He thought about that for a few minutes. “It is possible, I grant you. But where does Alec fall in this theory of double cross and hidden agendas?”
“Oh, Alec.” I sank back into the water, enjoying its warm, silky feeling on my naked flesh. “Well, we know vampires can’t be reapers, even if they’re from the Ilargi side of the family, right?”
Kristoff made a vague gesture.
“Right, so, he can’t be an Ilargi, but he can work for one.”
“Why would he wish to participate in the stealing of souls?” Kristoff asked.
“He doesn’t want to. Or rather, it’s a necessary evil in order for him to ingratiate himself with Frederic.”
“The director?”
“Yes! Frederic is the Ilargi! Don’t you see? He’s doing a double-cross thing, just like you said. He got Denise out of the way, and now he’s going around eliminating ghosts so Zoryas can’t do anything with them. Alec probably contacted him with some weird tale of wanting to help the reapers without letting him know he was a vampire, so Frederic set him up to appear to be the Ilargi, just in case anyone nosed around.”
“Less experienced reapers would not recognize a Dark One as being such on sight, but I assume the director would,” Kristoff pointed out. “Sooner or later he would come face-to-face with Alec and know that he was not what he appeared.”
“Exactly.” I back-kicked a couple of feet. “But by then the illusion of Alec being the Ilargi was in place. I don’t doubt that he’s innocent, as your gut instinct said. They probably have him in maximum security back in Brotherhood Central. The reason he’s still alive is because they don’t have a Zenith, so therefore, they can’t fire up the local Zorya and get her to off him.”
“I hesitate to ask this, but my curiosity to hear your explanation outweighs my better judgment: Why would the director wish to effectively destroy the ghosts his organization was created to protect and aid?”
I smiled. “Because he’s mad, of course. He doesn’t care about ghosts anymore. All he wants is to rid the world of you guys, so he’s eliminating any distractions that would keep Zoryas from performing his purposes-killing vampires.”
“But there is no Zenith, and thus the murders can’t be performed.”
“That had me confused, too, until I realized something really obvious-the original purpose of the Zoryas was the ghost bit, right? And all the ceremonies and such were created around that. The stuff with the vampires came later, much later, so it’s quite probable that the rules just got grandfathered in. I’m willing to bet you that if a group of Brotherhood guys got together and started that evil cleansing ceremony, so long as they had a Zorya present, she could smite the hell out of her victims. The Zenith thing is just a holdover from days long past. And before you say we have no proof of that, may I remind you of this?”
I summoned a tiny ball of light and let it dance in front of his feet.
He looked at it without moving.
“If I wanted to, I could probably pull down enough light to seriously harm you, Kristoff. It may take a ceremony with a couple of Brotherhood guys channeling their powers to finish you off, but I’m sure we wouldn’t need a Zenith to do so. Frederic must have found this out. Remember that Denise was a Zorya before she was the Zenith. I bet somehow they found it out, and that started his convoluted plan.”
“Convoluted, indeed,” Kristoff said, still watching the light bobbing at his toes. I waved a hand and dissipated it.
“I just bet you that Frederic is making sure another Zenith isn’t named. Which all points to one very clear conclusion.”
“Yes, it does. It says that you are more tired than either of us realizes.”
I made a face at him. “No, silly. It means we’re going to have to deal with Frederic.”
“I agree. We will kill the director.”
I gawked at him. “How on earth did you jump from ‘we need to give Frederic the third degree’ to killing him?”
His eyes lightened a few shades. “He is manipulating you, Beloved. Your theory is interesting, but unproven at this time. It is more likely that if the director is not working with Alec, he is probably holding him prisoner. And since he is fortifying his defenses, he must expect an attack by us. You are my Beloved, a fact he knows. Do you honestly believe he will not attempt to destroy us should he be given the opportunity?”
I was silent for a moment, remembering the pain of the knife Frederic had wielded as it sank deep into my flesh. “I don’t condone what Frederic has done in the past. And I don’t appreciate him manipulating me, and he’s definitely up to no good. God knows I certainly don’t support the war between the Brotherhood and you vampires, but someone somewhere has to draw the line and end the war. Someone has to stop the killing. And I choose to be that person.”
To my surprise, a faint smile was visible on Kristoff’s adorable lips. “My mother would have liked you. She was frequently in the stocks for what the local nobleman who ruled the town called gross impertinence to his position. She always championed the downtrodden, and more than once came close to the gallows for her attempts to right what she saw as wrongs.”
“She sounds like she was a marvelous woman,” I said, and, tempted as I was to continue that line of conversation, I set it aside for a bit. “You’re not going to distract me from the discussion, Boo. Especially since you know I’m against unnecessary violence.”
He sighed, a weary expression on his face. “What would you have me do? Promise that no harm will come to any reaper?”
“No. I would like you to think about ways to get what we want without anyone dying.”
Water lapping gently at the rocks was the only sound for a few moments.
“I will not risk your life,” he said finally.
“Nor would I expect you to. Just don’t go into this with a no-quarter stance, OK?”
His expression was sour, as if he’d tasted something bad. “I do this under protest.”
“So noted.” I swam backward a couple of feet, determined to enjoy the few hours of respite granted to us. I allowed myself a few smutty thoughts about what I’d like to do to him before continuing. “Back to my original question-why aren’t you soaking in here with me?”
“My friend is continuing to track Alec’s last-known movements.” He glanced at his watch. “I expect the answer to come in shortly. Much as I would like to make love to you, Beloved, I must attend to this first.”
“You know what I say to that?” I asked, reaching beneath me to scoop up another handful of the white silica mud.
“Something that’s intended to irritate me, I’m sure,” he said with a mock sigh.
“No. I say: incoming!” I hefted the handful of dripping wet, slippery mud and flung it at his head.
The mud hit him full in the face with a wet splatting noise. He stood stunned for a moment before turning a really top-quality glare on me. “That was uncalled for,” he snapped, reaching for a towel.
“Oh, come on, Kristoff! Just come have a little dip with me, and then you can do all the tracking down that you like. I’ll help.”
He just continued to wipe the mud off his face and upper part of his shirt.
I scooped up another handful, and thought about pelting him until he gave up and came after me. But I didn’t want to force him into having a little fun. That would defeat the purpose of him having a few hours of relaxation. No, he just needed a little persuasion, something that would convince him of the benefits of taking a little time away from the burdens we both bore.
I smiled to myself, swimming toward the stone steps that led out of our private lagoon to the lounge. When I was close enough that the water was about waist-deep, I stood up.
Kristoff, dabbing off the last smidgen of mud, froze. I arched my back a little, thrusting my bare breasts forward.
“It’s too bad you can’t find a little time to relax,” I said, caressing my breasts with the chalky white mud, allowing it to slide slowly down my chest, trailing my fingers dow
n after it with long, sweeping strokes.
His eyes glittered with blue fire as he watched me.
“According to the spa brochure, this water is supposed to do all sorts of good things for you,” I cooed, scooping up two handfuls, pouring them over my now white breasts. “They have all sorts of treatment and massages available in the water, for a variety of ailments.”
His eyes widened, but he didn’t otherwise move.
I bent and got another handful of mud, slowly walking forward toward the stairs until the water was at my pubic bone. I slathered my belly with the mud, making little swirls and circles in it as I spread it lower.
I thought Kristoff’s eyes were going to bug right out of his head.
I dipped my fingers even lower. “But if you don’t want to experience the benefits and pleasures it is sure to give you, I’ll just have to enjoy it all by myself.”
A splash momentarily blinded me, water flying everywhere. I laughed when Kristoff, still fully clothed, stood before me with two handfuls of white mud.
“It would be a shame to miss such a natural phenomenon,” he agreed, his voice husky as he spread the mud on my breasts.
“You still have your clothes on,” I pointed out, then gasped as his head dipped and he took the tip of one breast into his mouth. “Oh, dear God. Kristoff!”
The last was in response to his hands, which had gone beneath the water and were busy with hidden parts of me. My knees threatened to buckle as his fingers danced along sensitive flesh.
You taste salty, he said, his mouth moving along my breastbone. I could swear his tongue was made of fire as it swirled and lapped.
It’s the water. It’s two-thirds seawater and one-third fresh. I read that in the brochure. . . . Boo!
He smiled into my neck as two fingers suddenly dipped inside me. Hundreds of normally dormant nerve endings suddenly sat up and took notice of him, tingling with delight at his touch.
You have too many clothes on. I whimpered, trying to get my hands to strip the wet clothes off him, but my body was too involved in the sensations his mouth and hands were generating for me to do much but stand and quiver with rapture.
Yes. I have clothing on, and you do not. It’s very wicked, is it not?
Definitely, but it also is keeping me from touching you, I said, groaning as a third finger joined the other two, his thumb making little swirls that almost had me sobbing. My brain didn’t know whether it should focus on the wonderful feeling his fingers were generating, the sensation of my breasts rubbing against the slightly abrasive wet cloth of his shirt, or the fire that his mouth was trailing as he kissed a wet path along my shoulder.
Perhaps I do not wish to be touched, he answered, his teeth nipping the flesh of my upper arm.
I let him see a mental picture of what exactly I wanted to do to him. He froze for a moment, then in a move that was literally too fast for me to see, he stripped off all his clothing, the dull thud of his shoes hitting the stone floor of the lounge the last thing I heard before he was back in my arms, his body, wet and warm and hard as the lava rocks around us, holding my entire attention.
Where were we? he said, then smiled into my mind. Here, I think . . .
I squealed as his fingers resumed their previous activity. “Two can play at that, mister.”
I had a handful of mud ready, and slid it down his chest and stomach, gently biting his shoulder as I let my hands go even lower, down to his erection. “Now, see? I knew this would benefit you. Sparky is all happy.”
“Sparky?” he asked, nipping my earlobe. “I can live with a pet name for me, but I draw the line at naming body parts.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, taking him in both hands, gently exploring the territory. “So you wouldn’t approve of my calling your penis ‘Raging Stallion’?”
His eyes crossed for a moment as I discovered a particularly sensitive spot. “Raging Stallion works for me,” he said with a gasp.
“I thought so. Now, why don’t you go sit over there on that bottom step, and I think we’ll be far enough out of the water so I won’t drown while I perform a therapeutic genital massage.”
The fire in his eyes kicked up a couple of notches. “Did you read about that in the brochure, too?”
“No, that’s something I thought of on my own. You look like you need a little personal attention. Sit.”
An oddly obstinate look crossed his face. “I prefer to stand. It is you who will receive the personal attention.”
His hands slid up my hips to my breasts. I stopped them before they could go any farther. “I want to give you pleasure, Kristoff.”
“As I do you.” His eyes lightened a smidgen, which I was beginning to realize meant he was annoyed.
We stared at each other for a few seconds.
“I can’t believe we’re having an argument over who gets to do what first,” I said.
“Neither can I.”
A few more seconds of staring passed, while we both waited for the other person to give in.
“One of us is going to have to let the other one have her way,” I pointed out.
“Yes, you will.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You get your way an awful lot. I think you’ve used up all of your bossy points. Therefore, you will sit and I will give you a blow job so incredible, you won’t be able to think straight.”
He stood up a bit straighter. All of him. “I am a Dark One,” he declared, projecting into my mind mental images so carnal, I’m surprised the water around us didn’t start to boil. “You are my Beloved. You will bend over that rock and let me make love to you in such a manner that will not only keep you from thinking straight. You will also walk funny for a week.”
My jaw dropped at his pseudothreat. “Oh! That is so . . . so . . .”
“Truthful?” he asked smoothly.
“Underhanded! Sending me smutty images like that. Well. Two can play at that game.” I crossed my arms and thought of the most erotic acts I could perform upon his body.
His Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of times, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “I did not include massage oils in my mental imaging! Or ice cubes. If anyone is being underhanded, it’s you.”
I smiled. “You want underhanded? Try this.” I dwelled in loving detail on a plan to use not only slick, warmed lotion on him, but on my breasts as well, rubbing myself along his body until he exploded with pleasure.
“Exploded?” he said, his eyes as black as midnight.
“You heard me, buster.”
He trembled with strain for a moment, just a moment, and then he had himself in control again. “This is a waste of time. Submit to me so that I may make you walk funny, and then you can explode me.”
“Boo!” I said, slapping my hands down on the water. “I want to do this for you!”
“No more so than I want to provide pleasure for you,” he said, still obstinate.
“Argh!” I yelled, thinking furiously, but the images he kept sending me about just what he wanted to do were weakening my resolve. “Oh, this is stupid,” I said, wading over to him, wiggling against his body so that my breasts rubbed against his wet, slick chest.
“Exceedingly so,” he answered, his head dipping to my neck. He breathed on the spot that never failed to send all my nerves into tingly overtime.
“We’ll both do it, all right?”
“That would seem fair. I get to go first, though.”
“You, sir, are a bully, and nothing but a bully,” I said, poking my finger into his chest. I stopped, eyed the chest, then spread my fingers along the wet skin, stroking the lovely muscled curves. He sucked in a lungful of breath. “What the hell. You go first; then it’ll be my turn.”
“Agreed.” He spun me around so that my back was to him, pushing me slightly forward so I had to catch myself on the rough lava rocks that lined our little lagoon. If you have the strength after I’m through with you, came an echoed thought.
“I heard that!” I said, but before I c
ould protest any dirty tricks, all sane thought left my head as his teeth pierced the flesh of my shoulder at the same time he thrust hard into my body.
The warm water swirling around us, the sensation of bone-deep satisfaction that filled Kristoff and spilled out into me as he drank, the ever-increasing tension that wound inside me combining with his, pushing us both higher, joining with a million other sensations, threatened to overload my senses as I clutched the sharp lava rocks. But it was the more profound merging, the blending of souls as he both took life from me and returned it, that sent my spirit soaring. All the dark places inside him, all the inky despair, and pain, and shadows of loneliness that still remained were obliterated at that moment. I fed him not just my blood, but my very sense of being, filling him with light and hope and happiness. And as his tongue swirled a path of flame over my shoulder, as his body tensed in mine, I gave him the last thing I had.
“I love you,” I cried as he spun me around, his mouth muffling the words. I wrapped my legs around him when he hoisted me up, clutching his shoulders as his hips flexed with short, forceful thrusts, the muscles in his neck and shoulders as tight as steel. He growled deep in his chest, a primitive, earthy noise that pushed me over the edge. My muscles rippled around him as he gave in to his own climax, an echoed sense of wonderment filling my mind as he stood, legs braced apart, the water lapping at his hips, both our bodies trembling with delightful little aftershocks.
I gave his lower lip one last fond little nibble, then released it and looked down at him, my mind still swimming with our combined emotions.
He was flushed, his eyes glittering with heat hotter than any fire, and on the edges of his adorable lips was the beginning of a smile. No, not a smile, a smirk. Wholly male, utterly arrogant, and completely knowing.
“All right,” I admitted as I let my legs drop, aware that he could feel how the muscles in them trembled. “You win. I’m going to walk funny. But I’d like to point out that you did a fair bit of exploding, too.”
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