Page 10

The vampires darted around him and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking his path. Moon glanced about and sighed. No one else was nearby. He had a few magic tricks up his sleeve to deal with these troublemakers, and it was better to not have an audience.

Moon turned his full attention to the vampires. One was short and a little round, with an oblong head like a large egg resting on his shoulders. Did he not have a neck? How was he made into a vampire if he didn’t have a neck? Where did his maker bite him?

Moon’s brain skittered away from that line of questioning. He didn’t want to know the answer.

Where one was a bowling ball, his companion could only be called a bowling pin. Tall and slender, he appeared as if a stiff breeze would knock him over. He also had a very long neck with a pronounced Adam’s apple. He stole Bowling Ball’s neck!

Moon considered himself no slouch at a respectable six one, but he had to look up at Bowling Pin.

“Hey, we heard you were a witch,” Bowling Ball accused.

Moon frowned at the shorter man, totally not swaying. The sidewalk was swaying. Not him. “Uh-huh.”

“So?” the vampire prodded.

“So what?” Moon snickered. He loved playing hard to get.

“So, are you or aren’t you a witch?” Bowling Ball shouted, his face flushing a bit.

“Why do you want to know?”

Bowling Pin grunted. “Let’s bite him, anyway. If he tastes different, we’ll know he’s a witch.”

Moon held up his hands and took one step back. “As fun as all this sounds, I gotta pass. It’s late, I’m tired, and I really want to nurse this hangover at home. Not in whatever alley you plan to leave me in.”

“Come on. We just want a nibble. We won’t take much,” Bowling Ball bargained, not that Moon was buying any bit of it. They were going to take as much as they could drain from him and then toss his drained corpse into the nearest dumpster.

Of course, there was also the question of what would happen to them if they drank his blood. He had no idea. He’d never heard of a blood witch supplying blood to a vampire. Folklore said their blood differed from other witches and was different from a normal human’s. But there was no telling what the effect would be. It would be his luck that he’d end up with two dead vampires.

Wait…did that make them double dead?

Super dead?

Extra dead?

A snort escaped Moon. If he left them out in the sun, they’d be extra-crispy dead.

He buried his ill-timed humor and tried to take another step back, but he ran into something hard and human shaped. Moon’s heart skipped. Shit. Had there been three of them at the bar?

A hand gripped his hip, holding him steady, as Moon twisted to gaze at the person who’d joined the party. Moon stared at the most beautiful man in existence. His short, dark hair appeared black in the dim light and his pale, flawless skin glowed. The lamplight glinted on the lenses of his glasses, obscuring his eyes, while his lips were a thin, hard line. Moon wanted to reach up and rub the tip of his finger across them to see if they’d grow plump as they relaxed.

And then there was his smell.

The man smelled heavenly. Rich and full-bodied, like a well-aged wine. He was dying to turn into the stranger’s arms and just bury his nose in his neck. There was nothing wrong with that, right?

Moon considered himself levelheaded. He wasn’t the type to swoon over a sexy man, especially not a vampire. And Mr. Sexy was most definitely a vampire. But he was ready to go full damsel in distress if it meant he got to stay in Sexy’s arms.

“Hi,” he said breathlessly, causing the vampire to lift one of his thick, dark brows. Yeah, not smooth. But he couldn’t blame it on being intoxicated. He lacked all smooth skills. He was born sans smooth. As in, I ain’t got no skills. That was okay. What he lacked in skills, he made up for in persistence.

“Are they correct? Are you a witch?” the newcomer demanded, a soft accent curling adorably through his words. He wasn’t a local.

“Yep. I’m a witch,” Moon admitted without an ounce of reservation. Hell, if the vampire had asked if he were a brine shrimp, he would have agreed. Anything to keep him right where he was.

“I am in need of your services. You’ll have to come with me,” the vampire announced, and some part of Moon squealed like a teenage girl.

He opened his mouth to say that he’d go anywhere with this man when the other vampires reminded them of their existence.

“Hey! We found him first!” Bowling Ball bellowed.

Moon huffed and dragged his gaze from Sexy to glare at the interlopers he might have forgotten about. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but if I’ve got to choose, I’m sticking with Sexy here.” He glanced over his shoulder while leaning into his rescuer. His eyebrows were now climbing toward his hairline.