100% That Witch - Celia Kyle Page 0,18
steeping. You should have some.”
“Should I?”
“Absolutely. It promotes cognitive retention. Everything we go over is more likely to stick.”
On his way to the tiny nook of a kitchen—what would a vampire do with a big elaborate one anyway?—he moved the needle on his old-school record player, and light cello music filled the cabin.
“If I didn’t know better, Mr. Baines, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.” She laughed lightly, and he gave her an amused smile.
“Only your mind,” he said. “I’ll give you a list of the pieces we’re listening to. Hearing them again may just bring the information back.”
Suddenly, he stood very close to her, a cup of fragrant tea on offer. Instead of feeling like he was in her space, his closeness seemed to settle her.
“Are all the bunnies around here so friendly,” she asked, maneuvering to the table and sipping her tea.
“Pretty much all the wildlife is.” He joined her with a mug of his own. “There are no predators around for miles; or at least, none that would do them any harm. They know this is a safe space for them.”
With that, he pulled over a volume on potions and laid it open between them. While he was clearly ready to get down to work, Tiffany couldn’t contain her curiosity over his particular patch of woods.
“How is it that there are no predators here? That seems like a strange kind of blessing.”
Nero’s eyes met hers with just a hint of a twinkle behind them.
“It is, actually.” He leaned back from the volume and sipped his tea. “Let’s just say, there used to be a number of animals around here that would have been happy to make a snack out of your little friend out there.”
“What happened?”
“I consider them to be ‘free range organic,’ if you know what I mean.” He shrugged with a wicked little grin, and Tiffany’s jaw dropped.
“You cleared them out?”
“You could say that. It seemed more ethical and sustainable than anything else I could think of. I certainly wasn’t willing to go around drinking human blood. I can’t square myself with that.”
He looked uneasy, and Tiffany prodded a bit despite herself. “Why not?”
Nero’s jaw clenched. “I was turned against my will.”
The answer was simple and calmly stated, but it hit her like a bucket of water.
“What? But that’s against the law!”
“Now,” he said drily. “Anyway, I was a naturalist before I was turned. After some pretty serious unpleasantness over the whole debacle, I needed to find a way to live that was in line with the values I’d lived by before.”
“That’s so awful, Nero.” She felt compelled to comfort him by laying a hand on his. His thumb reached up to capture hers, and he gave her a grateful smile.
“After I first became…what I am, I hated who I was. Every breath I took was in denial of my true self. That’s no way to live, Tiffany.”
“No. It... isn’t.” That notion cut right into the middle of her heart. She knew exactly what it meant to be at odds with yourself. Why else would a witch of love and light and pretty pink puppies smother herself in black and paint dark circles around her eyes? She knew all too keenly what it felt like to hide your true nature. “What did you do?”
“Worked to find a better way to be. That didn’t exactly sit well with the rest of the vampires I knew. They have certain expectations I wanted no part of. So I moved out here and began to harvest animals that preyed on others. I guess you could say I worked myself into the food chain.”
“That’s amazing, Nero.” And she meant it.
“I’m glad you think so. Not everyone agrees.”
“I don’t get it. The rest of your kind ostracized you over this?”
“Some of them,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “Most of them, actually. But I can’t say it bothers me. I’m true to who I am, and the ones who value that accept me.”
“Of course they do.”
His hand felt like a magnet she couldn’t pull away from, his thumb rubbing gently across her knuckle. The vampires she knew had all accepted the bite of their own free will, knowing fully what lay in store for them on the other side. Her heart ached for Nero at the thought of how terrified and confused he must have been.
Still, she couldn’t help but envy how he’d found a way to be true to himself in the face of such odds. To ignore