“Fine.” Etta looked back to Collosa. “I’m told her daytime hole is large enough for three vampires, so the two of us should easily fit. I’ll be staying, and Evan will assign two eagles. A deer shifter will be sent for Kelsey to feed from, as we feel it’s best she feed from a non-predatory shifter for a few days.” She looked to Collosa, then up to Fabio and Eunice, and back to Collosa. “If you don’t want to house so many of us, we can do this at the coterie house. Marco felt you’d want to do it here.”
“A vampire, two eagles, and a deer? Will the Slayer be staying?”
“No,” Ryan said. “I’ll drop in occasionally to see how things are going, but I won’t stay.”
“To be clear,” Etta said. “The two eagles will not allow either of you in this room while I am down for the day. They will take turns sleeping during the time I’m awake, so only one will be on guard while I can look out for myself. The deer will need her own sleeping quarters, and we’ll need sleeping quarters the eagles can share.”
“There are two vampire rooms on this level, I assume the deer will want the other secure room. We have a sitting room on this level with a day bed and a trundle. Will this work for the guards?” Collosa told them.
The eagle took a step forward. “It sounds as if it will, but I’ll need to see the rooms.”
“Fabio will take you to see them,” Eunice said from behind Collosa.
Collosa smoothed Kelsey’s hair and looked to the Slayer, and then the too-thin vampire. He had a feeling the eagle had only left because he knew the Slayer would protect his charge, but that couldn’t be right. Slayers protect humans. Not vampires.
No one spoke, so Collosa tried to bridge the gap between them. “Etta, I don’t believe we’ve invited you to sit. It was an oversight, and I apologize. You’re here to help Kelsey, and that makes you a friend until you prove yourself otherwise. Drake Security has traditionally gotten along well with whatever Strigorii vampire was in charge in their city. It’s true this is usually The Abbott, since he and Aaron are so close, but Abbott always looks to find a replacement for himself who will do right by the city he’s leaving. I haven’t had a chance to get to know Marco, but I assume he’s one of the good guys. If he’s made you his Secundo, that would make you one of the good guys as well.”
“I didn’t introduce myself as his Secundo.” Her voice was like ice on his skin.
“I’ve read through the available data on the new top five in town.”
She looked up, focused on Eunice behind him. “Did you recognize me?”
“I have not read that data. The three of us have different specialties. Being nice to people is not my specialty.”
She gave the first true smile Collosa had seen from her. “No, mongoose, I don’t imagine it is. Despite this, your blood is not in Kelsey, and yet there’s a connection. Is this because your housemates are connected to her, and you’re connected to them? Or is it a personal connection?”
“Was that a rhetorical question?” Collosa asked.
She shrugged and sat in the straight-backed, armless chair Collosa had brought in for OTK spankings. She sat straight, without slouching. Something told Collosa this vampire rarely relaxed around others.
“I was thinking out loud, but if you know the answer, I’d be interested in hearing it.”
“We’re both fantasy freaks,” Eunice told her. “Tolkien. Douglas Adams. Frank Herbert. Dungeons and Dragons. Manga. Anime. Studio Ghibli.”
Etta turned to the Slayer, and he smiled. “Books and movies. There’s an entire counterculture.”
She turned back to them, and her look said she now understood, but she still didn’t get it.
Collosa was focused on her mouth, but could tell she was looking at him with his peripheral vision. He didn’t trust this vampire enough to look in her eyes.
“It’s safe to meet my gaze, grizzly bear. As you’ve pointed out, our organizations have treaties and are working towards friendship. Neither side wants to fuck that up. I have only two guards because bringing in a dozen would be a slap in the face. Bringing only two shows I trust your security, and I trust the three of you. Our people are good, but it would be three against two even if you don’t bring more people in. I require extra security when I’m vulnerable, and I’m counting on the fact I’ll have five security people looking out for my safety — my two plus the three of you.”
Collosa looked up and met her gaze. He didn’t want to, but she was right — they had to start somewhere with trust, and she was also right that the three of them could easily take out two eagles to get to her during the morning hours when she was dead to the world.
“I’ve been around Abbot’s vampires enough to be comfortable with them. I was okay around Marco, and I’m clearly okay around Kelsey, but something about you has my bear on edge. I apologize for however this comes across to you.”
“Thank you for being honest. Your bear’s senses are not wrong, but I won’t use what he’s feeling against you unless you give me cause. You have my word.”
“Thank you. Can you explain Kelsey’s new power to us?”
“I hope to god she can,” Fabio said from the doorway. “Evan says the rooms will work, so we have that settled. Etta said she didn’t want to explain Kelsey’s situation more than once, so we’ve all had to wait until we were back here with you.”
Fabio sat on the sofa beside Collosa, pulled Kelsey’s feet into his lap, removed her boots and socks, and held her feet.
“She’s cold, even for a vampire.”
“Yes,” Etta said. “She’s fighting with the energy she took in from the duck shifter. As soon as she gets over herself and takes it in, makes it hers, she’ll feel better.” She uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other direction. “A handful of vampires on the planet are able to feed from lust. They’ll still need blood occasionally because it’s a physical need as well as an energetic need, but most can go a few days without blood, once they learn to feed this way.” She focused on Collosa and Fabio. “I believe she’s safe around all of you now. She doesn’t want to hurt you, much less kill you, so she won’t feed from you while you’re watching porn upstairs, or if you happen to get horny from playing with her feet — and no, I’m not saying you will, just pointing out that if you’re horny, she can feed from that, whether it’s directed at her or not. I will work with her on safe versus unsafe ways to do this, and I can’t guarantee there’s no danger, but I don’t believe there is. She’s terrified she’ll hurt one of you, and she has the willpower to hold back.”
Etta took a breath and, for the first time, looked as if she might feel an ounce or two of compassion. “Kelsey, I need you to tell them how you killed the duck shifter.”
Kelsey didn’t want to have to do this, but Marco had been clear that an order from Etta was the same as an order from him. She kept her eyes closed, but sat up a little. James repositioned her so her head was on his shoulder, and she buried her face into his neck and breathed him in.
His scent reminded her she wasn’t alone. She moved back and looked to Fabio. “Can you scoot over a little, so I can sit between the two of you?”
Fabio moved, she followed, and then she was between them — sitting on her own, but with support around her. A hand landed on her shoulder and she touched it. Eunice was telling her he had their backs, and when she looked into the mirror on the opposite wall, she knew they all had his back, too.
She focused on Etta. Since the vampire already knew every thought Kelsey had while she killed the raping bastard, it would be easier to face her and tell her.
“The hardest part was keeping him horny, keeping the lust flowing. I bit him and gave him the cocktail to stay hard, but it wasn’t enough. He had specific fantasies, and being hard didn’t bring out his lust. I had to go into his head and give him the fantasy he wanted — a naked girl on her knees, worshiping his cock. I had to make him not care that I was drinking him down, taking in his soul. Draining his life force. Killing him.”
There was
more to it, and Etta clearly wanted Kelsey’s housemates to fully understand what she’d done.
“I went into his head and turned the bystanders into his audience, watching him dominate and control the bitch at his feet. He preferred raping women to having sex with them. He wanted them to hate it, to fight, to cry, to feel violated. I didn’t want him in my pussy, so I used my mouth and made him see it as all of my holes. When he no longer had the energy to fuck me, I had to make him think he was still fucking me.”
“As far as difficult scenarios go, he was about as difficult as it will ever be, Kelsey,” Etta told her. “If we’d had time to wait for a better specimen, I would have waited. This was what we had available though, so the duck is who you had to work with.”
Etta looked up to Eunice. “We didn’t allow her to drink his blood, other than the few sips needed to gain access to his head, and to make him hard. She needed to understand what it feels like to be full of life-force energy when she isn’t fully sated by blood.” Her gaze shifted to Collosa. “You opted not to go. Why?”
“I didn’t need to see her being trained. If she tells me it’s safe to be around her, I’ll believe her. If she warns me it might not be, we’ll figure out how to keep everyone safe. I’m a security specialist, so I knew we could figure it out. With you involved, looks like a lot of that is being handled, but you have to know we’re going to have our own little meeting about how to make sure everyone who lives at this address stays safe. Everyone.” He took a breath. “We also protect our guests, so that will also mean making certain the security keeps you safe.”
14
Eunice went to bed early Saturday night and wished he could sleep until after sunup, but knew he’d wake early and need to work out — as always.
Sure enough, when he awakened the clock said it was barely after four in the morning, and he closed his eyes and blew out a breath.
There were too many people in the house. Too many emotions from a vampire who spilled them all over the fucking place. Before this had happened, he’d thought Kelsey was entirely too happy and too naïve to be a fucking vampire. She’d lost some of that when she’d killed the damned duck shifter, and it made him sad.
The most annoying part of it was that he wanted to protect her from the world instead of helping her toughen up so she’d be ready for it.
Collosa had been absolutely right about the way Marco and Etta chose to teach Kelsey about this new power of hers. It’d been brutal as fuck, but it’d done the job in one night. He got out of bed, dressed, and heard the heartbeats of Fabio and Collosa from the hallway. Both seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He made his way to the first floor, then to the den, and stood in the doorway, watching Kelsey and Etta play a racing game against each other. Evan had installed two eagles as security before leaving, and one of them was standing near a window, watching Eunice.
“I’m gonna run through the forest behind the house,” he told the room, without focusing on anyone in particular. “I have a three-mile trail, lots of elevation changes. You ladies want to join me?” He frequently ran the trail two to four times, but he didn’t figure Kelsey would be up to that.
Kelsey paused the game, and Etta gave an annoyed growl. Clearly, Kelsey was the teacher when it came to the video game, which explained why she’d been winning.
“That sounds nice,” Kelsey said. “I regularly ran a three kilometer—” She stopped and rolled her eyes. “That would be nearly a two-mile route through the city, because my former master insisted upon activities to push my strength and power.” She sighed. “I think running will be good, to get rid of some of this excess energy. I don’t know how I’ll do in a forest, or on hills, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
This pleased him. Fabio ran with him in the evenings, but getting the cat up in the mornings just made him grumpy. Collosa didn’t really run. It was more of an ambling, plodding jog unless you pissed him off, and it’s never a good idea to anger a grizzly.
Kelsey had fed from the deer shifter before she’d been brought back to the house. She had plenty of energy and was looking forward to stretching her legs. She wasn’t usually a fan of running, but a run through the forest sounded nice.
She donned shorts, exercise bra, and athletic shoes. Etta wore running shoes with her dress. Did the woman own jeans?
“You’re running with us?” Kelsey asked Etta.
“Your former master was correct to require you to run. Any outlay of energy can only make you stronger. I no longer need to find ways to use power and energy. My job description requires it. Today, it would seem my job description requires I run.”
“Your physical body doesn’t need to be kept in shape?”
“No, and neither does yours under normal circumstances. It’s your magical abilities that must be used, but until you have reason to do so, running taxes them.”
“Magic propels me,” Kelsey reasoned. “So running is exercising my magic, not my body.”
“No one made you work this through before?”
Kelsey shook her head. “Why must you come? It’s just a run. It isn’t like I’m going to attack him and rape him on the trail.”
“One never knows what will happen. You could come across a human who sees you running and gets a hard on.”
“And I’d have to either ignore the energy, or work hard to take it in after it’s fully separated from the human.” Neither of which was easy. However, taking it directly from the human happened as if it were reflex — it took intense work not to do it.
Eunice looked Kelsey over, standing in their outdoor room under the deck. She was wearing a cutesy running outfit with matching shoes, and it was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes at her. How could someone with her brain look like this? It annoyed him enough he felt he needed to step back and figure out why he was so bothered. It didn’t seem logical.
The other vampire made him want to pull a sword and take her head off, though she’d given him no reason to do so. Something about her set his nerves on edge. Ironically, the dress and tennis shoes made him want to like her.
He focused on Etta’s chin. “You’re our security, I suppose. Any instructions?”
“Technically, since my eagle guard will not be coming with us, you’re my security and I’m Kelsey’s security. As for instructions, just run. I’ll keep up.”
Without further ado, Eunice took off and assumed the vampires would follow. He didn’t buy for a second that he was Etta’s security. When she was awake, she didn’t need anyone to keep her safe.
His trail took them up the ridge, along the top of it about a quarter mile, and then dipped off the other side in a too-steep decent that got his thigh muscles burning and tested his core. A short run along the bottom, and the trail climbed back to the top, down the other side, ran along the base a short distance, and then ran halfway up the ridge and remained there until shortly before arriving back home.
He had to slow a few times on the way up the ridge because Kelsey was too far behind him. When they reached the top, she shot ahead of him, and he had to run as fast as he safely could to try to keep up with her. The trail was well marked and easy to see, so there was no danger of her going off it, so he didn’t say anything to her. However, he realized at the last second that she wasn’t slowing before heading down the other side.
Whether his shouted warning came too late, or whether she chose to ignore it, he couldn’t be certain, but by the time he made it to the steep descent, she was out of control and plummeting straight down the precipitous slope like a bowling ball. No, like bumper pool in a billiards hall. Fuck. He watched helplessly as she hit trees on the way down, bouncing from one to another.
Etta flew past him in a blur, her athletic shoes three feet off the ground.
Instead of taking the meandering trail, he jumped from one level to the next, stopping between jumps to make certain he stayed in control and didn’t crash down the sheer ridge the way Kelsey had.
Etta was ordering Kelsey
to stop her heartbeat when he arrived. Fear gripped him when he saw how much blood Kelsey had lost. Etta looked up at him, clearly unhappy. “Get hold of your fear, mongoose. She’s stopped her heart, so she won’t continue to lose blood. If the deer could feed her again, I’d order her back, but she cannot. It’s going to have to be either you or the grizzly. I don’t believe the cat can separate feeding from sex.”
The deer had freaked in a house full of her natural predators, so she was only going to be brought in for feedings. No way were they going to wait for someone to be brought back.
Kelsey was bruised to kingdom-come and back. The blood came from a head injury. Best guess was one of the trees had opened her scalp.
“Any broken bones? Internal injuries? Vampires are supposed to be able to scan for that kind of thing, right?”
“I have,” Etta said. “Major bruising and abrasions. She’d be able to get back under her own power if it weren’t for the head injury.”
Eunice had agreed to feed her in an emergency, but he wasn’t certain this was that kind of emergency. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Collosa.
When the grumpy bear answered, Eunice told him, “We’ve had an incident. Kelsey’s okay, but she’s stopped her heart in order to stem the bleeding. We’re on the first leg going down the ridge.” He told Collosa where he needed to bring the Jeep, disconnected, and put his phone away.
“I’m going to carry you,” he told Kelsey. “Tell me if I hurt you, and I’ll figure out how to carry you in the least painful way.”
“Head up, higher than her heart,” Etta told him. “Her legs around your waist, her head on your shoulder. She can hang on with one or two heartbeats a minute.”
Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3) Page 11