Page 34 of A Vampire Bewitched
“Justtry,” he insisted, as she threw up her hands angrily.
They both turned to Nik.
“Would you please tell her sheisa witch?”
“Would you please tell him I am NOT a witch?”
Talking over each other, they returned to arguing amongst themselves.
“I am not!”
“Youare!”
Nik’s patience, both with the arguing and the monopolizing of Emma’s attention, had come to an end.“Enough!”Nik roared. “I am NOT the parent here, goddammit!”
“Of course you’re not the parent,” Aiden scoffed. “That would just be silly, asLuukasis the Master Vampire.” Cocking his head to the side, he narrowed his eyes at Nikulas. “Something’s eating at you. You just haven’t been yourself since you brought Emma, here, aboard.” Snapping his fingers, he exclaimed, “I know! Would it help if we talked about it?”
Nik widened his eyes, and with a furtive glance toward Emma, who appeared to be busy trying to look as disinterested as possible, told him, “No. It most certainly wouldnothelp to talk about it at this moment.”
Sitting back in his seat, Aiden crossed his legs and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “I disagree. I think it would help immensely to get a certainsomethingoff your chest, so to speak.”
He was going to kill his best friend. He really was. Slowly. And so very painfully. “I’m warning you, Aid…Shut. Up.”
“Oh, come on! Let’s hash it out, as they say. We have nothing else to do at the moment, and we still have a few hours until we land in Seattle. I promise you’ll feel better.” With a naughty smirk, Aiden winked at Emma.
Nik’s mind spun, frantically trying to think of a way to shut him the fuck up. He needed something to distract him.
“Emma. You are a witch.” He hated throwing her under the bus, but if it would distract his so-called friend…
“What?!” she cried.
“I told you so!” Aiden crowed happily to Emma.
Well, what do you know? It worked.He was really going to have to remember that trick. “Your family comes from a coven of witches that dates back as long as we do, probably longer. I tried to tell you about this last night, and I understand your reluctance to hear it, really, I do, but—”
She put her head in her hands. “I. Am. NOT…”
Slashing his hand sharply through the air, Nik cut her off. “You ARE.Everywoman in your family, and some of the men, as far back as we can remember, have been witches. Yourmotherwas a witch.”
“My mother??”
“Yoursisteris a witch. Unless there’s been some weird mutation in your gene pool when it comes to you, specifically, you have to be one too. The only thing that changes is the level of power from one person to another.”
Emma sank down into her seat, like the wind had been knocked out of her. “If this is true, how did I live my entire life and not know?Whywouldn’t I know?”
“I have no idea.” He was just as baffled as she looked.
Aiden chimed in, “Maybe if we tell her some of the history?”
Nik nodded and Aiden continued. “See, basically it boils down to this: There are two kind of vampires, good ones and bad ones. We,” he indicated Nik and himself, “are the good ones, and we call ourselves, simply ‘Vampires’. The other group is known in our world these days as the ‘Legion’. Now the Legion, they are somewonkyvampires. Leeha, their leader, is the worst one. She’s fabulously mad, and quite beautiful. Her arse alone makes a man want to…to…” He stuttered to a halt, and settled on appreciative grunting noises as he squeezed the air with his hands.
“I don’t think Emma cares about her ass,” Nik cut in, picking up where Aiden had left off. “But as he was saying, she is totally fucking psycho, and her followers are right up there with her.”
“Occasionally,” Aiden interrupted, “when a vampire is turned, they come out of it just, not quite right.”
“Long story short,” Nik continued, “Leeha is one of those Vampires. She was made a vampire illegally. Kidnapped as a human child by one of our males. He secretly raised her as his daughter, and on her 25th birthday, he turned her without permission from Luukas.”
Emma interrupted to ask, “Why would he need permission?”
