Don't Hex and Drive (Stay a Spell #2) - Juliette Cross Page 0,8
wouldn’t be the last. The nature of my job kept me moving from country to country, continent to continent. Wherever the job required my skills and attention. So here I was yet again, stopping off in Ruben’s hometown, wondering if I’d ever fill that longing for a home of my own. A place to dig my roots deep.
My Lamborghini was in the body shop, her bike was being repaired, and Ruben said he’d let me get settled before we met. So what had I spent the day doing? In between unpacking, I’d stalked the laundry room like a crazed serial killer. I must’ve marched past it a hundred times, trying to avoid the temptation in my laundry basket.
“Fuck it.”
I finally, finally, lifted the stained part to my nose and inhaled deep.
Utterly. Divine.
Abort. Bad decision. Very bad decision.
I immediately threw it in with the wash, dropped in two pods of detergent, poured in three cups of fabric softener, and slammed the lid, setting it to heavy duty/hot cycle. If there was a whiff of her scent left on that shirt, I’d have to burn it.
The doorbell chimed.
I jumped like someone had caught me in a crime.
Shit!
Combing both hands into my hair, I laughed at myself. Maybe I’d spent too many months off the grid in Romania, tapping into my natural vampiric instincts. That must’ve been it. I’d gone too deep, living in the Carpathian Mountains, letting the beastly side roam free too long. I’d needed the time to track an elusive vampire gone rogue for the overlord of the Bucharest Coven. And yet, the time I’d spent in the wild seemed to tap into my uncivilized side.
I tilted my head and popped my neck. Time to come back to reality and focus on the new job at hand. The hiss of water filling the washing machine calmed me back to reason.
I heard the front door open and close.
“Dev?” Ruben’s voice and scent carried to me.
Shaking off whatever the hell had just happened, I sauntered through the kitchen and into the living room where he stood staring at my painting of Crann Bethadh hanging over the mantel. I’d commissioned the Celtic Tree of Life from an old Irishman on the island of Inishmore about sixty years ago. He’d made his own paint, mixing thirty different shades of green, and flecked gold-leaf into the brown for the trunk.
That painting along with a few other treasures, like my Grecian vase, my Icelandic wall tapestry, and my white marble statue of Shiva, always moved with me. When I’d gotten the call from Ruben, needing a favor, I’d left Romania immediately and then cleared out my apartment in Paris to make the move here.
It seemed a visit with an old friend for a few weeks was just what I needed before I moved on to the next job. There were other vampire overlords looking for Stygorn to hire in the United States. In the meantime, Ruben and I could catch up, he could show me his city, and I could lend a hand with his current case. Besides, my restlessness for something else, something more, was pushing me harder than usual these days. There was an itch I couldn’t quite scratch.
“Good to see you, Dev,” he said with a smile.
I met him in front of the painting, shook his hand, and pulled him in for a hard hug and clap on the back. “And you, my friend.”
“How was Romania?” he asked, turning back to study my artwork with intense focus.
Ruben Dubois was one of my oldest friends and one of the few of my kind I actually trusted. I shook my head at his three-piece tailored suit in midnight blue, complete with cufflinks and personalized vest.
Ruben and his eccentric vests. This one was the same blue as the suit with silver threading in a seemingly random geometric pattern. But I knew Ruben. Nothing was random with him. Ah. It was the subtle design of the DNA triple helix. Not double like humans. The DNA code for a vampire required a third strand.
“Romania?” I sighed. “Peaceful, if you can believe that. After I’d caught a rogue vampire for the Bucharest Coven. And gotten the book for you, that is.”
Ruben had asked me to find a witch and acquire a rare book in heavy werewolf territory in the Carpathian Mountains. After I’d gotten the book, I stayed on in a cabin for several weeks, finding the solitude comforting but also lonely. It had twisted a bittersweet longing in