Page 41 of The Baby Hex
“It’s so tidy. The whole house is super tidy,” I said, taking in the bed made up with black and silver bedding, complete with a four poster curtain that could be drawn around the bed. A sword hung on the far wall and the headboard was covered with thousands of tiny carvings all filled in with his blood. I reached out to touch them but glanced at Pierce for permission not wanting to get zapped by his magic for trespassing where I shouldn’t.
“I’d be cautious,” he said, slipping into bed. “I would think that it would know you as I knew you by scent but I do not know for certain that it will recognize you.”
“What are they for?”
“Protection, a catalogue of symbols, a back storage of charged blood. Doodles?” Pierce shrugged, taking my hand in his and pressing my palm against them. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the zap that never came. A warmth washed over me and I longed to stretch out but didn’t want to stop touching the magic rippling under my bare skin.
“It’s so warm,” I murmured. “Are you sure it’s not a sleeping spell?”
“Positive. I get bouts of insomnia. If it were a sleeping spell, that wouldn’t happen,” he said and kissed the crook of my neck.
“It makes me want to put down my shields,” I said. “That’s crazy, though, right?”
“Nothing can touch you here. They have to get through me first.”
I opened my mouth ready to argue that his magic wasn’t stronger than mine. That I wasn’t some weakling who needed to be protected but the warding on his house had nothing to do with me. He’d set it up for himself and perhaps his parents and any friends who visited. His magic invited me in but that was a happy side effect.
“You first. Drop that glamour,” I said.
“I did as soon as the door shut and locked behind us, mate,” he chuckled. “I told you. It’s not about how I look or sound. It keeps my magic from trailing over unsuspecting people and reminds me that though I could probably bespell a lot of folks to do my bidding that such magic is reserved for life or death situations. I don’t think it’s my magic making you tired. I think it’s like resting after exercise. You’ve been carrying around every shield you have for years – probably years – I don’t know when you started but for a while at least. Now you feel safe enough to relax. Take a nap.”
“But we came here for ---” I didn’t want to finish that sentence, suddenly shy.
“To exchange our claiming vows?” Pierce asked, stretching out on the soft bed and pulling me down under the blankets with him.
“Yeah, that,” I nodded.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere. Rest up, mate.”
As if I had a choice. I was out before my head ever reached his chest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Pierce
Plenty of my friends were surprised that they almost certainly took a nap every time they visited me. Most people didn’t know what it was to live in relative safety. It wasn’t always that way for my family. My ancestors faced the problems that most vampires did. Bigotry, fear, and just plain ignorance ran rampant through what would eventually become the Moonscale Dragon Flight Territory. We weren’t even officially flight members until I decided to become a guard. My parents still treated it like a joke since both of them had ancestors dating to the area before Frost and Juda’s kids migrated over from what we now call stateside. Still, we humored the dragons. They outnumbered us but mostly left us to our own devices. I knew a few older vampires who wouldn’t mind seeing Clarence Moonscales’ head on a platter but that was the risk of leading any group or territory.
For a long time, I watched Crilus sleep. He was always gorgeous but looked so peaceful with sleep smoothing out all the worry from his face. My fingers longed to run through his hair or caress his cheek. Instead, I left him sleeping and changed out of my guard’s uniform. I shoved it in a dry-cleaning bag that I’d drop off at the cleaner’s whenever we made it back to London.
I texted my parents a short update letting them know we were at the estate and any movement notifications on the grounds was probably us. Then I made up two bloodshakes and drank them while meandering around the house, checking my wards. I was pretty sure the window blaster was Sharon Claudis and she was after Preston, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
When I’d finished checking the wards, I climbed up the narrow, hidden staircase to the attic and checked the blood pond. Yes, my house had a blood pond. It was in the place I did most of my magical preparations. The blood was filtered through a special pump, keeping it alive outside of the various host bodies. Most of it was animal blood, mine, or bought from local blood banks as it went off the timeline to be used for blood transfusions. The sound of the pump doing its job gave the house a heartbeat, keeping the magic alive and the wards up while I was away.
I checked in with the official work reports on my laptop because Medwin hadn’t revoked my access yet. He’d probably forgotten to mark me as ‘on leave’ with everything else going on. There was a manhunt for the shebear but nothing had come out of it yet. I added my notes along with everything I knew about Sharon Claudis and her son Venal to the reports. Sometimes while hunting a suspect, any little piece of information helped.
When I was sure all the household chores were done and that I could be of no further use to the bear hunt, I stretched out next to Crilus and watched him sleep until I dozed off too. I woke sometime later to Crilus creeping back into bed with a bag of chips. Normally, I’d kick the chips out of bed but was happy that he felt so at home in my house.
“You have so many snacks,” Crilus yawned. “Who are you feeding? I know vampires don’t eat blood for every meal but you’re stocked for a disaster.”
“A war,” I yawned. “My parents lived through that time. Now, all the houses are stocked to survive wars and to house our staff and their families too, if safety becomes an issue.”
I leaned over and sniffed his shoulder. He still smelled of heat, but the scent had retreated a little. He rolled his shoulder so that it brushed against my skin and I kissed it through his shirt.
“Would you be angry if I checked in with the guys before I get too hot?”
“You’re already too hot,” I chuckled. “So hot you drive me insane.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket. With his shirt pulled up, all of his long, lean bare legs were on display. I toyed with the idea of licking up and down them until the rest of the world faded from his mind. Still, I waited because I wasn’t sure I could keep myself from chasing him if he ran again. I’d let him go once but that was all the willpower I had.
