Dahlia Read online

  I wanted to wake Dahlia up and beg her to make love to me the way I had done to Daire in her dream, but that would have made me completely pathetic. Still, I considered it a few times before finally heading into the dark bathroom to deal with my hard on.

  Stroking myself, I thought about Dahlia’s sweet curves and her sexy eyes. I should have felt like a pervert, but she was the one having sex next to me.

  It didn’t take long for me to get off once I thought about her perfect breasts bouncing up and down as I took her on my lap.

  I snuck back into Dahlia’s room when I heard her say something. “Dahlia. Are you awake?”

  “He’s coming for me.” She mumbled softly and rolled over.

  Great! She was having another sex dream.

  I quickly grabbed my sweatshirt and shoes so that I could run out for another quick bite. Really, I was annoyed that she was having sex with someone else. At least I didn’t have to stay and listen to it.

  “Oh God, where am I?” I heard her heart rate spike and I paused in the doorway. Turning around, I saw that she was still asleep. Was she having a nightmare?

  I walked over to the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?” I made sure to sound calm and soothing, so I didn’t scare her.

  “The fog. I can’t see him. He’s coming.” The panic in her voice made me want to bite whoever was chasing her in the dream.

  “Who?” I doubted I would get an answer, but it was worth a shot. I hoped that Daire was now chasing her with a kitchen knife, which would give me a really good reason to tear off his jaw.

  “I need to hide. I need to run.” She sounded like a scared little kid. I leaned over to stroke her forehead, hoping to calm her down.

  She suddenly sat straight up and screamed as if someone was killing her.

  “Dahlia! You’re safe. I have you. Relax.” She didn’t hear me or understand that she was dreaming. Instead, she flopped back onto her pillow and rolled to her side.

  If my heart were capable of beating out of my chest, it would have. She’d scared the shit out of me.

  Waiting a few more minutes to make sure she was okay, I left her lightly snoring on her pillow.

  I ran my hands through my hair and pulled up my hood. I needed to find someone to feed from and fast. At 3:00 AM, it would be tough, but I needed to eat. I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long in case she had another nightmare. She might not have known I was there, but it made me feel better to know that she wasn’t alone.

  Walking out the front door, I stood on the wrap around porch and breathed in the night air. Smelling the evening air was one of the few things I enjoyed anymore, that and the taste of blood. I’d taken a risk by agreeing to sleep next to Dahlia since my hunger was still an uncontrollable enemy, but she sounded so sad when she asked me to stay. I couldn’t refuse.

  After smelling the small traces of blood all day at the tattoo studio, I had been starving. Even my quick lunch break to drink a mailman hadn’t satisfied me. I was about to quickly excuse myself to find my next meal, but Dahlia had broken down and drawn those weird chess pieces.

  Why the hell had I agreed to work in a place with blood lingering in the air?

  Thinking about the gray eyes and sexy smile of the blonde asleep upstairs, I knew why.

  I sniffed the air and picked up the scent of a human in the cemetery followed by the scent of herbs and smoke. A couple of guys were getting high off something in the cemetery. What losers.

  Heading down the steps, I stopped when a bicyclist rode up and stopped in front of the house. Well, this was perfect timing. The idiot on the bike would make for a nice meal and cut down my time away from Dahlia.

  The wind shifted and I caught the scent of the man. Fuck me. It was Daire Foxworth. Why the fuck was here at three in the morning? Maybe she had been dreaming about him because she had him on speed dial for booty calls.

  I glanced back up at Dahlia’s bedroom window. Was Daire the one following her in her nightmare? Maybe the first dream wasn’t a sex dream. It was possible that I made assumptions. Maybe she had been moaning in pain.

  If he were here to hurt her, I would rip out his throat.

  Chapter 13 Daire

  I jumped off my bike, swearing up and down that I would do more cardio the second I got the chance. Pulling off my helmet, I checked my phone and glanced up at the house—Dahlia Huston’s house, according to the GPS—the house directly next to the biggest cemetery in Silver Springs. Wonderful.

  Instead of seeing Dahlia standing on her front porch in the middle of the night, I found the goddamned vampire.

  “If you killed her…” I shouted, uncaring that it was the middle of the night.

  Aiden released his fangs and hissed at me. I would need to rethink my vampire attack strategy, if I survived this fight.

  “I’ll kill you!” He leapt into the air and came straight at me.

  “Prinde și aruncă!” I clapped my hands together as if I was catching a ball and watched Aiden stop in mid-air and hover. Holding him, I threw him into the cemetery.

  With him out of the way, I ran up the stairs, hoping that Dahlia’s heart was still beating. I didn’t know any spells that could replenish blood in a body, but I did know a spell that would slow the heart so I had time to get help.

  If she was dead, there might be just enough time to find her soul and shove it back into her body if she hadn’t died long ago.

  My heart broke at the thought of her being dead. I was so distracted by that single thought that I didn’t see the fucking vampire leaping across the yard until I felt him throw me into the front shrubs.

  Leaning over me, he tried to pull me up by my jacket before I could get to my feet.

  “Lumină puternică!” I clenched my hands into fists and opened my fingers to blind him with a bright light. “That’s right! Suck on my magic, asshole!” His night vision would be useless and give me time to run away like a little girl.

  No! You have to save Dahlia. There will be no chickening out and crying. You are a conjurer who knows more magic than the average academy student. You can fight a vampire. Right?

  Aiden growled and stumbled backwards, giving me enough time to get to my feet and ready my next spell. As I opened my mouth to speak, he lunged in my general direction and threw his arm out, catching me around the waist. He knocked the air out of my lungs before I could use my spell.

  “You die now!” His lips curled back, exposing his really sharp fangs, which were ready to tear into my throat.

  Panicking, I thought of the only spell I could. “Pune botniţă!” My hands were trapped between our bodies, but I did what I could to move them together and make a caging motion.

  Aiden paused to look down between us. “Are you trying to touch my dick?”

  “No.” I grunted, finally able to make the cage. “I’m muzzling you.” The second my fingers touched together, a Hannibal Lecter type mask appeared over Aiden’s face, preventing him from biting me.

  Aiden tugged at the mask and rolled off me, frantically trying to free himself. “Get this off me!”

  I sent up a giant thank you to my Aunt Lucinda’s nasty Doberman who enjoyed chasing me around the house and nipping me on my ass. I had learned the spell to defend myself from Fluffy. Who the fuck names their Doberman Fluffy?

  Taking a breath, my courage returned now that the vamp couldn’t bite me. “How long ago did you kill her?”

  I looked towards the cemetery, hoping her spirit might go there to wander until the reapers came for her. Shit, I wasn’t looking forward to fighting reapers tonight, but I would do whatever was necessary to put Dahlia’s soul back into her body.

  Yes, it was wrong to resurrect people, but right now, I didn’t care. If the covens believed I was a dark wizard, then I would show them what I was really capable of doing.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Dahlia’s not dead. I thought you were here to kill her.” Aiden stopped struggling with the facemask and popped to his feet to glare at me.
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  My mind went blank. Had the bloodsucker just accused me of biking all the way over here in the dead of night to murder the most beautiful woman I’d ever met? Was he stupid?

  “Me? Why the hell would I kill her? I’m her soulmate.” I wondered if the vampire had hit his head too hard when I tossed him earlier.

  “How are you her soulmate?” His voice softened and his face immediately fell. Why did he sound heartbroken?

  Stunned, I raised my eyebrow and pointed to the orange glow emanating from my chest that led to Dahlia’s house. Oddly, instead of just one orange glowing line, I realized there were two. They were so close together that they looked like one thick line instead of two thin lines. “What the fuck?”

  I followed the second line over to Aiden. No. No, this wasn’t happening.

  “Why are you glowing?” Aiden looked down at my chest only to realize that he had the same glow on his chest. “Shit. I’m glowing too. What did you do to me?”

  I held my arms up in defense so that the vampire didn’t try to tear off my arms and claw out my eyes. “I didn’t do anything. It was Dahlia. She must have taken a love spell to reveal her true mate, or in this case, mates.”

  Aiden shook his head and took a step back. “Wait. What? We’re her soulmates?” He looked around dumbfounded by the knowledge. Apparently, he didn’t know about the potion.

  “Aprinde!” I opened my hand and created a softer light that wouldn’t blind either of us. “See this orange glow? It’s the result of a love spell. Both of our lines are tethered to her, unless there’s someone else in the house.” God, I hoped her grandmother wasn’t staying with her. That would certainly be my luck, though I would love her grandmother with all my heart if it turned out to be her.

  “No. There’s no one else inside. Just her.” He stared down at the glow. “I was with her all day and night. All she drank was Diet Sprite and water. There’s no way she had time to make a love potion. She was rarely out of my sight unless she was tattooing someone. I would have noticed herbs in the trashcan. All I saw were ashes from someone’s cigarette. I definitely would have seen this orange glow in the daylight.” He shook his head and scrunched up his face in concentration. “Are you sure you didn’t do something to her during your sex dream?”

  My heart stopped. “Wait, what? How do you know about my sex dream? And why are you even here if you didn’t know about the love spell?” Scatterbrained from my discovery of having a soulmate, the possibility of that soulmate’s death, and my own near death experience, I realized that Aiden had no reason to be here if he wasn’t hungry and didn’t know about the spell. Unless he was already sleeping with her.

  My jealousy spiked for a second until I realized that he technically had every right to be here since he was her soulmate too, though I was still pissed that he’d been with her tonight.

  He tapped the facemask with his claw. “Remove this and I’ll tell you.”

  I huffed and threw up my arms. “Fine! Scoate botul!” I broke the spell and removed the muzzle by uncaging my fingers. “Talk.”

  He rubbed his jaw and walked over to the steps to sit. He proceeded to explain how she’d had a vision of chess pieces with creepy eyes in the background. After that, he’d driven her home and put her to bed.

  I felt bad that she was in pain after her latest vision and wished I had been there for her.

  He described how Dahlia had moaned and called my name while she slept. Once that dream ended, she cried out in her sleep because someone was chasing her.

  “I snuck out to get some blood while she slept. That’s when I saw you coming to the house. I thought you were trying to hurt her.” I could see that he was agitated by what had happened, though he was in control of his anger.

  “I swear that I’m not here to hurt her.” Embarrassed, I rubbed the back of my head. “I don’t know how or why, but the sex dream with Dahlia was real, sort of. I fell asleep on my couch watching TV. The next thing I knew, I was freezing to death and Dahlia was staring up at me with those gorgeous eyes. I didn’t exactly know what was happening, but I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn’t really a dream. My dreams almost always have dead people trying to communicate with me and they are never vivid, not that I can remember anyway.” Aiden’s judgmental look made me feel weird about having semi-real sex with Dahlia.

  “So you came here to get it on with her in real life too?” He looked me up and down as if I was a sex fiend.

  “No. Once Dahlia figured out how to break the connection between us, I fell back to sleep and had a conversation with Baruch Spinoza, a philosopher that died in the 1600’s. It’s a long story, don’t ask. But after that, I woke up and went to my bedroom. That’s when I saw the orange glow. I pulled out my old potions book just to confirm that I was seeing a love spell in action. I grabbed my pants and jacket and biked in the direction of the orange glow, tracking my location with my phone. That’s how I knew it was Dahlia’s house. I thought you’d killed her when I saw you on the steps.” Never in my wildest dreams did I think the vampire would also be her soulmate.

  Aiden jumped off the steps to pace back and forth. “I would never hurt her. I know I’m not great around blood, but I’ve never killed anyone. I swear. But, I will kill anyone who harms her in any way.”

  I stood up to face him. “Umm, you’re a new vampire that isn’t even smart enough to bring blood bags for lunch. You also didn’t think about the consequences of being in a tattoo studio where there’s blood, unless you’re there to feed on the patrons.”

  “I didn’t drink from anyone there. Admittedly, I didn’t consider that tattoo places aren’t the best places for vampires, but I agreed to work there because I needed the money and I wanted to get to know Dahlia. She’s the first person who’s been nice to me since I was bitten.” He looked away to hide his shame.

  I took a step back and gave him some room. I didn’t know anything about him and he didn’t know anything about me. It would be wrong to judge him solely based on being undead.

  I felt bad for not considering the fact that he might be homeless if he was new to town. Even vampires needed money for clothing and a place to live unless they lived like animals.

  “Okay, fine. Let’s call a truce. We don’t know what Dahlia will think of all this since she won’t even accept what she is.” It was late and my back hurt from falling into the bushes. Aiden and I could hash things out once the sun was up.

  “What is she?” He didn’t ask the question in a disdainful way, but he was curious about her.

  I tried to figure out the best way to explain it.

  “She’s a witch, or least a half witch. Half human, half witches tend to have greater psychic abilities than full witches. It’s a trade off since most half witches can’t perform actual spells. The psychics I’ve met can predict the future and interpret tarot cards, while others are empaths who can feel people’s emotions. They put on a good show for the tourists, but many really do have strong talents.” I paused to collect my thoughts.

  “Dahlia is one of the strongest psychics I’ve ever met. She can do things that others can’t. I’ve heard of witches pulling people into their dreams, but it’s a very rare talent. Not only did she pull me into her dream, she conjured the image of my exact bedroom though she’s never been there. Aside from the problems associated with mind diving, I’m very concerned about her visions. Touching people and seeing the future is common, but Dahlia doesn’t know how to control it. She could easily get lost in the visions without an anchor.” I was grateful that I was able to pull Dahlia out of her vision of my father, but he could have easily sucked her in and never let her go.

  “So, she was in danger when she touched you.” He pursed his lips and glared at me.

  I shrugged. “Yeah. She doesn’t like talking about her gifts, but she needs to learn how to protect herself from them.”

  He crossed his arms and looked back over his shoulder at the cemetery. “If she’s powerful then someone could be coming for her.”r />
  My heart sank when I thought about the possibilities of someone trying to manipulate her and use her power.

  “Yes. Someone could really be after her.” I paced back and forth in front of the steps, considering the possibility that her nightmare was a warning of a real attack.

  If someone knew about her talents, they would definitely be interested in a powerful psychic.

  “We need to protect her.” The vampire squared his shoulders and looked up at her window.

  At least we agreed on something.

  Formulating my plan, I glanced up at Aiden. “Listen, I need you to be my eyes and ears until I can convince her to install my security system. It can detect the use of magic, so it’s more than just a regular video system. Until then, watch her at the studio and get a standing invitation to the house so you can watch over her here. I doubt it will be difficult once she accepts that you’re one of her soulmates.” I frowned at the thought of Aiden living with Dahlia; though I would feel safer knowing that he was protecting her.

  He nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll find a way to stay close to her. And, for the record, I’m not some asshole who will take advantage of her or her kindness. I don’t plan on jumping into her bed immediately. I mean to have sex. I would gladly watch over her while she slept, if she wanted me to.”

  His look of indignation told me that he believed I had seduced her in the dream.

  “Hold on. She’s the one who brought me into the dream and she’s the one who clearly asked me to have sex with her. She even kissed me first. I did question her intentions to avoid confusion and she stated exactly what she wanted.” I practically moaned when I thought about what she had asked me to do to her.

  His eyes narrowed. “Fuck, are you such a nerd that you had her sign a contract declaring her intentions before you banged her?”

  I bit my top lip and sighed. “No. I just didn’t want any confusion in case she remembered the dream later.”

  “In case she realized that it was real.” He rolled his eyes.