Night Howls (6 page)

“No, we will only have to deal with the overly hormonal paranorm variety. Which do you think is worse?” Alex asks as I finish my steak. He takes my plate and wanders into the kitchen to get rid of both of ours.

“We cannot expect him to keep it in his pants, and humans make me itch, so I am choosing the paranorm variety.”

“I don’t know. A scorned werewolf can cause a lot more damage,” Alex suggests.

“You guys do know I am still sitting here, right?” Duh. The conversation wouldn’t be as much fun without him hearing it.

“Clyde is going to need a bath,” Jonas says dragging Demon Dog into the room. Not what I wanted to hear. We have played bath time before and it wasn’t something I put on my list of things I wanted to do again.

I look at my little guy and find him covered in mud. Rain was not in any forecast I heard about. “Care to explain?” I ask imagining Clyde somehow finding the only mud hole in the entire city with his super sniffer.

“There is a water main break. It is causing all sorts of trouble over on Elm,” Walt supplies.

“Why didn’t you guys just hose him off downstairs? You had to have made a mess hauling him up here,” Alex states. You had better believe I am not cleaning the floors. The dog is one thing, but this girl doesn’t do linoleum.

“He wouldn’t let us. He wanted his mommy,” Jonas answers as he hands me the leash.

“Clyde this is so not cool,” I say standing up and heading towards the guest bath. There is no way he is getting in my tub. Plus, the other bath has a detachable showerhead that will make this easier. “What shampoo do you think we should use tonight?”

The dog cannot respond to me, but I find myself asking him questions all the time. Rumor is that if he gets a hold of some of my blood, we will be able to communicate. With all the other voices filling my head already, that isn’t something I am planning on doing any time in the near future.

“I don’t think you have found one strong enough to cover up the sulfur yet,” Jonas yells at my back as I make it to the washing station.

I place Clyde into the tub and grab the showerhead. Only Clyde’s breath smells like sulfur to me, since he barks fire, I assume that is normal. The rest of Clyde just smells like wet dog, but the guys assure me it is like living with matches constantly being lit.

I make short work of rinsing out all the gunk from his fur and lather him up with my oatmeal doggie wash to give his coat a nice shine. He does a good job of standing still in the bath when the water is on, but once I turn it off and stand to put the sprayer away, he shakes sending a flood of water everywhere. It was cute when he was a little puppy. Now, not so much. Before I can tell him what a bad dog he is, he jumps out of the tub and streaks out of the room.

“Not cool, Clyde,” I scream running after him with a towel in my hand. At least the water will dry without extra cleanup, unlike the mud that Walt looks to be mopping up.

I find Clyde curled up in his bed, making sure to thoroughly saturate it with moisture. I can see his game plan now. He should know better than to try to pull this, but he is still young no matter how large he grows.

“You will be sleeping on the couch tonight, Mister. Alex has already called the big bed.” That makes him narrow his eyes a bit, before he returns to his usual grin. I think Alex’s shoes will be joining Sebastian’s tonight for an evening snack. “Now, come here so we can dry you properly. I don’t want you catching a doggie cold.”

He waddles over, now that fun time is over. His short fur doesn’t retain a lot of water and his bed has probably collected the majority of it, so it takes no time to get him dry.

“There we go. Let’s go grab you some hamburger before we call it a night,” I say leading him towards the kitchen.

Alex, being the sweetheart he is turning into, has a plate prepared and he sets it on the floor for our little guy. “As annoying as he can be, I really like it when you refer to him as ‘ours’.”

“Yeah, well you have that weird paternal trait I find annoying in men.”

“Come on. You know you love having a little baby in the house.” That earns him a glare from me.

“As much as I love Clyde, he is a dog. Taking care of him is a little bit different than changing and feeding a crying screaming little you. Knowing my luck, I would somehow end up having ten pups at a time. We don’t have enough people here to take care of that many children.”

“Okay. No fighting about it tonight. Let’s just go to bed and you can think about it some more,” Alex says taking my hand and leading me into my room.

I change into my pajamas and forget about babies, my mentoring status, and my missing in action mate. Curling up next to Alex is the only thing on my mind right now and that is just what I am going to do.

Chapter 7

Sweet dreams are not made of these

I know I am dreaming because of the fact that I am seeing Sebastian, but I don’t seem to be able to interact with him. Dreaming about Sebastian isn’t unusual for me. In fact, it happens most nights.

I do tend to not be a spectator watching events take place, though, so this is a little different. He is tied to a bed and it looks like someone has taken a knife to him, judging by the blood stain and slash marks on his shirt. I get the feeling this isn’t going to be my idea of a good dream.

I move closer to him and when I try to touch him, my hand goes right through his body, solidifying my not being able to interact theory. My earlier assumption was based on the fact that he doesn’t seem to notice me standing in the room and I feel no live connection with him. I am going with me dreaming, rather than me being a ghost. I would hope I remember someone finally toasting my ass.

“Come on, Sebastian. You could make this so much easier on yourself,” a woman’s voice says drawing my attention to a tall, leggy, chesty blonde that I failed to notice in a dark corner of the room. I need to work on my observation skills, but with Sebastian in the shape he is in, you really cannot blame me.

I instantly hate the woman. She is dressed in a red negligee that might as well not even be there. Her face is all done up with makeup and I think she has some kind of glitter lotion on her skin because she is sparkling. I have so many not nice words going on in my mind about her that I cannot bring myself to say any of them. It would just come out as a garbled curse.

“You should just let me go. I am mated, so none of your usual tricks are going to work on me. I don’t know what kind of game you are playing, but I don’t want any part of it,” Sebastian seethes at the evil witch. You tell her, honey, I silently cheer him on.

“But we used to be so good together. Don’t you remember those days?” she asks as she starts doing some weird striptease-like dance. Yuck. I think she should keep her day job.

Yet another reason for me to dislike the bitch, if her words are any indication, it sounds like she has had a taste of my Sebby. Being in dream world, I cannot get a good sense of what she actually is. My default train of reasoning leans towards vampire, but I am not seeing any of the usual signs. Her skin actually looks a little tanned, which is not something you see in vampires. Even a freak of a vampire like me has pasty pale skin.

“’We’ didn’t used to be anything together. You got off while I slept and left me feeling weak in the morning. There was nothing consensual about our time together.”

“You cannot believe that. You gave me such a boost; I know there were some special feelings on your side of the equation.”

“Bullshit. Why have you even kidnapped me? You have plenty of men out there in the world that wouldn’t mind a little of your special attention, even if it does strip a few years off of their lives,” Sebastian says with his eyes closed not even bothering to look at the temptress. The temptress that I have figured out is a succubus. Ever since I met Ben, I have had a feeling Sebby had run afoul of one sometime in the last millennium.

“No one else has ever been able to escape my thrall. Somehow, you did, however. I want to prove to you that I can have you anytime I want you,” the bitch replies to him. I cannot interact with Sebastian and I highly doubt if I can with her, but I walk over and swing back to punch her in the face anyway. Sadly, my hand goes right through her head. Damn dream world. When I wake up, I am finding her and shooting her a few times for good measure. I feel slightly better from at least making the attempt.

“You expect this time will be any easier for you, now that I have actually mated and have a bond that cannot be broken?”

“Bonds are just made to be broken. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that? I have broken so many of these little ‘bonds’ over my time that they are a joke to me. There is only one out there that could possibly defeat me and I doubt your little vampire bond has even half the strength of it,” she says with an evil laugh and sashays her tall, skinny butt towards the bed.

Once there, she climbs on top of it and straddles Sebastian. He still has his clothes on, but I am, of course, pissed by the action. She moves around a little, probably trying to stimulate something down below on his part. If he can keep “Happy” down with a woman that looks like a goddess on top of him, I will love him forever. I doubt it is possible, though. He is a man.

“Really? Does grueker-tilnay mean to you what it does to me?” Sebastian asks with his eyes still firmly closed.

“You have got to be shitting me. Who would tell you about that?” she screams climbing off of him. I am able to get a visual on my property and somehow “Happy” doesn’t look very happy. If that is the case, I love our new bond.

“Me and my girl know how to do things right,” Sebastian replies to the pissed off succubus. I wonder if he is purposely not using my name.

“Like I said, these things are created to be broken. I will destroy whatever bond the bitch holds on you and then you will become my sex slave, to do with as I see fit.” Good luck with that, darling. I think it is called unbreakable for a reason. Even if that word doesn’t make sense in your diluted, messed up mind.

“Do you really think my girl is just going to let you do that? I didn’t exactly mate with a marshmallow. She is going to find you and kick your ass from here back down to Hell where you belong.” There is so much fire and passion in Sebastian’s statement that I find it really sensual. I always love it when the guys stick up for me, especially in cases like this, where I don’t get to voice my own opinion.

“You really think some little girlie vampire is going to stop me? I will tear her to shreds,” she says walking out of the room. She is probably on her way to kick a baby. She just has that kind of look in her eyes.

“In your dreams, Candace,” Sebastian replies finally opening his eyes. Eerily, he focuses in right where I am standing.

That is creepy. I know he had his eyes closed when she first started talking, but before that they were open and he didn’t appear to know I was here.

I jerk awake in my bedroom with Alex still curled up beside me. I have no idea of the time, but I need to talk to Sebby. The events of the dream are either happening right now or in the future, since I am not aware of him being kidnapped by a succubus in the last three weeks.

Alex seems to still be asleep, so I wiggle slightly to grab my phone from the nightstand I recently had added on my side of the bed.  I was tired of having to get up if the phone awoke me in the middle of the night.

I press Sebastian’s preset number and hold the phone up to my ear. After three rings, a sleepy Sebby answers.

“Love, did you have a bad dream?” he asks. I think he is saying it as a joke. Little does he know.

“Who is Candace?” I reply thankful that at least the events of my dream haven’t happened yet.

“I can only think of one person with that name and I hope like Hell you haven’t had the unfortunate luck of having to meet her,” he replies sounding a lot more awake. I feel him actively poking around in my mind to find the information I know on the subject. Lucky him doesn’t have to wait for me to think things. He can now pull my memories.

“Oh, you will love what you find,” I say actively thinking over the dream so he doesn’t have to really dig.

“Fuck,” he yells loud enough I think everyone in Night Owl City might have heard him, even with him being a few hours away. “I hate that bitch.”

“I gathered as much. I was not aware of her before tonight, so do you figure this is something in your future?”

“Not if I can help it. The thing needs to be killed, but even after years of searching, I have not found a sure fire succubus killer. I have found a spell that will banish her for a while, but she is a persistent little gnat. I should have known when I thwarted her plans for me, she would eventually come back to bite me in the ass.”

“Now will you believe me when I say something bad is going to happen?” Maybe I finally have a strong enough case. There is no way I could have just dreamed up a girl I have never met.

“Yes. With a specific threat pointed out, I will be able to plan a better defensive front. Your dream will not become a reality, love. You can go back to sleep with that assurance,” he says trying to calm me down.

I don’t know how possible sleep is, but I want to give him a chance to work on his plan. “Fine. Are you sure I cannot come meet you now? You might need me.”

“I think you being around may just add oil to the fire. Some of the other vampires started arriving tonight and they had a lot of questions about you. I tried to just be vague, but you are already a topic of contention around here.”

“When am I not?” I ask with a sigh. “Call me when you get up in the morning so I know everything is still okay.”

“I will. Now, go to sleep and no dreams of evil demon bitches.”

“Bye,” I reply and hang the phone up. I let it drop on my belly while my mind starts going over things.

“I still say he is going to be just fine,” Alex says. Sebastian's yelling must have awoken him.

“I will believe it when he is back in my arms. You didn’t see the slut of a succubus. I seriously hope she never gets Jake in a room. He would be in Hell and not even know it.”