The Entity Within

closing behind them.

What if I can’t excuse him? Zoe wondered. What if it was too much to take that he was a vampire who drank blood and had a dark side? Was she really in any position to be judging him? It’s not like she was Suzy Sunshine. She was a witch whose mother practiced dark magic and may have sent the wrong people to hell.

Witches and vampires made for a volatile combination.

So why did she care what Damon and Tanya were doing in the kitchen? Were they just feeding or doing more? Were they having quickie vampire sex? What would sex with a vampire be like?

“You think too much,” Nick told Zoe as he held out a chair for her at the dining room table.

“He used to tell me that, too,” Daniella said.

“And I was right,” Nick said.

“Vampires don’t think?” Zoe countered as she sat down.

“There are times when I wonder,” Daniella said with a laugh and a tilt of her head toward the kitchen.

“I’ve never had corned beef and cabbage,” Nick admitted as he helped Daniella into a chair with such gentlemanly courtesy, it made Zoe wonder what it would be like to have that care taken with her.

Nick just did help you into your chair, her inner voice reminded her. Has Damon ever held out a chair for you?

She couldn’t remember.

He’d kissed her. She remembered that. Hard to forget. Just as Damon was hard to forget. How long were he and Tanya going to stay in the kitchen?

“You’re not eating,” Gram said. “It’s really good. Where did you get this, Nick?”

“From a neighborhood Irish pub just outside Vamptown,” he said.

“Are you doing anything special at the bar tonight for the holiday? Green beer on tap or green blood or anything?” Zoe said.

“I fought on the side of the English at Waterloo,” Nick said. “So I never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day until now. The English and the Irish weren’t on the best of terms for much of that time.”

“Wow. So you’re older than Damon,” Zoe said. “He told me he was turned on the battlefield at Gettysburg on the third day of fighting.”

“That’s more than he tells most people,” Nick said. “I’m not the oldest vamp in Vamptown, though. That honor goes to Pat. Of course, age is relative for a vamp. You stay the age you were when you were turned. Most vamps do, anyway.”

“But not you?” Zoe said.

Nick looked at Daniella.

“I didn’t say a word,” she said.

“No, not me,” Nick finally said.

Daniella wiped at her eyes. “Nick is no longer an immortal and it’s all my fault.”

“What did you do?” Zoe said.

“I had sex with him. It made some of his vamp strengths stronger but it meant that he will eventually die.”

“But not for a long time,” Nick said. “Daniella’s aging was also changed by our actions. She is now aging at a slower rate.”

“So having sex with a vampire could be an anti-aging technique?” Zoe said.

“I’m not sure all this talk about sex is proper dinner conversation,” Gram said.

“What about sex between a witch and a vampire?” Bella asked from the floor where she was seated beside Zoe. Looking up at Zoe’s shocked face, Bella said, “What? You know you were thinking about it.”

“Familiars cannot read a witch’s mind,” Zoe stated.

“Anyone could have read your mind,” Bella said. “So who is going to answer my question?”

“No one,” Zoe said.

“I don’t know the answer,” Daniella said.

Nick remained silent, as did Gram.

“That corned beef is very high in sodium content and causes bloating,” Bella said. “You’d do better to give some of that to Morticia and me down here.”

Morticia mewed her agreement.

“Why does only one of your cats talk?” Daniella asked.

“I don’t know the answer,” Zoe said.

“Morticia and I communicate telepathically,” Gram said. “That’s the usual way in our coven.”

“But I’m special,” Bella said proudly. “Oh shit! There goes that damn spooky organ music through the floorboards again.”

“No swearing at the dinner table,” Gram reprimanded her.

“I’m on the floor, not the table,” Bella said. “What does a familiar have to do to get a little peace and quiet around here?”

“I thought maybe they’d play ‘Oh Danny Boy’ or something Irish,” Daniella said.

“No such luck,” Zoe said.

“Maybe we should blast some music back down at them,” Daniella suggested. “Maybe some Muse from my smartphone. Their song ‘Uprising’ would do.”

“Would do what? Get rid of the demons?” Zoe asked.

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She was also afraid of the answer to those other questions … about a witch and a vampire having sex and about what Damon was doing with Tanya in the kitchen.

* * *

“Feel better now?” Tanya asked Damon in the kitchen.

Damon wiped his mouth and nodded. Two empty bags of blood sat on the countertop.

“Good.” Tanya sidled up against him. “I could make you feel even better still.”

“I’ve got to stay focused on hunting demons,” he said.

“It seems to me you’re more focused on Zoe the witch than the demons. You do know that witches and vampires are like eggs and water.”

“Oil and water,” he corrected her.

“Whatever.” Tanya thrust her lower lip out in a sexy pout. “I don’t like her.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Damon said.

“Not to me it isn’t. She doesn’t understand you the way I do.”

Damon knew that no one really understood him and he liked it that way. This was nothing new to him. Even in his life as a human, he’d been full of contradictions and complications along with a fierce competitive drive. His sire Simon had said that it was one of the reasons he turned him. Nothing got the best of Damon. Not even death.

Yet his memories of that terrible day in Gettysburg stayed in his mind. He’d seen plenty of blood since then, but nothing like that. The hill had been slippery with it after two days of battle, the air filled with the stench of dead bodies and the cries of those mortally wounded but not yet gone. Like his younger brother, Sam, who’d died there. Damon couldn’t be sure the voice he’d heard back then was really Sam’s, but the possibility haunted him with a powerful persistence and filled him with grief and rage.

He’d tried to become more civilized. Since coming to Vamptown, Damon drank blood from what appeared to be a beer bottle or from a glass. He hadn’t chugged it down like a wild beast for some time.

Tanya was excited by his appetite and the sight of the blood. He could see that on her face and in her eyes.

Tanya was right in front of him, ready, willing, and able, yet Damon’s thoughts were on Zoe in the other room. His vamp hearing allowed him to listen in on the conversation. They weren’t talking about him. Not that he wanted them to.

He was filled with frustration and it showed in the way he crumpled the plastic bag and threw it in the garbage. He let Tanya lick the excess blood from his fingers. Why the hell shouldn’t he? Maybe having sex would be enough of a release that he could stop brooding about kissing Zoe and the sweet taste of her mouth.