Nathaniel stroked my shoulder like you’d settle a nervous horse, but I didn’t push him away. I was getting tense, and fighting not to get angry.
“Let down your inner walls, and let my power taste yours.” She said it like it was easy, a small thing.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“The thought of my ‘pimping out’ my sons to you makes you uncomfortable, does it not?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“If your power is not close enough to mine, then we will stay for the parties, and the ballet, but you will not have to look at them as pommes de sang. We will take our sons home and you will not have to worry over your discomfort.”
It sounded too easy. “It sounds simple, but before I say yes, what are the possible side effects of your power exploring mine?”
She looked puzzled. “I am not certain I understand the question.”
“She means,” Micah said, “what bad things could happen if she allows this?”
She actually thought about it for almost a minute. “It should be only a touch of powers, like two leviathans moving in the deep, sliding their sides against each other, then passing away into the dark depths of the sea.”
I felt calmer, as if I could feel those dark, peaceful depths.
“Should be,” Micah said. “What else could happen?”
“It could call your ardeur to the surface and you would be forced to feed.”
I was suddenly tense again, the peaceful dark depths gone like smoke in the wind. “No,” I said.
Nathaniel whispered in my ear. “You can feed from me without intercourse, Anita. It’s a way of getting rid of them.”
Micah looked at me. “Only you can decide if the chance of having to feed the ardeur here and now is worth it, Anita.”
I looked at the sons. The twins looked at me, smiling, somewhere between amused and embarrassed. But it was the kind of embarrassment that any teenager would have felt if his mom did something that made him squirm. The older one, behind the love seat, looked more like I felt, uncomfortable as hell.
“You must be Sampson,” I said.
He looked startled, then nodded. “I am.”
“What do you think about all this? I mean, do you want to be brought into your sirenhood?”
He looked down, then up. “Do you know that you are the first person to ask me how I feel about this?”
I let the surprise show on my face.
“It’s no reflection on my parents. They love me. Us. But Father is over a thousand years old, and Mother is older still. Arranged marriages don’t seem strange to them, and they both would love to have one of us be as powerful as Mother. It would cement our power base along the entire eastern seaboard of this country. I understand all that, or I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“But,” I said.
He smiled, and it was his father’s smile. “But, I don’t know you. The thought of being forced to have sex with anyone is just…wrong.”
I looked at the twins. “And you, Thomas and Cristos, right?”
They nodded.
“How do you feel about this?”
They looked at each other, then one blushed and the other didn’t. The one who didn’t blush said, “I’m Thomas, Tom, when Mom’s not around to complain.” He gave her a smile out of his father’s hazel eyes. “I saw pictures of you before we came. I knew you were pretty, and”—now he blushed, bit his lip, and tried again—“I would love to have an excuse to have sex with you. There, that’s the truth.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
He glanced at his parents.
“Don’t look at them, answer the question.”
Sampson answered it, “They’re seventeen.”
“Seventeen,” I said. “Jesus, that’s not legal.”
“It is legal in Missouri,” Thea said. “We did check your laws before we brought them here.”
I looked at her, and didn’t know what my face showed, but it felt like nothing pleasant. “I don’t do teenagers. Hell, I didn’t do teenagers when I was one.”
“Then let my wife taste your power, Anita,” Samuel said. “It is likely that your power will not do what we need. Succubus is close to siren, but not the same creature. If your power does not recognize Thea’s, then we will allow Sampson to go home with his morals intact. We will disappoint Thomas.”
That reminded me. “Cristos, you never said how you feel about all this.”
The one who had blushed raised his eyes to me. The look was enough—embarrassment, fear even, but under that was eagerness. The look just screamed virgin. I so was not going to be the one who took his virginity. So not doing that. The fact that his parents were encouraging it just made it creepier.
His voice was low, but deep enough. It was not the voice of a child, but the look was. “Cris, I’m Cris.”
I wanted to say out loud, Your first time should be with someone you care about. Your virginity should go to someone you love. But I didn’t want to embarrass him more than he already was, so instead I said, “Fine.” I looked at Thea. “Thea can taste my power.” I did not add that I hoped she didn’t like the power, because nothing was going to make me pick any of their sons.
Sons. Children. It made me remember why we had pregnancy tests in our overnight bag. Would I be bargaining for some sort of arranged shacking-up for my own child some day? I mean, no matter who the father was, none of us was exactly human, and most of us were scarily powerful. Shit. I wished I hadn’t thought of that.
Thea was in front of me, her head to one side, studying my face. “You look worried, Anita, very worried, as if you’ve thought of something new to fret over.”
That was a little too perceptive. I was really going to have to work harder at hiding my facial expressions tonight. I tried for a little truth. “Samuel is only the second master vamp I’ve ever met with a grown child, or children. It’s just…weird.”
Micah leaned more of himself against the arm he was holding. Nathaniel cuddled in tighter to my back, though the gun kept him from being as comforting as I wanted him to be. They knew what I’d thought of, or maybe they’d been thinking the same thing, or something close to it.
Thea turned her head to the other side, and it didn’t remind me of anything aquatic. It reminded me of a bird of prey judging the distance to my eye.
I shivered. Please, God, don’t let me be pregnant.
She touched my face with fingers that were still fever warm. “It is not I who put that frown between the dark beauty of your eyes.”
I drew my head back enough not to be touched. “Very poetic. Let’s get this done, Thea. We’re wasting moonlight.”
She gave a smile that reminded me of the one that Tom had used just before he blushed and bit his lip, and admitted wanting to have sex with me. The twins looked very much like her except for the eyes.
“Very well, but your men will have to step away. I do not know what the effect would be if they were touching you while I do this. It might raise the ardeur for certain, or…”
“Or what?” I asked.
“Or they might bolster your defenses and keep me from testing your power at all.” She gave a movement of pale shoulders that was almost a shrug, but not quite. “I will treat you as I treat Samuel. I will tell you the truth. I simply am not certain. If you were a vampire then I might know, but you are more, and less. You are not simply one thing or the other, but both, and many. I think it must change the rules of power and magic around you.”
I took in a deep breath, let it out slow, and nodded. I moved forward and Micah and Nathaniel moved back. They gave me the room we asked for. I’m not sure any of us were sure it was a good idea, but if she found me wanting then there were three very unpalatable pomme de sang candidates off the table. Yippee.
Thea took me in her arms again, and I didn’t fight it. I even wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t try to control my head this time. She trusted me to let her kiss me.
I actually went up on tipto
e for her, which meant she was closer to six feet than I’d thought. I found myself putting a hand along the edge of her face as if this were a kiss that I wanted. Sometimes I touched someone’s face because it was intimate. Sometimes I touched them because a hand on the face helps you control the kiss more if things get out of hand. Two guesses which reason it was this time, and first guess doesn’t count.
7
SHE KISSED ME, and this time I didn’t fight her. I let my body melt into hers, let her feed at my mouth. There is a moment in a kiss, especially an open-mouth kiss, where the caress of lips and tongue spills over some line, and beyond that line, you kiss back. I kissed her, kissed her as she was meant to be kissed, full and complete, tasting her.
I drew back enough to whisper, “You taste salty.”
She breathed her answer in my mouth, as she drew me back into the kiss, “You taste of blood.” Her breath filled my mouth, caressed the back of my throat. Her breath tasted fresh and clean like the wind off the ocean.
Her lips tasted like she had just that second taken a sip of the ocean. I licked her lip, and found that there was a whitish film on the fullness of her mouth. It wasn’t illusion. It was real.
I swallowed the salty taste of her lips, staring up at her, feeling the surprise on my face. “How…” But I never finished the question, because I didn’t just swallow the taste of salt, I swallowed her power.
I heard the ocean whispering against the shore. I could hear it like music. I looked around the room. I wanted to ask someone else if they could hear it. I meant to look for Micah, or Nathaniel, but that wasn’t who caught my gaze. Thomas was staring at me with wide eager eyes. His brother had collapsed to the love seat, and was covering his ears with his hands, rocking back and forth. Cristos was fighting it, whatever it was, but Thomas wasn’t. Sampson had a death grip on the love seat, but his eyes had drowned to black so that he looked blind. The other man and woman they’d brought with them turned black eyes to me. The woman was hugging herself, as if cold, or afraid. The man had a death grip on his own wrist, the typical jock pose turned into something harsh and struggling, as if, if he let go of his wrist, he would do something unfortunate. Last I found Samuel’s eyes. His eyes had bled to vampire fire, the glowing brown with flecks of green flame in their depths. They all could hear it, that whispering, seductive sound. The ocean was calling, and I didn’t know how to answer.
I was still staring into Samuel’s eyes when I felt a hand glide down my shoulder. I turned, and found Thomas standing next to us. Thea began to pull out of my arms, giving me to Thomas’s arms as she moved, so that it was as if the embrace never stopped, only the arms holding me had changed.
There was movement around us. I saw Micah’s face, his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was the sigh and echo of the sea. Thomas touched my face, turned me back to look at him. He spoke, and his words held the growling echo of surf over rocks. “You hear my voice though, don’t you?”
I nodded, my face pressed against his hand. His hand was large enough to cup the entire side of my face. He leaned down, and I went up on tiptoe to help him finish the kiss. I wasn’t thinking that he was seventeen. I wasn’t thinking we had an audience that included his parents. I wasn’t thinking that men I loved were watching. I saw nothing but his face, felt nothing but the strength of his hands on my face, his arm trailing down my back, his hand gliding down my body. The inside of my head was peaceful, full of a soft, rushing sound, like water as it spills along some peaceful shore. I wasn’t the one who fought free of the mind games, it was Thomas who spoiled it. His hand slid down, down, and found the gun at the small of my back. It made him hesitate. Made him stumble as if his magic had legs to be tripped by a misplaced stone.
I pulled back from him, saw the uncertainty on his face. He was still handsome, and the compulsion to touch him was still there whispering through my head, but his eyes were wide, his face uncertain. He looked fresh and new and untried, like someone who had never hugged someone and found her wearing a gun.
The sound of the surf pulled away, and I could hear the murmuring in the room. People wondering what to do, whether they should interfere.
“That’s a gun,” he said, in a voice as uncertain as his face.
I nodded. I had gone back to being flat-footed on my heels, no more tiptoe, no more helping him seduce me with his mother’s magic, or his own.
He’d actually missed the big knife down my spine, because he hadn’t come to the midline of my body until low on my back. But it was a big weapon to miss. Baby, he was a baby. And I’d have said that if he’d been twenty-seven instead of seventeen. Baby not in years, but in my world. You don’t miss a knife as long as a forearm, not and live, not for long. Not in my world.
I gazed up into his face. The black was beginning to drain away, showing the hazel of his human eyes. He was the son of a master vampire and a siren, but where he lived was a gentler, kinder place than my life. I would leave him to that gentleness.
I drew out of his arms, completely. “Go back and sit down, Thomas.”
He hesitated and looked at his mother. She was watching me, not him. Watching me with those black eyes. There was a considering look on her face, as if she wasn’t sure what she thought of the show.
“Do as Anita says, Thomas,” she said, at last.
He went back to the love seat, to sit beside his brother. It left Thea and me staring at each other.
“He hesitated only for a moment,” she said, “yet, it was enough.”
“It’s not his power,” I said, “not yet. It’s yours. You loaned him enough power to roll me.”
She made a gesture that was almost a shrug, but her hands went out in a wide gesture. I think it meant, Perhaps, or, You caught me. I wasn’t sure which, and wasn’t sure I cared.
“You have greeted Thomas, but we have two other sons,” she said.
Micah came up beside me. He took my hand. “In fairness to our other guests, I think we need to greet more of Auggie’s people.”
“They are only his henchmen, and his mistress. We have brought you our flesh and blood, the fruit of our lives.”
Micah nodded, still smiling. “We appreciate that, but—”
I cut him off, and said, “Enough, Micah, thanks for trying to be all polite and hosty, but I’ve had enough of games for the night.”
He squeezed my hand, as if saying, Be nice.
I squeezed back, but I was done being nice. I wouldn’t be rude, but…“I’m going to greet Auggie and his people now, because they didn’t try to roll me. Until Jean-Claude joins us, you and your sons are just going to have to wait to be greeted.”
“So Augustine’s whore is higher in rank than my sons?” Thea sounded genuinely angry.
There was a sound of outrage from the other side of the room—a woman’s voice protesting and Auggie trying to calm her. I glanced to find him talking to a statuesque brunette in a very tiny dress. She was mad, and I didn’t blame her.
I turned back to Samuel. “You talk to her, Samuel. You explain that your wife damn near abused our hospitality tonight.”
“If we have truly abused your hospitality, then Jean-Claude could revoke our safe conduct,” he said, voice deep, but strangely soft.
“I understand that.”
“Did we frighten you that badly?” he asked.
“I agreed to Thea tasting my power, not Thomas. It wasn’t what we negotiated for. I was told you were an honorable man; bait and switch isn’t very honorable.”
“Could you hear anything we said while Thomas touched you?” Micah asked.
I glanced at him, and shook my head. “I could hear his voice and the sound of the sea, that was it.”
“I pointed out to Samuel that you hadn’t bargained for Thomas.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that for a siren to truly taste your power it needed to have a sexual flavor to it, and since you were not a lover of women, one of the boys would be helpful.”
“I saw into your mind when I embraced you,” she said. “I saw what you think of my sons. You are disinclined toward them. Without magic to persuade you, I do not think they have any chance at your bed, your body, or your power.”
My pulse was suddenly in my throat. I fought to keep a blank face, but wasn’t sure I succeeded. How much had she read while she was playing inside my head? Did she know about the pregnancy scare?
Thea was watching me very narrowly. She saw the fear on me, but didn’t understand why. Which meant either she’d only read things about her sons in my head, or she didn’t understand why being pregnant would scare me. If the former, yea; if the latter, she was too odd for me to talk to.
I turned to Auggie and his angry girlfriend. She was the only woman on his side of the room. Standing in the spike heels she was over six feet tall. But whereas with Claudia it was all muscle, and menace, this woman was thin. There was no play of muscle to her arms and legs. She was making angry gestures with large hands, darkly painted nails, a diamond flashing on her right hand. Her dress was red with silver sequins. It fit her like a tiny, glittery second skin. The dress was so short that when she flounced around the couch, taking too long a step, she flashed enough flesh that I knew she wasn’t wearing anything under the dress. Oh, my.
Auggie coaxed her back to me. Her face was perfect in a high-cheekboned, almost stark way. She wore enough makeup, artfully applied, that stark should not have been a word you used for her face. Her hair was long, and teased too high on the top, as if she’d never quite left the eighties, but it was brunette. It might even have been her natural color. The spaghetti straps of her dress and the thin material should not have been able to support her breasts. Breasts that large do not stay perky without more help than the dress could give. Her breasts sat under the dress in a way that real breasts just don’t. She flounced toward me, holding Auggie’s hand. The walk was good, bouncy, but her breasts didn’t bounce with her. They were big, and even shapely, but they rode under her dress like they were way more solid than breasts are meant to be.
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