Serpentine

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I had to shoo a couple of them out of hearing range, because Bettina moving away had given them even more hope. Bernardo had to be charming at a couple of more, and they hovered nearby like vultures waiting for the handsome gazelle to stop struggling. Some of the women found other chairs beside the pool and tried to drape themselves artfully, or blatantly, waiting for Bernardo to finish talking to me. He ignored them all; that would have been enough to make me walk away. I don't deal with being ignored.

  He pulled a chair over so I could sit and leaned in toward me. "What is Dixie threatening to tell Becca?"

  I told him.

  His face showed the shock. "Fuck," he said with deep feeling.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "But I thought that Donna and Edward cleared all that up. Donna doesn't believe you guys were an item, right?"

  "Not anymore," I said.

  "Then what is Dixie's problem?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "What can we do to minimize the damage?"

  "You tell Edward when he and Donna come back out of their room," I said.

  "Why can't you tell him?"

  "Because this is supposed to be a romantic trip for the three of us, and Micah and I have already disappointed Nathaniel once today. They're waiting in our room for me now."

  He motioned toward the waiting women. "And I don't have people waiting for me?"

  "You haven't bagged and tagged yours yet; I have."

  He sat back in his chair. "You think I couldn't have a woman in my bed within the next few minutes?"

  I laughed. "I know you could, but would it be the one you wanted?"

  "I want them all," he said, smiling and obviously pleased with himself.

  I shook my head. "I know that's not true."

  He looked a little less pleased. "How do you know that?"

  "You're pickier than that just on the beauty scale alone."

  He studied me through his dark glasses, now firmly back hiding his eyes. "So are you."

  "Don't compare my dating preferences to yours. I'm a lot pickier than you are."

  "That's fair," he said, and then he smiled, adding, "You know, if you wanted to join me and one of the beauties here by the pool, you could."

  I laughed. "I've got my own threesome waiting for me in my room, but thanks for thinking of me."

  He laughed, too. "I thought you liked girls now, or are you just dating them to make your guys happy?"

  I shook my head. "I told you, Bernardo--fantasize about me with other women on your own time, and when you meet the other women in my life you will fantasize."

  He gave me a smile that was almost a leer. "Can't wait to meet them."

  "So, will you tell Edward?" I asked.

  "I'll tell him before I pick my afternoon delight."

  "You did not just say afternoon delight." I lowered my sunglasses enough so he could see me roll my eyes.

  He laughed, lowering his own glasses so he could wiggle his eyebrows at me.

  "Good luck," I said, and started to walk away. Nicky and Rodina settled on either side of me. I glanced back, and Bettina was already at his side, but then so were a few of the other women. Rodina said, "I'm beginning to see why you never slept with your work friend."

  "Yeah, I don't like being part of a herd," I said.

  She glanced back and said, "Moo."

  I glanced back, too. Bettina had climbed into Bernardo's lap, but the other women hadn't given up yet. One was starting to give him a back rub. I followed Nicky, with Rodina bringing up the rear. I watched the back of Nicky's body, the spread of his shoulders and his ass as he walked away from me. It made me happy to know that he was mine. Micah and Nathaniel were waiting for me back at the room, and I was looking forward to joining them. I liked that I had people in my life and that we were sure of one another. We were poly, but we were secure in our group. I liked that, a lot. My own love life always interested me more than anyone else's.

  28

  WE WERE ALMOST to our room when I saw a tall, dark-haired man coming toward us. He had to be over six feet tall or I couldn't have seen him over Nicky's body. It took me a second to realize it was Peter Parnell, Donna and Edward's son. When had he gotten that tall and how had I not recognized him? Part of it was me still wearing the sunglasses in the dimmer hallway, but a lot of it was that at nineteen he was finally filling out into the man he'd be for the rest of his life. If I hadn't known that both Nathaniel and I grew several inches after age nineteen, I'd have said he was done.

  Nicky moved slightly to the side so that Peter and I could see each other better, I think. I guess I was completely hidden behind him. Genetics and working out had broadened Peter's shoulders and just helped fill out his arms and legs and everything in between so he looked more finished than he had even a year ago. His hair had gone from deep brown to a nearly black brown. It was short except on top, where he'd left it long so that his bangs, if that was the right word, fell across the edge of one eyebrow, because he swept his hair to the side and did something to it so that it stayed that way. He had a habit of running his fingers through just that part of his hair now. I wasn't sure if it was to make sure it stayed where he wanted it, or if he'd started styling it that way because of the habitual gesture.

  I studied his face as we walked toward each other, trying to see the shadow of the young boy I'd first met, but all I could see was this big, athletic stranger walking toward me. Well, not quite a stranger, because he looked so much like the picture of his dead father that Donna kept in the living room that it was a little disturbing. She was the only person I knew who kept a picture of her first husband when she was with someone else, but maybe that was because she'd been widowed. No, that couldn't be it, because my father didn't keep any pictures of my mother out, and my stepmother, Judith, didn't keep any of her first husband out either, and they were a widow and a widower. Maybe it was a Donna thing, or maybe she wanted her kids to remember him. Whatever her motive, I wondered how Peter felt seeing his dead father's face in the mirror every morning.

  "Do I have something on my face?" Peter asked as we all came together in the middle of the hallway.

  I shook my head. "No, well, wait, is that a five-o'clock shadow?"

  He grinned and there was a glimpse of the kid I'd met all those years ago. It made me smile to see it. "Maybe I'll see if I can grow a beard."

  "If you stop shaving before the wedding, your mom will kill you."

  He laughed. It was a deep chuckle, and there was nothing little boy about it. I was happy for him growing up, but sometimes I missed Peter from a few years ago. I wondered if this was a tiny bit of how parents feel when they watch their kids grow up: happy and sad all at once.

  Peter noticed both Rodina and Nicky, but he looked longer at the man. Peter had only been introduced to Nicky as my or Nathaniel's bodyguard on trips to New Mexico, at first. He had been fine with Nicky; he hadn't even had the issue that most men did with Nicky being physically intimidating, until he found out that Nicky was my lover. He'd liked Nicky less after that. I'd known that Peter had had a crush on me for a while, but I hadn't thought that it might bother him if I added new men to our poly group.

  Nicky said, "Peter."

  "Nicky."

  Rodina smiled at them both and then looked down to hide it. She was the ultimate spy and centuries-old assassin; she could control her facial expressions, which meant she wanted Peter to notice, because Nicky wouldn't care. Peter glanced at her, noticing. Why did she want him to see it? I'd ask her later, but I didn't try to hide my irritation with her. Brides were supposed to want to keep me happy, right?

  I said, "Why aren't you out by the pool? I know Edward made sure you know how to swim."

  He rolled his eyes, and again, that was something he'd done when I first met him. Peter was still in there, just bigger. "While Uncle Bernardo is holding tryouts for his bimbo of the night, no, thanks."

  It was my turn to laugh. "Fair enough."

  "I would think you could give Bern
ardo a run for his money with his bimbos," Rodina said.

  I looked at her, but she was looking at Peter like a girl looks at an attractive guy. Was she flirting with him? Why would she be flirting with him?

  I looked at Peter; I mean, really looked at him. I tried to look at him not as Edward and Donna's son, but as a person. He was a little too traditionally masculine for my preferences. I preferred pretty or beautiful to handsome, and his face was longer than I liked, but it was a good face, a strong face. The hair spilling around his eyes gave him that careless bad-boy look. His eyes were a nice solid brown, deep and dark and full of a force of personality that I liked, though not everyone likes that amount of internal fire. But I did. His lower lip was fuller than his upper one, but I could see running my thumb along that pouting lower lip. I realized with almost a shock that Peter was a good-looking guy, and there was a reason that he'd been able to pass for twenty-one before he was eighteen. He didn't look like a kid anymore and probably hadn't for a while. I just hadn't noticed.

  Peter looked at Rodina. "I don't think I'm in the same league as Uncle B."

  "He's a little too pretty for my taste. I like my men to be more handsome than pretty," she said. She gave him a look out from under her eyelashes. There's only one reason any woman gives that look to anyone. She was flirting. In my head I wanted to say, But why are you flirting with him? But her reaction to him had made me see Peter not as a kid, but as a grown-up, and if you liked your men closer to the rugged, handsome side of the scale, then he was worth flirting with, weird as that seemed to me.

  "We're working," Nicky said.

  "But once Anita is safely in her room with Micah and Nathaniel, then we won't be working anymore," she said.

  I looked at her and had to bite my tongue, because what I wanted to say was No. I wanted to tell her she couldn't sleep with Peter. He was Edward's son; my bodyguards weren't allowed to sleep with his kid. But was that fair? Was it fair to Peter? Was I being overly protective? When Peter was fourteen, some very bad people had kidnapped him and Becca. It hadn't been Edward's fault. They'd been bad guys Donna's preservation society had actually gotten on the wrong side of, but it had been Edward, Bernardo, Otto, and me who had gone in and saved the kids. We'd saved them, but not in time for Peter. His first sexual experience had been abuse, and I could never make that not have happened. I could never truly save Peter, and that fact haunted me and colored how I felt about him. I knew that, but knowing it didn't make it go away. Fuck.

  My phone beeped. It was a text from Micah. "What's taking so long, sweetheart?"

  Nathaniel texted a second later. "Where are you?"

  "What?" Peter asked.

  "Texts from Micah and Nathaniel."

  "Nathaniel's really been looking forward to this trip with the two of you," Peter said.

  "I know," I said.

  "We should get you tucked into your room so you can start enjoying your trip," Rodina said. Her face was completely blank and businesslike as she said it, but there should have been a smile with it.

  "Go have fun," Peter said and turned to go.

  "Don't go too far," Rodina said.

  He frowned at her, as if trying to figure out if she was kidding.

  Again, I had another moment of wanting to play parent or big sister or auntie, or something, and tell Rodina to back off and Peter not to sleep with her. He was nineteen, legally an adult, and I wasn't his mom, his sister, or even his real aunt. I was his father's best friend. What rights did that give me in his life? Deeply conflicted did not begin to cover it.

  "We can change and go down to the pool," Rodina said.

  Peter shook his head. "I don't think so."

  "If you look as good out of your clothes as you do in them, I'm betting I'm not the only girl around the pool that prefers my men a little more rugged than your uncle."

  "Rugged, huh." He looked at me. It wasn't a friendly look. "You told her about the scars."

  "No," I said.

  Rodina looked from one to the other of us. "I meant masculine when I said rugged. Anita doesn't confide in me."

  "I don't believe you," he said, and he was just suddenly angry. I remembered another thing that Peter and I had in common--rage. He grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and yanked it up, showing that Edward wasn't the only one who had been working on his abs and that Peter had his own scars. The weretiger's claws had cut across his upper stomach and the right side of his upper chest, and I knew that higher up on the shoulder and his arm were scarred, too, because I'd been there when he'd almost died saving my life. It was the one and only time that Edward had brought Peter as backup for one of our "adventures." I'd made him swear that Peter wouldn't go into the family business again until he hit twenty-one. I'd have liked to get Edward's promise that Peter wouldn't go into the family business at all, but I knew better than to ask that.

  Rodina raised eyebrows and smiled. "Nice."

  "It's not nice," Peter said.

  "You're right, it's not nice; it's awesome. Scars like that are a badge of honor, Peter. It means something monstrous tried to kill you, but you killed it instead."

  "How do you know I killed it?"

  Rodina smiled. "Well, I did hear the story, but not from Anita. You saved her life, getting those scars."

  "Did they tell you that one of the other guards died helping me save her life?"

  Rodina's face went blank and unreadable. She stopped trying to flirt. "I heard."

  "His name was Cisco and he died to help me save Anita." The anger had turned to something cold and distant, and that was more Edward's flavor of anger than mine. Peter pulled his shirt down and just walked past us all and kept walking. I don't know what Rodina had been trying to accomplish with him, but I don't think this was it.

  She waited until Peter was out of earshot and then said, "I tried, Anita."

  "What were you trying to do?" I asked, and I couldn't keep the anger out of my own voice.

  "Help Peter feel better."

  "Why do you care how Peter feels?" I asked.

  "Because you care, my queen, and if Peter was happier, you'd be happier."

  I frowned at her. "I don't think my emotional health is tied that closely to Peter's happiness."

  "We are your Brides; we can feel when you're unhappy, and that is how you feel whenever you talk to him, or even talk about him."

  I looked at Nicky. "Is that true?"

  "Do you want me to answer that?" he asked.

  I sighed. "You just did." I don't know what I would have said next, because Micah texted me again: "Nathaniel isn't happy. Hurry, or we're going to have another fight on our hands." Well, shit.

  "Maybe you're right; maybe I am fucked up about Peter and Edward and his whole little family, but there's nothing I can do about it. But there's something I can do with Micah and Nathaniel to avoid another fight."

  "Go make Nathaniel happy," Nicky said. He even moved across the hallway and motioned at the door.

  "I will leave Peter alone, my queen. I'd hoped to make you and him happier, but the situation is more complicated than I understood."

  I looked at Rodina's blank and unreadable face. "Thanks, I guess." I got out my key card and went for the door to our room.

  29

  I CLOSED THE door behind me and leaned against it, letting out a breath of tension I hadn't even known I was holding. Rodina made me so tired, because how I felt about her and her brother was so damned complicated. Being tied to her metaphysically until she died, or I died, just seemed like a terrible idea. It worked with Nicky, because he made things easier. Rodina and Ru didn't seem to make anything easier. If they were all my Brides, then why were they so different? Why did they make me feel so different? The answer of course was that they weren't Nicky. I'd made the rookie mistake of assuming because my first relationship with a Bride was this way that they would all be the same. I knew it didn't work that way with real romantic relationships; why had I assumed that the rules would be different for Brides? Wishful thinkin
g? Stupidity?

  I looked up to find there was a living room with a desk with a flat-screen above it on one side and a couch on the other side. There were closet doors to my immediate right and a half bath to my left and a long stretch of empty living room. I knew that Micah had booked us a honeymoon suite, but I hadn't expected it to be bigger, just more honeymoon-y. Right now, the room could have been simply a nice business suite.

  I called out, "Hello, honeys, I'm home."

  "Bedroom." Micah's voice, but slightly distant. There was one more closed door in the living room area. Chances were that was the bedroom, and since there were no other doors that made sense to open, I pushed away from the door and forced myself to stand upright, shoulders back. I centered myself and then tried to push all the other issues away. I tried to focus on just Micah and Nathaniel and the fact that they were waiting for me behind this door. We were on a romantic trip together, damn it. I was not going to be the one who dropped the ball and ruined this moment for us.

  I opened the door in time to see Nathaniel jerk away from Micah's hand on his shoulder. They were wearing matching robes with the hotel logo on them. Nathaniel turned to me, and as soon as I saw his eyes I could feel the anger like heat along my skin. My own anger tried to flare up to meet his, as if his was just the spark I needed to burn us all up in one spectacular fight. I just stood there, breathing hard and trying to count slowly. I would not be the one that drew first blood. It would not be my fault if this afternoon went up in smoke. It would not be my issues that ruined today, damn it. My hands were already trying to curl into fists, my shoulders rolling forward. My beasts tried to ride the anger, but I thought at them, or myself, or both, Don't even try it! For once all my inner beasts just faded back, like a dog that had been chastised.

  "Bettina and I are Facebook friends." Nathaniel spit it at me like an accusation.