Page 71 of Taken By the Vampires
He swallowed several times before he spoke. “I…have these for you.” His hands shook as he showed me the scrunched paper.
“I can’t see it looking like that, Gary.”
He licked his lips, his beady eyes bouncing from Vampire to Vampire to Vampire. He shuffled forward and held out the papers.
Xander walked down the rest of the steps. “Give them to me.”
Gary stood frozen to the spot as he hesitated. I couldn’t say I blamed him, but then again, he’d made many, many girls feel the same way. And worse.
Xander thrust out his hand. “Now!”
A wet patch appeared on the front of Gary’s jeans. He darted forward and as Xander reached for the wad of papers, he fell back on his ass and into a mud puddle. I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry for him.
“Lucky these didn’t get dirty as well,” Xander said, retracing the steps back to me.
It took the papers, wondering what they were. As soon as they touched my fingers, I recognized the parchment. Familiar energy thrummed through my skin. I gasped as I flattened the pages. “Missing spells. From my Grimoire!”
Chapter Forty Eight
Not just any spells, either. Specific spells for controlling and manipulation, and harnessing and diverting power from its natural source.
Gary stumbled upright. “They’re the pages Dad used. Returned to you.” He tripped over his feet as he half-stumbled, half-lurched to his truck, watching us over his shoulder the whole way.
“Stinking, lying, thieving…” The pages looked well worn. Used for centuries to harm and control and to make countless lives miserable. I ran out of words as my anger took over, stealing them away. I sent out a flash of energy and Gary tripped face-first into another puddle. Pity there were so many of them this time of year. He looked back over his shoulder at me, mud dripping from the end of his nose.
“Is that all of them, Gary?”
A low-level growl slid over the ground, straight from Xander’s chest to Gary. Gary’s mouth worked and no words came out before his head jerked around in a way that I thought was a yes.
“If you’re lying to me, we’ll have to come and make a visit. You’re not lying to me, are you, Gary?”
“No. No, I’m not lying. Honestly, Ella. That’s all of them,” Gary said.
My gut churned, thinking of all of the years that had passed and those spells used against countless people against them, fueled by hate and black magic.
“Go and never return to our farm.” Cassius’ voice held a note of menace of which I wouldn’t want to be on the received end. My Vampires were complete badasses!
Gary scrambled in his truck, mud, pee and all, and scooted out of the driveway and down the road in a squeal of tires.
I sighed and looked at the well-worn papers in my hand. I couldn’t point all of the fault at the Trinity and their ancestors. It was mine who had harnessed the black magic in the first place, when Ginevra had cursed three innocent men. If it wasn’t for her, then nobody would have suffered.
I waved my hand over the spells, sending them back into the Grimoire in their original, pristine condition. A sigh shimmered through the air around us, as though the Grimoire itself settled happy now it had its missing pages returned. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be hiding anything else ever again. Another wrong righted, I let my empty hands drop to my side.
“But then we might not have met you, Ella,” Davon said.
I looked up at him. “It’s amazing, you know. How you can still be so compassionate after everything you’ve been through? All of you.” I had to remember that they’d lost their father in all of this as well. I hated to think how I’d feel if I’d lost Mom.
“We were determined never to let that happen,” Cassius said.
“How else could we meet our Tu Ena if we were bitter and twisted old men?” Xander stepped up onto the porch and cupped my cheek. There was no bitterness there at all. Only strength and love and my future. Our future.
“Did you really mean what you said? About this beingourfarm?”
Xander frowned. “Of course. We take care if it as though it was ours.”
“Don’t you want to get out of here? Travel and see the world?” They’d been locked up for so long, my mind spun whenever I tried to think about it. If it were me locked up, I’d be on the first plane I could get my butt onto.
Xander smiled. I was momentarily stunned with its brilliance. His thumb trailed over my skin so lightly it was just a tickle, but a tickle that seared straight to my heart. “And a nice derriere it is too, but where you go, we will, also. When you’re ready to leave, we will explore with you. When you’re ready to come back, we’ll return with you. It doesn’t matter where we are in the world, as long as we are with you, we’ll always be home.”
