Hecate's Gift (Ari & Soren Book 2)

Chapter 6 - Soren

"You planning to fight demons on your honeymoon?" the jewelsmith asked, handing me back the box containing the two serpentine rings.

"I beg your pardon?"

"These are lover's rings, right?" She raised a dark, pencil-thin brow at me. "With the number of protections you just had me put on them, either you and your girl are in some deep shit, or someone worries too much."

I frowned. Siobhan had a knack for rubbing me the wrong way, but she was the best at what she did. I held out the envelope with her payment. "I trust this covers it?"

She glanced inside at the rare grimoire and nodded. When she looked back up she fixed me with a keen stare. "You gonna tell me who she is?"

"He," I corrected, "and you don't know him."

"Ooh, new blood, eh? When do I get to meet him?"

"Never, if I can help it."

"Aah," she pouted. "You didn't use to be so mean, Sori. What happened?"

"Don't call me that. And nothing happened. I'm the same I ever was."

Her look turned cunning. "You're not, though, are you? I may not be a vampire, but I'm no fool either. Something's different."

I slipped the box into my coat pocket and turned to go. "My thanks, Siobhan. Until next time."

"It's him, isn't it?" she called after me, grinning. "You found your leof."

"Goodbye, Siobhan."

"Congratulations!"

Her call cut off as the jewelry shop's door swung shut behind me with a tinkle of bells.

Exhaling sharply, I noted that my breath didn't make a cloud of steam like that of the other people on the street. My turning had brought me many new abilities and advantages, and I didn't regret losing my humanity in exchange, but I missed the strangest things.

I turned the collar of my coat up against a cold that didn't bother me and turned my steps towards the street where I'd parked my car.

Two days ago, I'd left my father's house and driven north to Portland to see Siobhan. I'd hoped to have her enchant the pair of rings and be back in Santa Marina by the following morning, but she'd proved difficult.

She was an old ally—a custodian like my father and me—but she had her own agenda, and part of that included collecting valuable and rare books of spells. As it turned out, my father had just the volume she was looking for in his library, and she'd refused to place the protections for anything less.

Fortunately, my father agreed to part with it and posted it as promptly as he could by special courier. Even so, this had caused a delay, and I likely wouldn't get home until late this evening.

I'd considered calling Ari, or at least texting him, but eventually decided against it. I didn't want to give him an incomplete explanation, and the whole truth was something we needed to discuss face to face. So I waited, feeling reassured by the fact that he remained silent on his end as well. He was likely busy, and wouldn't appreciate the distraction, anyway, I thought.

Thinking of him made my chest ache. It had only been a little over two days, and yet I missed him like I'd missed the sun after the long dark winters of my father's homeland, when I was a boy. The desire to see him and hold him struck me like a homing call, a visceral instinct I almost could not resist. But there was one more thing I needed to take care of before I returned.

~

Vampires are strange creatures, and not in the ways that most mortals believe. There are, for example, very few of us—several hundred on each continent—and only the rare, mad cases are interested in building armies or ruling the world, and are dealt with accordingly. On the whole, we are as solitary and unsocial as snow leopards, and about as difficult to find.