Rampant, Volume 2

by Amy Lane

  “Is an evil bitch who wants to fuck us over,” Renny supplied, probably so Cory didn’t have to use her diplomacy up on a person we all disliked so intensely.

  Orson remembered Renny—we could tell by the way he raised his eyebrows and nodded. There was something indulgent in that nod, like a big bullmastiff watching a kitten struggle up the stairs to greet it. Lots of people had a soft spot for Renny.

  “Good,” the young lawyer said. “I’d really love to get furry and go swimming in that lake!”

  He went to move the car, and Cory turned to Katy. “Darlin’, where’s your mates?”

  Katy tilted her head and made an “ooooohhh” sound. She knew exactly why the question. “I think they’re on a dog run around the lake. I’ll go find them and warn them, right?”

  Cory nodded. “Make sure they know that Orson’s not a threat—and physically, he’s not really a fighter. I think Teague could take him in a hot second, so that means….” She trailed off and let Katy fill in the blanks.

  “That means there’s no need to fight. I gotchu, Lady Cory. Damned werewolves always trying to prove whose teeth is sharpest and whose dick is biggest.”

  Katy trotted off, black hair shiny and blue in the hard sun, and Cory and I both looked at each other with chagrin at an embarrassing memory, when we’d seen more of her mates than anybody had wanted. “Teague’s,” Cory whispered. “Teague’s is biggest.”

  In spite of the discomfort, I had to grin. By human criteria, Cory was probably right. “Very probably,” I told her, just to watch her blush, “but let’s go tell Tanya we’ve got some more guests.”

  Tanya, as it turned out, knew, and after we’d left Orson with the key and helped him take his luggage in, I grabbed Cory’s hand and steered her toward the lake so we could walk in the shallows and talk.

  “Spill,” I ordered as she wandered out to where the water was at her ankles and let her foot bob up with her floatable shoe.

  “Spill what?” She cast me an oblique look from under her brow and adjusted her visor so I couldn’t see her eyes. I knew that look, and I knew why she was masking her expression—and I didn’t give a royal fuck if she didn’t want to talk about her feelings. We had too much going on and too much at stake for her to bottle up that considerable passion now.

  “Why are you so upset that Andres is here? You like Andres. We both do!”

  It was hard to see her flush in the heat, when her skin was getting a rather bright pink patina as it was—but I could hear her heartbeat speed up, and I knew. I admit I felt a little disappointment. I had hoped… after that kiss….

  But she had never asked for this. She had never asked for three possessive lovers, three people who depended so heavily on her that her tiniest flaw felt as though it could topple our whole kingdom.

  “One more lover would be difficult,” I said softly, wading out to where the water was at my knees, and the look she sent me was so grateful, so shining, that I thought it was worth it. I could give up the dream of Andres, if it meant she could look at me as though I were her hero.

  “I thought,” she said softly, “at first, when Orson got out of the car, that Green asked him to come.” Her voice grew thick, and she looked almost directly at the sun so she could blame her watery eyes on that. “I thought, you know, that we… that I couldn’t do this. That I’d fucked up too badly for this to work. And for a minute….” She smiled and wiped her cheek, then walked out a little farther into the water so she could splash it up on her arms and face.

  “For a minute?” I prompted. She shrugged and kept laving water on her freckled flesh.

  “For a minute, I was really glad. I….” Her mouth twisted, and she looked at me eyes-on. “I don’t regret what we did last night, not even a little. I feel absolutely no pity, no remorse, no nothing—they fucked with Green, and I’d kill them again. I’d kill them, bring them back from the dead and fucking kill them twice, and I’d do the same for anyone who fucked with any of us. But the scary thing is, I can do that. And, you know, a gun can blame the guy who pulls the trigger, but the guy who pulls the trigger needs to know how to use the fucking gun.”

  Ah… ah gods. This is when she needed Green. I simply followed where she led. I had one answer to this problem, and it was what moved toward her through the water, pulled her face into the shade of my shoulder, and gave her my body as protection from her own self-doubt.

  “You are not a gun. You are a girl, a young one, and you’re leading us to safety. Everyone fucks up. Everyone feels things they’d rather not!”

  “People hate their in-laws and feel guilty, Bracken,” Cory said against my shirt. “They usually don’t kill and feel a moral victory.”

  I ran my hands from her shoulders, down her back, to her bottom, feeling the soft cotton of my own T-shirt under my hands and the firm flesh of her strong runner’s body under the shirt. Her wide hips were definitely narrower than they had been a week ago. “They don’t usually save people’s lives with their touch either,” I told her. These were things she knew. How is it that never matters, when our hearts are tied to the rack of our conscience?

  She tilted her face up, the shade of her visor keeping her freckles from standing out in stark relief. She’d spent the morning out in the lake just for me. Goddess, she was beautiful. How could the world not see that she was brighter than the fierce sun on our backs and stronger than the red earth at our feet?

  “How can you love me?” she asked seriously. “I’m not a nice person.”

  I laughed a little and tracked her cheekbone with my thumb. “I am a dreadful person,” I told her seriously. “I am selfish. I am self-centered. I am violent. I am possessive. And I would rather fuck you blind and into the mattress on any given day as opposed to applying myself to politics the way you do. But you continue to love me. Sometimes you should just accept things as they are given to you—there can be no changing them. It’s like the fucking godsforsaken heat in this godless brick-oven nightmare of a soup bowl. It’s just a force of nature, and you find a way to live with it.”

  She was laughing, honestly laughing, by the time I was done, and I felt as though I had won something tremendous, like a lifetime of free movies or a potpourri box of her favorite sock yarn.

  “You are a force of nature,” she said softly. “I’m so grateful to be in your damage path.”

  I kissed her then, in the sun and the water, standing on the earth, and I felt the power of that mark on her shoulder throb through us both as it had been doing when I was inside her.

  “Two things,” I said as I pulled back from the kiss.

  “Mmm?”

  “One, let’s get out of the sun, or you’re going to look like a broiled lobster—and I think you should stay inside the cabin until the sun goes down too.”

  She immediately started toward the cabins, telling me that she’d been as uncomfortable as I was, but willing to bear it for me.

  “And the second?” she asked.

  “I think you should make love to Nicky as soon as possible. That mark on your shoulder is catching.”

  She giggled a little. “Sex as inoculation—brilliant! I’m sure Nicky would love to bend over and take his shots!”

  I shook my head at the unlikely image. “Unfortunately, neither of us can give him that sort of injection,” I said, and she looked at me with enough astuteness to make me squirm.

  “You could, but you two….”

  I shrugged. “We don’t really click like that yet—but there’s something there. Maybe, someday, but for now… mostly, our relationship revolves around you, and Green, and the hill.”

  “Mmmm….” It was a quiet sound—speculative, wondering—and I was about to ask her what she was thinking when we rounded the corner up to the string of cabins and ran smack dab into Terry and Annette.

  I would have just ignored them, but Cory nodded her head and gave a neutral “Afternoon” as a greeting.

  The women regarded her icily, without even a greeting, and Cory looke
d at me sideways and smirked.

  And then we felt it—a clumsy push of will, like a toddler’s attempt to push an older sibling in a wrestling match. We looked at each other, and Cory rubbed her shoulder—which was undoubtedly tingling—and before Cory could react, I’d grabbed Annette by the armpits and shoved her up against the door to Tanya’s office, oblivious to Terry’s startled shriek.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” I growled contemptuously. “You let yourself be assfucked in the woods by a child for that?”

  “I… I… I don’t know what you’re talking about….”

  The dawning horror on Terry Kestrel’s face should have told Annette that it wasn’t a very convincing lie.

  “What did you hope to do with that?” Cory asked, coming up to peer under my arm into the tanned woman’s face. From this close, her makeup was obvious and running with sweat. I could smell the hairspray on her blonde hair along with the chemicals used to make it blonde, and I could smell the corruption of the magic coursing sluggishly through her veins.

  “You murdering slut,” Annette spat. “Now I’ve got tricks too!”

  Cory and I met incredulous glances, and Cory looked over her shoulder at Terry. Terry was looking decidedly embarrassed, and she should be. She’d thrown in her lot with this person—she’d chosen her loyalty for this… this….

  “Yes, Annette,” Cory said calmly. “You molested a child, and now you have his magic power. Aren’t you proud of yourself? And you want to know the fun part? The really fun part?” Her voice was wicked and evil, and I remembered our conversation. We weren’t always good people—and sometimes that was a whole lot of unholy fun.

  “The fun part,” Cory continued, “is that the kid gave us a defense against his power, and I didn’t even have to get on my hands and knees for it. I just had to be human. The next time you call me a ‘murdering slut,’ remember that I’m still more human than you are.”

  “That little bastard!” Annette growled, and I remembered the look on the boy’s face when she’d turned on him the night before. I shook her—hard—until her head smacked against the door to Tanya’s office. Tanya came out from her little stool and counter and peered through the window at us. When she saw Annette’s feet kicking against the door, she nodded, gave me a thumbs-up, and went back to her business.

  “Would you like to know what my magic power is?” I asked, feeling really evil. I gave a pull—just a little one—and watched blood gush out of her nose and onto her bright white shirt and matching tan shorts.

  Annette screamed, and I dropped her, bleeding, into the dust. Cory was grimacing and pinching the bridge of her nose, and I shrugged. I’d had fun.

  Cory crouched into the dust and put her finger on Annette’s forehead so as not to expose herself to the blood. I didn’t blame her—humans carried diseases in their blood that Cory could catch.

  “What’s your endgame, Annette?” Cory asked gently. “Think about that, the next time you take that evil little tingle and go shoving it at someone. What’s your final product? You want Nicky? I’d say ‘over my dead body,’ but he’d still hate you, and all that effort would be for shit. You want me dead? Just remember, I personally could have killed you more than once. You come at me with intent, and I won’t hold back. You want to kill someone else here just to be a fucking bitch? Well, even if you did succeed, there is not a person in my family who wouldn’t kill to avenge someone else here. Not one. It’s not a ‘Sweet Annette vs. the Evil Bitch alone’ scenario, darlin’—you take on one of us, and the rest of us will take you back. There is not one of us who hasn’t killed, sweetheart. Not one.”

  Cory nodded and pushed at her finger on Annette’s forehead to make the woman’s head bob. Annette was still cupping her nose, although the blood had stopped and was now getting sticky on her hands and clothes.

  “You understand me, don’t you?” And they nodded, because Cory said they should.

  Annette’s pretty blue eyes—the color was contacts; I’d seen them up close—were so bright with hatred that they were almost glowing supernaturally, but Cory’s grim, flat stare kept that unfocused fury dimmed. Annette had no choice but to submit when they were face-to-face. Now everyone knew it.

  Cory dropped her hand and stood to look Terry Kestrel in the eyes.

  “You should get your visiting with Nicky done, Mrs. Kestrel. We have business tomorrow night, and after that, we’re leaving.”

  “But you said we’d have another week….” Terry looked truly surprised, but I wasn’t. I’d seen this weighing on Cory’s shoulders for most of the afternoon.

  Cory shrugged. “We’re not doing anything productive here, and we—” She jerked her chin to indicate all of our people. “—have lives waiting for us back home. Once we’re done policing the vampires, I’ll have Green set you and your husband up with a ticket home, and we’ll give you two a ride to the airport.”

  “But Annette….” Terry’s voice trailed off before she could finish that thought, and Cory didn’t even spare a shrug to justify the question. No, we would not be paying the girl’s fare or giving her a ride to the airport. It was not going to happen.

  Cory continued as though Terry hadn’t spoken. “Green will buy you the car of your choice when you get home—sky’s the limit. Feel free to take advantage of his hospitality in this matter just as you have here. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  And with that she grabbed my hand and pulled me away from them, Terry Kestrel standing open mouthed, staring after us, and Annette weeping and bleeding in the dust at her feet.

  It wasn’t over—Cory knew it, I knew it—the girl wouldn’t be ready to stop until someone was dead.

  We just had no doubt as to whom it would be.

  Cory: Queen’s Gifts

  WE WERE sitting at dinner when the vampires awakened. Andres was at my elbow before I even had time to feel nervous, and then I couldn’t feel nervous because, well, he was Andres.

  Andres was beautiful. He started out beautiful—a Roman nose, limpid, sloe-brown eyes, curly blue-black hair, skin the color of a latte with lots of steamed milk. Then that vampire thing kicked in, and he took all of that natural human beauty and amped it up a few thousand notches until he was pretty much a wood-erecting panty-wetter on anybody’s block party.

  He could also charm the rattles off a snake—and, Goddess knows why, he had a hard spot for me, and very likely a soft spot for Bracken.

  And did I mention the charm? Yeah. It bears repeating.

  “Good evening, little Goddess,” he said sweetly, almost magically there in my ear, and I squealed and hugged him without thinking. Andres had been a good friend when I’d needed one. He had given up what would have probably been a spectacular evening in bed in favor of letting Bracken and me find our own balance together, and he’d been one of the willing bodies to give me strength and save my life when I was close enough to death to drag Green, Bracken, and Nicky down with me.

  All in all a good guy to have at your back. Even if I wasn’t going to sleep with him, the squeal and the hug were the least I could do.

  “Heya, Andres!” I’d been in the middle of eating, some sort of braised meat and vegetables prepared so fancy I didn’t have a name for it. You could tell Grace was missing the lot of us because dinner just kept getting more and more impressive and hard to pronounce.

  “Here, don’t let me keep you from dining,” he said suavely. He barely had to tap Nicky on the shoulder before Nicky scooted down the picnic bench so Andres could straddle the seat facing me.

  And there I was—sandwiched between my beloved Bracken, man-god extraordinaire, and Andres, any girl’s dream of sex, blood, and bisexuality. My body lit up like a lightning storm on a mountain, and I wondered if the entire table could smell my arousal. Nicky snickered for no reason whatsoever—I figured he could, at the very least.

  “You’re looking damned good, Andres,” I said, figuring honesty was my strength as nothing else was. “But I have to say, I was surprised to see
Orson drive up.” I took a bite of meat and chewed, inviting a detailed reply. Andres—who knew more about manners and nuance than I would live to see—took his cue.

  “Rafael’s doing, not yours,” Andres assured me quickly. He could have been lying, but the words still eased something sore. “He was a little… frightened, I think, after your last visit.”

  “He was pissing in his girl-panties,” Kyle snorted, and I looked up, surprised. I hadn’t realized my guys were at the table yet, but then I realized they weren’t—it was only Andres and Kyle. A quick mental query, and then I was blushing—okay, I guess I could brief Marcus and Phillip about Annette’s freaky power later. Anything, anything, to give Phillip a little bit of peace.

  Andres smiled slightly at Kyle and nodded in acknowledgment. “That he was, little Goddess. I don’t know what sort of theater you and Bracken were aiming for, but you lot pulled off ‘stone-cold killer’ to a T.”

  I swallowed—hard and painfully—and took a sip of the ice tea at my plate. “It wasn’t theater, Andres,” I said softly, meeting his eyes so he would know me. “Rafael’s people ambushed Green, trying to get us to leave it alone. Did he tell you what we want?”

  Andres shook his head. “No—all I heard before dawn hit was that Rafael needed to fulfill his duty to you, and parts of his kiss wanted to stop him.”

  I nodded. It sounded sufficiently diplomatic, and completely the truth. It was also so much an understatement as to be a complete lie.

  “A pedophile, Andres. There is someone in his kiss who turns little kids into vampires in the worst fucking way—and then just deserts them. Leaves them to slaughter their own families.”

  Andres’s eyes were wide, and his skin was taut against his high cheekbones. “Holy Goddess,” he swore, then spat over his shoulder. The background chatter at the table had disappeared as we all recalled exactly why we were there. “You know this how?” he asked, upset.