Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (to read list TXT) 📖

stronger, and he was less tired. When he reached seventy, he started to strain a little. A hundred, his shoulders began to get an ache. And he stopped.

“Wow,” Hanz said. “You could be a marine. You hardy slowed down.”

Getting onto his feet, Troy rolled his shoulders and massaged where the strain had been. Admittedly, it barely hurt. He could have definitely done more—probably twice that amount. Formerly, though, he had only been able to get to seventy five before quitting from burning muscles. He had heard about the increased muscle strength for vampires, but until now he did not understand it.

“Is your girlfriend—uh, fiancée, really strong?” Troy asked.

Hanz colored, thinking about that. “Uh… honestly? I’ve never tested it.”

Troy nodded. Of course he wouldn’t. Why would he? What guy would want to find out if his gal was stronger than him? It would be embarrassing.

“Eve is astonishingly fast,” Hanz said, his mind going to that while he stirred the pot. He took it off the heat and added a brown spice to the warmed concoction then put in the submersible blender, plugging that in. It made a medium hum that sounded like a fan, and blended in a handful of oats. “She could catch a fly with her fingers. I’ve seen her catch a bullet with her hand. And I don’t doubt that if enraged, she’d be extremely strong. But she never really made it an issue. Eve’s not competitive. At least, she’s not petty about competition, because she does and has competed for things.”

“Really?” Troy was interested. The dark angel was becoming a person.

Hanz nodded. “Yeah. In high school she was their majorette, and she competed for her school in the state. She also did Celtic dance and was on the school drill team.”

She sounded so… normal.

“She used to joke about competing in surfing, as she does that in her spare time…” Hanz chuckled to himself. “…And she’s rather good. But I don’t think she was actually serious about that.”

Troy stared. A woman who burned in the sun surfed? That was insane. It was like Eve was doing that just to defy her own nature.

And it hit him. That summed his angel up. She actively chose to defy her own nature. She was born a demon, meant to kill the Holy Seven—and she became their friend instead. She was born to destroy, and she spent her time rescuing people. So of course she was ticked off at him for choosing to die rather than defy ending up as a vampire.

“Here.” Hanz handed him the tall warm drink. “Take it back to your room and drink until the itch leaves. You might also want to do yoga, as I do believe that will help.”

“Yoga?” Troy made a face. Women in tights did yoga.

Hanz smirked at him. “Don’t knock it. You’d be surprised what it can do for you. When Eve took it up, she said it helped to calm her cravings.”

That caught Troy’s attention. He said, “Does she still have cravings for blood?”

Nodding as if it pained him, Hanz replied, “Yes. She fights it, but yes.”

Troy frowned.

“She says it wasn’t so bad before she had a taste of blood, but after…” Hanz shook his head.

With surprise, Troy looked to him. “She’s drunk blood before?”

Sighing, Hanz nodded. “Yeah. The first time was when someone attacked her family in the mountains—I do believe around the same time she met Rick Deacon. Then later, those witches had kidnapped her and forced her to drink blood to make her go after the Holy Seven. She attacked those witches—bit them, but didn’t kill any of them. She bit Silvia. Silvia showed me the bite two days ago. After Eve attacked the witches, she then went after the Seven—unwillingly—because the blood drew her to them. Thankfully, the Seven ended that part of the curse, and she no longer wants their blood—but since, sometimes she has these waves of cravings. She says it worse than in the beginning because she had tasted blood. So whatever you do, never taste any.”

That was a good philosophy. Troy nodded, agreeing.

Hanz cleaned up. He urged Troy to carry his drink with him to bed without another word.

Obeying, Troy walked up the stairs back to his room, carrying the tall glass in his hands, feeling the warmth scorch his skin a little. When he got up there and sat on his bed, he started with a sip. Then he drank it all down, surprised that he was still so hungry. When he set the empty glass on the nightstand, he felt that itch just melt away and sleep overtook him. Troy crashed into the mattress, falling into a deep sleep.

 

It felt weird rising with the sun for some reason. But when Troy opened his eyes and got up, he was disoriented and a little dizzy. He was refreshed though, and had had some rather vivid dreams. Most of the dreams were of him with Mr. Lenox planning their support group and him finally discovering the cure to vampire bite. With that on his mind, when we woke, he wanted to find out if Andrew’s wife Jessica had gotten the old manuscripts or not.

Going downstairs, Troy found Hanz and Art sitting at the kitchen counter, both of them reading together from thick books with thin pages. As he got closer, he saw they had some kind of thin textbook with them, colored pencils and a notebook each. Between them was a plate of toast, scrambled eggs, and two glasses of juice.

“What’s this?” Troy walked up to them, looking around to see if they made enough breakfast for three of them, or if he had to make his own.

Art lifted his head, a little startled. And his cheeks colored. But Hanz looked up more calmly and replied, “Oh. Good morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Wonderfully,” Troy said, bemused. He came in closer and saw the pages of their books. The instruction book appeared to be some kind of study manual. But their thick books had that old biblical appearance, with two columns, and verse numbering, with tons of footnotes. “Um, what are you doing?”

“Scripture study,” Hanz said while Art’s cheeks were a little pinker. “You can join us if you want.”

Troy peered at it, but leaned not too close. He really didn’t know a thing about their religion, and he was not sure he wanted to.

“There’s breakfast over there, if you want it,” Art said, gesturing to the stove.

Nodding appreciatively, Troy walked that way. He found there were plenty of eggs still, plus sausage, some oranges, and bread was out for toast. He found a plate and served himself.

As he carried the plate over to the coffee table where he could eat in peace, noticing all the blinds were pulled down to keep out the direct sunlight, he started to feel even from the shadows his skin itch from what light that was getting in.

Hanz piped up as if reading his thoughts. “You might want to put on some sunscreen. The weather forecast today was bright and sunny. There’s a pump bottle of sunscreen from Will’s office in the bathroom, and we’ve ordered some more for you.”

Quickly getting up, Troy nodded gratefully to Hanz and hurried to slather some on.

The pump bottle was more than a liter and the label was some obscure brand—but the sunscreen was 90 SPF and proven to help protect against sun exposure for conditions such as albinism. He read the indications to see how often he would have to apply it. He was a little surprised Will had not provided a 100 SPF bottle, but maybe they had more confidence in the brand. It was probably what Eve had used. After looking at it, Troy decided to get a shower first.

Art and Hanz were done with their reading when he came out in a damp towel to get clothes from his room, and they were cleaning up the breakfast dishes. When he came back down again in pants and long sleeved shirt, there was a knock at the door. He went to get it as he was nearest.

Robert Lafon stood tall in in the doorway wearing a dark blue suit and tie, hand raised to knock again.

“Bobo!” Troy grinned, stepping aside to let him in. “Glad to see you!”

“I’m here making deliveries,” Robert said. He lifted up two shopping bags full of stuff.

Waving him in, Troy pointed. “Put them anywhere. We’re still getting organized.”

Robert nodded then glanced around toward Hanz and Art. “I’m also here to take Hanz to the Deacon Enterprises branch here. Mr. Deacon would like to talk with him.”

For a moment that message had an ominous mobster feel to it, to which Art’s eyes widened.

But Hanz nodded and called back, “Ok. Do I need to pack? Or am I coming back here?”

“You’ll be coming back,” Robert said, smothering the amused smile that was creeping up on his lips. His coffee eyes took Hanz in as if he was still trying to figure the guy out. It was the second time they had met, and they had hardly spoken the last time. “As far as I know, Rick is still trying to arrange for your medical residency.”

“I see.” Hanz nodded. But then he angled his head, wondering aloud, “Do you know what Mr. Deacon wants?”

Robert shrugged then he cringed a little. “Maybe he wants you to change your mind. I heard the rumor that you are engaged to marry a demon. Is that really true?”

Hanz painfully closed his eyes. “Technically true, and yet not.”

Troy pressed his lips together to suppress a laugh as Robert made a confused face then looked to him. Art was massaging his forehead at the very thought.

“What did they tell you?” Hanz asked Robert, glancing once to Troy to see how much Robert knew about things of the supernatural world.

Shrugging, Robert replied, “Not much. Only that you needed protection and the love of your life was taken away from you—which sucks, but may make you do something rash.”

“If I haven’t already,” Hanz murmured to himself with a chuckle.

Robert nodded and smiled sympathetically.

“What kind of work do you do for Mr. Deacon?” Hanz asked him, searching around for his wallet and keys before heading over to Robert to go with him.

Robert shrugged. “A little bit of this and that. I want to be Rick’s bodyguard, but he won’t let me.”

Hanz halted in his tracks, staring at him.

But Troy nodded, rising. “That would be perfect. You would be the best bodyguard for Rick.”

Nodding back, Robert sighed. “Yeah. But he thinks it will just get me hurt, the same as you yesterday. I keep tellin’ him that nothin’ can hurt me—he claims that because I can still feel pain it’s just worse. I thought I had proved myself by protectin’ Audry, but he just won’t agree to it. He thinks if I guard him, somebody is goin’ to figure out how to kill me.”

Art’s mouth popped open. He looked to Hanz who also had no clue what they were talking about.

Seeing this, Troy said, “Bobo is a Gulinger alumnus. He’s under what we call the rubber and glue curse—”

“The what?” Art stared.

Robert said, “It’s a voodoo curse. You know that kid saying—‘I am rubber you are glue. Everythin’ bounces off of me and sticks to you.’? Well any bad thing someone does to me doesn’t really affect me at all, but the other person gets the pain.”

“No kidding?” Hanz murmured, staring at him.

With a nod, Robert said, “Yeah. It’s a long story how it happened. I just figured that I could use my curse for good and protect Rick with it. It comes in real handy if you want to be a bodyguard.”

“Why would anybody put a curse like that on you?” Art murmured.

Looking to him, Robert shrugged and said, “He wasn’t punishin’ me. He was punishin’ the gang my brother was in. I’m from New Orleans, and the neighborhood where I was livin’ things were bad. I told you. Long story.”

Art nodded, weakly going back to cleaning up