Free Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) by AJ Myers

they had clenched into fists on the countertop, “A couple of times.  I don’t intend to let that happen again.”
    My eyebrows shot up, and I found myself trying to figure out that little riddle.  How did someone die a couple of times?  What was she, a cat?  Dead was dead, right?  Either you went on or you stuck around and haunted the living until you found your door or whatever again.  At least that’s what I had been able to deduce from my years of playing with the dead.   
     “Okay, I don’t have the first clue what you mean by that.  Are you trying to tell me that this amazing Cat Girl keeps dying and then coming back?  Like, reincarnation or something?” 
    “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he said, giving me an intense look.  “Souls come back over and over again until they attain a level of enlightenment that allows them to move on to the next level of consciousness.  My, um, friend is on her fourth incarnation.”
    “Poor girl.  Guess your friend isn’t all that bright if she didn’t get it the first three times, huh?”
    Nathan threw back his head and laughed.  “I’ll let you ask her yourself one of these days.”
    “I’ll pass,” I muttered, the idea giving me a chill for some reason.  “Let’s move on.”
    You would have thought I’d had my fair share of freaky for the day, huh?  Well, you’d be wrong.  What can I say?  I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.
    “What are you ?” I asked when he simply tilted his head and waited for me to continue my interrogation.  “I know you’re not technically alive, Nathan, but I’ll concede to the fact that you’re not a ghost.  For one thing, everybody can see you.”
    “No, I’m not a ghost and I’m not technically alive,” Nathan agreed with that sexy little smirk of his.  “What do you think I am?”
    A blinding flash of insight hit me and everything began to fall into place.  There was no way he should have been able to walk away from that wreck without a scratch, but he was sitting there looking more than perfect without even a bruise.  No human being could have done that.  Pale skin that was cool to the touch.  The fact that he wouldn’t—or was it that he couldn’t ?—come in the house until I invited him. The fact that he was dead and yet he wasn’t…
    The unopened soda can on the counter behind him took on new significance as I worked out everything in my head.  Suddenly, I knew what he was.  I knew it like I knew the sky was blue and grass was green.
    Oh.  Shit. I thought, staring at Nathan with chills shooting up and down my spine.  I just invited a vampire into my house! 
    “Shouldn’t you be, like, ashes right now?” I asked nervously even as I started calculating my chances of making it to the door before he caught me.  Somehow, I didn’t think they were good.  “I thought you guys had some kind of allergy to the sun or something.  It would be a real shame to have to vacuum your cute little behind off that stool.”
    “Myth.”    He leaned back on his stool, a really cute lopsided smile on his lips, and linked his hands behind his head.  Muscles bulged.  My imagination went haywire.  Nathan laughed.  “Concentrate, Ember.  I don’t think you were quite finished trying to discredit me.”
    “You don’t look anorexic enough to me to be a vampire,” I told him, trying to play off the fact that I had just had my mind turned to mush by the muscles he was showing off so well.  “I thought all vampires were Romeo clones.  You know, all skinny and shit.  You look like you could play for the NFL.”
    “Stereotyping,” he said with a lopsided grin.  “Immortals come in all shapes and sizes.”
    “Do you drink blood?”  I rolled my eyes. 
    “Why?  You offering?”  He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
    “You only wish,” I muttered.  “What about the whole garlic thing?”
    “Great on pizza and better in spaghetti, which, before you ask, I