Part 2 (1/2)

”Wild roses?” He squinted in the growing dark to examine the vines that crept along the ground and over the planks siding the house. Small flower heads burst with myriad petals. And thorns so bold and sharp he could see them glint. ”d.a.m.n.”

One of the few vampire deterrents that actually worked against Ivan was wild roses. But they had to be planted by a witch to prove a real danger.

Stepping cautiously forward, Ivan reached out, but not to touch. He wanted to feel out the atmosphere. He could tune his senses to the minutest scent, sound or movement. And he got a physical read, which surprised him.

Malevolent, he decided of the roses. And protective.

He straightened, setting back his shoulders. A scan of the house's facade revealed the roses covered sixty percent of the exterior.

Wild roses weren't supposed to kill a vampire, but-Ivan tapped into his vampire history, taught to him by his father-they did bestow agony. A wise vampire would walk away, not tempt the pain.

Because don't you get enough pain as it is?

A crack of his neck muscles, head snapping to the right, then the left, loosened Ivan's apprehension. This fixer never walked away from any challenge.

”No pain, no gain,” he muttered.

Bracing for the inevitable, Ivan charged forward, pumping his arms and stomping the ground.

The first slice cut through his leather pant leg. A vine snaking along the ground whipped out, slas.h.i.+ng him with thorns sharper than a samurai's katana. But the pain wasn't an instant piercing slice that made a man cry in shock. No, this pain dug into his nerves and electrified his entire system. The shock of it moved up into Ivan's head and tingled in the roots of his teeth. It was an extreme root ca.n.a.l. A vicious migraine. A leopard's bite to his flesh.

Crying out, Ivan took another nerve-slicing cut to his forearm. Again he could feel the cut travel his blood to his teeth. This time he couldn't even make a sound. It was too excruciating. He stepped on the first creaking wooden step. Vines wrapped about his ankles. Thorns perforated the thick leather biker's boots and stabbed his flesh. He struggled. He growled and chomped his jaw.

If he turned back, rushed out to the road, the pain would stop.

”Never,” he growled.

Lunging forward, he ripped away from the vines. Two long, struggling strides took him across the porch. He braced his hands to meet the door-when it opened. His palms. .h.i.t the s.p.a.ce where the door had been and connected hard, with nothing. Impact pushed him back to land on the porch, sprawled.

Bleeding everywhere, but thankful to be past the thorns, he took in the situation. And his eyes fell upon a figure standing in the impenetrable, yet open, doorway.

A flowing white negligee, thinner than air, caressed long legs and spilled about small bare feet. Ivan dragged his gaze up the narrow hips. The gossamer fabric revealed everything to him.

He spat to the side. He'd bitten his cheek while battling the vines. But his eyes did not waver from the heavy curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the nipples tight as rosebuds. A dream far removed from his current h.e.l.l.

Dark blond hair sifted forward over a slender shoulder as she leaned down.

”I didn't invite you to cross my threshold, vampire,” she said in a confident voice edged with a smirk. ”Stop bleeding on my porch.”

”Can't,” he managed to say.

Every nerve ending felt as if burnished raw by a disk sander. Each movement tugged at his bleeding flesh, and though he felt the skin closing to heal, he wanted to itch and scream from misery.

”I've come...,” he began, huffing.

If he could stand, then he might get back a portion of the force he wished to convey. Too difficult. Needed more time to heal. And the attack roses slithered near the edge of the porch.

”I know what you've come for.” She leaned against the door frame, a pale white curve of shoulder revealed as the fabric slid down to an elbow. Her hair was piled loosely upon her head, with delicate curls spilling upon that naked shoulder.

One leg was revealed amid the folds of silk and the fabric veed open high up to her hip. The most delirious aroma of- apricots?-carried over the rose perfume and Ivan's own thick blood scent.

Her blood. It was the first scent he always picked out on any person.

Ivan sucked in a breath. The moment tore him two ways. Pain lingered, boring at his need to act, to finish the task. Yet the bared flesh s.h.i.+mmering in the twilight and the blatant blood scent stirred his desires and made him swallow back his obsessive desire to complete the job.

”You might as well give it up right now,” she said. ”It's not going to happen.”

”I bet you say that to all the guys, right before you invite them in.”

What felt like a slap, might have been a slap, had Ivan been aware the witch hadn't even moved. Yet...yes, his cheek stung as if a firm hand had lashed across it.

If he were upright and at maximum capacity, he could send that air slap right back at her with his own magic. But right now... ”Himself tries this every decade or so,” she said. A firm tone, yet tinged with a boredom Ivan found insulting. ”Sends a so-called champion to get the book. That is what you're here for. I can smell the greed all about you.”

”He's sent others?”

Tapping a finger against her lower lip, she looked him over. The shadows of the evening stirred in her eyes, but Ivan could distinctly see they were green. Witch green.

”Like I said. Just walk away, vampire. You're no match for me.”

And the door slammed, leaving Ivan's head pounding with the dull echo of wood against wood.

He collapsed then, shoulders. .h.i.tting the porch, and staring up at the rafters s.p.a.ced beneath the awning. But two feet from him the rustle of moving vines warned him to beware.

The trip out of here was going to be a b.i.t.c.h.

”I'm not going anywhere.” Whether he wanted to or not.

It would be a dream to traipse away, leave the witch alone and thumb his nose at Himself's stupid command. But dreams were not in Ivan's a.r.s.enal.

That greed she'd smelled? The coercion moving through his veins, an elixir formed of Himself and fed by the shadow.

Much as Ivan thought to lie there awhile longer would be the thing to do, his body began to move before his mind decided to go along for the ride. The coercion took hold.

He was not completely in control of his being at night, and never would be.

”I'm up, I'm up,” Ivan muttered.

He'd developed an irritating habit of talking to that invisible part of him which reacted to Himself's desires.

”Now to gain an invite.”

The door was flung wide open again. The witch stood there, brandis.h.i.+ng a gold cross in her outstretched hand. She stood on the threshold, half of her inside the house, half out on the porch. The arm wielding the small religious icon was completely outside the house.

Ivan plucked the cross from her fingers and drew his tongue along the back of it, licking it slowly, defiant in his wicked glee.

”Not baptized, eh?” she said. ”Then let's try this.”