Now, here was Luca, strutting his pretty magnificent stuff right in front of me, stretching and twisting and doing all kinds of things to make his muscles pop and his skin ripple in all the right places. Probably, knowing him, one hundred per cent on purpose. He was a damned fine specimen of manhood, and boy did he know it.
I found my eyes drifting from his dark-blond head to his golden-brown shoulders. To the powerful chest, scattered with silky hair, and the super-flat stomach, ridged with gracious lines of muscle. And after that … yes, there it was. In all its dangly glory. I tried not to, but I really couldn’t help but stare. I knew he wouldn’t mind. In fact, I deduced from the fascinating amount of twitching and swelling going on down there, he actually quite liked it. Pervert.
I snapped my eyes shut, and physically slapped myself across the face, hard enough to leave finger-shaped tingles across my skin. The dog quirked one eyebrow at me, obviously wondering what all the fuss was about.
‘Put some fucking clothes on!’ I hissed. ‘I won’t open my eyes until you do!’
I heard him laughing, and gave some serious thought to asking Fionnula how I could turn him into a toad. Or a hyena, so he could chuckle away to himself all day long, the twat. But I also heard him rummaging around on the floor, and the welcome sound of a zipper being tugged up.
I risked a quick peek, and saw that he was dressed – on the bottom half, at least. The half I’d been most concerned about. There was pretty much a fifty-fifty mix of relief and disappointment in me at that one, so I concentrated on playing with the dog’s ears instead – trickier than it sounds when you’re also trying to use a bearskin to protect your fast-disappearing modesty in front of a sex-charged vampire Adonis.
He sat down next to me on the pallet, and reached out to give the dog a scratch under her chin. She rolled over, lifting her legs in the air to show him her belly, and gave his hand a quick lick. The floozy.
He made a clapping noise on his thighs, and gave a quick whistle. Another three dogs appeared from the darkness, and trotted towards us. They all had the same build as my dog – because, well, in my newly acquisitive frame of mind, I had decided she was mine – long, lean, with racing legs and powerfully muscled haunches.
They also all had the same shimmer to their coats, even though they were all different colours, as though there was something glowing beneath their skin. They all sank to Luca’s feet, and he started to tickle their tummies with his bare toes.
‘We’re old friends,’ he said. ‘I snuck in here last night and slept with them. Donn has forbidden me from staying with the others for my slumber, and I found I missed the warmth of a body next to mine. I didn’t think you’d be overly thrilled if I climbed in there with you, so I stayed with the curs. I needed their companionship, and I needed to be near you. Was that all right?’
All right? Was it all right that he chose to sleep with the dogs instead of me? That Donn had forbidden him from staying with the others? That he needed to be near me? That he was even asking my opinion about all of this anyway? No. Precisely none of it was all right. Apart from the bit where I got to see a nice big willy for the first time, anyway – that had been bearable.
‘Depends,’ I said, refusing to look into his eyes, and making sure our hands didn’t touch over the now-snoozing form of the dog. No touchy, no tempty. ‘On what you mean by “slept with” the dogs …’
He laughed, and I felt the bed shake. He was edging a bit closer as he guffawed, obviously hoping I wouldn’t notice. That I’d be so distracted by the sight of his perfectly formed pecs bouncing up and down that it would pass me by.
‘Stay right where you are,’ I said, holding out a hand to ward him off, ‘and tell me what I’ve missed. And tell me why Donn’s pissed off with you.’
He took his attention away from the dogs, and turned to look at me. His chocolate-drop eyes suddenly swam with tears, and it was all I could do to stop myself from reaching out to console him. I bit down on my lip, using the pain as a reminder of all that could go hideously wrong in my life if I let this man get too close to me. I could, with one touch of his fingers, turn entirely into the World’s Biggest Ho. Seriously, the world’s biggest – people would queue up to see me as a freak-show attraction.
‘My former lord is pissed off, as you say, because I let you feed me. I drank of the Goddess’s blood, and now I belong to you. After centuries of living with them, of sleeping with them and eating with them and travelling with them, I am now cast out. I am cast out, and he is punishing Isabella for allowing it to happen. She is forbidden to drink human blood for a month, and instead must sustain herself on the fruit of rats and other vermin.’
Nice image, I thought, all too vividly picturing her chomping down on a wiggly tailed rodent. Bon appetit, Isabella.
‘You mean he would’ve preferred it if you’d died?’ I replied, after glorying in that concept for a moment. OK, so she’d saved my life on the odd occasion – but we weren’t exactly BFFs. She tended to rip holes in my flesh a bit too often for that level of bonding.
I didn’t much care about her new pest-food diet, but I was worried about the situation. For a start, the band was going to have to find a new drummer – always tough. And more importantly, what was I going to do about Luca?
I hadn’t expected Donn to be delighted with this turn of events, but, well, there were extenuating circumstances, m’lord. I’d hoped to be giving Luca back sometime soon, and certainly wasn’t keen on the idea of him following me around and sleeping with my dogs. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I also registered the fact that having the Lord of the Dead as your frenemy probably wasn’t the coolest thing in the world.
‘Yes, of course he would have preferred me to die,’ he said, as though it was obvious. ‘Isabella should by rights have let me pass … It was a weakness on her part that we must now all pay the price for. I have certainly lived long enough, by anybody’s standards, bellisima. But what is done is done. Donn has no further use for me, and I am yours to do with as you will.’
He raised an eyebrow at me with that final line, and I saw some of the usual flirty spark return to his eyes. Enough of it that I just shook my head, and moved on. Vampires, eh? Can’t live with ’em; can’t shag ’em in case they eat you.
‘What about everyone else? I assume they all made it here OK? I’m sure Carmel did, but what about—’
I was about to say ‘Gabriel’, or possibly fudge it a bit and try to appear unconcerned by saying ‘everyone else’, but I didn’t get the chance. The dog on the bed leaped off, flying through the air in a graceful, glimmering arc, and ran to the door. The rest of the pack all followed her, whining and barking and scratching at the ground with their claws, as though they were trying to dig an escape tunnel to the other side.
They’d obviously heard something out there that I couldn’t, and before I got pissed off at still having no new superpowers, I reminded myself that even normal dogs could do that. Carmel’s family pooch was always waiting in the window way before the car pulled up, smiling its daft Staffy grin, its stubby tail wagging its whole fat body in a frenzy of happiness.
The door swung open, heaving wood on inches-thick hinges, and the Boss walked in. At least, he was obviously that as far as the dogs were concerned. They all jumped up around Gabriel, which was an impressive sight as they were as tall as him on their back legs. They rested their paws on his chest, his shoulders, anywhere they could find a spare bit of flesh, and set about licking him and nipping him and generally adoring him, cord-thin tails whipping like windscreen wipers in a storm.
For a moment he completely disappeared inside an excitedly wobbling canine curtain, and I had an unwelcome flashback to the night before: to Gabriel staggering and falling and finally succumbing to the pressing crowds of Faidh around him. I drove back the anguish, but held on to the thought: I might feel decidedly ambiguous about the man right now, but when he was under threat, I’d cared enough to sacrifice myself to save him.
That wasn�
�t an easy thought to maintain, as he pushed the dogs aside and strode angrily into the room. His poor face was battered and bruised, his beautiful nose slightly less straight than it used to be, purple flowers blossoming over the high arcs of his cheekbones. I could see scars and scrapes and jagged, half-healed cuts running over his neck where they’d hacked at him, and I should, by rights, have felt nothing but sympathy and regret.
But the look on his face did a pretty good job of chasing all of that away, and replacing it with a stone-cold anger of my own. He stared at us sitting together on the bed, Luca half-naked and me clasping the bearskin to my exposed flesh, clutching it over my chest like a starlet caught out by the paparazzi, and growled. Actually growled, in a way that made the dogs cower and whimper at his feet, and didn’t do much for my state of mind, either.
His eyes were blazing, and he stood tall and arrogant before us, taking in the scene. No ‘How are you today, Lily?’ or ‘Good morning, Lily,’ or ‘Hey, thanks for saving my life by sticking a knife in your own heart, Lily.’ Nothing but that violet glare and a sense of rapidly building fury swelling through his trembling body.
‘Get out, leech!’ he hissed, and I guessed he was talking to Luca. I’m clever like that. The vampire responded with a hiss of his own, which was far more impressive – sibilant and bloodthirsty all at the same time. He was definitely winning on the hissing contest front.
Luca leaped up from the bed, seeming to fly through the air kung-fu legend stylee, and landed in a crouch in front of Gabriel. I recognised the pose now – the battle-ready stance of the vampire, half-human, half-animal, ready to attack at the knees and bring down their prey. I could see tiny sparks physically jumping from Gabriel’s fingers as they faced off, and felt the crackle of magic pervading the air.
Luca was snarling and circling. Gabriel was channelling Carrie. This, I decided, was a situation where one of them could very easily die. If I was lucky, both of them …
I sighed, realising that I was getting a bit fed up of playing the human buffer zone between the various psychopaths that now inhabited my life. Give me a bar-room brawl in Liverpool any day – at least there were always bouncers to break things up. Here, I was the bouncer, and I hadn’t even shaved my head that week.
I stood up, trying to keep the bearskin wrapped around me, and quickly realised that unless I wanted to hobble towards them and fall in an undignified heap at their feet, it wasn’t going to work. So I dropped it down, and strode tall and naked in their direction. Naked, I thought, would probably score higher on the distraction scale anyway. And I’d definitely look better than the average bouncer.
I will confess to feeling a very ungracious rush of empowerment as I placed myself between them, and looked on as their collective jaw dropped to the floor. The flickers faded from Gabriel’s fingers, and Luca stood up straight, eyeing me appreciatively as I flaunted myself. Yep. That had definitely worked.
I placed my hands on my hips, and stuck out my boobies. If you’re going to do something, might as well do it right.
‘Luca,’ I said, when I’d got their extremely undivided attention, ‘leave us. Go take Isabella a ferret, or something.’
‘I do not wish to leave you,’ he said, his voice dripping with a strange blend of anguished need and good old-fashioned lust.
‘You have no choice, right? If I tell you to do it, you do it? So jog on, kitty – leave us alone.’
Gabriel was sneering, grinning at Luca in a way that clearly said ‘my dick’s bigger than yours’. He obviously thought he’d won some kind of big battle, the dumbskull. Honestly, hundreds of years on the planet, and at heart he was still a teenage boy fighting behind the bike sheds.
‘Yes,’ said Gabriel, ‘leave us. And be cautious, Luca, of how you behave around the Goddess – her blood is sacred, and her body is mine. She has no use for you or your kind, with your parasitical ways and your concept of love and death – I will not let you use her, or drain her for your sex. She is not your plaything.’
Ooh. There was so much wrong with that little speech I didn’t know quite where to start. My body was very much my own, thank you very much – apart from those brief interludes where I seemed to be possessed by the spirit of a Playboy Bunny. And as for Luca killing during sex? I could so see how that would happen, and it sent a little chill all the way down my spine. I’d have to remind myself of that next time I was leching over his boy bits.
Luca looked at me again, and I made a ‘take a hike’ gesture with my head, nodding towards the door.
‘If it is what you wish, Lily, then I will leave you,’ he said, ‘but only because you ask it of me – not because Cormac Mor tells me to. And remember this – yes, there are aspects of my nature that might be repellent to you as a mortal woman, but at least I never speak untrue to you, Goddess. I don’t expect you to live your life as a child, forever doing my bidding, wrapped in a web of lies that I have spun all around you.’
With a final glower at Gabriel, he stalked towards the door, making us, and the dogs, all jump with the ferocity of his exiting slam. I waited for a moment, half expecting a rockfall.
Right. One down, one to go. I glared at the one in question, then started to patrol around the room, looking for clothes. I finally found a T-shirt and some leggings neatly folded on top of a chair, and climbed into them as elegantly as I could, given the fact that he was staring at me so hard I could almost feel boreholes singeing into my skin. I felt so much better once I was covered – that whole ‘knock ’em dead naked’ power trip had a very limited shelf life, before I just started feeling mortified and wanting to join a nunnery.
‘Is everyone safe?’ I asked, sitting down on the bed and popping out a couple of those paracetamol. Strangely enough, I could now feel a headache coming on.
‘Are you well?’ he asked, ignoring my question and frowning as he pulled a chair up to sit opposite me, looking on as I fumbled with the tabs.
‘Yes,’ I shot back, gulping in a couple of mouthfuls of Diet Coke to swill them down. ‘I think I’m just suffering from testosterone poisoning after that little scene. Now, answer me – did everyone make it back OK?’
‘We did,’ he replied, staring at my chest. I suspected his gaze was less about being a perv than recalling the events of the night before. I waited for the thank yous, although I knew they’d never come.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said, fixing him with a pretty angry stare. ‘No need to thank me.’
‘Thank you?’ he snapped. ‘You are expecting gratitude, for jeopardising everything I have ever worked for? For not trusting me to triumph in a battle that has been centuries in the making? For leaving me there, not knowing if you were alive or dead? I will not thank you for that, Lily. Your last actions were foolish, ill-conceived and stupid beyond even my usual expectations of you.’
As he ranted, he grabbed hold of my wrist, and held it so tightly it hurt. I looked down at his fingers, and tried to breathe through the usual rush of panic at someone – anyone – touching me.
I pulled together that mental barrier I’d been working so hard on, trying to block him out, and found it was easy. Maybe it had been last night’s events; maybe I was just getting better at this shit – but I knew that unless I deliberately lowered my guard, he wouldn’t be able to get into my mind, and I wouldn’t get an inappropriate fit of visions. I didn’t have time to celebrate that fact right now, but I knew at some point it would feel pretty good – finally being liberated from a burden I’d carried my whole life.
As I was having so much fun, I decided to step up my game and try something new – conjuring up an image, and throwing it at him, as fast and as hard as I could. The image I chose was of a gun firing out a stream of liquid manure, and I aimed it right at his face.
He dropped my hand suddenly, rubbing his own fingers like they’d been burned, and looked at me with a tinge of his own panic clouding the deep-shaded navy of his eyes. I’d obviously hurt him somehow, and I have to confess it felt good.
&
nbsp; ‘Don’t call me names,’ I said, sharply. ‘I’m getting pretty fed up of it. Now, why are you here, and what do you want?’
I saw a rush of emotions play over his face – he wasn’t a man used to being challenged, especially not by little old me. In the end, he just sighed, and smiled, and stroked the white streak of hair back from my face in a way that made my tummy do a little flip. Damn. I might be able to control the supernatural mind patrol, but I was still a sucker for the gentle touch of his fingers against my skin. I suspected that was a far more difficult condition to control. It was called being female.
‘I shouldn’t be here at all,’ he finally said, letting his hand drop and rest tentatively on my shoulder. Probably scared I was going to start slinging cow shit at him again. ‘But I needed to see you, to see for myself that you were as well as the Morrigan insisted – her standards of “well” are not the same as most people’s. Technically, I am forbidden to see you until the ceremony. Until the … choosing.’
I noted the careful way he used the word, savouring it on his tongue as though it was a new delicacy he was sampling, and he wasn’t at all sure if he liked the taste or not. The choosing. Yes. That would be a whole new concept to him, and I acknowledged the effort he was making in using it.
‘Why forbidden?’ I asked, shrugging his hand from my shoulder. I didn’t mean to be rude; I just didn’t want to start feeling all naughty down below.
‘I suppose,’ he said, moving his hand safely back to his lap, ‘that they fear I’ll make some kind of final pitch. That I’ll try to charm you into submission, or win you over through sex.’
I laughed – very long and very loud. Charm. Yeah, right. Storming into my room, having a slanging match with Luca, calling me his property, then ranting on about how stupid I was. He had a way to go till he could pass his Swiss Finishing School exams. The sex, though, I thought – that was a risk. Because despite his battered face and his scarred skin, he was still quite the work of art to look at.
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