by Viola Grace
“I know.”
“Will you forgive me?”
She paused and set her computer down on a bedside table. “I suppose I could. You appear to have the general idea of things. I don’t know who Arthur let you hook up with before, but I expect a certain amount of manners in my partners. I don’t mind the biting, but make sure that it is authorized before we start.”
He lifted his head. “Would you like compensation for the injury?”
“No, it has healed already.” She sighed. “I would just like to cuddle and watch a movie.”
“I am a very warm companion.” His yellow eyes were bright as he looked up at her.
She dismissed her armour, and it faded off her in a slow undulation that he followed with his gaze. “No funny stuff, right?”
“No. And as for the women that Arthur took to his bed, none of them lasted more than an hour. They came and went.”
She snorted, and he sat up, revealing an erection as intent as any that she had imagined. He sighed, and she got the remote, flipping through the channels until she was watching her favourite movie.
“Are you serious about cuddling?”
He moved against the headboard and put a pillow across his lap. She curled up against him and settled in to watch the movie. He stroked her arm and her back, and she pressed her head to his chest. She watched the characters meet and miss and meet again and slowly fell asleep.
* * * *
Let me take over. Arthur’s tone in their mind was calm.
No. I can keep her warm while she sleeps.
Arthur was surprised by that. If the ogre didn’t have a chance for physical exertion, it usually left things to him. When he took lovers, the ogre got the energy benefit, but he did not manifest. The introduction of Stinger had been a novelty that he had wanted to try for himself. Arthur had been caught by surprise and then lightly stunned when Stinger didn’t bat an eye at this other part of him. The ogre had been delighted.
Now, that ogre was watching an Asian romance with subtitles and a lot of cuts for dramatic pauses. Surprisingly, he was enjoying it, but he was also getting drowsy. Arthur would be able to return to control when he nodded off.
He had heard what Stinger had said about the breeder contract, and now that he was in part of his mind where logic reigned, he guessed that her father being missing had been harder on her than she let her family know. She would not risk her child being left without resources. She would not risk her child being in the same situation she was without an identifiable father. It was a fair requirement.
The thought of Stiila carrying his baby filled him with heat. He had no idea where she was in her cycle, but he hoped that she didn’t get pregnant for a while. Stovos wouldn’t send him out of town with the contract binding them. There was a conference call with him tomorrow morning to discuss it.
The ogre was a lot more careful with Stiila than he had thought. It set his mind at ease and made him smile. If Stiila bore a child with black hair, his mother would be delighted.
Oh, shit. His mother and her family would want an introduction, but they wouldn’t accept it if she was just a breeder. He had better propose just to finalize things.
* * * *
Stinger changed to her next favourite anime with a petite girl and a huge cyborg who used to be her partner.
She went back to relaxing against ogre-Arthur and was surprised to hear the ogre ask, “What would you say if we asked you to partner with us permanently?”
She rubbed her cheek on his chest. “That sounds nice, but I am not trying to trap anyone. We don’t know anything about each other. Sex is not a good place to start.”
“It is an excellent place to start if you are what we are. Why would you think otherwise?”
“Because no one needs to be stuck in a situation they didn’t choose. I needed a place for power to go, and he offered it to me. It wasn’t because I was a good conversationalist or anything.”
“Is that what makes a union? In the ogre clans, it is authorization from family and nothing else. In the local warlock families, it is consent between the parties and registration with the guild.” He chuckled and smoothed his hand over her back and hips. “How long do you think that takes?”
She shrugged. “More than two days.”
The voice changed. “It’s true. The current average is that they lock in after twelve hours and formalize the union within two weeks.”
“But, Nessa had a wedding, and Meredith is having one.” She took the hand that Arthur extended.
“Their families had a need for one. They are very much in the public eye, and Meredith is not a power on her own. She needs more banal bonds to appear wed before friends and family.”
“I will stick to the breeder contract. It has clearly defined edges. If I don’t get pregnant in three months, we are both free, and if the contract has been pushing us together for that long, we will be sick of each other by then.”
He held her hand and brought it to his lips. “I very much doubt that.”
She looked up at his bronze skin and golden hair. “I don’t know. I haven’t ever had a long-term relationship.”
“And you want a child?”
“I figure that I will be able to ease into it with a baby. Months to get used to the idea, and then, I get to meet the little person.”
“What am I doing while you are having this child?”
“I don’t know; I suppose that you can resume your normal activities until it arrives.”
“What if I don’t want to? What if I want a home and family? What if I have missed them as much as you have? My family has been running from yours for eons.”
Stinger leaned up on one arm and looked at him. “I hadn’t thought of that. Did you travel a lot?”
“We did. The short weeks with Grandma Baker were the only rest we had.” He shrugged. “We spent a lot of time in Japan, and then, we headed to continental Asia and just travelled.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“A few. Some are dialects rather than individual languages. Do you speak anything aside from English and Japanese?”
She paused. “How did you know that?”
“I used to stay in your room. I saw all the manga you had piled up, none of it translated. Then, there were the videos, with no subtitles, and everything you said with the ogre was in Japanese as that is his native language, so the cat is rather out of the bag.”
She blushed. “I didn’t notice.”
Arthur stroked her cheek. “I know. You would look very cute in a kimono or out of one. The idea of that heavy silk sliding off your shoulders... damn.”
“I thought kimono were supposed to stay put.” She crawled up him and put her chin on his shoulder.
He grinned. “And the mixed-gender bathing can be quite nice, or so I hear. I have never tried it since I had my growth spurt. People got very excited about it.”
She chuckled and curled in close as she nodded off again, listening to him describing the temples near his mother’s family’s home and the festivals that went on. He spoke softly, and she let him talk her to sleep.
Chapter Nine
She woke with her hands held in one of his across his chest. Stiila tried to ease her hands away, and he murmured, “Good morning, Stiila.”
“Good morning, Arthur. Is it morning?”
He chuckled. “It is, technically. You had a trying day yesterday.”
“I tried several things yesterday. Which do you think was the tipping point?”
“Yikes, you wake up fast.”
She chuckled. “Can I have my hands, please?”
He released them and then brought each one to his lips.
“Would you like to establish any little rituals during our contract?”
“Like what?”
“A morning kiss, a kiss when we meet after being away from each other for more than four hours. I am getting these rules from Aunt Kallie and Uncle Cian. They get along well.”
“But y
our uncle consumes energy from your aunt.”
She slumped. “Right, it isn’t necessary for us.” She mentally kicked herself for wanting to emulate a behaviour that she always found sweet. She sighed. She had drawn the sharp edges around their interaction, and she had just found a corner.
She looked around. “What time is it?”
“Three in the morning.”
She blinked. “Oh. I feel...”
“Well-rested?” He grinned.
“Um, yes.” She sat up and pulled her braid to one side. Wait, braid? “What happened here?”
“I don’t sleep much and wanted to see if I could do it one-handed.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t do it with one hand, so the ogre said he could and sat here combing and braiding your hair most of the night.”
“That would explain why I don’t have bed head or hair in my mouth. That is new.”
“It has been the first time that he has appeared and left without a fight.” He stretched, and she winced. He had been dozing sitting up. That couldn’t have been comfortable.
“Sorry that I was using you as a pillow.” Stinger didn’t know what to do, so she rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
She used the restroom, brushed her teeth, and then paused, looking down at her thighs suspiciously. She hadn’t cleaned up after the last encounter with the ogre, so where was the residue?
She washed her face and slid on the soft cotton robe provided by the hotel. It seemed weird to creep past the bedroom, but she wanted her computer.
His voice came through the open doorway. “Your computer is in here. You brought it in last night.”
She winced and walked back into the bedroom. He was holding the computer in his hand. Stinger sat on the edge of the bed, and she opened her computer, scrolling through the emails that had been coming in. Her mother asked her not to come home for a few days. Abrax was staying while they discussed things.
She sighed. She responded that was fine. She would stay at the hotel until after Meredith’s wedding.
She confirmed her assignment as security at the gallery Wednesday evening. A heavy chin rested on her shoulder. “You are acting as security?”
She was going to turn her head, but her nose literally hit his cheek. “Um. Yes. Urgent Books has asked me to keep people moving and away from the older artwork on display.”
He pressed a kiss to her neck. “I happen to have an invitation for that event.”
“Good for you. I am working.” She twisted her lips in amusement.
“I can give you a ride home that night.” He pressed another kiss to her neck.
“Don’t you have to go straight from work or something?”
“Mr. Twilight ensures that all of his staff are driven to and from events so that the likelihood of kidnapping is reduced and the possibility of DUIs are nil.”
“So, I would be leaving the event in one of the corporate cars. No thanks. I don’t know when I will be done. I wouldn’t want to keep you from much-needed rest.”
“How is your mother doing?”
“How did you know she had sent me an email?”
“She hasn’t been calling you, nor you her, so there had to be another way to get into contact.” He chuckled. “You both had unusual afternoons, so I will guess that you would need to discuss things.”
“Not really. Her sex life is her own business.” She smiled.
“That is a very open attitude.”
She turned her head, and they were face to face. “You haven’t been around many women with transferable power, have you? Moods, hormones, power, it all flows.”
She looked at him, and his eyes crossed. She smiled. “The PMS damage around my mother’s home is tremendous. That is what made us move from Nana Baker’s. Mood swings and exploding trees. What happened to your grandfather?”
“No one knows. All we know is that full power transferred to my father when he was in his forties.”
“Wait. You aren’t at full power yet?”
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her. “Nope. Probably won’t get it until I am old and wrinkled if my mom has any say in it. She is keeping my dad ridiculously healthy.”
“So, yours passes on as a straight inheritance?”
“Yes. Doesn’t yours?”
“Abrax said that he lost the compulsion eighteen years ago when I was fourteen. That was after I had gotten control of the power that I did have, and then, it got turned up exponentially, and I had to start learning all over again.”
“Compulsion?”
“To follow the current Orion.”
“So, it is an actual compulsion.”
“It is. Apparently, I restrained my stalking to the continent. I know the feeling of the push and not knowing why.”
His eyes widened. “Because no one taught you what it was.”
“Correct. Nurture over nature in that case. I didn’t know why I was supposed to be stalking you, so I didn’t.” She shrugged. “I just kept showing up in the cities you were travelling to.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when I would arrive in the place I was being pushed to, I would be able to relax. So, my eighteenth birthday, my twenty-first, friends’ baby showers, bachelorettes, girls’ nights, they were all within a few blocks of whatever you were doing, which based on the neighbourhoods that my friends frequent, it was either a land deal or strippers.”
He blinked. “How could you know that?”
She chuckled. “We hung out in a lot of warehouse districts.”
“Alone?”
“I come from mage blood. We do a lot of stuff without men to chaperone us.”
He blinked and grinned. “Fair enough.”
He slid his hand into her robe, cupping her breast.
She looked down then up at him. “Where did that come from?”
“I have been thinking about it since you were sleeping.” He smiled. “I behaved myself.”
“This is behaving?”
He thumbed her nipple and squeezed her breast lightly but firmly. “You are awake, aware, and have full ability to issue a yea or nay.”
She huffed and pressed her knees together. She slowly closed her laptop. It levitated off of her lap and settled securely out of standing or kicking distance.
“I will take it that that is a yes.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “It is.”
He smiled and pulled her onto his lap, undoing the belt of her robe until it slid off her shoulders. He bent his head to her breast, and she threaded her fingers through his hair and gasped as every part of her woke up in his arms. When he started to get hotter, she became wary, and when he got larger, she sighed with a chuckle. “You like sex in the mornings?”
He moved to the other breast and chuckled, his hand caressing her with the back of his knuckles. “I like it any time I can get it.”
“I see.”
“I am glad. You do not mind?”
She looked at him and his hopeful expression. “I do not mind, just no blood without consent, and watch the nails.”
He nodded. “I can do that.”
Stinger smiled. “In that case, Arthur, I put myself in your hands.”
He grinned, showing the locking canines. “I will be careful with you.”
He rubbed the back of his knuckles between her thighs until she widened them. She was already slick from the attention to her breasts. He kissed her, and his long tongue flicked into her mouth. She wasn’t able to reciprocate, and she figured out that he was tasting her.
When he withdrew, she looked at him with narrowed eyes. “When will you stop tasting me?”
“When I know all of you. Arthur needs to know as well in case you are ever in danger.”
“How is knowing what I taste like going to help if I am in danger?”
He smiled. “When we know all of you, we can know where you are at all times.”
“Creepy.”
“As if your following of us across the continent has not
been creepy?”
“I didn’t know I was doing it, and when this contract is over, he will be free to make himself available to gym bunnies again.” She blinked. “Can this be reversed?”
“Can what be reversed?”
“The tracking.”
“No. Once we have bound to you, it is permanent. His gym bunnies are no longer a concern.” His fingers continued to rock against her.
She gripped his wrist. “This is a mistake.”
He paused. “What is?”
“This. You keep telling me that we are mates. We aren’t.” She panicked, and her breathing was coming faster.
He met her gaze, and he removed his hand from her as he gathered her to him. He licked at his knuckles absently. “What frightens you so much that you won’t tell him?”
She swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“When I mention that we are mates, you panic. Your heart pounds, you go pale, and it is only when you insist that this is only for the breeding contract that you calm down. If the breeding contract gets us into your bed and body, then that is the means we will use.”
“I don’t know how to think of a future.” She murmured it. “I have seen so many women who deluded themselves with forever and were willing to pay anything for it... and they did.”
He lifted her chin, and his thumb wiped at the tear that she didn’t realize was on her cheek. “So, you will take an ogre to your bed, but you are afraid of a union of equals?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to be a couple. How to make space for another person in my life. It is too big a challenge. I don’t even have a home.”
“Ah. Well, that should be remedied first. Did you want to move near your mother?”
“Um, no. I would definitely prefer to be in a place that is accessible when stuff like the current weather kicks in.” Stinger nodded. “But maybe with a large yard.”
His body cooled to normal body temperature ranges. “A fenced yard?”
“An acreage. I like to do whip practice when I have a chance, and finding space to do it is always difficult.”