Chapter 15

T rixie

The next morning, my grandmother's breakfast table was like a scene out of a cheerful countryside villa. Bright, airy light streamed through big windows thrown open to a warm breeze. Tall stacks of pancakes sat on the table surrounded by pots of fresh cream, cups of hot black coffee, and jars of local syrups. Berries and pastries were scattered across the checkered tablecloth like treasures.

I took a sip of my coffee, closing my eyes and savoring the warmth as it rolled down my throat. I bit into a flaky croissant and moaned, feeling like maybe life really was better in a retirement community. Maybe I should move up here and taxi around my grandmother's friends when they got the munchies after getting high off her Happy Hexes.

Yesterday evening had been spent in my grandmother's greenhouse. Grandma Betty had shown me all sorts of exotic herbs and spices that she'd collected over the years, both the legal and less-than-legal varieties.

While I'd been getting a tour of her storeroom, at least four members of my grandmother's Happy Hex club—all of them over eighty—had stopped by inquiring about different vials sitting in carefully locked cabinets. I mostly looked the other way as Grandma Betty performed covert cash deals beneath the table for her cronies.

"What?" Grandma Betty said when she'd caught me frowning. "I'm on a fixed income. My taxes don't pay themselves. "

Then Gran had fired up a bonfire and set a few colorful vials on top of it in mid-air. As it gurgled and boiled, she regaled me with story after story from her childhood. Like she was making up for all the sleepovers and bonfires we'd missed when I was a kid because my mother had been keeping me a secret.

I opened my eyes, polished off the croissant, and washed it down with another gulp of coffee. Gran had grown the coffee beans in her own hot house. I'd asked her if it was any sort of "special" coffee, and she'd mostly avoided eye contact as she'd answered in the negative.

"Your personalized Happy Hex is complete." Gran slid a vial of faint shimmery gold liquid across the table toward me. "Tip a little into a beverage of his, and you'll be golden."

"It looks like pure joy," I said dryly, studying the bottle. "You're sure this won't have any weird side effects on a vampire?"

"I'm your grandmother. Would I do anything not in your best interests?"

I eyed her knowingly.

"My side hustle is my own problem," Grandma Betty said briskly. "Worry about yourself, darling."

A knock on the door interrupted our conversation. Grandma Betty disappeared to answer it. A few minutes later, she returned with company. I just about choked on a bite of pancake when I recognized the hulking figure standing in my grandmother's bright, happy, sunny kitchen.

"Dom?" I managed. "What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too," he drawled easily. The vampire wore jeans and a soft looking sweater and looked completely out of place in a retirement community. He would give all the grannies a heart attack just by walking down the street. "I came by to check on you."

"Check on me?" I swallowed, then scalded my mouth with a sip of coffee. "I don't understand."

"I think we can all understand a little better if this fine gentleman sits down and joins us for breakfast." Gran burst to life, her figure so petite she was barely visible behind Dom's hulking form. "Sit down, Mr. Vampire."

"This vampire doesn't need food," I said darkly. "He eats people for breakfast."

"That's a bit hostile." Gran eyed me like she was trying to tell me something.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what.

"Coffee sounds good," Dom admitted. "It was quite a drive without my chauffeur."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not your chauffeur."

"A good thing, too. I wouldn't be around for much longer with how liberally you use the gas pedal and how rarely you use the brakes."

"Isn't this banter titillating," Gran chirped.

" Gran ."

"I meant scintillating," Gran corrected. "Getting senile in my old age."

I stared at the ceiling in dismay. Grandma Betty was the least senile person I'd ever met. She said what she meant—and she'd meant exactly what she'd said.

"Thank you for the invitation, Grandma Betty," Dom said in a voice that was practically a purr. He was laying on his vampire charms thick. "Coffee sounds wonderful. "

"Perfect! Let me fix you a cup of my joyful blend." Gran eyed me, but I still wasn't picking up what she was throwing down.

It only clicked as Gran bustled over and deftly swiped the jar of golden Happy Hex that was on the table. The woman moved so fast, I barely saw her uncork the bottle and dump it into the cup before she grabbed the carafe of coffee and poured the hot liquid on top.

She kept up a constant chatter the whole while as a distraction. I was pretty sure Dom hadn't noticed that my grandmother had spiked his morning coffee.

"Here you go, honey." Gran handed over the cup to Dom, bustling him to sit at the table. "I'm going to leave the two of you to enjoy your breakfast in peace. I'll be out in the garden if you need anything."

"There's no such thing as peace when it's me and Dom in a room," I grumbled.

"Sounds like fun," Gran said as she exited.

"Dom." I reached out on impulse as he raised the cup of coffee to his lips. "I think maybe you should—"

"Before you say anything, I need to talk to you."

I'd meant to tell Dom that I didn't think he should drink the cup of coffee. I was having misgivings about letting my grandmother "Happy Hex" the vampire. Maybe it was time to call a truce for my own safety. Maybe I should just move on. Put the past behind me, including my apartment, and start fresh. Daisy would understand.

But Dom's words threw me for a loop, and I forgot all about the potion in his cup. "Talk to me? About what? "

Dom sipped his coffee daintily. He was over halfway through it when he spoke again. "I came here to tell you I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Sorry. Look, Trixie—unfortunately, I still need to sell the building. However, I will happily help you out with the financial aspect of securing a new place if that would be useful."

"It's not about money. You're never going to get it, are you? You can't even playfully hex another person without hurting them."

"What are you talking about?"

"Yesterday," I blurted. "Yes, I hexed your penthouse first, but I was just trying to prove a point. I was showing you what it'd be like to live in a crappy apartment—which is where I'm going to have to live when I get kicked out of the rent-controlled apartment that has been home to me for my entire life."

"I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"You ruined a whole day of work for me because I couldn't even find my clients. I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag." I took a breath, but I felt shaky, and my adrenaline was racing. "I needed those wages, Dom. I needed that money. Some of us don't have passive income. If I don't work, I don't get paid. I don't have nice benefits and a big savings account."

"Trixie—"

"If you offer to give me money to make up for it, Dom, I'm going to shoot you with real silver bullets."

That shut him up .

"You can't even understand how that might hurt me," I continued. "You ran me away to a retirement community, Dominic. All I was trying to do was my job, and you interrupted that. You couldn't have jinxed my stereo to play stupid music? No. You chose the method that hurt me the most. I've lost two days of wages now because I had to escape to my grandma's illegal greenhouse lab to get my bearings again."

I was breathing so heavily that I had to pause for air. And when I paused, I realized I'd said my piece. The truth of the matter was that in a way, I felt something toward Dom. There were moments where I saw a softness, a goodness inside of him, but those times were so few and far between. We were just too different. He couldn't even understand the basics of a girl living paycheck to paycheck.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, his eyes widening. "You're right."

I studied him. For a moment, I was taken aback. Then I wondered if Gran's Happy Hex was working, but she'd warned me it would take at least an hour for it to kick in, so it wasn't that. Probably.

When I looked into Dom's eyes, I saw a real apology there.

"I'm really sorry," he reiterated. "I never intended to hurt you. It was supposed to be a playful reply to your hex, not anything malicious."

I sat back down heavily. "I believe you. It's just mind-boggling that you can't understand how ruining a day of work could make my life a lot harder."

"It was supposed to wear off in a couple of hours. I wasn't even sure you'd notice. "

"Well, I did. And now I'm contemplating moving to Crystal Rivers."

"You can't live in a retirement community. You're not sixty."

"Are you going to tattle on me?"

"Mum's the word, if it'll make you happy."

"Is that why you're here?" I changed the subject because really, there was nowhere else to go. He'd apologized, and I believed he'd meant it. No use beating a dead horse. "To apologize for yesterday? You could've done that when I got back."

"Not exactly," he said, a shadow flashing across his eyes. "I did want to check on you for safety reasons."

"I'm fine. I mean, I know I had a little breakdown yesterday, but I'll be okay. It has been a crappy few weeks, and yesterday put me over the edge. I just needed to regroup."

"I'm sorry for my part in that." Dom spoke into his now-empty coffee mug. "I mean it. But I did have another reason for coming up here. I believe you have a target on your back. Because of me."

"A target?"

"My brother Sebastian is..." Dom didn't look up. "Well, he's on the run. And very dangerous. A woman was killed outside of our building yesterday, and I'm afraid he's a suspect."

"What do you mean killed?"

Dom cleared his throat. "Killed. As in dead ."

"Outside of our apartment?"

"In the alley behind the building. I found her."

"I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I'm sorry that you found her," I clarified, because Dom was looking at me like he didn't understand the words coming out of my mouth. "That had to be horrible for you."

"Horrible. Yes."

That was when I realized how ridiculous I sounded. Dominic Kent was a deadly vampire who'd been around for centuries. This was hardly the first body he'd seen. It was probably standard procedure for him. I also didn't let myself wonder if he'd ever be responsible for making a person...un-alived.

"I can see you're worried." Dom's expression was complicated as he watched me. "No, I didn't kill her. No, I wasn't tempted by her blood. I have self-control."

"I-I wasn't wondering either of those things."

"Just clarifying so you didn't have to ask."

My fingers tapped nervously against the table. "How did she die?"

"Murdered. She was stabbed, but also..."

Dom leaned forward, elbows on the table. His face was close to me now, his forehead crinkled with concern. Those dark eyes were pools of uncertainty, but there was something deeper, something like worry, care maybe, as he fixed that beautiful gaze on me. I found it hard to breathe when his scent hit me, expensive shower gel and woodsy undertones.

"There were bite marks on her neck," Dom finished. "I believe my brother was sending me a message."

"What sort of message?"

"I thought it was you, Trixie." Dom looked startled, like he'd not meant to say those words. "She looked like you. Same size, same color hair, same general clothing style. I think Sebastian was warning me that he could get close to you."

"Why me?"

"He must know that you're in my life," Dom said. "He must've been watching me, which means he'd have seen us together. He'll figure out that you're important to me."

"I'm not, though," I said. "That's the ironic part. I'm just some witch living in your apartment building."

Dom's gaze was as hard as stone as he looked at me. "I know for a fact that's not true, and I think you know it too."

"What?" I asked, the word echoing like a breath. "What are you talking about?"

Dom scraped his chair against the floor as he slid next to me. He turned me so that I was facing him. Our knees knocked together. His hands were on the arms of my chair, caging me in. His breath smelled like mint despite the fact he'd just finished his coffee.

"When I thought you were dead out there, I just about lost it."

My breath hitched in my throat. "But we barely know each other."

"There's something between us, yes?" He pleaded with me. "Tell me I'm not imagining it."

"You're not imagining anything," I said. "I don't know what's between us, but there's something. And—"

"Trixie," he whispered, cutting me off. "Unless you stop me, I need to kiss you. To explore this with you, to try. Ever since yesterday..." He shuddered. "If I don't try, and I lose you, I'll regret it for as long as I walk this earth. "

I gaped at him, a fish out of water. Then I leaned in, closing the distance between us. Dom snaked his hand around behind my head, threading his fingers through my hair as he smiled with relish, then devoured me whole.

His lips softened as they hit mine, his tongue gently plying my lips apart as he feverishly pulled me toward him. I let my arms circle around his neck as his hands began to move over my body—down my back, over my hips, onto my thighs.

Finally, he gently cupped my backside and slid me off the chair, depositing me on his lap. I inched closer to him, wishing I didn't have to pause for breath. The swell of need and pent-up desire and the hope for more was a rush I wasn't prepared to handle.

"Oh my !" Grandma Betty stopped short in the kitchen doorway.

Dom and I broke apart, me scurrying back to my chair like a student who'd been caught breaking out of detention. Dom languidly threw his arm over the back of his chair and stretched like a cat in sunlight.

My grandmother glanced between us with curiosity, then flicked her gaze pointedly at her watch. Her brow furrowed. "It hasn't even been an hour. How... happy is this little reunion?"

Once again, my grandmother's thinly coded statement clicked. She was assuming that her little Happy Hex had turned Dom into a randy vampire, and that was the reason for our impromptu make out session.

I knew differently. The potion had nothing to do with the kiss .

"Sorry," Dom said. "I apologize for letting things get out of hand, Grandma Betty."

"Don't apologize," Gran said. "Happy to see the two of you are on good terms."

"I'm not apologizing for kissing Trixie," Dom corrected. "Just for getting carried away in your kitchen."

My face went pink. Gran gave a tinkling laugh.

Then Grandma Betty eyed me. "Well, this should be a fun ride home, I guess. You don't mind taking Trixie back to The Hollow, do you, Dom? We used pixie dust to get to Crystal Rivers, and I know it's not my granddaughter's favorite mode of transportation."

Dom studied me pointedly. "It'd be my pleasure."