Coffin Girls (Elegantly Undead: Book 1 of the Coffin Girls Witch Vampire Series) by Aneesa Price

ever swore at them.
    “Jeesh! Calm down. Your eyes are glowing and you’ll draw
more attention to yourself than us not acting like tourists will.” She dragged
a hand through her hair, making it splay over her shoulders and doing nothing
to calm his raging libido, despite her anger.
    “Just go home, Raulf.”
    Her tone was so resigned with frustration that it pulled at
the soft spot he’d always carried for her. His voice still held an aggravated
hint of steel though, “Think of me what you like but I’m not the type of man to
leave women alone with men they don’t know and don’t trust.”
    “Get over yourself, Rambo, we’re fucking vampires. We’ve
been taking care of ourselves long before you knew how to use the toilet!”
Anais’s voice dropped to a barely audible whisper but she knew that his
extra-sensitive alpha hearing would pick up the words and the aggravation.
    “Cut it out you two.” V stepped closer to them, followed by
Marie. “You’re drawing attention to yourselves and you’re acting like
toddlers.” She turned to Raulf, eyes beseeching, “Please go home. I appreciate your
loyalty and your help but in the mood you’re in, the two of you are bound to
blow up soon and we can’t risk that type of exposure in public or in front of
the witches.” She placed a hand on his arm and let the warmth of her air power
caress him like a balmy tropical breeze, cooling him off. “Please,” she
pleaded. “Whatever is going on between the two of you isn’t worth the risk to
all of us. Go home and let her finish tonight’s witch-sitting. Marie and I are
here and if things get out of hand, I can always call some of the guards at
Papillion House, which we’ve just been too and you know it is quick ground for
a vampire to cover to wherever we are in the Quarter.”
    Accepting but not liking the request, Raulf narrowed his eyes,
staring intently at first Anais and then V. “You promise you’ll stay in the
Quarter and then come straight home?”
    V nodded in agreement, “I promise.”
    Raulf nodded at them in farewell and then walked up to the
witches, “I have to go. Family emergency. You take care of them or I’ll whip
your asses. Understood?” When the dumbstruck witches just nodded in agreement,
he turned around and stormed off to hail a taxi for the ride home.
    “The sting of unrequited love I presume?” Conall raised a
questioning brow at Anais when she re-joined his side for their walk.
    “What makes you think that?” She asked sharply, too sharply.
    Conall nodded knowingly, “Your response just confirmed it.
You certainly do have a way of attracting men to you, Anais. I also noticed that
Yves seemed markedly fond of you tonight. Tell me, is it unrequited love with
him too or were you lovers?”
    It wasn’t what he said that had her that picked at her
already frazzled nerves; it was the censure in his tone. Why the hell were the
men surrounding her suddenly becoming dictatorial jackasses? She retorted, her
voice taunt with irritation. “I had no idea that my love life or lack thereof
had anything to do with vampire-witch relations. I also had no idea that your
mamma raised you to have the manners of a swamp rat!” Anais had had enough of
ill-mannered, arrogant men for one night!
    Conall blanched, visibly. What had come over him? She was
entirely correct and within her rights to be irritated with him. As witch
royalty, he’d been raised to have impeccable manners and unfailing courtesy to
his hosts. He was obviously failing at that dismally now.  Wanting her and
seeing the competition so to speak was making him irrational. “I apologize.
That was uncalled for.”
    “Then why did you say it?” Anais wasn’t about to let go. She
had a bone to pick with the men and if he was the unlucky recipient that she
could live with that. He did after all, contribute to her irritation. “If it
was uncalled for, what was your motivation? Are you really supportive of the vampire-witch
alliance?