Page 11 of Embers in the Wind
She puts her coffee cup down. “Maybe you’re in the burn Embry at the stake camp, she was a traitor from the start, Lucas brought her into the vampire fold to infiltrate the friend group giving her access to Lucianna and the secrets that she might reveal. How about that one?” she asks, her eyes glistening as though now fighting back a tear.
I start to say something, but she abruptly gets out of her chair. “Changed my mind. Conversation is over. You’ve saved me from myself, you’ve offered me your condolences, now Mr. vampire lord, it is way past time for you to hit the road. Fuck off.”
Oh, Embry has this so wrong. No one gives me orders. Especially a sprite of a vampiress who thinks she is in control of this situation. I stand from my chair, towering over her five-foot five frame, looking down at her as she gazes up at me with those challenging orbs. The vampiress is not afraid of me one little bit right now. Maybe I should not have shown her my soft side, given her more time to worry instead of saving her life.
The draw to this female is unlike anything I’ve ever known. I should have realized the very first time I caught her scent andwanted to inhale deeper. Destiny has left me alone for so many years. And now, when I’m perfectly comfortable in being alone, she sends a vampiress who tempts me with her sexy little body and sharp tongue at every turn.
An evil little game, destiny.
Half of me wants to turn her over my knee and give her a good paddling, and the other wants to feel those moist lips on my own and inhale her scent while sinking deep into her heat. She’s so close that I almost give in, but this game destiny is not going to win.
Instead, I point to the bathroom. “You go first. Shower up, get ready, we’re going to get out of this cave as soon as night falls.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “You are not staying.”
My jaw locks. This woman is the most confounding creature I’ve ever met. “I’m not leaving unless you are with me, and since you’re not ready to leave the Mystic Forest, I’m forced to make the most of it. At least for a while. Now go shower.”
She walks to a door on the wall between the bathroom door and the bed. The minute she opens it, she steps backward. I have no idea what’s wrong with her but her heart beats fast, pounding a mile a minute and then she starts murmuring something under her breath that even with the keenest of ears, I cannot hear.
“Embry?”
Her delicate voice gets louder and louder. “No one knew I was coming here. Not one soul except for the creatures in the forest that I ran into along the way. Even then, I was vague, not giving them the specifics of this particular cavern, but land markers like the river, the largest hill in the foothills right under the Carpathian Mountains. How is this possible? Corvinus, nobody knew.”
I close the distance fast trying to see what it is that has her so worked up but all I see is a closet full of hanging clothes and shoes in various styles on the floor. “I’m not following you?”
Her purple eyes roll. “The clothes. They are mine. Not clothes that I might wear, that are my type or style, but these are actually my clothes. They belong to me.” She pulls a short skirt from the rack and caresses a finger over the velvet material. “This was on sale at a boutique in Rome. Almost fifty percent off.”
She bends, pulling up a pair of boots. “And these boots, I always wear these boots with this particular skirt.” She stands, her face getting flushed with excitement, swiping at several hangers until finding what she wants. “This blouse, see this is what goes with it. These are mine. Someone moved all of my clothes from my apartment in the city to this cavern. But not one soul knew I was coming.”
My eyebrow raises. “The blood left in the refrigerator. That too? It was very fresh. I checked before adding to it last night.”
Embry’s eyes are glowing with pure delight and mischief. I smell trouble from the little vamp. “It would appear so. I believe we have a know-it-all visitor who has somehow prepared everything I would need to take care of myself and now has the audacity to disappear and not show her face.”
“I’m still not entirely following. You know the person?”
“I told you, my gramma was here. She is the only one who could have done this. She wasn’t a dream, or an apparition.”
“I don’t mean to be unkind, but I thought she was human and died.”
Embry’s look is more than disbelieving. “Of all people you should talk. How many centuries ago did you die? Before you became an eternal being? Why is my gramma any different?”
My head spins with this twist. “Because, Embry, that would not make your grandmother just a psychic, it would make her a witch.”
Chapter 10
Embry
The vampire lord is not wrong. “I always thought it was a possibility, but then for one reason or another it didn’t seem plausible. But now, how else can all of this be explained?”
The dark-eyed vampire audibly groaning causes me to laugh. “I really shouldn’t be too upset. The vampires, despite what you say, aren’t going to accept me after everything that happened anyways. At least not with the trust they had in me before. I was a warrior. It’s all I ever wanted to be. How can they trust someone in that position with all that happened? They can’t.”
“They will, in time.”
A witch heritage, what the hell. What more in my life could get more complicated. “I’ll get dressed for the night. I’m so totally energized with curiosity that I can barely stand it.”
His lip quirks at my drama. “Since you’re so full of energy, perhaps we can make the journey home.”
I give the dark-souled vampire a wink. “Not on your life big boy. No amount of coaxing will get me home until I’ve learned about my heritage, my gramma, and perhaps gotten to thebottom of what happened to her so many years ago. This is what destiny led me to do.”
