Sinfully Spellbound (Spells That Bind Book 1) (15 page)

Trevor avoided us for the rest of the evening, which came as
no surprise since I figured he needed his space. The hard part was keeping
Allie from tracking him down. It had been my plan to keep her busy with Nick,
but the vampire had found a witch with a thing for younger men to take him home
to her windowless basement. Most found it creepy when you wanted to show them
your basement, but I guess it was a good pick-up line with a vampire.

Since Trevor was avoiding us, and I was tired, I took Allie
home after only a couple of hours. She was fast asleep in the passenger seat of
my car as I pulled into the garage. When I opened her door and undid her
seatbelt, she stirred some and gave me a shy sleepy smile before looking away.

“A blushing succubus,” I said in wonder. “Damn, you are
something else.”

“I’m exhausted,” she murmured in a voice that sounded more
like an apology.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing, but
then it hit me that she was probably assuming I was planning to take her inside
and fuck her. No denying, I wanted to do that, but she was tired, and I’d be
happy just sleeping next to her.

“Let’s get you tucked into bed,” I said. “Neither of us has
had much sleep in the last couple of days, and I need to be in the office by
ten.”

“Don’t you have the morning off?” she asked sleepily.

“I do, but I have a few things I need to take care of before
any clients come in,” I told her as I scooped her up in my arms, relieved when
she didn’t complain.

“Don’t expect me to get up with you,” she said around a
yawn.

Cradled in my arms, she looked innocent and sweet, and that
made me hate the dresses she wore at SpellBinders even more.

“You wanna hear something crazy?” I asked as I carried her
up the stairs.

“Sure,” she said. “Crazy seems to be dominating my life
lately.”

“Just thinking about how much more I like you in your baggy
sleep shirt turns me on.”

She let out a sleepy giggle. “Maybe you’re just tired of
seeing my boobs on display.”

“I’ll never get tired of seeing your luscious breasts,” I
said. “It’s just that I like seeing you relaxed. You act more like yourself
when you’re dressed comfortably. The woman you try to be at work isn’t the real
you. It’s just a part you play—one you don’t seem to like very much.”

She was quiet for a moment, and I wondered if she’d dozed
off, until I set her on the bed and looked down into her eyes, which were
studying me with some unreadable emotion. “What makes you think it’s not the
real me? Or that I don’t like who I am at work?” she asked.

As I stared at her beautiful face, which was covered with
far too much makeup at the moment, I considered my answer. “When you’re dressed
like this, with the makeup and the sexy shoes and dresses, you look almost
uncomfortable. Sure, the real you peeks out some, but not as often. When you’re
wearing comfortable clothes with no makeup, you’re my Allie. You’re just
perfect.”

Allie’s eyes drifted away from mine, and I could see her
struggling with what she was going to say next. What we had scared her, and I
got it because it scared me, too.

“You’re not at all what I expected,” she finally said.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked.

“Considering I thought you were a worthless man-whore, I
suppose it’s probably a good thing,” she answered. “I need to go wash off this
makeup.”

Obviously, she was trying to end the conversation because
things were getting too serious, and we were touching on subjects she wasn’t
ready to deal with. While I wanted to talk about this more, I decided pushing
her would probably backfire. Besides, I’d had a lot of victories today. As I
watched her disappear into the bathroom, I found myself grinning like an idiot.
How could I not be happy about the end of this day? After the council meeting,
I’d expected her to insist on staying in a guest room, but she was willingly
coming back to my bed,
and
she’d agreed to date me.

No doubt about it, I was falling hard for Alana Talbot.

“Damn!” I raced across Dylan’s living room and slammed my
toe into his coffee table in an attempt to get to my phone before it went to
voicemail. Dylan hadn’t been happy about me staying home alone today, despite
his security spell. Funny how he hadn’t even considered that I’d be alone until
he’d been dressing to go to the office. That’s when he’d tried to talk me into
going with him, which sounded beyond boring. There was also the fact that I’d
been too tired to get dressed. So, he’d reluctantly left after telling me he’d
call to check on me as soon as he could. From what he’d told me before leaving
this morning, he had some big cases coming up involving spell patents, an area
of the law he didn’t usually handle. That meant he had to do even more research
for those cases.

I knew Dylan would freak out if I didn’t answer his call,
but it was hard to do more than bounce around and run through my expansive list
of swear words as the throbbing pain of my baby toe brought tears to my eyes.
Coffee tables were truly evil!

When the phone stopped ringing, I decided I’d better hurry
before Dylan had the police at the house checking on me. When I finally got to
my phone in the kitchen, I saw that the missed call was actually from Nick,
which came as a surprise since it was two in the afternoon; I’d always assumed
vampires slept all day. Just went to show how little I really knew about them.
In my defense, vampires didn’t socialize with the rest of the preternatural
community very often. In some ways, they could be even bigger elitists than
witches.

Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge, I limped over
to the breakfast bar and sat down to call Nick back. I was just about to open
the bottle, when I realized how good the cold would feel on my baby toe, so I
grabbed my phone and went into the living room, because I was pretty sure I’d
fall off of the stools in Dylan’s kitchen if I tried propping my foot up to put
the bottle on my toe. Settling onto the couch, I eyed the evil coffee table,
wondering if Dylan would use one of his fire spells on it if I asked. I hit
Nick’s number and put it on speaker.

“Hey, Allie,” he answered cheerfully.

“Hi, Nick,” I responded. “Sorry I didn’t pick up when you
called, but I left my phone in the kitchen, and then I stubbed my toe racing to
get it.”

“Ouch,” Nick said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “I just
wanted to call and thank you for last night again. That was really awesome what
you did for me.”

“Any time,” I said. “What are you doing up in the afternoon?
Aren’t vampires allergic to sunlight?”

Nick chuckled. “We are, but we don’t need to sleep all day.
I’m hanging out in the basement at the witch from the party’s house until I can
go out without turning into a pile of ash.”

“Must be boring,” I said.

“Yeah, but at least she’s got a television down here. I
watch way too much daytime television most days, but I only need a few hours of
sleep,” he explained. “How’s it going with you? I was just watching the news
and saw there’s some crazy guy killing succubi. Did you hear about that?”

“That’s actually why Dylan has been sticking so close to
me,” I told him.

“I guess that makes sense since he’s your boyfriend,” Nick
said.

“Oh no!” I denied quickly. “Dylan is not my boyfriend.
Actually, I guess he is. I even called him that last night. Hell, this has been
a confusing couple of days,” I said, a little embarrassed about my mini panic
attack over Nick calling Dylan my boyfriend.

“Sorry,” Nick said, sounding embarrassed. “I just kind of
assumed you guys were as good as married after the way he was hanging all over
you last night and the way he talks about you.”

I groaned. “If Dylan’s mother has her way, we’ll be married
soon. I’m beginning to think I need to hide from the Council of Witches.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, sounding completely lost, not
that I blamed him for being confused by my ramblings.

“The Council of Witches is forcing an affinity test between
Dylan and me,” I explained.

“Don’t let them pressure you into this,” Nick said in a more
urgent tone.

“I won’t,” I assured him. “Okay, the affinity test is
probably going to happen, but nothing will come of it. My father might be
willing to allow Dylan’s mother to push for the test, but he’d never allow her
to push me into an actual ceremony.”

Nick was quiet for a short time, making me wonder if he was
still there. “You should refuse to take the test. I’ve heard your council can
be old-fashioned in their thinking, and they might convince your father to
force the issue. As part sex demon, you can get out of the test.”

Nick’s knowledge of witches came as a surprise since he was
a newly turned vampire. At least, I was assuming he was newly turned. While I
hadn’t asked when he’d been turned, he was too nice to be an older vampire.
Sadly, most vampires became cold and withdrawn as they aged. They started to
view everyone as either a threat or a food source. Nick still had friends, and
he seemed too sweet to be an older vampire, but I decided to ask anyway. “When
were you turned,” I asked him.

“Just after my eighteenth birthday,” he answered excitedly.
“It was a relief to finally go through the change.”

“So, you weren’t afraid?” I asked because I’d always
wondered if the vampires were scared when they died. They lived in a very
strange culture, so they probably had different ideas about life and death.
Each vampire was responsible for freezing eggs or sperm prior to the change so
they could keep their gene pool as pure as possible—their words, not mine. They
would later use a human surrogate to carry their child. In some cases, they
even had more than one child with a surrogate. Those children were changed at
adulthood. In older times, they’d been required to produce a child before the
change. For some reason, vampirism only passed down to people of certain
decent, so this was how they continued their line. I guess they ended up with
the occasional vampire who had a child with the wrong person, and their
children died when they tried to change them. I’d always felt bad for the
children who lived in vampire communities. It couldn’t be easy being a human
who knew they would die between eighteen and twenty. None of them really had an
option to remain human.

“Did you want to become a vampire?” I asked.

“Of course,” Nick said, sounding almost impatient with my
question. “Why wouldn’t I want to be a vampire?”

“Most people are afraid of dying,” I said.

Nick took a moment to consider my words. “I grew up viewing
my life as an obstacle. The only downside for me was losing the stubble and
what little muscle mass I’d gained up to that point. I attracted older women
before the change, but most of them were human, so I wasn’t all that
interested.”

“Why weren’t you interested?” I asked. “You were still human
yourself.”

“It’s hard to be attracted to a woman when you’ve been told
her kind are nothing more than cattle your entire life. We’re never referred to
as humans, and grow up knowing we’re different,” he explained, sounding amused
by my questions. “Are you worried I was traumatized by the transition or forced
into it?”

“I guess I am,” I admitted. “I like you, Nick, and I hate
thinking of you suffering or being forced into something you didn’t want.
Surely, you can understand that.”

“What’s Allie short for?” he asked, and I wondered if he was
just trying to change the subject.

“Alana,” I said.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he said, sounding lost in
thought. “Maybe you should come over to my place after it gets dark. You could
stay with me until the police catch the killer. Who’d look for a succubus in a
vampire neighborhood?”

“That’s really nice, Nick, but I still need to go to work,
and Dylan’s place is closer than any of the vampire subdivisions. If things get
too bad, I’ll just stay with my dad until they catch the killer.”

“Staying at Dylan’s house is a bad idea,” he surprised me by
saying.

“I thought you liked Dylan,” I said, wondering why he was
suddenly so eager to get me away from Dylan.

“I do, and that’s another reason I’m so worried about this
affinity thing,” he added. “If you stay with Dylan, your witch council might
say you’re already living as a couple and use that as an excuse to force a
marriage. I’ve heard witches still have arranged marriages. Both of you could
be hurt by this.”

“You really are a sweetie, but you don’t have to worry. My
father is too powerful for them to go against him,” I assured Nick. “That Zoe
is an idiot for not seeing how wonderful you are.”

“Thank you,” he said shyly, and I could almost picture him
ducking his head. “If you change your mind about staying with me, just call,
and I can have someone pick you up.”

“I will,” I agreed and heard the embarrassing sound of my
stomach rumbling. “Listen, I really need to go eat some lunch. Can I call you
back later?”

“Actually, I think I’ll try to get some more sleep,” Nick
said.

“Okay, thanks for checking on me, Nick. Bye.”

“Bye, Allie,” he said before ending the call.

I really hoped I was right about not being forced to marry
Dylan, but I wasn’t feeling quite as confident as I’d led Nick to believe. One
bad thing about being a witch in good standing was that I was subject to some
of the more archaic rules set up by the COWs. Of all the preternatural beings,
witches were the most rooted in the past, with vampires coming in a close
second. The Council of Witches hadn’t been an issue for me in the past because,
other than having to appear before them for testing and the occasional meeting,
they rarely saw me. I was a nearly invisible half-breed. Now, I was being
forced into an affinity test, which could realistically lead to me being joined
with Dylan. Of course, that was only if we passed the test, something I really
needed to read up on before the council meeting.

“Crap,” I muttered to myself. The thing that made this an
even bigger mess was the fact that I really liked Dylan. As much as I
complained about staying with him, I wasn’t exactly in any hurry to leave.

I was so totally screwed.

My phone buzzed again, and I smiled when I saw it was a
message from Delilah. I’d been too busy to check up on her yesterday, and I’d
been waiting for her to text me back all day.

DELILAH: OMG! My mom is driving me up a wall. I hope they
catch that killer soon so I can get out of here.

ME: I hope they catch him soon too. Miss you.

DELILAH: Of course you do. I’m the coolest person you know.

I had to laugh. One thing my roommate did not lack was
self-confidence.

ME: Are your instructors okay with you missing so much
class?

DELILAH: Most are, but I had to drop one class. Stupid
teacher has had it in for me since her husband came on to me. So not my fault
she married a sleazebag.

ME: Glad the other ones were willing to work with you.

DELILAH: I gotta go. My mom’s fixing me up with some demon
she knows. Ugh!

ME: Have fun!

As much as I worried about Delilah being in the demon realm,
I knew I’d just worry more if she was here. It was pretty sad when you were
safer in the demon realm than the human realm.