“Not as strong as you,” I said, remembering how he’d butchered them within minutes.
Warin didn’t answer, and I went back to staring at my hands. On one hand, he was the only supernatural being I knew, but on the other… He’d made it plenty clear what he thought of witches.
Not that I was suddenly a witch or anything.
Right?
But what in the goddess’ name was that light? I knew it’d come from within me—felt it too keenly in the very core of my being to deny it.
Nothing like that had ever happened before, that’s for sure.
Except…
Except once. I stared blindly at my shaking hands as long-suppressed memories flashed through my brain.
There’d been one time I’d been as certain I was going to die from a violent assault as I had been tonight. I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened; I’d been too scared and too young to retain the details. But I remembered a bright green light.
Saving me.
Was I a witch?
Was that why the skinwalkers called me a traitor?
Why the witch at the slaughterhouse warned me to stay away from Warin?
“This… war, between you and the witches… what’s it about?”
“Survival,” he said, eyes still trained on the darkened windows. “One cannot live while the other still walks the earth. They wish to rid the world of our darkness, and their power makes them dangerous to us in a way humans are not. And my kind…”
“Let me guess—you’re not keen on being hunted?” I said with a grimace. It was the same struggle humans had been dealing with since vampires revealed their existence. The knowledge that there were people out there who could—and would—kill you was distinctly uncomfortable.
“No. We will kill witches strong enough to pose a threat. Though it would seem I’ve been too lenient these past few decades. I’ve allowed them their gatherings, their shops… and it would seem magic has festered and grown in my city while I’ve shut myself away, stubbornly thinking there was some way… that if we showed a willingness to coexist, there could be some semblance of peace.” His voice darkened, sending tendrils of ice up my spine. “I’ve been a fool. And you almost paid the price for my idiocy.”
I stared at his back, forcing down the panic churning in my gut. “But, uh, I’m sure there are good witches too, right?”
“No,” he said. “There are weak witches who do not pose a threat. But weakness is not the same as being good. I will not forget this again.”
I swallowed thickly and clenched my shaking hands in my lap. “Warin, I—“
He turned his head, his gaze locking on something outside. “Carina is here.”
“Huh?” I frowned as he walked to my front door and opened it as he pressed the buzzer. A few seconds later, the air outside my front door swooshed, and a gorgeous blonde woman wearing a pants suit and black pumps suddenly stood in my doorway.
“My lord,” she said. “The bodies have been disposed of, as you asked.”
“Thank you,” Warin said, turning to me. “Liv, this is my second-in-command, Carina. Please invite her in.”
I got up, staring at the blonde as I walked to his side. “Fuck, no.”
Warin blinked, possibly in surprise at my less than hospitable greeting.
“Apologies, my lord,” the blonde said, biting back a smile at the dark-haired vampire’s expression. “The last time your human saw me, I—"
“She was definitely going to eat me,” I interrupted with an indignant huff. “If that tall guy, your brother, hadn’t told her and the others to stuff it, you’d have come back to my dried-out husk in your hallway.”
Warin snapped his head back to Carina, eyebrows raised.
“I wouldn’t have, actually… She was bleeding everywhere, and her arrival was a surprise,” the blonde woman said meekly. “I’m sorry for my unfortunate reaction at the time, my lord. You know I would never touch your property.”
This time, I was the one to blink. “His property?”
Warin turned to me. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder, capturing my attention fully. The magnetic pull from his blue gaze calmed some of my ire. “I promise you, Liv, Carina will never hurt you. She is my most trusted servant. Please, invite her in. There is much I need to do before the night’s over, and we need her help. This has gone too far for me to handle alone—I am not willing to risk your life again.”
Well, when he put it like that… I fought back the heat rising from my chest to my cheeks at the velvet steel in his voice, then turned to the door. “Fine. Come on in.”
The blonde vampire nodded and stepped over the threshold. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Warin moved his hand from my shoulder, and I felt the loss more keenly than I had any business doing. It was as if he’d been transferring his strength to me during that brief touch, and now I was somehow struggling to find the energy to even stay upright.
“I will be back tomorrow evening,” Warin said, pulling my attention from the loss of his touch with a snap. “Carina will remain here until sunup, and then my day helper will stay with you until I return.”
“What?” I blinked rapidly three times in a row. “You’re leaving?”
“I need to attend to… some business.” He reached out again, a bit hesitantly, and touched my cheek with a featherlight brush of his fingertips. “Don’t worry—you are safe with Carina.”
I frowned. “Look, I appreciate the rescue tonight, but this is ridiculous. We both know you’re going to look into the witches who attacked me—I’m coming with. Our deal was that I’d keep my nose clean so long as I didn’t get dragged in again—and I dare say getting nearly eaten by five werewolves or skinwalkers, or whatever, classifies as ‘getting dragged in.’ You can’t just—"
“I can,” he interrupted me, his voice still soft, but with a core of steel. “And I am. Now, I must go. I will return tomorrow evening.”
And with that, he was out the door before I could so much as sputter a protest at the complete shut-down, leaving me alone with the the blonde vampire.
“Well, isn’t that just great?” I huffed at the now empty doorway. I slammed the door shut and turned to my unwanted house guest.
Carina was watching me with a small smile playing on her perfectly shaped lips. “You’ll have to excuse the lord. He’s in a bad mood.
“He’s in a bad mood? I’m the one who nearly got eaten.” I folded my arms across my midriff, shielding some of my very comfortable, very hideous bathrobe from the beautiful woman in front of me. She looked absolutely immaculate, not a hair out of place. I hadn’t felt self-conscious about my looks around Warin, but in Carina’s company, it was hard not to feel like a troll.
“Skinwalkers attacked his human—it’s a grave insult,” she said, the smile slipping off her face as she looked around my small apartment. “Would you mind if I checked the security of your home?”