“I was starting to wonder if biting you might be worth the extreme, debilitating pain,” he ground out. “Your mother is going to stake me! You told her we were putting our bodies together. That I was naked in your apartment.”
“You were naked in my pussy and mouth, too. And we are putting our bodies together,” Penny moaned as he gripped her, lifting her a little. She climbed him, wanting more of his touch, wanting him inside of her once more.
“We’re in public!”
“There have to be other people to have a public,” Penny argued.
“Well, we don’t know if someone else is going to come stumbling down those stairs.” Brax stopped, exasperated but unable to resist taking a kiss from her parted lips.
“I also told her that we were just right together,” Penny breathed when he parted from her.
Brax’s expression softened. “You were only talking about the temperature.”
“Maybe. Maybe more. I told her you were my helper. So cool.” Her mind felt slippery again. “You don’t melt, even when I rub myself all over you.”
He let out a low moan. “No, I seem to solidify, princess.”
Another screech of metal and rubber caused the mood to break. A loud klaxon-like pinging from Penny’s dropped phone also erased the romance.
“What is it? That sounds like some kind of emergency alert.” Brax looked over her shoulder as she retrieved the phone.
“Residents in the campus area from...” Penny started reading, mumbling to herself.
“State of emergency. Impassable roads. Crews trying to discover the cause...” Brax picked up her train of words, both trailing off. “The town is icing over. Starting from here. Come on.” Brax bundled her to him and started carrying her back to the relative safety of her apartment.
Penny nodded and swiped as another weather alert popped up on the screen. “The wind chill is below freezing and still dropping. People are being told to stay put and not leave the house unless absolutely necessary. On Christmas Eve! Brax, Christmas Eve is supposed to be a time for people to be together. Family. Even if I don’t really get along with mine. And you don’t have one?”
“Nope.”
Penny looked back at the window as it disappeared from view. Before she descended into the basement, carried in Brax’s arms, she caught sight of an ambulance parked crookedly in the intersection where the town’s roads led to the campus pathway across the river. “No one is on campus tonight. I hope.”
“Someone must have been. There was an ambulance trying to get there.”
Her stomach twisted.People need help. I need to get better. I have to help.“What if some monster is doing this, Brax? Or maybe that clumsy witch upstairs started something magical that normal people won’t be able to cope with. You and I aren’t normal.”
“Nope. Couple of weirdos, aren’t we?” Brax sighed.
“I don’t know any other weirdos. Monsters. I mean, I know of them. I see them. Don’t you guys have a-a group chat or something? Can the magical people do something?” Penny pleaded as she clambered down from his arms.
Brax shrugged, a look of discomfort on his face. “Not to disillusion you, love, but I’m not really the ‘plays well with others’ kind.”
“I figured that out. But you played well with me. And I’m going to leave this town as soon as I can, because monsters are evil and icky—”
“No! No, they’re not like that. Not the ones here! Listen, Penny, you run from this little town to a big city, and you’ll find the ones who want to stay hidden. The bad ones.”
“Like the ones in New Orleans?” she challenged.
“I’m... I’m not going to be like that anymore. I just, well, I just had ‘goodness’ thrust upon me by one very vengeful, creative, not-quite-human ex. The other folks here have chosen that path.”
“Well, tonight you’re choosing it, aren’t you? You’ve been good with me. Good to me.” Penny pouted up at him suddenly. “I want to believe that it’ll be okay. That my mom and dad don’t have to see, don’t have to believe me, but that someone will. Someone I can trust. If I stay here, I have to have someone who gets me. Someone who can give me a reason to believe thatmaybe... Maybe the monsters don’t always want to hurt me. That maybe seeing them doesn’t make me worth hurting.”
Brax nodded slowly, wrapping his body around hers to stave off the chill, worried as red blotches appeared around her throat and on her cheeks. “You feeling worse?” he whispered.
“Yeah. Because I want to help. I’ve always tried to warn people they were in danger, and now I think they really are, and what am I doing? Sweating.”
“You’re keeping me alive. Undead. I’d be frozen in a little puddle of black and blue without you. Come on.” Brax scooped her up in one arm and made for his clothes. “I may be ‘wayyyy old,’ but I have a cell phone. I also have Jakob Minegold’s number. He’s a vampire, a good guy, and he knows everything about anything in this town. At least that’s the impression I get. We’ll call him and tell him about the spell gone wonky. See if there’s any way that we can break it so everyone can have themselves a Merry Little Christmas.”
BRAX WAITED FOR THEringing to give way to a voice, running his hands lightly over Penny’s back. Wherever his cool fingers touched, her skin lightened for a minute, but as he trailed down, it reverted to a dark, burnt pink.
