Free Safe Hex With a Vampire by Cassandra Lawson Page B

exactly human either,” she
said as calmly as she could manage. “Human or not, he is probably
the hottest guy I’ve ever met.” Tempest had no idea why she
suddenly felt the need to defend Aiden. All she knew was that the
way she was treating him was wrong and she wouldn’t add to that by
insulting him for what he was.
    Rose began to tap the steering wheel with
her fingers as she drove across the Bay Bridge. “If you are feeling
so desperate for a man that you would screw that thing , then
I suggest you hit the club and find some relief.” Rose was
practically sneering. “Don’t let your hormones make you scrape the
bottom of the barrel.”
    “What I do with Aiden is none of your
business,” Tempest said through her teeth. “Am I making myself
clear?”
    “Fine, just go ahead and pollute the gene
pool with that thing,” Willow mumbled from the backseat. “Ow!” she
screeched, and Tempest smiled knowing that it was probably because
Ivy had smacked her in the back of the head.
    Thankfully, the rest of the drive back was
blessedly silent.
     

CHAPTER TEN
    “ He doesn’t own her,” I grumbled.
    “ He may as well,” argued my brother,
Viktor. “You know she can’t leave, and you know that she would not
be scrubbing floors if he had any intention of letting one of us
marry her. Father will never let you have her, Roman. Have you
considered the fact that you might get the girl killed with your
obsession?”
    Excerpt from Roman Draksel’s blog
     
    Tempest was exhausted and irritable. Hunting
always took a lot out of her, and the argument with her cousins
hadn’t helped matters at all. She was glad that they had finally
caught the monster, but it wasn’t over yet. They still had a lot of
work to do.
    She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to
visit Aiden as soon as they returned but she did. Maybe defending
him to her cousins had made her feel closer to him. Maybe it was
the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Whatever
the reason, she was too tired to deny herself. She’d quickly
settled their prisoner into a cell, and let her cousins handle the
rest of the details.
    “Did you catch him?” Aiden didn’t even look
up from his sketchbook when he asked the question. His pencil was
moving furiously across the page. He sounded bored, or maybe
distracted. She supposed that she really didn’t know him well
enough to say. His attention was mostly on the drawing. Funny that
she hadn’t even realized he had any artistic talent. Of course, for
all she knew, he could be drawing stick figures.
    “Yes,” she said. “At least we were able to
stop one man from torturing women.”
    “You really hate men, don’t you?” This time
he did look up at her. “You think we’re all just like him.”
    “Why do you say that?” she asked.
    “I’ve been trying to figure out why you’re
so hot to have a baby without a man in your life,” he said with a
shrug. “I came to the conclusion that you must have some serious
man hate.”
    She hesitated. “I don’t hate men, but I
guess what I do distorts my opinions of them. I’ve seen more
ugliness than good in the last ten years.”
    “Not all men are like that,” he said as he
set the sketchpad on the cot.
    She gave him a disbelieving look, and walked
into the cell with him. “What about you, Aiden? Are you telling me
that you’re one of the men that a woman can really count on? Are
you saying you’re one of the good men?” Even as she asked the
question, she felt bad about it. She already knew he felt guilty
about his past actions and she was going out of her way to remind
him of them. It was a knee jerk reaction that she regretted.
    He shrugged and looked away. “I’m a bastard
and I’m not denying it. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. You
already know some of it, I’ve also used mind control to get people
to do things they might not have otherwise agreed to. Never sex, in
case you were wondering. Even I would consider that no