And then there was Lorcan. If I became a vampire, nothing would stand in the way of us being together. All our reasons to hold each other at a sexual distance would disappear. And yet, I still had to wonder if his feelings for me would change once the blood bond was no longer. Maybe the only thing driving his desire and need for me was his body’s insistence on reclaiming his ‘Kiss’. And maybe once he did that, I’d just become another conquest in his list of conquests which was already long.

  Speaking of Lorcan, he hadn’t responded to my question for so long, I thought it might have offended him.

  “Why would you like to know?” he finally asked.

  I cringed. I wanted to tell him the truth but at the same time, I didn’t want to. “I guess sometimes I think it’s inevitable that I’ll become a vampire and so I’m trying to warm up to the idea.”

  “Why should it be inevitable?”

  I looked up at him and frowned. “Are you seriously asking me that question?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve made it this long.”

  “Eventually, someone will force my hand, Lorcan. Either Rupert will catch up with us or you’ll snap and do it.”

  “I will never snap,” he almost whispered. “I have… proven to us both that I have my control in hand.”

  “Right but…”

  “There are no buts.”

  I inhaled deeply. There was a ‘but’ and we both knew it but neither one of us wanted to bring it up. “This is probably just my exhaustion talking. I guess I just need… to know being a vampire isn’t as bad as my nightmares make it out to be.”

  He fell silent again. This silence lasted longer than the first one. So long… I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore.

  “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  I tried to stand up, but he pulled me back down. Before I thought to stop him, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind. He pulled me against his chest and buried his face in my neck. And inhaled. Deeply.

  A lightning bolt went off in my head… in my heart, my body, and my soul. I tensed… What was I tensing for? Was I preparing myself to receive his bite? Was this the moment he finally went through with it? The thought gave me an unmistakable thrill of passionate desire, of all things. And I still didn’t feel any fear. It was almost as if I wanted his bite… or did I just want him?

  He glided his mouth to my ear and his hot breath seared my sensitive skin. “Most of the time,” he husked, “it’s like being human but with an edge. On ordinary days, you see, feel, and hear… more. You continually feel good… that is, until the bloodlust hits.”

  My head sagged backward onto his shoulder as I gave into the ravenous tide of desire that suddenly hit me. His voice was just… doing something to me. And the way his breath whispered across my skin—my whole body throbbed for him.

  “And what happens then?” I asked, my voice sounded winded.

  “After the bloodlust hits, everything becomes more simplistic. You become the predator and all you can think about is stalking your prey. And you know with ruthless certainty that you are the world’s top predator. You can hunt anything and anyone you want.”

  “When you nearly bit me earlier…” I started and had to suppress the butterflies that suddenly cropped up in my stomach. “Did you feel like you were hunting me?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “And I knew you were mine for the taking.”

  “I wanted you to take me,” I admitted in a low voice. “Just like I want you to take me now.”

  He growled low in his throat. That growl expressed all the dominating hunger of the beast within him. I quivered all over at the thought of him hunting me and the thought of him taking me.

  “I… can’t do that,” he answered.

  “What if,” I started.

  “No,” he interrupted and the word was insistent, providing no avenues for argument.

  I glanced down at my fingers as a feeling like humiliation started to overcome me. I could still feel him right behind me and as much as I hated asking him this next question, I couldn’t keep it off my tongue. “Do you… not want me, Lorcan?”

  He chuckled. “You don’t understand, my dear. I daresay you never have.”

  “Understand what?” I demanded, starting to turn to face him but he caught my head and held it within his hands so I couldn’t shift.

  “I want you so much, that’s all I can ever think about,” he whispered into my ear, his hands enclosing my face in a vice-like grip.

  “But… you just want to feed on me?”

  “No,” he insisted and I could see him shaking his head from my peripheral vision. “I want you in all ways. I want your body, yes, of course I do. But, I want more than that. I want your mind and your soul. And that is exactly why I have to keep control of myself.”

  “What if… what if I wanted you to turn me?”

  “You don’t,” he answered simply.

  I took a deep breath and relaxed slightly when he released my face and he backed up, so he was now leaning against the wall. I turned around to face him and fought the need to take him in from head to toe, fought the need to glance down at his boxer shorts, trying to ascertain what he looked like fully in the buff.

  “Do you truly have no enemies?” I asked but I wasn’t sure why I’d asked because I already knew the answer. Maybe I just wanted him to continue talking—so I could try to get my thoughts out of the gutter and back on the straight and narrow.

  “The only creatures I don’t like my chances against are the sasquatches.”

  “Roy Osborne.”

  Lorcan nodded. “It’s the reason why the two of us clash. I’m a solitary predator which chafes his pack mentality.”

  “Could you defeat Roy if you had to?”

  He cocked his head to the side as he considered the question. “One on one, it would be a close match.” He paused. “But, were he threatening you, I believe I could defeat him.”

  “Threatening me?” I asked, my tone one of doubt. There was no reason why Roy would ever threaten me, which was why I found Lorcan’s comment odd.

  “Yes, threatening you. I would fight anyone to protect you, man or beast,” he continued as something within me grew warmer. “I’m not a violent man by nature, but I would absolutely kill anyone who endangered you, no matter who or what they were.”

  I found myself staring into his emerald green eyes at close range.

  He read the unspoken question in my eyes and laid his hand against my cheek. “You have nothing to fear from me, my dear. I don’t care who or what comes after us. I will never—NEVER—turn you without your permission.”

  “What if I was dying? What would you do then?”

  He thought the question over while he stroked my face, but he didn’t have to answer. I saw the truth written right there in his eyes even before he said the words.

  “I would turn you to save your life. But only in that instance.”

  ***

  I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders and huddled in the fetal position on the couch. I hugged my knees against my chest and tried to block out the pain in my head and body. I should have just gone to bed and tried to get some sleep, because I had to wake up early for work tomorrow morning.

  But, I didn’t want to leave the living room, not even to sleep. Why? Because I was suffering the soul-crushing cold and despair I’d started experiencing each time after Lorcan left. The change in my mood hit immediately—pretty much as soon as we parted—and I sank into a depression I had a hard time pulling myself out of again. This strange and new reaction had only started up about a week ago and it was one of the worst side-effects about the blood bond between us.

  Now, my mind was racing and I could feel beads of sweat already dripping down my face and the small of my back.

  I ached for Lorcan. Every ounce of my being wanted to go to him—wanted to become one with him and wanted him to turn me into what he was.

  And yet, I wouldn’t allow that to happen. Not yet. Not while there was still hope…

  But, hope of what? Why was I clinging to my witchiness? Why wasn’t I willing to cross the threshold into another life?

  Because you aren’t ready to become something other than what and who you are, I told myself. You are Wanda, the witch. And that’s how you’re going to stay.

  I realized with quite a bit of anxiety that I was becoming as obsessed with Lorcan as he was with me… except I wasn’t sure I could fully blame the blood bond for my madness. This insanity seemed to be coming from my own heart—or at least, I was fairly sure it was.

  Since when had I become so dependent on a man? And what would Mother think if she knew as much? I already knew the answer: Mother and her cronies would look down on such an attachment even more than they looked down on my being a Blood Witch—if that was even possible.

  I shut my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head. I’d rather sleep on the couch than go back to my bed without him. The loneliness of that large and empty space would just… it would just be too much for my fragile psyche to handle at the moment.

  Fragile psyche? What in the hell was happening to me?

  I didn’t have an answer for myself other than the fact that I needed to figure out Betanya’s spell and I needed to do so yesterday.

  Go to bed, Wanda, I told myself.

  I can’t. If I go to bed now, I’ll only lie awake fantasizing about him and wanting him there, beside me.

  I could already imagine threading my arms around his neck and pulling him close. I was imagining draping my body over his and feeling the delicious satin smoothness to his skin. I could taste his kiss and his rapturous weight shifting on top of me….

  Snap out of it, Wanda!

  Forcing myself into my bedroom, I threw myself on the bed and burrowed into the pillows and the duvet cover, willing myself to go to sleep. But, sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, images of Lorcan in his half-undressed state refused to leave my brain and my whole body seemed to shake with sobs except there were no tears coming from my eyes.

  Look what’s become of the mighty Wanda Depraysie—she’s been reduced to a simpering, emotional mess. It was embarrassing and then some.

  At the tentative knock on my bedroom door, I shot upright, part of me hoping it was Lorcan coming to finish what so desperately needed to happen between the two of us…

  Er, sex, not finalizing the blood bond.

  Without warning, the door opened and Astrid strolled in. She smiled at me. “Hi.”

  “For the love of Hecuba! You nearly scared the witch right out of me!” I exclaimed, grabbing my heart as I willed it to calm down. “I thought you were spending the night at Poppy’s.”

  “I was, but I started to get this feeling that you needed me,” she answered with a shrug. “I couldn’t ignore it, so I decided to come back and make sure you were okay.” She cocked her head to the side and studied me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just…” I broke off. I couldn’t tell her I was lying here, unable to sleep because I was pining over Lorcan. I was supposed to be Astrid’s legal guardian, the person responsible for teaching her how to become a witch. I had to set an example and becoming dependent on a man—forget about a vampire—was not it. I sat up straight—or tried to. My head wouldn’t stop pounding and my body was still weeping for the vampire.

  Goddess, I was a pathetic mess.

  Chapter Six

  Astrid took a seat in a nearby armchair, leaning back into it as she continued to study me. “How did the spell go?”

  I groaned and rolled my eyes upward. “Same as it always goes. It doesn’t.”

  Astrid wore her concern. “So… what are you going to do?”

  I shrugged. “What can I do besides keep trying?”

  “I could help you,” she suggested.

  I shook my head and at the expression of disappointment on her face, realized I needed to explain. “Astrid, I don’t want to get you involved.”

  “I’m already involved because I live with you.” Her tone was one of ‘duh’.

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “Why doesn’t it count?”

  “Because I’m your guardian. I’m supposed to be teaching you the lessons of life, not involving you in my own messed up failures.”

  “What do you have to lose? It sounds like Betanya’s spell isn’t doing you any favors and don’t forget, two heads are better than one.”

  “I’m not sure that applies in this case.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe our combined magic would be enough to power the spell that much more, you know?”

  “When I tried to get Poppy involved, her magic did nothing to aid mine.”

  “Well, maybe you actually need witch magic, not gypsy magic.”

  I let out a shaky sigh and measured my words with care. “Astrid, it’s my job to protect you, and trying to break this blood bond with Lorcan is advanced magic. It’s not safe.”

  “It’s not safe? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the spell backfired tonight and all my power came roaring back into me. Now I have one whopper of a headache and my body is aching all over. And that’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, it seems every time Lorcan and I try to perfect this spell, I just end up being the target of my own magic.”

  “Hmm.”

  I took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t want something to go wrong and all that magic to misfire and hit you. Messing up on one of Poppy’s potions is one thing. When you start dabbling in serious magic, the consequences of failure get much bigger… and more dangerous.” I sighed and slumped over on the cushions. “And I seem to be doing an awful lot of failing these days.”

  “So… Maybe it’s time to try something different.”

  Wasn’t that the same thing Lorcan had said? I sighed and then swung my feet onto the floor. There wasn’t going to be any sleeping for me anytime soon. “I’d happily try something else if I had something else to try.”

  She looked around at nothing. “It’s too bad we don’t have a coven of our own. Then we could all work on this problem together and I bet all that witch power would be enough to make Betanya’s spell work.” She took a breath. “That was probably the reason it didn’t work for Betanya in the first place, because she didn’t have a coven to rely on. And her power just wasn’t enough to break the blood bond.”

  I couldn’t argue that so I didn’t try. “Well, we don’t have a coven and I have no plans to start one.”

  “Wanda…”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to get into it again, Astrid.” This wasn’t the first time she’d brought up the idea of us forming our own coven. And it still wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Not when I had a million other things that were constantly fighting one another in my overwhelmed and barely functioning brain.

  “I bet forming our own coven is the answer to your problem,” Astrid continued. “And we’d just need one more witch to do it. Besides, I won’t be a teenager forever and my magical skills are getting better every day. It won’t be long until I could be a valuable member of a coven.”

  I breathed in deeply, shaking my head as I exhaled. “All of that is just pie in the sky, Astrid, because we don’t have a third and, until we do, we can’t form our own coven. So it’s useless even to think about.”

  “But…”

  “Yes, it would be great if we had our own coven and you were fully grown and you’d already come into your power. It would also be really nice if Betanya Tayir was still alive. Then she could explain this procedure to us so I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time I tried the spell.”

  Then she started to smile as if she were onto something. “What if… what if we could bring Betanya back?”

  I frowned at her. “Well, that would be all fine and good except for one small fact.”

  “Which is?”

  “Bringing Betanya back is impossible. And ‘impossible’ is quite the roadblock.”

  “You brought Libby and Darla back.”

  “Totally not the same situation and you know it.”

  She frowned. “How is it that different?”

  “Well, for one thing, I was able to bring Libby back because I had a body to work with.”

  “You didn’t have a body to work with where Darla was concerned.”

  I nodded. “True but I had a ghost. With Betanya, I have neither—no ghost and no body and that means no bringing her back.”

  “Well, putting that subject aside for the moment,” she started and inhaled deeply. She looked up and her eyes widened in a very adolescent way. “Let’s just say… if another witch did come to Haven Hollow… and if you were on good terms with that other witch… and if you decided to let her stay in town, would you form your own coven then?”

  It was an improbable situation—there were no other witches in Haven Hollow and even if there were, I doubted I’d get along with said witch because, in general, I didn’t get along with most people. Outside of my friends in the Hollow, of course, and even then, they still got on my nerves.

  So, because it was a silly question to begin with and I wanted to change the conversation, I told Astrid what she wanted to hear. “Yes, in a situation like that, I’d form my own coven. There, are you happy now?”

  She relaxed and beamed at me. “Yep. That’s all I wanted to know.” Then she paused for a moment or two. “Would you want to be in a coven again or do you like being on your own?”

  “I would love to be in a coven again,” I answered, wondering why she was asking me these pointless questions. “I didn’t want to leave the Crescent Circle coven. I thought my life was over when they expelled me.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I felt the same way.”

  Hmm, this was a subject we hadn’t really discussed and since she’d brought it up, I figured I should probably push it. I mean, that’s what Poppy would have done, I imagined. In general, when it came to subjects regarding parenting, I often found myself asking: what would Poppy do? “Do you still feel that way, now that you’ve been living in Haven Hollow for a while?”