Chapter Eleven

Wren.

Thankfully the rain had cooled the air and loosened the humidity enough that my hair didn't stick to my face as I took care of Birdie. It did little to calm the storm brewing in my head. I concentrated on drying the car with the bath towel, almost risking moving at super speed in case the rain came again, but decided against it. I needed time with my thoughts, time to slow down. Eyes roamed over my ass from the direction of our room, and I could guess who they belonged to. I gave a little extra wiggle to drive him even more insane.

When I finished thoroughly drying the car, I pulled up the quilting in the trunk and grabbed a can of spray paint. After a good shake, I popped off the cap.

Ashe’s voice startled me. “Don’t do it, Wren. Not because you’re mad at me.”

“Don't flatter yourself."

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I didn’t ask for any of this. I was doing fine on my own until Zac dragged me out here. To save your ass by the way.”

I ventured a look at him. He wore a dark blue T-shirt screen-printed with a big yellow Bite Me. It was a little too small, which hugged his muscles nicely, but was too short and showed a line of pale skin above baggy blue athletic pants. He wore a baseball cap with an eagle on it low on his forehead, which shadowed his entire face.

“Zac got you some new clothes, too, huh?”

“Yeah, and they’re not nearly as flattering as yours. I suspect he did that on purpose.”

“You think?” I started spraying the black paint, wincing as it drowned out Birdie’s beautiful peacock blue, which was officially called Indian Turquoise. Whatever it was, I hated hiding it.

He groaned. “This is painful to watch. Please don’t do this to your car. We’ll find another one.”

Eyes closed briefly, I shook my head and then leveled a stare at Ashe. “Read it and weep, amateur.”

I held up the can.

He pulled his gaze from mine and studied the label. “Plasti-Dip?”

“It’s rubberized. Peels right off when you’re ready to remove it. I'm not new at the whole hiding-out gig.”

“Yeah, Zac filled me in on some of the details. How you survived and…” He went quiet while he studied me, really studied me, as if he were seeing me for the first time. “You’re amazing.”

“Stop trying to butter me up.” I finished spraying the roof and started on the hood.

“I’m not,” he said softly and stepped in close to me, his body right against mine.

I turned around and was immediately wrapped in his arms. At first, I went stiff. It wasn’t a take-me-now kind of hug. It was something else entirely. Something that made me melt against him and lay my head on his shoulder. He smelled clean, mixed with his own distinct scent. I nuzzled my cheek against his jaw, breathing him in deep.

“You really are amazing, Wren.”

“How so? Because I know how to disguise a car?”

“No, not that. Because you grew up alone as a kid and were able to survive long enough to become a kick-ass warrior queen.”

I chuckled. It felt so strangely weird and wonderful to be held like this by a man who, while still a virtual stranger, had already forged a spot in my life. Sliding my arms around his waist, I raised my head and looked into his eyes. They really were a beautiful copper color, searching my face as though he wanted to memorize every feature.

Our lips came together like they were magnetized. He kissed me like no one else had before. Not rushed, but gentle and slow. Our tongues danced a delicate waltz together, tasting, teasing. I still desperately wanted him inside me. But this… It was like an incredible gourmet hors d’oeuvre, one that promised one hell of a good dinner very soon.

We reluctantly broke away from each other to continue Birdie’s makeover. Ashe kept watch while I finished with the car. It was almost fully dark by then. We went back to the hotel room, where we found Zac fast asleep, sprawled sideways across the bed by his duffel bag. Poor guy, he was exhausted.

“How about we ditch He-Man for a little while and go someplace quiet?” Ashe whispered.

“What did you have in mind? This dump isn’t my idea of romantic.”

“I don’t even know where we are for sure. Hard to get my bearings from a car trunk.”

Zac’s phone lay beside him on the bed. I picked it up silently, but of course, he had it locked with a code I hadn’t learned yet. Luckily, there was a flyer on the dresser for a pizza delivery joint. On the back was a crude map, but it was enough to show me we were in a little town called Lil’Bit, Louisiana, and we were about a mile from the barely existent downtown.

But I knew this place. It had been one of many don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it towns we’d hidden in when I was a child. And I knew just where to go. So he wouldn’t freak out if he woke up and found us gone, I scratched out a note for Zac and left it on the bed.

“Come on,” I whispered, taking Ashe by the hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”

****

We super-speeded a mile down the road to the town square and stopped in front of the Mueller County Library, built in 1867, as the sign out front boasted.

“When I said somewhere quiet…” Ashe said with a chuckle.

“What’s quieter than a library? A closed one at that.”

We walked around back where the Bookmobile was parked and approached the building, which had a back door with a set of concrete steps much like the one in the back of the prison. No silver, thankfully.

“How do you suppose we get in?” Ashe asked. “They’ll have security alarms, won’t they? Or a security guard?”

“Hmm, let’s see if I can remember…” I walked behind some bushes that lined the wall. “Ah, yes, there it is.” An egress window covered with a heavy iron grate yawned up at me from the mulched earth. I hadn’t been strong enough at the time to open it, but my mother was. I bent and lifted the grate. The rusty hinges creaked, and I winced, hoping no one had heard it. I hopped down inside the egress, my boots slipping a little on the wet leaves and mud beneath.

Ashe looked down into the hole. “Locked?”

“Let’s see.” I didn’t see any evidence of motion sensors, no heat signatures inside either. I tried the screen. It slid open fine. Then I tried the window. I couldn’t be too rough, or I’d risk breaking the glass. It stuck a little, dousing my hopes at first, but then finally gave way and slid aside.

“Come on,” I whispered.

Ashe hopped down beside me. I dropped down into the basement, and he followed.

It smelled just like I remembered – like old books, ink, wood, and musty earth. I stepped across the concrete floor. The only light came from the one left on in the stairwell. It was plenty enough to see the place had barely changed in the decade or so since I’d last slept here. Wood shelves held messy stacks of uncategorized books and magazines. Some of them were just too old to be handled, some were torn or damaged by water or fire, some were donations that had yet to find a home on the public shelves upstairs.

“Well, it’s quiet,” Ashe said.

“Very, except for him.”

The misty form of a little boy appeared in front of us.

Ashe jumped. “Holy shit!”

“Hey, Chip, how’s it going?” I asked.

The ghostly face of a long-dead nine-year-old smiled back at me. His voice sounded far away, like someone whispering at the end of a long, echoing tunnel. “Wren, you're all grown up! I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“Neither did I. This is my friend Ashe.” I did a double take at the tough vampire man frozen beside me. He was bone white, eyes wide as silver-dollar pancakes. “Oh, come on. You’re a vampire. You're a lot scarier than he is.”

"Never seen a ghost before, mister?" Chip asked, his misty head tilting to one side.

Ashe shook his head.

“Wow.” I laughed. “You know, we’re not that different. He’s just without the benefit of a physical body.”

“Yeah, it kind of stinks,” Chip affirmed. “Playing ball is hard when you don’t have hands anymore. But Wren taught me how to concentrate enough to roll a ball to her.”

I smiled, remembering how we had become friends during those nights when my mother went out to work a temp job or hunt for food. We’d played and talked for hours.

“Oh, um…nice to meet you,” Ashe said, relaxing a bit.

“Pleasure’s all mine, sir,” Chip answered, followed by a polite, misty bow.

"Chip died in a fire here back in 1907. He’s pretty famous though. A lot of ghost-hunters have tried to find him.”

“Those fellas are silly,” Chip said, then added in a mocking voice, “Is there anyone here? Can you make a sound for us? What’s your name? Sometimes I roll a ball or poke one of them just to watch them go bonkers. It’s fun.”

Ashe was smiling now instead of cringing. “I don’t blame you for messing with them.”

“I bet they’d wet their pants if they saw your vampire teeth.”

I cleared my throat. “Say, Chip, my friend and I are kind of on a date. Could you go keep watch upstairs and give us some alone time?”

The ghost boy nodded, whooshing away from us with a disembodied giggle. His sing-song voice drifted up the stairs. “Wren and Ashe, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

“He’s a sweet kid,” Ashe said, pulling me into his arms. “Shame he’s stuck here, though.”

“He can cross over any time he wants, but he likes it here.”

Ashe searched my eyes, appearing like he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said. His hand drifted to my ass and squeezed. “Have you ever fucked in a library before?”

“I haven’t. Let’s do something about that.” I led him into the unused brick-floored storage room at one end of the basement. It was dark and cobwebby, a relic from the original building.

“Uh, here? I mean, I’m game, but I think my queen deserves better.”

“Watch.” I ventured to an empty bookcase, hoping no one had found what I was looking for. The old, rusty metal shelves had a solid gray MDF board backing my mother had added. I slid one side of the bookcase out. Faint potpourri-scented, musty air whooshed out, and I led Ashe into the little hidden room. My eyes had a harder time adjusting here with the absence of outside light, but I found the oil lamp sitting on the table where we’d left it and the box of matches beside it.

I lifted off the glass globe, struck a match, and lit the wick. The fire blazed to life. I replaced the globe and lifted the lamp to look around at the little cozy place I’d called home for a few months. It had been my favorite place of all. I'd decorated the brick walls with pictures of movie stars and musicians I'd cut out from magazines. Images of Humphrey Bogart and Boris Karloff squared off with Jimi Hendrix and Gene Simmons above the fold-out sofa bed I'd shared with my mother.

“You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Ashe said, stepping farther into the room. He looked around at the sheet-covered furniture, dusty books, and cassette radio that sat on a small wooden shelf.

My mother had left it like that, thinking we might return. Instead, she’d whisked me away one night, and we never came back.

I picked up a familiar book. “Mama read this to me a couple times. One of my favorite bedtime stories.”

“Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula'?” Ashe said, one corner of his mouth curved into a half smile. “You know that’s not a how-to manual, right?”

“I do now. For a long time, I thought if I concentrated hard enough, I could turn into a bat.” The funny memory served as a reminder that my mother had left me virtually clueless about how to be a real vampire or that others like me existed. I sighed. Maybe coming here was a bad idea after all.

Ashe went to the radio and pressed the play button.

I thought the batteries would surely be dead, but instead, Janis Joplin’s guitar scratched to life, the bluesy sound filling the small space with music. It charged the stale air and drove out the Debbie Downer mood threatening to ruin my night.

Ashe whipped off one of the furniture covers, revealing an old leather armchair. Then he whisked me into his arms and started dancing with me. Hand on my ass, he pulled me against him, against the hardness I couldn’t wait to enjoy. We kissed, and my symbol throbbed, buzzing in a rhythm like a timer.

It was time. Time to make him mine for good.

“I need to be inside you,” he whispered in my ear. Ashe pulled my shirt over my head, threw it aside. I did the same with his. Pants followed, then underwear. And then we were skin to skin, no barriers, no time to waste.

He picked me up; my legs wrapped around his waist. I could feel the tip of his dick teasing me, making me wet and ready, painfully so. My fangs emerged, and so did his. My eyes locked onto his copper ones that grew redder by the second. He lowered himself to sit on the chair, my knees holding me just a hair’s breadth above his dick.

“Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?” he said, but I put a finger to his lips.

I'd heard similar lines from a couple of guys I slept with who were drunk and didn't realize I was a vampire. I'd left before they woke and never looked back. But with Ashe, it actually sounded sincere, like something deeper than a one-night stand.

“Enough talking.” I lowered myself in one smooth, quick movement, until he was seated deep inside me. The symbol on my arm shot lightning-hot streaks straight to my core.

Ashe snarled and made a growl that sounded more animal than man. He clamped his hands on my waist. I’d released something powerful, primal. There was no turning back now.