Page 49 of Secret of the Vampire
The muscles clenched in his jaw, but he kept his mouth shut.
When I looked back at Ryan, her blue eyes were shiny with tears. “Can you really show me how to control the voices?”
I gave her a nod. “I can. They’re not so bad once you learn how to get them to work for you, and how to shut them out when you don’t want to be bothered.”
“I’d like that,” she told me.
“Good,” I said. “We’ll talk more later.”
“Not alone,” Christian gritted out.
Placing my hands on my thighs, I rose to my full height, rubbing my palms on my black pants. “Of course,” I agreed. “Until she gets tired of having you babysit her.”
“Jesse,” Shea warned me.
With a hint of a smile, I acknowledged her warning. “Whatever makes you more comfortable,” I told him.
I understood where he was coming from, I did. I was equally protective of my Shea, although I knew full-well she could easily protect herself.
Joining my vampire, I ran my hand over her dark hair. I took an unhealthy amount of satisfaction in the fact that I was the only male able to touch her thus. If any other took such liberties she would be screaming in pain, the remnants of a curse we had yet to figure out how to lift. One that, for my own selfish reasons, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remove.
She smiled at me, and my heart raced within my chest.
It was with great effort I tore my eyes from her stunning face to give my attention to the rest of the group. “As you all know, I gave up my army of demons—the army I was going to use to kill my father—for the love of this female and you, her family. In return, I was promised that you all would help me figure out a way to remove him from the throne of the Moss witch coven, where he currently reigns as the High Priest, and take his life.”
“What makes you fucking think we’re going to keep that promise?” Dante asked.
Before I could answer, Luukas spoke up. “We will keep it. I gave my word.”
“To a fucking warlock who tortured you for seven years?” Dante shook his head, his dark eyes locked onto me. “I don’t fucking think so.”
“I gave my word,” Luukas told him. “And I intend to keep it. If not for him, then for Shea.”
At the mention of her name, Dante’s dark eyes dropped to her where she sat on the arm of the couch beside me.
“Dante, please,” she said. “This is not just for me or for Jesse, it’s also for Laney and all of the other witches here whose families ran from their own coven in fear.”
“Laney will stay here with me.”
“Yes,” Shea agreed. “But what of her family who are still there?”
“Why not just send him back to his own world?” Nikulas asked.
“Because he has the book that contains the spell to do that, and because even if we did, he keeps finding a way to come back,” I told him. “His own brother took him back in 1947. Forty years later, he returned and killed his brother and the witch they both loved, taking over the coven. Then, years later, our mother”—I glanced over at Ryan—“sent him back again. With the help of a young witch he’d enthralled, he returned when I was a still a very young man, and he killed her.” He paused. “He again took over the position of High Priest, sucking the magic from the coven until the witches were too weak to oppose him. Only the ones who’d managed to escape, like myself, were able to hang onto their magic. With a little help from my spirit friends and a witch or two who are still within the coven, I’ve been watching him, hoping for a chance to get my hands on that book, with no luck.”
Linking my hands behind my back, I began to pace as I thought out loud. “So, I’ve decided to kill him. It’s the only way to keep him from coming back.”
Shea stood and grabbed my arm. “Jesse, you didn’t tell me this.”
I stopped, removing her hand from my arm and twining her fingers in mine. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry.”
She stared up at me, her green eyes darkened with concern.
“Do you think you can do it?” Keira asked.
Glancing over at her, I said, “I am the only thing in this world that is a threat to him.”
Luukas spoke up. “Then why has he allowed you to live?”
