by Mandy Rosko
Silus felt Cedric shiver beside him. He could hardly blame him, as Silus himself felt nauseous at the suggestion, though for a different reason than his lover.
Cedric was clearly thinking of the horrible possibility that a member of his family, no matter how distant, could be capable of such an atrocity, while Silus was more sickened by the reminder of how helpless his kind was against the sun sprites should they ever wish to become volatile.
The sun sprites had attacked his family home once before, issuing a challenge for his father and then striking before the time given, while the sun was still in the sky, so as to have the element of surprise and the sun on their side.
He and Cedric had barely managed to stop the fighting between their families, as well as escape with their lives.
“I guess some of the guards from my cousin’s home would have had to pass that around for it to have made it to your dad,” Cedric said.
Ben nodded.
“I don’t get it,” Seth said. “I mean, wouldn’t Varinia, as a vampire, have been able to fight off anyone attacking her like that?”
“Not if they were threatening to burn her,” Silus said, thinking of the way in which Varinia refused to look at Cedric. It had been mostly Cedric whom she avoided with her eyes, not just the both of them. If Cedric was related to the men who defiled her, assuming that was what had happened, could it be that he resembled her attackers?
That hardly made any sense, considering Cedric’s resemblance to Cecil.
“What else have you heard?” Silus asked.
Ben shrugged, looking as though he were about to end his involvement in the conversation before his eyes lit up.
“Actually, there was something else to that, yeah,” said Ben. “The rumor mill was basically saying that, even though the sun sprites were claiming Cecil was kidnapped and killed in retaliation, which definitely is not the case, that really, he chose to go and be Varinia’s servant.”
“Make amends for what his clan did to her,” Cedric said, finishing the sentence.
Ben nodded. “That’s pretty much what was going around in the locker rooms, but we all did think that Varinia had sucked him dry or something for revenge. No one could really hold it against her, and eventually everyone just kinda forgot about the story.”
“Well, she certainly did not commit suicide, nor did she kill Cecil,” Silus said.
“Definitely not, especially if she’s out walking around in the daytime,” Ben said.
Thirty years. Not a long time by the scale in which vampires measured it or aged. However, it was more than enough time to cause delicate feelings between two creatures to form, especially if Cecil really became her servant for the reasons mentioned. Silus had certainly not needed such time to fall in love with Cedric.
However, if anyone had ever attacked Silus in such a manner and a member of that same house came to him as a peace offering the way Cecil had done, Silus would have killed the man.
“Does drinking sun sprite blood really make you immune to the sun?” Seth asked. Though his question was directed at Silus, he stared at Cedric with a certain amount of interest that Silus did not like.
“Not entirely,” he replied, unable to completely keep the edge out of his voice. When Seth looked at him, Silus equally did his best to keep his glare from being too harsh. “My skin can, and does, still burn, though not always in the literal sense. This tends to be a consequence of not drinking enough of Cedric’s blood in any given week, and as I would prefer not to bleed my lover to death—”
“I think he gets the point, Silus,” Cedric said, putting his gentle hand on Silus’s shoulder before returning his attention back to Ben.
“Damon said he caught the scent of werewolves not from his pack out in the woods, too. You make anything of that?”
Ben rubbed his chin then leaned over the table. “Did either of’em mention if they still kept a pack of wolves as guards?” he asked.
Silus and Cedric shook their heads in response.
“Definitely ask them about it when they get here,” Ben said. “’Til then, keep your men out doing sentry duty. I’ll stick around, too, call in some sick days with the boss, and keep watch over here. If they are keeping wolf guards and didn’t tell you about it while making nice in your house, be wary. If they’re not keeping guards and those wolves are from somewhere else,”—Ben’s mouth twisted—“be wary.”
Silus was about to open his mouth to remind Ben that there were no more guest rooms available for either him or his vampire companion, but Cedric was the first to answer.
“Great! As long as you don’t mind bunking with Joey and Amanda.”
Ben turned to Seth, as though reminded of the fact that they would be required to share.
Silus hoped that Seth would not wish to stay in such cramped quarters, but he just shrugged. “Fine with me. I was getting kind of antsy back at the apartment anyway. I’m kinda curious to see what Jackson’s been up to.”
Of course. Silus would simply have to handle Ben’s presence with patience for a little while.
Certainly Silus had not stirred this kind of hateful jealousy in Cedric when he told his lover of Varinia.
He blushed at the reminder of their tryst several hours earlier. Silus had hunted and fed since then, so he had enough blood in his body to produce such a heated reaction. He could not go into the sitting room without looking at the space where their leather sofa used to be, and smell the musk still lingering in the room, even after the maids had come in, their banishment from the house over, to clean up as much as they could.
He could not convince himself that Cedric’s performance had been based in anything other than his revelation, just as he could also not tell himself that whatever was bothering the man had not ended with one mere though magnificent fuck.
Ben looked at his watch. “When exactly are you expecting them back here?”
Cedric scratched at his blond hair, ruffling it. “We didn’t actually specify a time. Cecil took Varinia to feed and give Silus time to hunt. They’re definitely coming back tonight, though,” he said.
“Did they tell you what they want?”
“We are intending to finish that part of the conversation shortly,” Silus said.
As though someone had signaled it, bright headlights veered across the patio table where they were having their discussion.
Joey knocked on the entryway to the deck, and Silus nodded, acknowledging him. “We see them. Any sign of the werewolves?”
Joey stood, back straight and hands clasped in front of him, as though he were still wearing that black suit and sunglasses his father required all the guards wear instead of jeans and a cotton T-shirt. “Haven’t heard anything yet, sir. Damon split the guards into three groups. One will stay with you by the house. The other two are still sniffing around the trees in case they show up.”
Seth half turned in his chair, his arm slung over the back. “Do you want an extra hand?”
Silus noted the way Ben stiffened in his seat at the offer. Of course, Seth may very well be a vampire, but he used to be human, and a member of Silus’s family guard. He considered himself a friend of the pack, and despite an uneasy separation, he was equally considered theirs.
“Sure. I’m grouped with Mitch, so you can come with us.”
“Great.” Seth was up and out of his seat before Ben could so much as utter a protest. As it was, Ben’s mouth opened, but nothing came out, and he watched his lover disappear around the doorway.
He folded his arms and pouted like a small child. Cedric laughed and patted him on the back. “Have to let him out once in a while.”
Ben shrugged away the offending hand. “I don’t keep him locked up,” he muttered.
Silus rose from his chair as the headlights outside blinked out, the humming of Cecil’s car abruptly cutting out as the engine was turned off. “I think it is time to greet our guests.”
* * * * Cedric had to admit, Varinia did look much better now that she ’d fe
d. She couldn’t have gotten her blood from Cecil, though, since he didn’t look nearly pale enough to have given some up. No, despite the grays in his pale-gold hair, he looked eager and happy, not tired and drained. When Varinia took hold of his arm, he looped it for her and glowed happily.
They were both dressed as though getting ready for an important business luncheon. Cedric knew all about those for the times when he’d been forced to break out his slacks and tie. Varinia was dressed in an equally prim fashion. Cedric would be the first to admit that he knew precisely zero about makeup, hair, and shoes, but she did look like she stepped out of a magazine. One of those Vogue-type magazines.
Cedric felt like a total bum wearing his long shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers.
Of course, Silus had to always be dressed like he was attending some sort of formal occasion, and he treated this event as such, taking Varinia’s free hand and placing a gentlemanly kiss over her knuckles before shaking Cecil’s offered hand.
Cedric, feeling completely out of place in his own house, shook Cecil’s hand, and Varinia’s, as did Ben, before inviting the pair back into the house for refreshments.
When Varinia inhaled deeply through her nose, eyeing Ben and licking her lips, clearly scenting the fresh puncture wounds at his neck, she asked, “Is he the refreshment?”
Ben stiffened, an angry glare twisting his features.
Cedric couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but Silus seemed to decide for the lot of them, laughing openly, something he rarely did.
“Of course not. Ben is an associate and family friend. You will, of course, not mind if we rely on his presence for our meeting?”
Cedric loved the way Silus spoke, that silvery smooth voice of his containing just enough of an edge to let their guests know that hoping they didn’t mind really meant he didn’t care if they minded at all and that Ben would be joining them no matter what.
Cedric wanted to take him to bed again, but that would have to wait until they found out what this new pair was after.
The sitting room was out of the question, but with the stars out, the night clear, and the broken window cleaned up with a plastic sheet taped over it to keep the cold night air out, they used Cedric’s sunroom.
One of the maids had already come inside and left behind flutes, an ice bucket, and a bottle of red wine for their use. Ben was the first to get the ball moving before anyone even had a chance to sit down or take a drink.
“Do either of you keep werewolves?”
Cecil seemed to pause halfway through removing his jacket. Varinia’s reaction was the same as she was removing the black scarf thing that was wrapped around her neck and shoulders.
“Werewolves?” Cecil asked, smiling as though he thought it was ridiculous.
Just then Amanda came into the room, and he handed her his jacket to take away. Varinia did the same with her bit of clothing.
Varinia would be expected to be at ease around werewolves, considering the way vampires kept them, but Cecil was a different matter.
Sun sprites didn’t use werewolf servants. Or, at the very least, Cedric had never heard of it until he himself had become a second master of the pack Silus maintained.
“No, we keep no werewolves. We can’t really afford any servants, being cast off as we were,” Cecil said, and then he leaned forward in
clasped together, face serious. “Let me his wicker seat, hands explain.”
* * * * He explained all right, and Cedric didn ’t know what to think. Neither did Silus.
Cecil and Varinia were mated, confirming it when Ben again decided to ask the kind of tough, personal questions that he needed to ask. Cedric didn’t know if PIs, even ones in training, were expected to be so frank. Maybe it was a good-cop-bad-cop thing to get the pair sitting across from them to open up to the more friendly faces of Cedric and Silus rather than Ben.
Cedric never really noticed the way Ben seemed to growl like a bulldog when he was trying to intimidate someone.
He’d have to remember to make fun of his friend for that one later.
Cecil and Varinia wanted to know if Cedric and Silus would join them and make a nest of sorts. It would be the first clan, or nest, or whatever it would be called, that consisted of both sun sprites and vampires living peacefully together.
Considering the way things went between sprites and vampires, it was going to be a small nest.
Cecil hadn’t been kidding when he said he couldn’t afford any werewolf guards. He and Varinia were hardly poverty-stricken, but when Varinia had explained that she worked from home as a telemarketer, and Cecil sold used cars at a dealership, one he didn’t own at that, the horrific shock on Silus’s face let Cedric know that by vampire standards, they might as well have been living hand to mouth for all it mattered.
Cecil and Varinia had enough money put away to put a down payment on a house, and, with Lord Silus’s permission, they would purchase one near the property and pay him his dues as lord of their clan in exchange for his protection.
It sounded nice enough, yet even Cedric knew there were things to consider.
They were in hiding from pretty much everyone in the vampire society, and it was already dangerous for them considering the number of people living on the lake who were werewolves to boot.
Silus was called a lord by the wolves out of respect, but in reality, he was lord no more. He’d left his ancestral home, abandoned his duty to his father, and then stolen away his servants right out from under Wiktor’s nose. He no longer had any claim to the land he would have inherited had he denied his love for Cedric and stayed with his nest.
As it was, the little houses, or mini-mansions, as Cedric thought of them, surrounding the lake that Silus owned were hardly enough to make him a lord in the vampire sense of the word.
However, taking on tenants, no matter how few, as well as having a huge pack of werewolves who swore an oath of loyalty to him, would definitely make Silus a true lord once more.
It would also perhaps put him under the radar of the wealthy vampires and sun sprites in the area wondering just who was buying up so much land only a couple of miles outside of their town. Christ, it took less than that for Cecil and Varinia to find them.
So they said they needed some time to think it over. Cecil and Varinia had bid the both of them a good night after a couple more hours of discussions, each group figuratively circling each other, gently poking and prodding for information.
Ben was most up front about it, though.
Now it was bedtime. At least for Cedric it was. The house was mostly quiet now save for the few weres who stayed up this time of night to guard the house, but they wouldn’t be heard. Ben and Seth were likely tucked away in Joey and Amanda’s shared room.
Silus was waiting for Cedric in bed, but Cedric was too busy looking at himself in the mirror, checking his hairline to make sure it wasn’t receding, looking for grays, and studying the small lines under his eyes, wondering if they had been there before.
There was a soft knock at the door, and Silus’s voice on the other side, asking if he was well and whether he would be coming to bed.
Cedric replied quickly that he was, finished brushing his teeth, inhaled deeply, and left the bathroom.
Silus would hardly be tired so early in the night. It wasn’t even two in the morning yet. But they made a habit of each being in bed when the other was getting ready for their daily rest, staying until the other fell asleep.
The way Silus looked at him when he finally got out of their joined bathroom, however, let Cedric know that he was going to have to wait a little longer for sleep.
Silus was naked in bed, his pale chest gleaming like marble in the moonlight that spilled through the window. Silus had opened it just a crack, and Cedric’s skin prickled under the cold but felt no discomfort as the heat of the room evened out his internal temperature. His cock was standing stiff, arching slightly out from the black curls of his pubic hairs, the fine head barely touching that muscled torso.
Cedric grinned, looking down at his plaid, cotton pajama bottoms. He had nothing else on. “Now I feel overdressed.”
Silus crooked a finger at him. “Come here, and I shall rectify that.”
Cedric did as he was told, his tired muscles waking up at the thought of sex. Before he got into bed, he hooked his thumbs into the elastic band of his pj’s, pulling them down to step out of them, and then crawling onto the mattress.
Silus took him by the hips and steered him until he was sitting in Silus’s lap, but not on his prick. Both their cocks were hard, and Cedric shivered as his dick slid in a feathery touch over Silus’s. Neither of them made a move, though. Silus looked up at him, his eyes traveling over the expanse of Cedric’s tanned chest and brown nipples, which were dark and pebbled as the chilly night air touched them.
Silus’s thumbs made circles over Cedric’s hips. “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
Cedric glowed at the compliment despite himself. Literally, his body emitted a faint UV light that warmed him from the inside out.
Silus’s eyes squinted slightly through the light, but there was no hiss of pain, nor any fear in him that Cedric would lose control and kill him with too much.
And he could create more light. Probably not enough to kill him, as he’d taken in too much of Cedric’s blood in the year and a half they’d been together. But definitely enough to cause some damage.
Then he thought to how he’d reacted earlier today, and his glow vanished. “I’m sorry I was jealous,” he said.
Silus continued to circle his thumbs over Cedric’s skin, watching him and waiting.
“About Varinia. I shouldn’t have been so jealous. I know better, and I trust you. I just—”
“Shhh,” Silus said, running the thin fingers of his hand through Cedric’s hair, stopping to cup his cheek. Cedric put his palm over that offered hand, reassured by it.
“I would be a fool to not admit a certain jealousy of my own, this very day even, of your comrade, Ben. You seem to rely on him a great deal and think much of his opinion.”
Cedric licked his lips. He would have been equally the fool to pretend he’d never noticed the way Silus used to growl whenever Ben so much as sat too close to him on the couch. The worst of it had been before Ben met Seth. Ever since, his general attitude toward the man had been more civil, but there was still an edge between them that Cedric had taken note of.