Page 4 of The Fang Arrangement (Celestial Witches #2)

I swirl the lowball glass, hating the warmed up blood in it. Nothing has tasted good in years. The only reason I still drink blood is so I don’t succumb to bloodlust and ravage a town, or let myself fall apart, it’s completely lost its luster.

“Sometimes I think about staking myself so I don’t have to watch you mope around anymore,” Samantha says, as she twirls a knife in her hand. “The last decade has been rather depressing, father.”

I glare at her, hating when she uses that term. I’m her sire, and I wonder if I made the right decision to change her every day. She was dying, young, and begging for her life. I never wanted to be responsible for a progeny, yet here she is, still with me for nearly a decade.

“You’ve only been a vampire for nine,” I say back and she sighs.

“The statement still stands. Come on, I’m bored. Let’s go travel. Forget about this place.”

I glare at her. “You know we can’t leave.”

“No, you. You can’t leave,” she says and I look away.

I’m selfish. Always have been.

By now, most vampires would have removed the sire bond, and let their progeny go nomad and find themselves. Maybe I’m sentimental, or maybe I’m so afraid of being alone that I can’t seem to let her go. I’m tethering Samantha to this life I built, one she never asked for.

She never outright asks me to break the bond either, and maybe that’s why I haven’t.

Our relationship is truly a familial one.

In some ways, she feels like my child and in others like a sibling I squabble with.

Either way, she’s the only person I feel some sort of tenderness towards.

Well, the only person I can openly have some degree of affection for.

The person I want to show my true affections for is the one I can’t have. If I have her, I’ll ruin her. Though it doesn’t stop me from meddling in her affairs or assuring that she doesn’t have romantic encounters with anyone else.

See? Selfish.

“We can’t leave, not until everything with Oz settles,” I lie.

There’s always some vampire who’s going to want what I have and willing to take it by any means.

Then there are the other threats that have been nothing but a nuisance as of late.

Like the vampire slayer that killed my sire.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mourn for a single second when I saw what was left of him.

But having a slayer in town will cause nothing but mayhem.

If other vampires in the nest go missing, we’re going to have a serious problem on our hands.

“I can’t believe a slayer took Oz out,” she says wistfully, sipping on her own crystal of blood.

“Me either,” I agree.

Oz was always larger than life, he seemed indestructible to me.

He was also possessive, and ran the nest like a dictatorship.

He’s the reason I never allowed myself anything good, knowing he would simply take it away to teach me a lesson.

He’s only been dead for four days, but it’s been the greatest relief of my life…

except the fact that there’s now an active, strong vampire slayer on the loose.

Oz was old and strong, if this slayer could take him out, there’s no telling what they’re capable of.

“If only we had…I don’t know a witch to help us with this little problem,” Samantha says, placing the bloodstained decanter on the table. “Oz is dead. You should go talk to her, go see her.”

I turn away, and she taps her nails against my desk.

“I know you’ve been sending Betty to spy on her.” I sharply turn to face her and she gives me a wicked smile. “Betty and Fitz talk. They’re little gossips.”

My phone rings and I answer it immediately, my glare not disappearing as I listen to the voice on the other end.

“Sir. Baptiste is dead, looks like another slaying, but didn’t catch the killer on tape, just a witch outside with him. How would you like to proceed?”

I groan. Fucking vampire slayers.

“Send me the footage,” I say, and my phone chimes. I pull it away and click on the video.

My heart stills when I see her . Baptiste threads his hands in her hair and tugs her back. She has her hand on her wand, but doesn’t get a moment to use it as a stake flies right through Baptiste’s heart and he crumbles to the floor.

Baptiste should be grateful for that stake. How dare he touch her? He nearly fucking sunk his greedy, filthy fangs into her perfect, delicate throat.

“Retrieve the stake and the witch,” I reply.

“Sir.”

“Oh, and there is to be no harm done to the witch. If someone so much as looks thirsty around her, I’ll rip out their fangs.”

Conner clears his throat on the other end. “Yes, sir.”

“Bring her directly to my office, along with the stake.”

“Immediately, sir.”

I end the call and glance up at Samantha, who’s rolling her eyes.

“What?” I snap.

“I don’t want to speak out of turn and have my poor fangs ripped out,” she says, flicking her dark hair and placing a hand on her hip. “It wouldn’t happen to be a witch with perfect tits and big red hair, would it?”

“Her hair’s pink now,” I reply, looking back down at my phone and watching her fear-riddled face. She grabbed her wand at least, but she was no contender for the speed of a vampire. I need her to be able to protect herself better, what if one day I’m not around to do it?

If I had a heart, it would be pumping in my chest. This rage simmering inside of me is nearly boiling over at the thought of her being hurt. I’ve done my best over the last eight years to ensure her safety, that Oz never found out my little secret and how important she was to me.

My precious little secret.

Only Samantha knows about her, and I regret giving her this knowledge as she snorts and stares at me with an arched brow.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, War, but you deserve to be happy. Stop this self-inflicted deprivation of happiness and celibacy. Oz is dead. You’re one of the strongest vampires in Louisiana. Why are you denying yourself?”

I blink at her and whatever she reads on my face has her torn. Her playfulness disappears as her eyes flick to mine.

“Do you know why I haven’t asked you to break the bond, to let me go?”

I sit still as ice as she rounds my desk, looking out the large window of my office. It’s nighttime, but they’re the best money can buy with suppressing UV light. Though my skin can never touch the sun, at least I get small glimpses of what daylight feels like.

“You’re the only real family I’ve ever had, the only person who ever really saw me.

You gave me this gift of eternal night. I’m in your debt forever for that, but beyond that, I worry that if I left, I’d come back to find you gone.

I selfishly stay because I know I’m the only thing keeping you here.

I can’t be your reason anymore,” she says, turning around to face me.

“You already know what she is to you. Don’t deny yourself this. ”

“What are you saying?” I ask, standing to my full height looking down at her.

“I’m saying that you need more than this empire you’ve built. You need a life outside of your obligation to me and our house, that you shouldn’t live in fear of what Oz will do to her. That she’s your?—”

I cut her off, grabbing her arm.

“Are you saying you don’t want the sire bond anymore?”

She tilts her chin defiantly at me. “There’s no way I would leave you right now to fuck this all up. Try with her, is what I’m asking.”

“If I don’t?”

“Then I want to be released from the sire bond immediately,” she says.

If I had a beating heart, I think it may have fractured into millions of pieces.

“And if I try with her?”

“Then I’ll stay until I’m no longer your reason.” She takes a step toward me, straightening out my suit jacket. “Despite what you think, you’re not evil, Warin, I think someone like her could show you that.”

She pats my chest, taking the two glasses with her. She glances back at me from the door.

“It’s not like you can outrun the prophecy forever, father,” she says with a sharp click of my office door.

I fall back into my desk chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose, wondering how I can possibly make this work.

I don’t want Samantha to leave. I also want my witch, but I can’t have her—I don’t deserve her.

My intention all those years ago was to one day make her mine, once I figured out a way to get rid of Oz, so until I could have her, I watched her.

She’s so inherently good it’s sickening. Someone like that shouldn’t be in my orbit. I’d just destroy her.

But even then, I couldn’t let her go. I’d watch her from the shadows and manipulate her mind to make her not want any other man.

I’m a sick, selfish, calculating fuck to my core. I’m like a child who hoards toys at a playground even though I’m not playing with them.

I could have my team turn around and send Ember home, knowing full well she didn’t kill Baptiste, which would mean I would need to release Samantha tonight. If I try to get Ember to like me, does that mean I’m taking off my progeny’s shackles and placing them on her?

I lose too much time contemplating my choices as my office door opens and a wide-eyed, beautiful as ever, Ember is brought into my office.

“Her wand,” I say, holding out my hand. Conner places the cool metal in my hand without a question, also handing me the stake.

“Untie her and leave,” I say and, like a good little minion, he does what he’s told and leaves.

Ember shifts in her chair, her pulse pounding, nearly deafening me as I lick my lips. She holds her finger subconsciously, the one where I tasted her blood. Does some part of her memory remember that night?

The thought is too alluring. Years of restraint are about to be tossed out of the window over the way she touches the place I tasted her for the first time.

She changed her hair, which must have been when she went into her friend's shop earlier. It’s more pink than red now, and it suits her. Her dress is a light blue, tight around her full breasts and flares out at her hips.