Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“Fine,” I said, striding out of the study to find someone to find some suitable clothing and replacement Chinese food.
As a rule, vampires didn’t need to breathe. But, alone, I sucked in a deep breath with the sole purpose of cleaning my nose and lungs of the scent of the witch.
Perhaps she did not taste of summer honey, of black-eyed susans, zinnias, and lavender in full bloom, but that was the scent that clung to her, that swirled around her whenever she so much as turned her head.
It was overwhelming, distracting.
My mind flashed back to the ride in the back of the town car, of her compact, curvy body situated on my lap, the bumps and turns making her rock against me.
It was simply the friction, surely, that had desire spreading through me.
I was not someone whose tastes ran to the exotic. The occasional human, sure, but certainly never a witch.
Trusting that the witch was secure in the study with a guard a few dozen feet away, I took myself into the kitchen, pouring a glass of whiskey and throwing it back.
Drunkenness was possible for vampires, but one had to be quite determined to get there. I just wanted the burn of the fire down my throat to provide a distraction from the stirrings of desire sparking through my system.
I made my way back into the study an hour later, finding the witch sitting in my chair at the desk, the surface littered with precious ancient texts… and cartons of fried Chinese food.
A journal from a French priest in the Dark Ages had a wide noodle sitting on its worn leather cover.
“What do you think you are doing?” I snapped, lifting up the journal, the movement making the noodle slide off and land on the surface of my desk that had been crafted by six blind Spanish monks.
A rumble moved through me as I collected more tomes.
“Are you… growling at me?” the witch asked, lips twitching as she twirled her chopsticks into a carton of more of those noodles. “Isn’t that for werewolves, not vampires?”
“Do not eat around precious, one-of-a-kind books,” I snapped, admittedly offended by being compared to a dog.
“Sooorry for trying to do a little research on your special little magical key,” she said, rolling her eyes as she shoved a laughably large amount of noodles into her mouth. “I mean, I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“You don’t need to know what it looks like. You will feel its energy when you are near. It may even call to you.”
“If you say so,” she said, sitting back in my chair to put her legs up on the edge of the desk.
I needed her out of my study.
Before I did something stupid like snap her neck.
I didn’t have time to find another witch.
“Are you sufficiently nourished?” I asked, finding the bag one of the servants had brought in. Presumably containing the clothing I’d asked for.
“I barely got started,” she said, gesturing to the collection of no fewer than five cartons of food, all of which were half-eaten.
“You won’t starve,” I said, watching her eyes narrow.
“Are you calling me fat?”
“I am saying you have eaten enough to last you the next few hours. Change into the clothes, so we can be off,” I said, dropping the bag onto the desk, then turning away to start re-shelving my books.
“Right here?” she squeaked.
“Trust me, there is no need for modesty,” I drawled.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is there something wrong with me?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “You’re a witch. Change.”
I focused on the task at hand, pretending all the while that I was not acutely aware of the swoosh of her clothes as she slid them off of her body. That I wasn’t thinking of the soft, warm flesh being exposed.
“There,” she declared a few moments later. “Is it giving International Super Spy?” she asked as I slid the last book into its place, then turned to look at her.
Gone were the ill-fitting, juvenile pants.
In their place was a pair of black leggings that hugged every inch of her shapely thighs, hips, and ass.
Her tank top was covered with a simple black t-shirt that hid the upper part of her body.
A pity, that.
No.
This had nothing to do with her body, damn it all.
This was about her power.
And her willingness to do what I desperately needed done.
As if to prove this point, as I turned, a pain shot through my knee, little knives of agony in the joint that had no right to still be animated three centuries later.
The wear and tear of human decay.
That was what I was feeling.
That was why I needed this witch.
That was why I needed to stop looking at those cherry lips and thinking of them on my lips, on my neck, on my—
“Let’s go,” I snapped, tone harsher than I’d intended.