King of the Asheville Coven: Harper's Mountains Vampire Romance (2 page)

Sadey Lowen winced at the soreness in her body. She peeked her eyes open and grimaced at the brightness of the fluorescent lighting and, for a moment, couldn’t figure out where she was. A high-pitched
beep, beep
prickled her oversensitive ears. One look at the monitors she was hooked up to, and she panicked. What was she doing in a hospital room?

“You don’t want to report her because she’s human, just like you,” a low timbre said.

Sadey jerked her attention to the window dividing her room from a sterile looking hallway. Right outside stood a man who brought everything crashing back to her. The truck that had chased her down and driven her off the road, the fear, the pain, and then waking up to that man hugging her. She wouldn’t have known he was supernatural, but his eyes had changed color right in front of her, from a soft gray hue to demon-black in an instant. He wasn’t a shifter; she hadn’t smelled fur or feathers on him, but once he’d opened his mouth to speak, his canine teeth removed any further doubt of what he was. They were too sharp, and long. A vampire.

She should’ve been terrified of him because she knew the terrible strength and heartlessness vamps were capable of. But in a panic not to be found out, she’d pleaded for his help instead.

Propped up on the bed, she canted her head and studied him as he talked low to a nurse outside her room. He struck a handsome profile, with eyebrows the same chestnut color as his mussed, stylish hair. His jaw was clean-shaven and chiseled, and his lips too sensual for his own damn good. His nose was straight and strong, his neck thick and muscular. His defined pecs pressed attractively against the thin material of a navy T-shirt, and she could just make out his arms as he rested his hands on his hips in what looked like an irritated gesture. Tattoos stretched from below his short sleeve to his elbow, all black ink in swirling symbols she couldn’t quiet decipher, but that wasn’t what tripped up her gaze. On his forearm, there was a perfect line that divided the pale skin of his upper arm from the red, raw skin that covered his elbow down. Vampires healed as fast as shifters, but this injury looked as if he’d had to regrow the skin that had been fileted off. Maybe he’d exposed it to sunlight or something.

She swallowed hard at how painful that must’ve been, and then a wave of guilt washed over her because perhaps it was a new burn, and maybe he’d gotten that saving her tonight.

The nurse walked in, followed by the vamp, who crossed his arms and stood against the wall. He avoided Sadey’s gaze. Even from all the way over here, she could feel the heavy power he emanated. There was no doubt in her mind he could off her in an instant. Maybe that’s why he was here. Vamps liked drinking shifters. Rumor had it she tasted better to the undead. Maybe he was here to make a meal of her when she was released.

The nurse, Jody, her nametag read, had a strange, vacant look on her face when she bent over and took Sadey’s vitals. “I’m not going to report you because you are a human,” she said in a monotone voice.

“O-okay,” Sadey said. “That’s right. I’m a human.” What in heavens was happening right now? Obviously she wasn’t a damned human. Her wounds were already healed.

“I think she’s fine to release,” the man in the corner said. “Don’t you, Jody?”

“Release forms,” the woman said vacantly. Her pupils were blown out so completely, Sadey couldn’t even guess what color her real eyes were. The nurse opened her mouth and froze, lips parted, eyes dead for the span of three breaths before she blinked slowly and said, “You’ll need release forms, and then you are free to go. I’ll have to take you out in a wheelchair because of hospital policy.”

“That won’t be necessary,” the vamp murmured soothingly.

“That won’t be necessary,” Jody repeated.

What in the actual hell? Dread blasted through Sadey’s veins. He wasn’t just a vamp. He was one of the powerful, gifted ones everyone was afraid of, and for good reason. This monster had mind control.

Shit, shit, double shit. Sadey pulled out the IV someone very determined must’ve shoved into her arm. They’d wound surgical tape around her arm at least a dozen times to keep her body from rejecting the needle. She had to get out of here.

“I’ll get your release forms,” Jody said with an empty smile.

Fantastic, but Sadey wasn’t signing them. No one here could know her name or Brock would track her down.

The nurse left the room, and now Sadey was terrifyingly alone with the monster in the corner. His navy T-shirt read
Winterset Fire Department
and had the city logo on it. A firefighting vampire? She’d always imagined the undead dressed in tuxedos, drinking goblets of blood in their gothic mansions, not fighting fires and pulling strangers from cars.

“Th-thank you for saving me,” she rushed out so perhaps he would remember she was a person and not serial-kill her.

“You smell of fear,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, and now his eyes were that pitch black again. He pushed off the wall, stood to his full imposing height, and cocked his head as he studied her. He was the predator, judging whether she was worthy prey. “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have covered for you.”

Covered for her? “Did you take over that woman’s mind?”

His lips stretched into a wide smile, and he whispered, “I’m in all of their heads.”

“Are you in mine?” she squeaked out.

That cocky smile faltered, and a troubled expression flashed through his eyes before he carefully composed his expression. “No.” His eyes narrowed as he eased back. “For some reason, I don’t want to be. I’m Aric.”

Oh, he was intoxicating. Surely it was the vamp in him. They were compelling on a chemical level. That’s what helped vamps convince their victims to let them drink them up. She had to be careful with him because she would be damned if she was going to be a victim. After Brock, she would rather die than let another man control her.

Out of self-preservation, Sadey refused to give him her name. Slowly, she sat up, but winced when pain zinged up her arm.

“You broke it,” Aric said.

“Crap.” She stared down at the bruising on her forearm. Shifter healing was great until it came to broken bones.

“I set it for you before it healed, but it’ll be sore for a while.”

“How did you know to do that?”

The man’s lips lifted in the corners, but he didn’t look nice. He looked feral. “Just a hunch. What are you?”

Sadey crossed her arms over her chest and gave the window her attention. It was still full dark outside. Maybe if she ignored him until dawn, he would make like a tree and leaf her the hell alone.

“Bear shifter?”

She cast him a quick glance and stifled the snarl in her throat. “That’s none of your business.”

“Ah, but that’s no fair. You know what I am, right?”

She parted her lips to deny him, but the nurse returned just in time. And good thing because, belatedly, she remembered vamps could sense lies like shifters could. That and the bloodsucker had the unnerving ability to poke around in peoples’ minds.

She needed to get away from him, and fast.

Sadey read over the form Jody handed her, attention carefully angled away from the man who seemed to take up every inch in the small room.
Helgalina Tittywinkles
, she scribbled across the bottom line.

Aric snorted from the corner he’d retreated to, as if he could read what she’d written. Hell, maybe he could.

If she was in her animal form right now, every hair on her back would be standing straight up. In fact, she was surprised her animal was as calm as she was. Usually in the presence of rival predators, she became defensive and wanted to rip out of Sadey’s skin. Not now, though. Other than an occasional warning growl when he got too close to their secrets, her animal was curiously content to watch him. Strange. Perhaps her inner beasty didn’t realize how much danger she was in.

“Thank you for visiting,” Nurse Jody said in that strange, empty voice, and then she stood there, staring at something just over Sadey’s head. She went completely still like she was a robot that had just powered down. Geez, this vamp was a trip.

As Sadey sidled past Aric to escape to the door, she whispered, “Will she be okay?”

“Other than some confusion and a little headache later, she’ll be fine.”

“Great. Bye.”

Sadey rubbed her sore arm and made her way down the hallway. One by one, the nurses and doctors she passed came to a stop and froze, eyes staring, pupils blown out. Sadey slowed and looked behind her.

Aric stood there, dark eyebrows drawn down in concentration and something more. Confusion? His mussed hair had fallen down his face on one side as though he’d roughed it up after she’d passed him by.

Sadey looked at all the staff who were frozen like statues in the hallway. How was he not in her mind? How did he choose who to manipulate? And why wasn’t she Changing out of fear right now?

Troubled down to her bones, Sadey ripped her gaze away from Aric’s and bolted for the door with the glowing green exit sign.

That man was too terrifyingly powerful for his own good, and he was much too interesting for hers.

What was wrong with him? Aric frowned at the small house with the big front porch.

Sadey
. The second her name had brushed his mind when he’d introduced himself, he’d almost retched. He hadn’t meant to dip into her mind, and it didn’t feel right with her. He didn’t give a single fuck about visiting other people’s minds if it kept him and his people safe, but tonight he’d gone overboard in an effort to keep a complete stranger’s identity protected from the hospital staff.

The breeze kicked up, swaying the elaborate garden she’d planted. Bushes, grasses, and brightly colored flowers were placed tastefully in the front landscaping, down both sides of the house, and around the dogwood tree out front. The grass was mowed, and the landscaping perfectly weeded, the soil damp and smelling of rich earth. Before Sadey had gone inside, cradling her sore arm, she’d talked to each plant as she watered them like they were her children.

This was a woman who reveled in sunlight, so why the fuck couldn’t he leave the shadows of this old sycamore tree across the street right now?

For the past ten minutes, he’d tried to convince himself he was just trying to make sure she got home safe. He’d tried to convince himself he was just watching her warily as a predator watches a rival in its territory, but she wasn’t a physical danger to him.

Her face had given her away when he’d asked if she was a bear. She was something smaller. She didn’t smell like a dragon either, so she wasn’t either of the two shifters that could threaten his life and the lives of his coven. Not when she was so obviously alone out here without a crew to protect her.

He didn’t like that.

It was dangerous for supes to be alone, and she hadn’t even called anyone on the cab ride from the hospital to her house. He’d flown near her taxi in his shifted form and watched for her to lift her phone to her ear, but she didn’t. Tonight, she’d almost died, and she had no one to call?

A shallow hiss filled his throat at the idea that her people had failed her so epically.

Movement caught his attention in the front left window. A light had turned on, and now Sadey’s shadow walked across the room. She pulled her shirt off gingerly, as though her arm was really hurting.

A reckless thought consumed him. He could dip into her mind briefly and take the pain away. He did that sometimes when he was called to a bad injury on a shift. But the thought of digging around in her mind had him doubled over in pain.

Squatting down in the shadows, Aric glared at her outline. Perfect breasts bobbed out of the bra she removed and, fuck it all, his dick was so hard right now. This wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be sitting here watching her like this. Why didn’t she have blackout curtains?
Because she won’t burn to her final death if a ray of sunlight peeks through
, his asshole subconscious whispered.

What was his purpose here? He was fighting something that drew him to her. It rivaled bloodlust, but the thought of drinking her made him feel guilty. This right here was why he made a terrible vampire. His maker, Arabella, had known it would be like this, but she’d Turned him anyway. Wasn’t he supposed to be heartless by now? Wasn’t he supposed to feel less?

Instead, he felt everything. His coven could sense it and resented him. They thought him weak. If it wasn’t for the power of mind-manipulation that had manifested when he’d risen from the dead, they would’ve put him down by now.

His phone chirped, and he checked the glowing screen. It was Garret, his Second.
Where are you? Dawn is almost here.

Aric slid his glance to the gray horizon and muttered a curse. This was the part he hated—the fear of the sun.

And for the billionth time since he’d been Turned, he cursed his maker for all she’d taken from him. Arabella had promised him great power, and when he’d turned it down, she’d Turned him anyway. She’d ruined his life with that power.

And now he couldn’t have a normal conversation with a woman like Sadey without smelling the stink of fear pouring from her skin.

Aric stood, made his way into the middle of the street, and inhaled deeply. Sadey was a being of the light, and he was of the shadows, and he had no place in her life.

He would be poison to her.

Sadey’s shadow froze, and slowly she made her way to the window. He should leave before she saw him and become even more scared, but he couldn’t conjure his shift. He just stood there, a dark part of his heart wanting her to see him. Wanting her to know he saw her.

Sadey lifted the thin blinds and then paused, staring at him with those gold eyes that said whatever animal she harbored was close to the surface.

Sexy, mysterious, rogue. He bet her animal was stunning.

But this was enough. It had to be. He had no place being here. Aric closed his eyes and gave his body to the bats.

And then in a haze of smoke, he disappeared into the night and out of her life.