Page 17 of Tangled Fates

Loki growled again as they got closer. The second tripwire snapped and I looked down like I was chopping something. I saw the person in the corner of my eye. Loki hissed before all I saw was a quick movement before a blur came into the room. He was about to grab me when I broke the potion bottle on him. He groaned with his eyes wide open as he slowed down.

He was a vampire.

“Fuck,” he whispered looking at me in shock before I was able to hit him with a frying pan.

“What the?—”

I didn’t let him finish his sentence as I swung for him. I hit him two more times before he finally stopped me from hitting him a third time. He looked disoriented when he stumbled and so I hit him one last time.

As much as I wanted to celebrate my small victory, I was afraid there were more people here. I slapped an artifact on him to keep him sedated. I ran down the stairs listening for more people. When Loki and I didn't hear anyone I ran to the workshop to make more of those potions just in case there were more vampires. If I was going to survive, I needed an even playing field.

My heart was racing, the adrenaline was making me work faster and more efficiently. Loki was pacing in front of the workshop like he was on guard, making me grateful this cat was smarter than most. A prickle of familiarity hit me as I watched Loki walking back and forth in front of the door. It was almost like déjà vu.

As much as I wanted to unpack what I was feeling, I headed downstairs, opened the door, looked around, but saw nothing. I waited a little while longer, each minute that passed by I was praying to the gods and goddesses that he was alone. My stomach growled, interrupting my stakeout.

If there were more coming, I needed to eat and possibly sleep. There was also a passed-out vampire on my floor upstairs that I needed to handle. I set up a few trip wires throughout the stairwell and a few pendants to remove any magical enhancements that were passed. I think the vampire had an invisibility stone on him.

Once I was done setting up my traps, I trudged upstairs exhausted. The thought of cooking had me grimacing and I made myself a cheese sandwich with chips as I stared at the vampire on my floor. He was face down, looking massive on the small kitchen floor.

Once I finished eating, I felt much better. I grabbed a chair from the dining room, setting it in a spare bedroom upstairs that had never been used. I had no idea why we even had it, no one had ever stayed over to my knowledge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had. Mother kept secrets, a whole heap of them, and if the other night had taught me anything, it was that Mother had a whole other life outside of this tower.

When I walked back into the kitchen, Loki was hitting the vampire’s head with his paw repeatedly and I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. My laughter continued until my stomach couldn’t handle it anymore. I wiped tears from my eyes, grateful for the small reprieve from the seriousness of our situation.

“Loki, I love you,” I said, picking him up and cuddling him.

He pushed his head against my own, purring loudly.

“Alright, I have to get this guy in the room and then we can figure out what to do with him,” I said, putting Loki down.

He walked up to the intruder again before he swatted at him again. I chuckled as I rolled the man over, stilling when I looked at his face. He was drop-dead gorgeous, my heart beat rapidly, my body felt flush and I couldn’t help the need to touch him.

I pushed a strand of his dark hair off his forehead, taking in his handsome features, his full bottom lip, strong jaw, cheek bones I’m sure everyone was jealous of. My heart tugged like it was being pulled towards him and then I felt like I needed to wake him up just so he would look at me.

He was familiar and foreign at the same time, like a part of me knew him on a spiritual level or something deeper. He groaned, making me panic, his eyes fluttered open when Loki hissed.

He groaned again as he looked around and I grabbed the closest thing to me. I hit him with the frying pan again, searching for the artifact that must have fallen off of him.

“Can you?—”

I hit him again with more force, seeing the artifact and putting it on his body immediately. His body immediately relaxed as I held onto the pan waiting to hit him again if he moved. Apparently, being familiar with him did not lessen my fear or my need to protect myself, even if a small part of me felt guilty for hitting him again… twice.

My grip on the handle of the pan loosened when I realized I had a tight grip on it making my hand cramp. Loki decided to hit him again before walking away, but stayed close enough to us. I slipped the artifact in his shirt to make sure he didn’t wake up until I was ready for him.

Once my nerves settled down, I grabbed him under his arms attempting to pull him towards the room upstairs. I say attempt, because when I pulled he didn’t move an inch. Pulling again, he still didn’t move and I grumbled trying to figure out how the hell I was going to move him, especially upstairs.

It took me two hours to move him upstairs, into a chair. This man was obnoxiously heavy and every ten inches I was panting from exertion. It wasn’t a good kind of exertion from ten inches either.

His head was slumped forward as I tied him to the chair, knowing this was going to be so uncomfortable for him when he woke up. It made me feel guilty, but I got annoyed with myself. He was an attractive man and that was it.

I left before I decided that I was going to untie him. Once I had the door closed, I felt like I could make rational decisions instead of some weird part of me that felt like I was hurting a part of myself. This feeling was so different from anything I had ever experienced. For a moment I didn’t know if I could trust this feeling, my inexperience with the outside world reminded me that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

My body ached as I walked away from the room thinking I should look around the tower to make sure no one was coming to look for the man. So, I spent the next hour looking around the grounds, setting up a few traps before I crawled into my bed as the sky lightened to the beautiful hues of the rainbow.

8

GRAY

My mind was foggy as I tried to open my eyes. Something was next to my ear; it was loud, and it sounded like hissing. I jerked my head away, feeling a massive throbbing on the front of my head. I groaned at the sudden pain, thinking I had either been caught by one of those spiders or those weird cats.

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