stillness felt like it was just a corpse that had been propped up to stand right there and do absolutely nothing.
My heart drummed and fear gripped my spine. She’s arrived.
"Hello again, Ms. Kane," the vampire said as Rog and Bram jumped to their feet as well, although neither knocked their chairs down.
"What are you doing here?" Rog asked, taking a step forward. "She is doing as you asked. You will receive your payment when it is ready."
The vampire laughed. It was an unsettling sound, like rocks grinding on rocks before an avalanche came.
"Yes, we know that you have been helping the demon witch to fulfill her debt to us. It is most amusing to watch, all things considered, and we feel that, with the help, she should find herself with what is owed more quickly than usual, and I am here to collect."
Demon witch? Did she mean that because I was living in the same house as a demon? That made sense, I supposed, although it was an odd way of saying it.
"I don't have it," I admitted, taking a step forward even as I felt Dracul biting at my back pocket and trying to pull me away. "Even with the help, there is no time to have the hundred casks ready."
"And that sounds like it is not our problem," the vampire sneered, looking down at Dracul and narrowing her eyes.
"We have forty casks, ready and with the blood in it that you wanted," Rog pointed out. "That should suffice as payment until we have the rest ready for you."
"I fear you do not understand how these deals are handled, demon," the vampire snapped, still not moving anything but her jaw and her chest as it sucked in the air needed to make her words hard. "Why don't you bury your face in the witch's pussy and allow those adults among us to have a conversation uninterrupted by your idiocy?"
I felt a surge of rage rushing through my body. The power made my whole body tingle, and I took a step forward.
"Say that again," I hissed, letting the power crackle between my fingertips like electricity. "I dare you."
"Adorable." The vampire smiled, like she was genuinely amused by my display of power. "You owe us a hundred tainted casks of Cloris wine, and I have come to collect. I will not be returning with forty, fifty, sixty, or even ninety-nine casks. If you do not have what is owed, you will suffer the consequences."
"Why?" I asked, daring to move even closer to the menacing vampire. "If you kill me, you'll get no wine at all."
"Maybe what we wanted all along was not your wine after all. You need not understand our thinking, witch, only abide by the terms of our agreement. Fail, and you'll be meeting my hounds instead of this harmless pup."
Dracul snapped his teeth at her, like he could understand that she was talking about him.
"No wine, then?" the vampire asked. "Well then, I have no choice but to release the hellhounds on this place. Goodbye."
Once again, it was like she was there one moment and gone the next, without so much as a whipping of wind to account for the sheer speed. It was like she hadn't even been there at all, or it was some kind of apparition.
Ice filled my ice and I trembled. "Hellhounds?"
"Yes." Rog was at my side, wrapping an arm around my waist, drawing me to his side. But could he really stop the vampires if he couldn’t protect my auntie?
"As in hounds..."
"From hell, yes," Bram answered, his cheeks blanching as he looked at me with a sorrowful expression. He was in shock and well, so the hell was I.
It was all a little too much to take in, and I shook my head, taking a deep breath. "When are the hellhounds getting here?"
"Dracul will warn us when they are close," Bram said. "I will keep watch. You can rest if it pleases you."
"How can I rest?"
Rog guided me upstairs, and my knees buckled out from under me. He caught me and swept me into his arms. "I’ve got you."
"But can you save me?"
“I’ll do everything I can.”
Except, dread wormed through me that it wouldn’t be enough. I curled in against his chest and wanted to vanish from the world.
Chapter 16
Sweat was coating my skin. A delicious burning filled the lower half of my body as I settled down over Rog, straddling his hips and sinking down until he was as deep inside me