The Sorceress Screams (20 page)

I was miffed
.

Maximo had
called me at the shop shortly after dusk to invite me to his house “for
drinks”. And if that hadn’t been distasteful enough, the guy had said he’d
“enjoy seeing me dressed in something feminine”. As if I typically dressed like
a
lumberjack
.

I’d thought
about dressing in the pair of menswear inspired slacks I’d bought two years ago
for an interview. I’d discovered the perfect thing to go with it—a crisp black
dress shirt I wore under my corset top in the winter. But I didn’t wear these
suit-like items. I couldn’t make an enemy of the creature who held my mother’s
ring, at least not until I had it back.

Instead, I’d
donned a rust-colored summer dress with eyelet trim on the hem and pretty cap
sleeves. It was probably the
girliest
thing I owned
apart from the gown I’d bought for his solstice ball. Likewise it was difficult
not to pull on my Doc Marten’s over the Swiss dot, white nylons I’d slid over
my already pale legs.
So white ballet flats completed the
outfit.

But the one
thing I didn’t do was soften my wildly spiked hair. Maximo could take a long
swim in the River Styx if he didn’t like it. After all, it was
his
girlfriend who had destroyed my
delicate asymmetrical bob.

Attired like a
ceramic doll given into the care of a toddler with scissors and a permanent
black marker, I strode to Maximo’s elegant nineteenth century wrought iron
door. My teeth were clamped tightly. This wasn’t the best way to start the
evening. Not when Maximo’s guest of honor would call for my death the first chance
he got. But I couldn’t bring myself to release my ire.

Javier opened
the door, gesturing for me to go ahead of him down the marble-floored corridor.
He guided me through the central hall, past the formal living room with its
massive fireplace, and onward to Maximo’s modern office. My spine went rigid at
the accented voice coming from inside.
Nadir
Khan is here
.

Maximo
interrupted him.
“If you will excuse me.”
His leather
shoes whispered over the dark floor toward me.

Javier gestured
for me to go ahead inside. I remained where I was, just out of sight. Maximo
appeared within the office door, his head tilted to the left as he lifted his
eyebrows in question.

His eyes swept
down me. His neutral expression told me nothing of his opinion. That changed
when his gaze reached my feet. A twisted half smile formed on his face.

Was that
acceptance or some sort of disgusted amusement?

He was due a
little scrutiny in return. I scanned him up and down. The outfit he’d picked
was nearly
formal—
as if he’d planned
on attending a wedding. While his gray trousers were relatively ordinary, they
were the only ordinary thing on his body. A gray and black brocade vest topped
them. Above the vest
was
a rich black jacket and a
white shirt with a curious stiff collar. But it was his shoes that made him
look like a man out of time. The spectators encompassing his feet were cream
calfskin wrapped by black patent leather. He’d be right at home at a swing
dance club.
He does like to dance
.

Maximo tugged
his hands out of his trouser pockets, pushing off his back foot toward me. He
crossed only half the distance before taking my hand. Maximo tugged until I
stumbled forward. He wrapped my arm around his neck, dipping his head so he
could capture my lips with his.

His mouth was
soft but coaxing, drawing my awareness fully to him. Though he was cool, my
soaring temperature heated us both. My anger at his dress code demand melted.

He curled his
arm beneath my waist and fitted me along his body. Evidence of arousal nudged
my pelvis. I went pliant in his arms while shivers of desire danced along my
veins.

My yielding
earned me a smile against my lips. He let out a soft laugh before deepening the
kiss with a renewed swirl of his tongue along mine. Then he set me on my feet.
I nearly fell on rubbery legs.

Maximo drew
his arm around my shoulders, steadying me and then ducked his head to eye
level.
“
Hola
.
Rebecca.”

Hola
was right
!

I was flushed
pink, stumbling like a child as he ushered me into his office. Surely I looked
like the wide-eyed doll I’d compared myself to earlier.

Maximo tugged
me against his side. “Allow me to introduce my girlfriend—Rebecca Walsh.”

The vampire
seated on Maximo’s chocolate sofa complemented the space in his midnight blue
sport shirt and orange and blue patterned tie. Had I not known what he was and
what he’d done, I’d have felt an instant kinship with him based on the color
choices alone. As it was the warm, heady feeling Maximo’s kiss had poured into
my limbs cooled.

Nadir glanced
at me with marked impatience. He gave a swift nod, and then returned his
attention to the tablet computer in his hand.

Maximo made
the reverse introduction. “This is Nadir Khan, the Shah of Persia’s favorite
son.”

“I can’t work
out how to do this. You do it.” Nadir tossed the tablet onto Maximo’s glass
coffee table, nearly upending one of the decorative glass spheres.

“Get
comfortable at my desk,” Maximo told me, gesturing to the sable wood that
dominated the corner of his office.

I made my way
behind it because there were no chairs for an audience. Brochures for a
vampire-friendly ocean cruise and a seaside resort in Sardinia were my
distractions. Maximo instructed the foreign vampire how to use the tablet to
check the weather in Tehran. The occasional smoldering look Maximo shot my way made
me flush to the tips of my hair.

I nudged
another trifold brochure out from under a stack of yellow legal pages. An
animalistic growl cut through the room. A half second later Maximo had Nadir by
the throat inches in front of the desk. Spittle hit my face. My stomach jumped
into my mouth. I’d been
centimeters
from
certain death. What had I been thinking entering the room without hitting Nadir
with an empathic link?

“She’s mine,”
Maximo said. “I have claimed her. I am dating her. You cannot touch her.”

Razor-like fangs
had distended from Nadir’s gums. He used them to snarl and snap in my
direction. His face was a wrinkled mass of hatred. Eyes rimmed with red
promised a painful death for the hassle I’d put him through. The foreign
vampire looked like a wild animal dressed up in costly fabric that had been
released into a ring to fight for his life.

“I killed the
last vampire who harmed a hair on her head, Khan,” Maximo said.

It took Nadir several
heart-stopping intervals to ease the deep wrinkles on his face into smooth dark
skin, soften the red in his eyes back to near black, and retract his fangs. He
stood to his full height—an inch below Maximo’s six foot two inches. Nadir
straightened the creases out of his shirt. But his malicious gaze remained
locked on me.

“She deserves
to
die
,” Nadir said. “You are a fool
if you think she isn’t manipulating you.”

I wished I
could manipulate him.

Maximo’s angry
glare softened into his half smile. He settled it on me for a moment as if he
knew
I couldn’t manipulate him and had
read my mind. He focused on Nadir.

“I will decide
what she deserves,” Maximo said with all of the arrogance of an imperial lord.
I shot a glare at him that went ignored. “You will stay away from her.”

“She’s using
you for safety,” Nadir said in a lifting pitch. “When she gets what she wants,
she’ll leave you tattered and limping.”

“I will enjoy
having her try.” Maximo’s answer struck a little slice of fear through my
heart.

Nadir charged
out the door in a blur of movement. Glass shrieked well after he’d disappeared
as though he’d broken the sound barrier. Maximo curled himself around me,
seemingly blocking me from the shrapnel of his coffee table exploding behind
him. Once the final shard quieted against the floor, he withdrew with a soft
command for me to remain where I was. Then in a blur of movement
he
disappeared.

I stared at
the cracked computer tablet, shattered coffee table, and broken glass spheres.
There were two shouts, three bangs of doors shutting or people slamming into
walls. Then Maximo stood at the office door. He spoke to someone just outside
in Spanish, telling them it was safe for them to go now.

Turning back
to me, he strode across the glass-strewn office with a dark look in his eye. My
pulse jumped—a noise that seemed to snap him out of his bad mood. He adopted
his amiable smile before he reached me. Maximo bent, slipping an arm beneath my
knees so he could lift me.

A mischievous
grin accompanied his explanation.
“Wouldn’t want you to get a
sliver in your delicate shoes.”

****

Maximo stood
in the middle of my living room, staring at the new television. He scratched a
hand over the hair along his jaw line. “I could have gone with the bigger one.”

I made an
irritated noise from the bedroom as I kicked off my shoes.

“I can take it
back,” he said. “Yes, I’ll take it back.”

I hopped to
the door, jabbing a finger at the television. “If you take that television out
of here, I’m not letting another one back in. It’s bad enough that monstrosity
is in here.”

Maximo turned
his head and an innocent expression on me. “It has connectivity for your
laptop.”

“Why do I need
that when you also bought me a
Playstation
?”

“That you
haven’t used.”

Paranoia
flared in me. Had Javier installed some sort of vampire surveillance? I should
have
checked
. Why hadn’t I?
Stupid.
Stupid.

“How do you
know that?” I asked.

He gestured to
the game controllers bagged on the television stand. “You haven’t removed them
from their packaging.” The vampire crouched in front of the table. He selected
a controller and then took it and the television’s remote back to my futon.
There he settled his fine ass onto my furniture.

Maximo focused
his dark eyes on me while he waited for the whole thing to turn on. “That’s the
most feminine article of clothing you own?”

I dug my fingers
into my hip, shoving my weight against it. “If you’d wanted a girly girl you
shouldn’t have killed
Ascencion
.”

His pupils
flashed wide and then immediately narrowed. I held my breath for his angry
response.

His expression
softened into his half smile. “But is it?”

“Is it what?”

“The most
feminine article of clothing you own?”

An irritated
breath rushed from me. “This and the Gucci gown I wore to your solstice ball
are, yes. And Nell helped me find the gown. I don’t do girly girl, de Sole. I
was pissed off you asked me to dress a certain way for you.”

His eyelids
momentarily slid shut. “Max,” he said on the edge of impatience.

Okay, I’ll have to cut out the use of his surname or he’ll
throw a fit
.

“I asked you
to dress that way for the image we’d present to Nadir. I enjoy your personal
style.” He clicked a few buttons on the game controller. “But I also enjoyed
how beautiful you were in that gown.”

I opened my
mouth to accuse him of lying. But he
had
been one of the only individuals to tell me he liked my new hairstyle.

“I’m not your
chattel,” I said.

He inhaled a
soft breath—a laugh. “It was an act for Nadir. I know you aren’t my property.”

My chin
lifted. “This wasn’t the first time you’ve said I’m yours.”

Maximo drew in
a long sigh while dropping his head against the futon’s cushion. “In terms of
the vampire community, you are very much mine. If you weren’t, you’d have been
killed tonight in my office.” He brought his gaze level with mine. “But I know
you don’t truly belong to me.”

He returned
his attention to the television. His amiable smile was gone.

I shifted
uncomfortably. What was I supposed to do with him here? He’d carried me from
his office straight out to the Escalade after the drama with Nadir. I’d been so
shocked over the altercation I’d barely lived through that I hadn’t said a word
in the car. He’d done all of the talking.

Maximo thought
it best that I show I wasn’t afraid of Nadir by going home tonight. He was
unwilling to allow me to go alone. He’d invited himself over for a night of
movie watching.

He settled into
my futon in spite of its lumps and worn fabric. Maximo focused whole-heartedly
on the television’s crisp screen while he created an account on the game
console he’d bought. If I hadn’t known what he was, I might have thought him an
ordinary twenty-something male with a gaming fetish and rocker wardrobe.