SEVEN
The moment Nick said what he had, about his kisses and “a certain spot,” a certain spot between my now-slick feminine lips tingled in anticipation, and I realized that I was just going to give in. I was going to sleep with my enemy, and I was going to like it. I was probably even going to love it. Particularly if Nick was skilled enough at “kissing” to bring me to one of the powerful orgasms I’d been thinking about the day before.
Part of me felt like I was betraying my coven by just deciding to give in to pleasure so quickly, but another part of me was insistent on pushing that thought from my mind. The part doing the pushing was also telling me that as long as I accomplished my end goal of getting revenge once my powers returned, nothing else mattered. So in the meantime, I figured I may as well not struggle to resist fully indulging myself in some physical pleasure, even if that pleasure came at the hands of a man I’d decided to assassinate.
I smiled at Nick, wrapping my arms around his neck. “All right. Take me to my bedroom.” I giggled, realizing I'd actually said med-loom. “Bedroom, I mean."
Grinning, he rose from his chair with me in his arms, but then his grin quickly faded. “Your wish is my command. But considering how bloodshot your eyes have become, and considering that you’re now slurring your words…maybe let's just slow things down a minute, as much as I really don’t want to. I think you’ve had too much wine, too fast, and on too empty of a stomach to be agreeing about going into your bedroom. Let’s heat up your dinner first and just relax a little while you eat and have something to drink other than wine. Then, we can definitely revisit the bedroom issue.”
Suddenly angry for some reason, and more than a bit, I demanded that Nick put me down. “And I mean right this second.”
Nick instantly obliged, setting me on my feet. Just as instantly, the room seemed to spin around me, but just for a second or two, and I managed to remain upright. I also managed to fold my arms across my chest while glaring at Nick, the act of doing these two things at once seeming to require more coordination than it should have.
“You, Nick. Don’t you tell me how much food I’ve had.” Immediately realizing that I’d messed up my words, I tried again. “What I mean is, don’t tell me how much empty stomach I've had on my wine.” Realizing that I’d done it again, I took a deep breath, miles beyond irritated with myself. “Now look what you're making me do, Nick. Just listen to me. Just shut up and listen. Don’t you dare tell me how fast that wine emptied my stomach. Do you understand me?”
“No.”
Dizzy with anger from his one-word response, on top of how dizzy I’d already been, I suddenly began swaying on my feet. I might have fallen over, but Nick immediately caught me in his strong arms and set me down in my chair.
“You're officially cut off from all alcohol for the night, Miss Abbott. I’m going to go reheat your dinner, and in the meantime, you’re going to sit here and relax. Do you understand me?”
Looking up at him standing beside my chair, I suddenly felt like a chastised child who’d been naughty. Which seemed like it should have made me angry. In fact, it seemed like it should have made me livid. But, for some strange reason, I just found myself nodding.
“Yes. I understand you, Nick.”
“Good. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
After he’d grabbed the wine and whiskey bottles from the table, he grabbed my covered tray of uneaten dinner and left the dining room, leaving me alone.
Not even half a minute later, he returned, bearing a short stack of wheat crackers on a little plate, which he set in front of me. “Here. Have some of these while you're waiting.”
“You have some of these while you're waiting.”
“No. No more sass, Tiffany. Or else I will take you in your bedroom right now, but only to sit you in the corner for a time-out because you're acting like somewhat of a brat. Am I clear about this?”
For the second time, I found myself just nodding for some strange reason. “Yes. You’re clear.”
“Good.”
After giving me something that resembled a look of warning, Nick turned to leave the dining room again. With my rate of breathing accelerating, I watched him as he went, taking in his long legs, his tight rear, and his powerful, broad shoulders. I only turned back to the table once he’d completely disappeared from view.
In the glow from the lamps, the chandelier, and the twin red taper candles, I began eating my crackers, realizing that I had indeed drunk my three glasses of wine pretty fast. Not to mention that I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, a good eight hours earlier. I knew I really should have been a little more aware of exactly how much I was drinking, and how fast, especially since I'd always been kind of a lightweight when it came to alcohol. However, my mind had, of course, been on other things, like revenge and Nick’s handsome face.
Just on the off-chance that my inebriation had somehow caused my supernatural powers to return, I tried shooting a beam of fiery light at the wide window, and then at the paintings flanking it, but with no luck. Which was just as well, I realized. If my powers had worked, the noise of the shattering glass would have surely alerted Nick, and I would have had some serious covering up to do to conceal the fact that my powers had returned.
When I was on my last cracker, I realized that I’d begun to sober up a bit already, just in the five minutes or so since I’d started eating. I also realized something else. Although he could certainly be commanding and stern at times, Nick wasn't exactly behaving like a cold-blooded murderer, or even like anyone who’d allow any murders to happen on his watch. Also, although I was loathe to admit it, there was some kind of warmth about him that struck me as at least fairly sincere.
I set the uneaten half of my last cracker on my plate, suddenly troubled, and profoundly so.
For the first time, I wondered if James and I had been correct in our guessing that the Everglen Coven had committed the murders of my coven members. But there wasn’t anyone else it could have possibly been. The murders had clearly been done by vampires, and other than the Everglen Coven and the Dormios, there had been no other vampire groups in the area.
And as for the Dormios, they had absolutely no motive to commit the murders, and in fact, exactly the opposite. With James being their leader at the time, no one would have wanted to anger him by harming his girlfriend’s family.
The possibility that James himself had done it really wasn’t even a possibility. Again, no motive, not to mention that even though he definitely hadn’t been the perfect boyfriend, James had never lied to me before, about anything. At least, not as far as I knew.
Still, even with all these thoughts swimming around in my still-buzzy mind, even with all the certainty that I felt that James and I had guessed the murderers correctly all those years earlier, I still couldn’t help but feel that something about Nick and his coven being responsible just wasn’t making as much sense to me as it once had. However, this feeling of unease wasn’t going to last long.
Nick soon returned from the kitchen, bearing a plate and other items for my dinner. He set the plate in front of me, along with a linen napkin and silverware. “Enjoy.”
On the plate sat thick slices of what appeared to be, and smelled like, baked honey-glazed ham, along with scalloped potatoes, cooked baby carrots and green beans, and two rolls, alongside a couple of deviled eggs. Still tipsy, I just stared at the food in front of me for a moment with my head slightly spinning.
Then, I looked up at Nick, suddenly feeling some bizarre mix of confusion, anger, and sadness. “What’s all this for?”
Looking vaguely perplexed at my reaction, he smiled a little. “It’s Easter food. Because today is Easter.”
I hadn’t realized. I’d known it was April because government agents had told me the date not long after I’d awoken in their prison, but I didn’t have a calendar in my new apartment.
Seeming not to notice my emotional upheaval, Nick continued. “I had one of my staff members prepare you some traditional Easter food, even though it’s something we vampires don’t consume, of course. We wanted you to be able to enjoy the holiday with a traditional meal. Our staff chef who cooks for us when we have human and shifter guests in town had no idea how to make deviled eggs, but she asked one of the still-human women in the city, and I think she figured it out. Take a bite of one and see for yourself.”
With a little wave of nausea, I looked at the deviled eggs. Instantly, an image appeared in my mind. It was an image of my coven mother Aurelia, the only real mother I’d ever known. In my mind, I saw her in her pink-striped apron, her gray hair in a bun, as she surveyed a tray of deviled eggs on our kitchen counter, smiling. That was how she’d looked the day she’d taught me to make deviled eggs.
It had been the first time anyone had taught me how to cook anything, ever. My biological mother had always been too high on drugs to do any cooking. And each of my foster mothers had never wanted kids in the kitchen.
Beyond being the first day anyone had ever taught me how to cook anything, Easter had been a special holiday for Aurelia and me, maybe even more special than Christmas, because the day before Easter was when she’d found me and had “adopted” me, taking me into the coven. I’d kind of always considered Easter to be the day that we’d become a family.
In my still-intoxicated state, with my painful memories seeming to take over my brain, I was becoming miles beyond confused. Miles beyond sad and angry, too.
Without thinking, I suddenly flew up from my chair and turned to face Nick. “How could you do this to me?”
He frowned. “Whatever ‘this’ is, I didn’t mean for it to be so upsetting to you. I just thought you might like to have Easter food on Easter.”
I snorted, folding my arms across my chest. “Sure. You can drop the act, Nick. I’m not buying it, even a little bit. You did this completely on purpose. I just know it. You did this because you know, and you wanted to crush my soul. You wanted to just hurt me and make me remember what you did.”
Nick frowned even harder, furrowing his dark brows. “I’m really sorry, Tiffany. I don’t quite understand what you’re saying, but I didn’t mean to upset you by telling you that we don’t celebrate Easter here with food, if that’s what I did. For what it’s worth, we still celebrate Christmas here, you know, even without food. It’s even had a resurgence in recent years, with all the kids now in the city.”
If I’d had any doubts, I was suddenly completely convinced that Nick knew who I was and who my family had been, and he’d decided to play some kind of a sick joke on me. I had no idea how he’d found me out, because my mind was still too clouded by alcohol to reason that out, but I just felt in my gut that he had.
Ignoring what Nick had just said, I practically spat my next words at him. “You’re absolutely sick. It's not bad enough that you did what you did, now you just wanted to turn the knife. You wanted me to remember Aurelia, and my sisters, and Easter, and….”
I hadn't even realized my eyes were misting up, but a hot tear slid down my face, and I impatiently wiped it away.
“You’re a monster.”
Nick opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
“No…just, no, Nick. I'm done talking, and I'm done thinking. I just want to go to sleep. So, please, just leave. Unless you want to kill me right now or something. Because I know killing must give you joy.”
Nick, who'd been standing silently, just looking at me, now spoke in a low, measured voice. “I think you have the right idea about just going to sleep, and I’ll leave you be right now because alcohol clearly makes you paranoid and hostile. Goodnight, Tiffany. May you awake tomorrow completely sober. If not for your own sake, then for mine."
He began striding out of the dining room, still frowning.
He hadn't been gone a single minute when I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Just as suddenly as my little fit had come on, it had seemed to leave me, along with the tangle of emotions I'd been experiencing. Sitting down at the table, I realized that whatever strange thing had come over me, whether it had been caused by the wine, or the stress, or a combination of those things, it had caused me to say far too much. If Nick hadn't known I was a spy of sorts before, he’d certainly have suspicions now.
But then again, I reasoned, maybe he wouldn't. After all, I had been extremely tipsy before my crackers, and Nick himself had blamed my hostility and paranoia on the alcohol I'd consumed. It was possible that he would never question that that was all it had been. Especially if I apologized the next day, saying that I'd simply been spouting nonsense because I was drunk.
I still wasn't sure exactly what I thought about him not exactly behaving like a cold-blooded killer. However, I had to admit as I ate my Easter dinner mechanically, without really even tasting it, a man bringing a special meal to a woman didn't seem like the action of a man capable of true evil. In fact, the thought that Nick had done it as some sort of a sick joke seemed a bit silly to me now. Definitely paranoid. Nick had been right on the mark about that.
Even though my paranoia, anger, and sadness had mostly left me, I was still confused. However, at present, I was too tired to do any more serious thinking. I needed sleep. Deep sleep. Then, I felt like I needed to spend more time with Nick to get an even better feel for who he was, and what he was and wasn’t capable of. If he somehow wasn’t responsible for killing my coven, obviously, I'd want to rethink my revenge plan. Not that I could even go through with it anytime soon anyway, still not having my powers back.
The next morning, after another night of restless sleep, I showered and dressed a little earlier than usual, wondering if Nick might come by for a morning visit. However, when Clara came by around eight, I wondered if I'd ever even see him again.
Smiling, Clara came inside, held my apartment door wide open, and then gestured to the hallway. "Go ahead and get out. Commander Alexander’s orders.”
So, he was kicking me out. I just couldn’t understand why Clara was smiling about it.