Coffin Girls (Elegantly Undead: Book 1 of the Coffin Girls Witch Vampire Series) (27 page)

Anais flamed and he gently stoked it at first. But the fire
caught him too and they forgot the game and just lunged into it and each other.

The joining was all-consuming. Anais lay in Conall’s arms
afterwards, recalling the moment they just went at it and the overwhelming
emotions of desire and pleasurable release but not else. She couldn’t recall
who touched whom where or when, only that they did touch and that it had been
mind-blowing – so much so, that they’d ended up on the thick Persian at the
foot of the bed and she didn’t remember the journey there.

“What was that?” Conall asked, panting, as they lay with
their legs entwined.

“Well,” Anais snuggled into him as he spooned her, “you
accomplished what you set out to do. That was de-stress sex.”

“Goddess!” Conall exclaimed, “that’s the kind of stress
relief I could do with more often.”

Anais mumbled her ascent; half-way towards what she hoped
was the dreamless sleep of the undead.

“I love you, Anais,” Conall confessed.

Anais felt the shock reverberate through her body and willed
herself to be still. It was the first time a man had ever said those words to
her and it both gladdened her and scared her. So, she feigned sleep and left a
frowning Conall to watch her, a strong, confident man suddenly unsure.

“Eat, feed and then we can fight,” Conall stated, pulling
Anais away from the direction of the area where the rest were fight training.

“That’s sounds suspiciously like an order,” Anais bit out.
“I don’t take orders from anyone, Your Royal Highness.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Conall growled. He knew
he’d been irritable and was a bit peeved about her not returning his profession
of love. He hadn’t been fooled by her pleasurable machinations – just
distracted. It rankled him that he’d given in so quickly – like a randy
teenager.

“Nothing,” answered Anais. “I’m just reminding you that us
sleeping together does not give you the right to run my life. So, don’t even
think of it.” Typical, thought Anais. Why didn’t she learn? Once again, she let
herself open up and a man takes advantage with a power trip.

“I’m not running your life,” Conall responded. “I’m just
looking out for you. We’ve spent the whole morning doing difficult magick, even
with the help of the fae sorceress. We have fed life and hope into each and
every one of the captive witches and the odd wolf. We’ve communicated with them
telepathically over God knows what distance for hours.” Conall realized he was
shouting and brought his voice down a few notches, took a breath and continued
more calmly, “And as with any other time you’ve used magick, or anyone else for
the matter,” he threw up his hands at her defensive glare, “you need to eat. I
need to eat. And then, by all means, go ahead and learn to fight. Although, if
you ask me, by the way, you’re itching for one with me, you’re pretty good at
it already.” He dragged his hands through his hair in frustration. He was
usually great in resolving conflict but what he felt for her chased all of the
centuries honing that skill away.

“Where are you going to?” Conall called after her.

“The hell away from you,” was Anais’s retort.

Before he could help himself, he called out, “Fine. Off with
you then. Deal with things by walking away. Sweep it under the fucking
carpet.” 

The cussing stopped Anais in her tracks; it was so unlike
him. Turning around, she glared, her eyes flashing red. She shouted back,
“Fine. I fucking will – a carpet’s a lot more comfortable to be around than
you.” Then she stomped off.

--------

V came at her. Only her vampire senses would’ve been able to
define the blur heading towards her. A memory intruded - of Conall flashing
away as she dove for him, playfully trying to dominate him in bed while he
acted allusive. V met thin air as Anais flashed away, a few feet to the left of
where she’d stood.

V made another run for her and this time, the memory of
invisible hands, Conall’s hands, caressing her, making her moan his name, came
to mind. V met with thin air again and then fell to the ground as Anais,
invisible to the vampire’s eyes, pushed her down.

Anais was deaf to the cheers of the other fighters watching
in the training arena. They were all lined up, clapping at her tricks, but she
only saw Conall. Leaning in all his beautiful arrogance, against the far wall,
arms folded over, flanked by his faithful friends, Niul and Sylvain. The lapse
in concentration was enough to make her forget to hold onto the invisibility
and she felt the wind being knocked out of her as V tackled her to the ground.
Anais got another flash of memory. Of Yves. He’d pushed her like that once and
she’d resisted, squirmed and cried out. Not anymore. Anais let herself go soft
and mellow to better absorb the shock of hitting the ground.

V, expecting resistance, was momentarily put off when Anais
didn’t fight back. Anais took advantage of the moment, remembering how Yves had
let her hit him, scratch at him before strategically delivering the hardest
blow. Anais didn’t see V when she dealt the same punch. She saw Yves and how
she would’ve fought him; should’ve fought him.

V, blood dripping from a cut lip, came at her again. Another
memory - she stood in the slave quarters, pregnant, defensively holding her
stomach while bleeding. Her husband kicking her and her unborn child until he
killed it. The pain of her child tearing away from her womb staggered her. V,
unaware of the memories Anais was lost to, used the opportunity to back her up
against a wall. Anais felt the wood of the slave quarters, splinters of wood
digging into her exposed flesh. Anais gathered the anger underlying her fear
that night and delivered a kick to V’s middle that had her flying across the
room.

Anais saw herself fly across the room in the slave quarters.
Saw herself hit the rickety table and moan with pain as the baby gave one final
rip from her and its lifeline. A mother would do anything to protect her child.
Anais’ child had sacrificed itself so that her mother could live that night. It
should be the other way around. The pain ripped at Anais now and she clutched
her stomach as she did that night, no longer in the present. She saw her
husband hover over her and felt the strength in his hands as he strangled the
strength out of her.

“Anais, stop!” Marie shook her friend, trying to break the
iron strong-hold Anais had around V’s throat. “Anais, STOP!” she shouted.

“It’s no use,” shouted Sophie, panicked by what she saw
through the link she forced with Anais, “she’s back in the slave quarters the
night she was turned. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

Conall had noticed that something had been off with Anais
from the off-set. He advanced towards her, shouting to the others, “It’s the
magick. It depleted her and she didn’t want to feed to show me up. Now, she’s
having a magickal episode of post-traumatic stress.”

 Fearful for V’s life and Anais’ sanity should she kill
her friend unknowingly, he called his powers and pulled her off V. Conall
absorbed the shock as Anais hit him and not the ground. Standing, he pulled her
into his arms. Anais was on him in no time, sucking at his throat. He felt pain
followed by bliss, even though he knew it was the toxin in her fangs that gave
him the feeling of euphoria.

Anais felt her psyche meld with her body just as she was
airborne. Niul and Sylvain had lifted her off Conall and thrown her to the
side. She saw Conall, pale and unconscious, bleeding from the holes in his
throat that she realized she’d created. “
Mon Dieu
! What have I done?”

Anais ran to him, swatting away the arms that tried to stop
her. She looked at Niul and Sylvain, “I’m okay. I won’t hurt him. Let me help.
He’s not close to death – I can hear his heart rate slowing. Let me help.”
Pink-stained tears were streaming down her eyes. “Please,” she begged, “if I
don’t help now, he’ll go into a vampire stupor – a coma – and I wouldn’t be
able to handle that. We all need him. I need him.”

Sylvain and Niul both looked at Sophie who was still linked
to Anais’s emotions.

Sophie stated, “She’s herself again.”

The two men nodded and let Anais through.

V’s arm stopped her progress. “What are you doing?” asked V,
staring at her.

“He needs to feed,” came Anais’ pained response.

“If you do this,” V stated, “you’ll be bonded. Are you sure
you want to do this? No one blames you for something you had no control over.”

“Yes, I want to do this,” was her terse reply. “And yes, I
know you won’t blame me but I’ll blame myself. You know that’s how I’m made.
Now let me do this before it is too late.”

V stepped out of the way to join the others, watching while
Anais used her fangs to rip at her wrist. Anais lowered her wrist to Conall,
lifting his head gently so that the liquid dripped into his mouth. Conall
sputtered as the liquid first entered his system then enveloped the wound with
his lips and began suckling. V stepped back in when Anais started paling.
“Enough!” She pulled Anais’s wrist away. “You’re no good to us in a stupor and
he’d hate me for letting it get to that. His heart rate’s back up so he can get
the rest from bags and we need to get you some too.”

V motioned for Niul and Sylvain to take Conall away and did
the same for her friend and maker. They still had to finalize their strategy
for tomorrow’s battle and now they had to deal with the stubborn lovers –
unexpectedly bonded lovers - as well.

“Fuck me, what next?” was all she said, licking the dried
blood from her lip, as she headed out behind her friends to attend to blood
transfusions.

-------

“We’ve found the location,” Raulf stated, spreading the
paper out on the table in Sylvain’s library. The room was gigantic, easily
housing all of them around the huge desk. The room seemed out of place in the
hollow - less fantastical and more austere and befitting to an aristocratic
mansion.

“And thanks to V’s mad skills, we’ve also found a blueprint
to the building,” Raulf gestured towards the drawing. “It’s an old factory in a
pretty abandoned neighborhood. Lots of empty buildings and factories that still
haven’t been rebuilt after hurricane Katrina.” 

“
Merci
,” acknowledged Anais, picking up one of the
photographs, noticing the overgrown grass, weeds and broken roads. “You’ve been
very thorough.”

“The building is pretty open,” Anais observed. “Clever. It
makes staking it out even harder. It helps that no one lives there any more
though. We’ll be able to creep into other houses to scope it out.”

“Already done,” responded Raulf. “I have wolves stationed
around the perimeter. They’ve pretty much taken cover wherever they could,
including some of the deserted houses around it.”

“That takes part of that intel. V, what could you pick up
from the Garden District house?” Anais asked, glad that she’d had a chance to
apologize to her friend, even if V had waved it away.

“Absolutely nothing,” responded V. “They’re acting like they
always do, although there are few of the council still in residence. Yves and
Claude claim that they’re staying a while longer to show presence to the
resident vampires and Akeldonna and Akhilleus say they’re here until the club
is properly established and the manager is able to run it on his own. I’m not
sure if Yves is involved. He seems pretty preoccupied receiving and socializing
with visiting vampires. Akeldonna and Akhilleus weren’t there for long and when
they were, they didn’t speak to Yves.”

“So, what that means,” interjected Conall, “is that he could
or couldn’t be in on Akeldonna’s enterprising little scheme. We can’t take
chances. We’ll need to station a team near the house to keep an eye on Yves. We
know where Akeldonna and her mate will be.”

“No, a team is too much,” Anais argued, shaking her head.
“We need the fighters – we still don’t know how many vampires that big factory
has in it. Or what magickal tricks Ayden will have up his sleeve.”

“I know but I don’t see what other choice we have,”
responded Conall.

“What she means,” interjected V, “is that it should be one
of the Coffin Girls. And if I know Anais, she thinks it should be her.”

Anais shrugged, “Why put you all at risk when I can do it
just as well and with less suspicion given my history with Yves?”

“Nice try, Anais,” was Conall’s reply. “The reality is that
none of you would raise suspicion because you’ve all popped in while they’ve
been staying there. Marie and V have gone to the District house the most often
so they’ll raise the least amount of suspicion.” At the inclination of her
head, he continued, “But I think you’re right. If one of you would go, that
person can keep an eye on Yves while pretending to see to business and then if
anything suspicious occurs, she can always teleport back here. Sylvain can
imprint the destination on you.”

“Imprint how?” asked Marie suspiciously.

Sylvain grinned, “You’ll see. It won’t hurt a bit. And I
think you’re on the right track but it shouldn’t be you, Anais.” Sylvain
continued, “You’re needed to help Con with any magick as the only royal witches
there. Niul and the rest can perform magick but yours is the kicker.”

“Okay, I’ll go.” V looked at her sisters, “Y’all are
wonderful but I’ve had more fight training and I’m the only one who’s been
actively in combat.”

“None taken,” Sophie responded to the collective nodding
from the rest.

Sylvain advanced on V, “That’s settled then. Let’s get the
imprinting done, shall we?” Before V could respond, Sylvain’s mouth descended
on hers. She’d always appreciated his good looks but other than when he was in
his fae form, she’d never felt attracted to him. But now, she gave into the
kiss - the darn man tasted like her favorite cherry pie – fae trickster! V felt
her tongue thicken as his left her mouth before it subsided to normality.