“No I don’t think you’re stupid, Drew and yes, my name is Max.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. This was going to be hard. “Drew, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going—”
“What are you?” This time her voice was low, almost a whisper.
Max looked down at her. Her brown eyes were hooded, her lips loosening from the tight scowl that had been there since she’d awoken in the apartment.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m going to trust you with this, and you’re going to trust that I’m not going to hurt you or Vivienne?”
She was reluctant, but eventually nodded.
“My mother was born of a human and a warlock; my father is a witch.” His eyes were on hers as that information sank in. Except for the slight widening of her eyes, she did nothing else. “I’m all three.”
Drew swallowed and cleared her throat, twice. “So, you’re telling me you’re part human, part warlock, and part witch?”
He nodded, wondering if she would accept that truth. It wasn’t as if humans found out daily that creatures from horror stories actually walked the earth. She blinked up at him as an odd expression took over her face, and then she asked in a doubtful, but curious tone, “Witches and warlocks exist?”
Max nodded and smiled a bit. “Yes, they do.”
She tugged at the binding that connected her wrist to the headboard and Max leaned forward and touched her skin, which was chafed from her pulling against the bindings. The position had him half-leaning over her body. His chest was pressed to the side of her body, his head directly over hers. “If I untie you, will you try to run?”
His gaze was on hers as he asked the question. Her eyes seemed to touch every inch of his face before her lids lowered. Taking her lip between her teeth, she shook her head.
Max looked away from her face immediately. She couldn’t know how good she looked, tied to his bed, her lashes fanned out against her cheeks and her teeth biting down against her full bottom lip. She couldn’t know. He made quick work of the bindings at her wrists and then undid the ones at her feet, moving away from the bed as she pulled her knees up and placed her arms around them, her eyes locked on him.
“So you’re a….” She let her voice drift off and shook her head. “The men in our apartment, they were after you, weren’t they? They were like…you?”
Max contemplated that answer. He could lie to her but that would be a betrayal of what little trust she now had in him. Still, he couldn’t exactly tell her they were after Vivienne because he would then have to explain why, and though he knew his father wanted his friend to restore the immortality of the witches, he was sure that Maximilian had left something out. He’d been told Vivienne was a powerful witch who, like himself, could easily pass as human. His father had had told him she was somewhere in New York City, that she was slightly younger than he, and that he was to find her, and bring her back to the covenant. He’d packed his things and had left New Orleans for New York, excited to be away from those who looked down upon him because he was, as they termed it, a “halfling.” He’d been welcomed in the human world. The first female to lie with him had been human, his first date, his first friend, his first everything.
Almost on a whim, he’d enrolled in college. He’d watched enough television programs to know that was what guys his age did with their lives. It had been easy enough, a spell cast on the Director of Admissions and he had a student file under the name Maximilian Carter at NYU. Money had never been an issue because his father kept him supplied. And then he’d glimpsed Vivienne, practicing for a track-and-field event, and he’d been drawn to her. In hindsight, he realized his instincts were telling him that she was the ‘girl’ he was tracking. Still, he’d never seen a woman more beautiful, and so he’d followed her, grew to know her, like her, admire her. Because his emotions were involved where Vivienne was concerned, he’d failed to read the signs until finally, after four years of knowing her, he’d had to accept that she was the one.
It had all happened because of a nightmare. Their first week living together, he’d awoken to Vivienne’s voice. Feeling unnaturally weak, he’d dragged himself to her room, only to find her sitting up in the bed, her eyes closed, whimpering. Even now, he could remember the waves of power coming from her unconscious body. Dragging himself over to the bed, he’d awoken her before getting under the covers and holding her as she slept. His heart had raced that night with the knowledge she was the one, that if he told his father where she was, they would kill her, one of his only friends. He couldn’t let that happen.