school for witches. How did you pay for it? Or do you not have to pay?”
“You pay. I’m not sure what the tuition is, but it’s more affordable than the average private school. Tabatha covered all my costs since I was ten when she took me in. She bought me everything, from school supplies to clothes.”
“There’s so much about you I don’t know.”
“Same about you. I didn’t know you had a C-section,” I tell her.
“Oh, right. I was in labor for twenty-three hours and then had an emergency C-section.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was,” she says honestly. “But not so bad I don’t want to go it again in a few years.”
“That’s good.” I turn and look back into the kitchen, watching Lucas cook the sausage. “Well, I should go and try to get ahold of Evander. I’ll call you later.”
“Please do. Love you, Cal.”
“Love you, too.” I end the call and call Evander as I walk into the kitchen. It goes right to his voicemail, which means he’s at the Academy. I leave him a quick message and then send him a text, asking him to call me back.
I try Kristy next, and her phone goes right to voicemail, too. She hangs out at the Academy from time to time, and if she can get my message before she’s too far away from the Covenstead door, then maybe she can turn around and tell Evander I need to talk to him.
“I can take over,” I tell Lucas, worried he’s going to overdo it.
“I like cooking for you. The way I see it, you feed me, so I should feed you,” he tells me, and Eliza makes a gagging noise from the living room.
“I like when you cook for me, too.” I stand behind him and go to wrap my arms around his waist but stop, not wanting to touch the stitches. “I’m going to get more healing balm. It might not work anymore, but it won’t hurt.”
Lucas sighs but nods. I give him a quick kiss and go upstairs, getting the healing balm and a large piece of gauze to put over it so the balm won’t get on the inside of his shirt.
Once the balm is applied, the gravy is slowly simmering on the stove, and Lucas is sitting at the island counter, I try Evander again.
And get his voicemail.
I call Kristy and don’t get ahold of her, either. I know Tabatha will be at the Covenstead, but I try her, too. Every minute counts, and I look at Lucas, knowing that curse is like a ticking time bomb. Will we know if the binding spell breaks? Or will we only find out once his symptoms worsen past the point of no return?
The timer on the oven goes off, and I jump up before Lucas has a chance to. I get the biscuits out of the oven, stir the gravy, and get out a bowl. The gravy needs another few minutes to simmer, and I break apart hot biscuits while I wait, anxiously looking at my phone and hoping it will ring.
I take my food into the living room, and Eliza pesters Lucas to drink another bag of blood in hopes it will help him heal. He keeps telling her he’s not hungry since he had more of my blood last night, but she refuses to believe that my blood can be more filling than human blood. I’m about ready to tell her to scratch me and try my blood just so she’ll shut up, but my phone rings.
I practically throw my bowl to the side as I reach for it, grabbing it off the coffee table. But it’s not my friends.
“It’s one of the contractors,” I say and silence the call.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” Lucas cocks an eyebrow.
“I don’t feel like talking to them right now. And I might miss a call.”
“You’ll know if Evander calls,” he says and holds out his hand. I give him the phone, and he answers. I take my empty bowl into the kitchen and rinse it out in the sink.
Lucas is still on the phone, and it sounds like he’s talking about a plumbing issue the contractor is dealing with right now. Old houses are full of problems. I pace around the kitchen, hating that I’m wasting time.
“I’m going to call them one more time,” I tell Freya, who’s sitting on the counter, watching me pace. “And then I’m going to the Academy.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she reminds me that I’m not allowed to be there.
“I don’t care,” I tell her. “I’m going.”
Chapter 10
“Didn’t you say the enchantments on the door to the Covenstead have been changed to keep you out?” Lucas cocks an eyebrow and leans back on the couch, one hand going to the wound on his stomach.
“They have.”
“Then how are you going?”
“I won’t be physically walking through.” I leave the living room, going into my rarely used dining room to get the supplies I need.
“You’re astral projecting,” Lucas says, and I nod. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You told me before it takes a lot out of you, and you haven’t gotten much sleep, you’re a bal
l of nerves, and you lost a lot of blood yesterday.”
“Not as much as you,” I counter, though I know my argument makes no sense in the context. “And I’ll be fine. I’ll have my familiars watch my body to make sure nothing tries to get inside—”
“Except for me.”
I roll my eyes. “I did pretty much hand that one to you. Just no butt stuff, okay?”
He laughs and then winces from the movement on his stomach. “I prefer you to be awake and willing anyway.”
“I will never be willing when it comes to anal.”
“You’d be surprised by how much you’d enjoy it.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t see how anyone can enjoy that. It’s an out hole, and I prefer not to stretch out my butthole.”
Eliza, who just walked into the living room, throws up her hands, shakes her head, and walks right back out.
“Dammit, I’m almost out of salt.” I look at my jar of black salt and bite my lip. I’ll skimp on my circle, but with three familiars to keep spirits at bay, I don’t need to worry.
I hope.
“Do you have the spell for this written down somewhere?” Lucas asks as I push the coffee table to the side.
“I do. It’s in my Book of Shadows upstairs.”
He makes a move to get up, and I throw up my hand, telekinetically pushing him back down against the cushions. He hefts back, and I drop my hand, hurting him on accident once again.
“I’m sorry,” I rush out. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s fine,” he presses. “I never realized how strong you are since I’m usually stronger.”
“You’ll be stronger again.” I look at my hand and curl my fingers into my palm. I need to stop using my powers around Lucas. I’d never forgive myself if I hurt him.
“Eliza,” Lucas calls, and she’s there in just a second. “Can you get Callie’s Book of Shadows from our bedroom?”
Eliza pops her hip and rests a freshly manicured hand on it. “Am I going to find lingerie and restraints tied to the bedposts?”
Lucas narrows his eyes. “Now.”
“Fine,” she huffs and zooms up the stairs, coming back just a few seconds later. Lucas takes the book from her and flips through it with vampire speed, finding the astral projection spell by the time I get the circle of salt poured on the floor.