Callie - An Enchantress Novel - Book 1

Chapter 4

"...So yeah, you died," Sam finished as he recapped the events of the last three days.

Okay, he's a fruit loop, Callie thought. "And you saved my life by reviving me. Thank you by the way, but three days isn't long enough for the kind of wound you described to heal the way it has, and why didn't you call an ambulance?"

A breakfast bar separated the kitchen from living room, so he was able to see and hear her as he refilled her beaker from the bag of blood he had in the fridge. "Callie, I didn't save your life, not the way you think anyway. Nor did I revive you. You were dead and I made you un-dead, a vampire. You know, the living dead." He corrected her assumption and placed the refilled beaker in the microwave. "You'll have to drink human blood in order to survive. You can't go out in sunlight or you'll burn, like go up in flames and turn to ash. At least until I can get an amulet made for you anyway."

Smiling at her eagerness as she accepted the beaker, he watched her ruby-red lips close around the straw and gently draw its contents into her mouth. He was in big trouble. He could hardly think straight with her around. Glimpses of her creamy breasts tormented him when the too large robe gaped at the front with her every movement. When she sat down, the split at the front gave him flashes of a leg so long and flawless he had practically drooled. He had to use the excuse of refilling her juice to rearrange himself. Entranced, he watched as her tongue darted out to capture an escaping drop and he had to shake himself to carry on.

"Oh and by the way can you please ring Adie and tell her that you're fine? She's been ringing and texting your mobile constantly." He'd gone through her bag in order to turn off her mobile. While Florence and the Machine's Shake it Out was a great song, the never-ending repetition of it was driving him mad. He'd found her driver's licence too, and discovered that she was his new assistant, which explained the no show. "The office phone has been ringing every half hour for the last three days and Gill can't put her off any longer. Your sister is threatening to ring the police."

"Shit! She'll be frantic with worry." Callie snatched up her phone and pressed speed dial.

"Cal, where the hell are you and why didn't you text or call back?" Adie fumed, her anger clearly evident from the tone she used. "Your boss's office said you were on a case and couldn't call because it would jeopardize the story. Really Cal? I thought something had happened to you. Couldn't you have at least let me know before you just disappeared?"

Sam came to stand behind her. "You can't tell her about any of this," he whispered in her free ear.

A simple whiff of her clean flesh and it was almost his undoing. She smelled of his apple-scented shampoo combined with his shower gel, but there was something else too. He couldn't put his finger on what it was; all he knew was that the combination was intoxicating. It never smelled that good on him.

Callie's heart broke at the sound of anxiety in her sister's voice. "I'm sorry Adie, with all the excitement I guess I just didn't think."

Sam let them finish their conversation in private. He headed into the bathroom for a cold shower and continued to the bedroom to change into the clothes he kept in the flat for emergencies. Another visit to the blood bank would be needed tonight. There wasn't enough blood left in the fridge for him, never mind appease the appetite of a newly turned vampire.

"I'll call you back and fill you in when he's not around," Callie whispered when he left her.

She hung up a few minutes later and followed him to the other room where she found him shirtless. Her breath hitched at the sight of his naked back, the muscles of his shoulders bunched as he reached for a shirt from the wardrobe. It left her in a deep wanton sigh as he turned to expose his hairless chest. His sculptured abdominals bunched and rippled as he donned the shirt. Michelangelo's David would weep in jealousy at the sight of such perfection. Her gaze travelled down, pausing briefly at the undone top button of his jeans, then continued down the length of his legs to his sockless toes peeking out from under the faded denim.