Free Safe Hex With a Vampire by Cassandra Lawson Page A

he
laughed. “All you have to do is take a walk with me and pretend
you’re my girlfriend. Now doesn’t that sound easy?”
    Why did they always say stuff like that?
Well, she supposed it was because women still believed it. No woman
had ever escaped this man unharmed, and some hadn’t even escaped
with their lives.
    Tempest gathered the energy from the air
around her and formed it into an invisible ball. She couldn’t
absorb it into her body but for some reason she could manipulate
it. She allowed her own energy to explode out of her like a violent
storm that pressed against the energy in the air. It crashed into
him. His face registered the shock just before he hit the
ground.
    Ivy entered the alley, already on the phone.
It wasn’t long before the van pulled up. They quickly loaded the
man into the back, and then secured his hands and feet with duct
tape. Her cousin, Rose, was driving and her cousin, Willow, scooted
into the back to help secure him. Aside from a nasty bump on the
back of his head, he didn’t look very badly injured.
    “Are you sure you want to do this?” Willow
asked.
    “What choice do we have?” Ivy asked her.
    Willow let out a sigh and nodded.
    Normally, they would have just handed him
over to the police. They had contacts in several law enforcement
agencies that were more than willing to pretend they didn’t know
how the men ended up in their custody, or make up a good cover
story. In areas where they had no local law enforcement contacts
they relied on a friend at the FBI. In this case, they had a
detective at the San Francisco Police Department that was more than
happy to work with them and pretend he didn’t know they had some
extra talents. Tempest knew they were creating a lot of trouble for
their contact but they had no choice.
    “I hate it,” Tempest said, “but we have a
chance to help those poor women, and we need to take it.”
    After they had him secured, Tempest climbed
into the front seat next to her cousin Rose. Rose and Willow had
been a part of the center from day one, and Tempest loved them.
They just irritated her sometimes. Tempest could tell by the way
that Rose kept looking over at her that today was going to be one
of those irritating days.
    “Just say whatever is on your mind,” Tempest
finally told her.
    “How long are you planning to keep that
thing in the basement?” Rose asked.
    “We’ll have the ceremony tomorrow night,”
Tempest answered, intentionally misunderstanding Rose’s question.
“Until then we’ll keep him confined in the cell in the old barn. In
case you’ve forgotten, the basement is full.”
    Rose rolled her eyes. “You know what I’m
talking about. That thing we picked up last time.”
    “Are you referring to Aiden?” Tempest tried
hard not to let the annoyance seep into her voice.
    “Whatever,” Willow added from the backseat.
“We don’t really care what its name is. We just want it out of the
center.”
    Tempest blew out a frustrated breath. “I’ve
found out some interesting things about him .” She decided
not to share the news that they were related just yet. It might
have been fun to watch their reactions since they were feeling so
superior, but it might be ill advised to give Rose that kind
of shock while she was driving. “I’m actually thinking that he
would be a good sperm donor for me. He’s against the idea now, but
I’m hoping to change his mind.”
    Ivy was doing her best to pretend that she
couldn’t hear the conversation.
    “Ew!” Rose nearly shouted. “That thing isn’t
even human. It would be like having a baby with a dog or
something.”
    “I think a dog would be a better choice,”
Willow added with a snort.
    “At least you don’t want to have sex with
it. That would be totally gross,” Rose said with a shudder of
revulsion. “I don’t know how you even managed to touch it to treat
its wounds.”
    Tempest was quickly losing her temper. “In
case you’ve failed to notice, we aren’t